Sorry, so much bad advice in this video.... The early priority missions and mercenary missions up to 2.5 skills are pretty easy first playthrough (I had no problem despite not understanding any of the key pilot skills). The problem is you just don't understand basic strategy game tactics. 1. Focus fire: DO NOT FOCUS FIRE ON THE MOST DANGEROUS ENEMY!!! Focus fire on the easiest to kill enemy, the key is to take out as many guns as possible before they shoot at you. Vehi cles and turrets first. If you get bogged down firing all your weapons at the strongest enemy mech you will be taking damage from support units the whole time. 2. KEEP MOVING WHILE DOING 1. If you stop, brace (seriously!?) and fight it out, you're just taking unnecessary damage. If you keep on dashing, the AI invariably gets strung out. Then you can engage them 1 by 1, fastest (and weakest) mech first taking minimal damage. 3. Customize your mechs ASAP. The stock mechs are rubbish. Mechs need to be specialized by range. Melee+SRM boat, finisher (AC20 later, PPC early on) , LRM boat. 4. L lasers and PPCs are literally the worst weapons in the game due to heat. The only reason to carry these is if you don't have enough laser slots for M lasers or enough available weight for AC20. Compare your weapons by dividing DMG/weight DMG/heat.
Savage. I agree completely, except I keep a few mechs with PPCs for the fact it has infinite ammo, and that its 50 dam / attack is sweet in Polar and Tundra biomes. But 2 mechs out of 12 / 3 out of 18 max. I'd also like to point out that falling back and destroying mechs that establish a LOS and allow indirect fire from turrets or those small vehicles that throws hundreds of LRM can be smart too, even if you're relatively immobile while doing so. Finally, there's a nuance to be brought. Not "customize ASAP", but certainly not waste a single day of travel time. Just do them one at a time tho.
Get the fortify skill and go in forest for 50% damage reduction. Large lasers are great, on certain mech they are far more accurate for location shooting. I have taken many heads with these.
@@edwardcullen1739 ...said "Dead-eye" Unther from Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries. "Battletech fan" channel has a guide to install on Windows 10. Check description, everything you need is there.
I'm fairly new to the game (started last week) and only have light/medium mechs at the moment. my favorite loadout so far is a Vulcan with 2 MG++, 3 S Lasers, and some epically long jump jetting. This is definitely a fragile build since I had to strip a little bit of armor, but as long as he has 5-6 ticks of evasion he rarely takes heavy damage. Basically I just harass the big boys by shooting crits on their backs and peacing out lol. PCC's I'm on the fence with.... ACs are nice, but their ammo is very sparse and doesn't bode well if a mission goes into triple overtime. Once you're out of ammo, you're pretty much a melee or aggro mech now. PPC has a lot going against it with space, heat, and tonnage BUT you can shoot it indefinitely and from extremely long range. It helps offer some stability damage and is a nice direct hit weapon versus spread damage. But generic PPCs are just kind of meh, once I got my first PPC+ or other variants I became a fan of them.
The one thing I wish I had know before I lost every single pilot I had would have to be that there is an eject button in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, right next to the pilots name.
Well. Nothing said here is technically "wrong" but it is kinda not the best advice. Now I am no pro by a long shot. But here is some stuff to add to your list. 1. You pay to jump from system to system. Money gone, no compensation. Do as many missions as you can in a system early on, that you can handle. No useless jumping around. Sometimes travel is paid. That may be ok. 2. Store unused mechs. They cost you money when they are in your bays. Only keep what you need and maybe 1 or 2 extras in case of damaged mechs after a mission. 3. Look for weapons with +s behind them. They cost a little more but have special abilities. They are often worth it. Especially the ones that do stability damage. I will explain later. 4. Train your mechwarriors and keep thier morale up. These allow you to use special abilities such as bulwark and precision. sensor look on one fo your first mechs to move can do wonders for your game. Read 5. 5. As a personal practice of mine. Load lrms. 15 to 20 racks work best. They can fire indirectly with a sensor lock. Therefore your mechs avoid return fire. Also they do alot of stability damage. Once a mechs stability is gone it will fall over. Causing pilot damage and allowing any mech of yours that can fire on it to target specific locations. If you can wound the pilot 4 or 5 times the mechs is knocked out and you can salvage the whole mech if you have enough salvage picks. Good why to get mechs you want for your stable. 6. Create mechs that have specific roles. I run two that are my tanks. They soak damage and can often one shot other mechs. Especially if you have knocked them over and you can freely target center torso. I also run two pure lrm boats. These are to knock down mechs. Also all attacks reduce evasion and can eliminate it. Mechs can normally one shot vehicles with a physical attack. Make your sensor guy a mech that give and take alot of damage. Jump jets on that build also help alot. For obvious reasons. So much more but I want to move on. You will learn these as you go. 7. Don't rush straight at the enemy. Chose your terrian and pull him to you. Often times you can get them to trickle in one at a time. Plus you chose where the battle takes place. 8. Focus fire! Combined damage is almost op. 9. Lrms are almost op. 10. Sensor lock is your friend. 11. Precision shot is also your friend. 12. Bulwark is a real close buddy. 13. Know the mission you are going on. Bionome, type of mission and such. You can plan accordingly and it is listed in the contract. 14. Use water if you have it and your mech runs hot. It helps. Btw water is also a chum. 15. Know your mech's facing and use it. If you left side is damaged, show them your right side. 16. Don't rush thru the story missions. Gain cash, experience, and equipment. Do them when youbare confident you can. 17. If your pilot is close to beening destroyed you can eject and save thier lives.you also get the mech back after the mission. 18. Save your game in tough battles. You may have to go back or try a few times to win it or get the salvage you want. I could go on but. 19. Morale and training matters! Special abilities will make your game so much easier.
Lets add few more: 20. Vigilance is your friend. 21. Every pilot should have Bulwark. Than you have choose between master tactician or breaking shots. So Lancer or Vanguard pilots are the best in my opinion. 22. Focus fire on the heaviest mech unlest it is 100 toner. 23. Focus fire on vehicles. 24. Precision strike legs if you want two part of mech. 25. Aim for arms if you want all 3 parts. Idea is to knock mech down several times. 26. In begging don't change mech to much. For example for Blackjack remove AC/2s, put in one AC/5 and some extra armor. 27. Short ranged weapons are doing more damage per ton than long ranged ones. 28. If you lose armor on the head of mech, pull him back!!! 29. AI usually targets the closest mech. So use several of yours to tank. So when first is battered, he goes back, and fresh one moves up forward. 30. If you have 3 slots for support weapons use MGs. They are rally powerful. Otherwise use S lasers. 90 m of range is 3 dots, so it isn't that short. 31. Do all the contracts (if you can) on some planet before move to another. 32. Get the F%$&*^$ Argo. 33. And the big one. When your ship is transferring from planet to planet, you can use that time to refit the mechs.
Disagree on the Bulwark on everyone. It's useful, but not critical. Ace Pilot (for shooters) and Master Tactician (for the tactician with sensor lock) are my favorites, and I use Multishot too much to drop it in favor of Bulwark. I get Bulwark for the tanky pilot (Behemoth, usually) who gets to go forward and tank the damage while dishing out hurt from static position. By the time their mech gets low on armor, enemy is usually reduced enough that my jump-capable Ace Pilots can handle tanking for a couple turns.
if you get to aim your shot aim for the head ... get more mech for your dmg ... ignore the torso on aimed shots ... always aim for the head on aimed shots .. 1 ppc hit to the head and you get a free mech with little to no damage ... blow its torso you get some arms and legs ... always have a scout mech of some sort .. doesnt have to be light but fast and with a great view range and weapons to cover long and medium ranges ... medium rnaged weapons have no lower limit so they work great at short range and hit harder than their short range counter parts ... NEVER take more than 1 misslie boat in a lance ... you lose too much firepower having more .. when you can have a medium scout mech liek a shadow hawk and then two medium or heavy mechs to pump rounds into the enemy at any range you find them and even walk in and slap them up side the head if needed
@MosesBad Well first you need to knock out vehicles, and than you should shot at the heaviest mech that you can easily kill. Light one have tendency to come earlier, but even if they came alongside some heavier staff, their bite isn't so hard. You can tank light mechs. By the way in 22 I say heaviest UNLEAST it is 100 toner. Atlas is 100 toner, so he is excluded. This was all sort of beginners advice. when player see Atlas in the battle, he isn't beginner any more, right.
DarthCuda true. My first mechwariior casualty (no savescaming!) came from Demolisher randomly shooting its head off with an AC20. Vehicles are pretty easy to deal with is you have a mobile mech to melee them though. And I think the scariest of them is SRM carrier. Seriously. Shreck or Demolisher can miss most of their shots. But if you let the SRMC take a shot your mech will have major armor loss all over the place.
Don't take this the wrong way, I want to give you constructive feedback, not put you down, but you need a lot more experience before you go giving out advice. Much of it in this video is wrong or at the very least not the best advice that should be given in the situation. If you're a new player, yes, don't go rushing into higher difficulty missions, sure. But don't be afraid of the campaign missions either. The sooner you get onto the Argo, the better, as you will get much better tech and med points allowing you to get your 'Mechs and pilots back into action from repairs, modifications and injuries. On that note, DO NOT modify your 'Mechs before you get the Argo. The stock 'Mechs, in most cases, are good enough to get you through the early missions and the downtime of refits on the Leopard are just not worth it. You're also right about the need for pilots... do not hire any more, but you should also pay attention to how you specialise the pilots you do have. On my second run through, I made all my pilots Lancers and Vanguards. This suits my long-term strategy. Think about what pilots you want at the endgame and start aiming for them right away. May not be easy to know for new players, so my tip is this: The important skills for your pilots are Bulwark + Multishot + Breach shot for you damage dealers, and Sensor lock + either Bulwark or Mobility for your "scout". I say scout with "" because at the end game, this will be a Heavy or even an Assault 'Mech, so you don't want useless abilities for it. In battles... don't use brace to soak up damage. That is actually not the best tactic. If you're bracing, you're not shooting. Use your mobility, use sensor lock to strike from beyond visible range, get into cover, like trees and shoot because they still give you a 25% reduction in damage. Use your Vigilance, when available, to soak up damage. I also saw you dismiss the Commando with 10 x SRM6s... All I can say is, LoL. Let that thing into effective range, or even worse, into your rear arc, and you'll be paying for underestimating it... Also, don't overestimate Large Lasers... I rarely if ever use them. Why? High heat and no stability damage and 5t. In practice, they're one of the worst weapons. The enemy, if they have them, will not be able to use them every turn. Trust me, those SRMs are much more dangerous. There's more there, but I've already written an essay... Get more experience, mate...
I appreciate the feedback a lot. That being said, after beating the game i stand by every single piece of advice. Planning out your pilots build is something for advanced users, people that know what they are doing, not for brand new players. All the advice is easily accessible for new mechwarriors :). All your advice is excellent though. again, thanks for the feedback
Real Biased Gaming hes right about the brace tho, the only reason to brace and not shoot is to dump heat or stability stacks. Uif you dont move but shoot you get the guarded and entrenched stack aswell, vigilance is the better skill to use, i always pick vigilance over brace
even in the lategame, i was usually using brace once per round. You do not have enough focus to always use vigilance on all 4 mechs...actually you never do. Bulwork is amazing but you have to sit still for a turn. 50% reduced damage is still 50% reduced damage and, lategame especially, i would rather have my forward tank take 50% less damage from 3+ enemy mech shots than simply get one round of shooting out of it.
Real Biased Gaming bulwark is indeed a situational skill, but guarded and entrenched is a buff you get when you dont move, you dont NEED to brace to get them, guarded and entrenched give you the dmg and stability hits reductions, brace just adds heat sinking and drops your stability stacks that you accumulated up till then, try it out in a skirmish you'll see what i mean, just a tip ;)
"In practice, they're one of the worst weapons. The enemy, if they have them, will not be able to use them every turn." lol, I have 7 of them on my awesome and unless it's a hot map can use them every turn
My tips: Evasion is king in lower levels and tonnage. This means "sensor lock" is way more deadly than given credit. Sensor Lock also reduces the locked mech's chance of hitting meaning it is both offensive and defensive. Use a "shotgun" approach to do damage across multiple sections until a weakness can be determined, then immediately use a called shot on the weakened area. SRM's are your friends. **ACTION ECONOMY IS A VERY REAL THING IN THIS GAME** Action economy is a principle used in a lot of tabletop games in order to add or remove challenge. If the player has more actions, they will find it easier. If a player has less actions, things become super hard super quick. This can even apply with a bunch of small turds running about with medium lasers. Unless you can score some good critical damage on a heavier mech it might be more worthwhile to simply remove a smaller mech just to reduce the amount of hostile actions against you. You'll be amazed how much more breathing room you get when you're not having your mech pummeled 3 or 4 times before you do something. **INITIATIVE ROLE IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU CREDIT IT** If you have a mix of light and medium mechs against a lance of heavies, you actually have the benefit here. You have four actions before they can even do anything at all. Using this, you can play with initiative and make your attacks even more devastating. If you send your light mechs on a sprint command on the previous turn with high piloting they will have enough evasion to ignore almost everything, some mediums can also do this. Using this, reserving your attack until initiative 1 means the light mechs can immediately attack AGAIN the next turn before the heavy can do much all anything. This essentially means you get TWO hits against back armor. You can also take the time to whittle or get into better position by exploiting the fact that you have four actions before the enemy gets a single turn in. In some later story missions, this becomes less effective simply because the swarm tactics of the enemy will ultimately reduce if not utterly ignore all the evasion. *_BECAUSE OF THE ABOVE TWO I USUALLY ADOPT A "SPEED IS KING" ATTITUDE WITH THIS GAME_* Primary fire targets. *Do it.* DO NOT spread damage around unless you know you can cripple components in the volley. You aren't forced to upgrade the ship. Plus signs (+) mean a stronger weapon, the more +'s the better. Sometimes better than salvaging certain mech components. You will generally want mixed unit composition; usually in the form of a brawler/tank, calvalry/scout, and long-range support. Scouts can sensor lock and can evasion tank on certain mechs. Sometimes it's just good enough to sprint around like a madman with Vigilance and a ton of evasion just to provide vision on enemy units. Sometimes you can also exploit the EXCESSIVELY aggressive AI into splitting their forces. ALWAYS find a way to split up enemy forces. Usually this can be done by attacking from certain angles. If one approach proved to be bad, find another angle. ALWAYS see what you can do to flank and get rear shots. A medium or light mech can almost certainly blow a hole in the enemy back CT and gib it right from the start. Never underestimate the damage reduction from Guarded/Cover with BULWARK. 40% is nothing to snort at, sometimes it's just better to conserve heat and/or shoot a different target than missing a chunk of damage. Stay together unless you absolutely have to split up due to time restrictions, works with the above tip of splitting enemy fire. You want your full combat capacity on everything that engages you.
