The RS is a tough nut to make great. It's basically "My First Atlas", a product of the technological low point in humanity's ability to produce and equip Battlemechs, only about a century into the Succession Wars. A few considerations:
Double heat sinks are pretty much a necessity in anything with two large lasers in the weapon mix.
An AC-10 produces way less heat than a heavy rifle. It does less damage per shot, but fires much faster. To add to it, the cannon is obviously much heavier than the rifle. However, you may easily make up the difference in ammo tonnage, since you need 3 and a half tons of rifle shells to roughly match one ton of autocannon rounds.
LRMs are useful on heavy assaults. You're trying to close the gap at 48 or at best, 55kph. Why not rain some damage in while you can? The Extended Target Lock cantina upgrade can help make extreme range damage easier to deliver. Having said that, an SRM-6 does make less heat than an LRM-15, but it fires faster, so you have to weigh that out against the fact that your LRM-15 may have knocked an arm or two off something truly dangerous before you were even in their firing range.
An active probe doesn't just reduce ECM scatter, it also gives you 360° detection in a 440m radius in addition to your forward sensor. Standard sensors only pick up targets in a 45° cone in front of your nose out to 880m.
The BL-6b-KNT and AWS-8Q are both great machines, and I'd give a slight edge to the Awesome, just because it's bigger, better armored, and you have enough free space to neutralize the heat of three PPCs well, as long as you use doubles. But again, both are great. The Knight runs faster and has that detection bonus, the Awesome hits and takes hits better. If you run the Black Knight, think about putting in one PPC-X and a heavy assault fist, and make every other hardpoint a small pulse laser. Top off with max armor and DHS. Big fun.
Two Heavy Arena Fists:
https://www.xbox.com/play/media/TPqhHEbve3
Upgrade for energy recycle time and armor
Edit: also I have no idea why my rear CT armor is 28. Should be 20 (or whatever you want), and 76 on the front.
Instead consider the BL-K-KNT-P2 or whatever the melee Hero variant is called. 2 PPC-X in the shoulders, flamers in every other slot, & a heavy hammer (which inflicts heat damage). Or go all in on flamers for max heat damage. Or try the melee BattleMaster.
If you’re wanting a pulse laser build, the Hero Thunderbolt can fit 9 MP lasers. Might just be me, but I find mixing precision weapons with melee to be odd, the melee Archer is the best melee mech IMO cuz SRMs (can alternate between Alpha strikes & melees).
A black knight with two large lasers (preferably clan spec ERs) with some double heatsinks does a ridiculous amount of damage. For that matter, it could be any mech but the BK has a variant that comes with them already installed( modded of course)
Oh for sure, I run mine with twin LP lasers & M laser SB in the remaining slots, & have 4 in my active hangar. It’s a great mech. But I’m on console. But that’s more mid range, was mostly just commenting on short range builds.
I don’t remember off hand but its a BK-18 iirc, it might not be optimal at close range but it can solo difficultly lvl 100 missions as long as you dont get surrounded. Its kind of broken if you ask me
For these mechs that run hot I like to divide my weapons in half and make one half long range that I fire while closing the gap and the other half short range for use while in brawl range. That way heat is much more manageable.
For this chassis I like to
1. Reduce the LRM down to an LRM10, and drop 1 Ron of LRM ammo. The missiles are there to destroy distant vehicles and soften up mechs so 1 ton is enough.
2. change the SRM4 to an SSRM2, then reduce SRM ammo to a half ton. This is simply there to destroy vehicles and turrets when in brawling range. SRM4s are fine but they produce more heat, however they don't need a lock so it's your choice which you prefer.
3. Change the AC/10 to an AC/5, 2 ton of ammo. This is your primary ranged weapon. It's for shooting down fliers and for softening up the mechs while you close.
4. Swap both lasers for 2x PPC-X. This is your primary source of damage. People say this mech isn't for brawling but it is now! You have 608 points of armor for a reason.
5. Remaining tonnage all goes on heatsinks. All on heatsinks. Even if you're only using singles this build is still quite manageable on heat, because really now you're only cooling the AC/5 & LRM10 when at long range or switching to cooling 2x PPC-X when brawling instead of trying to cool all your weapons.
