A few miscellaneous questions

[returnfire]

I have a few questions regarding gameplay strategy:

1. Should I eject in any of the following occasions?
- When the head is red (or yellow and the enemy has an AC20 or tesla bolt)?
- When my titan's LOT or both legs are disabled (i.e. forced to stay in the prone position)?
- When my dedicated missile launcher runs out of Ammo (or should I give it a PG just in case this happens )?
- When both the engine and the DCS have taken heavy damage?

2. What's the best way of "force-overheating" an enemy (to cause ammo explosion, for example)?
- NM's or Flamethrower?
- Or shoot down an enemy who's jumping over lava?
- Or use "decoys" (use a few unarmed or flamethrower-equipped recon titans and hope they explode withiin 2 hexes of an enemy :p)
- Or to call shots into damaged limbs (in order to detonate ammo)?

3. One of my current Assault Titan designs has 3 AC20s, and I'm planning to add more weapons to its legs since there is enough space. Should I give it LL's, NB's, or SRM4's?

[TitanFodder]

You should eject to save your jock's a*s that's for sure. Keep in mind thatejecting takes time as well, so if dark clouds come your way....run! And don't try to mess with elite enemies if your jocks are n00bs.


Cooking tips.

1. The napalm missiles.

I like these very much. A tactical rather than powerfull weapon. It has a nice range,it works beautifully with Teslas(When Teslas hit they rip armor to nothing,follow this with a pack of NMissiles cos they will probably hit the part softened by Teslas and probably cause some internal damage. And if Teslas hit shields,they tend to take out the shield AND raise temp. skyhigh. Follow that performance with NMissiles again to push heat even higher),it can easily set forests on fire(great when someone is crouched in them AND with no shield),and what more do you want anyway.

2. Flamers.

4 of these. Or 2 Flamers and 2 Axes. Do you know what that spells? Murder if you're close enough. But the question is will you get close enough?(Nothing teaches you Flamer-warfare better than getting cornered by two Flame-weilding titans)



Forget the Neutron Blaster. It is an energy weapon and you already have AC20s which are cannons. Don't mix these like that. Besides NBlasters cannot penetrate shields so you need a Tesla or a Plasma to take out the shield first. Then you can use NB. Take 2 NBs,you got more chance that way.

LL? No. Again it's an energy weapon. It needs a big engine a better heat reg. and why should you complicate things like that when the winner is:

SRMs --- yes definetly! They will spray damage all over your opposition and AC20 will make sure that there are enough holes in their armour. But for the sake of range and heat try the following combo:

1 AC20
2 AC12
SRMs - the more the merrier..

i'm open to flames...

[Thorgrim]

Well, returnfire, those don't look like questions to me. Those actually look like answers.

Anyways,
in team games I don't usually eject for being forced to prone. I keep scanning my opponents or repairing stuff for OXPs, unless they are very intent on killing that particular jock. Usually they'll leave him alone if there are other targets.
Having a backup energy weapon is always a good thing, in case of ammo shortage or min range penetration.
Ejecting when the DCS is heavily damaged?! Why? Unless you're planning on having ammo explosions, I don't see the point.

One LL to ignite woods is always handy. Doesn't need to be used as a main weapon, so no need to be included in the engine calculation. As long as you remember that, it should be ok.
SRM4s are not great, but ok. MGs are cannons too.

TF, as to NBs, you're wrong about them. Shields protect against them, but only half protection value. So they're actually better than all other energy weapons in regards to shield protection. In WS, NBs and EMPs will also be unaffected by cover. So these will be great weapons to flush out titans parking in cover (woods or otherwise).

[returnfire]

Originally posted by Thorgrim
in team games I don't usually eject for being forced to prone. I keep scanning my opponents or repairing stuff for OXPs, unless they are very intent on killing that particular jock. Usually they'll leave him alone if there are other targets.

