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[Kharille]

I remember having a Marauder and getting so many head hits. In my 2nd playthrough I'm just fielding 400 tons all the time, and salvaging a mech is hard when my warriors are such bad shots. These days I'm alternating leg shots. Bearing in mind the possibility of missing, seems only worth while to salvage assault mechs who can stand the odd central torso hits.

Has anyone reliably got a lot of head shot kills? I'm sure my Elite mechwarriors would have a better chance, but I'm focusing on training people to 10/10/10/8 skills and got to work on all 24 warrior slots.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

With a pilot with Called Shot Mastery and the Marauder, I think it is possible to get about a 35% chance to hit the head which is pretty good. It even gets something like 33% chance to hit the head from a side arc.

That seems to allow me to snag headshots fairly reliably.

 

[Doctor Machete]

You can easily headcap every single mech in a nine foes five skull mission with just one Marauder alone if you have good equipment, although I usually go for the CT against 0% DR low tier heavies and bellow that. And that's ignoring salvage, the head is more efficient against heavier mechs.

 

[Retic73]

Prior to the Marauder and the new equipment (UACs, etc...) my old reliable was an Atlas or King Crab with 4 x LL+++ and 2 x AC5+++

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

I remember having a Marauder and getting so many head hits. In my 2nd playthrough I'm just fielding 400 tons all the time, and salvaging a mech is hard when my warriors are such bad shots. These days I'm alternating leg shots. Bearing in mind the possibility of missing, seems only worth while to salvage assault mechs who can stand the odd central torso hits.

Has anyone reliably got a lot of head shot kills? I'm sure my Elite mechwarriors would have a better chance, but I'm focusing on training people to 10/10/10/8 skills and got to work on all 24 warrior slots.

I don't think you need all 24 pilots trained for scoring purposes. Let me see if I can't find the thread someone posted about achieving kerensky. See theme career mode scoring guide thread for details.

 

[KDubya]

I remember having a Marauder and getting so many head hits. In my 2nd playthrough I'm just fielding 400 tons all the time, and salvaging a mech is hard when my warriors are such bad shots. These days I'm alternating leg shots. Bearing in mind the possibility of missing, seems only worth while to salvage assault mechs who can stand the odd central torso hits.

Has anyone reliably got a lot of head shot kills? I'm sure my Elite mechwarriors would have a better chance, but I'm focusing on training people to 10/10/10/8 skills and got to work on all 24 warrior slots.

What works well is put one experienced pilot in the Marauder and then three mooks in the others. The experienced guy isn't 10/10/10/10 - he just needs to have Tactics 9 for Called Shot Mastery. Once your Designated Marksman gets 10/10/10/10 replace him with someone else.

Another thing to keep in mind is that experience gained past 10/10/10/10 counts as far as score goes, someone had like only five or six pilots on a Kerensky score where they were like a million exp over but he still got max score.

 

[Shark7]

Try putting a Tactics 10 pilot in a stock Bullshark....interesting things can happen.

 

[Insahnity]

If you are fielding 400 ton lances, why bother worrying about salvaging with head shots? Anything decent is found in black markets. In missions with a smorgasbord of mech parts, you will inevtiably be assigned a dozen regular heat sinks and standard jump jets and be forced to leave behind valuable Mech Parts after you take whatever you can in preferred salvage.

At that point, headshots are a means to expediently finish missions and do more of them in the same time frame, rather than increasing salvage.

A better point is this: When you are starting out, and your pilots are green as heck (think "B Team" missions, except YOU are the B team) and the Centurion is accompanied by a Spider, a Locust and an Urbie, what do you target? You don't have the missiles to knockdown a target, your aim explains the yellow walls in your bathroom (no head shots), and you lack the tonnage for a slugfest. At this point, I aim for the torso (not the legs). It's an easier target to hit than a leg (or head), but not as heavily armored as the CT, and if your lance mates focus fire on the same torso you can start blowing off torso AND arm weapons, severely crippling damage output, improving your survival. Tactics like this are useful for Tournament of Champions, where you are stuffed into 4 base model stock Urbies. Draw out a single Urbie while evading the other, take out the AC10 (Blow out Right torso, which knocks off AC10 in Right Arm). Rinse and repeat. This is assuming you don't get a lucky shot from behind in a flanking move.

 

[Shark7]

If you are playing a modded game, you may not find the best equipment on the market though. Some mods limit what you can buy, and you still have to acquire it the old fashioned way. So it comes down to if your game is modded or not as to which method of collecting goodies is available.

 

[Aluminium Gerbil]

If you are fielding 400 ton lances, why bother worrying about salvaging with head shots? Anything decent is found in black markets. In missions with a smorgasbord of mech parts, you will inevtiably be assigned a dozen regular heat sinks and standard jump jets and be forced to leave behind valuable Mech Parts after you take whatever you can in preferred salvage.

At that point, headshots are a means to expediently finish missions and do more of them in the same time frame, rather than increasing salvage.

For dat cash money. It'll vary depending on your salvage settings but BSK-M3s and Cyclops HQs show up fairly regularely and both sell for just shy of 3 mil c-bills a piece. If you find a 5 skull mission with 6 preferred salvage it's not unfeasable to make 6-8 million in one go.

 

[Kharille]

I usually try to headshot assault mechs, assuming theres nothing more than a crippled heavy mech blasting away at my guys. Thankfully on my 2nd playthrough, 900 days into it I got over 60 relations with all the factions except the taurians. Maybe one day I'll try a game and keep them friendly too or possibly wander into their systems hoping to improve relations with them.

Not sure how the mechanics work but typically I'm fielding 4 gauss rifles with ER L Lasers and ER PPCs. Seeing a lot of ammo explosions with central torso hits and one shotting medium mechs.

