A fun and strong starting build (Spider)

[andersonm]

You start with a 30 ton Spider.

Put two Support lasers in the torso, no other weapons.

Max out armor in the torso, head and legs. Some armor in the right and left torso, some in the arms. Several jumpjets. Pilot should have 4 piloting.

The plan is to run everywhere and punch everything.

The strengths:

- huge movement range

- take out any vehicle with one melee attack (very useful on some missions, including the ice planet story mission where you would otherwise struggle with heat or ammo)

- melee attacks ignore evasion and remove Guarded status. That 4 evasion Guarded mech goes from invulnerable to nothing.

- every melee attack, both torso lasers shoot for a high hit chance and very little heat. That's 30 melee + 40 lasers, every turn.

- every melee attack, the enemy loses TWO evasion pips. If they go Unstable, they lose all of them. 70 damage plus 2+ evasion reduction >>> sensor lock.

- very good survivability due to the torso armor

- one "free" DFA attack per mission. DFA will reduce your leg armor to zero, but not damage the structure!

- look, you've got no arms left! But who cares! You can still headbutt, shin kick and your lasers do their work. Damage dealt stays high until the end. If you put "yourself" in this mech, you won't lose a pilot either.

It's really an OP build.

[Aranador]

Unorthodox builds usually broke the tabletop game too. Like the time someone challenegd me to a points battle, and I turned up with stuff plus 2 little helicopters with totally insnane massive speed. Then suicide rammed them into his heaviest mechs insta punching right through a sections armour and structure, crippling one and blowing the other away. - half his points down for 5pct of my points.

So yeah, think outside the box, and dont be a helicopter pilot.

[admjd2400]

Running a Spider, ripped off the MG's and replaced with SM Lasers in the arms.Had to keep the MD. But useful if I can't close to melee. Get the same benefits. little bit more damage though.around 100.

[Kaneko]

Thanks for sharing just started playing and I don't quite know how to make light mechs viable.

[MasterBLB]

Originally posted by Kaneko:

Thanks for sharing just started playing and I don't quite know how to make light mechs viable.

Well, much depends what mechs do you have, and what equipment for them (just basic stuff, or some +++ variants, DHS, quirks from other mechs etc)

[Lack of Stuff]

Since this post was made 2 years ago the power creep has been strong. With lostech weaponry and 1 ton 60 dmg melee mods along with some 0 ton 10 dmg melee mods you could make a much more dangerous spider than the one in the OP.

[maerchen]

Since heavy metal DLC makes things easy, I like to live dangerous. My Ace Pilot Commando sports the rangefinder ++ and a SNUB PPC ++ with +10 damage, that is 5x 25 damage.

Game also gave me a Vulcan that now has 2 Pulse SL, 2 SL and a UAC2 ++, in addition to maxed out 0t Melee arm mods. There is but an assault mech that can withstand his approach to hand to hand combat. I'm eagerly assembling parts for a 2nd Vulcan with overrange MGs to try that out.

My Firestarter I use in cold biomes only has a large COIL and 4x SL. With 4 evasion it shreds 140 points of armor when walking into melee range.The one I fit for hot biomes sports Flamers and a TAG.

There is a lot of fun you can have with lights. Well, the Vulcan is technically not a light mech.