Mechwarrior Online: the so-called "meta"

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ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

So this got released, Russ threatened lawyers and it got re-uploaded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6zbPDgNxkY

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 06:02

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:32

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Bang3r posted:

Sad to see that is indeed the final HUD..

The HUD Doesn't bother me so much but the cut scene where the Hunchback steps forward menacingly while making threats gives me a case of the :rolleyes:

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 10:48

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I've been watching Baradul's stream silently at work and the campaign stuff looks like it'll keep me engrossed, although I'm imaging there's probably only a half dozen or so maps that are cycled for all of the generated mission stuff that might get a bit old. Now watching The_b33f's stream and getting hit by AC2s looks horrible in first person and be completely negated by going to 3rd person.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2019 00:55

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Sky Shadowing posted:

Bonuses would be the ability to deploy a company rather than only a lance (12 instead of 4).

So you can kitten herd 11 broken ai bots instead of 3? Company size deployments broke MWO, and I don't care if it's the lore.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2019 05:36

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I had some fun matches with Skoll and he was often active during ANZAC prime time, but this sadly didn't come as a surprise.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2020 05:20

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Pattonesque posted:

you played the game for quite some time in 12v12 IIRC

Yeah but it got harder and harder to back into the game, and if you were in the Oceanic region it's really rough. The only WoL activity ( back in the day ) was on the weekends during the day when all the Americans were starting to wind down from their Friday/Saturday nights. I stopped playing solo because I'd spend way too much time sitting in queues because the population was drying up because people were sick of spending to much time in queues because the population was drying up.

I am in the they should have never gone 12vs12 in the first place camp.

I recently bought Mechwarrior 5 Mercs on sale instead, and after a lot of diddling about with mods it's scratching the itch.

Mods I recommend:

TableTopRulz_AI Mod fixes up some of the issues with AI like allowing them to use jumpjets and changes their behaviors depending on their class. Actually kind of a big deal, and if you still owned the game it may be worth trying out ( but I'm not game enough to encourage people to go out and buy it ).

Volumetric Re-Scale for Mechs and Tanks makes the mech scaling feel more consistent with all the scenery.

3D hud ( with ADV. Zoom ), oh man this hud is pretty sweet but if you don't like the glowy stuff there's a non glowy Enhanced Hud ( with ADV. Zoom ) by the same author.

Salvage Fix because your base chance of salvaging a cored mech is higher than a legged mech - this mod also has options that increase salvageable mechs overall.

Realistic Weapon Velocities, ok I almost didn't download it because "realistic" but the base projectile velocities are hilariously slow and I'm gimping myself further by running the Volumetric Rescale mod.

Mods that come with caveats ( ie mods I've tried but eventually uninstalled ):

Better Spawns has been somewhat depreciated since it's release as PGI tweaked their spawning from hilariously bad just spawning right in front of you ( or just as bad, right behind you ). Vehicle NPCs and lights will frequently still pop in but from much further away ( and out of immediate sight ) that it's not as noticeable, and bigger mechs are dropshipped in. This mod just has everything dropshipped in close proximity and I find it a lot harder to manage the fights as you hit the heavier dropweights. I started having a better time at 230 ton and above missions once I removed this mod.

Increased Load outs and Yet Another Mech seem like a great idea and they work fine ( although some of the mechs introduced by YAM interact weirdly with the Volumetric Rescale mod ), but the biggest issue is that despite giving you way more hard point options you end up being unable to take advantage of any of them because of the inability to change engines or use Endosteel / Ferro Fibrous armor, and if you do manage to squeeze in some nice toys into all of your new hardpoints you're struggling to dissipating the heat. MWO's mechbuilding has absolutely spoiled me, but there's no easy way to replicate my MWO builds for Mechwarrior 5.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Apr 29, 2020

# ¿ Apr 29, 2020 01:52

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

RBA Starblade posted:

I bought an SLDF Trebuchet with my infinite money and it's weird how it doesn't tell you anything about how it's that or unique at all outside of coming with Artemis.

I think there's a mod for that.

The feeling of being underwhelmed doesn't go away, and I hit a brick wall with the Cole Harbour mission and so took a break. I only jumped back in tonight to try the latest iteration of the AI mod, new Lancemate AI mod and a weather enhancement mod. I've also gone back to driving Firestarters, mainly because they feel so OP in low drop weight missions - reasonable speed, fairly robust and heat is no issue while running 2xML, 4xSL & 2xMG.

# ¿ May 11, 2020 13:45

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Also the Gamepass version doesn't support any kind of modding, PGI plan to have that working by the time of the Steam release.

