Advice for the new ones

[NaCl]

WARNING! LONG ASS WALL OF READING HERE. If you want, you can skip to the comments. They do have some useful advice, already. I got carried away while typing this, so that's my bad.

Alright so I've only been playing this particular Mechwarrior game for a couple of days, but I've pretty much got it figured out, and I did play Mechwarrior 3 and Mechwarrior 4 mercs. So I do have some useful advice which might help new people.

1: Play the tutorial!!! I saw a discussion topic here somewhere, where some guy was mad that he couldn't skip the tutorial because he didn't think he needed to have a dumb A.I. tell him how to move left and right and wanted to get straight into the action. This man is dumb. The tutorial is short, and teaches you everything you need to know about controlling your mech. I heard some guy in Titanfall 2 ask over his mic "hurr durr how do I call in my titan?" Which he would have known if he had played that game's amazing campaign. Which while amazing, also doubled as a tutorial for when you go to multiplayer.

Play the tutorial. It doesn't take long. I played it, despite having played mechwarrior games for most of my life. Or, if you'd rather...you can go play some instant action for a while, if you would rather skip the tutorial anyway. Regardless, learn the controls one way or another before you start a campaign.

2: Stay mobile, use cover, and try not to get hit in missions. You may be powerful, especially once you've upgraded to the heavier stuff. But you are not invincible, and the more damage you take, even if it isn't critical, costs you more.

Always keep moving. The enemy has a harder time hitting you if you're moving. If you're not moving, then stay behind substantial cover like buildings, or big rocks. If neither of those two are an option, then you may be able to outrange them, depending on what weapons you have versus what weapons they have. If an enemy has an AC/20, then I would advise you to just keep your distance, since AC/20s have a short effective range.

This game is not a power fantasy. Yes you are going to be facing smaller opponents most of the time, but even they are not defenseless. Small units run around and if left alone can completely wreck your ♥♥♥♥ if you let them. They can also break line of sight and radar lock easier than a mech can, and you'll often find yourself thinking "where the ♥♥♥♥ did you come from?"

Again this game is not a power fantasy. I cannot stress that enough. You are big and strong. But that just makes you a priority target.

3: Aim for components, rather than center torso. Aim for arms and legs and cockpits. Destroying the center torso will kill a mech, but the CT is also usually the most heavily armored part of a mech. Especially if it's an Urbanmech. After the heat death of the universe, the Urbanmech center torso will persist.

If your enemy has a powerful weapon mounted in the arm...then you should remove it. A few well placed shots can remove that arm, and any weapons in it. Same with weapons in the left and right torso. Removing all of a mech's weapons will force the pilot to eject, as he can no longer fight. This can often be easier than trying to land precise shots on the center torso.
Even if you don't destroy all of a mech's weapons, you can still deny them the use of their most powerful equipment. The Warhammer by default mounts a pair of PPCs. One in each arm. They can ruin your day if they hit you. But the Warhammer's arms are also some of its most lightly armored sections......hint hint.

You can also cut a mech's legs out from under it, If you destroy one leg, the mech will slow to a crawl. If you destroy both, it's game over. This is harder to do against the smaller mechs, but it can be far easier to destroy something like a hunchback or a centurion this way.

A mech's cockpit houses the pilot. Who would have guessed? It's a hard shot to make, sometimes. Different mechs can have cockpits that are easier or harder to hit. Take the Blackjack, for instance. It has a cockpit that rivals the broad side of a barn. Compare that to the Jagermech, which has a tiny cockpit.
But, if you can manage to hit the cockpit, you can drop a mech easy. A mech's cockpit is vulnerable by its very nature.

Aiming for components like weapons or legs just makes taking down a mech all that much easier. Hitting its head will kill it, although it can be tricky. But trying to nail the heavily armored center torso takes more time and firepower. And often shots that were aimed at the CT will instead spray across the side torsos.

Back shots are also viable. The rear armor of a mech is notoriously fragile comapred to its frontal armor.

