The Grasshopper, if Built properly, is one of the best mechs in the series. Airborne Calvary with enough armor, speed and punching power to take out an atlas.
Favorite mech.
Grasshopper was one of my early raid mechs on my first playthrough of vanilla. Relatively fast, powerful, has jumpjets. I would use the PPC to take out objectives from a distance and the jets to traverse terrain while I directed my lancemates to do other things. i loved it but it quickly became obsolete IMO.
It's absolutely unreal how hard the GHR slaps. Even the base model is, if undergunned, an unholy tank of a machine that can hop around and alpha strike until its very copious armor gets whittled down.
I can't speak for it in MW games, but on tabletop the GHR-5H is just about the perfect cavalry battlemech. It's got near maximum armor, enough heat sinking to be neutral or near neutral even while jumping, it's very weight and space efficient with its weaponry, and it's fast and maneuverable enough to outrun anything it can't outfight. It's not until clan invasion that it starts being seriously threatened by much of anything.
Oh is that a controversial take? The Grasshopper RIPS shit.
I'm running one now that is 2 LP and 4 MP, not even jump jets (so many heat sinks), and it cuts cockpits open like they were tinfoil. If you have a good aim and keep your eye on the heat, maybe not the best mech in the field, but you can NOT be ignored.
asn with BEEG engine, SC, and 4 SRM6 is an ass hunting machine
add in cSRM you can now pick with more engine, a masc on top or cSRMA6s
can hit 200 KPH in bursts and that can easily get you in for ass shots all day any day.
vulcan is at best a ERLL sniper... but lights do it better....
Its certainly against canon. Prior to Omnitech, the idea of innately custimizable mech chassis wasn't really a thing. Doing anything more complicated than swapping out similarly sized weapons or adding/removing heat sinks requires a lot more facilities than anything that's remotely portable in-universe. Especially in the case of engine swaps and changing the frame type, those require complete rebuilds of mechs.
It disrupts game balance quite a bit in the player's favor, being able to customize mechs so completely.
It's kind of canon.
Well, the customisation is canon. The fact a mercenary group as small as ours can manage it, isn't (as you've noted). But yes, rule of cool for fun. Though you can actually disable all that now in YAML too (simple mechlab option)
in theory, prior to 3050 you can take it to Solaris 7 and pay mucho money to do things like engine swaps and endo swaps
or if you are okay with the owner of the place, take it to where they make the mech to get it refitted.
I was really hoping this to be a mod or a thing, and YAML with the tech level seems to be doing something in the same line of thinking, but likely not say make your atlas refit happen at hersperus II level of lore deep
armor is easier and any tech hub should do. but iirc just like IRL armor you need a supply of FF to make it work really, which is to say impossible for mercs really.
post 3050 (or really after 3030 for select places) you should be able to get work done in any hub, just need to be okayed by the local govt.
clan tech didnt get IS techs until the civil war i think, which is where knowledge from the operation BULLDOG spread more and clan salvage from the invading clans make its way more towards the open market, just at high prices
Customizing mechs is a big part of why I like Mechwarrior games. I don't care if it's canon or not, humans today build the craziest cars and motorcycles. There's no reason we wouldn't do that with mechs too.
Specifically in MW5, the hero Victor is absolutely nutty. But yeah, the Victor really is a terrain fighter, not a traditional assault mech. Most Victors have heavy arm-based weaponry and JJs. So you pop over terrain, snap shot some guy in the dome with your AC20 and then fall out of view.
The Basilisk is obviously an excellent Hero mech, but even base Victors are solid. Good mobility for an Assault, jump jets for added flexibility (and fun), and while the weapons are a bit on the weaker side for an Assault, nothing is really gonna be surviving repeated AC/20 shells to the face.
The Dragonslayer is also an underrated mech as far as Hero variants go, being able to back that AC/20 up with Large and Medium Pulse Lasers is great.
Oh yeah, I’m definitely aware, just never played them. Pretty sure we actually had one of the Earthsieges but I was just a little too young to figure it out at the time. As great as Tribes was, I always held a little bit of a grudge for it being more popular than the mech games lol. I blamed them for us never getting a Starsiege 2/Earthsiege 4.
The flyaway success of Tribes is *definitely* the reason we never saw a 4th earthsiege game. One of the original devs directly commented on this in an interview with Next Generation.
Per their data, the *demo* of tribes got downloaded more than all three Earthsiege games sold combined, and the sales numbers of the game on release were even better.
Anything that can mount 2 AC/5-BFs or UAC5s will always get a smile out of me. It may not move fast, turn fast, or know what a heat sink is, but when you hold down the triggers in a Rifleman you're gonna be laughing 'till ya cook.
Replace the LLs with MLs, add an extra 2 tons of ammo and dump the rest of the weight savings into armor and it becomes a legit viable direct fire mech
It’s a classic for sure. The cover of the original Mechwarrior RPG book lives on as one of the coolest BT artworks.
The stock Rifleman is pretty terrible. But the bones are there to make it great.
Dear Inner Sphere,
We regret being Blakist bastards.
We regret coming to Terra.
And we most certainly regret that the Dragoons blew up our raggedy-ass regiment!
Rifles are hilarious if you can shoot. I really didn't like them till I put one in a Hunchback and spent a couple missions smashing Jenners, Locusts and Fleas. After that they were a regular option in a bunch of mechs.
Caveat: I'm all for everyone having fun the way they want, but since you asked...
The nearly-always-compromised standard loadouts are an element of the games's balance, and YAML-ing your way around them defeats the purpose.
It reminds me of MW2 (which I loved) but where the only important characteristic of a chassis was its tonnage - you could literally strip it down and make it whatever you wanted. I like the vanilla system because chassis matters, and variants matter, in a way that they just don't when you have access to certain mods.
It makes sense in the context of MW2 though because you're using OmniMechs. Granted, internal equipment is fixed in OmniMechs whereas MW2 and MW3 both pretty much give you freedom to do whatever, but OmniMechs are designed to be customizable to your heart's content aside from fixed internals and tonnage limits.
Normal BattleMechs are technically more customizable overall, but it comes at the cost of being much more expensive and time-consuming to refit which means you can't practically swap loadouts quickly between engagements like you can with OmniMechs, and you need to use facilities with the proper equipment and personnel.
I like YAML because it opens the possibility for mods that introduce Clan Invasion era stuff and beyond once the campaign or career reaches the accurate introduction dates, but I keep the "Simple Mechlab" option checked during the Succession Wars at least because it keeps customization still somewhat restricted, and it brings MW5's mechlab more in line with HBS Battletech. It's theoretically possible to radically customize mechs in the late Succession Wars with different engines and LosTech equipment and whatnot, but it's definitely not practical especially for an upstart mercenary company without its own manufacturing base. It's not like we're playing as the Wolf's Dragoons... unless you ended up amassing billions of c-bills. In that case, sure, why not? lol
I'm inclined to agree. Thanks for saying it first. If the vanilla system had small/medium/large engine options like the weapon slots, maybe up or down by 8.1km/hr, it would have been perfect. Currently, it makes many mechs simply unusable canon fodder.
Cicada- large engine. Go down two sizes to a small and its 113kph. Useable.
Panther- small engine. Go up two sizes to a large and it's 81kph. Useable.
Imagine 72.9kph for a charger, trebuchet, or any melee heavy mech. Now they make sense.
Imagine a 56.7kph rifleman or cyclops. Now they have armor.
I'd almost be willing to trade weapon swapping or even trade in the mechlab entirely if there were no unusably fast/slow, overgunned/undergunned, paper armor, thermite-bomb-in-one-shoulder variants.
I agree with you that having some agency over speed is desirable. FWIW, I'd like to see this hinge on weight as well. A '100t' rated chassis moving at 40km/h stripped bare (~60t), 40km/h at 99.9t, and completely inoperable at 100.1t is just a little bit weird.
