Light Mech/ harder start?

[BunglingLummox]

Getting an Urbie is an upgrade at the beginning - it's the only light that can mount AC/20 if I'm not mistaken.

AC/20 Urbie is NOT fun. You have one gun, not nearly enough ammo, a terrible maximum range and no way to close the gap. The UrbanMech is at its best when it can camp on a rocky outcrop and snipe, so if I were going to mess with the gun I'd go down not up.

 

[Dheran]

Didn't get Urbie yet, so don't actually know how much tonnage there is to play. If not AC/20 then AC/10, ammo and jump jets is easily enough to tackle opposition in the starting missions.
I mean you just jump to the side of the enemy and remove arm/leg with one shot - that is very powerful in the beginning.

 

[BunglingLummox]

Didn't get Urbie yet, so don't actually know how much tonnage there is to play. If not AC/20 then AC/10, ammo and jump jets is easily enough to tackle opposition in the starting missions.
I mean you just jump to the side of the enemy and remove arm/leg with one shot - that is very powerful in the beginning.

Yes, that's why the only suggestion I made was to swap the entirely vestigial heat sink for a second ton of ammo, but max jump jets are tied to movement speed, so it can't really flank even if it jumps. They're good for getting you on top of a building to open the sightlines, and if you don't run Bulwark they'll get you 2 evasive charges for no heat (because the UrbanMech has so few guns it runs cooler than my refrigerator). But that's pretty much it.

As for the tonnage... there's a canonical variant called the UM-R60L that mounts the AC/20. It has to drop a third of the armour and it still only gets 5 shots before it runs dry. It has a reduced BV over the -R60.

 

[kstanb]

Yes the Urbie is an upgrade because its use fits perfectly against the tactics that the AI uses... a human player would destroy me at long range, or try flanking hit and runs to hit the rear, AI is happy to come charging into my killing zone.
Urbie comes with an AC10, which is hard to get in early missions; it is a great cannon, and it is fun to watch how it obliterates those poor Vees, but it is not overwhelming compared to a PPC or even the underwhelming Large Laser
I have it with 2 jump jets, those are indispensable. so far I haven't found the need to put more; or better to say I prefer the additional armor

the others are not so:
Commando is not a Blackjack, enough said...
Panther is a mini Vindicator, but one with will become totally obsolete after the early phase; while the Vindicator can be repurposed as a supporting mech... I like the idea that the "boss" should have something a little better, maybe I can change it to a Jenner, which is also great

What I found really as an "upgrade" is that having all your team in light mechs give you significant tactical advantage, to the point that I noticed that my main character started dropping out of the "killer list" as soon as I got him into a medium... because being the last one to shoot really downgraded his performance... which made me think I really need a full "Master Tactician" lance for late game... looks like the best skill to aim for

 

[kstanb]

I did some testing and decided to restart with:
Urbanmech, commando 1b, commando 2c, spider and locust. 4 salvage = 1 mech

It really improves the experience or better to say it adds the experience of playing with light mechs.

Took me some time at first, but then getting a panther and a firestarter was not that difficult as these are abundant in the half/ 1 skull early missions

And with the firestarter, the Argos mission was really easy to win and soon afterwards I had a full medium lance

 

[Xangreen]

Has anyone done 4x (5x) Locusts yet?

I've done locust start. But a also used mod that skipped first missions including miner mission. It's just slow start and M version is the best once you could refit it(take a long time at start), i'd 2 M, 1V and 2S version i think. It's really hard start financial vise as game barely balanced to be able to stay afloat at this stage too little contracts, still manageable.

Was great experience to better learn light mech combat and nice break from end game combat. Overall my favorite was Jenner with 4 ML, spider seems best if you need purely speed, firestarter the great firepower at the expense of mobility or heat(JJ), didn't like panther at all, can't justify 1 PPC vs 4 ML and it's overall slow speed witch translates in less chevrons and flanking ability. Also very little pilot injures, at least compared to melee bulwark heavy lance.

 

[Remnar]

Another thing is to drop your good pilots for a bunch of rookies to start.

 

[kstanb]

I like Panther, but I am talking early game when enemies are vehicles or under-armored/ poorly maintained mechs, it has the best melee strike of all light mechs and it has 21.5 "free tons" which means enough room for armor and heat sinks. It is slow, but I build it with 3 JJs which gives reasonable evasion.

PPC works well on the early/ short missions, I like its long range (important against base capture/ turret missions), and the +15 Stb.

In this last game I haven't captured a Jenner yet, but in previous, for some reason, I always had poor luck with it; typically it gets sensor locked = half chevrons gone, then missile strike, then alpha strikes, armor gone. My typical mission ended with Jenner needing repairs, sometime serious repair, pilot in the medbay. Worst of all are the convoy ambush missions, which is where I needed the jenner's speed the most

But by far, Firestarter is the most useful light mech; it is so fun, specially on those early assassination missions (and Argos mission), you just keep heat-disabling the big mech while the other 3 take shots at it

 

[Len Darker]

I did a start with 4 locusts and a commando as the "player mech". I have to say, though, that I play with the cbt balance mod, and the cbt hardpoints mod (which basically removes the hardpoint limits).

