Good afternoon everyone! After poking around with my TDR-5SS, I finally came up with something that really clicks with my play style. I was trying to design a tough, fast, and (relatively) well armed cavalry mech that can keep up with most mediums, but brought a brick of armor that other fast-heavies (quickdraw, dragon) qualitatively seem to lack. The primary damage source is a 6-pack of medium lasers spread out over the mech. While they don't have the armor-crunch alpha strike like ballistics/ppcs, they are great at carving up light/medium mechs and taking out damaged limbs. An ER-LLAS in the oh-so-sexy right shoulder mount brings an bit of a token ranged damage and helps keep you in the fight while waiting for things to get up close and personal. Up close, it can be used a couple of times with the rest of the beams without having to seriously worry about heat, especially with skill upgrades. A STD315 combined with near-max armor and crit-packed torsos makes this mech more of a 28 Days Later zombie: Fast, in your face, and hard to put down. I have found that staying behind the front lines dealing with lights and darting out occasionally to take a couple of passes at bigger, damaged enemies really seems to work. Conserve your armor and do not get greedy, though: you are much more valuable mid-late game when everyone is getting down to duct tape and bailing wire. More than once my inner-orc (yes I have the mech painted bright red) has taken over and a poorly thought out charge left me facing off against 4+ mechs with little damage. The mech is tough, just not that tough. Other good news: STD 315's are pretty damn cheap too! Thoughts? Suggestions?
Looks like fun, though I already have a mech that fits my preferred style. Funnily it also relies on 1ERLL for some long range poke and it's surprisingly effective in combination witht he rest of the loadout. Since I put PPCs in the right torso, the ERLL takes the high hardpoint in the LT, which is still very easy to snipe with. However, I feel that without the additional poke from PPCs, 1 ERLL might be a bit too little. Besides that I'm a sucker for a bit more organized builds so I'd get a STD300 or 280 engine, and mount 2 ERLL in the right torso. a few KPH more from a std315 is not worth the tonnage, the difference between 5 or 6 ML in your sustained fire does not compare with doubling the power you can put in from range. Also with 1ERLL you can keep firing because your heat dissipates faster that it's generated. That's nice, but you simply don't use the full potential as well. In my opinion being heat-gated and not DPS-gated from range is a huge improvement, as long as you make sure you discipline yourself to split the weapon groups. I can certainly see this being effective, because I run the same build on my BJ-1X except this is slower and sturdier, but it doesn't fit me personally well enough.
After playing around a bit to see how your suggestions fit... you are correct, the STD 300 + 2xERLLAS look like a more efficient build. Using your suggested build as a base you can tinker a bit as well. Remove 2xERLLAS Add ERPPC + MLAS Add .5 ton armor Add AMS+ammo / BAP (or a heatsink and 6 pts of armor ) It adds a hole-puncher and equipment at the loss of some damage and ease of weapon use.