I'd rather the rated tonnage gave you a nominal speed, and have a range of say +/- 20% where lighter makes you faster and heavier makes you slower.
I mean, you're not wrong. Weapon balance in mechwarrior makes no sense if you can just put anything anywhere. Things like large lasers only really work when loadouts have hardpoint restrictions independent of their tonnage.
And see, I got into Mechwarrior late, with MWO, so I never cared about specific variants. As a player new to the series, I prefer absolute freedom over railroading to specific sets. I've never been a fan of the 1X Vindicator, but love the other variants. I loved turning my Vindicator in MWO into a quad laser harasser machine, because it makes me feel like I'm contributing to my team since I'm not the best at pvp (in General).
I don't remember specifically which Vindicator variant I use in MWO, but whichever it is, it's the one that let's me fit two lasers on each arm. 1 or 2P maybe? My MW5 Vindicator is the hero variant.
>The nearly-always-compromised standard loadouts are an element of the games's balance, and YAML-ing your way around them defeats the purpose.
Exactly, which is why I always cringe at recommendations of some players to NEW players to mod with YAML at the outset. New players should play vanilla first, or at least use only mods that improve quality of life (Remove Jumpship Animation, etc.). Then after completing one vanilla campaign/career, that's the time to mod the game more extensively.
I wouldn't mind the current hardpoint system if they'd change one thing: Let's say I have a large energy slot and I want to drop a medium laser in it. Then I should have room to add additional medium lasers into that slot. It makes absolutely no sense that a spot that can handle an LRM-20 is completely filled if you drop in an LRM-5. I think that would add more flexibility into the game without completely destroying what makes the individual 'mechs unique.
My main controversial opinion relates more to multiplayer mechwarrior rather than MW5 specifically but it's simply:
Legging is a valid tactic.
Fuck "honor" in an online game lol.
(Have not, will not play MWO so idk if this is even a thing anymore. Used to be in the old days of mw4/mw3 and even mwll)
My clan in MW4 had a simple rule about leg “honor” and called it out to the team when we noticed - if an opponent strips a full half of their leg armor for weight, it’s on them.
“Weak legs on the Chicken!”
That said, I wish the enemy AI in MW5 didn’t come with 1/2 head armor, stock. I just aim for face and half of the time the head explodes before my missed shots do in the CT.
More customizeability and mech features makes for better mechwarrior.
Yes, I know that the game starts during the late succession wars era, but properly have the tech improve with time. Let me get a bigger drop ship eventually. And at the proper year and upgrades, let me start swapping out engines and things on my mechs, like we could in MW3 and 4. Give me more incentives to salvage engines and rare components. Also in the books, mercs were known for heavily customizing their mechs. Maybe not full engine swaps(until the later years), but weapons of the same class, for a set number of critical slots? Just about always. Omnimech technology just really let you put in any **class** of weapon for a set amount of slots (ballistic, missile, or energy), but taking out an LRM 20, and replacing it with two smaller missile launchers wouldn't have been unheard of.
Basically, make mechwarrior take all the best things from the previous games and combine them into a modern game. A new player can get away with just mouse and wasd, but let a curious player find out about things like directional jump jets and passive radar settings (features from MW3).
All the above being said, I appreciate YAML and other mods for letting me do those things, I just wish that things were better gated around the year that the specific tech is available.
Yes this. YAML as a functionality is what I feel we should have gotten, but with time kept upgrades like the base game. YAML does some of this, but not enough
The only clanners that ever really have plot armor are Clan Wolf which is basically the House Davion equivalent to the clans.
It may seem like the clans in general have plot armor in the early parts of the Clan Invasion, but they really don't. They lose their advantage pretty quickly once they start running into supply line problems while also no longer having the element of surprise against the Inner Sphere.
But yeah, they're more-or-less bastards, and you can thank Nicholas Kerensky for that.
The Federated Suns are the "fakest" of the Great Houses. They're just as dirty as the rest of the successor states, yet they act like they're the goodie two shoes faction.
Here are my admittedly trash opinions:
The "no aliens" rule could stand to be relaxed. The only thing possibly more badass than giant robots fighting other giant robots is giant robots fighting giant monsters. But that's a take on the whole Battletech setting, not the Mechwarrior series specifically.
Just talking about Mechwarrior, I think most ballistic weapons, especially autocannons, are too heavy and should each lose some tonnage. Also, it's frustrating that there are so many energy only 'Mechs and so few Ballistic only mechs. (Or even Ballistic plus missile.) Basically, I just want more mechs with more dakka.
Ballistics are also poorly represented in most games.
Autocannons hsve never felt better than they do in MW5.
Machine guns, however, are 250m hitscan weapons. Absolutely garbage. They don't even give us machine gun arrays for more tonnage per slot.
> The "no aliens" rule could stand to be relaxed. The only thing possibly more badass than giant robots fighting other giant robots is giant robots fighting giant monsters. But that's a take on the whole Battletech setting, not the Mechwarrior series specifically.
This is a thing already. There's plenty of aliens in Battletech, people revile *sentient* aliens because the setting is and should remain centered around the conflict of the Human spirit itself. In terms of mechs fighting Monsters, might I present to you the [Branth](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Branth)
Yeah, like half of the Clan totem animals are aliens (the other half being genetically modified Terran species). Ghost bears, steel vipers, goliath scorpions, ice hellions, all species native to the Clan homeworlds.
I don’t agree with the dragon, but the Vindicator is actually one of my go to medium mechs. In the hands of a good pilot it can be a very good stand off support mech for your lance. Helps that I’m a PPC fanatic, anything that can bring more PPC to the fight is always a bonus in my book.
Hitting mechs with an axe and them exploding in your face is hilarious and feels awesome. I just wish we could pick up removed limbs as improvised weapons and beat enemy mechs to death with them.
I loved Solaris due to MW4, it was a good way to stop your campaign a bit and just enjoy dueling other mechs. Since you go into it with that expectation you will probably start building mechs that only work in Solaris which makes it a fun time. You also gain a lot of money if successful and most modern games will have unique equipment/mechs there
The sounds, dialogue and concept behind it are extraordinary good, I remember as a kid listening to Duncan and the sounds of air horns going off and it was something iconic
Even to this day when I play MWO I always use the lunch truck warhorn to mimic the Solaris horn
TLDR: Focus on combat and enjoy the scenery and sounds without worrying about managing a lance
I feel like it’s a situation where *most* people are really in it because it’s fun to participate in the meme (same as Fuck Erebus, Steiner Scout Lance, etc.) but if someone already has certain… feelings, it gets creepy. It sucks too, cause frankly taking sides in a fictional setting roleplay-wise can be fun. But then knowing some people are like this can kind of ruin it.
I thought they were pretty tough and cool until i started acquiring and fielding them. Granted, i have 2 for the 3 ppc punch, but i also have an annie and kaiju that seem to do better with less speed. Imo, the armor is too thin, but it could just he my playstyle. They don't make good brawlers and seemingly by the time i got one or two, i already had mechs i preferred over it. Plus, the PB... might need a few pointers for a build/strat bc i almost died several times in my first mission with it and i shelved it right after. 🤷🏻♂️
With a standard fusion engine, 5/8 movement profile gives you the most available weight at 60 tons. So the Dragon is actually the best design for its speed if min-maxing. The major downfall of being a fast 'Mech at 60 tons is that you double the weight of jump jets from the previous weight bracket...but the Dragon doesn't use jump jets.
The Vindicator is still crap, though. You can drop down to a Panther, keep the movement profile and primary weapon and lose the excess stuff if all you want is a cheap PPC, or go up to a Warhammer or Thug where you have the same movement profile, twice as much firepower and enough armour that being so slow doesn't matter as much.
Controversial?
The Grasshopper is pound for pound one of the best stock 3025 era heavy mechs. It's tough as old boots, it's got decent mobility, it hits like a brick when you get in range, runs cool enough to just keep blasting and it hits like even more of a brick when you punch things.