Your main problem (back then) was Leopard. It have very weak tech ability. Once you get Argo, and start upgrading it, tech ability increases. When that happens, you can fix and refit mech much faster. You need more than 5 pilots, 6-7 of them, as well as 6-7 mech. So when pilot is injured, or mech is on repair, you have reserve one for fighting.
I only got a sixth pilot because I wanted to hire a Ronin (an unique character), and never deployed them, only kept them on the Argo, soaking up Exp from the simulators, same as poor Medusa... Though he got to deploy a couple of times in the early game when my titular character took a three month recuperative due to multiple injuries :)
Understanding the stability bar really helps too. Using combined attacks to knock mechs down for called shots is extremely useful for salvage and surviving in general. Going for all salvage and selling the completed mechs eventually really helped my finaces, it takes awhile but once you have alot of mech parts you can build a light mech or medium mech almost everytime after every contract. Sometimes 2 or 3, that adds up after awhile. Really good tips in your video too.
Thanks for the response! And yes, it really felt like all the money issues were at the start of the game. If you were smart and sold mech parts then you had millions by the end of the game
1. I don't get how you played to day 380(?) and don't know what the pilot designations mean. They're listed on your own pilots in the barracks when you train them up. 2. Dekker is in your light mech because he has sensorlock. That was a valid choice you made, yet you sound like you don't know? 3. You Braced a mech without moving! And the pilot doesn't have bulwark ... even if brace had been valid at least move him first to also build up evasion. 4. You went bankrupt, yet your tip #1 ISN'T to always have enough c-bills for next months payday? The amount you need is right there in the top left corner of the screen when inside the ship. 5. You do know you can change the order your mechs are being fixed, right? it sounds like you went out of business due to a lack of mechs, but I refuse to believe there wasn't a short refit job you could have pulled up in priority. Or you could cancel the customizing of one or two of the mechs.
I guess i am confused about what you are trying to prove here. I made a list of things that i learned after about 10 hours of gameplay. I learned a hell of a lot more in the next 70 hours i spent on this game for sure, but 10 hours in I wanted to share what wisdom I had gained with YT.
I hugely disagree with your advice about bracing. in my game I only brace if for whatever reason I don't have a valid offensive shot. It's something to do when there's literally nothing else to do.
It is very smart to use it when overheating or when your tank mech walks forward and needs to sit still for a turn to get bulwark. I think it is just important to remember it is there. it can save a mechs life more often than not if it gets focused by multiple enemies.
Well yes, I consider overheating to be a situation where you don't have a valid offensive shot. I think I've used bulwark once? It's just not part of how I play the game. Perhaps it's a sign of the game's goodness that it can be played radically differently by different people.
wait...you have beat the game without using bulwark OR brace??? How tho. So many of my mechs would have died if i never took advantage of 50% DAMAGE REDUCTION!
I use Brace all the time, I just never use it when there's an offensive option (or a positioning option, I often sprint in combat when I feel it'll get my mech into an advantageous place). Like, it's my turn, I can't get LOS on any target, sure, move and then Brace, why not? I definitely never use Bulwark. It's expensive and I want every Precision Shot I can possibly get. Also, aside from one particular mission I never use LRMs.
you are right about varied playstyles. certainly speaks to the depth of the game. I brought LRM boats on 80% of my missions. They often dealt twice as much balance damage as a melee attack would and longest range in the game is not bad. I skipped out on offensive options in order to use brace all the time because too often you are fighting more than 4 mechs at once. any mech getting shot at by 3 assault and 2 heavy mechs is going to die. moving then bracing one of your mechs is HUGE in 4 and 5 skull missions imo
If you want to try out stock mechs, go into the Skirmish mode, you can go vs computers, you can also use this to get used to certain weapon types and figure out your own strategies.
1. make a safe before you take a contract that way if you underestemated the difficulty of a contract you can go back and choose another one There is already a pre deployment safe autosafe, so if you just want to rerun a battle as you think you could do better use that ^^ I played the game on hard with 4 parts per mech and in averrage every 13 to 15 missions i needed to load as i fucked something up. 2. concentrate on mech parts not the money when negotiating money only as much you need to stay currently a float, but the real earnings come from selling mechs 3. To get more mech parts, learn how to position to get more shots on head or feet which when shot out gives you more parts called shot meanwhile got nerved but with the tactician skill line you get mastery called shots which helps still. 4. For special skills have at least always 2 people which have Bulwark. 50% dmg reduction + 25% from tree cover !!! Heavy hitters , glass cannons in the back line. Every other Special skill i see as optional and depends on your playstyle. I love the gunnery Multishot as it is efficient and combines very well with Breaching Shot when you f.e. have 2 PPC and Multishot 2 guys, each get the breaching shot bonus.
Remember to replace "You're playing the game wrong" with something less insulting. Yes they might have a hard time and maybe even lose a few times, but there is nothing wrong with trying weird and unconventional tactics if you're having fun with it. I built a Rock-Em-Sock-Em squad stacked with flamers and had tons of fun. I lost a few Mechs from time to time but there is nothing "wrong" about the way we choose to play.
There are very few things that are actually wrong, here. Most of what is wrong comes down to phrasing. Having said that, I feel like I need to offer you some tutoring sessions. Now, I came to this game with a basic understanding of Battlemech tactics, so I breezed through most of the campaign. A lot of the early issues come from the business simulator portion of the game. If you don't know basic tactics AND you don't follow a few simple business management rules, you will fail. Here is a VERY basic guide for new players: #1 -- Play the Skirmish side of the game. As you log in, you have an option to jump into the campaign or play in skirmish mode. Skirmishes can be single player or online multi. You can make custom mechs. You can play with pre-built lances in 4 Tiers of games on maps that represent EVERY biome you can encounter with every weather condition. Play there until you can defeat the AI a couple of times on a 15 M and a couple of times on 20M. (feel free to try 25M and Unlimited, too.) #2 -- The 1st time you get to set the monthly budget, cut the salaries. How severely you cut it should depend on how well you did on that 1st Merc mission. Keep it cut back until you have about 6 months of operating expenses. Then you can work it back to the middle of the scale. (Each of those pips on the Upper Left display is for months left at current operation costs.) If I have a year's worth of funding, you can bet I'm going for Morale+ as much as I can. #3 -- You are going to want to build up your stable of mech pilots. Mechwarriors get injured and die. That's Battletech in a nutshell. Start slow. 1 here or there that has some skill you might lack. Getting them young and training them yourself is cheaper, but means you will probably have a few more deaths. Be on the lookout for special pilots. Some, like your starting pilots, are labeled "Ronin". This means that if you fire them or they die, you will never see them again in that save file. Then there are the people that funded the Kickstarter at a level to be put into the game. The Kickstarter and Ronin pilots were each hand-crafted by HBS and often have unique voices. All of the others are a product of procedural generation. #4 -- This game rewards aggression, but crushes over-extension. Heat management is key. Everything your mech does creates Heat, including Walking and Sprinting. The game doesn't show any Heat that is automatically dissipated by the Heatsinks in the engine. This can lead to frustration on maps (like Lunar maps) where you sink much less Heat than normal and you sprint away with a hot mech to find it over heating. "But I didn't do anything!" is often the frustrated cry. Well, yes, you did. You Sprinted, thus you built up more Heat than you sank at the end of your turn. Always check your Heat. Turn off weapon systems to lower Heat generation. Brace. My preferred method for extra Heat sinking is to Melee. Any mech can melee. Not every mech should consider melee with every other mech. OK, that turned out longer than intended, but it should get a new player going. On the issue of Bracing - If you are bracing as much as is said in the video, then you are not being aggressive enough. The 2 exceptions to this rule are Lunar and Martian maps, where Bracing to reduce Heat is a VERY valid option. The other is when you have a crap-ton of LRMs incoming. If it's SRMs, you should kill it it with RANGED attacks. LRMs, just move in as fast as you can and brace. Especially with a Gryphon, Shadow Hawk, etc. that can get in close the next move. LRMs, PPCs, AC2, and AC5 all have minimum ranges, but the missiles have the most Stability damage with relatively light base damage. They have what is know as a "sandpapering" effect. Lots of little damage all over. Even if Breached, the Brace still cuts the Stability damage. Anyways, feel free to PM me if you want to set up some Skirmish tutorial time. Or look me up through the Paradox matching system in game. My pilot tag is "Gamer". I'm on Twitch and Steam, as well.
Things I learmned. Keep in with the pirates so you get access to the Black Market. Don't ally with anyone. Marauder with autocannons and a pilot with good guns and tactics = 35% headshot chance! High tactic pilots shoot first. Use initiative to shoot off enemies biggest weapons - then they can't hurt you. Best lance set up is one missile boat, one long range with guns, one short range brawler and a beefy scout.
when you add skills to a pilot, you get a title depending on which skills you unlock. Defender has the Guts tree. Tactition obviously has the Tactics tree. When you unlock your 2nd and 3rd skills you will get a different title
For me in battle is, Focus Fire. When ever possible have all of your team shoot at the same target. Each target you take out is one less that can damage your team, and the sooner you can take out a target is less damage it do to you. Or a Ac20 called-shot to the head will take out any mec. in the game, and it is a hell of a lot of fun.
#10 use scout/deffender wisely. And another two LRM Archers piloted by tactician (archer is available since beginning and LRM useful for indirect fire). Aim for CT.
So just to sum up: Tips 1-4: don't run your company like some sort of game, run it as a business. Make investments (read: missions) that you can feel you can come back from if they go south, but occasionally a risk might equal a payoff. Don't spend more then you earn, and save for if your company is falling on bad times. If your going to upgrade (read refit a mech) do so wisely, as it won't be avliable to you. And always remember that you will need to pay your bills. Tips 5-8: I'm going to go a little more free-form here: Control the battlefeild. Find the best position to occupy and use it. Reposition as needed. Focus fire on priority targets. While both bracing and evasion may seem scary, you can get rid of evasion just by shooting at a target and they all go away if you do enough stability damage to make them unsteady. There are two tips I'd like to make. 1)Remember to share armor between all your mechs. While having a tank is good, armor is a finite recourse. Your tank will run out of it, and structure damage will take time and money to repair. However, armor is free to repair and takes no time. If your good at rotating who's taking damage so that your lance takes as little structure damage as possable, your turnaround time is much improved. 2) Melee is a tactical recourse. While you are right in that you shouldn't be always in melee, it's still quite useful. It deals a lot of stability damage, and you only get heat from the movement your mech made, which makes cooling off very easy (you also are still doing damage, which is a plus). Melee is also a good option to finish something off if you want to save ammo, and takes down vehicles almost instantly. If your doing good armor sharing, chances are you'll have at least one enimey in melee range when you need it.
The starting lance you get is very strong. You can do 2 skull missions with it. I changed the starting mechs to 3 locust, 1 commando and 1 urbie. And also change so you need 5 pieces to make a mech or otherwise its to easy.
And this is why old campaigners from back in the day playing table top have an advantage here We learned these lessons before ( and we had to do all the calculations by hand ) This is not a fps game
I'm of the personality type that grinded for heavy mechs before I even dipped my toe into anything even remotely serious. By the time I was doing 1.5/2 skull contracts, I was rolling a Warhammer, an Archer, a Rifleman, and a Firestarter.
Hello. Nice video, though I want to add a couple tips into the jar: 1) Combine experimenting with loadouts and major repairs. Only reimagine a mech loadout if it returned from battle severely mangled. This way you save on Mech downtime and don't mess up your mechs. Like seriously - the fact that a mech returned from battle in one piece probably means its loadout is fine. 2) Use your light mechs to melee. Yes. This sounds kind of counterintuitive. But this is a very usefut trick actually. Firstly - light mechs don't usually pack a lot of weapons so you don't lose much by not shooting. Secondly - lights are usually mobile enough and can run quite some distance to melee so you are more likely to have them in melee range when needed. And lastly but most importantly - you don't melee an enemy to deal damage. You melee to knock an enemy out of brace before your other mechs shoot it to pieces.
good advice! I think meleeing with light mechs is pretty advanced stuff to get it right. very difficult to do without completely exposing your light mech to enemy fire on its rear armor.
Real Biased Gaming on one hand - yes. Meleeing should be executed with caution as you are likely to expose your mechs rear. On the other hand - light mechs don't usually have that much armor on the front. So if your light gets hit with something like PPC or AC20 it doesn't really matter if you get hit in the front or in the back. Light mechs should be protected by evasion. And (unlike Guarded) evarion still works if you get shot in the back.
Also, consider the Firestarter when you have access to it. It can mount a lot of support weapons that get a free attack after melee. Even with vanilla flamers, you can do a bit of chip damage, and up to 60 heat... If you can find some advanced flamers, the 60 actual damage is an OK combo. Or, try 6 S Laser w/30 damage for a 180(!) damage follow-up after a punch. There are heavies that have trouble doing that kind of damage, but you do have to get into melee range for it. Best to use Vigilance before going in with it, because that is an expensive loadout, and you'll cry if you lose too many precious ++ items
I would 'consider' adding 1 thing ... for those enemy units that have multi-chevron's (and maybe braced), perhaps consider firing 1 weapon at that unit in your attack (say, if you have 5 med.lasers, fire 1 at (each?) one of those harder to hit guys as this will reduce their evasion ability and make further attacks easier (in that round only. When they move, the ratings change again). I know this is a given, but for a new player, this might be a useful tactic, especially if you have something with a lot of small weapons on board and the multi-target feature available. Some enemy your chance to hit is like 20% due to evasion bonus or cover, one shot from a low level weapon reduces the evasion, and a (surprising) hit at low levels can reduce stability and brace (with enough hits). BUT, no sense firing ALL of your weapons at a hard to hit target where you could be wasting ammo and heat rations/stores. You may need that heat availability later for a good alpha strike :) As in your video, I really dislike how when you knock out a turret generator, all the attached turrets blow up. What? Why? Power down, yes, but blow up ... no. That should be 'reconsidered', but it's not a huge deal (it's just kind of ... wrong?). Decent video by the way. Articulate. Informative. Well planned out. I like it.
You can modify item cost and then sell them. Made a small laser worth 10million. Also you want to focus fire. And if you have called shot aim torso. After blowing that out it will also take out any arm weapons
NEVER call shot to torso ALWAYS go for the head ... you save more mech for salvage ... the torso is fine for regular damage ... but a called shot on the head say befoee it gets to fire its forst salvo ever with a ppc or a couple large lasers or an ac20 and you have a headless mech that is undamaged basically ... ALWAYS HEAD .. for aimed shots ALWAYS .. the only exception is when you cant hit the head at all ..
I have heard (do not know if it is true) that factions that like you are more accurate in reporting the difficulty of a mission (skull indicators). Factions that do not like you much will tend to low ball the difficulty because why not? Hence your story-line missions tend to be a bit easier because they like you and tend to overestimate the difficulty. (Again...rumor I heard on another Battletech channel around here.)
I had a great one with i had too much tonnage so had to make small 50 ton mechs after i focused on 80 to 100 ton mechs. Some of the flashpoints are just ehh with having to have light to medium mechs.
ya I can never seem to take a trebuchet out without loosing an lrm15 put jump jets on every mech, getting stuck on a cliff and having to backtrack has cost me a lot of mechwarriors and mechs
Thank you. Your video, plus the many comments below, were a good source of information. I'm currently around 10 hours and the suggestions by you and others have me new perspective.