# ¿ May 16, 2020 00:59

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Super 3 posted:

Took the plunge and got MW5 with all the sales stuff going on from the Epic store.

I want to like it but I'm having a hard time and I keep cutting myself on all the sharp edges. TLDR it's ok but it's not worth full price. MW5 feels like getting your favorite cookie only to find it's stale and someone added nuts to the recipe when it didn't need them.

Walking around your leopard and interacting with lovely 3D modeled people is meh. Especially having to run from the hangar up to the cnc room for missions or communicating.

The missions so far are all super cookie cutter and lack any substance. Despite having different objective/mission types they all feel the same. The missions feel pretty linear, as of yet I haven't seen any options for in mission choices or decision trees. Like you can't skirt around and blow up a turret generator to disable defenses, although in one of the first missions they had a few elements of go here and do this different thing.

Apparently they improved the spawns but it's still bad, stuff just appears around you.

The way they locked in the loadouts isn't great.

The UI and navigating around is kinda clunky. For example if you get weapons blown off your mech and just hit the repair button it only repairs damage, it doesn't replace the destroyed weapon or component, even if you have them in inventory to pull from. You have to click a level down in the menu to see what weapon or component is destroyed.

By comparison HBS Battletech did so many things way better with the characters, the UI, menus, the flavoring on the missions etc...

I'm reputation 5 and I've been playing for a few hours so maybe the story and missions pick up at some point.

Mods help a bit, but don't fix glaring issues. I've previously posted a list of mods I'm using currently but they won't fix the Leopard ( but if you hit Tab you can access all of the different menu screens for the Mech Fittings, Starmap, Contracts, Market and Barracks without moving an inch ) but you still need to go up the stairs to talk to ~~Lilith~~ Ryana to progress the story ( I recommend not rushing the story as you'll hit a difficulty wall hard ). Mods won't fix the cookie cutter missions but will help the teammate and enemy Ai. Mods will help with the Loadout options ( omg make sure you're hitting the Weapons/Detail slider button because that thing makes no sense who the gently caress thought that was a good idea? ) but you won't get MWO level mech modifications. There are mods to help the UI a bit, but it's still a bit of a mess.

# ¿ May 19, 2020 03:26

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

RBA Starblade posted:

The thing that's annoying me the most is that not only is there no company-wide paint scheme you can set, you can highlight and copy the paint's hexadecimal values but not paste it to another mech.

Why?

So modders can fix it ( Unless you're playing the Gamepass version in which case welp ). Apparently a PGI dev did mention in a podcast recently that modders shouldn't try to implement infantry as that is coming in the pipeline.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 04:49 on May 19, 2020

# ¿ May 19, 2020 04:40

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Super 3 posted:

Yeah I should've mentioned I am running mods - it looks like the one that fixes spawns hasn't been updated since like JAN so I'll wait a bit. I need to grab the two AI mods for enemies and lance mates though.

Running the bitching betty mod, a classic ui, better advanced zoom, and then a loadout one along with the volumetric rescale.

The Spawn Fix mod just delivers vehicles in via dropship, rather than appear 600m away from the player. Some vehicles that are dropped in will fall through the ground and there seems to be a limited number of nodes on a map that the dropships will deliver stuff too, so you can can predict where the next waves are going to appear. I found that it got out of hand as you went up in difficulty as you got swarmed by multiple dropships at once. The Ai mods are pretty good although there was an amusing bug that cause Locusts to flee as soon as they spawned. The mod author introduced an ejection if disarmed, flee ( and despawn ) if they hit a minimum structure threshold mechanic and Locusts were below that threshold. There's an optional add-on to increase Ai lock on and targeting range which means you'l start seeing the Ai targeting you with lurms further out but your own squad mates are also improved ( still no target sharing though ). I also recommend the projectile velocity increase mod, weather improvement and the clear night view mod. The colour night view version of the mod doesn't look amazing ( basically it's old school full bright ) but I work with CCTV and have just been messing with some cameras that do full colour in darkness so it's within the realms of my expectations ( the weather improvement mod does make for some very dark nights and you'll actually have a reason to use the ingame night vision ).

# ¿ May 20, 2020 01:34

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Taintrunner posted:

The vast majority of my Battletech minis collection are actually 3d printed MWO mechs, comically enough

Resin or Plastic filament? My missus recently bought herself a FDM printer and I've been toying with the idea of getting her to do me up some of the MWO figures off Thingiverse so I'm curious as to how yours came out.

