Honing the Lance: A BattleTech Mech Build Guide

[admin]

If you’ve recently jumped into Harebrained Schemes BattleTech, you’ve undoubtedly gotten a sense that as much of the game takes place in the Mech Bay as on the field.

http://www.strategygamer.com/articles/b ... ild-guide/

[Arkonor]

Respectfully disagree, but I'm not a pro player (still, I have beaten the campaign, and currently I'm playing Career mode on high difficulty)

I tend to divide my mechs in these three-roles: long range, medium range and melee. Light scouts tend to be medium range, since they have to be relatively close to the enemy, but not close enough to be destroyed in melee combat (which makes them easy to hit even with lots of evasion pips). Brawlers are mostly dedicated to deal lots of damage at short-medium range, or even melee. And long range is obviously reserved for LRMs and snipers

The main problem I usually have is that I don't build my lances based on heat sinking abilities, which makes them bad at it, but usually they can withstand damage and go full-melee when that happens (provided that I destroy firestarter mechs as soon as possible) That's why biomes are mostly a general indicator of the mission's difficulty.

I want as much damage as possible in a singe spot of the enemy mech's armor (except for missiles, obviously), so I rather have Large lasers, PPCs and AC10/20, than lots of medium lasers. Dealing lots of damage to a single point is vital from half of the game, when you are able to get pilots with called shot bonuses. Disabling the main threats of an enemy (such as the AC20 on a hunchback) makes them much less relevant in the fight (except if they hit hard at melee range, but then I will blow one of its legs shooting at it from the side) And this strategy is also great at destroying vehicles (breaking a single part destroys the entire vehicle)

A great scout/brawler/melee fighter for the later stages of the game is the Dragon. It's a beast that can wear lots of armor, move fast, and hit even harder than an assault mech (provided you add arm mods) However, when being able to field several assault mechs, just remove the dragon from your lance because it's too squishy against assault mechs. I haven't tried fitting it with ECM modules though

For the initial stages, I'd rather have a firestarter that have as many small lasers as possible, instead of flamers) Flamers on the other hand are useful if you are fighting against an enemy player's lance. But I'd rather disable an enemy mech destroying side torsos, or head hunting with the AC20. Or at worst, breaking something with a powerful melee attack.

And a personal preference is trying to add as many jumpjets as possible before taking into account weapon loadout. Unless not having them allows me to fit something huge like an AC20 on a medium mech (but again, it's possible to fit an AC20 with jumpjets on a Blackjack) (worth it at one-shotting light mechs that didn't move a lot, or wrecking their heavier mechs)

[EICJoe]

Respectfully disagree, but I'm not a pro player (still, I have beaten the campaign, and currently I'm playing Career mode on high difficulty)

I tend to divide my mechs in these three-roles: long range, medium range and melee. Light scouts tend to be medium range, since they have to be relatively close to the enemy, but not close enough to be destroyed in melee combat (which makes them easy to hit even with lots of evasion pips). Brawlers are mostly dedicated to deal lots of damage at short-medium range, or even melee. And long range is obviously reserved for LRMs and snipers

The main problem I usually have is that I don't build my lances based on heat sinking abilities, which makes them bad at it, but usually they can withstand damage and go full-melee when that happens (provided that I destroy firestarter mechs as soon as possible) That's why biomes are mostly a general indicator of the mission's difficulty.

I want as much damage as possible in a singe spot of the enemy mech's armor (except for missiles, obviously), so I rather have Large lasers, PPCs and AC10/20, than lots of medium lasers. Dealing lots of damage to a single point is vital from half of the game, when you are able to get pilots with called shot bonuses. Disabling the main threats of an enemy (such as the AC20 on a hunchback) makes them much less relevant in the fight (except if they hit hard at melee range, but then I will blow one of its legs shooting at it from the side) And this strategy is also great at destroying vehicles (breaking a single part destroys the entire vehicle)

A great scout/brawler/melee fighter for the later stages of the game is the Dragon. It's a beast that can wear lots of armor, move fast, and hit even harder than an assault mech (provided you add arm mods) However, when being able to field several assault mechs, just remove the dragon from your lance because it's too squishy against assault mechs. I haven't tried fitting it with ECM modules though

For the initial stages, I'd rather have a firestarter that have as many small lasers as possible, instead of flamers) Flamers on the other hand are useful if you are fighting against an enemy player's lance. But I'd rather disable an enemy mech destroying side torsos, or head hunting with the AC20. Or at worst, breaking something with a powerful melee attack.

And a personal preference is trying to add as many jumpjets as possible before taking into account weapon loadout. Unless not having them allows me to fit something huge like an AC20 on a medium mech (but again, it's possible to fit an AC20 with jumpjets on a Blackjack) (worth it at one-shotting light mechs that didn't move a lot, or wrecking their heavier mechs)

Thanks for sharing your own specs! Really interesting to see how other people build their Lances.