Furthermore:
Try MWLL if you can.
Playing a BA is surprisingly fun!

Raven is one of those mechs that's great in roleplaying, but bleh elsewhere.

Of course jumping is also pretty poorly handled in the online games. Jump 10 hexes and you're nearly impossible to hit. Have 10 jump jets on a mech in Mechwarrior and you might as well upgrade your life insurance policy now.

that'ss kind of funny since right now there is a thread in the beta forums complaining about JJ causing lag and its abuse by pilots.

PerfectTommy here.

I seem to run mostly Hunchbacks for some reason.




-k

Haven't played in a week or two, but I favor my Awesome. Wish I'd taken that as my Founder Mech, instead of the Catapult; I can't find decent team-mates to play spotter for my LRMs.

May have to fire the thing up again, see what developments have happend since I last playd "how quickly can I get blown up". Also, remind myself what my in-game callsign is, so I can share it with you lot.

Okay, no, it's official: this game is a pile of shit.

I logged in, tried my best, oh hey I got defeated, no problem, wait a few and try again ... right?

Wrong. That defeat utterly destroyed the entire friggin' ENGINE. And I can't afford a replacement. Which means, I can't drive the mech I spent MC to buy. I can't drive the only mech I don't completely suck with ('cause at least I can usually get A kill, and several assists, in most matches - or did, while it still had a goddamned engine). Unless, of course, I want to spend real cash to be able to play again.

Screw this noise. >_< Not only is it "pay to win", it's even pay to lose.

/uninstall

What. Wait. Are you telling me - seriously telling me - that if your 'Mech becomes unusable and you don't have the in-game currency to fix it... you just can't play? Like, ever again? Unless you spend real-world currency?

Yeah, I am never buying this game.

That particular mech becomes unusable. You would have to use another mech you purchased, or one of the 4 "trial" mechs that are always available, don't cost repair and reload, and earn (iirc) 80% of normal profit. So it's hardly "Ever" or "unless you spend real-world currency." It is "Until you fix it" and "Unless you spend real money to speed it up, or spend time earning the in game money."

This is the same sort of gameplay in XCom that is being lauded as "A return to a time when games had consequences." And the sort of thing that people who denigrate WoW complain about ("Losing has no consequences! It's just push a button to respawn! There's no skill, there's no challenge!"). It's why EVE gets held up as the pinnacle of real MMO design, because your shit gets blown up, and it's on you to fix.

But yes, if you get your mech blown to hell, and can't afford to fix it, you can't use it again until you can afford to fix it. If the game *didn't* have unlimited use, no cost trial mechs, it would be amazingly broken. Since they do, it means you're penalized by having to use mechs that you may not like (most of them are not uber, but they are certainly servicable) until you can afford the repair costs.

I'm wondering how much an engine repair costs. You get money for every single match, win or lose, so it would be easy to figure out how long you would be in the penalty box to repair.

And I'm willing to be a bit of an ass, and pull out that old EVE standby: "If you can't afford to lose it, don't risk it." Given that in MWO you actively choose what Mech you go to combat in, rather than EVE, where "Risk it" means "Log in" I think it's a reasonable level of risk for people who are interested in games that include risk.

I'll readily acknowledge that's not for every one. Hell, I quit EVE before leaving the trial period, cause it sure wasn't for me. And often, it's not for me - I never even kept up with Ultima Online because of that - but MWO does it very well, imo. There's a penalty, but that penalty doesn't take you out of the game entirely, and they provide an ingame method to mitigate it.

No, you can try and make the money to repair it using the free mechs you get i think . .
but that will take quite some time to do, depending on the engine for example . .
if you need 300k to repair the engine and you make 100k per game with the free mechs, you need to play at least 3 games with mechs you hate so you can play at least 1 game again with a mech you like . .

I will grant that if there is exactly 1 mech which you like, and you can't stand any others, and you end up getting smoked in that mech, and it is destroyed, you will not enjoy the game until it's fixed.

