whats a better strategy? armor or weapons?

[AmERICan]

whats the perfect balance for armor/weapons? is it better to max armor? or less armor and more weapons?

[Carog the Fat]

I max armour because when your four 50/55 ton mechs have to take down 2 dragons a quickdraw and an atlas with turret support you need to be able to absorb every point of damage.

also you dont need to repair armour you do need to repair structure damage

[MAD-3R_Marauder]

My general rule for customizing mechs:

-Strip everything
-max armor
-take some armor off the backsides (my goal for side/center rear is 40/45 for mediums 45/50 for heavies and 50/60 for assaults, unless it's a Grasshopper, which is supposed to jump into the enemy lance to deliver backshots, which will get near to max rear-armor)
-add jumpjets (yes, every mech I field will be jump-capable for that added mobility and the evasion)
-take armor off the front sides (mostly legs and a little bit from the CT) to get an even ton/half-ton
-add weapons/equipment

Armor can be a bit less for long-range support mechs, but no more than 1/2/3 tons (medtium/heavy/assault), because those _will_ come under fire too and I like to put them on a hill (preferably in woods) where they will often stay stationary, so won't get any evasion)

[Jack Jester]

I never have had max Armor on my Mechs. All what you need is the ability to shoot down the enemy fast as you can.

Whoever dies quickly can not hurt!

[dergefata]

If you're playing easier difficulties, it doesn't much matter. If you're playing Ironman, Hard, Po8, with stingy/stingy and slow or very slow pilot growth, then it starts to matter.

You're going to be on the receiving end of a lot of fire if you're facing Hard-level enemies and you're having difficulty scraping together something to replace your starting lance. You can't really afford to lose weapons systems mid-battle. You need armor. Probably three of your four 'Mechs should be almost max armored (within a ton or so), but certainly at least two. If you play carefully and plan your field of battle, you can probably get away with down-armoring sniper and LRM 'Mechs. But you're going to need two highly-armored tanking 'Mechs, probably with Bulwark pilots. You need to keep luring the enemy into situations where they blow their turn firing at a braced, covered, bulwarked 'Mech with 4-6 evasion pips. If you're facing 500+tons of enemy 'Mechs with that starting lance (a pretty common 2-skull occurence with Assassinate, Escort, Convoy Ambush, and Battle missions where you often face 2 full lances or 2+1), you better be prepared to survive a whole lot of little hits. And you need not to waste your own turns shooting at braced enemies.

Probably the most important thing for planning your weapon loadout is not to mix weapon ranges. You'll see a huge improvement in your lance effectiveness if you strip all those SRMs and MLas off your LRM or AC/2 or AC/5 'Mechs, since most of your engagement will be outside SRM/MLas range. That's not just weapon tonnage saved, it's heat saved. So figure out what range you want to engage at, and maneuver to stay at that range. Then build your loadout accordingly. Unless it's early in the game and you don't have many options, try not to load out your 'Mechs so that they're heat-neutral. You want big alpha strikes, and you want to rack up that heat high but not unmanageably high so that you've got something for your heat sinks to do on turns when you're braced and luring, or Sensor Locking, or just repositioning while the reinforcement lance gets in range. Set your trap; get quick kills; and re-set that trap. Lots of damage two turns in a tow is far more important than moderate damage six turns in a row (except for your LRM boats and snipers which might fire nearly every turn).

Once you have the Argo training modules built, you can afford to lose pilots. Training modules more or less counteract the pilot growth difficulty. But until then, with pilot experience coming in at a trickle, save the meat. Armor up and keep your folks alive. Four really good pilots can make the difference between a fight you cannot win, and one you win with no IS damage at all.

[Coyote]

It completely depends on your playstyle and how well you understand the combat mechanics.
It also depends on the mech your using.

Some builds require finesse... Others are meant for brute strength and running straight at the enemy.

[Haplo]

I would suggest almost max armor for new players. This helps to keep your units running as you make mistakes and learn how the game works.

[wesnef]

Max frontal armor always (30-45 on the back is enough).

Still leaves plenty of space for good DPS.

[Werecat101]

It depends on the mech and how I plan on fighting that battle, I have all of my mech bays full of various mechs equipped for different Biomes and mission types.

[MortVent]

For me it's finding a balance.