4: Manage your money, and practice restraint with your resources.

I saw a guy complaining that he ran out of money four missions in. This is exclusively his fault, not the game's. This game is about more than just stompy stompy bang bang. You're also managing the finite resources and funding of a mercenary company.

You start the game with two mechs. A Centurion, and a Javelin. By the time you're cut loose to do your own thing, you'll also be given a Jenner and a pilot for it. A medium for you, and two light mechs for your pilots. You do not need to be buying mechs right at the start. Three mechs will do the job for several missions in Mercenary Row.

Do your best to avoid traveling to systems that don't have contracts available. The starmap shows icons for available jobs on each star. A star without icons has no missions available. Do not go there. Unless you like wasting your time and money. It also should be noted that the starmap only shows these icons for locations that are within your current jump range.

You can only travel up to 10 consecutive stars away from your current location. If your intended goal is 15 jumps away from your current location, then you'll have to pick a destination in between yourself and your goal that is 10 jumps away, and then from there make the final 5 jumps.
The starmap does not show contract icons for anything that is beyond 10 jumps away. So those distant stars that look like they have nothing going on, probably actually do. It's just a matter of coming within range.
You can see what any icon actually is by hovering the mouse over it.

Repairs and refits cost more inside of conflict zones. And cost less inside industrial zones. There's usually an industrial zone right close by to a conflict zone. So instead of repairing your mechs as soon as you finish a job, make a quick jump to an industrial zone and start the repairs there. It saves on money and time. If you start a repair in a conflict zone, then travel to an industrial zone, it doesn't speed up your repairs, or reduce your cost. If you start a repair in an industrial zone, then head to a conflict zone, it doesn't increase your cost or time required. So unless your damage is particularly insignificant, then always go to industrial zones.

I especially advise you to go to industrial zones for particularly expensive and time consuming repairs. Minor repairs can usually be done in conflict zones and it'll be just fine. But if you have serious damage, always go to an industrial zone.
Industrial zones also have better mechs, weapons and equipment for sale. Mechs sold in industrial zones are typically not as badly damaged as those in conflict zones. Sometimes you can even find brand new mechs, which is indicated by the Rare Mech Available icon.
Industrial zones are indicated by stars that are interconnected by dotted lines.

Avoid buying mechs if you can, especially early on. Mechs are always expensive to buy, sometimes costing 5 or 6 million. It's far cheaper to salvage them.
Salvage is, and has always been, a big part of the Mechwarrior universe. Why buy a new mech, when you can pick up a used one off the battlefield for free? All you have to do is fix it up.
This is also part of why I told you earlier to break a mechs legs. Destroying just the legs or the cockpit leaves the rest of the mech relatively intact. Meaning restoring it to full working order is far cheaper than if you just blasted it apart indiscriminantly. You also will have to replace any broken weapons or components a mech had on it, so breaking the legs leaves the guns intact.
Unfortunately, breaking a mech's legs does not guarantee that you'll have it available for selection on the salvage screen, because the salvage crew are morons who will pick up three gutted out urbanmechs, but leave a legged Centurion just lying around.

Negotiation.
When you start a contract, you'll be able to negotiate for what rewards you want, using a limited number of negotiation points. The number of negotiation points you have will go up as your reputation increases. Your standing with the employer also affects the number. People who don't like you will be less likely to haggle with you than people who do like you. Simple.
You can negotiate for higher base pay. More salvage. Or insurance money. You can also ask for air strike support.

Now obviously more base pay is good. But putting all your points into just that may not be the best option, mostly because you can't put them in any other category.
Putting points into salvage rights means you'll get more salvage points. More salvage points means more equipment you can pick out as a reward once the mission is done.

Better equipment costs more salvage points. For instance a Medium Laser only costs one point. An AC/20 costs....3...i think? And mechs will cost you upwards of 8 or more. The higest mech i've seen so far cost like 18 salvage points. So yeah. If you think a mission might have some lucrative salvage, it might be worth taking a lower base pay and sinking those negotiation points into salvage.