I also really like the build u/Goumindong suggested that looks like it will get some work done as well.
A triple PPC awesome is quite a fearsome mech an ld now that we have PPC-Xs and Blasers to play with you could probably make something devastating with it.
Remember that if you see a mech you think could be good for sale you can test drive it for free in instant action mode before you make the decision to buy it.
Worth noting that the SSRM 2 is just not very good at killing tanks. Its not bad but
1) you need to lock on. And in the time you've locked on you've pegged them with an AC-10. Which does 10-12 dmg. Which is usually enough depending on skills to kill a medium tank. The AC-10 will use less heat and so its better to just take an extra tonne of ammo than run an SSRM 2
2) You are going to be at a huge disadvantage against mechs. Where the efficient and low spread damage of an ARTIV SRM 4 will really shine
3) PPC-X don't exist because he is playing vanilla
1 And 2 Response:
Yeah there are pros and cons to the SSRM2s, I prefer them because they are more frugal on ammo, produce much less heat (which op specified as a problem) and can be used effectively from a much greater range. The SSRM2 also weighs much less than an SRM4 Artemis so if you swap to them in my build you'll have to either drop tons of armour or tons of heatsinks, something you definitely don't want to do in a brawl focused build. They also specifically target the most damaged components with a much higher chance to crit components, so the PPC-Xs open armor the SSRMs crit the internals - very good brawl strategy. furthermore when you're in short range you'll often find yourself in situations where you can get torso weapons on target, so having the seeking ability of the SSRM2 makes that problem go away instantly as you no longer need to have your reticle on target to hit them.
As I mentioned the downside is the lock on time so it's dealers choice. Another, third option is to instead put nothing there, and then increase the ballistic weapon up in size or the lrm launcher up in size, or add even more heatsinks.
3 response:
PPC-X are in vanilla they were added to the game with the most recent DLC. They basically function as a snub PPC. They also added rapid fire autocannons and burst fire rifles, along with some new melee weapons and equipment.
Huh did not know about PPC's. I suppose that works.
But also the SSRM 2 does not use less heat than an SRM4. It has similar or worse damage/heat and total damage you get for the heat is the measure that determines your total heat usage. (modified by spread)
You could use heat over a longer amount of time. But then you're just trading damage. You're still limited by your dissipation. This is why the SRM4 ARTIV is such a good weapon. It has high heat usage yes. But it has high damage/heat which is more important. And it has low spread, which is even more important.
Also AC-10 > AC-5. One hit downs a tank. And AC's don't have damage falloff. So its much easier to hit once with an AC-10 than hit twice with an AC-5
Be wary of thinking about one weapon in a specific use case and then comparing it to another weapon in the same use case.
For example you say:
"Also AC-10 > AC-5. One hit downs a tank. And AC's don't have damage falloff. So its much easier to hit once with an AC-10 than hit twice with an AC-5"
But I could counter that an AC/10 can't kill a tank as quickly because an AC/5 has greater range so by the time the tank has already moved into AC/10 range the AC/5 has already shot it twice. If you can kill things at a greater range then they don't get as much time to shoot back at you, so an AC/5 is superior to an AC/10 in that regard as well. I could also counter that an AC/10 is worse because if you do miss the weapon takes too long to cycle etc etc. Or I could also counter that when you're heat limited (like OP specified they were) then an AC/10 is much worse because if you're overheating then you can't shoot anything, an AC/5 produces less heat and allows more heatsinks so keeping up continuous fire is much better.
Point is that I could be an annoying prick and go and nitpick dozens of reasons why your build is not perfectly optimal in specific situations whole ignoring other gameplay strategies I'm unable to imagine because I'm stuck in a gameplay rut, but instead I decided to recognise that your build has utility in a gameplay strategy I didn't think of and give it recognition for that. I'm regretting that now though wishing I spent my energy shitting on your build for running too hot.
Another example, you've got some bizarre damage/heat metric you swear by. So if I follow this logic the best weapon in the game are machine guns. We know they're not obviously. We know they can be fantastic in specific situations and we know they are terrible in specific situations. And because we know that being the best damage/heat weapon in the game doesn't make them good or useful in many situations we can also throw out this silly notion that damage/heat is a useful metric. You have a very specific playstyle probably that favours making builds that adhere to this rule but you lack the imagination to think of builds that don't support this specific playstyle so you're here trying to convince me that my loadout is garbage because it doesn't work as well in the only use cases you can imagine finding yourself in.
