MechWarrior Online goes Open Beta today! (Free to play)

[vektor]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

That's odd. What kind of video card do you have? Is the driver up to date? Maybe drop a post in the support forums. I know people have had issues but that's mostly been with older PCs.

Driver's up to date, GeF 660M 2GB. When I run other games they run like they couldn't run faster or look better with better technology because they are capped.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by vektor

Driver's up to date, GeF 660M 2GB. When I run other games they run like they couldn't run faster or look better with better technology because they are capped.

Ah ha! You're on a laptop.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/652...raphics-cards/

There's a problem with MWO where it IDs your onboard crappy Intel HD chip as your primary video card and doesn't even use your VC. Use this fix in the link above and you should be flying.

[vektor]

Well that explains it, thanks man. I'll try it out when I get home. This actually explains a lot, when I load it up it's like my laptop is having a heart attack and it's super slow as where other games load faster than I can read the hints inbetween loading screens. I thought I got a terrible virus or something, hopefully it didn't do any permanent damage from forcing the onboard chip to process it.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by vektor

Well that explains it, thanks man. I'll try it out when I get home. This actually explains a lot, when I load it up it's like my laptop is having a heart attack and it's super slow as where other games load faster than I can read the hints inbetween loading screens. I thought I got a terrible virus or something, hopefully it didn't do any permanent damage from forcing the onboard chip to process it.

Naw the onboard is still designed to run DirectX apps, it just sucks at it. Shouldn't have affected it at all. Likely loaded super slow because the Intel onboards use your RAM as partial VRAM (which it's not best suited for).

Beta is as beta does.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

HUD Breakdown:

[IMG]

Top Centre: Time left in game, with how many mechs killed on each team. The Yellow bar represents how much of your point has been capped (friendly), red is the enemy capture point.

Top Right: The current mech you have targeted and gathered info on. His current armor status is displayed (both front and rear) and it will show all the weapons he has equipped. Weapons displayed in red mean they have either run out of ammo or been destroyed.

Centre: + reticle is your torso aim, O reticle is your arms. The number to the right of this is a range finder showing the distance to what you are currently targeting.

Lower Left: You current mechs armor status. The inner shaded area is the internals, the outline is the armor. Transitions from Yellow --> Orange --> Red ---> Nothing (once destroyed).

Bottom Centre Left: Your current speed. Meter goes up when you throttle up, the blue represents where you have your speed throttled to (mechs take time to get up to speed), orange is where your speed currently is.

Bottom Centre: Battlemap. Friendly mechs in blue, enemy mechs in red (but only show up if a mech on your team has Line Of Sight on them, or they have a NARC or TAG on them). The viewing triangle shows your Field Of View relative to your mechs position.

Bottom Centre Right: Current heat. Run hot, but don't let it hit 100% or you will shut down.

Lower Right: Your weapons groups. Mouse 1 Control group 1, Mouse 2 controls Group 2, 1-6 on the keyboard control their respective groups. Typically, put energy weapons in one group, and seperate LRMs, Ballistics, and SRMs. Make as many groups as you need to manage heat. Move the selected group/weapon with the Arrow Keys, and Assign/Unassign weapons with the Ctrl key.

That is good info.

What are the 6 little squares, sometimes yellow, sometimes red, that surround the crosshairs?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Rathji

That is good info.

What are the 6 little squares, sometimes yellow, sometimes red, that surround the crosshairs?

Ah I forgot those. Starting from the top right and going 1>2>3 top down left side, then 4>5>6 top down right side, each one reflects if that specific weapon group is off cooldown or not.

Yellow = available to fire
Red = still on cooldown

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

What kind of trial mech have you been piloting/enjoying? Don't buy a Commando unless you really like scouting. Personally I'd save up for a medium/heavy if you like fighting it out.

I mostly pick the mid sized mechs.

I am thinking something with a single weapon type to start, like 2-4 medium lasers and maybe a LRM. I seem to do best when I don't need to worry so much about variable refresh times etc and am able to focus on one thing.

Are there tools online to put together mechs without actually buying them? or a simple guide that would allow me figure out how hardpoints, heat sinks etc work, so I could do it myself?

edit: Just did some searching and found some people saying Battletech online builders will work, is that true? Like the rules are exactly the same? If so, that is awesome.

[PsYcNeT]

Galen Cox of clan Widowmakers made this offline mechlab program, found here:

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/657...chbay-program/

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I mostly pick the mid sized mechs.

I am thinking something with a single weapon type to start, like 2-4 medium lasers and maybe a LRM. I seem to do best when I don't need to worry so much about variable refresh times etc and am able to focus on one thing.

