What’s the difference between the mechs?

[Jomanda]

So, I have been using the Knight for some time. I can build the Vanguard and the Ranger mechs as well now. What’s the difference between them, other than different material requirements and power consumption?

[sintri]

Vanguard has artillery and a siege mode. Ranger flies, has a few skills, and overall just does more damage than Knight.

[CheckYourSix]

Knight is base line mech. Mediocre damage, mediocre abilities, and minimal movement ability. Vanguard and Ranger are both upgrades. Ranger does about 7 times the damage per show with the left click machine gun a shot as the knight. Ranger has more maneuverability especially with the vertical access. Has more specials with a shield and homing missiles. Vanguard has about double the machine gun damage as the Knight (left click) but 4 times the ammo capacity. Vanguard again has more maneuverability with better horizontal movement than vertical movement. So ranger better for vertical movement and vanguard better for horizontal movement. Overall maneuverability though goes to the ranger IMHO. Vanguard has more damage in the way of special abilities than either of the other mechs though.

All that said, Ranger > Vanguard > Knight.

[Losobal]

Do you guys know if they use them in automatic mode? I've basically been using them as point defense guards while I run around making sure ammo and repairs keep up.

[kknd]

Originally posted by Losobal:

Do you guys know if they use them in automatic mode? I've basically been using them as point defense guards while I run around making sure ammo and repairs keep up.

Cataphracts only use their left click ability in automatic mode as far as I can tell.

Side note:

The Ranger and Vanguard are side-grades in my opinion.
Vanguard's siege mode lets you lob artillery shells using it's ammo (very quickly, but this is also why it carries up to 6k ammo) with precision to hit weakpoints on massive targets, plus the enormous ammo reserve lets you keep fighting for a long time if you don't siege up.

The Ranger has enormous maneuverability and auto lock on missiles for large+ enemies, so I find it useful to zip around the map with, taking out Tanks and doing supply runs to forward positions... or just looting post fighting.

So I carry both. The Knight essentially has no advantage over it's two later upgrades, which is unfortunate. If the Knight could be deployed more times per tour, or redeployed if destroyed or something, I'd give it consideration for sure.

[RX-3DR]

Originally posted by Losobal:

Do you guys know if they use them in automatic mode? I've basically been using them as point defense guards while I run around making sure ammo and repairs keep up.

They only use their left mouse main gun so they're mostly just a super machine gun turret, especially the Ranger and Vanguard. Even if you've activated artillery mode on the Vanguard, they switch back when you leave.

Vanguard has splash on it's machine gun and a ton of ammo so they're great at mopping enemies automatically. The Ranger can burn through it's ammo supply very quickly if it's firing nonstop. Vanguards are better for everything before the boss in both automatic and manual, Rangers are great for the boss in manual.

[sintri]

Vanguard will use the cannons in siege mode.

[Schalimah]

An apparently often overlooked fact is that the Vanguards machine gun fires HE rounds with AoE.
Its alt fire is pretty much a 30mm twin barrel.

The Ranger on the other hand has pretty much CIWS as the main weapon.
The alt fire has huge AoE but very short range (early drop).

As for their special skills:
The siege mode eats a lot of ammo (~1k ammo per shot)
The homing missiles are basically free.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Originally posted by sintri:

Vanguard will use the cannons in siege mode.

True you can put the Vanguard into Defensive Mode and it will use the shoulder cannons... and drain its ammo supply VERY fast shooting artillery shells into scorpions at point blank range (it doesn't pick heavier targets, just whatever is closest)