I managed to go bankrupt one time. I just reloaded and took a quick easy mission for max cash. Problem solved. What got me was trying to improve the Argo too fast and not paying attention to costs. Bulwark is your friend. I give it to all my pilots but the scout. He gets evasive moves or ace piloting. I love this game and I'm on my fourth of fifth play through now. Oh, when mech s are over heating, melee is a good way to do damage and cool off at the same time plus it my ripple the enemy.
Real Biased Gaming While I've only played the table top version once, I've played nearly every computer related game since my ATARI 800 days. I'm really looking forward to the new MW MERCENARIES that's coming out later this year I think. I even beta tested an early online version of MW years ago. Sadly they pulled the plug on it.
I appreciate the sincerity of the video. The video is about 5 things he learned the hard way, not "I am an expert, learn from me n00b", so any criticism about giving advice to newbies makes no sense. If that is what you learned, that is basically true. I also appreciate having a new battletech fan in the community. Given the competitive nature of videogames, comments may be more harsh that they should be. If you play tabletop Battletech, things are different. Tabletop is more an excuse to share a cup of coffee with friends and have a good time, not really something to show off "I am better than you" style. I suspect you may like to check the tabletop game and its community. Search "Battletech catalog" and you will see what tabletop has to offer.
I just got this a few days ago and one thing i can say is don't rush off from the starting area so fast. My mistake was right after i got the argo i upgraded the hell out of it and hualed ass to another area of space owned by a different faction. I was winning the fights but at a considerable cost. With only 6 mechs 2 of which were light and seemed to get instat killed the minute things get hot, I was only BARELY able to get back to the starting area. I basically underestimated those skulls that indicate difficulty. Never again. I'm back in a 1.5 skull area and building up my stock of parts (i couldn't even fully equip my mech by the time i got back lol). I think i'll be able to start the story mode again in a bit.
"You're doing it rong!" - I have no real issue with the eight tenets, though once you have a full lance of mediums doing 1,5-2,5 skull missions should be easy enough, and they pay off a LOT better. Doing just ,5 - 1 skull missions means you'll have to manage at least two missions per month just to make paycheck reliably, where a single 2 skull mission can set you up for months. From the tactical side of things, bracing when there's no real reason to (i.e. when you could be shooting) means you will be exposed to more damage, incur more repair costs and risk injury to pilots more. Only brace when there's no other reasonable thing to do. Evasion chevrons trump bracing 90% of the time, the last 10% is usually a long-range mech with a pilot that has Bulwark, that can spam LRM missiles at targets. If you need to brace to manage damage, consider using Vigilance instead (such as if you need to save a mech from toppling over from stability damage). Also, learn the stability mechanic: putting a mech on unsteady a) strips its evasion chevrons and b) gives it a large shooting penalty. Knockdown, if you can manage it (usually by hitting a mech with both LRM salvo from your support and attacks from other mechs on the same turn). Knocked down mech is open to called shots to Center Torso, which is the fastest way to put a mech down permanently. A mech that has to stand up on its turn will have an even bigger accuracy penalty. Don't melee if you can shoot, or if the melee is almost certainly going to destroy your target. Only Death From Above (Melee with jump-jets) as a last resort, as it's very risky to the attacking mech. Oh, and melee vehicles if they are in the same weight class or below as your mech, meleeing vehicles does double damage and usually puts them down. These aren't rules, but more in the way of a guideline for how I managed to get through the main campaign without too much difficulty.
NEVER CALL SHOT TORSO .. always call shot head .. gives better salvage ... and 1 ppc or 2 llaser or an ac20 .. all will remove a mech head in one turn on a called shot .. tis also allows you to dump some excess heat as well or fire at the next victim or mission objective as well ... also use alpha strike sparingly .. its not worth the dmg to you from overheating.
I've got 90 hours in, use precision often and have tried head shots and I have < 2% success. I'll miss ten shots at the head, where I'll core the center in far fewer.
Even using all the defensive options I keep getting injured pilots because one or two attacks from the ai will result in a crit hit. Completely random. Also have had an ai mech crippled......but it melees one of my mechs at full health and knocks off a limb?
Brace should only be used if you are in the open with no clear line of fire to an enemy, on unstable terrain, or if your mechs stability is threatened. Firing into the rear armor of a mech at close range debuffs it. Bulwark is your friend. Sensor locking is your friend. Using fast scouts with sensor lock is your friend. Morale of mech jocks carry over into the battlefield. .....and many many others
For starters bracing BAD!!! If it's not for a cooling turn because of heat build up you should be shooting. One spare pilot is good but it is all you need to start, That goes for meches as well. No you don't discount melee, just use it correctly, it can save you in some of the high heat areas. thx
only real advice you need for any mech game is this always have a balanced lance as in have one scout one brawler(AC-and short range lasers ) and one that stays back and is a missile mech this one thing can save your life also if you have more mechwarriors than you can field then fire the one with the least xp as this will save you about 25,000-30,000 a month as they are not worth just having sit there
I got the Rougetech mod and it's been a while snice I've played this game and I very much did not remember that this game can be brutal and then with rougetech it makes it more like the tabletop so I got wiped by 1 mech
Using Brace rather than firing the suite of M lasers he had was bad advice. You use brace if you have no heat available so can't shoot. The M Laser is the best damage per ton weapon in the game your vindicator could have wrecked the light Mech in front of him. Melee can do a lot damage and cause stability damage which can result in a knockdown and pilot injury and then free called shots on the downed mech. Especially if your Mech is heavier than the Mech you are attacking it can often result in destroying the hard point you hit. It is certainly the way to take out vehicles if they are close as they take extra damage from melee. Better tip would have been to concentrate fire and gang up on a single mech using terrain to try and isolate so that all your lance can fire but not all the enemy can fire on you.
yeah that is a really good tip. I should have put "focus fire" in there as one of my top tips no doubt. The gameplay from the video here is really just for me to show the different mechanics. I agree, bracing when i did in the video was not, tactically, the best decision. I was just using it as an example. This video was made for rookies, people brand new to the game. Certainly i expect players to ignore my rules once they get the hang of the tactics and start to develop their own playstyle. But i think my list is very helpful for people just starting out
M laser don't have the best damage per ton. If that commando were hit with 1 flamer, it would sustained 75 damages for 1 ton of flamer weight. Also support weapons have better damage per ton than M lasers.
My best advice is just do some easy missions to get money. Any time you do a mission without taking significant damage, it is basically free money as you can jump into another mission with no wait time.
Thanks for the tips, like you I thew myself into this without giving it much thought ( a strategy game ? , why would I ? ;) ). Going to enjoy this a lot more now, cheers =)) . Question: Are the stock Mech set ups the best versions ?
Stock Mech setups tend to favor a mix of ranged weapons and generally have workable setups, but each of the mechs can be optimized to better suit your playstyle. I favor heavy autocannons (AC10 and AC20) and large LRM racks, as well as SRM6 launchers. I fill the loadouts up with medium lasers after that. I tend to focus fire on one enemy mech at a time, going for knockdowns and fast disables as much as possible. I know AC5's and PPC's work better for longer-range work, but they don't really do it for me.
*BJ-1. Fire Support:* Let's give this bad baby 4 medium lasers that are wasted at range because it is at range, and wasted in close combat because of overheating and jump jets being a much better choice! Seriously, tho, if you do not experiment a bit, like having a mech with next to no armor, two LRM 25 (or more), a few heat sinks and 8 crates of ammos, so that you keep it in the back as a form of artillery, you're not really trying.
I agree with some of the other guys. Your advice is quite general and it depends to your playstyle. If you have a melee Build up just get close and punch them. And using bracing a lot helps for what excactly? You just get shot slower. Then rather use vigilance for example (guarded, entrenched,-1initiative and you can shoot) Maybe first go a bit deeper into the game and review the advice video.
Thanks for the feedback. This video was made after failing my first attempt at the campaign when I only made it several months in. If i made a tactics video after having beat the game then yes, the advice would certainly be different. As for bracing specifically, yes I would brace ALL the time, IF I did not have vigilance, instead of taking shots on the enemy with 60% or less chance to hit. Especially if it was a mech that was out in front. If I had an ability that lowered all damage taken by 50% during my next turn in XCOM (which I am currently streaming) you can bet I would be using it a lot. But yeah, this advice was designed to be a starting point where people move on and find their own tactics from. this is absolutely not some endgame super-next-level tactics video :)
Melee is a viable attack option. There a hit and run melee builds that really pack a solid punch. A good melee hit on the back with a laser follow-up really messed up the enemy
@@dallassukerkin6878 In this game they generate a lot of heat and don't do enough damage to justify using them in most builds. Their one saving grace is they do stability damage while lasers don't but if you care only about raw damage that means little.
@@dallassukerkin6878 For the record, I try really hard to incorporate them in some of my builds cuz they ARE really cool. Its just... "why debuff and set people up when you can destroy them instead?" becomes the question at end game.
Thanks man, that really helped - just started playing and am getting my a$$ handed to me on a plate after doing the first campaign mission and choosing 1.5 skulls !? Off to the Star Map !
Yep, and now after your advice and also being told that the first few planets (initial storyline) don't hand out any missions I'm having a much simpler blast with level 0.5 and 1 missions atm; getting time to learn how to play properly :-)
TACTICS >> matter ... remember a defender has the advantage .. it takes approximately 6times the attacking force to dislodge a defender ... ... if you make them move to you you become the defender they become the attacker and you can snot locker them at will then
Somehow it doesn't surprise me that COMPLETELY INVERTING THE INITIATIVE SYSTEM AND TURN ORDER from tabletop changes the effectiveness of melee, given it almost requires the ability to get behind the enemy so you can gut punch them
If you're melleeing in a battle 4 times or more, and you're not tanked out, then you're doing it wrong. build a mech for mellee. use it, sprint when you can't attack, use it as a dodge tank.
* Put 4 medium lasers in a light mech and you have the punch of a PPC with medium range. * Use LRM5. If you wanted an LRM20 for one mech and LRM10 for another, it is better to install 4xLRM5 and 2xLRM5. Same firepower and you do not have the risk of running out of ammo. You can use LRM5 ammo for all mechs with LRM. Slight difference in tonnage and heat. * Some people have AC20 in high regard, but I do not like it. It runs out of ammo very quickly and it is too heavy. * Mechs are defined by 3 things: Armor, speed and firepower (range and damage). There is a trade off between them. * Strong armor means you can expose your mech to fire and make mistakes without paying a high price. * Speed makes your mech harder to hit. * Firepower. Know the range of your weapons. There is an optimal distance to fire. * Fast light mechs serve as spotters for mechs using LRMs. You hide the LRM mech where enemy cannot see it. Send the light mech running fast to see the enemy. Fire LRMs upon enemy. * For physical attacks, big mechs hurt more than light mechs. Punches, kicks, charge attacks, etc. * Do not use many types of weapons. You have the risk of running out of spares or ammo. * There is a tabletop game that you may like. "Battletech a game of armored combat" and "Battletech beginner box". Beginner box has simplified rules and 2 mech miniatures. The other one has 8 miniatures. There is also a book called "Mechwarrior destiny" to add very simple role play game rules to make tabletop game more engaging. It has lots of pregenerated characters and missions. To convert from Destiny to tabletop, just multiply armor by 3 and movement by 2, and that is it. It has a table to convert character skills to piloting and gunnery skill.
yeah but when you start an extra 80-150k for 2-3 extra pilots can really eat away at your income. Just take your time learning how it works without spending too much money. once you are past the argo getting a few new pilots is a solid idea
@@realbiasedgaming Use them. Have a "B" team. You have 6 slots for mechs (then 12, then 18), there's rotations that you can do, even early on, to reduce your downtime.
Also don't shoot if you have less than a 70% chance to hit the target. Look at the hit% for every weapon; if the average is all below 70% then it is better to evade, get into a better position and cool off your mech.
Man. great video. Well produced. But its sad to see that such good content and a channel that has put out so many videos doesnt have the aubscrivers it deserves. TH-cam is really tough environment to survive in.
"You want to go somewhere like Detroit"..... Ummmmm....you sure about that? It's economy has been on a constant down turn ever since the car manufacturers left. ;-)
Well, for me it was a mix of bad luck early in the game with 2 lost missions in a row as well as me being way too excited about the mech refitting system and spending thousands on that too early in the game.
Is a nice video, very instructive. In the harder battles against big mechs (three skulls missions), the only way I have won, is using a speedy mech (like the jenner) and make it run for the opposite side of the map, away of the other big three mechs. That's make the IA divide his forces and send several mechs to chase the Jenner!. Then I become shelling the ones that approach the main force!. When this enemy mechs are destroyed, I bring the Jenner with the chasing mechs to where the main task force is, usually entrenched them behind a mountain, and then begin a CQB (boxing match) with the remaining mechs using all mechs.
If your pilots hurt their heads as often as three or four of mine do, you absolutely need more than 5 pilots! (I think it's partly my lack of skill and partly RNG)
I've literally turned battles around tho because of melee. I'm talking 2 mechs down pilots ejected outnumbered 5 v 2 ppc mech arm damaged centurion right arm blown off and I literally had that mech melee 3 mechs to death in a mission and win the day for us while the other mech continued sniper fire with a ppc until its weapon was destroyed then it melee killed 2 mechs... Also close range is bad... Hahaha bs the firestarter was built for close range and if you get your hands on a phoenix hawk and add large lasers to it or heck a snub ppc and jump that bad boy a space or 2 behind an enemy mech... I've cored out much heavier mechs in one salvo with the phoenix hawk more often then I can count by blasting all the back armor
I completely disagree. Ive blown through 4 skull mission without any issue and then turn around and get wrecked on a 2 skull. The skull ratings seem to have no bearing on the actual difficulty in my experience
all the skull missions really signify is the level of the defender ... a 4 skull mission tends to have at least a lance worth of assault and heavy mechs ... if you aint ready for them then dont do them
Some of them two skull missions Like killing the diplomat or bigger mech operating In the area. Have a part where reinforcements come. Sometimes not Included in the Intel sometimes Intel is just bad and u gotta make a choice. Prior to reinforcements showing up and hopefully trickling in each pip is 100 tons ish that you will need to be able to win without to many bad choices. After they show up. Its time to leave and cut your loses once mechs are going internal and it looks iffy. Keeping the Merc score low helps generate lower difficulty missions. I find my worst enemy besides the Intel on those battlefields is my own stubbornness
did you never play any other mechwarrior game before playing this as the info your giving seems like common things anyone that has played any other mechwarrior game at all i mean half of them are merc games and any vet of them knows all this from the start
lol i would have to say that you will greatly change your views once you are in the game a bit more. Skull blips are NOT indicative to what you will encounter. They at best are a rough idea. I have had 1.5 skull missions that have cost me more than 3 skull missions. As far as more piolets, well yes they run up your cost but you need them. Once things crank up you are gonna want some piolets that are up to par. Its easy to take out a cockpit in this game, either through repetitive blows or the errant AC/20 to the face! You talk about melee, well thats a two edge sword. Yes your weapons are likely to do more damage but there are time you just gotta punch them in the face. As you are playing on a lunar map (martin as well) you will quickly learn that heat is a killer. You heatsinks do little on these maps. So instead of overheating ya just gotta swing at em. Like your style and all you just need to get further in the game and you will see where you are wrong. Its all good though keep up the videos and have fun.