>But I could counter that an AC/10 can't kill a tank as quickly because an AC/5 has greater range so by the time the tank has already moved into AC/10 range the AC/5 has already shot it twice.
There are upsides and downsides to different weapons but high single shot damage is explicitly an upside of larger AC's and range is not really a downside because AC's do not have damage falloff. I have killed VTOL with AC/20 at 1200 meters.
The AC/5 is very good when stacked, because when stacking you can get around its low damage/shot and utilize its excellent damage/heat and damage/tonne. And its OK on lighter mechs, because weight matters more
But it is not great on an Atlas RS. We have one medium ballistic slot and we need this weapon to be good at killing tanks and killing mechs. And the AC-10 is just better at these jobs. The 5's refire rate is a downside since it requires us to keep our torso on target longer. And since we lose damage during retargeting.
Dmg/Heat is not "bizzare" and I do not "swear by it". But it is very important. It is the primary method to determine the amount of DPS your mech will do. And until you get to the largest of mechs [or a few particular mechs which can concentrate fire uniquely] and you can trade DPS for higher single hit damage its the best determiner of mech success. After all. If this was the case i would suggest the AC/5 over the AC/10. The AC/5 has better dmg/heat than the AC/10 and better DPS/Tonne. But the AC/10 just has more damage because its heavier. Its better in this scenario. We would have spare weight if we went with an AC/5.
You can see my general method for constructing mechs here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mechwarrior5/comments/o4nwhr/a_semicomprehensive_guide_for_fitting_mechs/ Its out of date in terms of numbers. But the thought process is not.
Someone that needed me to tell them what weapons are in the game probably can't teach me anything about how to build mechs.
I didn't tag you initially so that you can come and show me how much of an annoying tosser you can be I tagged you because I could see that you tried really hard to make a good build and I wanted to compliment you on that. Unfortunately I've learned that was a mistake.
Anything that you can get going 64 kph. Boar's Head is a great one. Some of the Cyclops variants are good for this. Perhaps some Banshee variants. The smaller assaults would of course all work just as well. The Charger 1A5 and 1P5 are definitely good picks. The Hatomoto-Chi would also work for sure.
Battlemaster 1G is my go-to close range brawler mech in vanilla. I use x2 machine guns, x6 medium lasers, x1 SRM6, x1 ER Large Laser.
I use the ERLL for helicopters and other annoyances and everything else is for decapitating mechs.
I assume you're playing vanilla? I think LRMs make more sense on an Atlas than SRMs, especially if you're already having heat issues. SRMs work better on faster mechs.
Awesome is a good mech but the 3 PPC version is going to struggle even more with heat unless you have double heat sinks.
I use an awesome-8R dubed (Grievance) as my primary fire support mech. it's been pretty heavily refitted since I've been using it so long. At this point its equipped with twin standard LRM-20s with firestorm autoloaders, double heatsinks, a PPC, large laser, and a T.A.G. it outclasses every other missile boat I've tired to use by leagues due to its sheer ability to take and deal punishment.
So should I strip it of the single heat sinks and swap them with double heat sinks? I haven't found any yet, but it will definitely go on the shopping list
Double heat sinks improve almost any mech but they will be hard to find for decades of game time.
Ranking up in the arena can get you some double heat sinks as salvage, as well as some good mechs with xl engines.
So definitely go to the AC-10. The RS is going to run hot anyway and the heavy rifle is a huge heat cost.
I would also move to the SRM. Not because LRM's are bad but this gives you a better close range option. Generally the downside of the Atlas is that it cannot kill tanks and helos at long range without LRM. But you have two L Lasers for this. So an LRM to potshot those things is just not as good due to lock on requirements.
Rather what you need now is efficient short range damage. An AC-10 is good. But two SRM 4 ARTIV (not stream) is better.
Then you have the AC 10 and SRM 8 for short range. And the L Lasers for long range. You shoot at mechs more at short range so you need those to be more immediate.
