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What are the best Firestarter builds? I'm doing the first career run I've done since realizing how good that mech is, and I have two to play around with. Right now the one I use almost every mission is decked out with six jump jets, five ++ or +++ ER small lasers, the second-best gyro, and some heat sinks and armour, but that's pushing it on the weight and the heat. It's still capable of jumping in, doing 400 damage to a mech's rear armour over two phases, and jumping away again to evasion tank, but then it runs really hot for a few turns and I either have to rein in the jumping and fire fewer lasers or just sprint back and forth defensively while cooling down. And if I want to outfit it with the really killer melee arm mods it would mean dropping even more weight, so I was thinking of building my second one to save on heat by using regular S Lasers instead of the ER ones, drop heat sinks to fit melee mods on that one, and then pick which one to use based on the mission. But I'd love to see how other people are building theirs. e: oh also mech name chat from a page or two ago, I like to give my mechs names that will remind me what their job is easily. So for instance in my current game a Black Knight whose main weapons are two snub PPCs is Shotgun Wedding, a Gauss rifle Marauder is Guillotine, and a Centurion with a bunch of infernos on it is Space Heater. vyelkin fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 14:21
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 06:18 |
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At the end of the campaign if you ask Sumire what she wants to do now she says that she wants to get just stupid rich, so she always puts the LZ where she puts it so you'll have to finish the remaining enemies and she can get her share of any opfor kill bonuses.
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Jun 19, 2020 02:12
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chaosapiant posted:Thanks, I'll take another look next time i'm in the lab!  See those white bars across the top of each mech part? If you click the + and - next to them you'll add armour 5 at a time. On the three torso parts there are two bars for front and rear armour.
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Jul 6, 2020 20:19
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It may not be optimal, but based on not having yet found the perfect weapons I have an Anni with two Gauss Rifles and three UAC2++, and it reliably headshots or cores enemy mechs in one go, and if it doesn't manage a one-shot kill it still wrecks them.
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Jul 21, 2020 16:37
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I've had really good results with a Marauder mounting a combo Gauss++ and UAC5 (also ++ I think but I don't remember right now).
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Jul 21, 2020 17:08
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Eschatos posted:Where the hell are yall finding all these double heat sinks and ++ weapons? I'm halfway through a career and I've found a total of one DHS and a few ML/LL/SRM pluses(along with a load of buffed ACs and PPCs but I still think those are trash). Befriend the pirates, buy access to the black market, buy the good poo poo.
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Jul 21, 2020 21:30
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A MIRACLE posted:Is there ever a reason to just not take your heaviest mechs possible Sometimes, yes. Some escort or ambush convoy missions are basically impossible if you don't have really fast mechs that can sprint to the other side of the map quickly and act before the enemy. Also you can build certain light mechs (Firestarters especially) into monsters that can core assault mechs while evasion tanking to significantly reduce the overall damage done to your lance. You wouldn't necessarily want to take an entire lance of them, but I often find myself setting up a lance of two assaults, a Marauder, and a Firestarter even for missions where I'll be going up against large numbers of enemy assault mechs.
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Jul 22, 2020 16:05
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When the Marauder is one of your heaviest mechs, bring it. When the Marauder is one of your lightest mechs, still bring it. The lance damage reduction and the headshots are more than worth losing 25 tons of assault mech weaponry.
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Jul 22, 2020 16:45
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I just kind of assume "head" targeting is an abstract representation of "cockpit" for those mechs that don't really have heads.
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Aug 1, 2020 16:43
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Dalaram posted:So I was doing Phoenix hawk all wrong. I thought it was fun to watch it roundhouse kick mechs, but I tried this, and godDAMN this build owns. Running stock weapons, I cored out two untouched heavies and a hunchie without taking a hit of structural damage over 5 turns. Now do the same thing but with a Firestarter. Basically invincible because nothing hits it at range, and with Ace Pilot it moves before anything that would do significant damage to it in melee, but it cores mechs from behind just the same.
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Aug 4, 2020 03:29
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If my computer is already chugging and having long load times while playing vanilla on the lowest graphics settings, will it explode if I try BEXCE?
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Aug 5, 2020 22:29
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I generally max out front armour or close to it. If there are empty limbs I might underarmour them, and I might go a bit lighter on mechs with absurdly high armour maximums (I think my assault mech will be fine with 250 CT armour instead of 310, for example) when that might let me fit on something else. But generally, given you're almost always outnumbered and the  nature of the game I go for a little more survivability over a little more damage.