That being said, try some other mechs! Or, alternatively, put a little bit of money in to the free game you've been playing for free, and get the mech back, so that you can use it again. If you enjoy the game, spending a bit of cash shouldn't be a huge deal (note, however, that I have no issues inherently with either subscriptions or microtransactions, so your view may vary).

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION

I was a fool, who let surprise and anger cloud his judgement. The missing engine was a BUG.

Herp, derp, idiotcakes on me.

A Standard 240 costs 950,000 C-bills.

Remember people the game is still in Closed beta they are still making adjustments to to things,id they update on Tuesday then we could end up with a whole new game.

That's a lot of cbills. Dayum.

You don't need to pay the full price for a repair most of the time, though. But yeah, reactors are expensive

the engine is, canonically, the most important and expensive thing in any mech . .
An Assault Mechs XL-Engine might, for example, cost more than an entire medium mech, if you are particularly unlucky . .

Keep in mind, 'mechs "engines" are actually fusion-reactor power plants ...!

(I honestly wish MWO would properly model what happens when you put an AC/20 round through the core of a big fusion reactor that's going full-tilt with all the safeties disengaged. BEWM, hehehe.)

You wanna KNOW what happens?
A whole lot of NOTHING!
Going Thermonuclear Boom (Stackpoling) is physically wrong.
You maybe get a little poof from air(oxygen/hydrogen) being burned up around the Machine, but afterwards the breach will have caused the needed temperature in the fusion chamber to have lowered so the fusion stops cold. heh.

Hey to be fair it wasn't Stackpole's fault, engines exploding were in the rulebooks.

Yes and no . . i think the actual rules came later, with tac ops first or so, but i am not sure about that.
And it's still damned hard to get one such explosion going. You need to take 3 or 4 (not sure again) engine hits IN ONE ROUND and THEN you have to roll on 2d6 and achieve a 10, 11 or 12 to get it going . .
So smaller engines still do not explode due to not being able to actually take the prerequisite engine hits in one round, and even bigger ones don't explode if they are damaged before, if the prerequisite engine crits ain't there anymore. After 3 engine hits every mech is dead, but to get it to explode is harder.
IS XL Engines have 3 crits in each torso SIDE to boot, meaning that as soon as one side torso is completely gone, so is the Mech.
CLAN XL only have 2 crits in the side torso, so they can keep working after one side torso is gone at least.

For one, even Stackpoling isn't really going thermonuclear. If a 'mech engine could go thermonuclear, then it would wipe clear entire map-boards.

When a fusion reactor catastrophically fails, the plasma inside it's fusion bottle - and by "plasma", I mean "stuff that is under intense pressure and just so happens to be multiple times hotter than the surface of a typical main-sequence star" - anyway, that "fusion bottle", a magnetic field that keeps the plasma under pressure and away from the walls of hte reactor itself, fails. Said plasma is thus no longer constrained from (a) expanding, and (b) coming into contact with the metals and ceramics around it ... which, under such high temperatures, immediately sublimates into rapidly-expanding superheated gas, itself.

...

IOW, when a 'mech engine "Stackpoles", what is being modelled is NOT "a runaway nuclear reaction" ... it's the simple result of the plasma at the reactor's core being released into the world. It's a flashover, just like opening the door to a room that's on fire: you suddenly let in oxygen, and WHOOSH the fire and heat come running gleefully out into your face.

In MWO terms? It should be a large "explosion" that does a little damage, and jacks up the HEAT scale of nearby mechs. With a radius of, oh, maybe half the engine rating, in meters. Which is to say "Dude, take a few steps back before he blows up, would you kindly?"

"Brew up" would likely be the appropriate term, and has been around for a long time.