1 - range zone for weapons (long, medium, short) focus weapons on that zone (with 1-2 others for times when the primary are useless .. like a lrm10 to fire till in close range, or a couple medium lasers on a missile boat to give it something to shoot at short range targets)
2 - alpha cooling , make sure the mech runs reasonably cool firing off it's primary weapons
3 - armor, depending on role you set up armor. Multi-role or close combat, close to max armor. Long or medium range, decent armor (not paper thin, but enough it can survive against something getting in it's face or sensor locking it)

As an example:
King Crab: near max armor, 2 AC/10s (6 tons iirc ammo), Large Laser, and a LRM15 (1 or 2 tons ammo). Role - medium to close range bruiser. LRM to soften them up or provide indirect fire, the rest is direct fire weapons with no minimum range and close to the same range profiles. Enough heat sinks were added to make sure you can keep up the damage..

Could have built it with a bit more damage output, but the cooling would mean having to take time to cool off between salvos.. so all that extra weaponry would be wasted compared to a mech that can dish out around 200 pts per turn vs one that does 300pts first turn and 50pts the next two while it cools down.. That's 600 pts vs 400pts in 3 turns

[wesnef]

Looking through the Mechbay from the end of my first finished Career -

All but one mech has max armor (one Orion has 10pts off each leg & weaker back armor)
Six of 15 mechs have jumpjets (Panther, Centurion, Crab, Griffon, Grasshopper, 732B)
Almost all have a 5/10 Heat Efficiency bar (one has 3/10, a couple are at 6/10 or 7/10)


2x Jenner (4x ML, 1 HS)
Panther (2x LL, 3 JJ, 1 HS)
Centurion (AC20, SL, 4 JJ, 1 HS) 2t AC20 ammo

Crab (5x ML, SL, 4 JJ, 7 HS)
Griffon (16 SRMs, SL, 5 JJ, 2 HS) 2t SRM ammo
Jaeger (2x AC5, LL) 2t AC5 ammo

Grasshopper (7x ML, 4x MG, 2x SL, 4 JJ, 5 HS, 2 DHS, Ex20%) 1t MG ammo
Orion (AC10, 14 SRMs, ML, 2 HS) 2t AC10, 2t SRM
Orion (LL, LRM20, LRM15, 1 HS) 4t LRM

Cyclops Z (2x LL, LRM20) 2t LRM
Cyclops Q (28 SRMs, 4 HS) 4t SRM
Highlander 732B (3x LL, 2x LRM15, 3 JJ, 6 HS, 2 DHS) 3t LRM

King Crab (AC20, AC10, 4x ML, 7 HS, 1 DHS, Ex10%) 2t AC20, 2t AC10
Atlas (2x AC5, 2x LL, LRM15, 7 HS) 2t AC5, 2t LRM

All with an assortment of Cockpit & Gyro mods

[devin.bass]

Listen up! If you are new to battletech, the advice given in the above post is damn GOOD ADVICE. Listen. Armor is the thing to have but also developing a war fighting philosophy is just as important. Don't mixed weapon types. Also you will need to deploy different mechs for different types of operations.

[JODEGAFUN]

General rule for me closer means more chance of getting hit, so your close combat mech (mls, and SRM/AC 20 user need max armor.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by devin.bass:

Listen up! If you are new to battletech, the advice given in the above post is damn GOOD ADVICE. Listen. Armor is the thing to have but also developing a war fighting philosophy is just as important. Don't mixed weapon types. Also you will need to deploy different mechs for different types of operations.

Better do not mix range types in my opinion, SRM+m laser work well if you do not have a black Knight/hopper and you use a thunderbolt instead, i use 4/ 5 m laser and 2 6SRM as close combat mech and it works same as good as with a grasshopper (means most targets are on shots kills with presisions strike, unless you are unlucky). Putting a single LRM on it would be not as usefull as you want to go into short range.
As longrange wapons i use LRM/S-laser for medium up to long as i think the heat output of a ppc is to high (35), better fire 2 Large laser with 18 heat instead with +10 dmg+3 Acc.Of course a gauss rifle is top too, no heat good dmg and high range, but yea not as common as you could use it.

[The Giant Mimir]

With armour repair being free in the game, it's certainly better economy to have more armour as a default. Artillery-style 'Mechs (LRM/indirect fire) you can mount a bit less if you find that helpful, probably from the rear arc.

It's worth thinking about your armour load as a resource for your entire lance, rather than just for one 'Mech. If you have three 'Mechs with light armour and lots of LRMs, and one 'Mech for spotting/shooting, then as a lance, you may struggle with forces that are significantly heavier than yours because your total lance armour resource is too low. Part of defensive play is cycling 'Mechs from being the enemy's main target as well as mastering the facing side of positioning to protect vulnerable hit locations.

With enemies having sensor lock and LRMs themselves, all of the 'Mechs need to be able to shrug off a bit of incoming fire just in case.