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Aug 6, 2020 02:07
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toasterwarrior posted:Bagged a second Jenner and my own Firestarter (real bastards at this phase of the game; having one of my own is a great feeling), and dropping my Panther for the Jenner. Since I'm not really feeling the Phoenix Hawk, even when I dropped the LL for 2 SLs, 2 JJs, and significantly more armor, I'm actually thinking about switching it out for the Firestarter. Do that, all-support Firestarters are incredible. I haven't done the MG Firestarter, but I have two in my current run. One is loaded up with five ERSL++ that do 200 damage together with a range out to 180, plus maximum JJs and some heat sinks, and the other has five SL+++ for 150 damage plus two +60 damage arm mods and maximum JJs. The first one is amazing at jumping into an enemy mech's rear arc, coring it from behind, then jumping or running away before anybody can hit it. The second one just runs up to enemy assault mechs, punches off their limbs, then runs away before they can respond. Both have the +3 hit defence gyro and with a Piloting 10 pilot in them they're basically invincible and evasion tank all day. They both own and I will happily take these 35-ton mechs into missions where my lance is facing tons of assault mechs.
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Aug 6, 2020 14:07
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UAC2++: nooo you aren't optimizing your damage:space ratio, you have to make sure every slot and every ton is getting the most damagerino Gauss Rifle: haha ammo box go boom
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Aug 11, 2020 00:08
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I made a punchbot Shadow Hawk in my first playthrough and it was fun to play with but probably not super optimal.
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Aug 13, 2020 15:53
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DatonKallandor posted:Shadow Hawk is one of the best workhorse mechs in HBS Battletech. It's an incredible medium, better than many or most heavies. This was more or less my experience of it too, when I maxed the armour and gave it good melee damage it was more survivable and quicker than most heavies and made up for in melee damage what it lost in ranged weapons. As I say, probably not optimal but for the base game's relatively easy difficulty curve it was fine and fun to use.
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Aug 13, 2020 16:34
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SRM+++ are some of the best weapons in the game imo, 12 damage per missile adds up so quickly. A Griffin with 3 SRM6+++ is putting out up to 216 damage a turn provided you can get it into range, which is comparable to a lot of heavies and even some lighter assaults. An Archer with 4 can hit 288 damage a turn plus a ton of instability. And SRMs are so weight-efficient that you can actually fit that many onto a mech that would run into weight restrictions hitting that kind of damage with any other kind of weapon. The only real problems are the short range meaning they aren't useful every turn, and the unfocused damage meaning they're more useful against mechs that have already taken some hits. Those problems kind of deal with each other though, longer-range mechs can damage the enemies while the SRM carrier closes range, and then the SRM carrier blows up damaged components and knocks down unstable mechs. SRM mechs may not get as many deathblows as other mechs, but I find they're still a viable member of the team. Also, one or two SRM4 or 6++ or +++ is a good way to add some extra damage to a mech with a few leftover tons.
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Aug 14, 2020 15:57
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I actually like the RNG head injuries because they force you to build up a reserve roster of Mechwarriors. Since in vanilla you can take the same 4 pilots into every mission even if you're doing like ten missions in a single day, the occasional random injury both forces you to bring someone else and strongly encourages you to vary your team composition in good times so that when someone does take a random headshot and is out for two weeks then your backup pilot isn't utter garbage.
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Aug 16, 2020 14:29
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twistedmentat posted:The most success I've had is using Marauder, Warhammer, battlemaster and archer. But even then I still had one APC just scoot into the location and I auto lose. The first time I did that mission I remember I missed one APC spawn point and auto-lost, which was annoying. There's an additional drop zone behind and to the left of the base (to the left of the big hill) and the APC that spawns there will drive in the back of the base, which is easy to miss if you've got your mechs up front to fight the enemy's main force. I think I also had good results from keeping an LRM Archer back in the base as a weapon of last resort, so that if any APCs were in the danger zone at the end of a turn and all my other units had already moved and not killed all of them, I always had a reserve unit that could dump like 150 damage on them from anywhere on the map.
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Aug 30, 2020 14:42
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I think the one in my game has a +damage Snub PPC and then a few supplementary weapons, so it does decent damage while also having decent armour. I don't bring it for really tough missions though.
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Jan 14, 2021 03:20
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As soon as I'm done my current career I'm going to try playing the 8-salvage-needed-to-build-a-mech setting, to force myself to use non-optimal chassis for longer and slow down how long it takes to roll into every mission with two assaults, a marauder, and a firestarter.
