Good early game mech loadout?

[Boppa]

I have tried checking numerous Youtube videos on what loadouts to use but haven't found any definitive answers. I just barely managed to do the prison break mission in the start of the game and that was the first mission where I used my custom mech loadouts (and they didn't work too well).

I have one medium short-range mech with bulwark and just laser weapons so I can melee/fire lasers, one mid-range balanced, one scout and one LRM boat. The scout is pretty uselsss in the light mech as he can get one-shotted almost so all I do is hang back and use the scan ability (it still seems just having a medium mech would be more useful). The LRM boat is a centurion with LRM 15, 10 and 5s and a bunch of reserve ammo. I have a hard time doing any damage with it and can't even knock anyone down with it.

After this mission I just went back to the default loadouts (mixes of lasers, SRM/LRM) and it seems to work better. Does anyone have a short list of what a good, balanced loadout is and what skills should be paired with them?

[L37]

It will depend a lot on your playstyle, but...
Personally i find LRM boats to be underwhelming early on because of low pilot skills/low hit chances.
I generally build vindicator, shadowhawk and centurion into short range brawlers with max armor and a mix of ML and SRM. 4r-th mech is usually BJ with AC5+PPC, used as direct-fire sniper. I also have JJ-s on every mech and tend to balance heat/alpha damage in such way that i have 2-3 full shots before overheating with single jump in the beginning.
For skills... i generally aim for either bulwark+master tactician or bulwark + multishot, or sometimes, usually for only one pilot in lance, ace pilot + multishot.

[Uncle_Bulgaria]

I dropped my lightweight scout has you're basically fighting with a lance of 3 and I'm only a little further on in the story from you.

I use a Shadowhawk with 2xLRM15s as my softner, stick him behind cover if you can and it's very effective at softening up enemies. I'm toying with dropping more armour and trying to squeeze another LRM + ammo on it. I like LRMs for dealing indirect fire and the stability damage they cause. The rest I have slightly mixed but I lean a fair bit on AC5s as they are pretty effective against both mechs and vehicles.

Current loadout is a Dragon, 2 Shadowhawks (one is the LRM specialist) and a Wolverine. Wolverine has an AC5, SRM 6 (i think) and a couple of lasers, the Dragon has 2xAC5s a SRM and a laser or 2 and the Shadowhawk has a bucketload of armour, AC5 and Large laser I think.

I have a Jagermech "S" variant with the standard AC loadout (2xAC2 + 2xAC5) but it appears to have paper for armour so I'm not sure what to do with it, I fear it wouldn't last long other than as a support sniper but a bad map roll where the enemy is on you right at the start and he'd be toast.

I have a mission partway though that needs finishing, hoping to get the 3rd Orion part i need and potentially I might get a Thunderbolt out of it too. I couldn't finish it as i was heading out but just a Spider to finish off IIRC.

[Nine-ball]

It's not so much about the loadout (though that is very important) as it is about lance composition that works with your loadouts.

If I somehow don't have anything better, the BJ-1 Refitted with a single AC/5, the Vindicator modded into a laser/SRM Striker, the Hawk converted to an LRM boat, and that salvage Centurion as an LRM boat works for me.

The idea is that since only 2 mechs can take advantage of Prrecision Strike, you don't need any more than that, while the LRM boats can do stability damage and eliminate threats or turrets from afar. The mechs I use change, but the lance makeup changes very little. I almost always run 2 strikers and 2 LRM boats.

L37 makes a good point, LRM boats can suck if you don't get enough experience early on. But with even moderate gunnery and tactics, they're pretty effective. I can do the Weldry prison break easily without taking any structure damage.

However, he's missing something - vehicles, and turrets. You'll begin to encounter SRM/LRM carriers and Demolishers shortly after Weldry. You want the LRM boats for those. Either them or snipers, though snipers can't use indirect fire. A brawler against a any of those vehicles will lose if they get to shoot. LRMs (especially with jump jets) give you the option of conducting fighitng retreats.

As for skills, I make every pilot a Vanguard (Sensor Lock, Bulwark, Master Tactician) except Glitch, who always pilot's the biggest walking missile rack I can field. THis is because she has multi-target. In conjunction with the other mechs, the lance can usally lay out two mechs on their backs per round. Or, if I don't have to worry about overwhelming numbers, they can knock down one for called shots to get salvage. Morale is poretty sparse early on.

