The Glade 4.0

This is addictive! I'm starting to get a little better. I've been running Hunchbacks and starting to gel with the hit & run mindset a little better. I'm torn on whether to try scout or Catapult next :/

MechWarrior® Credits
10,000
Kills / Death
47 / 123
C-Bills
4,737,576
XP
86,784
Wins / Losses
60 / 114
Kill / Death Ratio
0.38
Accumulative C-Bills Per Match
27,227.45
Avg. XP Per Match
498.76

=) I do love playing a flanking harasser in my Hunchback. I had an AC/10 in for better ammo capacities before they mucked about and increased the ammo/tonnage. Maybe I should try it with the AC/20 back in.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Err, they did what now?

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Well, since they doubled armor values (to extend engagement duration), ballistics (and missiles) have suffered for a while due to the ammo limits, forcing ballistics users to strip weight to cram preposterous tonnages of ammo in or else constantly run out without dealing much damage. They recently adjusted it up to alleviate that. So you get more ammo/ton now.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Thank you. I no longer have any desire to play MWO.

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To be fair, doubling the armor values (and, I'm assuming, internal structure values as well) was somewhat of a necessary evil, for two reasons:

• Weapon cooldown cycles are much shorter than represented in the turn-based rule system of the TT game.
• Players have aiming reticles, making it possible to get pinpoint accuracy out of energy and ballistic weapons.

To put the cooldown cycle issue into perspective, the combat "turn" has been equated to 10 seconds, and in that 10 seconds:

• The AC2, with a 0.5 second recycle time, can fire 20 times, potentially dealing 40 points of damage
• The AC20, with a 4.0 second recycle time, can fire twice, potentially dealing 40 points of damage
• The PPC, with a 3.0 second recycle time, can fire 3 times, potentially dealing 30 points of damage

To illustrate the accuracy achievable thanks to the aiming reticle:
Atlas firing 4 medium lasers, all of which are landing on the same target location. If that's your mech's head, and you're using non-doubled armor values, there's a smoking hole where the head used to be.

The TT armor values made sense when your weapons could only be fired once per combat turn and you had to roll for hit locations. In the FPS environment of MWO, they just lead to super fast engagements that only reward those with the best hand-eye coordination and/or the highest burstable output (you don't have to hit the head if you can put 50 points of damage into a single location with one pull of the trigger).

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I'm having a blast. Can't wait to buy my first mech.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

/wave

So I was spectating you after my brother and I ran into the bulk of the enemy force. LRMs don't arm until they hit 180m, so it's usually a good idea to keep them on their own weapon group. Looks like you were having a blast and causing some mayhem, though!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Dammit! I wish I had read up a bit more, I was doing alpha strike after alpha strike on him; I was wondering why the missiles weren't doing any damage. Heheh

I should have backed up ~100m then I would have been in the cool, cool water AND my missiles would have had some effect.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Yep. =) If you look in the lower right where you've got your weapon HUD information, the weapon names will change color based on optimal/suboptimal/ineffective range, too. Green is good, black is whack.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Still haven't seen if this melts my laptop yet.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

This is so much better once you get yourself your own mech.

The only bugs I've run into so far are the armor/ammo bug and I got stuck in the grates at the forest city (I believe that's what it's called), but the armor bug is well known and I couldn't replicate getting stuck.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I've got hit with the memory leak a few times. I can play several matches just fine, then a match comes along where anytime i try to face the camera toward an enemy, my frames plummet to the point where I cannot control my mech. I don't have a meter running but I would say single digits or less fps. Restarting the game fixes this.

I should get into this sometime in the next day or two I believe. I have the beta email sitting in my inbox.

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Raell Kromwell

In today's patch:

Cicada
Double Heat Sinks
Endo Steel
Ferro Fibrous Armor
Yen-Lo-Wang

Yay

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Ok...I suck at this. Like, really. Not sure if it is just the trial mechs or if I am just that bad.

