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[Kanil]

Ah, the Pirate's Bane... I don't own one of those, but if I did, I'd just use it in Scouting with a standard engine and a small laser.

An AMS and a tiny amount of ammo might be more useful to you than a machine gun? Not because it's particularly useful, but because one MG is pretty damn worthless.

Getting two more Locusts to elite is a sound plan, speed is life and going 7.5% faster is a good thing. I recommend the 1V and either the 3E or 3M... maybe the 1V and 1S if you really want to try the quad SRM-2 thing, but I personally didn't like it. Or hell, since they're so cheap, you can buy one and just sell it if you don't like it that much -- the engine costs more than the rest of the 'mech, and you can take that with you.

[Flying Dice]

You don't even really need more than one engine, since you can just swap it around (assuming you're sane and use the XL 190 for all of them).

I tried the 4x medium build on the PB, but it spread the damage too much for my taste--the 4x small pulse only does 4 damage less total in exchange for halving the heat cost and focusing the damage. If you're wanting to run a Locust with mediums, the 1E is a better choice since it can mount more in better hardpoints. Though I still might not, for the same reason that I don't like running a large pulse on them: it practically forces you into a pure single-alpha hit-and-relocate style of play that seriously diminishes your damage uptime. Up close (as with small pulses) you can use your speed, size, and agility to keep enemies confused about where you are and avoid hits. At ER large/PPC ranges, you can continually poke from relatively close-together positions, since you can peek, shoot, and vanish faster than most enemies will see and fire at you, even if you've done it multiple times in a row.

If you're looking to fill out to three, the 1E and 1V are far and away the best C-bill variants, the former for 6 energy arm hardpoints and the latter for that crazy set of quirks.

[Kanil]

At ER large/PPC ranges, you can continually poke from relatively close-together positions, since you can peek, shoot, and vanish faster than most enemies will see and fire at you, even if you've done it multiple times in a row.

You can still do that with the LPL, and dish out a lot more damage with a lot less beam time. It's not quite the 0.33 that it used to be, but it's still twice as much damage per beam time than the ERLL.

'course that style of play is now better suited to the Spider which still has all the quirks, and more structure to boot.

[Flying Dice]

Oh, it's viable, I just don't like giving medium-range facetime in something with total paper armor and no quirks strong enough to make it worthwhile. When I'm feeling like that sort of play I pull my RVN-4X, since that can mount two and has that absolutely juicy -30% duration quirk. Personal preference on this one, same as running small pulses instead of mediums (though that's also because it's a lot harder to get your full damage on legshots against another fast-moving light with 0.9s firing time than it is with 0.5s).

[Kanil]

I guess I'm just amused that someone crazy enough to run SPLs considers LPLs to be too risky. I'm too reckless to survive getting within 110m of assault 'mechs these days.

[Flying Dice]

If it were just about any other light, I'd agree. But the Locusts are so goddamn fast and small (especially after Ye Great Scale Rework) that you can practically dance circles around just about anything that isn't another short-ranged brawling light piloted by someone who's just plain better than you. I mean, shit, my last match of the night I brawled at <20m with my ERLL 1V against a Commando packing SRM6es and completely took him apart even though that's basically the worst Locust setup in CQC.

That's what I was getting at before. If you're running a LPL or ML build on a Locust, you basically get one, maybe two shots, and then you have to relocate, because poking repeatedly from medium-ish ranges is a good way to get blasted by some clanboy packing a bunch of UACs or whatever. With the SPL you can do the same thing, but you also run real cool and (probably) are playing the PB, so you've got ECM, which means that if you really need to you can run a few laps around your target and then dart away when they've turned away from your escape route. If you're running an ERLL you can poke with near-impunity against anything that's not built as a sniper, since you're a tiny little pixel a kilometer away that appears for about a second.