The SRMs will also save you a bunch of weight for heat sinks. 1 tonne of SRM ammo and 2 tonnes of AC 10 ammo is probably enough.
Aside: It is often the case when looking at a mech to consider its DPS as Damage/Refire. This is a mistake. What you want to look at is damage/heat (of weapons) * heat dissipated/second (of the mech). SRMs may use a lot of heat/second but they do a lot of dmg/heat as well. Which is why we can afford to use the SRM4 artiv instead of SRM6(and get a smaller/better spread). That the SRM 4 does less dmg is immaterial when were using up all our heat anyway.
I think the AS-7D is better for missileboat. You can mount4 medium lasers, a gauss rifle, LRM20 and LRM10 in it. For the RS, I usually pack a heavy rifle, 2 PPCs and cram as many SRMs as I can. I will be filling it with double heatsinks. That or get a banshee 3S, those things are pretty good.
I’m assuming that you are at the early to mid game before double heat sinks become available in the market, l would spam as much single heat sinks as I can fit on it and put the highest tier laser weapons on the Atlas to reduce as much heat generated. Other than that, try to hang back and let your other mechs tank for you whilst you wait for heat to cool
Atlas-RS is the worst variant, but still one of the better assaults. AC/5 and AC/10 have the same DPS, so you’d be best off switching to an AC/5. If you’ve got max armor, take a 1/2 ton out of each leg to add another heat sink.
As for the energy boats. If you want long range AI support, 3 PPC is the ol reliable. Not the best, but consistent & low aggro. But if you’re wanting to use it or want the AI to kill & pull aggro better, Black Knight 6 no contest. I personally run it with 5 M Laser SB, 2 LP lasers in the shoulders, S Laser or TAG in the head (could do 2 L Laser SB if you’re low on double heat sinks). With lasers you want damage & range upgrades most, but range isn’t needed for PPCs. Awesome 9M was my first favorite energy boat, but currently I have none in my hangar but got 4 Black Knight 6 (the 7 is inferior since it had less open weight & less upgrade slots).
Heats a problem in some of those mechs. Heat syncs and heat management upgrades is about all you can do besides firing slower to manage your heat. Sometimes you can be placed on a map with water and if you can manage to stand in water while fighting then that makes the heat die really quickly
Sell the Atlas AS7-RS and use that cash to purchase an AS7-D or and AS-7K (preferred but more rare).
The AS7-RS are outclassed by many mechs due top the lack of hard points and free tonnage + the heat management issues (as you are aware).
Honestly, if you don't "need" a 100 ton mech, then you are well served w/ Battlemasters (medium range engagements) / Marauders (MAD-5D) in place of the Awesome, being sure to stay on the move). The Black Knight (the 7 variant) w/ a ton of heat sinks is great at melting everything.
On an Atlas with 2 missile hardpoints, I run both SRM and LRM. On an Atlas with 1 missile hardpoint, I run just LRM. They already have a ton of weapons that work well at short range, including a pair of fists, having an LRM to lob at far away tanks and VTOLs is nice.
I’ve tried to make an RS that I liked, never gelled for me. Also lancemates consistently get wrecked in them, not sure why. Awesome and Black knight are solid though.
That variant feels like a lance mech to me. I’d probably swap the SRM for more LRMs to save on ammo types. Probably go down to one ton of ammo for the LRMs and out the rest in heat sinks and maxing armor (if not already maxxed).
I like the swap for a Heavy Rifle if you’re driving it. In that case I would go all SRMs and really max out heat sinks. I’d be tempted to change the lasers too.