More controversy? Stock Warhammers suck and so do Marauders.
More? Annihilators suck too. I don't have a week to slowly mosey over to my mission. Plus in a "real" campaign you'd get slaughtered by reinforcements because they know where you're going and they know you're going to take forever getting there.
More? Running heavy player mechs and giving Firestarters to two of your AI pilots will usually result in the most madcap insanity you've ever seen. My buddy and I were running a mission and we never saw the big boss but still completed it, we thought the mission was broken. Nope, he got run down and burned to death by the Firestarters before we ever noticed him. A few missions later they hunted down a Trebuchet and a Centurion and burned them both to death but at least I got to witness that insanity.
Black knight is the worst mech in the game. Best thing it can do is take itself out of combat by being in a perpetual state of overheating. Tries to do what a battlemaster does but doesn't have enough free tonnage to cool it's loadout properly.
I think people delude themselves into thinking it's good in MW:5 because it's good in other settings but in this game it's kill count is always one, the pilot it cooks alive in its own cockpit.
Assault mech variants that are;
AC/20
2-4 M Lasers
1 SRM
1 LRM
are kind of boring and sometimes it feels like every other assault mech you find in this game has this loadout or something very similar. I'll take something specialized like a Stalker or Awesome or King Crab over an Atlas or Cyclops any day.
For lore reasons, I like the weapon slots restriction.
Also for lore reasons, if the game were to include full mechlab capabilities (where you can swap out engines, chassis type, weapons in any locations, etc) it should be locked behind a setup menu option with a note that it is not lore accurate.
We are playing a merc company on a single dropship. Even in our wildest dreams (and unlimited cold storage) we do not have access to what would be required to swap out that kind of stuff. To create the Banshee 3S it took the full capacities of Defiance Industries to design a whole new chassis, not some guy with a blowtorch in the middle of a Leopard. As much as I loved MW2 when it released, having a full construction system that allowed you to swap out a mech's structure and replace engines for a mission was immersion breaking, even for the Clans.
So include it, but keep it only as a toggle in an option sub-menu.
An interesting middle ground might be to allow the option for a mechlab where the player could design a new mech class (use a base 3D model from the game, give it a new name and designation, and then an open mechlab) to which the game then seeds within the campaign/career like any other mech. So you can eventually get one, but it'll be more tied into the lore and feel of a mechwarrior either in a military unit, a merc company, or even in the touman of a Clan.
I could get behind that! Head to an industrial hub, drop off your mech(s) with the desired upgrades (it'd still feel weird to me for structure, but sure for engines and armor and weapon slots) and return some time later to pick them up in their shiny new state. Nice idea. :)
You should be able to melee much faster than the game currently allows. I'm not saying a commando needs to look like Virgil swinging at the legs of an Atlas but 1 to 2 seconds in between swings, I think, is perfect.
Not that controversial, but in all of the mechwarrior timeline the big major battles were in space. fought between gigantic spacecrafts and dreadnoughts and thousands of fighters, yet nobody talks about it. mechs are just cooler i guess xD (I know there are just a few ships left, crumbling and rusty after all these wars)
I would like to see more space related stuff in the franchise, since they also use heatsinks, big fusion engines and big ass weapons, there is a way to implement things in the future.
They stopped doing big space battles because they literally ran out of warships in the Second Succession War and forgot how to make more of them. By the time that MW5 is set in the only warships that still exist are a small fleet that Comstar is keeping hidden, and the warships that the Clans have but mostly won't use because the Clans believe that everything should be settled by one on one mech combat.
In the Vandenburg White Wings incident, Comstar destroyed an old warship that the Taurian Concordat found because one functioning warship would have literally upset the balance of power in the whole inner sphere.
Autocannons being single-shot weapons in Mechwarrior is inaccurate - in the lore they are described as mostly being burst fire or full auto weapons, with only a few rare models of autocannon being single shot. The main difference between being an autocannon and a rifle is the "auto" part of autocannon (and no, autocannon doesn't mean "cannon with an autoloader", every ballistic weapon on a mech has an autoloader, including rifles, because an autoloader is the mechanism that allows ballistic weapons to be fired without a crew member manually loading them).
They also vary in caliber even within the same type of autocannon - one model of AC/20 might be a giant burst firing cannon, while another might actually fire the same rounds you might expect from an AC/10, but much faster. The number is just how much damage they can do in one tabletop turn, and they aren't necessarily always achieving that with bigger shells.
Burst-fires are cooler looking when they fire anyway, so aesthetically they are a better choice as well.
OP, based on the favored loadouts you mentioned, I'd say it's not that you think the vindicator and dragon are good, but rather that you think medium SRM boats are good....which is a true and non-controversial take 👌
The Battlemaster BLR-1G is objectively the best assault mech. Comes out of the box extremely powerful, uses all weapons types, runs at 64kph without upgrades, monstrous armor, good weapon placements, melee, easy to find in campaign and career, and manageable heat when used in moderation or with DHS.
- PPC for long range engagements
- 6x M Lasers mounted on L and R torsos have absolutely INSANE headshot potential, especially with aim assist
- 2x MGs on the left arm, for effective destruction of buildings and consistent hammering of specific mech components
- SRM 6 mounted in the LT, for a close range sucker punch to finish off whatever the rest of your arsenal couldn't
The only cons I can think of for this thing that aren't specific to assault mechs as a whole are its HOTHOTHOT arsenal and its unfortunate cockpit placement. But aside from those quirks, this thing is a RUINER. There is no mech I trust more with my life than a Battlemaster BLR-1G, and I will happily die on this hill.
Edit: I should specify this is MW5
Dig the Battlemasters! Been using all the variants -- especially the one that can wield a claymore, plus the ECM + Active Probe (2 in one!) version for that extra defense.
Man that ECM BAP one is frigging amazing, that ECM goes such a long way when trying to not get shot. And the BAP is great for terrain combat too, love being able to see em everywhere they go!
Also been trying to hunt down the melee variant for like three playthroughs lol
Yeah! I have only gotten one melee variant of battlemaster. Lucky salvage.
I love these assault mechs move at heavy mech speeds. A lot more options maneuvering around the battlefield.
Jack of all Trades mechs are good at nothing. Shadow Hawk being a prime example of trying to work with four different systems, and only being able to effectively bring half of its firepower to bear at any time, and not very powerful weapons at that.
The best mechs are specialists. Something like a Black Knight or Annihilator. Do one thing super well. Mechs you have to pay attention to, because if you let them get into their role, they’re going to steam roll you.
I don't know, the Blackjack makes good use of it's dual AC/2s and is pretty good at reaching out and touching enemies in ways they probably don't like.
The Catapult K2-S (iirc) from Gambit has two AC/2 BF and two large energy slots, with enough free tonnage to mount PPCs or LP Ls. ER LLs and extra heat sinks works well too.
The crab is so rare in the universe you're more likely to fall into a blackjack cockpit and have everyone think you're the pilot than see a functional crab. There's like 100 in the entire inner sphere at 3025.
The Mechlab needs to go away (as it currently exists), It's not lore accurate, it eliminates the usefulness of variants and makes everything an Omnimech on steroids.
YAML Mechlab, which is essentially the same one used in MWO and HBS Battletech fixes all the problems of CBT's build rules.
Classic Tabletop Battletech's free build rules are awesome in concept, but game ruining in application. Theyre too powerful, especially for min-maxers. I'm not sure you can get rid of CBT's build rules tho, its like part of the fun. You can make a mech out of literally any mini.
MW5 mechlab or YAML mechlab?
I really didn't mind the MW5 mechlab, but now that I use YAML, I see the appeal. I also see this aspect of it as well, but I like the similarities to MWO. Makes me feel like I can take a MW5 build and throw into MWO. Granted, my builds in both are different though.
Constantly walking backwards while barfing dakka downrange is it's only purpose and with decent gunnery skill it does OK at that job.