Insurance. You will inevitably take at least minor damage during battle. Damage insurance offers you limited compensation for that. After the mission, the total cost of the damage you received will be payed to you on top of your base pay, up to the limit of your insurance. One point of insurance gets you 400,000 worth. 2 points gets you double that, and so on and so forth. However anything more than your insurance limit will come out of your own pocket to repair. Always put down at least one point of insurance. More, if you expect heavy damage. 400k goes quick once you start taking serious damage.
That guy who ran out of money probably took max base pay, and then got his mech ganked. Guess who had to pay for it out of pocket.

Air strikes. These are worthless. Don't bother wasting points on air strikes, unless you have a mission to destroy a base or something. It's a carpet bomb that can wipe out a good swath of a city. So that's the only time it's really useful. They're pretty fun though. I allocated for my first air strike and then didn't even use it to finish the mission so I thought "oh what the hell." And targeted it on a small farming town. So now I'm a war criminal because I was curious.

Speaking of destruction, this technically has less to do with money management....but.....
If you have a city or base destruction mission, then use machine guns, or flamers. They're really good at destroying structures. And don't count on your teammates to help. You personally focus on destroying the objective, and let your lance mates tangle with any foes that come in range. This is so you get it done as quickly as possible, and incur fewer damages as a result. And pay less for repairs as a result. Your teammates are not good at destroying percentage based objectives.

Moving on. Salvaged mechs can often be sold for quite a bit. So even if you don't use them for yourself, you can still sell them. Same goes with weapons. Always take all of the salvage you can. Even if you don't use it.
Again, targeting the legs becomes valuable here because the less damage a mech has, the more it sells for.

Most of all, just use your judgement and discretion on how you manage negotiations. That's really the best advice I can give you.

5: So that's that for the technical advice. I'm kinda getting tired of typing. I do have a few more things that might be useful.

One, stick with the Centurion for a good long while. It's a solid and dependable mech that can take a beating and dish one out. Which is good for when you're just starting out and don't know which way is up. Like I said before, the Centurion and your two light mech buddies will do you just fine for a while. No need to go buying new mechs or hiring any new pilots right off the word go.

Two, Avoid the multiple mission contracts like the plague. They're contracts that take place over two or more missions, as you would guess. There's good salvage and good money to be had, but you cannot repair your mechs or advance time in between them. Which means you can incur some ridiculously heavy damages during the missions, especially if you only have enough mechs for a single lance. Wait until you have at least a couple of backups available. You can't repair mechs, but you can switch out which ones you take into battle.

Three, have at least one backup pilot. Once you get going, I mean. Once you have a full lance of mechs and warriors, it's a good idea to have at least one on reserve, since injured pilots take ages to recover. And sometimes they die. So a backup is always a necessity.

Four. stay out of places until you are at least one level above their recommended reputation level. Reputation level isn't actually your level, so much. Your reputation level isn't a direct gauge of how powerful you are, so much as a weather vane for what you can probably handle. Although even missions at or below your level can be a doozy, if you're careless or unlucky. A Scorpion light tank at level 3 has the same autocannon that the one at rank 8 has. Although enemies at higher levels tend to be more skilled. You'll see no veteran rank Scorpions at low level. Also pay attention to each individual mission's estimated difficulty level. It matters. You can have two missions on the same star be drastically different in terms of actual difficulty. At 60 you'll see a lot of heavier equipment on the field. Which is bad for your health.

Five, just stay in Mercenary Row for a while. Pad your stats, flesh out your outfit. Get used to the game, and how everything works. Don't worry about the campaign missions. They're difficult, and usually you'll take heavy damage on them. Take your time and wait until you feel ready to tackle the bigger missions. There is no deadline for completing missions. Even the important campaign missions offer no penalty for taking your sweet time in getting around to them. Even if the mission itself says something like "they're attacking our base tomorrow" It doesn't matter. The only thing the days passing affects is repairs and pilot recovery.

