53 replies to this topic

[MacabreDerek]

Hey all,

Figured I start this discussion because I haven't seen much discussion on the idea. With the STAC system, you dont know what you are going to get. There is a very strong possibility you're going to draft mechs that were not a part of your 'dream lance', and even get mechs you're highly uncomfortable with.

So what are you going to do with these mechs? Are their some mechs you will just refuse to use, even when those chassis are the only ones outside your starting lance that allows you some flexibility?

Will you try to completely re-design a chasis to fill another role it's innitial loadout was not intended, or do you intend to simply 'upgrade' it's capabilities? Are you prepared to run with an Assault even though you want no part of them, and how to you intend to use them?

Personally I am really hoping to get a Stalker as one of my early chassis. So naturally that means I'll go my entire MWT career without ever getting one. I keep thinking about other mechs I can draft to be a 'lighter' version of my beloved Stalker, and how to make those conversions.

Will you simply throw all your 'junk/commons' onto that chassis?

Will you be willing to run your 'bottom of the barrel' lance filled with four chassis you wouldn't normally run?

I'd like to hear thoughts on this, because with the STAC system, you're drawing random mechs and equipment, and you cant expect to get what you want, but sometimes you draft something you want no part of.

For me, the 'worst case scenario' draw is a Spider chassis. I really feel I can make any mech work in a lance except this one, and expecting it to contribute it's weight to a fight is a fleeting expectation, with only two medium lasers, it's only real advantage is it's speed, which makes me a little leery in the game model we've seen sofar where it's just a team deathmatch with lances. About the only reason I'd take it willingly is if I dont have enough CV to spend on something more useful.

So what about you? What's your worst case scenario as a draft early on, what are you hoping to avoid getting early on?

- MD

[Teranika]

If I can mount Lasers, PPCs, SRMs, or LRMs on it.. I'll use it

There's no such thing as a bad 'Mech (Well.. there is the UrbanMech....)

[Aldin]

Hmmm. I guess my worst case scenario involves a dearth of chassis in my STAC purchases. Say they're dropping at a rate of 1 per 4 and I've opened 6 without one. That'd be... grumble-worthy. Mostly though, I'm really looking forward to playing mix and match - trying out various mechs with various weapons load outs at various CVs until I hit 8 total mechs. At that point, I'll probably construct a "starter lance" that I play comfortably and is at the right CV to play against starter lances and another lance with whichever mechs are left over to play mix and match with.

[Evesix]

oh come on, the urban mech can do some things.... like sit. and theoretically from the shape of the design it should be capable of 360 turn's, i mean it is r2d2.... (in all seriousness the urban would only be useful if there was no mech restriction, only a point's against one)

And to get on topic i'd throw them together until i got enough of them to make the "C Team", where average just might cut it. But off the top of my head theres not too much that is just plain awful... and what is you can still customize to be pretty awful

[Busukaba]

If I draw a Stalker and don't have a Spider, I would totally trade you for a Spider! I hate Assaults, as I've said many times, but if I am forced to use them, I will. Actually, I like the Stalker more than the Atlas, but still neither one can move 8/12/8 and for me, that's where it's at.

But honestly, I can handle myself pretty well with most weights, and weapons loadouts. My problem is with speed. I am always unsure of where to move Assaults to or even when to move them in order to get the modifier advantage. I'm really good at calculating from the other end and making myself really annoying with lights and mediums against assaults, though. And maybe that's the problem. I spent so much time refining how to use lights and mediums against anything that I never learned the other side of the coin.

My worst case scenario would be to have a lance of all assaults. I would probably lose every battle, even if I fought against heavies. I don't suppose I'm really THAT bad with them, but I certainly am very much out of my element using Assaults.

[MacabreDerek]

Busukaba, on 02 July 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

If I draw a Stalker and don't have a Spider, I would totally trade you for a Spider! I hate Assaults, as I've said many times, but if I am forced to use them, I will. Actually, I like the Stalker more than the Atlas, but still neither one can move 8/12/8 and for me, that's where it's at.

