Banshee worthwhile early on?

[Woozywyvern]

Hi Folks, some advice if possible please

I am playing through the campaign and am curently up to the Liberate Smithon Mission (still to do). The heaviest mechs I have available are currently a Quickdraw and a Dragon. I have the opportunity to purchase a Banshee (well 3 seperate parts) for about 4 Mil, but everything I read about the Banshee seems to indicate it is a waste of a mech.

GIven the early stage of my campaign, and that I only have some lower end heavies at the moment, would the Banshee be worthwhile for me to get at this stage? (it would wipe out about two thirds of my money so would quite an investment at this point).

 

[ronhatch]

Hi Folks, some advice if possible please

I am playing through the campaign and am curently up to the Liberate Smithon Mission (still to do). The heaviest mechs I have available are currently a Quickdraw and a Dragon. I have the opportunity to purchase a Banshee (well 3 seperate parts) for about 4 Mil, but everything I read about the Banshee seems to indicate it is a waste of a mech.

GIven the early stage of my campaign, and that I only have some lower end heavies at the moment, would the Banshee be worthwhile for me to get at this stage? (it would wipe out about two thirds of my money so would quite an investment at this point).

Not sure if it's worth that much money, but it's a waste primarily in comparison to other assault mechs.

Here are some of the numbers behind that...

• The optimal tonnage for a speed 4 mech is 75-85 tons. They have 42.5 usable tons after accounting for the chassis weight. Considering initiative, that means you want the Black Knight and Orion most.
• Given you don't have anything heavier than 60 tons, the most usable tonnage you could possibly have is on the Centurion, Enforcer, and Hunchback... at 31.5 tons. (55 and 60 ton mechs in the game are all speed 5, so they have at most 29 tons usable.)
• Because of the non-linear nature of engine weight, the Banshee gives up a LOT of tonnage to get its speed and actually has only 37.5 usable tons. Yes, adding 20 tons to the mech ends up REDUCING the amount available by 5 tons. HOWEVER... that's still more tonnage than anything else you have available YET, and it also has much higher internal structure and armor capacity. Maybe not by enough to make it worth what you'd be paying, but if ever there was a situation where you might be able to make use of this piece of junk... this is it.

FWIW, it's easy to take a peek at these numbers in-game. Whenever you get a hold of a new chassis (or in the skirmish mech lab), use the strip armor and strip equipment buttons and see how much tonnage is available when nothing is mounted.

Hope that helps.

 

[XTRMNTR2K]

I'd say go for the Banshee. It's a terrible assault mech all things considered, but still one hell of a brawler if you can get into punching range. And that's what you should try to do.

 

[BunglingLummox]

Yes, take it if you have the funds to spare. It's woefully undergunned, but if you load it up with small lasers (or whatever), go piloting/guts and focus on melee (sprint where appropriate to get into range) it'll work just fine. And hell, it has 15 tons of armour. If nothing else, it can soak fire admirably.

 

[Moragion]

I would say don't. It is a bad mech, at least until we get the Urban Warfare dlc, which will probably make a good scenario for the brawler type of mechs. The problem with the Banshee is that it is so undergunned for an assault mech, that in some missions you are gonna suffer a little bit until you get into melee.
In my opinion it is a waste of money. And I like the banshee, don't get me wrong, but there are much better mechs to get even earlier. Go for the Orion. It is one of my favorites and has enough space to make a good custom build.

 

[mork77]

(it would wipe out about two thirds of my money so would quite an investment at this point).

in that case, no.

If you get one, they are good for hand to hand fighting. They are relatively fast for an assualt mech of that weight, deal a lot of hand to hand damage, and if you add some small lasers to it, they can kill a lot of mechs with one hit.
If they get close enough, that is.

Or buy it, and store it, to be used later in the Campaign. There are some later scenarios where it might come in handy.

 

[D-Day]

Unless you have a highly-skilled Pilot giving you a really good sprint distance to close to melee quickly, I'd skip it.

 

[Deaghaidh]

I like the Banshee, but it's not a great investment. You'll likely get a better assault through salvage or campaign missions before long.

 

[AussieGiant]

In my Ironman Career I am using a Banshee.

There is a thread about how to use "over-engined" mechs and the Banshee is one of them.

So...what did he suggest. Give it maximum armour. Maximum JJs, support weapons only and every melee mod you can find.

