Is Heavy Metal worth it just for Coil guns?

[matt_thrower]

I've put about 7 hours into the base game and I've been enjoying it a lot so far. However it's pretty clear even this early on that this is an arms race to get yourself bigger and bigger mechs.

That's a bit of a shame as the idea of using light mechs to scout and flank the enemy is fun and interesting. And early on it's also necessary. But I'm already at a point where running a scout mech is becoming a liability because they're so fragile.

I found out about Coil guns from the Heavy Metal DLC and they sound like they might keep light mechs viable long term and stop the game turning into a slugfest. But I don't really want to drop even the sale price on getting one single feature unless I can be sure it's going to do what I want.

So: will Coil guns let me keep on running light mechs to the end of the campaign? Is there anything else around I can use or install (a mod or somesuch) that will make scouting and flanking stay useful?

[Spiketail_Drake]

You can find Coil weapons in the shops without having the DLC.

[danko9696]

Light mechs are useful without Coil guns. Are they better than heavier mechs? no, but they're viable. Coil guns are useful mostly against other light mechs, because they allow you to one-hit kill them quite often without Precision Shot but won't be enough against well armored meds and above, at that point you'll need some tactics to deal with them whatever weapons do you use because many foes will be able to take one or two hits in the same spot from a Coil without dying.

A four lights mech lance is viable until the very endgame, just not so easy as with a heavy-assault lance. And some meds like Phoenix Hawk 1b or Griffin 2N can solo five skull missions without much trouble, at least the easier ones.

[darthkellin]

i use one mainly on a assain mech honestly

[L37]

Thing with lights - they are risky. No matter what you do one unlucky shot can wreck whole thing late game, with all the equipment you spent so much time collecting and potentially the pilot too...
And coils do not change it. Even more, they become mostly useless once enemies have enough armor to survive its hits. Ultimately a bunch of small lasers or machineguns on a firestarter is better than single COIL(which you can realistically put into light), especially once you pilots get called shot mastery.
If you want fast movement and less risk - look at mediums. You can definitely do any mission in game with medium lance, you just need good equipment and good pilots. And good thing is - while they are still fast and still can do flanking, backstabbing etc, they also have enough armor to survive unlucky hits.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Are COIL guns actually really good?

I started a career mode, got an Assassian and a COIL gun. I just couldnt bring myself to equip it. IT weighed like 7 tons and was like 5 crit slots, and it was just a medium....

[red255]

yeah I mean Heavies with big engines, exist. Grasshoppers for one are a heavy flanker, designed with jump jets in mind.

The update gave me a bunch of new chassis, one of them has a lance commander modification which gives me a 35% chance to hit the head with called shots. two shots to the head is therefore a barrage of 6 guns. and stuff dies.

light mechs die to LRM bombing which exists which is the main reason they aren't viable. you run a map and there are a few LRM carriers and or catapult type units and they target your Lights they are just going to pile on stability damage and do fatal knockdown damage.

you can make due with fast, lighter flanking mechs, but I would strongly advise leveling up from lights to something more survivable.

[WillieSea]

Originally posted by Spiketail_Drake:

You can find Coil weapons in the shops without having the DLC.

Is this really true? I do not have any DLC and in 200+ hours of game play, I have never seen a coil gun, except in screenshots on this forum.

I guess RNG could be heavily against me...

[L37]

Originally posted by red255:

yeah I mean Heavies with big engines, exist. Grasshoppers for one are a heavy flanker, designed with jump jets in mind.
...

Thing is, in this game grashopper is just a regular heavy. It is not faster, it does not get any advantage in therms of jump distance... the only thing that is different about it is amount of support hardpoints. You might as well put JJ-s on orion and get the same jump distance, so never understood why people consider grashopper to be better flanker/backstabber than other heavies. If anything it is now completely outclassed by SLDF mediums.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by Spiketail_Drake:

You can find Coil weapons in the shops without having the DLC.

No, they're part of Heavy Metal.

Originally posted by KnightCole:

Are COIL guns actually really good?

I started a career mode, got an Assassian and a COIL gun. I just couldnt bring myself to equip it. IT weighed like 7 tons and was like 5 crit slots, and it was just a medium....