Thanks for reminding (I'm already doing the "scan for experience" thing). It also appears to me that the AI prefers attacking smaller targets over larger ones- because of this, I always keep a few recon titans (modified Fireball with Jump Ports) on the team as decoys (I find them to be very useful for scanner links as well )

By the way, here is the design I was talking about:


Titan Name: <Hand Cannoneer> (Assault Close Combat Titan)
Chassis: Mark MK-A4
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Weight: 199.7t (200t maximum) Height : 19 [meter]
Bmt : 34 (35 kph) Reduce Heat: -4.4C/sec.
Jmt : 14 (85 kph) for 30 secs Cost : 480434 ($)


Equipment:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Component/Type/Location

Engine :Triton T6 [Engine 6] [CT ]
Heatreg.:Mark MH-II [Heat A]
Flare :FL Large [Flare2] [Head]
Shield :Simson-Medium[Shld4] [LowT]
D.C.S. :Solidon [D.C.S.5] [RT ]
LifeSup.:Bisvo Inc. [Life 6] [CT ]
Scanner :Mark X-S [Scan 6] [Head]
Computer:Mark BC-X [Comp. 6] [RT ]
E.C.M :Mark EXL [E.C.M. 6] [CBT ]
JumpPort:Morola MJ [Jump 4]


Weapons:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Location/Weapon/Ammunition/SL

[RA ] AUTO CANNON 20 (020) [2]
[LA ] AUTO CANNON 20 (020) [2]
[LT ] AUTO CANNON 20 (020) [2]
[RL ] S.R.M. 4 RACK (024) [1]
[LL ] S.R.M. 4 RACK (024) [1]


Armor:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Loc/Internal/Armor/Points/mm

[Head] (15) Dullaroy 027 [039mm]
[RT ] (29) Vicenium 052 [087mm]
[CT ] (29) Dullaroy 055 [079mm]
[CBT ] (19) Titanium 049 [098mm]
[LT ] (29) Vicenium 052 [087mm]
[RA ] (29) Dullaroy 049 [071mm]
[LA ] (29) Dullaroy 049 [071mm]
[LowT] (19) Dullaroy 055 [079mm]
[RL ] (25) Vicenium 057 [095mm]
[LL ] (25) Vicenium 057 [095mm]

Armorindex: 3.76 [Total APts/T]
Internal: 248 [APts]
External: 502 [APts] Max:[107mm]
Total Armor: 750 [APts]


JOCK requirements:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Piloting: skill on Assault Titan incl. Jump
Weapons : N.G.M Cannon
Warfare : Defensives Scanner Warfare(ECM)
Skills : D.C.S Ind.Fire


I chose SRM4's mainly because they are relatively light (1.5t) and have the exact same range as the cannons (not sure if this is a good idea- any suggestions?)


Also, should I use a jump port 6 since 30 seconds is not enough for jumping two hexes? (jumping up to jump level 1 and two forward jumps add up to 32- oops, crash ) Or should I downgrade the DCS to a DCS 1 (saves 2 slots)? And does this titan need a bigger shield and/or more armor?

[Thorgrim]

About the design:
The engine could be downgraded to 5 - unless you're counting with swivel, which is not that important. Frees up one slot there too.
If you want to be able to jump 2 hexes, jump 6 would force you to free up one slot in the LOT - reduce the shield to 2 or use another armor type like T. Reducing the shield also allows you to reduce the engine if you need the tonnage. Titanium reduces your heat dissipation.
Titanium in the CBT, yuck. It's reducing your heat dissipation, since you have a reg A. I'd change that. It's your CBT, as long as you don't let them get on your back, you should be ok with a little less armor there.
SRM4s are not a powerhouse weapon, but they do have the benefit of indirect fire if the jockis really good.

Other than that, looks ok. Just another assault.

[returnfire]

Originally posted by Thorgrim
About the design:
The engine could be downgraded to 5 - unless you're counting with swivel, which is not that important. Frees up one slot there too.
If you want to be able to jump 2 hexes, jump 6 would force you to free up one slot in the LOT - reduce the shield to 2 or use another armor type like T. Reducing the shield also allows you to reduce the engine if you need the tonnage. Titanium reduces your heat dissipation.
Titanium in the CBT, yuck. It's reducing your heat dissipation, since you have a reg A. I'd change that. It's your CBT, as long as you don't let them get on your back, you should be ok with a little less armor there.
SRM4s are not a powerhouse weapon, but they do have the benefit of indirect fire if the jockis really good.

Other than that, looks ok. Just another assault.

Now that's funny. When I used an engine 6, the pinboard showed a rating of 18 for power management. Both engine 7 and engine 5 get only 16.