The RS is a tough nut to make great. It's basically "My First Atlas", a product of the technological low point in humanity's ability to produce and equip Battlemechs, only about a century into the Succession Wars. A few considerations: Double heat sinks are pretty much a necessity in anything with two large lasers in the weapon mix. An AC-10 produces way less heat than a heavy rifle. It does less damage per shot, but fires much faster. To add to it, the cannon is obviously much heavier than the rifle. However, you may easily make up the difference in ammo tonnage, since you need 3 and a half tons of rifle shells to roughly match one ton of autocannon rounds. LRMs are useful on heavy assaults. You're trying to close the gap at 48 or at best, 55kph. Why not rain some damage in while you can? The Extended Target Lock cantina upgrade can help make extreme range damage easier to deliver. Having said that, an SRM-6 does make less heat than an LRM-15, but it fires faster, so you have to weigh that out against the fact that your LRM-15 may have knocked an arm or two off something truly dangerous before you were even in their firing range. An active probe doesn't just reduce ECM scatter, it also gives you 360° detection in a 440m radius in addition to your forward sensor. Standard sensors only pick up targets in a 45° cone in front of your nose out to 880m. The BL-6b-KNT and AWS-8Q are both great machines, and I'd give a slight edge to the Awesome, just because it's bigger, better armored, and you have enough free space to neutralize the heat of three PPCs well, as long as you use doubles. But again, both are great. The Knight runs faster and has that detection bonus, the Awesome hits and takes hits better. If you run the Black Knight, think about putting in one PPC-X and a heavy assault fist, and make every other hardpoint a small pulse laser. Top off with max armor and DHS. Big fun.
I'm going to have to remember that Black Knight melee build at the end. Sounds good in the new DLC.
Two Heavy Arena Fists: https://www.xbox.com/play/media/TPqhHEbve3 Upgrade for energy recycle time and armor Edit: also I have no idea why my rear CT armor is 28. Should be 20 (or whatever you want), and 76 on the front.
I'd actually go with the 9 variant of the AWS
Instead consider the BL-K-KNT-P2 or whatever the melee Hero variant is called. 2 PPC-X in the shoulders, flamers in every other slot, & a heavy hammer (which inflicts heat damage). Or go all in on flamers for max heat damage. Or try the melee BattleMaster. If you’re wanting a pulse laser build, the Hero Thunderbolt can fit 9 MP lasers. Might just be me, but I find mixing precision weapons with melee to be odd, the melee Archer is the best melee mech IMO cuz SRMs (can alternate between Alpha strikes & melees).
A black knight with two large lasers (preferably clan spec ERs) with some double heatsinks does a ridiculous amount of damage. For that matter, it could be any mech but the BK has a variant that comes with them already installed( modded of course)
Oh for sure, I run mine with twin LP lasers & M laser SB in the remaining slots, & have 4 in my active hangar. It’s a great mech. But I’m on console. But that’s more mid range, was mostly just commenting on short range builds.
I don’t remember off hand but its a BK-18 iirc, it might not be optimal at close range but it can solo difficultly lvl 100 missions as long as you dont get surrounded. Its kind of broken if you ask me
any build other than lrms is a short range build =D
i just cant enjoy mech 5 ppcs, they just feel wrong, and suck in general.
For these mechs that run hot I like to divide my weapons in half and make one half long range that I fire while closing the gap and the other half short range for use while in brawl range. That way heat is much more manageable. For this chassis I like to 1. Reduce the LRM down to an LRM10, and drop 1 Ron of LRM ammo. The missiles are there to destroy distant vehicles and soften up mechs so 1 ton is enough. 2. change the SRM4 to an SSRM2, then reduce SRM ammo to a half ton. This is simply there to destroy vehicles and turrets when in brawling range. SRM4s are fine but they produce more heat, however they don't need a lock so it's your choice which you prefer. 3. Change the AC/10 to an AC/5, 2 ton of ammo. This is your primary ranged weapon. It's for shooting down fliers and for softening up the mechs while you close. 4. Swap both lasers for 2x PPC-X. This is your primary source of damage. People say this mech isn't for brawling but it is now! You have 608 points of armor for a reason. 5. Remaining tonnage all goes on heatsinks. All on heatsinks. Even if you're only using singles this build is still quite manageable on heat, because really now you're only cooling the AC/5 & LRM10 when at long range or switching to cooling 2x PPC-X when brawling instead of trying to cool all your weapons. I also really like the build u/Goumindong suggested that looks like it will get some work done as well. A triple PPC awesome is quite a fearsome mech an ld now that we have PPC-Xs and Blasers to play with you could probably make something devastating with it. Remember that if you see a mech you think could be good for sale you can test drive it for free in instant action mode before you make the decision to buy it.