Are there tools online to put together mechs without actually buying them? or a simple guide that would allow me figure out how hardpoints, heat sinks etc work, so I could do it myself?

edit: Just did some searching and found some people saying Battletech online builders will work, is that true? Like the rules are exactly the same? If so, that is awesome.

If you aren't afraid to get up close the Hunchback is pretty awesome. I generally only only have 1-3 weapon groups. I could give you a couple easy builds that work pretty well straight out of the gate.

The 4G comes with an AC20, 2 medium lasers and a small laser. I drop the small laser and shed half a ton of armor off my legs so I can fit another ton of ammo in. You can also swap the AC20 for a Gauss Riffle which will give you much longer range but still provide you with lots of damage. The problem with the 4G is if you lose the AC20 your damage is decreased exponentially. So instead if you want you can drop the AC20 for an AC10 or LBX 10. Throw in some Ferro Fibrous Armor when you get enough money and you can load that thing up with ammo and upgrade you medium lasers to medium pulse lasers or add an extra medium in your head. Before the last wipe I had 90 ammo for an LBX 10 and I used all of it on more than one occasion.

If you do want the AC10/LBX 10 then you might want to instead look at the 4H variant because it comes standard with the AC10 plus it has 5 energy hardpoints instead of the 3 found on the 4G. The same principle applies. Lose some armor off you legs, load up on ammo and or extra heat sinks. The AC10 generates much less heat then the AC20 but you have a lot more lasers you can fire.

Another popular variant is the 4SP. It has 2 missile hardpoints and 5 energy hardpoints. It comes with 2 SRM 6 which do ridiculous damage up close. Consider ditching a couple lasers in favor of taking more ammo until you can upgrade your armor to ferro fibrous.

Also, this is just a general tip for players, if you don't have an AMS on your mech it's a great idea to stay near someone on your team that does. AMS will shoot down missiles regardless of who is being targeted.

[Rathji]

Ok, I just logged into the game and my medium trial mech is gone.

Is this normal?

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Ok, I just logged into the game and my medium trial mech is gone.

Is this normal?

Are all of your trial mechs gone? There is a separate tab for owned mechs and trials at the bottom left of the Mechlab tab just above the menu.

[Rathji]

No, just the medium one. It says "Empty" in that spot.

[cDnStealth]

Are you on the home menu? Is your mech selected and readied? I've never encountered that.

[Rathji]

I am on the home screen.

To idea by what you mean by selected. I can't choose that mech and then launch if that is what you mean.

[cDnStealth]

So what you need to do is go into the Mechlab menu (up at the top next to Home) go down to the bottom where it should show all 4 trial mechs. Click on the Centurion and just above it select ready. If the trials aren't there and all you have are empty mechbays then go over to the left and select Trial Mechs.

Edit: Should look just like this:

Spoiler!

Except where it says configure mech it will say select mech. Just click on that and you should be good to go.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

So what you need to do is go into the Mechlab menu (up at the top next to Home) go down to the bottom where it should show all 4 trial mechs. Click on the Centurion and just above it select ready. If the trials aren't there and all you have are empty mechbays then go over to the left and select Trial Mechs.

Edit: Should look just like this:

Spoiler!

Except where it says configure mech it will say select mech. Just click on that and you should be good to go.

You were right Looks like I deselected it somehow.

[nik-]

What's the speed of play like? I saw some early gameplay videos and the pace looked really slow. Hawken on the other hand was pretty awesome looking.

[Rathji]

It is a lot slower than something like BF3 or CoD, but I think it is on par with other Mechwarrior games.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by nik-

What's the speed of play like? I saw some early gameplay videos and the pace looked really slow. Hawken on the other hand was pretty awesome looking.

Slowish. Engagements can last anywhere from 10s to a few minutes.

That said, Hawken, while indeed fun, is a gorgeous yet mildly disappointing UT-clone in mech suits.

[Rathji]

Finally got enough saved to buy a mech. I have been fooling around with the faster mechs and realizing that I am enjoying it, so I got a Cicada 3C. In retrospect I might have got something else, but I thought I could add a SRM to it at some point, not realizing that Missile and Ballistic hardpoints were different.

About customization, I think I am a little confused. I have one energy hardpoint, and 4 ballistic. Assuming I free up weight somehow, I could add an AC/5 to replace my MGs, but I couldnt get an AC/10 since it takes too many slots, is that right?

How about Structure, Armor or Heat Sink improvements? For example it says I need 3 times the space for double heat sinks, but what does that mean? I need 3 slots for one? So I have 11 heat sinks now, so it would use 33 slots instead of 11? So it would just fill all those empty slots in my arms until 22 were filled up? Does it matter where these go?