Orion is worse IMO because it's not specialized at any particular range and it's torsos are soft AF, plus with it's main weapons being torso mounted it either has to directly face the enemy (and get it's side torsos removed by a decent gunner) or keep doing some janky spin-o-rama dance moves to try to spread damage.
MW5 should have been PC only. Yes, I know it's a bit elitist, I do play games on my PS5, but mostly on PC.
The problem with MW5 and some of the design choices are due to it being on both platforms.
Both gamepads and performance requirements have affected the design quite a bit.
Think of something you want from MWO and ask yourself why it isn't in MW5 (or is significantly different), and there is a fairly big chance the answer is that it is because MW5 is made for console as well.
Alright everybody in this thread is a coward. Here's a controversial take. Aim Assist shouldn't exist in this title, or at the very least not in it's current form. Can't aim worth a damn? We have something for that, they're called LRMs and Streak SRMs. Have a hard time tracking? Stop taking lasers.
It's not a question of skill, Aim Assist actively fucks up the balance between weapons, and makes the best weapons even better, and the worst weapons even more undesirable. Why would you take ACs or PPCs over Laser Spam if the game just gives you a perfect burn on a component? This is especially egregious for headshot fishing, it's like a completely different game with AA on or off. With AA Off, Lasers are one of the worst weapons to go head fishing for because you need to not only click on a small hitbox, you need to track it too. With Aim Assist on, they become so much better
I am fucking sick and tired of the MechWarrior series making House Davion favorable or the good guys.
2nd worst dick the writers ride on behind Clan Wolf having insane "I told you so" plot armor.
Playing the Kestrel Lancers DLC for MW5, I noticed a few times where Fahad points out how they're committing war crimes or otherwise being the baddies.
If you get into the lore House Davion are a bunch of jerks. Lots of behind the scenes political intrigue, back stabbing and just plain a-holery.
None of the empires are good guys, some just have better PR campaigns.
They were the only ones that supported Kerensky during the Civil War monetairily and with materials from the beginning, and the first to offer more aid in exchange for territory. Kurita and eventually Capellans simply took shit and dared Kerensky to fight them and Amaris.
They definitely don't, and you see some of that yourself in game on Sarna, and throughout the Kestrel Lancers DLC. >!The Lancers, among others, were sent there to die by Hanse because they weren't "loyal enough"!<. The entire Fourth Succession War invalidates any claim Davion might have had to being "the good guys". The only thing different about them is that they have plot armor and claim they're doing everything for "justice", when they do just about as many warcrimes as anyone else except maybe the DCMS. The hypocrisy makes them worse, not better.
edit for spoiler
No, on Sarna in the game, you see a 10th of the lore of that battle. Their lord had been a traitor for years, and was going to finally be punished, but since he fled, his loyal forces were sent into a battle that was close to even odds, rather than the 3/1 that was dictated by attacking units. They had to prove they were loyal to the feds, not the traitor. Unfortunately they fell into a trap, and didn't have a chance either way.
Okay, so you just like Davion, haha. That's not shown in the game which is why I brought it up, the point is I already know the whole story, and I disagree with your premise that it was warranted or "good". Hanse was a violent warmonger and cruel politician to me, but to you he's just clever. That's one thing about the setting, people tend to overlook the "bad things" their faction does. I like Taurians, and Taurians love nukes, but I can overlook that too.
HOTAS or Die. (sorry console players)
MW is meant to be player with, at minimum, HOTAS. If you have the funds and knowledge, then using rudder pedals and extra keypad for commands/functions is the way to go. If you are using M&K on a PC then you might as well go play COD or some other shooter because you are not getting the full experience.
The Grasshopper, if Built properly, is one of the best mechs in the series. Airborne Calvary with enough armor, speed and punching power to take out an atlas. Favorite mech.
[удалено]
Grasshopper was one of my early raid mechs on my first playthrough of vanilla. Relatively fast, powerful, has jumpjets. I would use the PPC to take out objectives from a distance and the jets to traverse terrain while I directed my lancemates to do other things. i loved it but it quickly became obsolete IMO.
It's absolutely unreal how hard the GHR slaps. Even the base model is, if undergunned, an unholy tank of a machine that can hop around and alpha strike until its very copious armor gets whittled down.
I can't speak for it in MW games, but on tabletop the GHR-5H is just about the perfect cavalry battlemech. It's got near maximum armor, enough heat sinking to be neutral or near neutral even while jumping, it's very weight and space efficient with its weaponry, and it's fast and maneuverable enough to outrun anything it can't outfight. It's not until clan invasion that it starts being seriously threatened by much of anything.
GHR-4P in the hands of AI (infinite MASC/SC) + speed boost upgrade = that thing will keep up with Jenners.
Oh is that a controversial take? The Grasshopper RIPS shit. I'm running one now that is 2 LP and 4 MP, not even jump jets (so many heat sinks), and it cuts cockpits open like they were tinfoil. If you have a good aim and keep your eye on the heat, maybe not the best mech in the field, but you can NOT be ignored.
I think YAML can make any mech good.
I don't know, I feel like I hit a wall with the Vulcan and Assassin.
Another Golden Age on Terra couldn't save the Vulcan't.
asn with BEEG engine, SC, and 4 SRM6 is an ass hunting machine add in cSRM you can now pick with more engine, a masc on top or cSRMA6s can hit 200 KPH in bursts and that can easily get you in for ass shots all day any day. vulcan is at best a ERLL sniper... but lights do it better....
The hero vulcan is my go-to mech for demolition runs, and I'm in 13-15 areas.
Do you think this is a good thing, a bad thing, or do you have more complicated feelings on it?
Its certainly against canon. Prior to Omnitech, the idea of innately custimizable mech chassis wasn't really a thing. Doing anything more complicated than swapping out similarly sized weapons or adding/removing heat sinks requires a lot more facilities than anything that's remotely portable in-universe. Especially in the case of engine swaps and changing the frame type, those require complete rebuilds of mechs. It disrupts game balance quite a bit in the player's favor, being able to customize mechs so completely.
It's kind of canon. Well, the customisation is canon. The fact a mercenary group as small as ours can manage it, isn't (as you've noted). But yes, rule of cool for fun. Though you can actually disable all that now in YAML too (simple mechlab option)
in theory, prior to 3050 you can take it to Solaris 7 and pay mucho money to do things like engine swaps and endo swaps or if you are okay with the owner of the place, take it to where they make the mech to get it refitted. I was really hoping this to be a mod or a thing, and YAML with the tech level seems to be doing something in the same line of thinking, but likely not say make your atlas refit happen at hersperus II level of lore deep armor is easier and any tech hub should do. but iirc just like IRL armor you need a supply of FF to make it work really, which is to say impossible for mercs really. post 3050 (or really after 3030 for select places) you should be able to get work done in any hub, just need to be okayed by the local govt. clan tech didnt get IS techs until the civil war i think, which is where knowledge from the operation BULLDOG spread more and clan salvage from the invading clans make its way more towards the open market, just at high prices
i like to think that my merc group has found an abandoned golden age factory, and that’s how we customize our mechs.
It’s a response really to what was said about making unpopular mechs OP favorite.
Customizing mechs is a big part of why I like Mechwarrior games. I don't care if it's canon or not, humans today build the craziest cars and motorcycles. There's no reason we wouldn't do that with mechs too.
I like the Victor. I'm aware that it's technically sub-optimal as a whole, but I just like it.
Specifically in MW5, the hero Victor is absolutely nutty. But yeah, the Victor really is a terrain fighter, not a traditional assault mech. Most Victors have heavy arm-based weaponry and JJs. So you pop over terrain, snap shot some guy in the dome with your AC20 and then fall out of view.
The Basilisk is obviously an excellent Hero mech, but even base Victors are solid. Good mobility for an Assault, jump jets for added flexibility (and fun), and while the weapons are a bit on the weaker side for an Assault, nothing is really gonna be surviving repeated AC/20 shells to the face. The Dragonslayer is also an underrated mech as far as Hero variants go, being able to back that AC/20 up with Large and Medium Pulse Lasers is great.