# ¿ May 27, 2020 05:39

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Q_res posted:

With that comes the caveat that the Game Pass version doesn't support mods yet. As for the game itself, it's not garbage, but it's hard to call it even good. Solidly mediocre seems like a reasonable judgment.

There is now a process to get mods working on the gamepass version, but it looks like a real pain to go through.

I've recently downloaded the MW5 Mercs Reloaded Mod which does a few things including a fully functional mechlab, and I'm talking upgrades for everything. There's also Predator vision, salvage changes, spawn composition changes, and some of Navid A1''s other mods bundled in as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXCLAQGu6wI

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 11:01

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Freakazoid_ posted:

I like it but there's literally no drawbacks to using predator vision compared to the others.

The targeting computer showing you where to lead your shots is like black magic to me.

I'm going to be very excited when it releases on steam.

The main drawback is that Predator vision is ugly as hell so I use it sparingly, and the foggy weather effects aren't a huge issue when I'm rolling in my current brawler Thunderbolt, anything in MPL/SRM range is in visual range anyhow ( and it helps having having competent lancemates ). With Reloaded's improved sensors you are more aware of stuff spawning around you, although the game does go to some effort to make sure it's not within eye shot and a decent distance away, so I'm not as annoyed by it. Vehicles are dangerous as hell when you're still in the light mech stage, the first time I ran into an SRM10 Carrier nearly ended my campaign right there, and I haven't yet progressed to the Cole Harbor Distress call which was the first serious difficulty spike I encountered the last time I tried playing through the campaign so I'm interested to see how that goes this time. I'm using the limited drop weight version of Reloaded but it's apparent that the mission drop weights have been increased from vanilla anyways.

If you ever thought that the vanilla SFX were a little underwhelming there's a couple different Sound overhaul mods available now. I've just been trying MedsMod Audio Upgrade and Sound Replacement but there's also Kh0rn's Sound Overhaul Mod which I haven't tried yet. Both aim to make the soundscape more satisfying and so far I can say that MedsMod is definitely noisier, but the weapons are certainly improved and you definitely tell when someone has gone critical.

MedsMod Audio Upgrade and Sound Replacement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnfOE4h3eQA

Kh0rn's Sound Overhaul Mod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYlE20w5bX4

# ¿ Jun 14, 2020 13:48

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Mr Luxury Yacht posted:

I gave a guy a mech with a PPC, some LRMs, and a single machine gun and every time without fail he charges into point blank range to plink with the one MG rather than trying to attack at range. Friendlies seem to actively ignore attack orders and enemy helicopters will often just kill themselves crashing into tall buildings.

This one isn't explained at all but is kinda fixable. You can set weapon groups for the the mech in the mech workshop screen, if you set the PPC to group one, the LRMS to group 2 and the MG to group 3 the AI will prioritise the PPC and LRMs over the MG. If you don't mess with the groups the AI will just try to get into position where it can alpha everything ( because weapons all default to group 1 until you tweak em ). There are some excellent AI mods that worked pre update but for the moment most mods are broken until the mod makers update them ( I think some are waiting for PGI to update the mod tools ). The alternative fix is to not bother with bracket build weapon loadouts and pretend you're building optimised loadouts for MWO ( sans engine upgrades, until that mod gets updated for the new patch ). Then you just pretend you're playing MWO in the solo queue ( but there's no Kerensky wannabe on comms trying to get everyone to Nascar ).

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 01:47 on May 31, 2021

# ¿ May 31, 2021 01:40

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I managed to turn an edit into a double post

To make this post more useful, somebody did a very indepth write up on how you can manage the AI on reddit here

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 01:59 on May 31, 2021

# ¿ May 31, 2021 01:46

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Cease to Hope posted:

Speaking of MW5, I still cannot get over how absolutely terrible its soundtrack is. It's like a parody of what a game like this would sound like.

The buttrock is fine, again though there were mods that used music from the earlier Mech Warrior titles. Of course my tastes could be a little jaded, it may be why I enjoyed my Heavy Metal back in the day.