That said, I like 6x ML on my 1E because that alpha damage makes the risk worth it in a way that the single LPL isn't (at least IMO). The LPL doesn't have the damage to make trading worth it even if you had the armor to do so, so you're going to be constantly moving to avoid the enemy predicting you popping out somewhere. And don't get me wrong, I love the LPLs, and like I said my RVN-4X is a kill-securing machine with them, but it feels really awkward--again, probably just a dumb personal thing, since I tend to gravitate to the two heavily separated playstyles of ultra-pussy backline sniper (only in lights and mediums though, people who run sniper assaults are selfish assholes even if it is in-meta from time to time) and crazy brawling bastard (albeit only with a handful of mechs); the mid-range shooting gallery business doesn't really do it for me save for a couple exceptions.

--

Kinda meandering and I probably already said something like this, but the Locusts are the light mechs of light mechs. If you played WoT, they're like the pre-nerf T-50-2, except that they can out-turn anything and move fast enough to outrun most mechs while going in reverse. Some only have the hardpoints to snipe, so their speed and size helps them avoid return fire and escape other lights; others have good hardpoints, so they can abuse their speed and size to troll the enemy team. They'll swat you eventually if you stick around too long while they don't have bigger targets to shoot at, but even then it can take a lance or more upwards of a minute to nail you if you're on point with your dodges and use enemy fatties as cover.

[Wiles]

Well I picked up 2 more locusts (The 1v and the 1e). It feels like I'm playing MWO hardmode when I'm piloting them. I wouldn't feel so bad if I could consistently score 300+ damage in a match but I'm usually somewhere between 150 and 200 (plus the occasional sub 100 damage match where I take a dual gauss up the tailpipe early in the game...).

I think the biggest problem for me right now is learning not to be so greedy. I'll find a busy mech that I can keep shooting but invariably one of his teammates that I didn't see takes me out.

I have been mostly playing the 1v  to try and level it up. I started out with the ERLL, but got discouraged by low damage output and switched to a LPL. I had some good matches with it but I ended up switching back to the ERLL. It feels like a tough time to be a locust sniper though because there are so many people running er larges. I'll peek over a hill and get fondled by half a dozen lasers.

I had a weird match today. I was playing my Orion and ended up going toe to toe with an Atlas. He stripped me of all my weapons and moved on to more pressing matters. Near the end of the match there were only 2 mechs left on my team, myself and a locust. The locust was following me very closely and I thought he was just using me as mobile cover. Turns out that wasn't the case, instead he was constantly ramming himself into me until he blew up. The game considered this a teamkill on my part so I got the -15k C-Bill penalty and the time penalty going into the next match. The cheeky bugger went as far as to write "He killed me!" and "Report him" in all chat.

[MrRoboto75]

I picked up this game about a week or so ago.  Haven't been doing too bad as a noob, eeking out about 40-50% win rate, even surviving a few matchs.  Still can't fight people head on worth anything, though.  I usually just poke people that are distracted by teammates (and get beaned by lrms).

I still haven't decided what to buy for my first mech.  I have about 13 mil c-bills in the bank and about 10 or so cadet bonuses to go.  I was thinking a Mad Cat Timberwolf, since it comes fairly decent out-of-the-box, and can be outfitted with basically anything.  I kinda want to avoid lrms, I figure playing artillery all day won't force me to learn much about the game.

[Flying Dice]

It'll teach you what happens to lurmboats with shitty teams pretty fast. 

This weekend's event is going to be an absolute shitshow, incidentally. Already seen everyone trying to completely delimb everything in pursuit of that shiny, mediocre color.

[Wiles]

'Tis a very silly challenge event. I haven't seen so many lurms since polar came out. I admit I'm a sucker for challenges, I have been running a streakcrow with narc and tag for them. I know they're just trying to see what sticks but I hope we never see some of these challenges again. I knew 3rd person was bad, I just didn't realise how bad until I had to win three games with it. 

I still haven't decided what to buy for my first mech.  I have about 13 mil c-bills in the bank and about 10 or so cadet bonuses to go.  I was thinking a Mad Cat Timberwolf, since it comes fairly decent out-of-the-box, and can be outfitted with basically anything.  I kinda want to avoid lrms, I figure playing artillery all day won't force me to learn much about the game.

