Center torso is still often your best shot I think: - Head shots are typically too difficult and just wind up being wasted damage, barring powered down mechs or perhaps when shooting at an Awesome or Catapult. - Leg shots are great with certain weapons, especially if you're fighting one on one or coordinate with teammates to also aim at the legs, but in most pugs your teammates will aim CT regardless so you may as well focus fire with them. - Leg shots can be great for racking up your kill count once a match is won though, as whatever damage you do won't help those shooting CT, and you can always switch to CT at the last moment. ;-) That, and they're really easy to stick on mechs running away, where they'll often block torso shots with their arms. - I almost always shoot Atlases CT; you won't take it out all at once, but that's the only practical way to kill one, and once they lose their CT armor their firepower is dampened as they twist away to protect it. Not sure why, but I never leg them... probably because I typically only take them on with teammates.
Well, nice to hear I'm not the only one. Usually if I have the presence of mind, I go for their RT on the grounds that it's a quicker dig to a possible XL crit or disabling a Gauss. But that's of the occasions when I'm A: picking a place, as opposed to just "firing as the target bears" and B: have presence of mind. I know CT isn't bad, I just imagine, especially if I'm in a lighter mech, carving away at a tank's glacis armour with a sharpened spoon. And I'd rather "light up" some visible damage on the RT for my PUG-mates to hopefully focus-fire on rather than CT.
Yeah, aiming side torso can be good if you think they have an XL engine. Atlases generally don't, though if one were extra speedy I'd definitely aim side torso. XL engines in general are much less common now that dual heatsinks and endosteel have arrived, especially since they dropped the top speed on most medium mechs. The most likely mechs to pack them (I'd say Dragons, Catapults, Jenners, and Cicada) are also fairly hard to aim side torso on. I'd definitely pop one of those new fast Centurion Ds in the side torso though! Most Hunchback variants are also still worth aiming for the right torso, for the disarm. Generally though if I have the scope to aim side torso I'd rather shoot the leg instead, as it's about as easy a shot and effectively completely disarms them (at least vs. you!), plus makes them easier to kill. It helps that lots of players skimp on leg armor.
This sounded interesting, so I spent the 2.5k MC to get one of those and then spent the 1M CBills I had to outfit it. Turns out that's not enough to take it up to your specs (engines are expensive), but I do have 4xSRM6. It's...interesting. Ludicrously effective against mediums and heavies (and Awesome missile boats that load LRMs, trollface.jpg). I don't feel at all effective against Atlases, but they do have twenty tons on me so whatever.
My Awesome R has 4 Artemis boosted SRM6, 2 ER Large Lasers, 15 double heat sinks, and the basic 240 engine. If it can close to point blank it can do frightening damage, however at long ranges the damage still spreads out too much for fast kills. You really need to run up and hug someone. That is why in the end I put the large lasers on so that I could provide meaningful damage while closing and also in situations where charging to point blank would simply be suicide. However, an Awesome Q with 4 large lasers (and 3 medium for extra alpha at close range) tend to be more generally effective. Able to kill Atlases and Jenners alike, it's the mech I take when I want to score 4-5 kills in a match, instead of 1 or 2. Large laser builds for almost any mech seem to be very popular right now. It is a very efficient weapon due the hard point limitations, is very accurate and packs a decent punch. With 4 large lasers you can outshoot a gaussapult even, especially if you maintain a little transversal. Tried PPCs and just cannot make them work for me. They spread their damage around way too much.
Atlases are dicey as that extra armor can be a key difference. You're more maneuverable though, and you only need to briefly get the drop on them with an opening volley to turn the tables in your favor, e.g. when they're looking away or distracted with someone else. This is one of the reasons I favor a bigger engine, as it makes maneuvering for an Ambush much easier. It also helps to check their loadout first -- many Atlases are kitted out for longer range, and you can fairly safely turn a corner into their guns even if they see it coming. And yeah, you can send mediums and heavies scurrying for cover just as soon as they get enough targeting info to see you're packing SRMs and not LRMs. Or better yet you get those who stand toe to toe, not realizing you can pop them in two volleys. Boom!
I like the medium lasers better: more heat efficiency, more punch up close (the heat on ER LLs is crazy!), reasonable mid range firepower, and I don't really want to be sticking my head out at long range anyway. The stock 240 engine I think is not enough -- 48.6kph is substantially slower than 57.7kph, and you turn slower too. The extra maneuverability really helps you when lurking from cover to cover, repositioning, and making that final rush to pointblank. Yeah, I get good mileage out of that one too. A smart Gauss Cat will smoke you at range -- their range is 660 to your 450, and they can torso twist to spread your damage out across their torso and arms, while their shots both hit one spot. A PPC awesome can just destroy you at mid to long range in a similar fashion (where they can hide to cooldown, offsetting your heat edge). It's still a good mech though, much better than a Gauss Cat or PPC Awesome up close, and brutal at pasting people who either aren't aware or don't realize they should torso twist to spread the damage out. If you get them firing out of the same component (e.g. the 4 side torso slots on the Q) you can generally stick them into one spot. It helps at times to delay your shot a bit after aiming to give time for convergence to kick in accurately.