Hey its all good bro. Its actually kinda funny to watch,cause i made my own really off the wall choices when i first started. I was all bout the money till i realized salvage is where its at. Oh and my favorite blunder was discounting the usefulness of morale. I always too the cheap route every month. I did not realize how helpful that morale can be.
i would suggest no mater how skilled the piolet or how much you like them fire them the second they are more than 30 days in the med bay. they are nothing more than a waste of cbills while they are in the healing up.
what about bulwark? Is that in the tabletop? Seems silly to me that standing still can reduce damage at all. Its not like these are gundams that can hold up a shield or something.
I beg to differ. If you can fit your loadout in the torso, you can save on weight by removing armor from the arms at very little cost (including the 5% accuracy). Likewise, I often precision-shot the side torsos as a way to disarm (pun intended) and wound the pilot. Saves me a bunch of attacks from the side which would otherwise just destroy the arm first.
I'm fairly new to this game but have tons of experience in similar games and can say with a fairly high level of certainty that a lot of advice in this vid is very poor. Firstly, the skull difficulty is a guide not a Rule, missions of the same Skull value can vary a LOT and you need to be prepared identify quickly if your outmatched and use evacuation and ejection techniques if needed. IF you eject you have to rebuild the head of your mech but you still keep the mech and pilot so its much better than when a mech and pilot falls. You need more than 5 pilots... you need some reserves so you can keep doing missions and earning cbills when you have some crew injuries 7-8 is a good number. I'm not going to go through this while vid, I will say there are better ones you can watch. But also target missions you want to salvage mechs and parts from and the rest of the time negotiate for the high cbill reward option. you can pay for your month with just a couple of missions by taking the cbills over salvage.
All 8 of your rules are simple common sense on the original table top "board" game. They transfer to this game very well...well except brace but hey gotta give up something in the trade off
I would love to play a tabletop demo or something! I used to manage a games workshop store so i love warhammer tabletop. maybe at the next PAX or something i can find some people to show me how to play
This video should have a disclaimer: advice from a n00b. Like seriously, your advice is only useful to new players and only partially at that. Not just new to this game but new to the Battletech universe. Only problem with that, is your information is presented in a way that a newbie wouldn't understand. It's not cohesive at all, and some things are just wrong. Especially your advice about brace, if you use brace as much as you shoot YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. And your advice about melee is flat out wrong as well. Melee is SUPER STRONG AND WAY USEFUL!! Please stop giving advice on this game. You are only going to frustrate people.
Thanks for the feedback. I completely disagree. I think all of my advice is a great starting point for players. My HOPE is that they grow out of a lot of the advice i give them and learn to create their own tactics and strategies. But as a baseline I believe this advice is helpful.
I completely disagree with the "Advice from a n00b" comment. The advice is obviously focused to a new player. Theres nothing in here thats hard to understand having played the game or not. Please stop being so judgemental in youtube. You are in fact frustrating people.
This guy shouldn’t be giving advice to anyone. “Brace 5 times a match or you’re not playing right”. It’s basically impossible to go bankrupt in this game, but with that advice i can see how you would.
It's called grinding any real gamer should be well versed with the concept. Also flank with the light mechs don't frontal attack with them, waste of time.
learn tactics and strategy .... THAT is the main reason why you went bankrupt .. you walked and tried to brute force your way in ... better to flank or bait and ambush the enemy mechs ..... also intelligence is a MAJOR portion of the battle .. dont gloss over the reports and what they are talking about ... most missions have a back story with them and that will also give you more information on what you might face and can face ... the sooner you kill their scouts the better ... brace is nice but unless your in a heavy or assault mech then your playing it wrong ... because medium and light mechs can move ... a stationary target will die faster .... even with 50% dmg reduction ... dont just hammer the torso .. if you aim shot shoot the head every time ... kill the pilot get a slightly damaged mech in its place ... blow the torso away you get some arms and legs ... nice but useless without a torso to put them on .... build a lance that covers ALL combat ranges ... 2 of your 4 mechs should cover 2 ranges at all time and they should be med and long ... short is only good for a scout mech that is fast and can run half way around the map if needed ... . I have seen several people stream btech and all of them try the in your face fighting style .. in a mech that is a sure way to spend your small wage of profit ... they are defending in most missions ... if you dont have 3 of 4 superior mechs to them then lure them out of their defences and then smack the snot out of them while keeping out of their long range weapons arcs by using cover ... force them to split up .. so you can use and 4 mechs on 1 target and toast it in 1 turn or 2 turns ... DO NOT ALPHA STRIKE often ... learn to moderate your heat and group fire in smaller bursts ... this gives a longer sustained fire mission and keeps your heat managed at all times ... these are the main reasons the vast majority of players of battle simulation games lose often ... they never learned to use tactics and strategy ... just because the stats say this is better than that doesnt mean it is ... a firestarter is a nice mech .. BUT useless once you go against more than 1 or 2 mechs at a time ... it MUST be close to the emch to use its best weapon .. the flamer ... and it cant get there easily because it isnt fast enough nor does it have the armor to take the dmg while it gets into its longer ranged weapons ranges ... it is basically a free kill for the other team while it charges in . Melee has its uses .. best use is to injur a pilot to allow for better salvage ... or to cool down while at point blank range with another mech ... mechs with hands melee better than those who dont ... this is just the basic stuff one should have learned from the days of playing hide n seek as a kid ... but it seem todays kids spent too much time on the computer learnign how to cheat instead of outside learning how to learn and gain usefull skills.
Early on, I would actually recommend you to refit every single mech you're going to play with, the reason being, ARMOR. The more armor you have, the less often you're going to need to repair a mech after a fight, preferably, try to time your refitting to when you're traveling to another planet. As for the refitting itself, at the start you definitely want to max out the front armor on every single mech, sure you might have to take off 1-3 heat sinks or a laser or two, however the fewer parts you take off and put on, the faster it is to refit, so at the start, just do some minor armor balance, then later on add weapons (when traveling). Now to further expand how important armor is, you need to learn how to twist, yes twist your mech so you don't expose those open parts of your mech, you see the 4 90 degree circles beneath the mechs when on a battlefield? Those explain what area would be hit from which angle, so a cheap way to save ya legs 100% of the time, show your back (do take note brace and the like don't work from behind) and be sure to have enough armor to survive when doing so (back area tend to have lower armor). Either way, learn to twist your mech when you move it, so you don't expose weak areas as often and if ALL your parts are weak, please try to have at the very least picked one side of the mech you don't care about whether or not it gets destroyed and shove it up into the face of your opponent (do take note that twisting is mostly effective on mid-long range distance due to melee distance being too close and can very well expose your back). Happy grinding.
or you could drop those silly sort range only weapons in favour of medium rnage and longer weapons and deal damage at all ranges instead of soaking it up while getting into close range to deal any damage . the only thing short range weapons should be on are mechs that can get in and out of a fight fast or as a backup on a heavy or assault mech that can wade into close range while it deals death at every range then pound em flat at close range and smakc the enxt victim and medium and loong range
you might have made your comment on the wrong comment, as I mentioned nothing about short range weapons, but now that you do mention it lets put in some words for one of them. ac20 ain't by no standard weak, mm, imagine multi-target one ac20 on 2 different mechs and penetrate their barricades, not to mention most mechs have a tendency to end up at short range-ish simply to scout one another, so why not kill their scout in one or 2 good alpha shots or perhaps just one aimed shot at either their leg or CT with that heavily concentrated damage
I just realized that a lifetime of fandom has rendered my cherished baby of an IP as inaccessible to newbies. Jesus, I max out my hires right away. I rearrange to the slots, I know the weapon systems and gear threshold… this is kinda like why I love this game but I am now really seeing it from the other side. It leans into prior knowledge
Things I learnt the hard way. The AI RNG is way better than mine. The game will stomp all over you from your first mission, causing frustration and potential rage quitting within minutes. It pays to cheat, if you want to enjoy this game. End of rant.
oh lordy " should have up front soaking up damage" ... =/ i think i see why your losing pilots here haha. he does know how the sprint works.. someone teach him about the >>> pips please 🤣
You think a LL is more dangerous then an SRM6? The LL does 40 damage with no stability damage, the SRM6 can do 48 damage with stability damage. There are a lot of things you are saying in this video that are way off!
When did I say a LL is more dangerous than an SRM6? Also, context, only one of those 2 weapons can actually deal damage at long range soooo technically, at range, the LL deals 40 damage all the time and hte SRM 6 will deal 0.
then ok shoot the srm6 at a mech at long range ... or medium range ... oops you cant ... but you can shoot the llaser at ALL ranges ... so while they advance you sit and take dmg while they pound you to scrap waiting for your srm6 to be useful .... the only mechs that should mount an srm6 are the ones who get into close range fast and can hit and run .... and they must always be backed up by loonger ranged weapons .. while a large laser doesnt need longer ranged weapons ... so you can mount a better mix with large lasers than with srm's of any sort
Sigh...you boys are tactical genius! Ya, for sure, there is no way to close with an enemy mech and hit them with an SRM6. It's totally impossible to utilize terrain to your benefit and engage an enemy mech at close range. From now on I will only mount LLs! Thank you for your sound advice. I'm sure my game play will improve drastically. PS. that was sarcasm. LLs are probably the last weapon I would ever mount on any mech in any battletech game ever.
@@CasanisPlays No. Mount 4 medium lasers (that punch like a medium range PPC) and as LRM5s. Long lasers produce too much heat. Soften your target with LRM5. Then use medium lasers. Check other comments and replies I made in this video with tips to play.
More of a rant than anything else. If you made these mistakes then you didn't take any time at all to understand the game. Also, it's not a tip to tell people 'don't mele'. Mele is a move. There to be used at the appropriate time, like any other. Finally, 'use brace a lot'? - again, you are not giving good advice. If you want to high-light the value of a move, then put it in context.
eh, i disagree. dont forget about brace. us it. it will save your mechs. i stand by that even now after beating the entire game. The entire point of giving advice to new players is for them to break the rules as they get better at the game. brace LITERALLY would have saved my first run if i had used it effectively. Meleeing less ACTUALLY would have saved my first run. The tips in my video are very helpful basic rules to keep in mind for people starting out in the game. they are made to be broken and changed as players get better and find their own playstyle.
Oh yes of course. I don't doubt your motives. You want to help new players. I understand. But I'm a new player, and I didn't find this video helpful because it's more about how annoyed you are with yourself than anything else. 45 minutes watching any one of dozens of starter tuts on YT, or even reading the pitifully sparse manual (20 minutes) would set a player up for not making any of the mistakes you've apparently made. If you want to help new players, the thing to do is, going with your suggestion (brace), make an in-depth 10 minute vid on that, and the other things you mentioned. No one does that. So you'd be the first.
going in depth would be, by definition, not for beginners. But i can see the frustration. this video is, no doubt, surface level stuff. I do not go into depth or detail on anything about the game and certainly not the tactics and strategies. I will keep that in mind going forward. thanks for the suggestion
It is strange to hear you getting so far without picking up earlier the things you speak about. Strange also because most of them were clear to me pretty early on. But maybe it is because whenever I start new game, I go through all the options pretty slowly - so slowly that it might be several hours before I see any real action :) Liked your video though!
I was swimming in money on my first playthrough lol. But you lost credibility when I saw that ammo in the centre torso...1 crit and your whole mech is toast.
I haven't played that long - about 2 years in game time and I've never even come close to going bankrupt. It seems to me like you REALLY have to try to go broke. This guy definitely doesn't really no much about the game.
I think youre just bad at the game. Or were during the making of the vid. Its my first playthrough and Im on day 200 easily owning 2 and a half skull missions. You should maybe retitle to "If you keep getting your ass handed to you watch this vid"
Sorry, so much bad advice in this video....
The early priority missions and mercenary missions up to 2.5 skills are pretty easy first playthrough (I had no problem despite not understanding any of the key pilot skills). The problem is you just don't understand basic strategy game tactics.
1. Focus fire: DO NOT FOCUS FIRE ON THE MOST DANGEROUS ENEMY!!! Focus fire on the easiest to kill enemy, the key is to take out as many guns as possible before they shoot at you. Vehi
cles and turrets first. If you get bogged down firing all your weapons at the strongest enemy mech you will be taking damage from support units the whole time.
2. KEEP MOVING WHILE DOING 1. If you stop, brace (seriously!?) and fight it out, you're just taking unnecessary damage. If you keep on dashing, the AI invariably gets strung out. Then you can engage them 1 by 1, fastest (and weakest) mech first taking minimal damage.
3. Customize your mechs ASAP. The stock mechs are rubbish. Mechs need to be specialized by range. Melee+SRM boat, finisher (AC20 later, PPC early on) , LRM boat.
4. L lasers and PPCs are literally the worst weapons in the game due to heat. The only reason to carry these is if you don't have enough laser slots for M lasers or enough available weight for AC20. Compare your weapons by dividing DMG/weight DMG/heat.
Savage. I agree completely, except I keep a few mechs with PPCs for the fact it has infinite ammo, and that its 50 dam / attack is sweet in Polar and Tundra biomes. But 2 mechs out of 12 / 3 out of 18 max.
I'd also like to point out that falling back and destroying mechs that establish a LOS and allow indirect fire from turrets or those small vehicles that throws hundreds of LRM can be smart too, even if you're relatively immobile while doing so.
Finally, there's a nuance to be brought. Not "customize ASAP", but certainly not waste a single day of travel time. Just do them one at a time tho.
In combat, speed is life. You go slow, you die.
Get the fortify skill and go in forest for 50% damage reduction. Large lasers are great, on certain mech they are far more accurate for location shooting. I have taken many heads with these.
@@edwardcullen1739 ...said "Dead-eye" Unther from Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries. "Battletech fan" channel has a guide to install on Windows 10. Check description, everything you need is there.
I'm fairly new to the game (started last week) and only have light/medium mechs at the moment. my favorite loadout so far is a Vulcan with 2 MG++, 3 S Lasers, and some epically long jump jetting. This is definitely a fragile build since I had to strip a little bit of armor, but as long as he has 5-6 ticks of evasion he rarely takes heavy damage. Basically I just harass the big boys by shooting crits on their backs and peacing out lol.
PCC's I'm on the fence with.... ACs are nice, but their ammo is very sparse and doesn't bode well if a mission goes into triple overtime. Once you're out of ammo, you're pretty much a melee or aggro mech now. PPC has a lot going against it with space, heat, and tonnage BUT you can shoot it indefinitely and from extremely long range. It helps offer some stability damage and is a nice direct hit weapon versus spread damage. But generic PPCs are just kind of meh, once I got my first PPC+ or other variants I became a fan of them.