The Timber is a great first mech, it's one of the strongest heavy mechs in the game. Being an omni mech means you have a lot of options when it comes to hardpoints. The nice thing about taking the LRMs off of it is that it loses the big missile pods on the shoulders which makes the side torsos harder to hit. The Timber was my first mech as well, it has been my favourite mech since I first played MW2.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, the Mad Cat Timber Wolf is easily one of the best heavies in the game, and has been for most of the time since the clan mechs started dropping. Lots of different builds you can run in them, some... less wise than others. (No, son, brawling with three cERPPCs is not a good idea)

Speaking of clan mechs, I finally got around to investing in one and picked up a Shadowcat-A, keeping it nearly stock save for dropping a ton of streak ammo and swapping over to the B LT with ECM and an extra heatsink. The SHC has problems--the mandatory MASC and mountain of jumpjets really kill your build diversity, especially when combined with the limited number of energy hardpoints available. Two of the variants come stock with Gauss and are apparently intended to carry it, but the very best you can do with a Gauss build is to pair it with ECM, two cERML, and two tons of ammo, which is really anemic, to the point that I'm not even going to bother. The max of 3 energy hardpoints means that you can't really boat effectively, so you're either doing 2x cERLL or 2x cLPL, or potentially a pair of cERML with cSRMs or a low-end cUAC.

That's what I thought before I bought, and it's still what I think. That said, having played it, I actually am tremendously fond of the sheer level of mobility afforded to you. After playing so long as freeborn scum in IS mechs, the ability to traverse the map so easily has done wonders for my flanking play--I'd become accustomed to struggling at it with a RVN-3L with no jumpjets and a lower margin for error (no MASC to SANIC back into cover after shots or escape tricky situations), so it's honestly almost Zen-like playing the SHC.

Spoiler: Performs well, too. (click to show/hide)

e: Also, don't bother trying for the "have NARC/TAG on an enemy as they die" challenges; the game apparently doesn't have anything to register those events, making the challenges impossible to complete.

[Wiles]

e: Also, don't bother trying for the "have NARC/TAG on an enemy as they die" challenges; the game apparently doesn't have anything to register those events, making the challenges impossible to complete.

I was able to complete both of those challenges. I was a bit confused at first since the wording is a bit vague. I put NARC on a Cheetah and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting credit when things died. Turns out they have to be killed by tracking missiles for it to count (either streak srms or lrms). So I bought a Stormcrow (wanted one for a while anyway) and put streaks, NARC and TAG on it. It was a lot easier to to get credit when I was being proactive and killing things with tracking missiles myself. The fact that you can only get one point per match towards the eleven in total that you need sucks. It took lot of playing to finish the NARC challenge.

I'm trying to figure out a Hellbringer build to play. It was probably the third mech I bought when I started playing and has had a build I took from metamechs on it forever. I never really liked the build because with two streak srm6s and 6cerml it just felt too hot most of the time.

It kinda sucks that the Hellbringer doesn't have endosteel, I feel like if I had just a bit more tonnage I could put a build I like on it. I find I have to strip a bit of head and leg armour as well as strip an arm entirely of armour to get any kind of decent build on it. "Shield" arms feel really cheesy to me but they work well so I can't help but use them when I have to. 

Right now I have a sort of brawly build on it with an lbx10, 2srm6s and 4 ermls. I didn't really like the srms much so I switched them out to lrm10s but that seemed even worse. It just doesn't seem to brawl well for a heavy anyway so I might try to some a bit more long ranged. I tried a gauss rifle on it at one point too, but I'm not a huge gauss fan and don't really use them unless I can fit two of them on a mech.

[Flying Dice]

Ah, that makes (convoluted) sense. Even more poorly worded than they usually are.

On an unrelated note, I happened to get matched with MoltenMetal/Baradul this morning. First time I've seen a YTer I follow in any game, I think.

[Rince Wind]

I just started playing on the weekend, so far I am mostly running around in a Locust that I brought to elite.

Where can I see the challenges? I guess you get the account injections for them?

[Flying Dice]

When you first load into the game there'll be a popup with links to recent news. If one of those is an event, you can click it to open it in the steam browser (which makes it easy to keep tabs on in game). Alternatively, you can go to the MWO site. Either way, if you log in and go to the page for a challenge event, it'll keep track of your progress (with a ~15m delay).