Maybe with aimbots? I don't see it happening otherwise. edit: also all my lasers hit the precise same spot
This is something I've done (without an aimbot), and also been on the receiving end of (as I play both builds). It's pretty easy to get caught at a 450+ range where you're doing reduced damage with Large Lasers but Gauss Rifles are full damage, plus ballistic damage drops off more slowly past max damage range than laser damage does (max range is 2x for lasers, 3x for ballistics). PPCs don't have as much range edge, but it's still there. And whether you can aim lasers accurately is beside the point -- your opponent can spread your laser damage out irrespective of whether your aim is good, he need only torso twist as you're hitting him. And while you have to hold your target for a second with lasers and expose your center torso, a ballistic/PPC opponent can quickly fire, and then twist to block with his arms. You can come out on top against weak foes, but a strong foe will wait until you start shooting, pop you center torso, then twist away so your damage is spread across his Center Torso, Side Torso, and Arm. Lasers vs. projectiles at long range is an inherently losing situation, even though most PUG opponents aren't skilled enough to take advantage of it. Which isn't to say Large Lasers don't have their strengths! I find they're best when taking advantage of their sustained firepower, ideally at range against foes who are occupied elsewhere or simply don't have long range weapons.
I am perfectly willing to concede that I am mostly figthing against not so great players, but its very hard to beleive you can reliably hit the same section on a moving mech over and over with a projectile weapon at a range over 450m.
Not reliably of course! Mostly it's a matter of catching them at the right time: changing direction when they step in and out of cover, peaking over the volcano caldera, powered down, when they're busy with someone else, running at right angles to you, trying to hold a LRM lock, etc. Opponents are often a bit less careful at long range than they should be. Helps when they're relatively slow mechs of course (e.g. stock Awesomes with the small 240 engine) -- pop them once when they're still and you can generally get a shot of 3s later before they've moved much, especially if they're trying to backup and/or hadn't spotted you previously. I do have a friend who can fairly reliably stick the long shots on moving targets, even Jenners, but I'm not so accurate. I might hit a running Jenner 1 in 8-10 shots or so at 540m. Nice when you tag them though!
Actually, this is a gripe I have about every MW game I've played: it's relatively easy--the default, even--for all your shots from all simultaneously fired weapons to strike the same spot. Some of the games handled it better than others, but I think it always favors alpha strike boat builds too much.
They could have built in a shot dispersion model like world of tanks (and I think such a thing would have been a positive addition) but I am sure the MW community would go bonkers if they did that.
There where plenty of balancing post demanding this in closed beta.Its a kind of shame it was not added it would have made weapon balancing so much easier. I think the devs are bit over their heads with mwo.
Ehh. Gaussian shot dispersion as in Wot wouldn't be as effective in MWO due to larger targets and armor being absorbing rather than deflecting. I would like to see a greater amount of torso sway with movement to counteract the fact that fast and wide-twisting mechs such as the Catapult can use gauss to good effect in close combat as well as at range. On the whole I'm not greatly troubled by the accuracy, they simply need to make maps with clear choices between speed of traversal and efficient cover. That and maybe reduce the effectiveness of the thermal imaging so that snipers need scouts too.
I think it would make a huge difference, with it boating small or med laser would not be problematic as 6 med laser would not hit the same torso zone. Large laser or Acs could be worth the extra heat cost by higher precision. More ways to differentiate weapons makes more interesting choices. At the moment its limited to variations of dps(burst,substainet,at x range)
Actually, the weapons already are pretty variable with missiles, lasers and ballistics having markedly different mechanics, more so than in Wot where all guns except for artillery were mechanically the same last I tried it. If the concern is alpahastriking being too powerful then an escalating heat bonus for weapons firing simultaneously would help ward that off, it would also push people towards higher damage per shot weapons as sequence firing lighter lasers in particular rarely goes through the sequence before a gun is ready to fire again. I'm not saying the balance as it stands is perfect mind you, just that I think their system works better for this game than grafting the randomy guns from a WW2 tank shooter onto a futuristic mech game.