The one thing I wish I had know before I lost every single pilot I had would have to be that there is an eject button in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, right next to the pilots name.
dude...RIP in peace those mechwarriors. They will be missed
@@realbiasedgaming RIP means "rest in peace." You said "rest in peace in peace." It's like saying ATM machine.
@@DarthK3v There's HIV virus on the PCB board of the ATM machine. RIP in peace
@@DarthK3v some of them took an AC20 to the head they need that extra "in peace"
@@DarthK3v people say “RIP in peace” ironically.
Well. Nothing said here is technically "wrong" but it is kinda not the best advice. Now I am no pro by a long shot. But here is some stuff to add to your list.
1. You pay to jump from system to system. Money gone, no compensation. Do as many missions as you can in a system early on, that you can handle. No useless jumping around. Sometimes travel is paid. That may be ok.
2. Store unused mechs. They cost you money when they are in your bays. Only keep what you need and maybe 1 or 2 extras in case of damaged mechs after a mission.
3. Look for weapons with +s behind them. They cost a little more but have special abilities. They are often worth it. Especially the ones that do stability damage. I will explain later.
4. Train your mechwarriors and keep thier morale up. These allow you to use special abilities such as bulwark and precision. sensor look on one fo your first mechs to move can do wonders for your game. Read 5.
5. As a personal practice of mine. Load lrms. 15 to 20 racks work best. They can fire indirectly with a sensor lock. Therefore your mechs avoid return fire. Also they do alot of stability damage. Once a mechs stability is gone it will fall over. Causing pilot damage and allowing any mech of yours that can fire on it to target specific locations. If you can wound the pilot 4 or 5 times the mechs is knocked out and you can salvage the whole mech if you have enough salvage picks. Good why to get mechs you want for your stable.
6. Create mechs that have specific roles. I run two that are my tanks. They soak damage and can often one shot other mechs. Especially if you have knocked them over and you can freely target center torso. I also run two pure lrm boats. These are to knock down mechs. Also all attacks reduce evasion and can eliminate it. Mechs can normally one shot vehicles with a physical attack. Make your sensor guy a mech that give and take alot of damage. Jump jets on that build also help alot. For obvious reasons. So much more but I want to move on. You will learn these as you go.
7. Don't rush straight at the enemy. Chose your terrian and pull him to you. Often times you can get them to trickle in one at a time. Plus you chose where the battle takes place.
8. Focus fire! Combined damage is almost op.
9. Lrms are almost op.
10. Sensor lock is your friend.
11. Precision shot is also your friend.
12. Bulwark is a real close buddy.
13. Know the mission you are going on. Bionome, type of mission and such. You can plan accordingly and it is listed in the contract.
14. Use water if you have it and your mech runs hot. It helps. Btw water is also a chum.
15. Know your mech's facing and use it. If you left side is damaged, show them your right side.
16. Don't rush thru the story missions. Gain cash, experience, and equipment. Do them when youbare confident you can.
17. If your pilot is close to beening destroyed you can eject and save thier lives.you also get the mech back after the mission.
18. Save your game in tough battles. You may have to go back or try a few times to win it or get the salvage you want.
I could go on but.
19. Morale and training matters! Special abilities will make your game so much easier.
EXCELLENT list. Thanks!
Lets add few more:
20. Vigilance is your friend.
21. Every pilot should have Bulwark. Than you have choose between master tactician or breaking shots. So Lancer or Vanguard pilots are the best in my opinion.
22. Focus fire on the heaviest mech unlest it is 100 toner.
23. Focus fire on vehicles.
24. Precision strike legs if you want two part of mech.
25. Aim for arms if you want all 3 parts. Idea is to knock mech down several times.
26. In begging don't change mech to much. For example for Blackjack remove AC/2s, put in one AC/5 and some extra armor.
27. Short ranged weapons are doing more damage per ton than long ranged ones.
28. If you lose armor on the head of mech, pull him back!!!
29. AI usually targets the closest mech. So use several of yours to tank. So when first is battered, he goes back, and fresh one moves up forward.
30. If you have 3 slots for support weapons use MGs. They are rally powerful. Otherwise use S lasers. 90 m of range is 3 dots, so it isn't that short.
31. Do all the contracts (if you can) on some planet before move to another.
32. Get the F%$&*^$ Argo.
33. And the big one. When your ship is transferring from planet to planet, you can use that time to refit the mechs.
Disagree on the Bulwark on everyone. It's useful, but not critical. Ace Pilot (for shooters) and Master Tactician (for the tactician with sensor lock) are my favorites, and I use Multishot too much to drop it in favor of Bulwark. I get Bulwark for the tanky pilot (Behemoth, usually) who gets to go forward and tank the damage while dishing out hurt from static position. By the time their mech gets low on armor, enemy is usually reduced enough that my jump-capable Ace Pilots can handle tanking for a couple turns.
if you get to aim your shot aim for the head ... get more mech for your dmg ... ignore the torso on aimed shots ... always aim for the head on aimed shots .. 1 ppc hit to the head and you get a free mech with little to no damage ... blow its torso you get some arms and legs ... always have a scout mech of some sort .. doesnt have to be light but fast and with a great view range and weapons to cover long and medium ranges ... medium rnaged weapons have no lower limit so they work great at short range and hit harder than their short range counter parts ... NEVER take more than 1 misslie boat in a lance ... you lose too much firepower having more .. when you can have a medium scout mech liek a shadow hawk and then two medium or heavy mechs to pump rounds into the enemy at any range you find them and even walk in and slap them up side the head if needed
@MosesBad Well first you need to knock out vehicles, and than you should shot at the heaviest mech that you can easily kill. Light one have tendency to come earlier, but even if they came alongside some heavier staff, their bite isn't so hard. You can tank light mechs.
By the way in 22 I say heaviest UNLEAST it is 100 toner. Atlas is 100 toner, so he is excluded.
This was all sort of beginners advice. when player see Atlas in the battle, he isn't beginner any more, right.
Tip #9 Don't underestimate vehicles. Later on they come equipped with multiple LRM or even Dual AC/20s
80 ton Schrek tracked tank with 3 PPC...you will NOT underestimate him more than once
dude. Triple PPC and AC/20 tanks are NIGHTMARE FUEL!
DarthCuda true.
My first mechwariior casualty (no savescaming!) came from Demolisher randomly shooting its head off with an AC20.
Vehicles are pretty easy to deal with is you have a mobile mech to melee them though.
And I think the scariest of them is SRM carrier.
Seriously. Shreck or Demolisher can miss most of their shots.
But if you let the SRMC take a shot your mech will have major armor loss all over the place.
Yes, 10 SRM-6 can ruin your Day. It`s best to take them out at long Range
Mech with AC/20 can usually deal with them whiteout of trouble.
Don't take this the wrong way, I want to give you constructive feedback, not put you down, but you need a lot more experience before you go giving out advice. Much of it in this video is wrong or at the very least not the best advice that should be given in the situation.
If you're a new player, yes, don't go rushing into higher difficulty missions, sure. But don't be afraid of the campaign missions either. The sooner you get onto the Argo, the better, as you will get much better tech and med points allowing you to get your 'Mechs and pilots back into action from repairs, modifications and injuries. On that note, DO NOT modify your 'Mechs before you get the Argo. The stock 'Mechs, in most cases, are good enough to get you through the early missions and the downtime of refits on the Leopard are just not worth it. You're also right about the need for pilots... do not hire any more, but you should also pay attention to how you specialise the pilots you do have. On my second run through, I made all my pilots Lancers and Vanguards. This suits my long-term strategy. Think about what pilots you want at the endgame and start aiming for them right away. May not be easy to know for new players, so my tip is this: The important skills for your pilots are Bulwark + Multishot + Breach shot for you damage dealers, and Sensor lock + either Bulwark or Mobility for your "scout". I say scout with "" because at the end game, this will be a Heavy or even an Assault 'Mech, so you don't want useless abilities for it.
In battles... don't use brace to soak up damage. That is actually not the best tactic. If you're bracing, you're not shooting. Use your mobility, use sensor lock to strike from beyond visible range, get into cover, like trees and shoot because they still give you a 25% reduction in damage. Use your Vigilance, when available, to soak up damage. I also saw you dismiss the Commando with 10 x SRM6s... All I can say is, LoL. Let that thing into effective range, or even worse, into your rear arc, and you'll be paying for underestimating it... Also, don't overestimate Large Lasers... I rarely if ever use them. Why? High heat and no stability damage and 5t. In practice, they're one of the worst weapons. The enemy, if they have them, will not be able to use them every turn. Trust me, those SRMs are much more dangerous. There's more there, but I've already written an essay...
Get more experience, mate...
I appreciate the feedback a lot. That being said, after beating the game i stand by every single piece of advice. Planning out your pilots build is something for advanced users, people that know what they are doing, not for brand new players. All the advice is easily accessible for new mechwarriors :).
All your advice is excellent though. again, thanks for the feedback
Real Biased Gaming hes right about the brace tho, the only reason to brace and not shoot is to dump heat or stability stacks. Uif you dont move but shoot you get the guarded and entrenched stack aswell, vigilance is the better skill to use, i always pick vigilance over brace
even in the lategame, i was usually using brace once per round. You do not have enough focus to always use vigilance on all 4 mechs...actually you never do. Bulwork is amazing but you have to sit still for a turn. 50% reduced damage is still 50% reduced damage and, lategame especially, i would rather have my forward tank take 50% less damage from 3+ enemy mech shots than simply get one round of shooting out of it.
Real Biased Gaming bulwark is indeed a situational skill, but guarded and entrenched is a buff you get when you dont move, you dont NEED to brace to get them, guarded and entrenched give you the dmg and stability hits reductions, brace just adds heat sinking and drops your stability stacks that you accumulated up till then, try it out in a skirmish you'll see what i mean, just a tip ;)
"In practice, they're one of the worst weapons. The enemy, if they have them, will not be able to use them every turn."
lol, I have 7 of them on my awesome and unless it's a hot map can use them every turn
My tips:
Evasion is king in lower levels and tonnage. This means "sensor lock" is way more deadly than given credit. Sensor Lock also reduces the locked mech's chance of hitting meaning it is both offensive and defensive.
Use a "shotgun" approach to do damage across multiple sections until a weakness can be determined, then immediately use a called shot on the weakened area. SRM's are your friends.
**ACTION ECONOMY IS A VERY REAL THING IN THIS GAME**
Action economy is a principle used in a lot of tabletop games in order to add or remove challenge. If the player has more actions, they will find it easier. If a player has less actions, things become super hard super quick. This can even apply with a bunch of small turds running about with medium lasers. Unless you can score some good critical damage on a heavier mech it might be more worthwhile to simply remove a smaller mech just to reduce the amount of hostile actions against you. You'll be amazed how much more breathing room you get when you're not having your mech pummeled 3 or 4 times before you do something.
**INITIATIVE ROLE IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU CREDIT IT**
If you have a mix of light and medium mechs against a lance of heavies, you actually have the benefit here. You have four actions before they can even do anything at all. Using this, you can play with initiative and make your attacks even more devastating. If you send your light mechs on a sprint command on the previous turn with high piloting they will have enough evasion to ignore almost everything, some mediums can also do this. Using this, reserving your attack until initiative 1 means the light mechs can immediately attack AGAIN the next turn before the heavy can do much all anything. This essentially means you get TWO hits against back armor. You can also take the time to whittle or get into better position by exploiting the fact that you have four actions before the enemy gets a single turn in. In some later story missions, this becomes less effective simply because the swarm tactics of the enemy will ultimately reduce if not utterly ignore all the evasion.
*_BECAUSE OF THE ABOVE TWO I USUALLY ADOPT A "SPEED IS KING" ATTITUDE WITH THIS GAME_*
Primary fire targets. *Do it.* DO NOT spread damage around unless you know you can cripple components in the volley.
You aren't forced to upgrade the ship.
Plus signs (+) mean a stronger weapon, the more +'s the better. Sometimes better than salvaging certain mech components.
You will generally want mixed unit composition; usually in the form of a brawler/tank, calvalry/scout, and long-range support. Scouts can sensor lock and can evasion tank on certain mechs. Sometimes it's just good enough to sprint around like a madman with Vigilance and a ton of evasion just to provide vision on enemy units. Sometimes you can also exploit the EXCESSIVELY aggressive AI into splitting their forces.
ALWAYS find a way to split up enemy forces. Usually this can be done by attacking from certain angles. If one approach proved to be bad, find another angle.
ALWAYS see what you can do to flank and get rear shots. A medium or light mech can almost certainly blow a hole in the enemy back CT and gib it right from the start.
Never underestimate the damage reduction from Guarded/Cover with BULWARK. 40% is nothing to snort at, sometimes it's just better to conserve heat and/or shoot a different target than missing a chunk of damage.
Stay together unless you absolutely have to split up due to time restrictions, works with the above tip of splitting enemy fire. You want your full combat capacity on everything that engages you.
Your main problem (back then) was Leopard. It have very weak tech ability. Once you get Argo, and start upgrading it, tech ability increases. When that happens, you can fix and refit mech much faster.
You need more than 5 pilots, 6-7 of them, as well as 6-7 mech. So when pilot is injured, or mech is on repair, you have reserve one for fighting.
I only got a sixth pilot because I wanted to hire a Ronin (an unique character), and never deployed them, only kept them on the Argo, soaking up Exp from the simulators, same as poor Medusa... Though he got to deploy a couple of times in the early game when my titular character took a three month recuperative due to multiple injuries :)
If you're fighting smart, you won't need the extras.
“Take your time in Detroit”
Excellent advice
Understanding the stability bar really helps too. Using combined attacks to knock mechs down for called shots is extremely useful for salvage and surviving in general. Going for all salvage and selling the completed mechs eventually really helped my finaces, it takes awhile but once you have alot of mech parts you can build a light mech or medium mech almost everytime after every contract. Sometimes 2 or 3, that adds up after awhile. Really good tips in your video too.
Thanks for the response! And yes, it really felt like all the money issues were at the start of the game. If you were smart and sold mech parts then you had millions by the end of the game
1. I don't get how you played to day 380(?) and don't know what the pilot designations mean. They're listed on your own pilots in the barracks when you train them up.
2. Dekker is in your light mech because he has sensorlock. That was a valid choice you made, yet you sound like you don't know?
3. You Braced a mech without moving! And the pilot doesn't have bulwark ... even if brace had been valid at least move him first to also build up evasion.
4. You went bankrupt, yet your tip #1 ISN'T to always have enough c-bills for next months payday? The amount you need is right there in the top left corner of the screen when inside the ship.
5. You do know you can change the order your mechs are being fixed, right? it sounds like you went out of business due to a lack of mechs, but I refuse to believe there wasn't a short refit job you could have pulled up in priority. Or you could cancel the customizing of one or two of the mechs.
I guess i am confused about what you are trying to prove here.