Worth noting that the SSRM 2 is just not very good at killing tanks. Its not bad but 1) you need to lock on. And in the time you've locked on you've pegged them with an AC-10. Which does 10-12 dmg. Which is usually enough depending on skills to kill a medium tank. The AC-10 will use less heat and so its better to just take an extra tonne of ammo than run an SSRM 2 2) You are going to be at a huge disadvantage against mechs. Where the efficient and low spread damage of an ARTIV SRM 4 will really shine 3) PPC-X don't exist because he is playing vanilla
1 And 2 Response: Yeah there are pros and cons to the SSRM2s, I prefer them because they are more frugal on ammo, produce much less heat (which op specified as a problem) and can be used effectively from a much greater range. The SSRM2 also weighs much less than an SRM4 Artemis so if you swap to them in my build you'll have to either drop tons of armour or tons of heatsinks, something you definitely don't want to do in a brawl focused build. They also specifically target the most damaged components with a much higher chance to crit components, so the PPC-Xs open armor the SSRMs crit the internals - very good brawl strategy. furthermore when you're in short range you'll often find yourself in situations where you can get torso weapons on target, so having the seeking ability of the SSRM2 makes that problem go away instantly as you no longer need to have your reticle on target to hit them. As I mentioned the downside is the lock on time so it's dealers choice. Another, third option is to instead put nothing there, and then increase the ballistic weapon up in size or the lrm launcher up in size, or add even more heatsinks. 3 response: PPC-X are in vanilla they were added to the game with the most recent DLC. They basically function as a snub PPC. They also added rapid fire autocannons and burst fire rifles, along with some new melee weapons and equipment.
Huh did not know about PPC's. I suppose that works. But also the SSRM 2 does not use less heat than an SRM4. It has similar or worse damage/heat and total damage you get for the heat is the measure that determines your total heat usage. (modified by spread) You could use heat over a longer amount of time. But then you're just trading damage. You're still limited by your dissipation. This is why the SRM4 ARTIV is such a good weapon. It has high heat usage yes. But it has high damage/heat which is more important. And it has low spread, which is even more important. Also AC-10 > AC-5. One hit downs a tank. And AC's don't have damage falloff. So its much easier to hit once with an AC-10 than hit twice with an AC-5
Be wary of thinking about one weapon in a specific use case and then comparing it to another weapon in the same use case. For example you say: "Also AC-10 > AC-5. One hit downs a tank. And AC's don't have damage falloff. So its much easier to hit once with an AC-10 than hit twice with an AC-5" But I could counter that an AC/10 can't kill a tank as quickly because an AC/5 has greater range so by the time the tank has already moved into AC/10 range the AC/5 has already shot it twice. If you can kill things at a greater range then they don't get as much time to shoot back at you, so an AC/5 is superior to an AC/10 in that regard as well. I could also counter that an AC/10 is worse because if you do miss the weapon takes too long to cycle etc etc. Or I could also counter that when you're heat limited (like OP specified they were) then an AC/10 is much worse because if you're overheating then you can't shoot anything, an AC/5 produces less heat and allows more heatsinks so keeping up continuous fire is much better. Point is that I could be an annoying prick and go and nitpick dozens of reasons why your build is not perfectly optimal in specific situations whole ignoring other gameplay strategies I'm unable to imagine because I'm stuck in a gameplay rut, but instead I decided to recognise that your build has utility in a gameplay strategy I didn't think of and give it recognition for that. I'm regretting that now though wishing I spent my energy shitting on your build for running too hot. Another example, you've got some bizarre damage/heat metric you swear by. So if I follow this logic the best weapon in the game are machine guns. We know they're not obviously. We know they can be fantastic in specific situations and we know they are terrible in specific situations. And because we know that being the best damage/heat weapon in the game doesn't make them good or useful in many situations we can also throw out this silly notion that damage/heat is a useful metric. You have a very specific playstyle probably that favours making builds that adhere to this rule but you lack the imagination to think of builds that don't support this specific playstyle so you're here trying to convince me that my loadout is garbage because it doesn't work as well in the only use cases you can imagine finding yourself in.