And that's all I'm doing. I wanna get back to the action myself.
It turned into a massive text wall, but....that's Mechwarrior. Nuances abound. This is no simple run and gun shooter.
There's loads more that I probably could go on and on about, but like I said I'm getting very tired of writing this.

Comments are open to any other advice for new players. Anything at all that might help. I think there's probably a lot of people who need it.

Peace

[EdrickV]

Read a good chunk of that but not all of it, and there's one thing I want to note that I found out from reading info from a modder: By default, mechs where you destroy the center torso are more likely to show up as salvage then mechs you shoot the legs off of. There's a mod on Nexus that changes this behavior, but last I checked it wasn't updated for this version, and I'm not sure if it ever will be.

[NaCl]

Originally posted by EdrickV:

Read a good chunk of that but not all of it, and there's one thing I want to note that I found out from reading info from a modder: By default, mechs where you destroy the center torso are more likely to show up as salvage then mechs you shoot the legs off of. There's a mod on Nexus that changes this behavior, but last I checked it wasn't updated for this version, and I'm not sure if it ever will be.

Wot? That doesn't make a damn lick of sense. In every other Mechwarrior game, legging a mech gets you the best salvage.

Okay, well then. That defies all logic, but if that's how the game works, that's how it works.

And yeah. Again sorry about the looooooooooooong wall of reading.

[Cyzxxikz]

Great read, I agree with pretty much all of it.
What you didn't talk about is picking and outfitting mechs for the ai.

Ideally you find something that keeps big guns in it's torsos, and some smaller guns in it's arms.
The biggest guns tend to get shot at the most, and the bots don't protect their arms well, but having something cheap and replaceable in the arms will still draw some fire away from the torsos

Remove small lasers, mgs, flamers, basically anything that will make them run much closer to hostiles than they need to for their general weapon set, they want everything in range

You can use the freed weight for more armor most of the time. While you're doing so, those bots could use slightly more rear armor than you, so spread some there too (speaking of armor, most mechs can drop some firepower to increase armor imo)

Set weapon groups for the bots.
I like to give each larger gun a separate group, and boated things like medium lasers no more than 4 per group.
For one they won't fire if they can't afford the heat of a group, for another you don't need them to fire everything they have at a small laser turret.

[Avarus_Lux]

Originally posted by NaCl:

Originally posted by EdrickV:

Read a good chunk of that but not all of it, and there's one thing I want to note that I found out from reading info from a modder: By default, mechs where you destroy the center torso are more likely to show up as salvage then mechs you shoot the legs off of. There's a mod on Nexus that changes this behavior, but last I checked it wasn't updated for this version, and I'm not sure if it ever will be.

Wot? That doesn't make a damn lick of sense. In every other Mechwarrior game, legging a mech gets you the best salvage.

Okay, well then. That defies all logic, but if that's how the game works, that's how it works.

And yeah. Again sorry about the looooooooooooong wall of reading.

Ah so thats why core drilling with 3 burst large lasers on a black knight and 2 warhammers nets me so much salvage mechs... Good to know... Poor urbies xD

[EdrickV]

Here's a little example of why I like Warzone missions:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503439935
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503439958
Granted, they aren't always like this, but these two happened to be back to back in the same system as I recall.

[NaCl]

Originally posted by Cyzxxikz:

Great read, I agree with pretty much all of it.
What you didn't talk about is picking and outfitting mechs for the ai.

Ideally you find something that keeps big guns in it's torsos, and some smaller guns in it's arms.
The biggest guns tend to get shot at the most, and the bots don't protect their arms well, but having something cheap and replaceable in the arms will still draw some fire away from the torsos

Remove small lasers, mgs, flamers, basically anything that will make them run much closer to hostiles than they need to for their general weapon set, they want everything in range

You can use the freed weight for more armor most of the time. While you're doing so, those bots could use slightly more rear armor than you, so spread some there too (speaking of armor, most mechs can drop some firepower to increase armor imo)

Set weapon groups for the bots.
I like to give each larger gun a separate group, and boated things like medium lasers no more than 4 per group.
For one they won't fire if they can't afford the heat of a group, for another you don't need them to fire everything they have at a small laser turret.