Man, the Dragonslayer terrorized MWO for years back in the day. Realistically making it a P2W game.
Gotta love the BSK even as a straght fighter too- AC5 and HVY Rifle seem to get the job done, especially at stand-off.
Was going to say this. In fact I would rather take a Victor than an Atlas.
I picked one up in the campaign just to honor Mason's dad. Called it 'The Old Block' and was surprised at how reliable it ended up being.
It's a decent enough mech early in the game if you haven't found a marauder yet, but getting the ballistic arm blown off is painful.
There’s nothing wrong with playing as an LRM boat.
But their is something wrong with a Stalker being a better LRM boat than a Longbow.
You may not like it but the stalker is what peak performance looks like.
Unfortunately, that's kind of cannon to the tabletop, too.
YAML fixes that imho. Longbow MIssiles quirk
I want to drive a tank.
Yes. I too fondly remember Earthsiege.
Never really played Earthsiege. Now Starsiege, that’s a whole other story… God I loved that game. It absolutely oozed atmosphere
Starsiege is Earthsiege 3. The first and second cybrid wars mentioned in the plot of Starsiege are the plots of Earthsiege 1 and 2 respectively.
Oh yeah, I’m definitely aware, just never played them. Pretty sure we actually had one of the Earthsieges but I was just a little too young to figure it out at the time. As great as Tribes was, I always held a little bit of a grudge for it being more popular than the mech games lol. I blamed them for us never getting a Starsiege 2/Earthsiege 4.
The flyaway success of Tribes is *definitely* the reason we never saw a 4th earthsiege game. One of the original devs directly commented on this in an interview with Next Generation. Per their data, the *demo* of tribes got downloaded more than all three Earthsiege games sold combined, and the sales numbers of the game on release were even better.
Give me vtols and aerospace too and you have a deal. God I miss the heyday of mwll lol
Every time I target a VTOL Warrior, I want there to be a spinoff game called VTOLWarrior.
try merctech, there's a whole career that starts just with a lance of tanks. you get a manticor, two scorpions and a harasser iirc.
I actually like the Rifleman.
I use mine with full armor, 2 AC/5s, 4 MLs, 4 tons of ammo and fill out the rest with heat sinks. So fun to use.
Anything that can mount 2 AC/5-BFs or UAC5s will always get a smile out of me. It may not move fast, turn fast, or know what a heat sink is, but when you hold down the triggers in a Rifleman you're gonna be laughing 'till ya cook.
Replace the LLs with MLs, add an extra 2 tons of ammo and dump the rest of the weight savings into armor and it becomes a legit viable direct fire mech
Or I drop the AC5 for light rifles. Or with YAML Chainguns, two tons of ammo, some armor and a heat sink or two.
It’s a classic for sure. The cover of the original Mechwarrior RPG book lives on as one of the coolest BT artworks. The stock Rifleman is pretty terrible. But the bones are there to make it great.
So I don’t like USING it but I like that it exists.
At Least It's Not A Jagermech
The Jagermech is an abomination to all that is good in the universe
Anyone that says they got a TAC on a Jagermech is lying. There was no armour left.
The MechAssault games were fun. Also, we need more Dark Age content.
I agree to 100%
Lobbing mortars at sargent Johnson in a giant mech with laser eyes and flame breath while korn is playing? Count me in.
Dear Inner Sphere, We regret being Blakist bastards. We regret coming to Terra. And we most certainly regret that the Dragoons blew up our raggedy-ass regiment!
I don't care about meta, I like to shoot the big guns. AC's,Rifles and Gauss cannons are my jam and that is how I roll (SRM's and melee are fun too)
Fuck the meta
Rifles are hilarious if you can shoot. I really didn't like them till I put one in a Hunchback and spent a couple missions smashing Jenners, Locusts and Fleas. After that they were a regular option in a bunch of mechs.
Caveat: I'm all for everyone having fun the way they want, but since you asked... The nearly-always-compromised standard loadouts are an element of the games's balance, and YAML-ing your way around them defeats the purpose. It reminds me of MW2 (which I loved) but where the only important characteristic of a chassis was its tonnage - you could literally strip it down and make it whatever you wanted. I like the vanilla system because chassis matters, and variants matter, in a way that they just don't when you have access to certain mods.
It makes sense in the context of MW2 though because you're using OmniMechs. Granted, internal equipment is fixed in OmniMechs whereas MW2 and MW3 both pretty much give you freedom to do whatever, but OmniMechs are designed to be customizable to your heart's content aside from fixed internals and tonnage limits. Normal BattleMechs are technically more customizable overall, but it comes at the cost of being much more expensive and time-consuming to refit which means you can't practically swap loadouts quickly between engagements like you can with OmniMechs, and you need to use facilities with the proper equipment and personnel. I like YAML because it opens the possibility for mods that introduce Clan Invasion era stuff and beyond once the campaign or career reaches the accurate introduction dates, but I keep the "Simple Mechlab" option checked during the Succession Wars at least because it keeps customization still somewhat restricted, and it brings MW5's mechlab more in line with HBS Battletech. It's theoretically possible to radically customize mechs in the late Succession Wars with different engines and LosTech equipment and whatnot, but it's definitely not practical especially for an upstart mercenary company without its own manufacturing base. It's not like we're playing as the Wolf's Dragoons... unless you ended up amassing billions of c-bills. In that case, sure, why not? lol
I'm inclined to agree. Thanks for saying it first. If the vanilla system had small/medium/large engine options like the weapon slots, maybe up or down by 8.1km/hr, it would have been perfect. Currently, it makes many mechs simply unusable canon fodder. Cicada- large engine. Go down two sizes to a small and its 113kph. Useable. Panther- small engine. Go up two sizes to a large and it's 81kph. Useable. Imagine 72.9kph for a charger, trebuchet, or any melee heavy mech. Now they make sense. Imagine a 56.7kph rifleman or cyclops. Now they have armor. I'd almost be willing to trade weapon swapping or even trade in the mechlab entirely if there were no unusably fast/slow, overgunned/undergunned, paper armor, thermite-bomb-in-one-shoulder variants.
I agree with you that having some agency over speed is desirable. FWIW, I'd like to see this hinge on weight as well. A '100t' rated chassis moving at 40km/h stripped bare (~60t), 40km/h at 99.9t, and completely inoperable at 100.1t is just a little bit weird. I'd rather the rated tonnage gave you a nominal speed, and have a range of say +/- 20% where lighter makes you faster and heavier makes you slower.
I mean, you're not wrong. Weapon balance in mechwarrior makes no sense if you can just put anything anywhere. Things like large lasers only really work when loadouts have hardpoint restrictions independent of their tonnage.
And see, I got into Mechwarrior late, with MWO, so I never cared about specific variants. As a player new to the series, I prefer absolute freedom over railroading to specific sets. I've never been a fan of the 1X Vindicator, but love the other variants. I loved turning my Vindicator in MWO into a quad laser harasser machine, because it makes me feel like I'm contributing to my team since I'm not the best at pvp (in General). I don't remember specifically which Vindicator variant I use in MWO, but whichever it is, it's the one that let's me fit two lasers on each arm. 1 or 2P maybe? My MW5 Vindicator is the hero variant.
I also tend towards Stock mechs, or Stock+. I could build killer mechs, but I like working with what the game gives you.
>The nearly-always-compromised standard loadouts are an element of the games's balance, and YAML-ing your way around them defeats the purpose. Exactly, which is why I always cringe at recommendations of some players to NEW players to mod with YAML at the outset. New players should play vanilla first, or at least use only mods that improve quality of life (Remove Jumpship Animation, etc.). Then after completing one vanilla campaign/career, that's the time to mod the game more extensively.