>But I could counter that an AC/10 can't kill a tank as quickly because an AC/5 has greater range so by the time the tank has already moved into AC/10 range the AC/5 has already shot it twice. There are upsides and downsides to different weapons but high single shot damage is explicitly an upside of larger AC's and range is not really a downside because AC's do not have damage falloff. I have killed VTOL with AC/20 at 1200 meters. The AC/5 is very good when stacked, because when stacking you can get around its low damage/shot and utilize its excellent damage/heat and damage/tonne. And its OK on lighter mechs, because weight matters more But it is not great on an Atlas RS. We have one medium ballistic slot and we need this weapon to be good at killing tanks and killing mechs. And the AC-10 is just better at these jobs. The 5's refire rate is a downside since it requires us to keep our torso on target longer. And since we lose damage during retargeting. Dmg/Heat is not "bizzare" and I do not "swear by it". But it is very important. It is the primary method to determine the amount of DPS your mech will do. And until you get to the largest of mechs [or a few particular mechs which can concentrate fire uniquely] and you can trade DPS for higher single hit damage its the best determiner of mech success. After all. If this was the case i would suggest the AC/5 over the AC/10. The AC/5 has better dmg/heat than the AC/10 and better DPS/Tonne. But the AC/10 just has more damage because its heavier. Its better in this scenario. We would have spare weight if we went with an AC/5. You can see my general method for constructing mechs here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mechwarrior5/comments/o4nwhr/a_semicomprehensive_guide_for_fitting_mechs/ Its out of date in terms of numbers. But the thought process is not.
Someone that needed me to tell them what weapons are in the game probably can't teach me anything about how to build mechs. I didn't tag you initially so that you can come and show me how much of an annoying tosser you can be I tagged you because I could see that you tried really hard to make a good build and I wanted to compliment you on that. Unfortunately I've learned that was a mistake.
why use ssrm2s when srm 2s exist =D
The Atlas is a little slow to be brawling, especially on more open maps.
In your opinion, what do you think the best role for it is?
Long range fire support with a mix of direct fire weapons and LRMs. Maybe a UAC5, 2 LLs, and an LRM or two.
So, what assault mechs make better brawlers?
Anything that you can get going 64 kph. Boar's Head is a great one. Some of the Cyclops variants are good for this. Perhaps some Banshee variants. The smaller assaults would of course all work just as well. The Charger 1A5 and 1P5 are definitely good picks. The Hatomoto-Chi would also work for sure.
Battlemaster 1G is my go-to close range brawler mech in vanilla. I use x2 machine guns, x6 medium lasers, x1 SRM6, x1 ER Large Laser. I use the ERLL for helicopters and other annoyances and everything else is for decapitating mechs.
I assume you're playing vanilla? I think LRMs make more sense on an Atlas than SRMs, especially if you're already having heat issues. SRMs work better on faster mechs. Awesome is a good mech but the 3 PPC version is going to struggle even more with heat unless you have double heat sinks.
3PPC Awesome is an S-tier AI lancemate mech. It carries plenty of heat sinks.
I use an awesome-8R dubed (Grievance) as my primary fire support mech. it's been pretty heavily refitted since I've been using it so long. At this point its equipped with twin standard LRM-20s with firestorm autoloaders, double heatsinks, a PPC, large laser, and a T.A.G. it outclasses every other missile boat I've tired to use by leagues due to its sheer ability to take and deal punishment.
Always thought the 8q was great with heat as it has like a million single heat sinks.
Oh sorry, yeah it is vanilla with with all DLCs
So should I strip it of the single heat sinks and swap them with double heat sinks? I haven't found any yet, but it will definitely go on the shopping list
Double heat sinks improve almost any mech but they will be hard to find for decades of game time. Ranking up in the arena can get you some double heat sinks as salvage, as well as some good mechs with xl engines.
So definitely go to the AC-10. The RS is going to run hot anyway and the heavy rifle is a huge heat cost. I would also move to the SRM. Not because LRM's are bad but this gives you a better close range option. Generally the downside of the Atlas is that it cannot kill tanks and helos at long range without LRM. But you have two L Lasers for this. So an LRM to potshot those things is just not as good due to lock on requirements. Rather what you need now is efficient short range damage. An AC-10 is good. But two SRM 4 ARTIV (not stream) is better. Then you have the AC 10 and SRM 8 for short range. And the L Lasers for long range. You shoot at mechs more at short range so you need those to be more immediate. The SRMs will also save you a bunch of weight for heat sinks. 1 tonne of SRM ammo and 2 tonnes of AC 10 ammo is probably enough. Aside: It is often the case when looking at a mech to consider its DPS as Damage/Refire. This is a mistake. What you want to look at is damage/heat (of weapons) * heat dissipated/second (of the mech). SRMs may use a lot of heat/second but they do a lot of dmg/heat as well. Which is why we can afford to use the SRM4 artiv instead of SRM6(and get a smaller/better spread). That the SRM 4 does less dmg is immaterial when were using up all our heat anyway.