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Jan 15, 2021 17:49
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I started a career with 8 mech parts for salvage and I'm actually really enjoying it. It stretches out the game's mech progression to a crazy degree, which slows down the power snowball a lot and means you have to actually make good use of bad mechs for a long time instead of getting a new mech after facing it once or twice. Getting a new mech isn't something that happens every other mission, it's something that takes a long time, and you're likely to end up with bad mechs before you get good ones, which means it's going to take a lot longer before I'm rolling into every mission with a Marauder and three assaults. Hell, I even built a custom Javelin (the first mech I fully salvaged) that has seen a lot of action because it meant I didn't have to take my starting Cicada or Commando into every fight anymore.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:59
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I built an Annihilator with two Gauss rifles and three UAC5s and it killed everything.
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Feb 5, 2021 02:35
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I give everyone Bulwark, then build a few pilots with Breaching Shot and a few pilots with Ace Pilot (almost exclusively to pilot backstabber fast mechs like Firestarters so that if they need a second turn to finish off a mech's rear CT then they can get it and still run away), then split the rest between Master Tactician and Coolant Flush with either Multishot or the tier 1 piloting skill that I don't remember the name of right now.
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Feb 5, 2021 03:04
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Escort missions are among the most annoying missions in the game imo, between a combination of 1) the APCs moving slowly and having the usual lag in the AI making up its mind, especially when their pathing has them drive into the woods on the side of the road every time, 2) the AI sometimes glitching out and just wasting a turn driving in circles or running into a wall or whatever, and 3) the weird bug where when the APCs get evacuated you get dumped out of combat and the enemy get a full turn of running around and bracing before you reenter combat. They're just slow buggy messes, which is a shame because they're a nice variety on a regular battle mission and they're very common early on.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:02
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sean10mm posted:I think the only Flashpoint I just don't like replaying is Prototype. It's just a tedious tutorial or two for the ECM system. I think in my current career I'm going to just not do that one, or put it off for a long time. I never use ECM and it's mostly just annoying when enemy lances have it, so why bother unlocking it?
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Feb 14, 2021 04:27
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I take Bulwark on everybody and then make some combination of snipers with breaching shot, brawlers with coolant vent and either multi-target or the tier-1 piloting skill, backstabbers with ace pilot, and speed demons with master tactician. By the end everybody's a 10/10/10/10 so the bonus skills are the only difference between them. In terms of actual skills, like independent of the bonuses which is more important to get first on the way to 10/10/10/10, I try to get everybody to a baseline of at least 6 gunnery (otherwise they miss too much), at least 6 guts for the bonus 15 heat, and eventually at least 7 piloting for the extra defence and max sprint distance. Tactics is essential for some pilots who want to beeline to level 9, but you can ignore it for a long time on a lot of others while building up their other stats, just have the high-tactics pilots take the called shots.
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Mar 9, 2021 16:09
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It's a shame they're done with the game because I would totally buy another DLC that just added a ton more variety of events, use of pilot and mission tags, and so on, like she says in the writeup about events and pilots.
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Mar 20, 2021 21:18
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Build an Annihilator with two Gauss++ and three UAC5++ and watch it annihilate everything from the other side of the map.
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Apr 13, 2021 17:26
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Double UAC20 imo
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Apr 13, 2021 22:55
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I installed PTN's modpack and started a new career. Early on, accepted a 1.5-star clash of titans mission with high salvage potential. Showed up and the first assault mech was a Victor. The second one turned out to be an SLDF Battlemaster, which promptly headcapped the Victor with its very first shot, kind of putting paid to my idea of waiting around with my lance of mediums and lights for them to batter each other. I did end up taking it out without much fuss afterwards, and got 3 Victor and 1 SLDF Battlemaster parts for my troubles (I'm playing with 4-part salvage so it wasn't quite a full assault handed to me in my second month), but it was still quite something to be thinking "okay, yeah, this is going according to plan" as the assaults started fighting each other, and then all of a sudden see "Head destroyed" as soon as one of them so much as looked at the other.
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Apr 16, 2021 18:57
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The SLDF Marauder definitely has built-in DHS and as a result it can mount so many headcapping lasers it's silly.
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Apr 19, 2021 16:58
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Psion posted:it does, but it (along with the 3D) was also added in 1.9 so it would've had DHS the same way all the pre-existing SLDF mechs got it in the same patch. When I did my 8-part salvage game recently it meant I usually had way more money than usual because of minimizing salvage on most contracts, and I ended up with an SLDF Marauder loaded up with ERMLs and a UAC2++ that had something ridiculous like 10 different half-headcap weapons while still having enough heat sinking to jump all over the battlefield and fire alpha strikes every turn. By far the most ridiculous and overpowered mech I've built playing this game.
