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Ok don't flame me, I am new to ToS and just played a multi-player game with my buddy. We played a duel and let the computer pick our mechs. Seems like movement takes forever and weapons just keep recycleing and firing as we just stand there and take it. Also it seems that my mech had biger weapons but his mech had a **** load of AC's that ripped me apart. I can understand why AC would recycle so fast as to movement but even my engery based weapons would fire like ten times before I got to take one step. I think mech games to be about maneuver to get a better shot. This game is kinda just stand, fire, take fire, wait a lot and do it all over again. At the end we both agreed that MP was rather dull. Yet in the single player mode things seem to move a lot faster. Maybe I am missing something in MP.

Just my 2cents

I'm curious: was this your first game? No hostility intended, by the way.

Duels have different tactics than multi-titan combat. Also, your two titans seem (based off of your description) to have been armed with similar equipment, i.e. medium-ranged weapons (as opposed to Long-Range Missiles, or short-range Tesla Bolts, or melee-combat Chainsaws).

Duels get very interesting when titans from two different "classes" meet: say, a guided missile boat vs a titan with AC-20's.

All those different weapons require maneuver to utilize effectively in a duel. A missile boat needs to find a tall hill, with good visual coverage of the field, to soak his opponent to death over an extended period of time. Against that opponent, a titan with AC-20's needs to make use of cover to close with the missile titan. Once the range is closed, the 20's will cause massive damage... but he has to get close enough to use them.

That's just one example among many possible situations. Without knowing your precise weapon loadouts, it's not really possible to say how maneuver could have assisted you. It takes time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the weapons and titans!

Also, by their very nature duels are rarely as tactically interesting as a squad combat. Try a 4-on-4 fight with varied squads...

Maybe you were playing assaults, which are slow-moving. Maybe it was the terrain, woods and difficult terrain in general take longer to cross. Maybe you were going up hills. Maybe you were walking instead of running.
MP has nothing to do with it. It's working fine.

I don't get what people like about duels. Everything seems to become so cut-and-dry compared to an actual squad versus squad battle.

My best games were 2 versus 2 in local network games. We had full squads but limited money so they did not consist of just 8 assaults but a nice mix from recon to assault. Such big battles (choose small or medium maps) do take some time but have lots of movement.

Neekirul wrote:I don't get what people like about duels. Everything seems to become so cut-and-dry compared to an actual squad versus squad battle.

I think one of the big draws of duels is simply time. Squad games can take forever, and not everyone has the time to spend three or four hours online playing the game. I don't think it has much to do with which is more fun.

I'm curious: was this your first game? No hostility intended, by the way

Yes it was our first MP game, and none taken :p

Also, your two titans seem (based off of your description) to have been armed with similar equipment, i.e. medium-ranged weapons (as opposed to Long-Range Missiles, or short-range Tesla Bolts, or melee-combat Chainsaws).

Hmm. I guess if you are talking range we both started to fire about the same time. I had a cold light cannon Lg lasers, he had like 8 (or more I forget) AC4's. Also we were both in clear terrain about five hexes apart.
He was just firing and firing with like 87% chance to hit. Plus he kept hitting my head, let me tell ya that does a number on your mech real quick. When I fired back I could only muster about a 47%. I think that engery based weapons should hit better then cannons. As I said before It just seems very static once combat does start.

We will be playing again tonight so we'll play with more titans.

Try dueling with recons, it's a whole different feel.

AC4's do crap damage but they're very accurate and if you have enough of 'em they can be vicious.

It sounds like your enemy had some heavy shielding up, which is why your to-hit was so low. CLG's don't deplete shields, so they work best paired with something that will.

Cannons usually have longer max ranges than energy weapons, so usually they also have better chances to hit at range.

What Thorgrom said.

AC4's have really good range... I don't recall exact #'s, but they have the second-best range of any cannon (or is it first? Gauss Gun, then AC4? Whatever.) Large lasers have good range, but a CLG at maximum range doesn't compare favorably with an AC4 at the same range... so no wonder you were getting pummelled.

I would have closed the gap to, say, two or three hexes, and tried to take cover in woods. If your opponent did the same, I'd use the Large lasers to deliberately ingite the woods on fire (aim at the hex, not the titan) flushing him out.

Of course, if he had shields, your only hope was melee. Get in the same hex, pound away, and pray that his shields get damaged.

AC4 has the best range of all cannons, GC is only the 4th.
AC4 has range 20, CLG 8. So at range 8 the AC4 has a 18% penalty or so, and the CLG 45%. The difference is enormous.

One other thing to keep in mind, if you are used to BT's ridiculous weapon ranges (a necessary fudge for a miniatures game), is that WS weapons can fire out to a wonderfully realistic range of several miles in many cases. Each hex is 333m, as opposed to 30m, so there is plenty of manuever, just on a more grand scale.