Assassin + Coil-L seems waaaay too powerful early game

[Tigga]

I ended up with one of these from a heavy metal crate pretty much as soon as I left my starting system and it's basically unstoppable.

Up to 170 damage with 450m range and what appears to be very good accuracy on a very mobile mech results in a lot of enemy mechs with no legs. Now the drawback is that I can't always shoot every turn, and yeah, it's on a Assassin who is relying on evasion to survive, but it has enough armour to take a hit or two from most mechs and if you can keep to forests you're alright.

Was I really lucky to get hold of it so early? My average shot is more damage than an AC-20, it has more range, much more accuracy (especially given the Assasin ignores a lot of enemy evasion) and is mounted on something that can very easily position for those anti-leg side-shots. I guess late game it's not nearly so powerful?

[❤Von]

I still use this at end game, with pilot skills, i can get 205 dmg i think

[UR|Dialetheia]

And THEN you realize that TAG marks stack, so you can run four assassins with different configs, carrying TAGs and COIL-Ls, with Rangefinders, Heat Banks, the works, and plough through 5-skull missions with 160 t. lance

[Gustuv Wynd]

Heh, sounds fun...I might have to try these. Sounded liek a bunch of "running around" to me when I could do near the same damage by just walking up and shooting.

[UR|Dialetheia]

The running around part is important on account of the new un-capped Evasion. With the speed ASNs have(and also the new Piloting 10 buff, and hit-defense Gyro), that means they can "run around" under fire from several heavy LRM turrets and assaults, while sensor locked, and take no damage at all.

[❤Von]

Originally posted by Gustuv Wynd:

Heh, sounds fun...I might have to try these. Sounded liek a bunch of "running around" to me when I could do near the same damage by just walking up and shooting.

Youre not just running around, you're running around and dealing 205 strikes, taking off legs and side torsos, ammo explosions, even headshots at 18% which surprisingly happens alot with this weapon.

[Falaris]

I read about the coil weapons, and I must say.. not a fan. Weapons that shoot harder the more you move? I could understand it if it was a melee attack. I could understand it if it was an energy module that fed the power back into movement, making the mech better at moving. But a laser that shoots harder if you move?

Modules that cause weapons on nearby mechs to shoot harder? This strikes me as magical bonuses and doesn't really belong.

Yeah, I know. I'll go away now.

[Gustuv Wynd]

Yeah...that's why I haven't tried them yet. Just doesn't make sense. Plus I don't have much faith in evasion. I have seen too many hits land when I have 6 or more evasion pips. Far more than what statistical probability would agree with.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by Falaris:

I read about the coil weapons, and I must say.. not a fan. Weapons that shoot harder the more you move? I could understand it if it was a melee attack. I could understand it if it was an energy module that fed the power back into movement, making the mech better at moving. But a laser that shoots harder if you move?

It's a laser hooked up to a kinetic energy generator - the more your mech runs around, the higher the capacitor charges. (yeah, still kind of silly. It's another attempt to make fast - i.e, Light - mechs 'viable')

Modules that cause weapons on nearby mechs to shoot harder? This strikes me as magical bonuses and doesn't really belong.

I think part of the problem is that they already had plenty of "bonus to hit" things in the game, so when they added the stuff that in tabletop gives a bonus to hit (Narc, TAG, etc) - they gave them +dmg bonuses instead. Because we can already hit as much as we want. Not ideal. :|

edit: which is why I'd prefer a "Battletech 2" (rebalancing the gear & combat) at this point, rather than Moar DLC! to glue more confusion onto the side of this game.

[Gustuv Wynd]

Originally posted by VonDutçh:

Originally posted by Gustuv Wynd:

Heh, sounds fun...I might have to try these. Sounded liek a bunch of "running around" to me when I could do near the same damage by just walking up and shooting.

Youre not just running around, you're running around and dealing 205 strikes, taking off legs and side torsos, ammo explosions, even headshots at 18% which surprisingly happens alot with this weapon.

But I can stand still hiding behind a tree and do more damage than that with a heavy mech. So I wouldn't say it is better...just different. I will probably give it a try for a while, but after the tenth PPC blast takes an arm off that I have crazy high chances to evade I will probably retire it.

I will have to see if I can get some back stabs in with it. I am not sure I can get behind too often by just running. The coil won't charge from jump jets :(

[BrowneHawk]

I felt the same way until some 60 ton vehicle launched tons of missles at my mech that had like 8 evasion ticks and was standing inside the ravens ECM bubble. Coil blown right off. Haven't found a replacement yet.

[terrycpa1972]

The ecm bubble doesn't do anything to direct missile attacks. Well assuming your unit was not cloaked that is.

[BrowneHawk]

Originally posted by terrycpa1972:

The ecm bubble doesn't do anything to direct missile attacks. Well assuming your unit was not cloaked that is.

I must have misread. I thought the bubble gave you both the stealth charge, and a defense against lrms.

[Tigga]

Originally posted by Gustuv Wynd:

But I can stand still hiding behind a tree and do more damage than that with a heavy mech. So I wouldn't say it is better...just different. I will probably give it a try for a while,

Once you reach a certain point in the game you can, yes. Though that damage is likely to be spread around the target rather than on one location, and you can't so easily move for more favourable angles. At least in my experience a significant proportion of the campaign/career takes place well before you have mechs with that much damage/turn at any sort of range.

Originally posted by Gustuv Wynd:

but after the tenth PPC blast takes an arm off that I have crazy high chances to evade I will probably retire it.

You can usually angle to avoid most damage on the gun-arm. You also can get 60 armour on the arm, so a PPC shouldn't sniping it off.

[Wayward Raven]

I run an Assassin with a Coil-L. Very effective against light mechs and vehicles and a real superstar on destroy convoy missions where it can easily chase down and kill fleeing vehicles.

In general the Coil-L Assassin works well on missions that require constant movement and should avoid set-piece battles since it can't take too many hits. It also performs poorly against heavy/assault mechs since 210 damage isn't enough to kill anything that big and any heavy direct-fire platform can do better single-location damage.

With regards to backstabbing, I've pulled it off a few times but it can be hard to really maximize the damage done since you need to spend movement points to turn around after running past the enemy.

[Ichthyic]

Coils are light. they do great pinpoint damage, and have decent range (large is same as large laser).

the only downside is the number of slots they take up, and the fact that exchangers do not work on the heat built through charging, so repeated shots can quickly overheat your mech.

but I love love love them on my warhammer.

tags+coil = destruction. I use one large coil, one large pulse laser, a tag++ and 2 snubPPC++ (+10 dam).

I always kill medium mechs in a single attack. usually kill heavy mechs. always severely damage any mech.

if I get a precise shot? it's over. doesn't matter what angle; side, back, front... your mech is dead.

if you really want to go overboard, try enabling the setting in the combatconstants.json file that allows you to charge via jumps.

watch what happens when you put a large coil weapon on a phoenix hawk with 6 jj.