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Apr 19, 2021 17:12
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I've even got good use out of Panthers early in the game. Slap on three MLs and an SRM6, jump jets, and a bunch of armour, and it's basically a cheap low-end medium since the underpowered engine gives it a bunch of extra tonnage.
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Apr 20, 2021 14:36
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In Vanilla I also like rolling into those with three endgame-tier assaults and heavies plus one Firestarter, then letting the slow mechs shoot their way into the nearest capture zone while the Firestarter sprints and jumps their way to the other two. Once that's done it's basically a big battle to wipe out the hordes of enemies and claim all the bonus payments, but with Annihilators and SLDF Marauders and the like even a big battle like that is very doable and even fun since a lot of endgame content isn't super challenging by that point.
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Apr 26, 2021 17:22
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A Strange Aeon posted:I've just been getting into vanilla and really enjoying the campaign so far--what determines the difficulty of the contracts getting offered? Does it depend on solar system, Merc board rating, number of campaign missions completed, a running clock? As far as I know the only thing that affects contract difficulty is the solar system. When you're traveling somewhere on the star map, it will show you the average difficulty of contracts in that system, and that never changes. A 1-skull system on day 1 will still be a 1-skull system on day 1200, so you can always set your own difficulty by moving to an easier or harder system.
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Apr 29, 2021 16:30
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Organ Fiend posted:-Best weapons in the game: ML++(+10 damage), SRM+++, AC20+++,LL++ or +++ (any +10 damage variety), LRM+++ (for stability damage builds) UAC2++ needs some love here too. 70 damage for something like 4 tons, no heat, and functionally infinite range is definitely a top-tier weapon.
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Apr 29, 2021 19:53
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juggalo baby coffin posted:i know its missing the op headshot computer but i figured adding the TTS++ would increase my headshot percentage, but it's still at 14% which i guess might be the cap. My favourite Annihilator build is two Gauss rifles and three UAC5s. If you get the + versions that give reduced tonnage, you can fit that loadout plus three jump jets (useful since the mech is so slow and it's handy to be able to get to high places for line of sight across the map when the battle is happening far away) and enough ammo and armour for long fights, and then a mech like that will reliably destroy pretty much anything you point it at each turn. This is vanilla though so I don't know how mods change that build.
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Apr 30, 2021 13:55
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PoptartsNinja posted:Max jump jets, up the armor, throw in six small lasers (drop to five once you get a +3 Hit Defense gyro since two of your lasers are CT mounts). You can upgrade the CT small to a small pulse if you get Black Market access, and that leaves you a couple of tons free for a couple of medium lasers or extra armor or for the 1 ton +60 damage arm mods that let your Firestarter punch the torsos off Assault 'Mechs if you get your hands on two of them. Yeah this is the way to do it. I sometimes even build two different Firestarters, one with 5 ERSL++, which get it to a respectable 200 damage altogether with good enough range for it to be an evasion tank and still deal enough damage to not feel like a purely defensive mech, and one with 5 SL++ and two 60-damage arm mods. Whenever I bring one it gets an Ace Pilot and then spends the fight jumping behind assault mechs, coring them out from behind, and jumping away, evasion tanking and getting more kills than a 35-ton mech should ever get facing Steiner scout lances.
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May 3, 2021 19:02
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 06:18 |
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A Strange Aeon posted:I've been playing around with a firestarter with one of those mega arms (could only find one), jump jets, and 6 mgs, and it's been pretty fun. I don't have any Ace Pilots, but I hired a tactics specialist with Sure Footing. How do you avoid getting punched back if your gambit fails? Evasion doesn't protect against melee, or does it? The best way to avoid getting punched back is to reserve action until the last phase so that your Firestarter moves after the mech you're punching, then run in and punch them, then run away in the light mech phase before they get to move. That's why Ace Pilot is particularly good, because then you can shoot them a second time before running away. So for instance, let's say you want to punch a heavy mech (phase 2) with your Firestarter (phase 4). If you run right in in phase 4, you're liable to get punched back in phase 2. On the other hand, reserving your Firestarter until phase 1, after the enemy mech moved in phase 2, means you can run in and punch, then move/sprint/jump away in phase 4 of the next turn, and never be in danger of a melee retaliation.
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May 4, 2021 13:52
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