Hints and tips on how to create a team

[CrushU]

My advice is to NOT start with missle jocks.

Another good idea is to play to the jock's strengths. When you create him, and he has 2 unguided missle and 31 cannon, DONT MAKE HIM A MISSLER!! GO CANNON!! (on a side note: I started a guy with 30 assault skill... I considered putting him on an assault titan to begin with )

CC titans are DEVASTATING in early battles. They pack the most punch in light/recon. You dont want to do only CC though, cuz someday, the comp will get a Kraken and blow you to shreds before you get in range. Try to have a balanced team. I like to have 1/4 CC, 2/4 Middle ranged, and 1/4 Missle/Long-ranged titans. Again, dont force jocks to take things they suck with. Build the jock, then choose the titan to fit him. Try to only choose one combat skill to start with.

And pick a name for the jocks you won't regret picking in a few months I suck at naming, I got a jock named Lisa Simpson.... and shes immortal or something, cuz ive tried to kill her and it doesnt work

And now that I've emptied my advice-giver thingy, my head is now empty enough that I wont suffer too much when hetz blows it off *yells to hetz and asks if he wants a game*

[GROND]

Why, I'd thought you'd never ask. I haven't kil###..........er...........played anyone in days

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by CrushU
My advice is to NOT start with missle jocks.

Another good idea is to play to the jock's strengths. When you create him, and he has 2 unguided missle and 31 cannon, DONT MAKE HIM A MISSLER!! GO CANNON!! (on a side note: I started a guy with 30 assault skill... I considered putting him on an assault titan to begin with )

You do realise you cannot increase the assault skill until the jock is rank 4? So having 30 in the skill is condemning him to spend the entire battle on his face. So at least make sure the titan has a nice set of weapons in the arms and head

I always start squads with missile jocks. I don't understand your advice. LRMs and GMs have the best range, so they'll have the best chances to hit at medium and short range. Just make sure you don't let anyone too close.
I played a game with small rookie teams the other day, and the AI dropped on my 2 supports. They were some distance apart from each other, and the 2 airdropped titans split each taking one of mine. So I crossed LoFs, taking down the one hunting my LRM titan with my GM titan and the GM hunter with LRMs. They both went down before they could reach any of mine. And I'm talking WS AI here.

[whitefirefox]

srms are great for shorter range things like that and at a certain distance can be used almost as effectively as lrms

course you guys are probably all gonna go "Oh no no your wrong fox"

[Lobsteve]

course you guys are probably all gonna go "Oh no no your wrong fox"

I was actually only going to say 'Oh no you're wrong fox.' but yours is OK as well I suppose. Though it lacks the Lobsteve flair for the dramatic.....oh wait, sorry, I have no flair for the dramatic.

Anyhow, all this mumbo jumbo is exactly why I suggested, way buck up there somewhere, having a mix of Long, Mid-Range, and Close-Combat titans. Having a Jock that can hang back and fire off missiles across the map is so valuable to the rest of the team in the early going, it gives the time to scan, gives them time to run from cover to cover, and, best of all, softens up the target for them which can mean the difference between life and death. SRMs are hard to use, especially in the early Team-Games when your jocks may not be as up to snuff as you'd like. A well rounded attack is the way to go.

Lobsteve.

[whitefirefox]

ive used a srm/lrm titan before and it really does work when the enemy titan is closing fast on you because fankly an lrm can rarely hit crap at point blank where as an srms hit rate goes way up and at medium range you can start using srms along with lrms which is like a smack in the face at times hehe

[CrushU]

Ok, let me rephrase then. Dont use ONLY missles, and if you have a missle titan, back it up with 2 non-missle titans.

Missles are not good in the early battles, because, unless you're lucky, it takes at least 200 secs before you blow out any significant body part. Regardless of type. Though they are useful, and usually get the first shot off, you can usually get the same long-range effectiveness, with close-range usefulness, with a plasma gun or AC4. I personally detest missles, but they are useful in chipping away armor. Though I'd prefer it if I could tell it to try to hit this area more than any other... (right side, left side, bottom) Not quite called shot, but the missles would hit in the area I told them to more often.

[whitefirefox]

well if you detest missles so much heres what ya should do get larkin cornered and convince him to make an uber missle for you and just you and no one else course the heat would be outrageous the rate of fire would be nuts and it probably wouldn't go too far or would explode in your face

no missles aren't the big plasma gun damage or an ac4 but they have alot of uses when used correctly because in any well balanced game NOTHING sucks when used correctly its just the person using it that sucks at using the weapon

[Thorgrim]

Or simply don't use them.
In the early battles, how long do you take to destroy a bodypart with *any* other weapon? You think you're gonna be calling shots left and right? Think again. Until you can get close enough to do that (if at all, you need a good scan at least), there go your 200 secs, or most of it. You know how long a scan takes in the early battles? Of course you do.
It IS very possible to win with just LRMs. Guess why they had their heat raised by 3C in WS, and the racks changed.
In fact, v1.4 net duels were more often than not won by the player with the missile boat.

