Challenge advice...

[RetroACE135]

I'm making this topic in an effort for players like me who are having trouble completing challenges, so if you need help as well, feel free to post questions or advice.

Anyways, so I'm having some trouble with two of the Advent Challenges so far.

First is getting a solo kill (I keep getting kills stolen... Grrr.), and the other is nailing a headshot on something.

I already know that there's gonna be that one guy who is gonna say "Lol Get Gud Scrub" about the solo kill challenge. Trust me when I say I deal my fair share of damage on anything that moves without getting blown up first in this game, so I am already "Gud".

My question for the second one, does anybody have a reliable way of knowing where the headshot hitboxes are on some of the "meta" 'Mechs that people use? I know in testing grounds, there are some 'Mechs that you can test shoot on, but they are an extremely limited selection of 'Mechs.

I'll try and update this as I continue with challenges and if I find I'm having difficulty with any. If anybody who reads this needs advice, feel free to post them as well.

[Sar]

Publicado originalmente por Fastspectre:

i have a few 4 ppc builds but you can't shot them together (i mean you can but don't do it it's bad) because you overheat shutdown cook yourself

There is an Awesome and a Highlander with a PPC HSL quirk. Those mechs can shoot 4 standard PPCs together without a penalty.

Publicado originalmente por spartanspud:

Edit 2: 41 head armour and structure at most. Not 42.

Isn’t that only for Light mechs, since they get the most out of Armour and Structure nodes? I mentioned them in my post. You won’t be trying to headshot Lights with this build, and even if you did almost no Light mech out there is running with maxed Head armor since weight is so important on Lights.

[spartanspud]

Publicado originalmente por Sar:

Publicado originalmente por Fastspectre:

i have a few 4 ppc builds but you can't shot them together (i mean you can but don't do it it's bad) because you overheat shutdown cook yourself

There is an Awesome and a Highlander with a PPC HSL quirk. Those mechs can shoot 4 standard PPCs together without a penalty.

Publicado originalmente por spartanspud:

Edit 2: 41 head armour and structure at most. Not 42.

Isn’t that only for Light mechs, since they get the most out of Armour and Structure nodes? I mentioned them in my post. You won’t be trying to headshot Lights with this build, and even if you did almost no Light mech out there is running with maxed Head armor since weight is so important on Lights.

No, head is the same across the board. But even for assaults it's far from guaranteed they'll have it maxed out.

[Sar]

Head is always the same, however the amount of additional armor and structure points you get per a skill point depends on weight (and also techbase IIRC) of your mech.

[spartanspud]

Publicado originalmente por Sar:

Head is always the same, however the amount of additional armor and structure points you get per a skill point depends on weight (and also techbase IIRC) of your mech.

Oh true. The lights can get 43 instead of 41. And 40 tons can get 42. Relatively rare though. Most mechs of those weights are dropping some head armour.

[Sar]

I mean, if it bothers you, you can get 3xHPPC on one of Awesomes. 45 pinpoint damage at 560 meters will decapitate any mech in the game.

[Shiro]

Publicado originalmente por spartanspud:

But no about the crits. In BT, a crit just means you can roll to damage a component when the structure is exposed. But people do store ammo in the head often. So if you crit the ammo they're dead in that scenario too because ammo explodes when destroyed. It doesn't deal additional damage though..

Critical hit means two thing: damage to internal component, and +15% extra structure damage dealt. While former is not an issue for the head (tho lucky strike on ammo, if its there, indeed has a chance to explode it), latter is a very real extra 1.5 damage dealt, for third and fourth AC hits.

Yes I was surprised to find that out. But apparently its a thing for at least some time. Good thing I found some reliable information source: https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/wiki/critical-hits

[Fastspectre]

Publicado originalmente por Shiro:

Publicado originalmente por spartanspud:

Edit: And to clarify most people don't max head armour. The head is one of the first things to lose armour for weight saving. With perks it's pretty common to have 12-16.

So 4 PPCs/AC10s is usually enough... also, even if target does max cockpit armor, you can roll a crit which is extra 1.5 damage. Not guaranteed but still.

there is no extra crit dmg in this game, crit dmg means you broke the armor/you now do dmg to internals
or hitting internal components like ammo and making the ammo explode for secondary dmg, or a gauss rifle blow up for the destruction of the weapon+ the dmg the weapon explosion does (only applies to gauss rifles and ammo that can explode)

[Fastspectre]

Publicado originalmente por Sar:

I mean, if it bothers you, you can get 3xHPPC on one of Awesomes. 45 pinpoint damage at 560 meters will decapitate any mech in the game.

a banshee did that yesterday to my blood asp from more then 600 meters (can*t say how much more exactly), the dmg on 3 hppc apparently doesn't fall of enough to survive that
the dude shot me once had 2 kills and 87 dmg done at the end of the match... his team won
i feel like HPPC's might have to much range considering the dmg and dmg drop of

[Fastspectre]

Publicado originalmente por Shiro:

Publicado originalmente por spartanspud:

But no about the crits. In BT, a crit just means you can roll to damage a component when the structure is exposed. But people do store ammo in the head often. So if you crit the ammo they're dead in that scenario too because ammo explodes when destroyed. It doesn't deal additional damage though..