There's actually a marked difference in shell flight time for different weapons in WoT, it's just that most people don't pay any attention to it because every vehicle only carries one weapon and the game automatically adjusts your elevation for you. It'd be a big deal if you had more than one weapon on a tank, just like the alpha strike issue would be moot if mechs only carried one weapon at a time. However, I recall a scene in one of them cheesy BT novels where a guy is unable to fire both of his gauss rifles simultaneously because of the power draw. What I mean is, they could just make it so that if the alpha strike grouping is too large, not all of the weapons would actually be able to discharge at the exact moment the trigger is pulled.
They do have built in shot dispersal -- server lag! Personally, I think shot dispersion for projectiles is a bad idea. Convergence is already enough of an issue, and in a game with pinpoint lasers and homing missiles random spread for each gun would be too much penalty. Not to mention that big guns just aren't that inaccurate, even without future tech. If anything, they aught to be increasing the accuracy by including things like WW2-era reflex sights, and/or calculated lead on locked targets. I'd be nice if you didn't have to experiment to figure out things like shell drop.
Oh I know that there are functional differences, I did spend enough time to get to tier ten in WOT and the guns all have a different feel to them. At the end of the day they are all cannons though, they share the same mechanics but with different stats. In MWO a Laser is fundamentally different from a missile or an AC. The only weapon that's a bit too best of both worlds is propably the Gauss, having high damage, high projectile velocity, low heat and high range. The Gauss propably needs more of a downside than weight. Personally I'd like to see it keep it's strengths but alter the heatvision, either to have a fog at range or to smear or ghost unspotted enemy mechs in random directions at long range, making it extremely hard to snipe without scouts but retaining the ability to spot flanking mechs.
Well, if they're just detected due to your scanners, why not just have a marker icon, like a triangle? Then the icon could have some error on it, and you wouldn't be able to target any specific parts. If WoT taught me anything, it's that shooting at things that you can't see is much harder, even if you know exactly where they are.
Heat Vision is already tweaked to be intentionally bad... 30m tall mechs with fusion reactors just shouldn't be hard to see from a kilometer away, and going further into "no rear view mirror" territory certainly isn't something I'm looking for in MWO.
And AC/20s should have a range in excess of 5 kilometers*, assuming no change in technology since 2000, but instead it's only 270 meters. Size and range have to be kind of wonky in MW (and doubly so in tabletop, where heavier mechs tend to have the advantage as-is). *I've never heard a definitive explanation of what caliber shell all the ACs use, but a number of sources seem to think the AC/10 is similar in shell size to current tank guns, i.e. 120mm, so the AC/20 is probably a 155 or larger.
Anyway, I think the main lesson for BT here is that you should fill up every critical on your mech you possibly can with styrofoam.
Thanks - I've always liked the look of the Awesome, I see 2 x Awesomes being in my mechlab pretty soon.
I've just picked up an Awesome M as my 3rd Awesome. Trying it out with its stock 320XL engine (why not a 325XL?! Arg!), 3xPPC, 3xStreak, ML, and 20 DHS. Nice to have the Streaks to fend off light mechs and give you more room for PPC action. Less surprise punch than 4xPPC, but the other weapons offset that at mid range, and you get better heat management too. Might give the ERPPCs it came with a try, but 12 extra heat per volley is just so crippling... PPCs are super lag dependent though. Some matches they're Amazing, and others I visually hit still targets for no damage. :-/
Oh, and one thing I've been suspecting but just seen corroborated on the MWO forums (by someone crazy enough to frame count!) -- If you take double heat sinks your core engine sinks work as 20 sinks rather than the 14 as advertised by the patch notes (though any additional still add 1.4 per). No idea if it's intentional or not, but while it lasts DHS are definitely the way to go for pretty much any mech. Hopefully they fix this!
I've been testing out legging Atlases, and it kicks ass! Many strip their leg armor, and if you surprise them from behind a good Atlas will generally be able to hide his damaged rear before you finish him, but they just can't hide their leg. Plus with one leg gone they're basically no threat to you -- which is in stark contrast to a legged Catapult where you have to be really on your toes due to their massive twist range. I still often wind up shooting Atlases in the torso though, either to focus fire with teammates, or because they're already heavily damaged there.
I suspect they will increase the effectiveness of double heat sins slightly even after accounting for fixing this bug. I think probably 1.6x effectiveness is going to be close to the sweet spot.
I hope not, as I think 1.4x is just right, maybe 1.5x at most. Anything more, and you basically always use DHS. I suspect you're right though, and that they're simply taking away a bit more than they intend so they can later "compromise" by easing off a bit. But whatever, I'm just happy they didn't actually go with 2x; frankly, I'd just quit on the spot if they used 2x, as that's been obviously broken for close to ~25 years.
Oh, good lord. My Jenner already runs hot with (apparently) ~25 heatsinks. I can't wait until that gets cut down to 18.