I did that and my word, with a 230 point melee strike plus 4 small lazers it is nuts. No heat so I use it as my brawler on hot maps. I have an Orion as my cold map brawler.

It is absolutely viable with drops that only include a 1 or 2 Assault Opfor mechs.

 

[yrrot]

There are also two Banshee variants in the game. Only one of them has the extra support hardpoints that you want for a punchbot (the -3E? Don't recall for sure).

Regardless of what weapons you run on them, it's still a 95 ton mech's worth of armor you can put on it. If you are low on tonnage and need a tanky mech to fill in, it's a passable option until you find something better. Toss a pilot with bulwark and high piloting (for extra sprint and melee) and make it your front liner for a while.

Is it worth a 4 Mil C-bill price tag? Meh? Only if you really need the tonnage and have enough firepower on the rest of your lance.

 

[Packrat]

The Banshee can be a strong mech at this point of the campaign, but I don't think I'd spend 2/3rds of my cash on one.

 

[Woozywyvern]

Hi Folks - many thanks for all the responses - much to ponder ....

 

[Pherdnut]

Banshee 3Ms are great in the right situation but don't pay for one. They practically carpet bomb you with Banshees in 4-5 skull missions. Also, in the campaign, you want to kill fast. They're more of a heavy/scout/damage-sponge/spotter with some mLasers and sLasers if you're not dumb enough to try to put PPCs on the silly things like the stock 3Es do.

Mech parts or complete mechs are only worth buying if you've been trying to find them for a long time and haven't had any luck. I'm not sure Fallout 1 & 2 had as many rats as this game has Banshees.

 

[Ironpaw]

Banshees are absolutely worth it early on, earlier the better. Even if you have no good pilot or weapons to put in it just having such a massive slab of steel to force onto the enemy is a great boon. They don't compare well to other assaults but for stomping mediums and heavies into scrap it works just fine. Throw on a PPC (and/or an AC, variant depending) for long range stabs and some small lasers for brawl range shenanigans.

 

[konahuanui]

Well what else are you going to spend your money on? C-Bills just flow in during the campaign. You'll be in the tens of millions soon without even trying.

Buying a Banshee will be a huge boost to your lance now, just do it.

 

[Icewraith]

The Banshee is SUPPOSED to prey on lighter designs. You’re literally at the point where a Banshee will be at its most useful. It still outguns the 55 tonners (either use a PPC or AC/5, Banshee can carry both) it has way more armor...

Buy it, put some JJ on it, enough weapons to contribute something at long range (or an AC/20 and become the Hunchback from hell), and a bunch of armor. Sprint in close and wreak havoc. Take it on the SLDF base mission and step on tanks.

 

[Pherdnut]

The Banshee is SUPPOSED to prey on lighter designs. You’re literally at the point where a Banshee will be at its most useful. It still outguns the 55 tonners (either use a PPC or AC/5, Banshee can carry both) it has way more armor...

Buy it, put some JJ on it, enough weapons to contribute something at long range (or an AC/20 and become the Hunchback from hell), and a bunch of armor. Sprint in close and wreak havoc. Take it on the SLDF base mission and step on tanks.

I thought that was the Grasshopper. Wasn't the Banshee's thing being the gigantic scout mech that was equipped with sLasers to discourage pilots from doing more than just scouting? It got better, of course. But ironically I actually prefer mine with sLasers and like 2 mLasers.

 

[Icewraith]

I thought that was the Grasshopper. Wasn't the Banshee's thing being the gigantic scout mech that was equipped with sLasers to discourage pilots from doing more than just scouting? It got better, of course. But ironically I actually prefer mine with sLasers and like 2 mLasers.

You’re thinking of the Charger.

 

[Ole122]

Get it. Money in the campaign is no problem at all thanks to the story mission. And any assault is better than none I'd say, even if you just use it to soak up fire.

 

[Jade_Rook]

I thought that was the Grasshopper. Wasn't the Banshee's thing being the gigantic scout mech that was equipped with sLasers to discourage pilots from doing more than just scouting? It got better, of course. But ironically I actually prefer mine with sLasers and like 2 mLasers.

You’re thinking of the Charger.

The Charger, an 80 ton assault mech with the armor of a heavy mech, the speed of a medium, and the fire power of a Locust.

I would actually like to see the Charger included in this game. The melee mechanic might be interesting with it.