# ¿ May 31, 2021 11:04

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Oof, just read that navida1 isn't going to update his mods for the latest version of MW5 ( and fair do's, real life priorities trump making mods for mediocre games ), which is kind of a blow for me getting enthusiastic about another play through doing a career campaign. I did like his 3D hud and Reloaded mods.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2021 12:15

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I'm still mid campaign, doing 250-290 ton drop weight missions ( after Cole Harbour ), running a Black Knight with Short Burst large & medium lasers and a couple DHS, while the rest of the gang are rolling in a mix of Thunderbolts with PPC, LRM 15 and 3 MLs, Cent 9-As and Firestarters. I believe Chem lasers are the preferred flavour to be rolling with the Black Knight but I'm liking the really short burn duration for precision shooting. I'm also liking the newly added missions, I've just completed the one in Kurita space that has scored me a hero Dragon that I might never use ( DRG-SDW - AC20 SRM6 2x ML and MASC ) and I'm in the middle of one that'll land me a dual gauss Rifleman that I might never use. The missions themselves are pretty good and varied, the final Kurita one wants you in a light with jumpjets to navigate a course, mark some targets before leading them to an ambush which is a nice break from loading up the heavies and playing mobile turret again.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2021 23:26

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Cease to Hope posted:

in MW5, once you're getting up to something like the black knight with large energy slots in the torsos, i feel like LPLs are a better investment at that point.

If I had free and ready access to Endo, DHS and XL engines I'd be boating LPLs all the live long day like I was playing MWO again ( you can keep that ghost heat tho ), I feel that Short Burst lasers are a pretty good compromise. Lower base damage but a stupid quick burn time and slightly faster cycle time than regular lasers without the additional weight and heat generation of pulses. I'm really happy with my heat handling ( I do have 2x DHS in there as well ), so I don't think Chem Lasers would bring anything extra to the table ( although a mix of LPLs, DHS and medium chems would be doable once they started appearing frequently in the markets in my current campaign ).

I wish there was a mech builder like Smurfy for MW5 because the theory crafting was probably the thing I enjoyed most with MWO ( after WoL because I do miss those days ).

# ¿ Jun 8, 2021 04:11

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I will say, don't sleep on the hero mechs in MW5. I just tried out the DRG-SDW ( they really need to do a blurb or codex entry on the mechs ingame, especially their newer mechs - I don't know what SDW stands for ), with 2x MLSB, SRM6, AC20, AMS and MASC. Running around on a storyline defence mission in Davion space ( just started the Daughter rescue missions just after completing the Marik mission line that rewards you the Archer Agincourt ) at 121kph clowning fools in the butt while my AI teammates are waddling around in Thunderbolts. Just prior to fixing up my Dragon I went for a couple of missions in the CPLT-BB ( Catapult Butter Bee with 4xML and 4xSRM6 I found in an Industrial zone in Steiner space ) which was really brutal, but seemed to attract a lot of damage. All very fun mechs to drive but probably not suitable fo the main campaign missions which require a lot more endurance from your robots. I do also have the Dual Gauss Rifleman ( RFL-DNA ) and Orion ( ON1-YAJ ) to pull out of storage and play with. The crafted Heroes missions definitely break up the standard proc gen fare, and the Mech rewards have so far been worthwhile.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2021 14:24

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

It is also on Nexus mods if you have the EGS version like me. I've now managed to finish the campaign and I gotta say, the Nightstar is a nice reward, but the last couple of missions before the final are pretty nasty with the waves of VTOLs and tanks that swarm you, especially the base destruction mission. I'm being harassed by everything, my bare rear end hanging in the breeze while my lance are shooting up phantom objects in the base and not taking the heat off me. The last mission was a bit of breeze, everything coming from below, lining themselves up for dual gauss headshots. I tried the hero king crab with quad lbx10-solids, while destructive I never could seem to have enough ammo.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2021 16:50

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Devorum posted:

I never actually finished it. I got to a mission that was virtually impossible for me with what I had and the terrible lancemate AI and quit playing in frustration.

I'm thinking about just starting a new campaign altogether. Are the Heroes missions in the campaign, as well?

I'd say start a new campaign, and the new Heroes missions are available for the campaign. The campaign missions definitely a bit of a tonnage check and does require you to take advantage of both your and the enemy ai being dumb. The Cole Harbour mission stands out as a bit of a pain mid campaign - It certainly was a blocker on my first attempt of a play through. Ultimately I solved it by having everyone in a Thunderbolt ( PPC, LRM 15, 3x ML ), parking them in the big open area to the south east of the city you're supposed to be defending and just let the enemy ai march to you. Avoid fighting in the city for as long as you can, I found that I had to get in and engage the last wave because they seemed to have gotten stuck.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2021 06:56

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Third World Reagan posted:

Enjoying MW5 co-op.

Also enjoying that only the host needs the DLC.

Needs more mods.