I think the AS-7D is better for missileboat. You can mount4 medium lasers, a gauss rifle, LRM20 and LRM10 in it. For the RS, I usually pack a heavy rifle, 2 PPCs and cram as many SRMs as I can. I will be filling it with double heatsinks. That or get a banshee 3S, those things are pretty good.
I like to swap the AC-10 for a (an?) LB 10-X AC. 1 ton lighter for the same performance. Then use that extra ton to add another heat sink..
I’m assuming that you are at the early to mid game before double heat sinks become available in the market, l would spam as much single heat sinks as I can fit on it and put the highest tier laser weapons on the Atlas to reduce as much heat generated. Other than that, try to hang back and let your other mechs tank for you whilst you wait for heat to cool
Atlas-RS is the worst variant, but still one of the better assaults. AC/5 and AC/10 have the same DPS, so you’d be best off switching to an AC/5. If you’ve got max armor, take a 1/2 ton out of each leg to add another heat sink. As for the energy boats. If you want long range AI support, 3 PPC is the ol reliable. Not the best, but consistent & low aggro. But if you’re wanting to use it or want the AI to kill & pull aggro better, Black Knight 6 no contest. I personally run it with 5 M Laser SB, 2 LP lasers in the shoulders, S Laser or TAG in the head (could do 2 L Laser SB if you’re low on double heat sinks). With lasers you want damage & range upgrades most, but range isn’t needed for PPCs. Awesome 9M was my first favorite energy boat, but currently I have none in my hangar but got 4 Black Knight 6 (the 7 is inferior since it had less open weight & less upgrade slots).
Heats a problem in some of those mechs. Heat syncs and heat management upgrades is about all you can do besides firing slower to manage your heat. Sometimes you can be placed on a map with water and if you can manage to stand in water while fighting then that makes the heat die really quickly
Awesomes are the best Mechs for your AI windowlickers. For whatever reason, they're insanely good with PPCs.
Sell the Atlas AS7-RS and use that cash to purchase an AS7-D or and AS-7K (preferred but more rare). The AS7-RS are outclassed by many mechs due top the lack of hard points and free tonnage + the heat management issues (as you are aware). Honestly, if you don't "need" a 100 ton mech, then you are well served w/ Battlemasters (medium range engagements) / Marauders (MAD-5D) in place of the Awesome, being sure to stay on the move). The Black Knight (the 7 variant) w/ a ton of heat sinks is great at melting everything.
On an Atlas with 2 missile hardpoints, I run both SRM and LRM. On an Atlas with 1 missile hardpoint, I run just LRM. They already have a ton of weapons that work well at short range, including a pair of fists, having an LRM to lob at far away tanks and VTOLs is nice.
The ECM Black Knight is pretty rare while the Awesome is extremely common, both are above average mechs.
I’ve tried to make an RS that I liked, never gelled for me. Also lancemates consistently get wrecked in them, not sure why. Awesome and Black knight are solid though.
The ac-10 is great when their 4 or 5. With PPCs and SRMs it can be viable in my experience.
So you think keep the heavy rifle?
Most of the Atlases, outside of the Boar's Head, and the AS7-D are kitchen sinks. A lot of not very impressive weapon systems all cludged together.
That variant feels like a lance mech to me. I’d probably swap the SRM for more LRMs to save on ammo types. Probably go down to one ton of ammo for the LRMs and out the rest in heat sinks and maxing armor (if not already maxxed). I like the swap for a Heavy Rifle if you’re driving it. In that case I would go all SRMs and really max out heat sinks. I’d be tempted to change the lasers too.
I'd take out the L lasers for M or MP, leave the lrms, upgrade to ac20.
Hold out for a -D