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

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by 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, 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?

Yep, you can throw any ballistic weapons you have the tonnage/space for. So you could put AC5 or a Gauss Riffle on it if you wanted.

As for DHS, they are currently buggy but the way it works is 1DHS = 2 heat sinks at the cost of 3 slots instead of the standard 1. Switching over to DHS also changes your engine HS to DHS. This is important because your engine comes stock with a certain number of heat sinks. So you may have 11 HS on your mech but 10 of those could be in your engine and 1 could be in your torso meaning you only have 1 crit space being used by HS. So for instance, if you added 4 HS to your mech they would take up an additional 4 slots and 4 tons. If you switched to DHS you could add 2 DHS which would take up 6 slots but only weight 2 tons. The reason why you'd want to switch is if you have extra space but want to save on some weight. So provided you won't be sacrificing space for weapons DHS are a great. Also, go for Endo Steel over Ferro Fibrous because ES is much cheaper to maintain.

[PsYcNeT]

Yeah ACs, Gauss, & Machine Guns fit in Ballistic hardpoints. Machine guns are useless, so replace them ASAP.

Double heat sinks weigh the same as a Single, but take up 3 Crit Slots, and you can only have either Single or Double on a mech, not both. Keep in mind your engine (if over 250 rated) has by default 10 HS, and the game doesn't count DHS as 2 yet when it displays how many HS you have on the mech (this will be fixed next week I assume).

So say you have a 300 rated engine. Every 25 rate you have over 250 gives you a "free" heatsink slot (though the weight still applies to your total tonnage), so a 300 gives you 2 "free" slots, for a total of 12 HS in your engine alone. These take up no crit slots other than the slots the engine already does.

DHS outside the engine however take up a solid 3 slots. So say your arm looks like this:

[Upper arm actuator]
[Joint]
[Lower arm actuator]
[Empty]
[Empty]
[Empty]
[Empty]
[Empty]
[Empty]
[Empty]
[Empty]

Sticking in 2 DHS will make it look like:

[Upper arm actuator]
[Joint]
[Lower arm actuator]
[ ---- ]
[ DHS ]
[ ---- ]
[ ---- ]
[ DHS ]
[ ---- ]
[Empty]
[Empty]


So with 8 empty crit slots, using 2 DHS (effectively 6 crit slots since they don't get spread) leaves you 2 in the arm.

[Rathji]

Regarding hardpoints: 4 hardpoints = 4 weapons? It doesnt mean I am limited to 4 slots?

So with a 280 engine, all 11 of my heat sinks are inside, which means I won't lose any slots, but it also means I won't be able to ditch the external one to shed weight. Right?

Anything else, aside from upgrade structure and armor that I can do to shed weight to make room for more/different weapons?

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Regarding hardpoints: 4 hardpoints = 4 weapons? It doesnt mean I am limited to 4 slots?

So with a 280 engine, all 11 of my heat sinks are inside, which means I won't lose any slots, but it also means I won't be able to ditch the external one to shed weight. Right?

Anything else, aside from upgrade structure and armor that I can do to shed weight to make room for more/different weapons?

Basically yes. Think of it like this; Hardpoints are weapon mount locations and critical slots are how much space you have. So lets take an AC20 for example. It occupies 1 ballistic hardpoint, it weights 14 tons and takes up 10 critical slots. So if you used PsYcNet's arm example above and it had one ballistic hardpoint on that arm you would not be able to mount an AC20 in that arm. You have a ballistic hardpoint and you could have the available tonnage but you only have 8 critical slots (the ones marked Empty).

Aside from switching armor type/internal structure/heat sink type you can also change your engine from a standard to an XL Engine. These weigh less but they take up 3 addition critical slots in each of your left and right torso. This means that you can lose space to mount weapons in those locations and you also become much easier to kill. This is because if an enemy manages to destroy either you left or right torso they also destroy your engine. XL Engines are also the most expense component. They cost millions of C-Bills and are very expensive to maintain.

[PsYcNeT]

Hardpoints just show what and how many of each weapon type can be mounted. Whether or not you have critical slot room depends on what weapon you want, how you fit it, and tonnage restrictions.

In a 280 engine, think of it as 10 invisible free weightless HS that belong to the engine, and then there's a 2 crit "slot" that can hold 1 extra (weighted) HS per 25 engine rating.