Mods are a happening, because I was an early adopter and went with the EGS version I can't tell you what's hot on the Steam Workshop, but I've been keeping an eye on Nexus.
I've spent a quite few hours using the SynergiesMOD MW5 Custom Conversion and I quite like it. It's a multimod that I'm normally a bit leery of, but it speeds up projectile velocities, gives you more salvage per negotiation point and opens up the weapon slots so you can effectively mount medium weapons in small slots and larges in medium slots ( basically small weapon slots become medium and medium weapon slots become large ), adds more jobs per system, adds engine DHS to mechs that canonically come with DHS and some other minor tweaks. You can now finally wear the the ~~dorky~~ awesome neuro helmet and there are more Company Logos available. There's a mod to lower your Merc Rep gain, a mod to flatten out the faction rep malus for running lower Merc Rep missions. I'm just waiting for a nice Hud mod like Navida1's 3D hud.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Jun 20, 2021

# ¿ Jun 20, 2021 08:31

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

timn posted:

Is there a mod which addresses how absurdly overtuned the difficulty curve is for mid-tier missions? I'm getting ground to dust because I don't have the firepower to immediately evaporate mechs before accumulating too much attrition to make it through these endless gauntlets of enemies. I've beaten the campaign before on a stick and am doing career mode on m/kb now, and dealing with these 200-300 tonnage missions again just loving sucks.

Not directly, that's primarily a mission scripting problem with the campaign, and now I'm playing a career mode game you simply don't run into the same issues. I've found the things that help get over that hump are pilot skills and there are mods to increase their XP gain, or mods that add more high skilled pilots to the available pool ( AI pilots with lower skills will hold you back as you progress through the campaign ), and equipping your AI pilots with solid boring dependable mechs. The Thunderbolt 5S is inexpensive, relatively common on the market and can equip a PPC, LRM 20 and 3 ML ( you could spare 1.5 tonnes and equip MGs but I don't ) without heat issues so the AI will just keep shooting ( I've only had to replace a couple PPCs during the campaign ), while you can take a Firestarter, Hunchback 4P and use them as cover or a Black Knight, but obviously I have a predilection for laser vomit builds. You do need to get into the habit of ordering your AI into choke points ahead of you, because if you just play point man you're asking to take up all of the damage ( the Black Inferno guys absolutely prioritise the player over AI teammates ). Cole Harbour is the one I keep brining up but it's because it's the first time they drop a lot of heavies and assault mechs on you, but if you don't play the objective it's a lot easier to manage ( It's a city defense, but the AI will again prioritise you so you only need to step into the city to trigger the assault and then hang back with your squad and let them come to you one at a time ). The last time I did it all 4 of my lance and I were in identical Thunderbolts. Laser based mechs are preferable than AC boats just because you only need to worry about heat management rather than ammo ( and the campaign missions are punishing on ammo ), and you need to absolutely focus on dealing with vehicles, air units and turrets while you command your squad to focus on the most threatening mechs first. TLDR The campaign doesn't really allow for you to run specialised mechs for your squad and the AI needs to be cat herded.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jun 21, 2021

# ¿ Jun 21, 2021 00:45

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Devorum posted:

Found a JMS-6 as my second Heavy in MW5 and fitted it with 4 AC2-BF as a joke but holy poo poo it's actually good. I put Freeman in it and no air vehicle is safe. He takes down entire VTOL/Igor squadrons before I can get an LRM lock. Plus he shreds lights and basically never stops shooting.

Early campaign I like sticking the AI in Blackjacks and let em go with dual AC-2s and they actually do a half decent job in staying alive and dealing with chaff at long range, even when you're dropping in heavily under weight ( to be fair I am running a mod that ups projectile velocities ). I have tried a quad AC-2 Jaeger but I am a little prejudiced against them just because they are lightly armoured and I feel like I can never have enough ammo for them. Also I don't really like driving them because I'm spending too much time staring at enemies and eating a lot of damage to the CT.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 04:41

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

For the big overhauls Piratetech is getting a lot of airtime from the usual MW5 streamers ( TTB & Baradul ) as well as BPL ( I've only recently discovered the Tex talks Battletech lectures on youtube and they're great ), but I haven't tried it yet myself. I used SynergiesMod for my post expansion Campaign and Careers mode runs and would be incompatible with Piratetech. Somebody has got Advanced Zoom up and running and there are now a couple different mods that remove the malus for running lower merc tier missions ( where you gain only +2 standing with the mission giver but still get -8 with the target faction ). There are lots of Company Logo and Portrait replacers out there and there's additional mission types with Coyote Mission Pack as well. The pre expansion TTRulz_AI mod is updated for the DLC but I don't feel it's as necessary as it once was. It's not that PGI fixed the AI, just I've been able to cope with it's idiosyncrasies unmodded.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jul 4, 2021

# ¿ Jul 4, 2021 02:17

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

New patch dropped for MW5 with a couple small fixes, but also the official PGI Infantry mod also dropped onto the EGS and Steam mod workshops. I wasn't sure what to expect - what we got was cute little man's that go flailing when you shoot or stomp them, and they occasionally shoot back.