Also, playing Bioshock now, so I'm taking a few steps back.

the only thing i wish MWLL had that MWO has is the community size . . and even there i ain't 100% certain <.<

Sooooo ... I have found a weapons mix that I like. Base Chassis is an AWS-8Q; I run it with one PPC in the arm, and five Medium Pulse Lasers in the torso/head. PPC is group 1 (left-click), all the lasers are group 2 (right-click) and Cascade fired - I can basically stream a constant beam of medium-pulse-laser, without a single pause. Got enough heat sinks I can do that and, except in Caustic, not build any net heat.

I've actually gotten a kill or two with that one, and a boatload of Assists. Wish I'd taken an Awesomer for my Founders' Mech, in fact.

My callsign in MWO is, unoriginally: Pax

Can't take an Awesome as founder's mech Jenner, Hunchback, Catapult and Atlas only
But you can still contact the support, they may exchange it.

The Awesome, while lighter, has always been a better Mech than the Atlas.
LITTLE inspires as much fear as one of those with 4xER PPC . . or even the one with the 3 old PPCs
Especially, because they are armored at 100% and don't have exploding ammo and no vulnerable side torso XL engine.
They are zombie-mechs. Yes, that's a field term.

I'm not sure I could pile in 3 or 4 ER-PPCs, and not have to either (a) run with so few heat sinks that I couldn't ever even Alpha Strike, and not go into instantaneous heat shutdown, or (b) strip out far more armor than I'd be comfortable losing. Especially not with how MWO handles 'mech customisation.

The one I love so far is an AWS-8Q, the classic old girl with 3 PPCs. I cut that down to one PPC, then put in (currently) six Medium lasers and a total of 34 heat sinks. Oh, and an AMS with one ton (1000 rounds, about 16.67 seconds of sustained fire)

MWO terms, that gives me a 1.24 heat efficiency (1.00 means "balanced", though that's not the same as a zero-heat design; 3.00 would be zero-heat). I can chain-fire the mediums with zero heat buildup, or batch-fire them for about 30% (that then quickly fades back to nothing, if I pause firing). Didn't have to go with an XL engine to pull that off, either.


I also have an AWS-8V I've tinkered with; it's very like the 8Q I've got, but three of the medium lasers change into Streak SRM2's (with 1 ton of ammo - 100 missiles, just shy of 17 salvos), with the ammo bay CASEd. Had to lose one heat sink and the AMS+ammo to fit the Streaks in. Thinking of replacing the Streak2s with SRM6s. Have to give it some thought.

Tweaked my Founder's Catapult CPLT-C1F to mount LRM20s instead of 15s, though it's energy armament took a hit - only Small Pulses left, but 4 of them. I'm hoping that's enough to give any pesky Lights who sneak into the "LRM Carrier Zone" reasons to go after someone ELSE'S Cat, haha. (And I'm shamelessly abusing the "1 JJ is as good as 10 of 'em" bug, for the time being; I'll ditch the JJ entirely when it's fixed).

Lastly right now, I've got a Jenner (JR7-F) I'm toying with. Not with much success, sadly. I tried it with 6 Small Pulse Lasers, and didn't do so well ... but I think that's more me than the guns, as I found it hard as hell to target stuff while running along at the stupendous top speed I pulled off (with an XL 245 engine; yes, that's a top speed of 113.4kph. In TT terms, she's a 7/10 speed demon.) Also abusing the "1 is enough" JJ bug with this one, so the TT is really 7/10/7. Obscene. If I can learn to circle-strafe at the right speed to keep in an Atlas' rear quadrant, those six SPLs will really chew up some armor plate ... but first I have to learn to stop tripping over every 'mech in sight, hahaha!

What's scary is, I could strip out those SPLs, all six, and replace them with a single ER-PPC. A Jenner, with a PPC!!! CRAZY! LOL!

a jenner is one of the heaviest light mechs you can get. and it's allways been known for firepower and speed, rather than anything else . .
as for the 4xER-PPC's: that one uses double heat sinks and produces, i think, 4 or 6 over heat per alpha strike . . the classic 3xPPC produces 2 over heat per salvo with SINGLE heat sinks.
One of the most used mods was to replace the PPCs with large lasers. a bit less reach and punch, but also less heat and weight so constantly cold enough and can get rid of some heatsinks.