So in the 280, you have you 10 free invisible HS hidden in the engine, and then you can choose if you want to shove the 11th in the HS crit mount or not. If you choose not to, then you keep the free tonnage.

So in theory, you could run a 400 engine and put 6 extra HS in it, and they wouldn't take up any extra critical space, but would still add 6 tons to your total weight.

[Igotnothing]

Really loving this game. Finally bought a Jenner last night. Any place that has good suggestions for loadouts?

I fiddled with it some last night but it's nice to have a reference to see what other ppl are doing as well. And to read the theory behind different builds.

Thanks

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Igotnothing

Really loving this game. Finally bought a Jenner last night. Any place that has good suggestions for loadouts?

I fiddled with it some last night but it's nice to have a reference to see what other ppl are doing as well. And to read the theory behind different builds.

Thanks

Loadouts are Serious Business (TM) and a lot of groups don't post them online.

I'd suggest joining a large clan, as they typically have loadout lists and suggested builds. Also, if you are a goon, join the WoL because we have the biggest and most comprehensive wiki on the web.

[cDnStealth]

Forget clans the best part about Mechwarrior has always been about experimenting with different things. I'd suggest you read this:

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/658...enner-chassis/

You can also check out this community forum for some build ideas:

http://www.mechspecs.com/forumdisplay.php?14-Jenner

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

Forget clans the best part about Mechwarrior has always been about experimenting with different things. I'd suggest you read this:

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/658...enner-chassis/

You can also check out this community forum for some build ideas:

http://www.mechspecs.com/forumdisplay.php?14-Jenner

I dunno man. Everytime I go on one of those forums I see some weirdo posting about how machine guns are useful and ERLL aren't a total waste of tonnage.

It's just bad robots.

[cDnStealth]

You'll always get joke builds but it's pretty easy to figure out if something is terrible.

[Igotnothing]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Right now i'm not really interested in joining a clan, I have a group of buddies who I'm playing with, not many, 5 or 6 of us, and that's enough for now. I guess I'll just keep experimenting and risk getting called a noob haha.

Thanks for the links though and advice.

[CaramonLS]

Why are pulse lasers better than regular ones? They seem to have lower DPS according to the chart on the 1st page and weigh more.

[Rathji]

They have 1 higher damage, plus they get that damage out in a shorter time.

Not sure where you get less dps, since Max DPS listed for a Large Pulse is 2.5 and a large laser is 2.12.

[MrMastodonFarm]

I hate PC gaming, my computer is never good enough I really want to play this game without the experience totally sucking

[Rathji]

My pc is 5 years old, with a $150 video card I put into it last Dec . Plays all current games with no problems, although sometimes I switch to Medium settings.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

I hate PC gaming, my computer is never good enough I really want to play this game without the experience totally sucking

MWO seems to take issue with some PCs, and others it runs completely fine on despite them being ancient. Make sure you update all your video drivers, and if you are on an NVidia card, make a profile in the NVidia control panel specifically for MWO, sometimes it uses onboard video instead of your real card...it's stupid.

[Rathji]

FYI

Had a mech disappear due to what appears to be a "Invalid Loadout" bug.

Was about to submit a bug report and then noticed a posting regarding it. Logging out and back in resolved the problem.

[Rathji]

I noticed that a lot of people seem to quit out as soon as they die in a match. Do they still get C-bills and exp?

Even if they just get loser money, it would make more sense than sitting around, if you are like me and end up walking into a crossfire 1 minute into a match.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I noticed that a lot of people seem to quit out as soon as they die in a match. Do they still get C-bills and exp?

Even if they just get loser money, it would make more sense than sitting around, if you are like me and end up walking into a crossfire 1 minute into a match.

Yeah they still get CBills and EXP, as long as they didn't suicide.

Keep in mind though, the mech you were using is still locked in the match, so if you leave after dying and want to play another round right away, you have to take another mech.

[AR_Six]

My PC isn't new but it was good when I made it - AMD 965 X4 at 3.4ghz / Radeon 9850 / 8gb DDR3 1333 ram in 2x4 configuration. I'm assuming I should be able to run this on pretty high-qual settings when I get around to installing it? What's everyone else running it on?