I made a list of things that i learned after about 10 hours of gameplay. I learned a hell of a lot more in the next 70 hours i spent on this game for sure, but 10 hours in I wanted to share what wisdom I had gained with YT.
I hugely disagree with your advice about bracing. in my game I only brace if for whatever reason I don't have a valid offensive shot. It's something to do when there's literally nothing else to do.
It is very smart to use it when overheating or when your tank mech walks forward and needs to sit still for a turn to get bulwark. I think it is just important to remember it is there. it can save a mechs life more often than not if it gets focused by multiple enemies.
Well yes, I consider overheating to be a situation where you don't have a valid offensive shot. I think I've used bulwark once? It's just not part of how I play the game. Perhaps it's a sign of the game's goodness that it can be played radically differently by different people.
wait...you have beat the game without using bulwark OR brace??? How tho. So many of my mechs would have died if i never took advantage of 50% DAMAGE REDUCTION!
I use Brace all the time, I just never use it when there's an offensive option (or a positioning option, I often sprint in combat when I feel it'll get my mech into an advantageous place). Like, it's my turn, I can't get LOS on any target, sure, move and then Brace, why not? I definitely never use Bulwark. It's expensive and I want every Precision Shot I can possibly get. Also, aside from one particular mission I never use LRMs.
you are right about varied playstyles. certainly speaks to the depth of the game. I brought LRM boats on 80% of my missions. They often dealt twice as much balance damage as a melee attack would and longest range in the game is not bad. I skipped out on offensive options in order to use brace all the time because too often you are fighting more than 4 mechs at once. any mech getting shot at by 3 assault and 2 heavy mechs is going to die. moving then bracing one of your mechs is HUGE in 4 and 5 skull missions imo
If you want to try out stock mechs, go into the Skirmish mode, you can go vs computers, you can also use this to get used to certain weapon types and figure out your own strategies.
1. make a safe before you take a contract
that way if you underestemated the difficulty of a contract you can go back and choose another one
There is already a pre deployment safe autosafe, so if you just want to rerun a battle as you think you could do better use that ^^
I played the game on hard with 4 parts per mech and in averrage every 13 to 15 missions i needed to load as i fucked something up.
2. concentrate on mech parts not the money when negotiating
money only as much you need to stay currently a float, but the real earnings come from selling mechs
3. To get more mech parts, learn how to position to get more shots on head or feet which when shot out gives you more parts
called shot meanwhile got nerved but with the tactician skill line you get mastery called shots which helps still.
4. For special skills have at least always 2 people which have Bulwark. 50% dmg reduction + 25% from tree cover !!!
Heavy hitters , glass cannons in the back line. Every other Special skill i see as optional and depends on your playstyle. I love the gunnery Multishot as it is efficient and combines very well with Breaching Shot when you f.e. have 2 PPC and Multishot 2 guys, each get the breaching shot bonus.
Remember to replace "You're playing the game wrong" with something less insulting. Yes they might have a hard time and maybe even lose a few times, but there is nothing wrong with trying weird and unconventional tactics if you're having fun with it.
I built a Rock-Em-Sock-Em squad stacked with flamers and had tons of fun. I lost a few Mechs from time to time but there is nothing "wrong" about the way we choose to play.
Getting dekker to tactician is key. The sooner you get to sensor locks, the sooner you get to shoot at targets that still can't see you.
There are very few things that are actually wrong, here. Most of what is wrong comes down to phrasing. Having said that, I feel like I need to offer you some tutoring sessions.
Now, I came to this game with a basic understanding of Battlemech tactics, so I breezed through most of the campaign. A lot of the early issues come from the business simulator portion of the game. If you don't know basic tactics AND you don't follow a few simple business management rules, you will fail.
Here is a VERY basic guide for new players:
#1 -- Play the Skirmish side of the game. As you log in, you have an option to jump into the campaign or play in skirmish mode. Skirmishes can be single player or online multi. You can make custom mechs. You can play with pre-built lances in 4 Tiers of games on maps that represent EVERY biome you can encounter with every weather condition. Play there until you can defeat the AI a couple of times on a 15 M and a couple of times on 20M. (feel free to try 25M and Unlimited, too.)
#2 -- The 1st time you get to set the monthly budget, cut the salaries. How severely you cut it should depend on how well you did on that 1st Merc mission. Keep it cut back until you have about 6 months of operating expenses. Then you can work it back to the middle of the scale. (Each of those pips on the Upper Left display is for months left at current operation costs.) If I have a year's worth of funding, you can bet I'm going for Morale+ as much as I can.
#3 -- You are going to want to build up your stable of mech pilots. Mechwarriors get injured and die. That's Battletech in a nutshell. Start slow. 1 here or there that has some skill you might lack. Getting them young and training them yourself is cheaper, but means you will probably have a few more deaths. Be on the lookout for special pilots. Some, like your starting pilots, are labeled "Ronin". This means that if you fire them or they die, you will never see them again in that save file. Then there are the people that funded the Kickstarter at a level to be put into the game. The Kickstarter and Ronin pilots were each hand-crafted by HBS and often have unique voices. All of the others are a product of procedural generation.
#4 -- This game rewards aggression, but crushes over-extension. Heat management is key. Everything your mech does creates Heat, including Walking and Sprinting. The game doesn't show any Heat that is automatically dissipated by the Heatsinks in the engine. This can lead to frustration on maps (like Lunar maps) where you sink much less Heat than normal and you sprint away with a hot mech to find it over heating. "But I didn't do anything!" is often the frustrated cry. Well, yes, you did. You Sprinted, thus you built up more Heat than you sank at the end of your turn. Always check your Heat. Turn off weapon systems to lower Heat generation. Brace. My preferred method for extra Heat sinking is to Melee. Any mech can melee. Not every mech should consider melee with every other mech.
OK, that turned out longer than intended, but it should get a new player going.
On the issue of Bracing - If you are bracing as much as is said in the video, then you are not being aggressive enough. The 2 exceptions to this rule are Lunar and Martian maps, where Bracing to reduce Heat is a VERY valid option. The other is when you have a crap-ton of LRMs incoming. If it's SRMs, you should kill it it with RANGED attacks. LRMs, just move in as fast as you can and brace. Especially with a Gryphon, Shadow Hawk, etc. that can get in close the next move. LRMs, PPCs, AC2, and AC5 all have minimum ranges, but the missiles have the most Stability damage with relatively light base damage. They have what is know as a "sandpapering" effect. Lots of little damage all over. Even if Breached, the Brace still cuts the Stability damage.
Anyways, feel free to PM me if you want to set up some Skirmish tutorial time. Or look me up through the Paradox matching system in game. My pilot tag is "Gamer". I'm on Twitch and Steam, as well.
Things I learmned. Keep in with the pirates so you get access to the Black Market. Don't ally with anyone. Marauder with autocannons and a pilot with good guns and tactics = 35% headshot chance! High tactic pilots shoot first. Use initiative to shoot off enemies biggest weapons - then they can't hurt you. Best lance set up is one missile boat, one long range with guns, one short range brawler and a beefy scout.
when you add skills to a pilot, you get a title depending on which skills you unlock. Defender has the Guts tree. Tactition obviously has the Tactics tree. When you unlock your 2nd and 3rd skills you will get a different title
Meleeing removes Gaurded and Evasion. Use MELEE a LOT...…..
For me in battle is, Focus Fire. When ever possible have all of your team shoot at the same target. Each target you take out is one less that can damage your team, and the sooner you can take out a target is less damage it do to you.
Or a Ac20 called-shot to the head will take out any mec. in the game, and it is a hell of a lot of fun.
same with a ppc or 2 large lasers ...
PPC love it, but have you noticed with 2 lg. lasers on a called shot, one always misses the call.
#10 use scout/deffender wisely. And another two LRM Archers piloted by tactician (archer is available since beginning and LRM useful for indirect fire). Aim for CT.
So just to sum up:
Tips 1-4: don't run your company like some sort of game, run it as a business. Make investments (read: missions) that you can feel you can come back from if they go south, but occasionally a risk might equal a payoff. Don't spend more then you earn, and save for if your company is falling on bad times. If your going to upgrade (read refit a mech) do so wisely, as it won't be avliable to you. And always remember that you will need to pay your bills.
Tips 5-8: I'm going to go a little more free-form here: Control the battlefeild. Find the best position to occupy and use it. Reposition as needed. Focus fire on priority targets. While both bracing and evasion may seem scary, you can get rid of evasion just by shooting at a target and they all go away if you do enough stability damage to make them unsteady.
There are two tips I'd like to make. 1)Remember to share armor between all your mechs. While having a tank is good, armor is a finite recourse. Your tank will run out of it, and structure damage will take time and money to repair. However, armor is free to repair and takes no time. If your good at rotating who's taking damage so that your lance takes as little structure damage as possable, your turnaround time is much improved. 2) Melee is a tactical recourse. While you are right in that you shouldn't be always in melee, it's still quite useful. It deals a lot of stability damage, and you only get heat from the movement your mech made, which makes cooling off very easy (you also are still doing damage, which is a plus). Melee is also a good option to finish something off if you want to save ammo, and takes down vehicles almost instantly. If your doing good armor sharing, chances are you'll have at least one enimey in melee range when you need it.
The starting lance you get is very strong. You can do 2 skull missions with it. I changed the starting mechs to 3 locust, 1 commando and 1 urbie. And also change so you need 5 pieces to make a mech or otherwise its to easy.
And this is why old campaigners from back in the day playing table top have an advantage here
We learned these lessons before ( and we had to do all the calculations by hand )
This is not a fps game
I'm of the personality type that grinded for heavy mechs before I even dipped my toe into anything even remotely serious. By the time I was doing 1.5/2 skull contracts, I was rolling a Warhammer, an Archer, a Rifleman, and a Firestarter.
Hello. Nice video, though I want to add a couple tips into the jar:
1) Combine experimenting with loadouts and major repairs. Only reimagine a mech loadout if it returned from battle severely mangled. This way you save on Mech downtime and don't mess up your mechs. Like seriously - the fact that a mech returned from battle in one piece probably means its loadout is fine.
2) Use your light mechs to melee. Yes. This sounds kind of counterintuitive. But this is a very usefut trick actually. Firstly - light mechs don't usually pack a lot of weapons so you don't lose much by not shooting. Secondly - lights are usually mobile enough and can run quite some distance to melee so you are more likely to have them in melee range when needed. And lastly but most importantly - you don't melee an enemy to deal damage. You melee to knock an enemy out of brace before your other mechs shoot it to pieces.
good advice! I think meleeing with light mechs is pretty advanced stuff to get it right. very difficult to do without completely exposing your light mech to enemy fire on its rear armor.
Real Biased Gaming on one hand - yes. Meleeing should be executed with caution as you are likely to expose your mechs rear.
On the other hand - light mechs don't usually have that much armor on the front. So if your light gets hit with something like PPC or AC20 it doesn't really matter if you get hit in the front or in the back.
Light mechs should be protected by evasion. And (unlike Guarded) evarion still works if you get shot in the back.
Also, consider the Firestarter when you have access to it. It can mount a lot of support weapons that get a free attack after melee. Even with vanilla flamers, you can do a bit of chip damage, and up to 60 heat... If you can find some advanced flamers, the 60 actual damage is an OK combo.
Or, try 6 S Laser w/30 damage for a 180(!) damage follow-up after a punch. There are heavies that have trouble doing that kind of damage, but you do have to get into melee range for it. Best to use Vigilance before going in with it, because that is an expensive loadout, and you'll cry if you lose too many precious ++ items
Tall Troll true. Firestarter is a wonderful melee mech.
And well-timdd flamethrower attack can also push enemy into shutdown.
I have better advice. Get rid of light mech as soon as you possibly can. They are shit.
I would 'consider' adding 1 thing ... for those enemy units that have multi-chevron's (and maybe braced), perhaps consider firing 1 weapon at that unit in your attack (say, if you have 5 med.lasers, fire 1 at (each?) one of those harder to hit guys as this will reduce their evasion ability and make further attacks easier (in that round only. When they move, the ratings change again). I know this is a given, but for a new player, this might be a useful tactic, especially if you have something with a lot of small weapons on board and the multi-target feature available. Some enemy your chance to hit is like 20% due to evasion bonus or cover, one shot from a low level weapon reduces the evasion, and a (surprising) hit at low levels can reduce stability and brace (with enough hits). BUT, no sense firing ALL of your weapons at a hard to hit target where you could be wasting ammo and heat rations/stores. You may need that heat availability later for a good alpha strike :)
As in your video, I really dislike how when you knock out a turret generator, all the attached turrets blow up. What? Why? Power down, yes, but blow up ... no. That should be 'reconsidered', but it's not a huge deal (it's just kind of ... wrong?).
Decent video by the way. Articulate. Informative. Well planned out. I like it.
You can modify item cost and then sell them. Made a small laser worth 10million. Also you want to focus fire. And if you have called shot aim torso. After blowing that out it will also take out any arm weapons
NEVER call shot to torso ALWAYS go for the head ... you save more mech for salvage ... the torso is fine for regular damage ... but a called shot on the head say befoee it gets to fire its forst salvo ever with a ppc or a couple large lasers or an ac20 and you have a headless mech that is undamaged basically ... ALWAYS HEAD .. for aimed shots ALWAYS .. the only exception is when you cant hit the head at all ..
True but the ods are high chance on missing
@@0623kaboom I'm sorry, but if my loot is 2/7, imma core out Locusts so I get better odds on that 3rd part of a Jaggermech.
I have heard (do not know if it is true) that factions that like you are more accurate in reporting the difficulty of a mission (skull indicators). Factions that do not like you much will tend to low ball the difficulty because why not? Hence your story-line missions tend to be a bit easier because they like you and tend to overestimate the difficulty. (Again...rumor I heard on another Battletech channel around here.)
I had a great one with i had too much tonnage so had to make small 50 ton mechs after i focused on 80 to 100 ton mechs.
Some of the flashpoints are just ehh with having to have light to medium mechs.
ya I can never seem to take a trebuchet out without loosing an lrm15
put jump jets on every mech, getting stuck on a cliff and having to backtrack has cost me a lot of mechwarriors and mechs
Thank you. Your video, plus the many comments below, were a good source of information. I'm currently around 10 hours and the suggestions by you and others have me new perspective.
I managed to go bankrupt one time. I just reloaded and took a quick easy mission for max cash. Problem solved. What got me was trying to improve the Argo too fast and not paying attention to costs.
Bulwark is your friend. I give it to all my pilots but the scout. He gets evasive moves or ace piloting.
I love this game and I'm on my fourth of fifth play through now. Oh, when mech s are over heating, melee is a good way to do damage and cool off at the same time plus it my ripple the enemy.
thanks for the reply! dang dude, that is a lot of mechwarrior. glad to hear you love it that much!
Real Biased Gaming While I've only played the table top version once, I've played nearly every computer related game since my ATARI 800 days. I'm really looking forward to the new MW MERCENARIES that's coming out later this year I think. I even beta tested an early online version of MW years ago. Sadly they pulled the plug on it.