[CrushU]

... as long as the other guy didnt have anything that did better dmg than a ac7, yeah.

I won against hetz in missle battle cuz I got lucky and one rack did 20 damage in one place. Missles are luck-based weapons, and I dont like luck. (yeah yeah i know, "go play chess") I prefer to not depend on a fickle ally. Luck==Teamless. LRM12 vs PG.... id take the PG, most times, because it has just as good range, can start fires, and will do concentrated dmg. (ok, so LRMs have longer range, but if yer playin with any hills, effective range is same as the Plasma Gun.)

Missles are useful when facing guys with CC weapons. Being as how you pound on them while they cant hit you. But usually, CC titan players are smart enough to stay behind hills, out of sight of misslers.

No, I dont want a supa-missle, i think missles are good in their (one) place, against CC titans.... that are stupid. Or if yer the opposite of Korg. Gimmie a Gauss Cannon any day!

[whitefirefox]

hey if ya don't like missle DON'T USE'EM! but don't flame them so much there good reliable weapons if you actually put SOME points into using them which you obviously did not

sure cc weapons are fast and strong energy weapons have range and damage but what are the draw backs to everything including missles? as i said in a really balanced game there isn't one thing thats "supremely" better than another in every area

in reply to your LRM vs PG well lets break them down:

PG: +'s Good range, Good Damage -'s High heat, High reload

LRM: +'s Good range, Low heat -'s Low damage, Medium/High reload (depending on rack size)

get it now or do i need to keep going? everything is balanced we should all know that VERY well by now even myself while still being something of a noob in actual battle combat and tos design i can at least not say 1 weapon or another sucks completely

P.S. VIVA LA AC20!

EDIT: if you have any comments about my +'s and -'s feel free to state them as i said im still something of a noob

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by CrushU

Heh. Just how often do you play net duels? I still have the records of all my net games. And yes, they all had anything better than an ac7.
Missiles are a weapon of chance like *any* other weapon. The fact that you may get grouped damage instead of scattered damage comes from the damage allocation table, which is very explicit. You look at it and you know where most hits will land. So if you discard that, obviously you will say such nonsense like they're a luck based weapon. They have a minimum damage value, and a maximum damage value. Always count on the minimum, whatever you get above that is a bonus. Larger racks will obviously have a higher chance of causing cluster damage.
In your reasoning you forget that the LRM12 is the weapon of choice to decapitate titans from afar. You know, like in leaving it almost intact, to provide good salvage. It cannot start fires, but it can reduce woods - intentionally *and* not intentionally, meaning that if you miss your target, you may be contributing to reducing the woods, so the shot is not totally wasted. And hills work both ways. Actually, they work more in favor of supports than against them. I could also throw the small vs huge map argument at you, which is basically the same thing you're doing with hills, but that would be pointless.
A CC titan hiding behind hills, now that's a useful titan. Unless you've got a nice hilly path all the way from your position to the target. But what's the chances of that happening? And besides, missiles have that nice indirect fire capability.
It seems that we're only discussing long range missiles here, but NMs and SRMs are also missiles. While SRMs have been briefly addressed, NMs haven't.

[whitefirefox]

ok ok so i said nothing about nms myself but thats cuz there more like rockets than missles to me just a warhead with some jet fuel in it but that MHO but nms are OK i suppose although i prefer lrms/srms/gms over nms but thats just how i am direct (or indirect in terms of hills and stuff and yeah moving on) damage is the bigger + for me than the higher heat thing which can be tottaly useless on maps like polar or if the enemy is in the water

but as i said this is MHO

[Thorgrim]

Let me give you one piece of advice. Start using punctuation in your posts. I've stopped reading them cause I don't have the time to spend decoding them. If you want some sort of answer that is.

About the missile/rocket issue, only GMs are actually missiles, UGMs are all rockets.

[whitefirefox]

i get D-'s in english grammar so you can 1) make due with how i type 2) ignore all my posts and/or replies or 3) try and tutor me which all my other tutors left saying "he just doesn't get grammar"

k? not tryin to be rude or anything but thats just how my situation is everybodies is different and mabey you get A+'s but i get D's

[Thorgrim]

Like I said, I already go with 2).
I don't care about your grammar skills, and I'm not criticizing. But I'm sure you can at least use periods? To separate sentences. That's basic, no tutoring needed for that.

[whitefirefox]

bleh periods require an extra key stroke and im lazy

[PrinceCorrin]

It's not your grammar, it's your punctuation. It's not hard to fix. Just read through your own post out loud. Anywhere you stop to breath, you should probably put a period. If you take a breath in the middle of a sentence then use a comma.
Just a bit of help from someone who got A's, but had his parents yell at him for his grammar throughout his life

[whitefirefox]

key words "IM LAZY" :p

[tarendelcymir]

You know, I offer writing and grammar tutoring services for a very low price.