I'll tell you one thing MWO has done: made me wish I had a group to play some TT Battletech with.


For light mechs, I always liked the Hollander. Though, the design could be seriously improved - go with an XL engine, and you save enough (3.5 tons, actually - the engine of the stock model is 20% of the whole mech's base weight!!) for a pair of medium lasers AND another ton and a half of much-needed armor. Sure, it'd stil be a bit slow for a Light, but the two medium lasers are enough to let it skirmish with other lights, even some mediums; and the Gauss Rifle, well ... even Assaults need to respect THAT.

Plus, you know ... "gun with legs", ROFLCOPTER ...

You realize how stupid that thing is in CBT tough, don't you?
You have the Gauss in the Side and the CT, at least in case of the heavy gauss . .
And even with the light gauss, the gauss is the biggest thing to be hit on the Mech.
One hit, one crit, one destroyed main weapon and maybe even side-torso/XL-Engine.

Now, the PACK HUNTER or the Hollander with a Heavy PPC with Capacitators, THAT is nasty.


as for wanting to play CBT . . tried megamek yet?

Never heard of Megamek.

As for the Hollander ... it's not that it's a GOOD mech ... it's that it gives me GIGGLE FITS to think of it. ;D

megamek is a java based version of the cbt board game that can be played against a bot or other people via the interwebs.
it's a fan made project, pretty good too.

Consider my interest piqued. Got a link you can throw me, or should I go pester Google?

MegaMek, bitch!

With my Jenner I drop the srms, and JJ's, usually adding in an ams w ammo, more heatsinks, and a bit of armor. When I've been able to afford it I've switched over to a larger xl engine and have been at over 130 kph with it.

At top speeds it is hard as hell to target, but when you get the circle of death (or circle-strafe as you call it) down, you will be able take down almost anything because some pilots will find it hard to keep up with turning/torso twisting to keep you in sights. I've gotten kills this way about 10 times or so, usually against other lights/mediums, once or twice against a heavy/assault

Learning not to trip over mech's and run into buildings is hard (unfortunately we don't have the compressed 360° vision like they've always described mech pilots as having in the books), but you eventually get into a pattern where you take a quick look around while weapons are charging, or in between shots of weapons groupings, to keep an eye on your surroundings.

Also I've found that "feathering" the jump jets makes for faster turning.





-k

Yep, I play that on the regular. While nothing beats the fun of filling in tiny circles hundreds of times a match, Megamek is a nice way to play folks o`er the internet.

I'll also debate the whole Awesome > Atlas thing.

The Awesome is a great defender mech, but that's really all it can do; stand on top of a mountain and shoot towards you, hoping for the best. It's an Assault weight mech that is completely outclassed when it comes to actually assaulting something.

The Atlas however, can start the game running forward and never stop, getting shots off until it reaches it's destination, where it can then pummel most things into submission. Two 10 point fists? That's enough to crack the cockpit. AC 20? In the glory days of Box-Set, that was truly a weapon to be feared. Even if you manage to get behind it, It's got enough rear weaponry to give some light jumpers a pause.

No, in anything other then a suppositional line fight where two mechs stand a distance away and shoot at each other politely, I'll take the Atlas.

i'll give you the AC20 of awesome, but only in the 3025 setting . . afterwards, it simply is outclassed <.<
The Gauss-Rifle does the same Damage with a SINGLE POINT OF HEAT over FUCK HUEG DISTANCE!
And the Awesome can deliver a mighty kick too. And you have at least one Hand in the 3xPPC version.
And of course, the mighty small laser of doom . . don't ask me how often i have blown stuff to smithereens with that one.
Entire alpha strike misses . . tiny small lasers needs a 12 to hit. hits. goes Through armor crit. hits something expensive.
Like, 3x engine or gyroscope or ammo or head/cockpit . .
The awesome is SLOW for it's small weight at only 80t and moving 3/5 . . but that's because it has as much armor as an atlas.
And the Atlas is full of explodey bits with the LRM, SRM and AC ammo usually. Or the Gauss-Rifle in place.
The Minimum-Range-Problem of the Awesome vanishes with the ER-PPC or Large Laser Variants.
It is, simply, AWESOME!
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Awesome