But honestly, I can handle myself pretty well with most weights, and weapons loadouts. My problem is with speed. I am always unsure of where to move Assaults to or even when to move them in order to get the modifier advantage. I'm really good at calculating from the other end and making myself really annoying with lights and mediums against assaults, though. And maybe that's the problem. I spent so much time refining how to use lights and mediums against anything that I never learned the other side of the coin.

My worst case scenario would be to have a lance of all assaults. I would probably lose every battle, even if I fought against heavies. I don't suppose I'm really THAT bad with them, but I certainly am very much out of my element using Assaults.

I am actually wondering if you take an Assault lance but purposly drop all their equipment to low-CV costs, would you be able to get into fights that are primarily lights and mediums that are really well equiped? Dispite being ballanced CV wise, i think it would make a great 'David and Goliath' matchup.

[ShadyDiablo]

If you go with the history of 3025, a lot of units "took what they could get." I'd think of it like a merc unit - what you get is what you can salvage off the field.

Half of the fun of playing a merc unit back in the day was developing your strategy to fit whatever you had.

If you draw a Spider, use him as a spotter. Run him at max speed, don't worry about him attacking, and use him to spot for LRMs and PPCs. And maybe you can get around the back of your enemy and take a pot shot.

Now, if you drew an entire lance of Spiders, then you might be in trouble. Is there going to be a trade option?

[Mystery]

Hrm for me I gotta say they only become maybe useless after I have enough lances to occupy my full day so maybe 12-20 lances depending on the ate of games, could be a lot less at first as people rush games.

And of coarse I will mod the hell out of them as needed for certain CV levels.

[MacabreDerek]

Mystery, on 02 July 2012 - 04:23 PM, said:

Hrm for me I gotta say they only become maybe useless after I have enough lances to occupy my full day so maybe 12-20 lances depending on the ate of games, could be a lot less at first as people rush games.

And of coarse I will mod the hell out of them as needed for certain CV levels.

I guess you and me have different expectations on the speed of how many mech chassis you can gain, because I honestly expect that after a week of 5-7 hours of play (YAY, Too Many Late Nights!) I'd MIGHT have enough for a randomly built secondary Lance. How you expect to have 12-20 astonishes me.

[Teranika]

MacabreDerek, on 02 July 2012 - 04:26 PM, said:

I guess you and me have different expectations on the speed of how many mech chassis you can gain, because I honestly expect that after a week of 5-7 hours of play (YAY, Too Many Late Nights!) I'd MIGHT have enough for a randomly built secondary Lance. How you expect to have 12-20 astonishes me.

I figure I'll end up with that many Lances eventually as well... it'll take awhile, but I expect to get there..at least, assuming we don't have a limit to the number of lances we can field.

[MacabreDerek]

Before it was mentioned I might be screwed if i had nothing but a lance of Spiders... Now it's starting to sound like a certainty.

[Mystery]

MacabreDerek, on 02 July 2012 - 04:26 PM, said:

I guess you and me have different expectations on the speed of how many mech chassis you can gain, because I honestly expect that after a week of 5-7 hours of play (YAY, Too Many Late Nights!) I'd MIGHT have enough for a randomly built secondary Lance. How you expect to have 12-20 astonishes me.

I have some cash saved up just for the game, plus my monthly gaming budget so yeah depending on the rarity I should be good to go, may have to sit on some cards for a while to lower my cv but meh time is what I've got.

[Busukaba]

MacabreDerek, on 02 July 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

Before it was mentioned I might be screwed if i had nothing but a lance of Spiders... Now it's starting to sound like a certainty.

Aw, man, it would be great to have a lance of Spiders! Of course you're likely to only play against other light lances but i gotta say the Spider is one of the best light 'Mechs around. It has extreme speed and a lot of firepower for small 'Mech that moves so fast. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of armor, but that's where the extreme speed comes in. The guys I played TT with actually made a rule so I couldn't field an entire lance of spiders aganst them. It wasn't that they would kill much heavier 'Mechs, which they did on occasion, but they were excellent at punching holes in the back of 'Mechs and scoring engine, gryro and weapon hits to make those 'Mechs much less effective. I've certainly lost more than my fair share of battles but Spidres have made sure that they were pyrrhic victories for the other guys more times than not.