See this is why I started this thread. This right here is damned good to know.
Thanks for bringing it up. There's a lot of things that I didn't go over, partially because I forgot or just because I was getting tired of typing.

That or I didn't know. Like how coring a mech somehow gets you more Salvage than legging it. Go figure.

[Merque]

I actually tend to even max out armor all the time (except for those uneven numbers, having one more heat sink is usually more helpful than half a ton of armor).

One thing I noticed and really like about DLC are those random double heat sink spawning at shops for 18.000 or something. Cheap, effective and can spare u a couple of tons for heavier weaponry

[AnarCon]

imo advice for new ones, play the older mw games, this is a piece of crap by comparison

[Avarus_Lux]

Originally posted by AnarCon:

imo advice for new ones, play the older mw games, this is a piece of crap by comparison

And i kindly disagree, and those older games won't run or very very badly on newer machines with a modern OS and look like ♥♥♥♥ to boot seeing they're roughly 18+ years old by now and those old graphics are... Yuck.

Go hate on this game in some other thread or just leave if you don't like it and have no actual advice. Shoo!

[NaCl]

Originally posted by AnarCon:

imo advice for new ones, play the older mw games, this is a piece of crap by comparison

This thread is for advice on how to play the game. If you have none, then we don't really need you here.
You don't like the game, that's fine. But there are whole threads dedicated to hating on it. Go there, and be with other like minded people.

[NaCl]

Back on the subject of advice.

Backspace switches between group fire and chain fire.
What chain fire does, is instead of firing every weapon in a group with one mouseclick, it fires them one at a time.
Example. Your Warhammer has two PPCs, which are both in the same group. You can either fire them off at the same time, OR you can chain fire them. One click fires one PPC, and the next click fires the other. Very useful for using weapons with a long recycle time, or high heat.

You can also use the arrow keys and the...right CTRL key to change up your weapon grouping on the fly.

[Antiga]

I stopped reading when I noticed this was pointed at people new to the internet/gaming as a whole. I'm sure it's useful to some, though.

While gaming for over 30 years, I never played a Mechwarrior, did not do tutorial. When I wanted to do an airstrike, the game told me how to on the right. Also a peek into your keybinds can help.

Anything else I needed to know I had already learned from Battletech.

Obviously, not everything is straight forward and different people = different experiences. But one should not cater to idiots that ask "how to do airstrike" after not playing tutorial and being too ignorant to look into keybindings/see the clear indication on their screen, along with which button to use. (When airstrikes are available.)

Catering to such people will just motivate that specific ignorant behavior.

[Thndslz]

Originally posted by AnarCon:

imo advice for new ones, play the older mw games, this is a piece of crap by comparison

Granted this one isnt good as the older ones but as one man that played the older ones to exhaustion. They are all a pain to run smoothly on w10 (mw3 and mw4 comes to mind).

[Trip]

Another tip, keep extra salvaged mechs in cold storage for as long as possible. Only sell them if you need the cash right then and their.

Otherwise, save them for the mech collector cantina missions.

For kill cantina missions, you only seem to get credit if you get the kill shot. Have a mech with a big auto cannon or ppc helps secure those kills.

Select a star with missions and press Q to see who offeres what mission and what mech you can find there.

Low level war zone missions are great for finding vehicles for kill missions.

Anyone else with cantina advice? Grinding those missions can be a pain.

[NaCl]

Originally posted by Thndslz:

Originally posted by AnarCon:

imo advice for new ones, play the older mw games, this is a piece of crap by comparison

Granted this one isnt good as the older ones but as one man that played the older ones to exhaustion. They are all a pain to run smoothly on w10 (mw3 and mw4 comes to mind).

mw4 mercs still runs mostly fine on my machine. There is a reddit forum that helps people get it running. I cannot, despite my best efforts, get mw3 to run.