Critical hit means two thing: damage to internal component, and +15% extra structure damage dealt. While former is not an issue for the head (tho lucky strike on ammo, if its there, indeed has a chance to explode it), latter is a very real extra 1.5 damage dealt, for third and fourth AC hits.

Yes I was surprised to find that out. But apparently its a thing for at least some time. Good thing I found some reliable information source: https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/wiki/critical-hits

wait what? extra crit dmg is a thing now???? WTF... ok that might explain some fishy deaths of mine... maybe

[Sar]

Publicado originalmente por Fastspectre:

Publicado originalmente por Sar:

I mean, if it bothers you, you can get 3xHPPC on one of Awesomes. 45 pinpoint damage at 560 meters will decapitate any mech in the game.

a banshee did that yesterday to my blood asp from more then 600 meters (can*t say how much more exactly), the dmg on 3 hppc apparently doesn't fall of enough to survive that
the dude shot me once had 2 kills and 87 dmg done at the end of the match... his team won
i feel like HPPC's might have to much range considering the dmg and dmg drop of

HPPCs are capital H Hot, massive and do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if you hug the carrier. And only a few mechs have a HSL quirk to run 3 of them without overcooking. I barely see them in QP.

[KealyKays]

I bought the Jagermech Duelist specifically to do the challenge as I wasn't having any success with my heavy gauss Cyclops Sleipnir. I had 4 headshots before buying it (looking at the steam achievements)and I now have 7 (only played 5 games with it). I thought I only got 1 headshot in it but I've apparently got 3.
Dual Heavy Gauss does 50 damage out to roughly 450 meters on the duelist due to quirks and 25 damage out to roughly a thousand. Don't bother trying to headshot lights or fast moving mediums because the target's too fast to hit. Assaults that are trying to get two alpha's off at you are the prime target or LRMers and snipers that you're close to. Aim for the centre of the rectangle glass on most mechs - anything with eyes like the Atlas, Kodiak etc are in the left eye (if they are facing towards you the cockpit is to your right - the mech's left eye) If you miss you will still do damage to either the CT or ST's so it won't be wasted damage.

The Duelist is a glass cannon though. If you misposition you'll probably just die coz it has paper armour for a heavy but it is a super fun mech to play.

Either that or you can play light mechs with stealth armour or ECM and scout the spawn points for DC's OR you can try to swipe someone's cockpit with AP Gauss or Magshot when they overheat but if you're in higher brackets people overheating without Override on is a bit more rare.

[spartanspud]

Publicado originalmente por Shiro:

Publicado originalmente por spartanspud:

But no about the crits. In BT, a crit just means you can roll to damage a component when the structure is exposed. But people do store ammo in the head often. So if you crit the ammo they're dead in that scenario too because ammo explodes when destroyed. It doesn't deal additional damage though..

Critical hit means two thing: damage to internal component, and +15% extra structure damage dealt. While former is not an issue for the head (tho lucky strike on ammo, if its there, indeed has a chance to explode it), latter is a very real extra 1.5 damage dealt, for third and fourth AC hits.

Yes I was surprised to find that out. But apparently its a thing for at least some time. Good thing I found some reliable information source: https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/wiki/critical-hits

Oh interesting. Almost 2000 hours and I didn't realise that. (:

[The Fifth Horseman]

Publicado originalmente por RetroACE135:

First is getting a solo kill (I keep getting kills stolen... Grrr.), and the other is nailing a headshot on something.

You can do both together. It's not a very honorable solution and will take you some fishing, but...
https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/mechlab?b=d45b9add_OSR-3D
And import this as your skill tree: a085a934a36dbd6570f49cd75ee207420405a00000042021a299090f27119

You've got one of the fastest mechs in the game. Run to enemy drop zones counter-clockwise (people tend to move clockwise) to hunt for disconnected and AFK mechs. Mind that hitboxes on disconnects are not quite where they should be on the model, so try aiming slightly upwards.

Publicado originalmente por RetroACE135:

One thing I noticed on the Commando... The "head" is not actually all of the cockpit window. It's more towards the center part of the window. If it's too far on the right side of the window, it actually counts as the "left torso" (no idea how or why that is. lol). I'll try and post a Screen of it in the testing grounds to show what I mean.

True of all mechs, actually, else headshots would be far too easy to get.

[Sar]

Had no luck with my PPC attempts, but I've just got the required headshot with my new favorite mech. Bullshark BSK-5, 2xAC/20, 3xSNPPC, 0 ghost heat, this thing is criminal.