I have been rolling with the Piratetech mod and their original career start is actually quite hard - You have a Commando Com-7X, a million C-Bills and all of the combat zones around you are Merc rating 1-15 meaning that you have to really hunt for a difficulty appropriate mission or run out of cash trying. Also the Com-7X dies to a strong breeze so you want to drop the SRM6 and a ton of ammo for an SRM4 and max armour asap. I have now reached a point where that's no longer a drama but it does make for a pretty tense start. I do recommend Coyote mission pack as well.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2021 23:54

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Amazing Member posted:

My usual for early career starts are just gunning down raids or demolition jobs and rocking a Firestarter, locust, vulcan something with mg or flamethrower and going to town and dipping out in about 5 mins. The pay is lovely but the damage is neglible. Would that not work?

Also, mod wise, the sf overhaul on the steam workshop is legit. Its crazy how the soundscape utterly change your immersion, it actually feels like I'm piloting a 50 foot 70ton mech when the crunch and grind sounds just right.

It's just you, that Commando and a million c-bills. The challenge is taking the Commando and taking what ever missions are within range that are sub 20 difficulty without running out of cash and then you can't afford to travel to the next combat zone. It starts you at Outreach ( within spitting distance of Terra ) and all of the Combat Zones around you are Merc rank 1-15 which means the available missions cover the full spread of difficulties ( that's 1-100 ), the other career starting zones except Rasalhague are difficulty 1-25 but you don't have enough c-bills travel to any of them at the start. Because the Commando has very little armour, your pilot evasion skill is 1 and you don't have squadmates to help spread incoming damage, raising enough c-bills to a) replace your mech and b) build the rest of your lance is the challenge. Once you have a full light lance then it's a cakewalk and you're earning more than enough per mission to transit to multiple combat zones, cover repairs and start upgrading to mediums.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2021 06:48

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Nah you should, if only because it's stressful up until the point you've managed to get a couple of decent robbits in your cold storage and another pilot in your barracks. You start in year 3044 so you have access to all the good tech, but there's also a Magistry of Canopis start from 3015 if you want to play in the Periphery, and a bunch of variations of the official career starts. Hardpoints are generalised by class, so all energy weapons can fit in energy slots, all ballistics in ballistics slots and all missiles in missile slots. It brings a whole bunch of Pirate developed tech ( borrowed/inspired by Roguetech? ) and other goodies like RACs, LBXs, and Snub PPCs. I haven't delved into the Pirate tech but its things like chain guns, cutting torches ( modified flamers ), continuous beam lasers, high RPM PPCs and high RPM Gauss rifles. Regular old SRMs now have lock on, they can be fired dumb but they do have a small degree of tracking which is cool, but there's also dumbfire and inferno ( heat inducing? ) SRMs to play with as well. After playing with SynergiesMod I need to get used to slower trajectory ballistic weapons though.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Jul 8, 2021

# ¿ Jul 8, 2021 09:31

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

BadLlama posted:

Please let me face punch mechs

Punching in VR is gonna be interesting
( I haven't fired up VRWarrior just yet, my Quest 2 is still a week away and I'm too lazy to set up my CV1 knowing that I'm gonna be able to VR wirelessly in a weeks time )

# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 08:29

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I'm finding that my AI Lancemates are actually now more efficient at targeting and destroying turrets and ground vehicles which is nice. The Auto Cannon SFX bug is a thing according to https://mw5mercs.com/news/2021/09/64-launch-day-intel-update so I'm hoping that's fixed soonish. VRWarrior has been updated for the new DLC but I think I'm gonna give that a little more time in the oven before trying that out again. Don't get me wrong, VR inside a cockpit is sweet as hell but I found the target reticules were really distracting and getting in the way when trying to shoot stuff. I haven't tried any of the Kestrel missions yet, I've elected to start a new career instead, but I hope they have the same jump in quality over the original story missions as the Heroes of the Inner Sphere missions did.

