I'm a quite odd Mech player, I don't think a LRM boat should have secondary weapons. Lasers are just wasted ammo slots. If you find yourself in a position when you need lasers then you've failed with positioning yourself on the battlefield anyway. If a light pack swarm you then your lights aren't doing their job, and you wont have a chance against a good light pack anyway. I always start with engines structure and armor types. Engines needs to be a good balance between slots, weight and heat sinks. I use standard Armor and Structure on the 1S because I need so many slots for the ammo and heat sinks. The XL-300 is my choice of the perfect balance, since it has 2 extra slots for heat sinks and isn't too slow for the Mech. But it doesn't weigh too much as an XL-350 would. It produce enough speed on most maps, 66.8 with speed tweak but it's a bit slow on large maps like alpine. In the end it's a compromise of speed vs slots/ton, where in this case slots/ton wins. You can use the XL-350 with Endo-steel instead, but here you lose 1 slot of ammo instead. You doesn't gain anything too important except for the speed, which you don't need that much of to begin with. After all it's a missile boat. I like Mechs which utilize the full capacity of the of hard points and missile slots. So you can do a full alpha with all the missile slots and doesn't get the rainbow of many stalkers and clan Mechs. You lose less missiles to AMS and they make a larger impact on hit. The perfect combination on this mech when thinking of hard points/missile slots is the 2 * LRM 15 and 2 * LRM 10. You have two tens in the right torso, and one 15 in each arm. You can do the full LRM 50 alpha and make a big splash or you can fire 30 + 20, and keep a constant stream of missiles. I've been tweaking the Mech last week to achieve a higher DPS in pug drops, but will add more ammo to it for a CW drop, when there are more enemies to kill. In a pug drop you need to be ready for a hot map and still be able to keep up the firing therefor I have a high number of heat sinks in my missile boats. My one exception to the no laser rule is the tag, it's a very important component to a good LRM boat. Without it it will be way harder to attack Mechs under ECM and those that aren't spotted already. What about artemis? Well it only works when you have line of sight, which makes it very good for mechs with jump jets or mechs that can hide well. It also doesn't suite my gameplay with this mech since I try to stay behind hills and other cover and relay on friends and UAV to fins targets. Therefor I've skipped artemis on this mech since I would only be able to use it once every 5 shots, it's simply not worth the extra ton and slots. Without it I can put more ammo and heat sinks in which give me a higher dps and a higher max damage. If you take a Catapult C4 I would definetly go with artemis, because it's so much more mobile. Now to complete the mech with modules! LRM 10 Cooldown LRM 15 Cooldown Advanced Target Decay Advanced Sensor Range UAV Airstrike I always equip my mechs with UAV because it's a great spotter for the team, even if you're not a LRM boat. The cooldown modules are there to increase the DPS, on hotter maps of course you have to take it easier but they still help. The target decay increase the time your sights are locked after a mech has left line of sight and therefor increase your chance of hitting them. Very nice feature when dealing with ECM. I've used the LRM range modules as well but I don't feel that the extra 100 meters give as much as the cooldown does. Even when firing on 900 meters there are a few seconds before the missiles hit and in that time most players can find cover. Although there are exceptions to this like Alpine, here you really want the range but then there are better LRM boats with more range. Below is an example of my latest iteration, I try different versions all the time but right now is the best. You can lose some armor and a heat sink if you want more ammo, but this is a good start at least. Now, questions on that?
Did a great match this evening with SweC. An all time high and a great start with the newest version of the build.
Very well explained, makes me ashamed of the details I've included on some of my posted mechs..... Have to admit I like secondary weapons but part of that is the modules system and also that I only use LRM's in the solo queue (aka leveling new mechs). With support I just use one size of launchers to get best use of modules. For the group queue I do get the no secondary weapons as you have a lance to protect you plus you are likely to be a lot closer to your lance so firing at shorter range (and therefore less value to the + range module).
Looks like a lovely build for CW, but in PUGs I'd prefer those backup lasers somehow. Also, what about Artemis? Only problem in CW might be the massive amount of ECM the clans are already bringing, and it'll only get worse in my opinion as soon as the Hellbringer is released for CBills and Wave III mechs enter the game. Other than that: happy Lurming!
He had to pick the round where the NARC Raven died in the first two minutes... In my defence, I ran into a counternarcing Stormcrow and a tripple LBX10 Ilya. The rest of the rounds were pretty spectactular, agree with Panda. The build relies on group queue and having other mechs help keep the opposition from rushing. Our lance went 7-1 in W/L with this build, my NARC Raven as spotter and tactical advisor (time to move ppl), a Cicada for Skirmish and a DWF with dual Gauss and sundries for punch.
I updated the first post for artemis, forgot about it . Havent dropped against clan in CW for a while. But that's probably true, gonna build some other assultes for that. Thinking of droping with the dudes this weekend actually!