The Vanguards can all share tanking duties, again, made more effective with jump jets. When one takes too much of a pounding, they just rotate out. Often, I will semingly be silly and put my vanguard LRM boat out front. But that's because when he starts to get hurt, I can keep jumping him back and firing while the strikers go after the easy meat from the first few rounds.

I hope some of this helps.

[L37]

For tanks i prefer to jump in with AC20 to be honest, at least for me trying to blow up demolisher with LRM-s is exercise in frustration.
This is also why i make a sniper out of BJ early on, most early light and/or underarmored vehicles can be blown up by single PPC/AC5 shot. And with 2 guns and multitarget he can blow up 2 tanks/turn.

[Nine-ball]

Originally posted by L37:

For tanks i prefer to jump in with AC20 to be honest, at least for me trying to blow up demolisher with LRM-s is exercise in frustration.
This is also why i make a sniper out of BJ early on, most early light and/or underarmored vehicles can be blown up by single PPC/AC5 shot. And with 2 guns and multitarget he can blow up 2 tanks/turn.

Differnt strokes for different strokes. Just better hope you kill it on the first try and it doesn't have support.

[Uncle_Bulgaria]

I made my starter Vindicator a 2xPPC sniper. Heat was an issue at times though. It was very good against vehicles though.

[Honyakusha]

go for full aim till breaching shot, use one shadowhawk for 2 ac5- jumpjets, a cent. with 2 srm6, ppc and full armor and few med laser also jumpjets, vindicator with jump jets ppc and med lasers, if you somehow get a heavy mech like jagermech or dragon your life will be much more easier with their ac loadout.

The thing is ac-ppc are good for punching armor and breaching shot will surely evade their guard status. with a full armored front fighter you can simply draw fire away from lance and jump jets works like a magic especially in early-med game time. So you have high evasion, extreme mobility, good heat control due to ac and if you ever get a high heat you can simply fall back with jump jet and use fortify (get tripple effect evasion-guarded and reducing heat) or just melee them to reduce heat. Also lets not forget at early game vehicles are really hard to deal with but their biggest weakness are melee and evasion points you get.

[chong.ong]

Originally posted by Boppa:

I have tried checking numerous Youtube videos on what loadouts to use but haven't found any definitive answers. I just barely managed to do the prison break mission in the start of the game and that was the first mission where I used my custom mech loadouts (and they didn't work too well).

I have one medium short-range mech with bulwark and just laser weapons so I can melee/fire lasers, one mid-range balanced, one scout and one LRM boat. The scout is pretty uselsss in the light mech as he can get one-shotted almost so all I do is hang back and use the scan ability (it still seems just having a medium mech would be more useful). The LRM boat is a centurion with LRM 15, 10 and 5s and a bunch of reserve ammo. I have a hard time doing any damage with it and can't even knock anyone down with it.

After this mission I just went back to the default loadouts (mixes of lasers, SRM/LRM) and it seems to work better. Does anyone have a short list of what a good, balanced loadout is and what skills should be paired with them?

From memory - if you are up to the prison break mission, that means you would have at least eg: Shadowhawk, Vindicator, Centurion and Blackjack.

So a decent build might be something like:

Vindicator - 5 x MLs, SR4, JJs (Sensor Lock + Evasive) => (Master Tactician + Evasive)
Centurion - 2 x LRM15, 1 x LRM5, JJs (Multishot + Bulwark) => (Breaching Shot + Bulwark)
Shadowhawk - 1 x AC5, 3 x LRM5s, JJs (Sensor Lock + Bulwark) => (Master Tactician + Bulwark)
Blackjack - 4 x MLs, 1 x AC5, JJs (Evasive + Bulwark) =>(Ace Pilot + Bulwark)

- Replace the Blackjack first, followed by the Vindicator.
It's very useful to get eg: a Griffin-1N (3 x ML, 3 x SR4, JJs) for a ''Scout'' - that can be used until end of the campaign.

- An alternative is to use (Breaching Shot + Bulwark) instead of (Ace Pilot + Bulwark). If so, that pilot should use the Shadowhawk, and shift the (Sensor Lock + Bulwark) to the Blackjack.