[edit]The new menu sfx when you press a button and go to a loading screen are kinda obnoxious as well.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Sep 24, 2021

# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 11:30

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

peer posted:

how is there still no option to disable the giant, flashing OVERRIDE ENGAGED warning. cmon man

Thanks to all my time playing MWO fuelling my obsession for relatively heat stable builds I almost missed the joke.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2021 23:31

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiI-BJnP2I

A week to go before the Expansion drops. I've no opinion on the Crusader nor the Bounty Hunter rewards, but previous expansion story missions weren't terrible, the Merc rivalry system could be fun, and a new mission type is always a plus.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 10:38

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Rise of Raselhague is out, 50% off sale on Epic and Steam for MW5 and the earlier DLCs. The Bounty Hunter contracts award a couple skins, a pilot, some tier 5 weapons, some free mechs and the final tier awards you 10mil cbills and a pile of DHS. The Merc Rivalry system adds some flavour and variation to the existing mission pool ( as well as the new Infiltration mission type ). I've not seen any reactions to the new campaign missions yet but playthrough videos are showing up on Youtube. Looks like you can expand the number of mech bays which means you could have a larger stable of mechs available for missions in a combat zone where repairs are more expensive, but you're also paying for the maintenance of those additional bays you have populated which can also add up. I haven't got the DLC myself yet, I'm gonna wait for the mod community to catch up a bit.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 20:57

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Chainclaw posted:

I think it's also on sale on the microsoft store. I don't know if they added cross-platform play, but only the host needs the DLC and everyone else can just join via game pass if you buy it over there.

You could cross play between EGS and Steam but I don't have any friends who bought through the Microsoft store so I have no idea on that front.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 22:25

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I see D-DC and all I can think is Ghost Dad can't be beat, and I haven't logged into MWO for years.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2023 01:44

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Amechwarrior posted:

To pile on, I also just started MW5, doing co-op career. We hit about Rep 8-9 and taking 60-70 difficulty missions regularly. Then one demo (may Scorched Earth) dropped an Atlas + friends, then a whole Lance of PHX from the rear. We tried the mission a few times, trying different methods of focusing on the base but it was just insane how closely and quickly those two Lances drop on top of you. Like, I'm fine with abandoning a mission, you can't win them all. But unless you hit "Abort" right when they all showed up, there's no chance for your Lance. With the turn based HBS, calling it quits was a slower and more nuanced choice. I see 8+ enemy medium 'Mechs and I'm still in the early stages - Abort. But with MW5, there's no real time to assess your situation before you're already taking massive damage. The sensor limitations probably also play into that.

That and I think there's some kind of global scaling preventing us from stomping lower difficulty missions for easy cash. The 40-50 difficulty contracts seem to spawn more larger Heavy 'Mechs than we fought when that was par and we were salvaging 60+65t heavies as prime rewards.

MW5 can be really punishing in that regard and I definitely find that missions can rapidly go to poo poo ( demolition and assassination missions specifically ) when all of a sudden you have dropped lances, vehicles showing up and turrets popping out of the ground just as you think you're about to wrap them up. It's better than on release when stuff would just magically spawn in view, but it's still harrowing. Running YAML ( and it's associated mods ) along with something like Pilot Overhaul ( an AI pilot with Energy Weapons at 15 is a loving surgeon, and also you're not limited to piloting as Mason with a max stat of 10 in the skills, meaning you can be the pilot with energy weapons 15 ), helps a great deal. At those difficulties you need to be running as much armour as possible, and you can't do the MWO thing of front loading all of your armour either because no matter how good you're twisting you can't leave your butt meat vulnerable ( I am lazy and stick with the default front and back ratios and that seems to work for me ), boating a lot of short burn pin point weapons ( Short Burst and Pulse lasers I'm looking at you, but Gauss and PPCs count too ) to mitigate the immediate threats ( I don't mean just killing mechs outright because that can take too long, but defanging them so you can focus on the next biggest threat sooner - that Atlas is less of a worry if you take out it's AC20 and unless you're a master at hitting it's left eye you're going to be pounding on it's CT a lot longer than it takes to strip the scariest side torso ). YAML means that you're salvaging mechs with the intent to pull out their Endo, Engine DHS and XL engines if they have them, and chasing down Hero mechs for the same reason. YAML means you can start putting Powered Sensors with their 360 degree arcs on all your robits so you're less surprised, and all of my YAML builds will have at least BAPs ASAP so I can keep track of up close mechs that I don't have LOS. Never skimp on armour ( I'll shave down legs to the nearest half ton but if I'm in a situation where I'm l trying to squeeze in another weapon I'll look at other weight saving options, max armour everywhere else is non negotiable ), or speed. You really don't want to be dropping below 64kph for Heavies and maybe 54 kph for Assaults, the slower you are the more damage your going to take and the Evasion skill still helps with the big boys ( it's hard with the Assaults because big engines without XL or if you're extra lucky Clan XL - thanks to Stacked Crates - are stupid loving heavy. I've not had issue with side Torso deaths yet, but I've been close ).