Upgrade the mech repair facilities and engines on the Argo then upgrade the morale and medical bays. Then everything else afterwards.
You also may like to play the tabletop version of battletech. It is cool.
I appreciate the sincerity of the video. The video is about 5 things he learned the hard way, not "I am an expert, learn from me n00b", so any criticism about giving advice to newbies makes no sense. If that is what you learned, that is basically true. I also appreciate having a new battletech fan in the community.
Given the competitive nature of videogames, comments may be more harsh that they should be. If you play tabletop Battletech, things are different. Tabletop is more an excuse to share a cup of coffee with friends and have a good time, not really something to show off "I am better than you" style.
I suspect you may like to check the tabletop game and its community. Search "Battletech catalog" and you will see what tabletop has to offer.
I just got this a few days ago and one thing i can say is don't rush off from the starting area so fast. My mistake was right after i got the argo i upgraded the hell out of it and hualed ass to another area of space owned by a different faction. I was winning the fights but at a considerable cost. With only 6 mechs 2 of which were light and seemed to get instat killed the minute things get hot, I was only BARELY able to get back to the starting area. I basically underestimated those skulls that indicate difficulty. Never again. I'm back in a 1.5 skull area and building up my stock of parts (i couldn't even fully equip my mech by the time i got back lol). I think i'll be able to start the story mode again in a bit.
"You're doing it rong!" - I have no real issue with the eight tenets, though once you have a full lance of mediums doing 1,5-2,5 skull missions should be easy enough, and they pay off a LOT better. Doing just ,5 - 1 skull missions means you'll have to manage at least two missions per month just to make paycheck reliably, where a single 2 skull mission can set you up for months.
From the tactical side of things, bracing when there's no real reason to (i.e. when you could be shooting) means you will be exposed to more damage, incur more repair costs and risk injury to pilots more. Only brace when there's no other reasonable thing to do. Evasion chevrons trump bracing 90% of the time, the last 10% is usually a long-range mech with a pilot that has Bulwark, that can spam LRM missiles at targets. If you need to brace to manage damage, consider using Vigilance instead (such as if you need to save a mech from toppling over from stability damage).
Also, learn the stability mechanic: putting a mech on unsteady a) strips its evasion chevrons and b) gives it a large shooting penalty. Knockdown, if you can manage it (usually by hitting a mech with both LRM salvo from your support and attacks from other mechs on the same turn). Knocked down mech is open to called shots to Center Torso, which is the fastest way to put a mech down permanently. A mech that has to stand up on its turn will have an even bigger accuracy penalty.
Don't melee if you can shoot, or if the melee is almost certainly going to destroy your target. Only Death From Above (Melee with jump-jets) as a last resort, as it's very risky to the attacking mech. Oh, and melee vehicles if they are in the same weight class or below as your mech, meleeing vehicles does double damage and usually puts them down.
These aren't rules, but more in the way of a guideline for how I managed to get through the main campaign without too much difficulty.
yup yup. good stuff!
NEVER CALL SHOT TORSO .. always call shot head .. gives better salvage ... and 1 ppc or 2 llaser or an ac20 .. all will remove a mech head in one turn on a called shot .. tis also allows you to dump some excess heat as well or fire at the next victim or mission objective as well ... also use alpha strike sparingly .. its not worth the dmg to you from overheating.
I've got 90 hours in, use precision often and have tried head shots and I have < 2% success. I'll miss ten shots at the head, where I'll core the center in far fewer.
Even using all the defensive options I keep getting injured pilots because one or two attacks from the ai will result in a crit hit. Completely random. Also have had an ai mech crippled......but it melees one of my mechs at full health and knocks off a limb?
Brace should only be used if you are in the open with no clear line of fire to an enemy, on unstable terrain, or if your mechs stability is threatened.
Firing into the rear armor of a mech at close range debuffs it.
Bulwark is your friend.
Sensor locking is your friend.
Using fast scouts with sensor lock is your friend.
Morale of mech jocks carry over into the battlefield.
.....and many many others
For starters bracing BAD!!! If it's not for a cooling turn because of heat build up you should be shooting. One spare pilot is good but it is all you need to start, That goes for meches as well. No you don't discount melee, just use it correctly, it can save you in some of the high heat areas. thx
only real advice you need for any mech game is this always have a balanced lance as in have one scout one brawler(AC-and short range lasers ) and one that stays back and is a missile mech this one thing can save your life also if you have more mechwarriors than you can field then fire the one with the least xp as this will save you about 25,000-30,000 a month as they are not worth just having sit there
I got the Rougetech mod and it's been a while snice I've played this game and I very much did not remember that this game can be brutal and then with rougetech it makes it more like the tabletop so I got wiped by 1 mech
Using Brace rather than firing the suite of M lasers he had was bad advice. You use brace if you have no heat available so can't shoot. The M Laser is the best damage per ton weapon in the game your vindicator could have wrecked the light Mech in front of him. Melee can do a lot damage and cause stability damage which can result in a knockdown and pilot injury and then free called shots on the downed mech. Especially if your Mech is heavier than the Mech you are attacking it can often result in destroying the hard point you hit. It is certainly the way to take out vehicles if they are close as they take extra damage from melee. Better tip would have been to concentrate fire and gang up on a single mech using terrain to try and isolate so that all your lance can fire but not all the enemy can fire on you.
yeah that is a really good tip. I should have put "focus fire" in there as one of my top tips no doubt. The gameplay from the video here is really just for me to show the different mechanics. I agree, bracing when i did in the video was not, tactically, the best decision. I was just using it as an example.
This video was made for rookies, people brand new to the game. Certainly i expect players to ignore my rules once they get the hang of the tactics and start to develop their own playstyle. But i think my list is very helpful for people just starting out
M laser don't have the best damage per ton. If that commando were hit with 1 flamer, it would sustained 75 damages for 1 ton of flamer weight. Also support weapons have better damage per ton than M lasers.
on my first playthrough O went bankrupt after the second mission xD
My best advice is just do some easy missions to get money. Any time you do a mission without taking significant damage, it is basically free money as you can jump into another mission with no wait time.
I did something like 10 easy pay missions before I even did the campaign missions. I took 7-10 years of game time to finish all the campaign missions.
if i remember correctly i always negotiated less pay for more salvage and the salvage i could sell for so much more.
Thanks for the tips, like you I thew myself into this without giving it much thought ( a strategy game ? , why would I ? ;) ). Going to enjoy this a lot more now, cheers =)) .
Question: Are the stock Mech set ups the best versions ?
I would say 50% of the stock mech set ups are pretty good. I will also say that I changed the loadout of almost every single one of my mechs
Real Biased Gaming 😀👍
Stock Mech setups tend to favor a mix of ranged weapons and generally have workable setups, but each of the mechs can be optimized to better suit your playstyle. I favor heavy autocannons (AC10 and AC20) and large LRM racks, as well as SRM6 launchers. I fill the loadouts up with medium lasers after that.
I tend to focus fire on one enemy mech at a time, going for knockdowns and fast disables as much as possible. I know AC5's and PPC's work better for longer-range work, but they don't really do it for me.
*BJ-1. Fire Support:* Let's give this bad baby 4 medium lasers that are wasted at range because it is at range, and wasted in close combat because of overheating and jump jets being a much better choice!
Seriously, tho, if you do not experiment a bit, like having a mech with next to no armor, two LRM 25 (or more), a few heat sinks and 8 crates of ammos, so that you keep it in the back as a form of artillery, you're not really trying.
I agree with some of the other guys. Your advice is quite general and it depends to your playstyle. If you have a melee Build up just get close and punch them. And using bracing a lot helps for what excactly? You just get shot slower. Then rather use vigilance for example (guarded, entrenched,-1initiative and you can shoot) Maybe first go a bit deeper into the game and review the advice video.
Thanks for the feedback. This video was made after failing my first attempt at the campaign when I only made it several months in. If i made a tactics video after having beat the game then yes, the advice would certainly be different.
As for bracing specifically, yes I would brace ALL the time, IF I did not have vigilance, instead of taking shots on the enemy with 60% or less chance to hit. Especially if it was a mech that was out in front. If I had an ability that lowered all damage taken by 50% during my next turn in XCOM (which I am currently streaming) you can bet I would be using it a lot.
But yeah, this advice was designed to be a starting point where people move on and find their own tactics from. this is absolutely not some endgame super-next-level tactics video :)
If your weapons are for long and medium range, and enemies come too close, use melee. It is better to use heavier mechs for melee.
one thing is that the upkeep cost every 30 days is so high and the repair costs are so high that you can end up losing money on contracts.
1. Law of Battletech lore: Information is ammunation
Melee is a viable attack option. There a hit and run melee builds that really pack a solid punch. A good melee hit on the back with a laser follow-up really messed up the enemy
"PPCs are freakin' awesome."
And it was at that point I knew to take everything he said for a grain of salt. XD
PPC's should be awesome - if they are not in this game then it is not a true transposition of the 'real' game to the digital arena.
@@dallassukerkin6878 In this game they generate a lot of heat and don't do enough damage to justify using them in most builds. Their one saving grace is they do stability damage while lasers don't but if you care only about raw damage that means little.
@@Acesahn Thank you very much for the detailed insight into the 'conversion' differences, Ace :salute:
@@dallassukerkin6878 For the record, I try really hard to incorporate them in some of my builds cuz they ARE really cool. Its just... "why debuff and set people up when you can destroy them instead?" becomes the question at end game.
Thanks man, that really helped - just started playing and am getting my a$$ handed to me on a plate after doing the first campaign mission and choosing 1.5 skulls !? Off to the Star Map !
ahaha. man i was SO tilted when i ran into missions that kicked my butt. figured it out eventually tho
Yep, and now after your advice and also being told that the first few planets (initial storyline) don't hand out any missions I'm having a much simpler blast with level 0.5 and 1 missions atm; getting time to learn how to play properly :-)
It is a real treat. The progression into heavier mechs is so satisfying!!!
TACTICS >> matter ... remember a defender has the advantage .. it takes approximately 6times the attacking force to dislodge a defender ... ... if you make them move to you you become the defender they become the attacker and you can snot locker them at will then
Somehow it doesn't surprise me that COMPLETELY INVERTING THE INITIATIVE SYSTEM AND TURN ORDER from tabletop changes the effectiveness of melee, given it almost requires the ability to get behind the enemy so you can gut punch them
Move the least important/strategic mech first, and the most important last.
If you're melleeing in a battle 4 times or more, and you're not tanked out, then you're doing it wrong. build a mech for mellee. use it, sprint when you can't attack, use it as a dodge tank.
Lol at unarmoured bulwark CT rear with ammo in it. A stray mg shot could crit the ammo and destroy the entire mech.
On customization I find the mechbay under skirmish really helpful...
Well, I used meele a lot with 2 firestarters. Even brought down heavy tanks.
* Put 4 medium lasers in a light mech and you have the punch of a PPC with medium range.
* Use LRM5. If you wanted an LRM20 for one mech and LRM10 for another, it is better to install 4xLRM5 and 2xLRM5. Same firepower and you do not have the risk of running out of ammo. You can use LRM5 ammo for all mechs with LRM. Slight difference in tonnage and heat.
* Some people have AC20 in high regard, but I do not like it. It runs out of ammo very quickly and it is too heavy.
* Mechs are defined by 3 things: Armor, speed and firepower (range and damage). There is a trade off between them.
* Strong armor means you can expose your mech to fire and make mistakes without paying a high price.
* Speed makes your mech harder to hit.
* Firepower. Know the range of your weapons. There is an optimal distance to fire.
* Fast light mechs serve as spotters for mechs using LRMs. You hide the LRM mech where enemy cannot see it. Send the light mech running fast to see the enemy. Fire LRMs upon enemy.
* For physical attacks, big mechs hurt more than light mechs. Punches, kicks, charge attacks, etc.
* Do not use many types of weapons. You have the risk of running out of spares or ammo.
* There is a tabletop game that you may like. "Battletech a game of armored combat" and "Battletech beginner box". Beginner box has simplified rules and 2 mech miniatures. The other one has 8 miniatures. There is also a book called "Mechwarrior destiny" to add very simple role play game rules to make tabletop game more engaging. It has lots of pregenerated characters and missions. To convert from Destiny to tabletop, just multiply armor by 3 and movement by 2, and that is it. It has a table to convert character skills to piloting and gunnery skill.
5 PILOTS! but when you start heal times are ridiculous!!!
yeah but when you start an extra 80-150k for 2-3 extra pilots can really eat away at your income. Just take your time learning how it works without spending too much money. once you are past the argo getting a few new pilots is a solid idea
@@realbiasedgaming Use them. Have a "B" team. You have 6 slots for mechs (then 12, then 18), there's rotations that you can do, even early on, to reduce your downtime.
Having a great pilot is way more important than having a great mech.
The most important thing to know about playing missions in Battletech is EVASION.
Also don't shoot if you have less than a 70% chance to hit the target. Look at the hit% for every weapon; if the average is all below 70% then it is better to evade, get into a better position and cool off your mech.
Man. great video. Well produced. But its sad to see that such good content and a channel that has put out so many videos doesnt have the aubscrivers it deserves. TH-cam is really tough environment to survive in.
"You want to go somewhere like Detroit"..... Ummmmm....you sure about that? It's economy has been on a constant down turn ever since the car manufacturers left. ;-)
I don't understand how people can go bankrupt, seriously.
Well, for me it was a mix of bad luck early in the game with 2 lost missions in a row as well as me being way too excited about the mech refitting system and spending thousands on that too early in the game.
I got close, sold a couple spare mechs and had a really good mission that bumped me up from zilch to 3 months pay
Install 4 medium lasers and see you light mech to kick arse.
Tip #1, get the Argo ASAP then it doesn't matter if you have 4 or 12 pilots (12 is better)
Is a nice video, very instructive.
In the harder battles against big mechs (three skulls missions), the only way I have won, is using a speedy mech (like the jenner) and make it run for the opposite side of the map, away of the other big three mechs. That's make the IA divide his forces and send several mechs to chase the Jenner!. Then I become shelling the ones that approach the main force!. When this enemy mechs are destroyed, I bring the Jenner with the chasing mechs to where the main task force is, usually entrenched them behind a mountain, and then begin a CQB (boxing match) with the remaining mechs using all mechs.
If your pilots hurt their heads as often as three or four of mine do, you absolutely need more than 5 pilots!
(I think it's partly my lack of skill and partly RNG)
I've literally turned battles around tho because of melee. I'm talking 2 mechs down pilots ejected outnumbered 5 v 2 ppc mech arm damaged centurion right arm blown off and I literally had that mech melee 3 mechs to death in a mission and win the day for us while the other mech continued sniper fire with a ppc until its weapon was destroyed then it melee killed 2 mechs... Also close range is bad... Hahaha bs the firestarter was built for close range and if you get your hands on a phoenix hawk and add large lasers to it or heck a snub ppc and jump that bad boy a space or 2 behind an enemy mech... I've cored out much heavier mechs in one salvo with the phoenix hawk more often then I can count by blasting all the back armor
I completely disagree. Ive blown through 4 skull mission without any issue and then turn around and get wrecked on a 2 skull. The skull ratings seem to have no bearing on the actual difficulty in my experience
all the skull missions really signify is the level of the defender ... a 4 skull mission tends to have at least a lance worth of assault and heavy mechs ... if you aint ready for them then dont do them
Some of them two skull missions
Like killing the diplomat or bigger mech operating In the area.