 

[ADisplayName]

In general I agree with @Insahnity try to concentrate fire on one target at a time.

Depending on the mech, depends on what I target; Hunchbacks, Griffins and anything with an AC20, the right torso goes first (or the torso with the AC20 in it). Thunderbolts the CT goes first as usually I can get a critical hit on the ammo stored there. Rifleman/Jagermechs I go for the nearest arm/torso first as this usual reduces their effectiveness by about 50% same for Catapults, oh and Marauder left torso (take out the tac computer).

I tend to try to target the things I think are the biggest threat first, so anything with an AC20 or flamer, Hunchbacks, Rifleman, Jagermechs, SRM carriers, Cyclops (Z and HQ) and Marauder. Not encounter a Bullshark yet, but Annihilators are a nightmare, and even more so if more than one is fielded at once.

As for head shots I seem to find my Highlander-B is good about 50-75% of the time, but the star is my Marauder 3R, it can head shot about 80%+ of the time. The 3R is kitted out with a PPC (+10dmg) and AC10, a SPPC (++ I think) and medium lasers. I find if the PPC or AC takes the head down to the structure then the SPPC finishes the job almost 100% of the time, in fact it seems to work for legs too, though these have a bit more armour in general so its slightly less effective.

Your milage may vary as I am not great at this game, all my pilots are maxed out on each skill and I havent been keeping a tally of called shots against result, so the percentages are what I feel is happening and might not reflect what is actually happening.
That said I am very happy with my 3R that I take it on almost all 3+ skull missions

 

[Prussian Havoc]

With Hunchback-4Gs I like to go for the Left Torso and try to save that AC20 for later salvaging. Even if I don’t need it for my MechBay, it is a high Cbill item I can just sell later.

 

[Doctor Machete]

Once you get an Orion with 3 missile slots(H?, I know it's not the K) you can start running missile boats with 45 missiles, 60 on a Stalker. You'll put even Assaults in unsteady with each volley, then your other mechs complete the knockdown with PPCs, ACs, or SRMs. Follow it up with called shots, or for Max salvage just knock them down repeatedly.

That's not OP but a run-of-the-mill tactic which doesn't work very well later in the game, as many foes have Sure Foot, halving stab damage on top of their mechs having highly increased base stability.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

That's not OP but a run-of-the-mill tactic which doesn't work very well later in the game, as many foes have Sure Foot, halving stab damage on top of their mechs having highly increased base stability.

You give the AI far too much credit. I agree with @SpenReyn, the AI is hard pressed to counter a Player’s 45-tube Orion or 60-tube Stalker. It doesn’t take a Marauder to OverPower the AI. :bow:

 

[foamyesque]

Headshots for salvage, CTs (rear, for preference) if I need to just end someone right now. Occasionally a side torso or leg if there's some good tactical reason for it, like facing or desiring a knockdown.

That's not OP but a run-of-the-mill tactic which doesn't work very well later in the game, as many foes have Sure Foot, halving stab damage on top of their mechs having highly increased base stability.

Works fine in the late game, you just need more tubes. Sure Footing is annoying, but 70 +stab damge tubes -- achievable on a Bull Shark or (with various compromises) a Stalker -- will put anything except a four bar entrenched assault 'mech into unsteady, whereupon you can cowtip them with someone else.

The requirement for a three bar entrenched assault is 240 and for a four bar entrenched heavy is 256, and 70 * 4 *.95 = 266.

That gives you a bit of wiggle room for more misses than average, and a Shark can in fact go to 80 tubes and functionally guarantee it.

And if anyone isn't entrenched, you can split fire from 80 tubes and shove two 'mechs into unsteady. Run a pair of them, you consistently get two knockdowns every round, which means you can get two kills a round without burning resolve on precision shots -- which means you can use it on vigilance instead, on two 'mechs a round. It's pretty vicious.

 

[Doctor Machete]

You give the AI far too much credit. I agree with @SpenReyn, the AI is hard pressed to counter a Player’s 45-tube Orion or 60-tube Stalker. It doesn’t take a Marauder to OverPower the AI. :bow:

No, it doesn't take a Marauder. A single non-lostech Warhammer or Cataphract using LLs may be enough, but imo it isn't OP to require three actions (at the very least) to kill a mech.

Works fine in the late game, you just need more tubes. Sure Footing is annoying, but 70 +stab damge tubes -- achievable on a Bull Shark or (with various compromises) a Stalker -- will put anything except a four bar entrenched assault 'mech into unsteady, whereupon you can cowtip them with someone else. 70 * 4 *.95 = 266. The requirement for a three bar entrenched assault is 240 and for a four bar entrenched heavy is 256. That gives you a bit of wiggle room for more misses than average, and a Shark can in fact go to 80 tubes and functionally guarantee it.

And if anyone isn't entrenched, you can split fire from 80 tubes and shove two 'mechs into unsteady. Run a pair of them, you consistently get two knockdowns every round, which means you can get two kills a round without burning resolve on precision shots -- which means you can use it on vigilance instead, on two 'mechs a round. It's pretty vicious.

I'm not saying it doesn't work at all but that it doesn't work very well, that it isn't OP. At that point, you can take a single heavy or medium and solo many five skull missions easily, depending on the number of foes and other factors. Unless something like Lunar biome, for a regular (non lostech) heavy or a good medium (lostech), most five-foes five-skull missions are going to be very very easy.

At that stage you can also take a full lance and just kill two-three foes per turn, like one of your mechs oneshots one mech, your other mech tries to kill another but fails, requiring the third of your mechs to finish it, and your fourth mech oneshots a vehicle (two PS in total). That's not too far fetched for a late game lance in five skull missions and it's not merely keeping at bay a couple mechs but actually killing three foes in the same turn.