I'm find that I'm limiting my Mech Build options, for <200T missions it's all Firestarters all the time with as as many Short Burst Medium lasers as I can carry, then it's Centurians ( my current go to is CN9-D with LBX10-SLD, SB MLs and SRM4s and an XL250 - the AI pilots kinda suck with SRMs but work well with the LBX ), Thunderbolts with a Short Burst LL and MLs and an LRM15, Warhammers with dual PPCs, you guessed it SB MLs and an LRM 15, maybe MAD-3Rs with Gauss, dual PPC and of course SB MLs, sometimes I like to drive a Chem Laser Vomit Black Knight but that doesn't work so well with AI pilots ( same with the HBK-4P which confounds me, and don't bother giving them a HBK-4G either, that's why I stick with Cents ), and finally Assaults I've had most luck with Stalkers ( 2x SB LL, 4x SB ML, 2x LRM 15 ), Highlander 332s ( Gauss, 3x SB LL and LRM 20 ) and Atlases ( Gauss, 4x SB ML and 2x LRM 15 ). You do have to set weapon groups to make sense for the AI pilots ( and any more than 3 weapon groups frustrates the hell out of me ) but the builds seem to work well enough with the AI without needing to resort to AI mods, and variations of said builds seem to be enough to carry me through vanilla MW5, but MWO's mechlab spoiled me.

With regards to going back to lower tonnage missions getting harder in late game, your player Rep is coming into play with regards to heavier mission spawns, the other issue you'll run into is that you're getting way less Rep per mission so you'll still be getting good money, and better salvage options ( but never enough negotiaion points - I recommend Parley ), but your Rep progress is going to stall.

TLDR
I find it easier to deal with oshit moments if my mechs are super optimised to do so and I'm taking out the weapons that are the biggest threat with precision damage before finishing stuff off. My co-op buddy is off playing other games these days but I'm finding my AI buddies are competent enough if I build them suitable mechs and I'll play pilot pokemon and grind out missions to level them up a bit as well, without resorting to AI mods ( apart from Pilot Overhaul ). I think I spend most of my time in MW5 optimising mechs to suit my playstyle just as I did in MWO, without having to worry about the fact that the MWO Oceanic playerbase died in the arse and all my MWO friends are in the wrong timezone and I'm still dark that MWO went from 8v8 to 12v12 and that faction play was such a wet fart.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Feb 26, 2023

# ¿ Feb 26, 2023 02:53

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Captain Oblivious posted:

Weird difficulty spikes are truly just the most Battletech thing. In my current HBS Battletech run, I�m barely past my first four or five missions, take a 2 skull battle and get three lances dumped on me in rapid succession. Gaaaaaaaame.

On an unrelated note, for MW5 does anyone know if there�s a mod that provides chassis quirks other than YAML? I basically want quirks but not YAML if possible but if not possible c�est la vie

I think there is a quirks mod, but I'm curious as to why not YAML?

[Edit]
Doh what I thought mightt have been a quirks mod just adds more to YAML

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Feb 26, 2023

# ¿ Feb 26, 2023 05:18

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:32

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Captain Oblivious posted:

Generally speaking I think a more constrained design space than what YAML offers is better/more interesting. YAML, by virtue of the sheer breadth of customization it offers, tends to make the actual chassis and variants less important not more. It is functionally homogenizing. Quirks provide more variety, so those I�m down for.

Fair, although as I opined above, I'm down to using the same specific chassis with either YAML or Vanilla MW5 ( YAML just lets me dial those specific chassis to 11 ). I'll use other lights, but you know I'm doing it while thinking about all of the lasers ( mediums and small ) that I can stuff in a FS9-A. YAML does inherit the additional hardpoints from MWO and remove the hardpoint size restrictions which does make things a lot less restrained, but I'm definitely looking to fill my mechbays with specific mechs with complimentary layouts to fit my ideal lance, I'm running specific missions with higher chance to spawn a certain chassis for me to salvage and cruising the markets that are more likely to give me the mechs I'm after. I get that's a me thing where I'm imposing chassis restrictions on myself by virtue of Robots I personally like the look of and give me layouts that work for me, and it applies both YAML and vanilla. YAML just feeds my need to tweak those builds as much as I can. I also get that what drives me doesn't drive others.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2023 07:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Mechwarrior Online: the so-called "meta"

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