[MacabreDerek]

Wish that was my experience, but truthfully I only got maybe 30 games of TT under my belt. The reality is I am the guy who can take a warhammer, headshot a Hunchback, double critical, kill both sensors, then proceed to get charged to death by said hunchback.

However, it's not like I wont try such rediculous lances lol

[Dunkelzahn]

There aint no useless Mech. Well, come to think of it, without melee and given simultaneously movement, the Charger seems a wee bit difficult to use, but of the ones we know to be in, I would be fine with anything I get.
Anyway, the way my luck usually runs, no matter what I field, my best Mech will be head-shotted in the 2nd turn anyway

[MacabreDerek]

Dunkelzahn, on 02 July 2012 - 08:33 PM, said:

There aint no useless Mech.

Never claimed their was. The thought goes however that everyone has a preference in mechs and lances, and with the amount of mechs they are discussing putting into MWT, you're definetly going to draft quite a number of them that dont fit into that method of play.

For instance, for me, it would be a NIGHTMARE to play a lance of Spider, Commando, Hunchback and Dragon. Not only are they mechs I hold little faith in, but they are outside my realm of expirence, playstyles that I dont particularly enjoy, and unless I draft ALOT of weapons that let me change their roles entirely, it's just me playing under a personal handicap.

I am very much a long-range support kinda guy, I like LRMs, Large Lasers and PPCs, I like NARC and I like controlling lanes of fire and creating kill zones. You have a hard time doing that with a lance primarily built of brawlers and skirmishers, and are often in a bad place to get out of them once they are established.

I am sure I am not alone in the idea that, yes all the mechs have a place and are probably going to be balanced enough that any mech can pull their weight, but in that you're always going to have that one lance that is put together because everything else you actually wanted is in your primary and maybe secondary lances, and when the game launches even worse because you have the starting lance and then it's entirely luck of the draw, which many of us know how that typically ends up going.

I do however appreciate the challenge of forcing a lance to work with what I have, but I wanted to instigate discussion on what people would do. Will they keep the mech close to it's primary config to let it preform it's role as intended? Will they customise it to become a 'proxie' for the card they are actually hunting for? etc etc etc

[Aldin]

Yeah, I think a lot of us are going to be forced outside of our respective comfort zones early on. Probably a good thing though, as we learn the ins and outs of the way the game plays in this format. Maybe you'll learn to love the Spider. You never know...

[Dunkelzahn]

I actually don´t have much of a preference of mechs (ok, I realy don´t like mechs with tissue paper as armor - armor is life)

Of the ones we know to be in, I like the Grasshopper, Catapult, Orion and Trebuchet the most, Commando, Jenner and Spider the least (yes, while I like some mobility, I am more a "slug it out" kind of guy) but even a Jenner/Spider lance would be used and could actually be fun, jumping around like crazy and trying to hit anything . Of course, this would probably drag the fight out over a long time and I am not so sure this is a good thing.

I will keep the mechs in their original configeration at first, but in the long run, not customizing them when I can is just stupid (ok, the Dervish will loose those SRM-2s as soon as possible*).
As the ones I like the less are also the light mechs, there isn´t all that much that I can do with them (I doubt I could put 10 tons or armor, a PPC and an LRM-15 on one of those ), so they will likely be used "as is" except for some small tinkering.




*This is assuming, there are no Infernos in the game. If they are in, I´ll have to think about this again.

[Enaris]

Remember though, in this game, Light Mechs are going to have some... interesting advantages.

It all comes from the Si-move.

Set a mech down on a map, and mentally make an "area" of all the hexes that mech can get to in one turn. (walking, running, jumping). Compare a Stalker to a Spider. It goes without saying that the Spider's movement zone is going to be immensely bigger.

With slower mechs having a smaller movement zone, it means that it becomes much easier for the other guy to predict where your assault is gonna end up. A light will be able to bounce everywhere (especially if it has jump jets). Swatting a fast light like a Cicada or Spider has the potential of being a real pain in the neck, if the other guy is unconventional enough.

[RoundTop]

Hey! Urbanmechs work in this (double-blind). You park it behind a hill and draw his forces in. They come through or over the hill chasing your other light, and the urbie kills the light with it's AC10/AC20 since it was just standing there. sure it will die in 1 or 2 turns, but the first hit could be devastating..especially since it is so cheap.