They're a gimmick weapon, that you have to build a mech and playstyle around. Can they be good? Sure. But so can lots of other things. (And they're certainly not the top 'broken' weapon of the DLC - that would be the LBX2, UAC2, and UAC5.)

[wesnef]

Originally posted by L37:

You might as well put JJ-s on orion and get the same jump distance, so never understood why people consider grashopper to be better flanker/backstabber than other heavies. If anything it is now completely outclassed by SLDF mediums.

Well, as you said, it's the combination of energy & support hardpoints, combined with pre-HM weapons. 7xML+10dmg & 6xSL+10dmg was much better than anything you could mount in other 4-speed Heavies.

But yeah, I haven't used one since I could get my hands on a Griffin 2N.

[Zero Honour]

You do not need coils to use lights all the way through the campaign.

Using lights exclusively will be challenging but doable, using them in a Light/Medium lance or a balanced lance is very viable. They benefit from being hard to hit by virtue of both their speed and innate +3 to hit, combine that with boosted sensors/vision, an experienced pilot and some basic evasion and you're good to go. This is especially true if you take it slow, max your pilots and purchase some tasty weapons/equipment from the black market.

I'd point out that several later campaign missions are actually made quite a bit more difficult if you deploy 4 big fat lumbering assault mechs instead of having at least 1 or 2 more mobile mechs.

That having been said, for me, the coils are good fun and the HM flashpoint was worth the price of admission on it's own. Plus the flea would get some use in a 'light only, 4 different designs' lance. Coils look great and I like the idea of a lance thats just 4 different fast light mechs, each armed with a coil, charging around 1-shotting enemy assaults - should be great fun, although it may take a while to find them all - they were few and far between in my last game.

A pure light campaign is probably not for Iron man play as you can guarantee the enemy will get an AC20 headshot at the worst possible moment. I'd also point out that I've seen some people who under-estimated coils because they didnt realise they dont benefit from jump related evasion.

[t4chy]

Coil weapons heavily depend on how you can use the terrain.
They have good range, and can put a decent dent into a target - if you can get enough chevrons, and cooling to keep shooting.

What you want to remember in some environments: They cause half their raw damage output upon being fired as heat on your end. And you do not want to keep the mech in water for better cooling while reducing your movement speed.

The possibility of an explosion is not much of an issue. On light mechs usually the whole part falls off on a bad hit anyway, leaving no chance for the coil gun to explode.

[Gustuv Wynd]

My biggest issue with coils is that it isn't always a smart idea to run around like a crazy fool. Most times you can, but some times you just can't do it.

Plus depending on the situation you might be able to fire off a big attack on one mech and then be a sitting target. Typically is easy to avoid, but it is one more thing to be managing. This is fun for a while, but at some point some armor and a bunch of conventional guns just makes more sense.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by wesnef:

Originally posted by Spiketail_Drake:

You can find Coil weapons in the shops without having the DLC.

No, they're part of Heavy Metal.

Originally posted by KnightCole:

Are COIL guns actually really good?

I started a career mode, got an Assassian and a COIL gun. I just couldnt bring myself to equip it. IT weighed like 7 tons and was like 5 crit slots, and it was just a medium....

They're a gimmick weapon, that you have to build a mech and playstyle around. Can they be good? Sure. But so can lots of other things. (And they're certainly not the top 'broken' weapon of the DLC - that would be the LBX2, UAC2, and UAC5.)

LOL, yeah, UAC5s are broke as hell lol. I slapped like 4 + and ++ UAC5s on an Annihilator. Fkin RIP....thing just evaporates anything lighter than a Union Class dropship. Its like 35-45 dmg x8 shots. Just fking OOF. Then being UAC5s, they are lighter than the AC10 allowing me to pack my Annihilator full of armor, so its just a walking death machine.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by KnightCole:

LOL, yeah, UAC5s are broke as hell lol. I slapped like 4 + and ++ UAC5s on an Annihilator. Fkin RIP....thing just evaporates anything lighter than a Union Class dropship. Its like 35-45 dmg x8 shots. Just fking OOF. Then being UAC5s, they are lighter than the AC10 allowing me to pack my Annihilator full of armor, so its just a walking death machine.

Yeah, my current Campaign's Annihilator has a Gauss++, 3x UAC5++, UAC2++. It makes holes in things.