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Raell Kromwell

Likely some of both. It takes more than a little getting used to for the control scheme. Tracking your "legs'" facing relative to your body isn't something most games train you to do, and it's rather critical in MWO. Likewise, for most builds, heat management is important, and the trial mechs are spectacularly punitive of poor heat management (and not set up very efficiently in the first place since they mirror canon standard variants which are built to a universal 10-second refire rate).

Also, PUGging is hit or miss as always, though with the new matchmaking system, the extremes should be toned down some in most cases. If you're a brawler, find a Hunchback, Cat-A1, or most Atlas variants (other likely brawlers, in other words) and play wingman to them. If you're an LRM boat, find a hill about 700m out from the anticipated engagement zone (this'll take several runs on a map to feel out) and wait for your team to light up targets (and keep in mind LRMs don't arm at <180m).

Since you're in a trial mech for now, if you find you've got both LRMs and other weapons, put them on two different weapon groups, then trail behind a brawler and use the LRMs while you close distance on his target, then switch to your other weapons at medium-short range (~200-250m). At the beginning of a match, while you're moving into position, you can move your crosshair around to point at the ground at different ranges. Watch your weapon HUD in the lower right, and note at what ranges it changes color. Black means the distance to whatever's under your reticle is such that the black weapon is ineffective, and most weapons' peak damage is within half their max range. Missiles are the exception. PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range, too.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

My keyboard is old and some of the keys stick. Well, my "B" key decided to stick during my first match and I couldn't do anything. I did a little better the longer I played. Watching some of the other folks in the smaller Mechs made me feel old. I watched a guy in a Raven circle strafe an Atlas for a good minute or two. It was pretty impressive.

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Raell Kromwell

Official Beginner Tutorial released with yesterday's patch:
[youtube]mmtt6XiC3rA[/youtube]

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Yeah, no kidding. Me, too.

That's why I don't drive an Atlas, nor anything in the Light class. I find that Hunchbacks are rugged enough to take a punch or two if I get caught out of position, and Catapults have an impressive torso twist range. So neither demands me to circle-strafe like a champ, and both can defend reasonably against it (either naturally having the twist to track my target well around most of the circle or just high-tailing it back to buddies) without blowing a gasket or godlike maneuvering skills.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yesterday I got ROFL-stomped by pre-mades a few too many times and decided the time had come to start dropping with groups.

I learned 2 very important things:

• Dropping with a full group of 8, and coordinating team efforts via Teamspeak, is infinitely better than getting the snot beat out of you because you're pugging
• My video card is not good enough to run MWO well. Someone in the group told me how to bring up the FPS meter (F9) and I saw that even with the lowest settings, I was averaging 12 FPS

Point 2 really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, given that I'm still running the GeForce GT 220 I picked up back in 2010, but the game was running smoothly enough that I didn't realize just how bad it was.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

OK, a GT 640 (and a new power supply to support it) has eased my woes. I'm amazed at how much better the game looks, and how smoothly it runs.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I still have this problem.


I have been playing a bit longer now. I've gotten better at driving and shooting. I am still often the first person blown up. I tend to be rather stupid at times. I am running in a tweeked Centurion that I am loving so much. Having AMS really helps as all the LRM whores always seem to find me.

I do wonder about how much damage the weapons do vs. what they did in the table top game.

I mean really, if I shot a Commando three times in a row with a PPC and Large Laser it wouldn't run away from me at 90 mph. It would be dead.

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Raell Kromwell

Currently my favorite build:
Catapult CPLT-C1
2x LRM 10s w/Artemis (6 tons ammo)
4x Medium Lasers
AMS (1 ton ammo)

Max armor, top speed 80 kph, really good heat efficiency ... I can rain death from the other side of a far-away hill, or deal some pretty nasty up-close damage if forced to brawl.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I saw someone in game today with pretty much that build. Granted, this is while I was dead and spectating...hehe. Is the Artemis working as advertised?

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Raell Kromwell