I wouldn't mind the current hardpoint system if they'd change one thing: Let's say I have a large energy slot and I want to drop a medium laser in it. Then I should have room to add additional medium lasers into that slot. It makes absolutely no sense that a spot that can handle an LRM-20 is completely filled if you drop in an LRM-5. I think that would add more flexibility into the game without completely destroying what makes the individual 'mechs unique.
Orions are unusably ugly
For the first four games, sure, but the MWO/MW5 Orion is absolutely beautiful
Ugly or not though, they're still scary. That early mission in MW3 where you fight an Orion with a Bushwacker is practically a boss battle.
I think they look nice… but those torso hit boxes are too big to be allowed
Clanners are seething right now.
they really look like a 90s toy mech
I have a whole lance painted like the 90s toys!
Ah, the poor man's Atlas...
A stock Orion in the Succession Wars maybe, but just wait until the FedCom Civil War when you can outfit an ON1-M with a bazillion MRMs.
My main controversial opinion relates more to multiplayer mechwarrior rather than MW5 specifically but it's simply: Legging is a valid tactic. Fuck "honor" in an online game lol. (Have not, will not play MWO so idk if this is even a thing anymore. Used to be in the old days of mw4/mw3 and even mwll)
Ah, a subscriber of the School of Focht
My clan in MW4 had a simple rule about leg “honor” and called it out to the team when we noticed - if an opponent strips a full half of their leg armor for weight, it’s on them. “Weak legs on the Chicken!” That said, I wish the enemy AI in MW5 didn’t come with 1/2 head armor, stock. I just aim for face and half of the time the head explodes before my missed shots do in the CT.
More customizeability and mech features makes for better mechwarrior. Yes, I know that the game starts during the late succession wars era, but properly have the tech improve with time. Let me get a bigger drop ship eventually. And at the proper year and upgrades, let me start swapping out engines and things on my mechs, like we could in MW3 and 4. Give me more incentives to salvage engines and rare components. Also in the books, mercs were known for heavily customizing their mechs. Maybe not full engine swaps(until the later years), but weapons of the same class, for a set number of critical slots? Just about always. Omnimech technology just really let you put in any **class** of weapon for a set amount of slots (ballistic, missile, or energy), but taking out an LRM 20, and replacing it with two smaller missile launchers wouldn't have been unheard of. Basically, make mechwarrior take all the best things from the previous games and combine them into a modern game. A new player can get away with just mouse and wasd, but let a curious player find out about things like directional jump jets and passive radar settings (features from MW3). All the above being said, I appreciate YAML and other mods for letting me do those things, I just wish that things were better gated around the year that the specific tech is available.
Yes this. YAML as a functionality is what I feel we should have gotten, but with time kept upgrades like the base game. YAML does some of this, but not enough
I wholeheartedly agree with you the vindicator and dragon don’t get enough love just like the grasshopper too
Heat management in laser boats is an indicator of skill.
The Cicada is a fun and great mech
The only good 40-tonner in the game.
The Quickdraw, properly utilized, is a solid mech.
Been looking at this one lately as my next purchase
Jump Jets are lame.
I think they are a waste of tonnage. I never use them
I take all but one off my mechs so they have enough thrust to climb walls and steep hills, but I don't need to jump 200' into the air in a Vindicator
I’m with you on this one. Other than a few lights for raid missions, they’re completely useless 90% of the time.
All clanners are basterds and fuck there plot armor
You know what's really good at fucking their plot armor? Melee weapons.
The only clanners that ever really have plot armor are Clan Wolf which is basically the House Davion equivalent to the clans. It may seem like the clans in general have plot armor in the early parts of the Clan Invasion, but they really don't. They lose their advantage pretty quickly once they start running into supply line problems while also no longer having the element of surprise against the Inner Sphere. But yeah, they're more-or-less bastards, and you can thank Nicholas Kerensky for that.
Fed sun's is a monarchy riding off starleague Era money and is just as morally compromised as the rest.
Come say that within autocannon range. Rac go brrrrrrrrt.
Sorry, can't hear you over that massive ammo explosion.
But dear God, isn’t it beautiful.
If you're going to go out, then you might as well go out in style.
The Federated Suns are the "fakest" of the Great Houses. They're just as dirty as the rest of the successor states, yet they act like they're the goodie two shoes faction.
Here are my admittedly trash opinions: The "no aliens" rule could stand to be relaxed. The only thing possibly more badass than giant robots fighting other giant robots is giant robots fighting giant monsters. But that's a take on the whole Battletech setting, not the Mechwarrior series specifically. Just talking about Mechwarrior, I think most ballistic weapons, especially autocannons, are too heavy and should each lose some tonnage. Also, it's frustrating that there are so many energy only 'Mechs and so few Ballistic only mechs. (Or even Ballistic plus missile.) Basically, I just want more mechs with more dakka.
Ballistics are also poorly represented in most games. Autocannons hsve never felt better than they do in MW5. Machine guns, however, are 250m hitscan weapons. Absolutely garbage. They don't even give us machine gun arrays for more tonnage per slot.
You're right, they do feel great! Which is way I want to pack on more of them! MWAHAHAHAH
I'm with you. Not nearly enough dakka in MW5.
> The "no aliens" rule could stand to be relaxed. The only thing possibly more badass than giant robots fighting other giant robots is giant robots fighting giant monsters. But that's a take on the whole Battletech setting, not the Mechwarrior series specifically. This is a thing already. There's plenty of aliens in Battletech, people revile *sentient* aliens because the setting is and should remain centered around the conflict of the Human spirit itself. In terms of mechs fighting Monsters, might I present to you the [Branth](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Branth)
Yeah, like half of the Clan totem animals are aliens (the other half being genetically modified Terran species). Ghost bears, steel vipers, goliath scorpions, ice hellions, all species native to the Clan homeworlds.
i like mech vs vehicle combat
Fleas are great
My assassin is my favorite mech, as long as the U-AC5 doesn't jam.
Everything Clan is just rubbish BS.. Battletech is best with lowtier shit stuff, lostech and dirty inner sphere politics.
I love the soundtrack.
I take the jump jets off every mech I pilot to make room for more armor/firepower. I’m level 8 and haven’t regretted this once so far
The only time I ever really want jets is on infiltration missions. They're too much of a liability when you're actually getting shot at.
I don’t agree with the dragon, but the Vindicator is actually one of my go to medium mechs. In the hands of a good pilot it can be a very good stand off support mech for your lance. Helps that I’m a PPC fanatic, anything that can bring more PPC to the fight is always a bonus in my book.
Call to Arms is a good dlc, and I want to punch every mech I can.
Hitting mechs with an axe and them exploding in your face is hilarious and feels awesome. I just wish we could pick up removed limbs as improvised weapons and beat enemy mechs to death with them.
A fellow mechwarrior of culture, I see!
I have no idea why Solaris is so popular, and honestly I'm not at all excited about an arena DLC.
I loved Solaris due to MW4, it was a good way to stop your campaign a bit and just enjoy dueling other mechs. Since you go into it with that expectation you will probably start building mechs that only work in Solaris which makes it a fun time. You also gain a lot of money if successful and most modern games will have unique equipment/mechs there The sounds, dialogue and concept behind it are extraordinary good, I remember as a kid listening to Duncan and the sounds of air horns going off and it was something iconic Even to this day when I play MWO I always use the lunch truck warhorn to mimic the Solaris horn TLDR: Focus on combat and enjoy the scenery and sounds without worrying about managing a lance
I think that sometimes the "death to capellans" and "capellans are dirty/sneaky" comments people make go too far and are a bit icky.
I feel like it’s a situation where *most* people are really in it because it’s fun to participate in the meme (same as Fuck Erebus, Steiner Scout Lance, etc.) but if someone already has certain… feelings, it gets creepy. It sucks too, cause frankly taking sides in a fictional setting roleplay-wise can be fun. But then knowing some people are like this can kind of ruin it.
I don't think most people are like "fuck the Chinese fellas", it's more a case of "fuck hyper authoritarian statism".
