So, I was not able to salvage the BattleMaster because they had other goodies, but on the plus side, I did not lose my LRM +++.
My mech was cored out, but most of the rest was in tacted.
I’m a big fan of Bulwark on melee mechs. I’ve noticed that after they get into the scrum, so to speak, they do tend to stand still for a round because the first melee attack doesn’t usually finish an enemy off. It’s more likely to result in a knockdown and then next round they stand in the same spot and deliver a kick to the downed opponent. Standing still in the same spot triggers Bulwark!
I’ve also become a big fan of jump jets on my melee mechs. In my current playthrough I’m running a Grasshopper as my point man, with 6 ML and 6 SL and jump jets + heavy armor. He just jumps/guards for several rounds to get right into point blank range and then delivers the punishment. The combination of max evasion + guarded means that even jumping into the midst of 4 heavy hitters doesn’t hurt that much.
Finished the campaign. Last bit of the game was pretty easy, as I was rocking big 'Mechs and maxed or nearly maxed MechWarriors. My basic lance at the end was Highlander, Stalker, Battlemaster, and either another Highlander or a Grasshopper. Most of the time, unless it was a 'Mech I particularly wanted, I just went for the “bore 'em and core 'em” approach of center torso called shots.
I too am using a BNC-3M with maxed small and medium lasers (mostly of the ++/+++ variety), and close to max armor, with jump jets.
It’s doing a decent job, but mostly as a tank and spotter. It’s always in bad shape by the end of the battle because it draws enemy fire first, but the corollary to that is my other mechs (Atlas, King Crab, BTRs, etc) are in correspondingly better shape. Now that said, it’s a super-fantastic finisher to take down damaged mechs - especially ones with an arm or torso missing. If you don’t core them, you knock them down and the rest of the lance finishes them off.
I think it’s better than a Grasshopper, Quickdraw, Dragon, or Shadow Hawk at these roles despite the weight inefficiency, mostly because it can tank so much freakin’ damage. I can jump into the midst of four heavy mechs and jump out functional after a turn of focused fire. (Don’t try that against 4 assault mechs though).
I’m still wandering the galaxy before starting the Coromandyr missions. I’m waiting to assemble a full Steiner scout lance. I can technically assemble a couple already, but I want one full of Atlases and/or King Crabs. :D
I never saw the point of the BNC-3M. The Battlemaster can tote nearly as much armor, has the same mobility, has lighter jump jets due to the oddball cutoff of 85 tons for heavy jump jets vs assault jump jets, and has waaay more usable tonnage to pack in weapons and heat sinks. The Battlemaster only does a hair less damage with a punch too.
Lantz
2771
I didn’t manage to salvage a full Battlemaster until the finale (and an Awesome right before it) but was overflowing with specifically BNC-3Ms for some reason. I agree that they are great if you can find one.
The Banshee was a huge miss for me. It has very little usable tonnage, and really the only thing I could think of to do with it was use it like a battering ram, but there are better uses for one of the four lance slots.
The last quarter of the campaign I just relied on autocannons and and missiles, mostly, though I did find some of the upgraded/+++ large lasers occasionally useful. Oh, and of course all the MLs I can cram on a chassis.
For me the main advantage is in the number of support hardpoints.
Battlemaster = 7 energy, 2 support
Banshee-3M = 8 energy, 6 support
The extra 4 small lasers/MG’s/flamers per punch is a significant increase in firepower.
Overall the BTR is a better Mech, better balanced and efficient for the reasons you point out. But when you include support weapons nothing delivers more damage per punch than a Banshee. And since I’ve got one, I’m gonna use it! It’s also the only way I’ve found to make it useful because yes, it’s a bad design. :P
But since I need a spotter for my lance, I may as well make it an ultra-durable one with a decent melee capability!
See, the banshee is why you should always use am XL engine.
Seriously though, I hope they do some balancing soon. I would like to see Large Lasers and PPCs produce less heat, and evasion be more useful for this game.
I’m running 2 Thunderbolts now, all with maxxed out medium lasers (one has a large laser) and an orion for my main guy.
4th mech is either an LRM shadow hawk for ranged damage (has LRM 20 and LRM 15, which is nice, especially for firing over hills and also the stab damage) or another Orion.
Hmmm…i was under the impression I couldn’t get to the inner sphere?
RichVR
2776
So now that I have ~4/5 mil, I’m taking full salvage on every mission. I end up getting more cash from selling salvaged mechs than I would at higher cash levels. I love the missions when I can sell two or even three salvaged mechs. Last mission I sold two Shadowhawks at over 1 mil Cbills. Storyline? What storyline?
Yeah, I’m using an Orion LRM boat. 3 X LRM 20 does a huge amount of damage. They’re also good for a 3-way multi-target breaching shots.
Lantz
2778
They are like ‘Inner-Sphere Level’ or something, forget the phrasing. There’s a tundra 4*-ish one that is blue just to the ‘East’ of the main story worlds that is nice for missions.
My 2nd Orion is the ranged variant…I’m stealing your idea, about to test it now.
Be ready to run with very, very low armor. I use almost no armor, because I also maxed jump jets on it. Talk about a glass cannon.
Oddly enough I was going to call it that! It works really well. I stripped out the jump jets though. I keep it well tot eh rear.
In my last mission i got ganged up on by 2 full lances within support distance of each other, so they sandwiched me and really laid on the pain. Destroyed one of my mechs, and I thought the pilot was a goner but he survived. Needs 94 days recovery.
Managed to complete my Quickdraw, Kintaro and Hunchback salvage. 3 mechs from one mission, not bad!
The tonnage limit though means that you pretty much have to run all support stuff, as you can’t really mount 8 energy weapons unless they are MLs.
Absolutely true. Even running ML’s you’re going to be running hot as you don’t have a lot of spare weight for heat sinks.
But the reason this configuration is “workable” instead of “depressingly bad” is because small lasers offer the best damage-per-ton ratio in the game. The ability to use a significant portion of your firepower when you melee is just gravy on the (admittedly not very tasty) cake.
Personally I think some designer was upset at the omission of the Charger, and wanted us to design one ourselves. ;P
My only caveat would be, I find it hard to actually get in melee range without being focused down (literally, as in knockdown) before you can close the range. But admittedly, I haven’t gone all in and tried it seriously.
After finishing the story, I’m finding it a bit hard to get enthused about tooling around taking contracts. The actual battles that are not part of the story missions are often fairly blah.