- Another plan is to use (Master Tactician + Bulwark) instead of (Ace Pilot + Bulwark). Also works well.

ie:

(Master Tactician + Bulwark) => Sniper or mixed range
(Breaching Shot + Bulwark) => LRM or mixed range
(Master Tactician + Evasive) => Scout
(Ace Pilot + Bulwark) => Mixed range

[XC3758]

My current lance (just restarted my third play through) is:
a Panther (quad MLaser on right arm and SRM6 in the chest) as a scout (with sensor lock),
the Shadowhawk (LRM boat with twin LRM10 (lucked out and found a ++ early) and LRM5),
the Vindicator is a 1SIC (or St. Ives Blue) version (drop the PPC for a LLaser and up the LRM5 to a 10),
and my Blackjack is a 1DB version (drop both AC2 and two MLasers (i did the arms but "cannon" it was the torso) for two LLaser and five more heatsinks ("cannon" they droped a ton of armor too and added a sixth heat sink).

[wesnef]

Hmm. I think my early-on build for my second campaign was:
Blackjack - pull out the AC2's, replace with a single AC5 and armor
Shadowhawk - pull the SRM2, add armor & a medium laser (unsure)
Replace the Spider with a Jenner, pull the SRM4, add armor & heat
Forget what I did with the Vindicator. I pulled something off it to add more armor.

Then replaced the Vindi with a Centurion when I got it.
Didn't bother with LRM boats this early in the game.

[chronobomb]

Starting Lance for me: Shoot for an Alpha 110-150 and cooling of 5.
BJ 2x AC5 over 2 ML's (Pull the JJ's as artillery mechs don't need a ton of maneuvering) Alpha=140

Shadow Hawk: 2x SRM 6's, SRM 4, and ML with 5 JJ's and armor it up. Alpha=150

Vindicator: PPC with LRM 10. Alpha=90

Spider: 2 ML's Alpha=50.

I got rid of the Vind and Spider fast as possible as their damage and armor is too low. Jenner with Alpha of 100 (Drop the SRM 4) or Firestarter with Alpha 120-150 (Mix of ML and SL's is better)

My Favorite Medium mechs are the Wolverine with 3x SRM 6 and 5 JJ's. Runs fast and cool and eventualy gets an Alpha=216. Great for jumping behind Heavies and killing them in 1 shot.

Centurion with LRM 15 and 2 LRM 10's Alpha=140. Great for killing the Turrets, SRM carriers, LRM carriers, and Demolishers (Get side or rear) when they would otherwise wreck your medium mechs.

For Skills: Bulwark never becomes obsolete.

For early game, piloting and Breaching shot can work too. Piloting becomes useless later as the enemy becomes too accurate and larger mechs can't get 6 chevrons easily.

Late game the Tatics skill that allows you to go first is way more powerful as no weapon can penetrate many Heavies and Assaults for breaching to be effective except for missile boats to unsteady them. Going first means you kill their mechs first and being able to cool by reserving is so powerful for some mechs.

[空.明]

Early game I like to go full LRM with the light being the spotter. Basically a Lurm cheese lance. I do a LRM40 shadowhawk with a LRM20 PPC vindicator + A trebuchet LRM30 3ML + LLaser Spider. This lance works for a long long time even against a heavy lance as long as you know how to keep your distance.

[Langkard]

I try to upgrade at least the Spider into something better like a Jenner before even doing the first story mission. I like to have all mediums before doing any more story missions. After the first story mission, lights mechs are too easily killed by the OpFor unless you simply keep them out of the fight.

[Bosmang]

I always go for high armor (on the front, 45 or less on the rear) and then max damage/ton. That usually means medium lasers.... Also, I go for evasion and jump jets on at least two pilot/mechs. 1 lrm mech with bulwark....

Honestly, I stuck with stock builds mostly, until I got into heavies...

Another good rule is, go for the higest tonnage in each class. 60ton heavies are generally much worse than 55ton mediums.

The first lance I really bothered to customize was 3 orions and a griffin.

[wendigo211]

The first thing I do is modify the Locust. Take out the MGs and give it three small lasers and another 0.5 ton of armor. It's a short repair job, you can get it done during transit to your next mission, and makes for a better mech than the Spider. You want to replace the lights ASAP, but this is a good enough configuration until you can get a Firestarter, Jenner or something better.

The next thing I do it remove the AC from the Shadowhawk, max it's armor and jump jets and start loading it with medium lasers and SRMs. This one takes a while, so you might have to split the refit between jumps.

Following that the Vindicator gets 5 medium lasers, a small laser and an SRM6.

Finally, the Blackjack gets its weapon configuration changed to two AC5s. If you're lucky you'll have replaced this one before you get to refitting it.