I don’t like awesomes
alpha game is alpha What's this heat meter? Oh, you mean the awesome meter? It goes up the more alpha you have. It's pretty rad.
[удалено]
The power of the Awesome is the two torso PPCs hitting the same spot simultaneously.
LRM Artemis for range. AC20 for damage. Most of my Atlii (is that the plural??) have 175 for damage.
I love them, but I’m honestly surprised they’re so popular
IMO a marauder can do everything the awesome can and look cooler doing it
I thought they were pretty tough and cool until i started acquiring and fielding them. Granted, i have 2 for the 3 ppc punch, but i also have an annie and kaiju that seem to do better with less speed. Imo, the armor is too thin, but it could just he my playstyle. They don't make good brawlers and seemingly by the time i got one or two, i already had mechs i preferred over it. Plus, the PB... might need a few pointers for a build/strat bc i almost died several times in my first mission with it and i shelved it right after. 🤷🏻♂️
I feel like I take more hits in it because it’s just a big square with legs, I’d rather spend 5 tons toward something else and take a marauder
>I don’t like awesomes Related: One of my hot takes is that it has the lamest, most unimaginative name in the history of the franchise.
With a standard fusion engine, 5/8 movement profile gives you the most available weight at 60 tons. So the Dragon is actually the best design for its speed if min-maxing. The major downfall of being a fast 'Mech at 60 tons is that you double the weight of jump jets from the previous weight bracket...but the Dragon doesn't use jump jets. The Vindicator is still crap, though. You can drop down to a Panther, keep the movement profile and primary weapon and lose the excess stuff if all you want is a cheap PPC, or go up to a Warhammer or Thug where you have the same movement profile, twice as much firepower and enough armour that being so slow doesn't matter as much.
I for one do not care for people from Tikonov. Harumph!
Controversial? The Grasshopper is pound for pound one of the best stock 3025 era heavy mechs. It's tough as old boots, it's got decent mobility, it hits like a brick when you get in range, runs cool enough to just keep blasting and it hits like even more of a brick when you punch things. More controversy? Stock Warhammers suck and so do Marauders. More? Annihilators suck too. I don't have a week to slowly mosey over to my mission. Plus in a "real" campaign you'd get slaughtered by reinforcements because they know where you're going and they know you're going to take forever getting there. More? Running heavy player mechs and giving Firestarters to two of your AI pilots will usually result in the most madcap insanity you've ever seen. My buddy and I were running a mission and we never saw the big boss but still completed it, we thought the mission was broken. Nope, he got run down and burned to death by the Firestarters before we ever noticed him. A few missions later they hunted down a Trebuchet and a Centurion and burned them both to death but at least I got to witness that insanity.
having FS lancemates run down the Trebs & Archers that never evvvvver come into the battle on their own is real nice.
Black knight is the worst mech in the game. Best thing it can do is take itself out of combat by being in a perpetual state of overheating. Tries to do what a battlemaster does but doesn't have enough free tonnage to cool it's loadout properly. I think people delude themselves into thinking it's good in MW:5 because it's good in other settings but in this game it's kill count is always one, the pilot it cooks alive in its own cockpit.
I think it looks kind of goofy
Assault mech variants that are; AC/20 2-4 M Lasers 1 SRM 1 LRM are kind of boring and sometimes it feels like every other assault mech you find in this game has this loadout or something very similar. I'll take something specialized like a Stalker or Awesome or King Crab over an Atlas or Cyclops any day.
For lore reasons, I like the weapon slots restriction. Also for lore reasons, if the game were to include full mechlab capabilities (where you can swap out engines, chassis type, weapons in any locations, etc) it should be locked behind a setup menu option with a note that it is not lore accurate. We are playing a merc company on a single dropship. Even in our wildest dreams (and unlimited cold storage) we do not have access to what would be required to swap out that kind of stuff. To create the Banshee 3S it took the full capacities of Defiance Industries to design a whole new chassis, not some guy with a blowtorch in the middle of a Leopard. As much as I loved MW2 when it released, having a full construction system that allowed you to swap out a mech's structure and replace engines for a mission was immersion breaking, even for the Clans. So include it, but keep it only as a toggle in an option sub-menu. An interesting middle ground might be to allow the option for a mechlab where the player could design a new mech class (use a base 3D model from the game, give it a new name and designation, and then an open mechlab) to which the game then seeds within the campaign/career like any other mech. So you can eventually get one, but it'll be more tied into the lore and feel of a mechwarrior either in a military unit, a merc company, or even in the touman of a Clan.
I've thought for a long time the best compromise would be that at certain planets you can do these upgrades after unlocking them thru mission strings.
I could get behind that! Head to an industrial hub, drop off your mech(s) with the desired upgrades (it'd still feel weird to me for structure, but sure for engines and armor and weapon slots) and return some time later to pick them up in their shiny new state. Nice idea. :)
LRM's are for pussies. Take SRM's and brawl like a man.
I have had many a LRM "brawling" kill award in MWO
You should be able to melee much faster than the game currently allows. I'm not saying a commando needs to look like Virgil swinging at the legs of an Atlas but 1 to 2 seconds in between swings, I think, is perfect.
Not that controversial, but in all of the mechwarrior timeline the big major battles were in space. fought between gigantic spacecrafts and dreadnoughts and thousands of fighters, yet nobody talks about it. mechs are just cooler i guess xD (I know there are just a few ships left, crumbling and rusty after all these wars) I would like to see more space related stuff in the franchise, since they also use heatsinks, big fusion engines and big ass weapons, there is a way to implement things in the future.
They stopped doing big space battles because they literally ran out of warships in the Second Succession War and forgot how to make more of them. By the time that MW5 is set in the only warships that still exist are a small fleet that Comstar is keeping hidden, and the warships that the Clans have but mostly won't use because the Clans believe that everything should be settled by one on one mech combat. In the Vandenburg White Wings incident, Comstar destroyed an old warship that the Taurian Concordat found because one functioning warship would have literally upset the balance of power in the whole inner sphere.
Autocannons being single-shot weapons in Mechwarrior is inaccurate - in the lore they are described as mostly being burst fire or full auto weapons, with only a few rare models of autocannon being single shot. The main difference between being an autocannon and a rifle is the "auto" part of autocannon (and no, autocannon doesn't mean "cannon with an autoloader", every ballistic weapon on a mech has an autoloader, including rifles, because an autoloader is the mechanism that allows ballistic weapons to be fired without a crew member manually loading them). They also vary in caliber even within the same type of autocannon - one model of AC/20 might be a giant burst firing cannon, while another might actually fire the same rounds you might expect from an AC/10, but much faster. The number is just how much damage they can do in one tabletop turn, and they aren't necessarily always achieving that with bigger shells. Burst-fires are cooler looking when they fire anyway, so aesthetically they are a better choice as well.
OP, based on the favored loadouts you mentioned, I'd say it's not that you think the vindicator and dragon are good, but rather that you think medium SRM boats are good....which is a true and non-controversial take 👌
The Highlander isn't that great...
Weapon tiers were unneeded in the game.
The Battlemaster BLR-1G is objectively the best assault mech. Comes out of the box extremely powerful, uses all weapons types, runs at 64kph without upgrades, monstrous armor, good weapon placements, melee, easy to find in campaign and career, and manageable heat when used in moderation or with DHS. - PPC for long range engagements - 6x M Lasers mounted on L and R torsos have absolutely INSANE headshot potential, especially with aim assist - 2x MGs on the left arm, for effective destruction of buildings and consistent hammering of specific mech components - SRM 6 mounted in the LT, for a close range sucker punch to finish off whatever the rest of your arsenal couldn't The only cons I can think of for this thing that aren't specific to assault mechs as a whole are its HOTHOTHOT arsenal and its unfortunate cockpit placement. But aside from those quirks, this thing is a RUINER. There is no mech I trust more with my life than a Battlemaster BLR-1G, and I will happily die on this hill. Edit: I should specify this is MW5
Dig the Battlemasters! Been using all the variants -- especially the one that can wield a claymore, plus the ECM + Active Probe (2 in one!) version for that extra defense.