Have a part where reinforcements come. Sometimes not Included in the Intel sometimes Intel is just bad and u gotta make a choice.
Prior to reinforcements showing up and hopefully trickling in each pip is 100 tons ish that you will need to be able to win without to many bad choices.
After they show up. Its time to leave and cut your loses once mechs are going internal and it looks iffy.
Keeping the Merc score low helps generate lower difficulty missions.
I find my worst enemy besides the Intel on those battlefields is my own stubbornness
did you never play any other mechwarrior game before playing this as the info your giving seems like common things anyone that has played any other mechwarrior game at all i mean half of them are merc games and any vet of them knows all this from the start
lol i would have to say that you will greatly change your views once you are in the game a bit more. Skull blips are NOT indicative to what you will encounter. They at best are a rough idea. I have had 1.5 skull missions that have cost me more than 3 skull missions. As far as more piolets, well yes they run up your cost but you need them. Once things crank up you are gonna want some piolets that are up to par. Its easy to take out a cockpit in this game, either through repetitive blows or the errant AC/20 to the face! You talk about melee, well thats a two edge sword. Yes your weapons are likely to do more damage but there are time you just gotta punch them in the face. As you are playing on a lunar map (martin as well) you will quickly learn that heat is a killer. You heatsinks do little on these maps. So instead of overheating ya just gotta swing at em. Like your style and all you just need to get further in the game and you will see where you are wrong. Its all good though keep up the videos and have fun.
Thanks dude. Yeah by the time i beat the game i had learned a LOT more about good tactics
Hey its all good bro. Its actually kinda funny to watch,cause i made my own really off the wall choices when i first started. I was all bout the money till i realized salvage is where its at. Oh and my favorite blunder was discounting the usefulness of morale. I always too the cheap route every month. I did not realize how helpful that morale can be.
i would suggest no mater how skilled the piolet or how much you like them fire them the second they are more than 30 days in the med bay. they are nothing more than a waste of cbills while they are in the healing up.
brace is the big change from the table top game...wish they didnt have it. the computer uses it far to much and extends the game more then it should.
what about bulwark? Is that in the tabletop? Seems silly to me that standing still can reduce damage at all. Its not like these are gundams that can hold up a shield or something.
Nope no skills at all in TT. But is harder to hit in TT www.sarna.net/wiki/CBT_Tables Also you can always multishot
mmmm look at all those numbers. might spend some time going through all of that tomorrow
You PPC is in the wrong place sir ALL weapons except missiles should be installed in the arms if possible for maximum effectiveness 7:09
I beg to differ. If you can fit your loadout in the torso, you can save on weight by removing armor from the arms at very little cost (including the 5% accuracy). Likewise, I often precision-shot the side torsos as a way to disarm (pun intended) and wound the pilot. Saves me a bunch of attacks from the side which would otherwise just destroy the arm first.
I'm fairly new to this game but have tons of experience in similar games and can say with a fairly high level of certainty that a lot of advice in this vid is very poor.
Firstly, the skull difficulty is a guide not a Rule, missions of the same Skull value can vary a LOT and you need to be prepared identify quickly if your outmatched and use evacuation and ejection techniques if needed. IF you eject you have to rebuild the head of your mech but you still keep the mech and pilot so its much better than when a mech and pilot falls.
You need more than 5 pilots... you need some reserves so you can keep doing missions and earning cbills when you have some crew injuries 7-8 is a good number.
I'm not going to go through this while vid, I will say there are better ones you can watch. But also target missions you want to salvage mechs and parts from and the rest of the time negotiate for the high cbill reward option. you can pay for your month with just a couple of missions by taking the cbills over salvage.
And strategic salvage can earn you even more than that.
Cool thanks for the info. Sounds like the game play has a few new things not in the old pen & paper game.
Video summed up at 14:35
All 8 of your rules are simple common sense on the original table top "board" game. They transfer to this game very well...well except brace but hey gotta give up something in the trade off
I would love to play a tabletop demo or something! I used to manage a games workshop store so i love warhammer tabletop. maybe at the next PAX or something i can find some people to show me how to play
This video should have a disclaimer: advice from a n00b.
Like seriously, your advice is only useful to new players and only partially at that. Not just new to this game but new to the Battletech universe. Only problem with that, is your information is presented in a way that a newbie wouldn't understand.
It's not cohesive at all, and some things are just wrong. Especially your advice about brace, if you use brace as much as you shoot YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. And your advice about melee is flat out wrong as well. Melee is SUPER STRONG AND WAY USEFUL!!
Please stop giving advice on this game. You are only going to frustrate people.
Thanks for the feedback. I completely disagree. I think all of my advice is a great starting point for players. My HOPE is that they grow out of a lot of the advice i give them and learn to create their own tactics and strategies. But as a baseline I believe this advice is helpful.
@@realbiasedgaming opinions yo!
I completely disagree with the "Advice from a n00b" comment. The advice is obviously focused to a new player. Theres nothing in here thats hard to understand having played the game or not. Please stop being so judgemental in youtube. You are in fact frustrating people.
This guy shouldn’t be giving advice to anyone. “Brace 5 times a match or you’re not playing right”. It’s basically impossible to go bankrupt in this game, but with that advice i can see how you would.
It's called grinding any real gamer should be well versed with the concept. Also flank with the light mechs don't frontal attack with them, waste of time.
Not "dollars", they are C-bills.
Using brace is situational. With a close combat lance eg, you prolly never use that :3
learn tactics and strategy .... THAT is the main reason why you went bankrupt .. you walked and tried to brute force your way in ... better to flank or bait and ambush the enemy mechs ..... also intelligence is a MAJOR portion of the battle .. dont gloss over the reports and what they are talking about ... most missions have a back story with them and that will also give you more information on what you might face and can face ... the sooner you kill their scouts the better ... brace is nice but unless your in a heavy or assault mech then your playing it wrong ... because medium and light mechs can move ... a stationary target will die faster .... even with 50% dmg reduction ... dont just hammer the torso .. if you aim shot shoot the head every time ... kill the pilot get a slightly damaged mech in its place ... blow the torso away you get some arms and legs ... nice but useless without a torso to put them on .... build a lance that covers ALL combat ranges ... 2 of your 4 mechs should cover 2 ranges at all time and they should be med and long ... short is only good for a scout mech that is fast and can run half way around the map if needed ...
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I have seen several people stream btech and all of them try the in your face fighting style .. in a mech that is a sure way to spend your small wage of profit ... they are defending in most missions ... if you dont have 3 of 4 superior mechs to them then lure them out of their defences and then smack the snot out of them while keeping out of their long range weapons arcs by using cover ... force them to split up .. so you can use and 4 mechs on 1 target and toast it in 1 turn or 2 turns ... DO NOT ALPHA STRIKE often ... learn to moderate your heat and group fire in smaller bursts ... this gives a longer sustained fire mission and keeps your heat managed at all times ... these are the main reasons the vast majority of players of battle simulation games lose often ... they never learned to use tactics and strategy ... just because the stats say this is better than that doesnt mean it is ... a firestarter is a nice mech .. BUT useless once you go against more than 1 or 2 mechs at a time ... it MUST be close to the emch to use its best weapon .. the flamer ... and it cant get there easily because it isnt fast enough nor does it have the armor to take the dmg while it gets into its longer ranged weapons ranges ... it is basically a free kill for the other team while it charges in
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Melee has its uses .. best use is to injur a pilot to allow for better salvage ... or to cool down while at point blank range with another mech ... mechs with hands melee better than those who dont ... this is just the basic stuff one should have learned from the days of playing hide n seek as a kid ... but it seem todays kids spent too much time on the computer learnign how to cheat instead of outside learning how to learn and gain usefull skills.
Early on, I would actually recommend you to refit every single mech you're going to play with, the reason being, ARMOR. The more armor you have, the less often you're going to need to repair a mech after a fight, preferably, try to time your refitting to when you're traveling to another planet. As for the refitting itself, at the start you definitely want to max out the front armor on every single mech, sure you might have to take off 1-3 heat sinks or a laser or two, however the fewer parts you take off and put on, the faster it is to refit, so at the start, just do some minor armor balance, then later on add weapons (when traveling). Now to further expand how important armor is, you need to learn how to twist, yes twist your mech so you don't expose those open parts of your mech, you see the 4 90 degree circles beneath the mechs when on a battlefield? Those explain what area would be hit from which angle, so a cheap way to save ya legs 100% of the time, show your back (do take note brace and the like don't work from behind) and be sure to have enough armor to survive when doing so (back area tend to have lower armor). Either way, learn to twist your mech when you move it, so you don't expose weak areas as often and if ALL your parts are weak, please try to have at the very least picked one side of the mech you don't care about whether or not it gets destroyed and shove it up into the face of your opponent (do take note that twisting is mostly effective on mid-long range distance due to melee distance being too close and can very well expose your back). Happy grinding.
or you could drop those silly sort range only weapons in favour of medium rnage and longer weapons and deal damage at all ranges instead of soaking it up while getting into close range to deal any damage
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the only thing short range weapons should be on are mechs that can get in and out of a fight fast or as a backup on a heavy or assault mech that can wade into close range while it deals death at every range then pound em flat at close range and smakc the enxt victim and medium and loong range
you might have made your comment on the wrong comment, as I mentioned nothing about short range weapons, but now that you do mention it lets put in some words for one of them. ac20 ain't by no standard weak, mm, imagine multi-target one ac20 on 2 different mechs and penetrate their barricades, not to mention most mechs have a tendency to end up at short range-ish simply to scout one another, so why not kill their scout in one or 2 good alpha shots or perhaps just one aimed shot at either their leg or CT with that heavily concentrated damage
I just realized that a lifetime of fandom has rendered my cherished baby of an IP as inaccessible to newbies. Jesus, I max out my hires right away. I rearrange to the slots, I know the weapon systems and gear threshold… this is kinda like why I love this game but I am now really seeing it from the other side. It leans into prior knowledge
Melee is based
Things I learnt the hard way.
The AI RNG is way better than mine.
The game will stomp all over you from your first mission, causing frustration and potential rage quitting within minutes.
It pays to cheat, if you want to enjoy this game.
End of rant.
Believe in lrms
Only thing i learned is no matter how much the dicount in a sale.....This shit is not worth a buck!
oh lordy " should have up front soaking up damage" ... =/ i think i see why your losing pilots here haha. he does know how the sprint works.. someone teach him about the >>> pips please
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Crânios importam! Agora minha vida está completa :D
You think a LL is more dangerous then an SRM6? The LL does 40 damage with no stability damage, the SRM6 can do 48 damage with stability damage. There are a lot of things you are saying in this video that are way off!
When did I say a LL is more dangerous than an SRM6? Also, context, only one of those 2 weapons can actually deal damage at long range soooo technically, at range, the LL deals 40 damage all the time and hte SRM 6 will deal 0.
then ok shoot the srm6 at a mech at long range ... or medium range ... oops you cant ... but you can shoot the llaser at ALL ranges ... so while they advance you sit and take dmg while they pound you to scrap waiting for your srm6 to be useful .... the only mechs that should mount an srm6 are the ones who get into close range fast and can hit and run .... and they must always be backed up by loonger ranged weapons .. while a large laser doesnt need longer ranged weapons ... so you can mount a better mix with large lasers than with srm's of any sort
Sigh...you boys are tactical genius! Ya, for sure, there is no way to close with an enemy mech and hit them with an SRM6. It's totally impossible to utilize terrain to your benefit and engage an enemy mech at close range. From now on I will only mount LLs!
Thank you for your sound advice. I'm sure my game play will improve drastically.
PS. that was sarcasm. LLs are probably the last weapon I would ever mount on any mech in any battletech game ever.
@@CasanisPlays No. Mount 4 medium lasers (that punch like a medium range PPC) and as LRM5s. Long lasers produce too much heat. Soften your target with LRM5. Then use medium lasers. Check other comments and replies I made in this video with tips to play.
More of a rant than anything else. If you made these mistakes then you didn't take any time at all to understand the game. Also, it's not a tip to tell people 'don't mele'. Mele is a move. There to be used at the appropriate time, like any other. Finally, 'use brace a lot'? - again, you are not giving good advice. If you want to high-light the value of a move, then put it in context.
eh, i disagree. dont forget about brace. us it. it will save your mechs. i stand by that even now after beating the entire game.
The entire point of giving advice to new players is for them to break the rules as they get better at the game. brace LITERALLY would have saved my first run if i had used it effectively. Meleeing less ACTUALLY would have saved my first run.
The tips in my video are very helpful basic rules to keep in mind for people starting out in the game. they are made to be broken and changed as players get better and find their own playstyle.
Oh yes of course. I don't doubt your motives. You want to help new players. I understand. But I'm a new player, and I didn't find this video helpful because it's more about how annoyed you are with yourself than anything else. 45 minutes watching any one of dozens of starter tuts on YT, or even reading the pitifully sparse manual (20 minutes) would set a player up for not making any of the mistakes you've apparently made. If you want to help new players, the thing to do is, going with your suggestion (brace), make an in-depth 10 minute vid on that, and the other things you mentioned. No one does that. So you'd be the first.
going in depth would be, by definition, not for beginners.
But i can see the frustration. this video is, no doubt, surface level stuff. I do not go into depth or detail on anything about the game and certainly not the tactics and strategies. I will keep that in mind going forward. thanks for the suggestion
Well, that '12 hours' is part of the fun learning about the game. It's sad when people basically want to see 'walkthroughs' of a game.
Woof! What a cute cub, and a gamer too? Ugh, why can't i meet men like this?
It is strange to hear you getting so far without picking up earlier the things you speak about. Strange also because most of them were clear to me pretty early on. But maybe it is because whenever I start new game, I go through all the options pretty slowly - so slowly that it might be several hours before I see any real action :)
Liked your video though!
1 thing I learned is that I knew how to play battletech years before this game came out.
Tabletop battletech rocks!
Brace is garbage. Use BULWARK instead.
TRUE! bulwark only gets stronger as the game progresses for real.
I was swimming in money on my first playthrough lol. But you lost credibility when I saw that ammo in the centre torso...1 crit and your whole mech is toast.
yup WORST place to mount ammo is center torso ... and NEVER mount machne gun ammo in a torso at all .. one crit and you lose that torso
I haven't played that long - about 2 years in game time and I've never even come close to going bankrupt. It seems to me like you REALLY have to try to go broke. This guy definitely doesn't really no much about the game.
I think youre just bad at the game. Or were during the making of the vid. Its my first playthrough and Im on day 200 easily owning 2 and a half skull missions. You should maybe retitle to "If you keep getting your ass handed to you watch this vid"