It makes for interesting gameplay. You're actually happy when you find half skull missions where you can step on a few vehicles before your locusts get torn apart. However....you don't really make a lot of money before you do the first story mission. And that one....well, it turns out it is doable with a commando and three locusts, but....

Glitch died. Two locusts were left at the end, basically half dead, too. The locusts were all customized for maximum armor and 2 medium lasers, too, so your mileage may vary.

After this mission, things got a lot easier. It's fun when a Firestarter or even a Spider qualifies as an upgrade. Once you get a lance of customized 35 tonners running, though, the step up to mediums is pretty much just a formality and a case of not getting broken by bad RNG.

 

[Edmon]

Another thing is to drop your good pilots for a bunch of rookies to start.

Don't need to do this, if they all die during the tutorial mission .

 

[JLaughter]

I hated how quick I got into heavies and assaults by starting with 2 mediums, so UK recently restarted the campaign with some role-playing measures to make the game more difficult.

First, I sold the Shadow Hawk and Vindicator and bought a panther. I kept the Blackjack because it is the main character's "ancestral" ride...and let's face it, it's not a good Mech.

Second, I assigned my pilots to specific Mechs. If either the Mech or Pilot was down for repairs or injuries, that mech couldn't be deployed.

This has made the game much more enjoyable to me...the first time you face down a Shadow Hawk supported by four lights with nothing but a Panther, a Locust and a Spider is bracing, to say the least!

I'm not running any mods, just made some choices to make the game a little more difficult on myself, and I've been enjoying this play through the much more. It's much more rewarding when you manage to disable an upgrade Mech for salvage.

...and even though now I have plenty of mediums and heavies, Glitch is deployed in nothing but her Firestarter. That crazy girl deserves nothing less...and she's got plenty of heavy mech notches on her kill list.

 

[kstanb]

First, I sold the Shadow Hawk and Vindicator and bought a panther. I kept the Blackjack because it is the main character's "ancestral" ride...and let's face it, it's not a good Mech.

It is really easy to change the starting lance by editing file "simgameconstants"
No modding required, just a notepad document you can edit
backup/ save it before you manipulate it, in case you make a mistake

 

[JLaughter]

I may do that next time to pull out some of the rarer mechs. I still need to actually finish the campaign on this playthrough, never did finish it the first time.

 

[W0mbatWizard]

I think my next playthrough will be a light mech start with a somewhat easy mode setup of a Firestarter, Jenner, Commando and Panther, maybe with another Firestarter in reserve instead of the Locust.

 

[Maggot Toes]

Started with 4 locusts, 2 1V, 1S, 1M. First mission was really scary, Dekker had to go hide. Turrets took out one of my turrets. That gave me an idea and the Shadow Hawk took out one more of my turrets but they helped whittle it down and helped on the tanks (the loss of a turret being nice when they turn against you). After that I'm up to about day 650 and still haven't done the Argo mission. I have two Commandos and two Locusts now. Even got past a couple assassination missions but Behemoth got KIA in that and Dekker is out for 110 days. I have better mechs than that but I'm sticking with going all Commandos then Spiders next. A Commando feels like an Atlas after doing 20 missions in a row all with Locusts.

 

[Remnar]

A Commando feels like an Atlas after doing 20 missions in a row all with Locusts.

I did similar, Man was my first Firestarter an engine of destruction compared to locusts and commandos

 

[DS_McWerp]

R/battletechmods

There’s a random gamestart mod for modtek. It’s great. At base it gives you the blackjack, a random medium, and 3 random lights and 4 random ronin. I changed it to no ancestral mech, 0 mediums, and 5 locusts.

Written by mpstark I think.

 

[me987654]

So I'm thinking I'm going to put in 2 light mechs in my next start.

Right now I'm thinking of:

Blackjack
Vindicator
Jenner
Commando 2D (??? Up in the air on this one)
Locust

I'm pretty set on the Jenner... but not entirely sure on the Commando 2D (tempted to use a firestarter... but that seems too good!)

Suggestions?

 

[kstanb]

Commando 2D is fun, but it is designed mainly for short range, hence, pilot-wise it is a "dangerous" mech, lacking the armor needed for surviving at those short ranges

I prefer Commando 1B because it is designed as a long range sniper, which means safer distances

And you would barely feel any difference if you pick Panther instead of Vindicator

 

[me987654]

Commando 2D is fun, but it is designed mainly for short range, hence, pilot-wise it is a "dangerous" mech, lacking the armor needed for surviving at those short ranges

I prefer Commando 1B because it is designed as a long range sniper, which means safer distances

And you would barely feel any difference if you pick Panther instead of Vindicator

I hear ya... but I just don't like the panther that much... and I loves me the vindicator