Me: Three-Streak-SRM-2 Commando, which is a surprisingly dangerous build now that the most recent patch has made Streaks both more accurate and more damaging. My 6-Streak Commando now consistently gets more kills per match than my 40-LRM Awesome.
Him: A Catapult with a lot of LRMs.
The scene: My side's base in Caustic Valley, where after finding myself the last alive on my team and facing an enemy medium and two heavies capturing our base, I have been running in frantic circles, managing heat, shooting big 'Mechs in the back, and being highly successful. Two enemy big boys dead, and my total kill count is four. (From, I remind you, the smallest 'Mech in the game. With, because I'm in Australia, also easily the worst ping.)
But the Catapult remains, 65 tons to my 25, and has 95% health.
I have about 12 missiles left.
I fire them all, bringing him down to 87% or something, and then park myself in front of him and await the inevitable.
Nothing happens.
It turns out he's a Catapult with a lot of Long-Range Missiles and... nothing else.
No close-range armament at all.
You can shoot LRMs at targets closer than 180 metres in MechWarrior Online, but they don't arm before they hit the target, and bounce off harmlessly.
He could try to move a couple of hundred metres away from me so his missiles would work, but I'm more than twice as fast as him; he'd never manage to escape my affectionate, cat-like rubbing on his legs.
I could bolt for the enemy base and try to capture it, probably without dying to his missiles on the way, but there's no way I'd get there before he captured our base by just staying where he was.
So we just stood there and stared at each other, while the match's 15-minute timer ran out.
I was pretty sure that when the timer ran out the other team would win (either because they'd partially captured our base, or because they had more tonnage still alive), but they wouldn't get a capture win, worth more to them than an ordinary military one.
There was some conversation in the chat, mostly about the effectiveness of the Streak-Commando, the foolishness of not fitting even one Small Laser or SRM of some sort to supplement your long-range armament, and other amusing situations people had encountered in this game.
At one point someone called me gay, but this did not impress the other spectators. Who, as I pointed out to the you're-so-gay guy, could just quit the match and not miss out on any money or XP.
As the last several seconds ticked away, we bowed to each other, and said our farewells.
My side did lose, but this was still the most fun I've had so far in this game.
22 November 2012 at 9:46 pm
Ah, I'm not the only one who doesn't have even a small laser on his Commando-2D (I've got a tag on the single energy hardpoint).
Otherwise you could have had a lot of fun slowly taking his limbs off one by one :-)
23 November 2012 at 1:08 pm
Makes me wonder if there is something wrong with me,
I tend to use my commando with lasers, and all i do is running around blowing peoples arms off and crippling their legs .
Then i just leave them there for someone else :)
Not as many kills but it leaves me with a smile knowing that they are sitting in a crippled mech with not much to do.
23 November 2012 at 7:23 pm
Nope, nothing wrong with you. Nothing gives me more pleasure when sitting in a Jenner than shooting the legs of a Cicada. (Pwah, mediums pretending to be a scout. Come back when you can do 150 clicks an hour, loser!)
Except maybe teaching an Atlas or a Catapract why bringing an XL engine in a large mech is a bad idea.
And the great part about harrassing lots of enemies, is that you end up with a lot of assist C-bills...
23 November 2012 at 7:46 pm
Yeah, it's just harder to hit with even lasers, let alone autocannons, when your ping's over 250. I've got a "sensible" Raven with a couple of MPLs and an LRM10 that I do OK with, but the "server-side" weapons, especially SSRMs, work WAY better when your ping is lousy.
24 November 2012 at 9:05 am
Dan, after reading your first couple of posts on MWO I decided to give it a shot. Unsurprisingly, I was complete rubbish in the Trial Catapult, and I didn't give the Comando a look since it was pretty much my least favourite Light in the tabletop game.
This post convinced me to give it a shot and I've been having a blast knee-capping opponents and splitting up forces. Not many kills, but still getting a ton of assists. I'll probably customize a Commando as my first real mech, instead of the Jenner I've been aiming for. Here's hoping they come out with one of the real high speed mechs sometime soon.
24 November 2012 at 10:51 am
The trial Commando has VERY little armour, and can easily be cut down by glancing laser blows. But it is at least fast enough to get you out of trouble as well as into it.
If you buy your own Commando, make sure to put maximum armour everywhere, and a large fraction of it on your back.
You can also do your team a lot of good in the trial Catapult; only two weapons systems to worry about, not TERRIBLY slow, and jump jets to help you get your large arse out of trouble. It doesn't have a lot of LRM ammo, so you just sort of shoot all that off, then charge in with your lasers. It'll teach you how LRMs behave, too - how hard it is to hit fast small 'Mechs with them, and how useless they are when enemies can duck behind obstructions. Extreme-range LRM fire in River City, for instance, is often completely ineffective.
27 November 2012 at 11:01 am
Whelp, I had a bit of time over the weekend to waste on MWO, so I buckled down and, ~2M Cbills later I got me a nice new Streak Commando, which, as you say, is much more durable than the Trial version. The biggest problem is that I think I've forgotten how to aim now.
Looking into building my next mech and I'm thinking of a slightly silly (i.e. likely completely useless) Dual AC/2 Raven-4X. Will have to go to endosteel though, which won't help my repair bills any. Was looking at a Quad AC-2 Cicada which would be in the ludicrous category, but would have to go with a tiny XL engine to make it work along with FF armour, DHS, and Endosteel, so the upgrade costs would be astronomical.
24 November 2012 at 5:22 pm
Ok, I decided to spend the couple million C-bills I'd laboriously saved up over the last week or so on a streak armed commando. Hahaha, This is looking promising. 4 kills in one round. That's more than I've had in the last couple days combined! Need more ammo though, I ran out.
24 November 2012 at 6:48 pm
Streak-Commandos and their terrifying big brothers the Streak-Catapults (using the Cat variant that has six missile hardpoints, the same as the guy who couldn't shoot me in this post's story) are, at the moment, more dangerous than they really should be. Streaks are probably going to be nerfed again, for this reason. Enjoy it while it lasts!
25 November 2012 at 8:40 am
Yeah, I imagine they will be. It's hard to say exactly, but the 3 streaks should be doing about as much damage a pair of medium lasers. I've tried filling up my jenner with heat sinks and 2 mediums. I'd guesstimate I average about 1/3rd the damage using the lasers. Only reason I can see would be that I'm missing with most of the shots with the lasers even though they look like hits.
26 November 2012 at 8:31 am
Oh, hey, I just notice a "Social" button. We should create a dansdata group and get everyone signed up.
27 November 2012 at 6:26 am
Yes, definitely. I wonder if Dan is willing to participate in such a group? Something tells me he doesn't always play nice with others XD
27 November 2012 at 3:59 pm
Is custom3173 your name in it? I've just tried sending you an invite anyway. Mine's TwoHedWlf.
28 November 2012 at 7:36 am
I've added you. Anyone else interested is welcome to send friend invites as well. My name is indeed the same in-game.
30 November 2012 at 6:50 am
Curse you for introducing me to MWO. And curse you for rolling a streak Commando. They're the guys I fear most in my Dakkaphract. I'm about as fast as an apartment block.