(But hey, I've just noticed another advantage of a smaller engine: I can stuff it into CBT)


So here's the modified design (Changes are marked by a star):

Titan Name: <Hand Cannoneer> (Assault Close Combat Titan)
Chassis: Mark MK-A4
----------------------------------------------------------------------
*Weight: 196.1t (200t maximum) Height : 19 [meter]
Bmt : 34 (35 kph) *Reduce Heat: -4.5C/sec.
*Jmt : 12 (100 kph) for 38 secs *Cost : 466755 ($)

(Saved 13679 dollars- not bad )


Equipment:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Component/Type/Location

Engine :Morola M5 [Engine 5] [CBT ]
Heatreg.:Mark MH-II [Heat A]
Flare :FL Large [Flare2] [Head]
*Shield :Sharidan [Shld2] [LowT]

(I could also downgrade the battle computer to a computer 4 to give LoT more space instead of downgrading the shield, but that's a 5% ToHit penalty. Which one do you think is worse, a 5% toHit penalty or 10% increased vulnerability to energy weapons?)

*D.C.S. :Solidon [D.C.S.5] [RT ]
LifeSup.:Bisvo Inc. [Life 6] [CT ]
Scanner :Mark X-S [Scan 6] [Head]
Computer:Mark BC-X [Comp. 6] [RT ]
E.C.M :Mark EXL [E.C.M. 6] [CT ]
*JumpPort:Mark MJ-I [Jump 6]

Weapons: (Unchanged)

Armor:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Loc/Internal/Armor/Points/mm

[Head] (15) Dullaroy 027 [039mm]
[RT ] (29) Vicenium 052 [087mm]
*[CT ] (29) Dullaroy 069 [099mm]
[CBT ] (19) Millenia 035 [088mm]

(I could use Vicenium 033 or Dullaroy 041 there, but for heat dissipation's sake...)

[LT ] (29) Vicenium 052 [087mm]

(On a side note, the reduced weight allows me to use Dullaroy 063 here to protect the weapon. But I prefer using the same amount of armor for both sides. :p)

[RA ] (29) Dullaroy 049 [071mm]
[LA ] (29) Dullaroy 049 [071mm]
[LowT] (19) Dullaroy 055 [079mm]

(Checked with 1 slot Titanium- 033. Probably not strong enough for a close range titan...)

[RL ] (25) Vicenium 057 [095mm]
[LL ] (25) Vicenium 057 [095mm]

Armorindex: 3.82 [Total APts/T]
Internal: 248 [APts]
External: 502 [APts] Max:[107mm]
Total Armor: 750 [APts]


JOCK requirements: (same)


Pinboard ratings:

Jump: 14 -> 18
Defense: 16 -> 18
Recon: 9 -> 12
Overall: 12 -> 15


(By the way, does anyone know how to use the built-in titan called Bonecrusher? 4 AC20's on a heavy... how does that work? )

[firestorm]

Originally posted by returnfire
Now that's funny. When I used an engine 6, the pinboard showed a rating of 18 for power management. Both engine 7 and engine 5 get only 16.

That's because with the engine 6 you don't waste any energy and you don't lack any energy. Although sometimes, with a bigger engine, you can still produce enough energy (even with a damaged engine) to charge all your guns. Most of the time though, you're better off using a smaller one (IMHO) unless you plan on doing fairly regular alpha strikes while on the move.

(By the way, does anyone know how to use the built-in titan called Bonecrusher? 4 AC20's on a heavy... how does that work? )

Very carefully. *g* Don't alpha strike (unless you're somewhere you can cool down fairly quickly, e.g. in a Polar map and/or with water nearby), close in as fast as possible, stay out of sight, and hit hard. But stay away from serious melee titans, especially flamers. NMs can be dangerous too. I've had some success with the Bonecrusher. It just involves not getting killed by long-range-dedicated titans until you can get close enough, and staying far enough away not to get cut to pieces by melee-dedicated titans.

[Thorgrim]

The pinboard is probably counting swivel.
Downgrading the shield has 2 additional "advantages", less PU consumption (smaller engine needed), less heat created (better heat dissipation). Besides the obvious weight and space savings of course. Keep in mind that even thought the shield protects you from energy weapons, it raises your temperature if hit. It's a trade off, damage for heat. Sometimes if not most I'd take the damage instead of the heat.
Notice I didn't build the titan, I'm just throwing hunches around by looking at it. You still have almost 4 free tons. A ML somewhere if you can free up a slot? Or an EMP? Oh wait, that's WS

The Bonecrusher, just keep an eye on your heat meter. Get a jock with good defensives, for the added heat dissipation. Hit hard. If you can call shots, it'll be nasty. The design relies on massive firepower, with no defenses. It is a heavy design, so it's not too slow. You'll just have to get close to your target, and pound it to dust. Don't forget that AC20s can lay smoke screens, with long durations. Block opponent's LoS with smoke, get close, fire 2, wait 1 sec, fire another 2. Hope he gets knocked to the ground