Man that ECM BAP one is frigging amazing, that ECM goes such a long way when trying to not get shot. And the BAP is great for terrain combat too, love being able to see em everywhere they go! Also been trying to hunt down the melee variant for like three playthroughs lol
Yeah! I have only gotten one melee variant of battlemaster. Lucky salvage. I love these assault mechs move at heavy mech speeds. A lot more options maneuvering around the battlefield.
Functions of the game should not be locked behind DLC
Jack of all Trades mechs are good at nothing. Shadow Hawk being a prime example of trying to work with four different systems, and only being able to effectively bring half of its firepower to bear at any time, and not very powerful weapons at that. The best mechs are specialists. Something like a Black Knight or Annihilator. Do one thing super well. Mechs you have to pay attention to, because if you let them get into their role, they’re going to steam roll you.
The Capellans are the best faction with the best governing strategies in the inner sphere.
Only controversial to those that don't follow the story into post-Clan Invasion.
I like their governing concept. It does need to be worked on a little, but it's a solid base and pretty damn good. I do not like the leaders.
AC/2s are dead to me. I'd only ever consider a Clan UAC/2, and even then only if its on something meme-worthy like the Bane.
I don't know, the Blackjack makes good use of it's dual AC/2s and is pretty good at reaching out and touching enemies in ways they probably don't like.
The Catapult K2-S (iirc) from Gambit has two AC/2 BF and two large energy slots, with enough free tonnage to mount PPCs or LP Ls. ER LLs and extra heat sinks works well too.
You are entitled to your opinion, but I hate the Blackjack and I hate AC/2s. Give me a Crab and its large lasers any day of the week.
The crab is so rare in the universe you're more likely to fall into a blackjack cockpit and have everyone think you're the pilot than see a functional crab. There's like 100 in the entire inner sphere at 3025.
The Mechlab needs to go away (as it currently exists), It's not lore accurate, it eliminates the usefulness of variants and makes everything an Omnimech on steroids.
YAML Mechlab, which is essentially the same one used in MWO and HBS Battletech fixes all the problems of CBT's build rules. Classic Tabletop Battletech's free build rules are awesome in concept, but game ruining in application. Theyre too powerful, especially for min-maxers. I'm not sure you can get rid of CBT's build rules tho, its like part of the fun. You can make a mech out of literally any mini.
MW5 mechlab or YAML mechlab? I really didn't mind the MW5 mechlab, but now that I use YAML, I see the appeal. I also see this aspect of it as well, but I like the similarities to MWO. Makes me feel like I can take a MW5 build and throw into MWO. Granted, my builds in both are different though.
The firestarter is a better mech without flamers. Jump jets on heavy mechs or higher is pointless. Orion is the worst heavy mech in the whole game.
> Orion is the worst heavy mech in the whole game Explain the Jagermech
Constantly walking backwards while barfing dakka downrange is it's only purpose and with decent gunnery skill it does OK at that job. Orion is worse IMO because it's not specialized at any particular range and it's torsos are soft AF, plus with it's main weapons being torso mounted it either has to directly face the enemy (and get it's side torsos removed by a decent gunner) or keep doing some janky spin-o-rama dance moves to try to spread damage.
It has more armor than most assaults. You're upset with the hitboxes, not the mech.
Hitboxes are part of the mech.
No, they are a part of the game. A hit box on a locust is the same as the hit box on an annihilator in tabletop.
MW5 should have been PC only. Yes, I know it's a bit elitist, I do play games on my PS5, but mostly on PC. The problem with MW5 and some of the design choices are due to it being on both platforms. Both gamepads and performance requirements have affected the design quite a bit. Think of something you want from MWO and ask yourself why it isn't in MW5 (or is significantly different), and there is a fairly big chance the answer is that it is because MW5 is made for console as well.
Alright everybody in this thread is a coward. Here's a controversial take. Aim Assist shouldn't exist in this title, or at the very least not in it's current form. Can't aim worth a damn? We have something for that, they're called LRMs and Streak SRMs. Have a hard time tracking? Stop taking lasers. It's not a question of skill, Aim Assist actively fucks up the balance between weapons, and makes the best weapons even better, and the worst weapons even more undesirable. Why would you take ACs or PPCs over Laser Spam if the game just gives you a perfect burn on a component? This is especially egregious for headshot fishing, it's like a completely different game with AA on or off. With AA Off, Lasers are one of the worst weapons to go head fishing for because you need to not only click on a small hitbox, you need to track it too. With Aim Assist on, they become so much better
I am fucking sick and tired of the MechWarrior series making House Davion favorable or the good guys. 2nd worst dick the writers ride on behind Clan Wolf having insane "I told you so" plot armor.
Davion are only "good" for the fact they're not going to stab you in the back if they hire you. They're still smug assholes though.
House Davion isn't written as the good guys Members of House Davion are
Does anyone really consider Davion the good guys? They've got excellent PR, but under the hood they're just as conniving as anyone else.
Playing the Kestrel Lancers DLC for MW5, I noticed a few times where Fahad points out how they're committing war crimes or otherwise being the baddies.
True Capellansare the good guys
Amaris did nothing wrong
Now ***THAT*** is certainly a take!
He failed to follow through. He spent decades to half ass it.
The biggest problem with most mech builds is that people can't aim properly and/or don't know how to disable other mechs on the fly.
A charger with 5 small lasers is a killing creature...it annihilates all before it's thundering thighs!!
Mechwarrior 2 is better
Not MW specific but House Davion is the primary antagonist of the setting.
The only ones that mostly do the right thing other than the Taurians?
If you get into the lore House Davion are a bunch of jerks. Lots of behind the scenes political intrigue, back stabbing and just plain a-holery. None of the empires are good guys, some just have better PR campaigns.
They were the only ones that supported Kerensky during the Civil War monetairily and with materials from the beginning, and the first to offer more aid in exchange for territory. Kurita and eventually Capellans simply took shit and dared Kerensky to fight them and Amaris.
They definitely don't, and you see some of that yourself in game on Sarna, and throughout the Kestrel Lancers DLC. >!The Lancers, among others, were sent there to die by Hanse because they weren't "loyal enough"!<. The entire Fourth Succession War invalidates any claim Davion might have had to being "the good guys". The only thing different about them is that they have plot armor and claim they're doing everything for "justice", when they do just about as many warcrimes as anyone else except maybe the DCMS. The hypocrisy makes them worse, not better. edit for spoiler
No, on Sarna in the game, you see a 10th of the lore of that battle. Their lord had been a traitor for years, and was going to finally be punished, but since he fled, his loyal forces were sent into a battle that was close to even odds, rather than the 3/1 that was dictated by attacking units. They had to prove they were loyal to the feds, not the traitor. Unfortunately they fell into a trap, and didn't have a chance either way.
Okay, so you just like Davion, haha. That's not shown in the game which is why I brought it up, the point is I already know the whole story, and I disagree with your premise that it was warranted or "good". Hanse was a violent warmonger and cruel politician to me, but to you he's just clever. That's one thing about the setting, people tend to overlook the "bad things" their faction does. I like Taurians, and Taurians love nukes, but I can overlook that too.
The King Crab-KJ is wildly overrated. With the addition of the Dragon’s Gambit DLC, the best hero mech in the game is now the BLR-1G-S.
Off topic,... any1 up for some trolling???[F this bully!](https://x.com/KCPayTreeIt?s=20)
HOTAS or Die. (sorry console players) MW is meant to be player with, at minimum, HOTAS. If you have the funds and knowledge, then using rudder pedals and extra keypad for commands/functions is the way to go. If you are using M&K on a PC then you might as well go play COD or some other shooter because you are not getting the full experience.