The only thing that's genuinely BETTER in a group of people playing CBT instead of MegaMek is the food and the HEADSHOT! *points and dances*

Gauss Rifle does 15, AC20, oddly enough, does 20.

Also, Gauss rifle is level 2, or whatever they're calling levels these days over in Herbtech land. Didn't come in the box set.

Stahl, what do you think about organizing up a dumpshock game with me?

ah, right, the gauss only deals 15 not 20 . . i always get that wrong x.x
yes, gauss is more advanced, i am a fan of starter tech myself, actually.
especially the hunchback 4P . . such an evil little hate-machine *drools*

As for a Dumpshock MegaMek Game:
seeing how i am at work about 90% of my awake time it seems, it'd probably be a bit hard to get it going with me <.<

So it's like a WWII Tank Destroyer, used aggressively, deployed defensively?

Quite so.

My assessment is based on Golden Era tech levels however, where Star League equipment like double heat sinks and Gauss Rifles didn't really exist yet. If you decide to include everything, then you've got monstrosities like the Hellstar, a bigger, faster Awesome that carries 4 more damaging clan ER-PPCs, with the heat sinks to fire them all comfortably.

I so wish I could play this game tabletop.

You finally got to play Shadowrun and now you're getting greedy. Figures.

Well, the HellStar is a Clan-Mech.


Have you tried out megamek yet?


he's got the taste, he's got the power.

I've done better piloting my Awesomer AWS-8Q (ER-PPC, two Large Lasers), than my Atlas AS7-K (two ER-PPCs, one L Pulse Laser, two AMS). The atlas has bigger weapons, and over 20% more armor. Both move the same speed. The Atlas SHOULD be better ... but it's not, not with me in the cockpit.


MWO has neither of those.


.... I'll take a 50-ton LAM, thanks. Jump 11+ hexes a turn? Fat chance hitting me with anything, let alone that dead-weight AC/20.

(A pair of LAM spotters backed up by LRM carriers, all in a C3 network, is an ugly, ugly thing. Especially if you throw canon to the wind, and build it with C3I modules. Two spotters trading places out front, FOUR LRM-heavies ... yeah. It gets ugly. For the other guy.)

so the phoenix hawk lam then?
those are extinct by the way . .

We were talking specifically board game, and then focused to box-set, which doesn't feature LAMs.

As far as LAMs go, They're an air asset, dealt with anti-air assets, like Arrow launchers. Doesn't matter how far you jumped, you're a 9 to hit with an average pilot, and taking 20 points of damage in 5 point clusters. Have fun with your piloting check. The extreme rarity of LAMs coupled with the great deal of conventional forces any given planet has makes LAMs silly as a confined location fighter. Indeed, if faced with opposition the first thing a LAM pilot should do is fly the fuck away and hit something unprotected instead.

Yes, LAMs are very much guerilla style machines made for operations where there can be no landing strip for normal air assets. because they can simply walk and jump and fly and jump and land and walk . .
basically, they are there to land somewhere close to the anti air batteries, hope to take out these batteries before they get bumrushed by ground forces and then take off and fly away to somewhere else while the real ASF now have no anti air to deal with anymor . .

and are you sure you mean arrow missles?
not artemis missle launchers?
arrows are artillery missles if i am not misremembering o.O

You're remembering correctly. Arrow missiles can be used as Flak against air units, of which an Airmech mode LAM is considered. Since LAMs have been illegal since at least 1994, most of the interactions however are all very house-ruled.