I really like the Lance composition options in this game, especially in multiplayer where you can set a limit to the value of your lance and must balance it out accordingly. I tend to play in the 25M bracket using 1 heavy, 2 mediums, and 1 light. A lot of people push for a team of all heavies and mediums, though I find that the limit prevents you from equipping them optimally and I usually win those matchups even though I'm using a lance of smaller chassis'.

My current favorite lance setup is

• Firestarter - this little thing is versatile as hell, although I stripped the M lasers off it. He basically works as a sensor-lock machine hovering on the edge of the fight until he can jump in and set things on fire.
• Grasshopper - My main attack, I filled this thing with 6 flamers and 6 M lasers (which work well at the same range as the flamers, so if you get in close you can do some serious damage). It's only a heavy, but it can go toe to toe with plenty of assault mechs. Probably my favorite of all the mechs out there.
• Centurion x2 - I have a pair of these badboys filled with 30 LRM's and their job is to sit on the edge of the field with bulwark and plaster anything that moves. As they're medium mechs they have more initiative than most other heavy support mechs while still having better armour, and you can even stick jump jets on them without sacrificing too much.

It's a pretty weird lance in that I have two very aggressive mechs and two very defensive ones, but I find that if I can get the evasion of a heavy/assault down then because of the range of those LRM's I can get 60 LRM hits which is pretty much a guaranteed knockdown on anything. Once it's knocked down I can set it on fire and then it's just fucked.

I tried playing around with some alternatives to the Centurions but couldn't settle on anything I liked. I put a Kintaro in there for a while, as they can mount 40 LRM's instead of 30, but I found the heat management and less armour you got as a result wasn't worth the tradeoff. I also looked at a catapult build but I don't want my main close-range attack to be anything less than a heavy.

I feel like there's a very similar deck-building dynamic to a lot of the card games out there like hearthstone, so I'd be interested to know what other people are using.

x

The Centurion is probably my favorite mech so far, i like its cool fake helmet fin!

I’m just playing campaign so theres no limit on what i can put on other than weight. I use the centurion for close/medium range though, its got a couple SRMs a medium laser and an ac5... is that a bad idea, maybe i should double down on SRM’s... using him long range could also be great, i just added a 10 rack of lrm’s to my vindicator and even that alone is real potent.

Don't have a set composition as of yet. Only played 11 hours and just got my hands on a Centurion and a Quickdraw. So i might incorporate them into my next missions.

But so far its been:

Blackjack with 2 AC/5's

Vindicator with PPC and LL

Shadowhawk with LRM 10, 2x SRM 6 and a ML

Spider 2 SL and jumpjets

So I'm not done fiddling with loadouts yet.

Storm.

...

...

I'm just going to go now.

I haven't been doing much of the Multiplayer but I also am loving the game and have had several go-to Lance compositions (before I got a lot of Assaults to use, it was fun to mix and match).

Centurion is one of my faves as well. I also use the Trebuchet as another LRM boat. Trebuchet mounts 2x LRM15s and 2 M Lasers and then a bunch of extra armor since it generally not that well defended. I find it not exactly a great mech for getting up close, but with the extra armor it won't get shredded by a few shots here and there.

For Heavies, I found the Orion (mounted with a bunch of SRMs and an AC/10), or a Grasshopper to do a lot of great work.

It seems like knockdown and stability damage in general are extremely powerful since without a lot of ways to make stability damage go away after you use up your morale, you can permanently lock down 1-2 mechs with salvos of LRMs/SRMs and a PPC/AC shot. In which case they are probably getting decimated with only 1-2 mechs to damage your lance of 4. So I haven't been too happy with mechs that run a lot of energy weapons except when they are really mobile like the Grasshopper and its jumpjets. I've never tried putting a bunch of flamers on one, though. I thought flamers only activated at short range like the S Lasers and MGs, I didn't think you could shoot them at the same range as M lasers.

...The kind that kills things!

Umm.. I'm still way deep into the campaign on my first playthrough. Haven't looked at Skirmish and I don't know if I have any interest in PvP. So I can't really say I have a specific loadout that isn't just bringing the biggest and strongest stuff I can.

I did really enjoy the Griffin when I had it. I wrote a post in the other thread explaining how it was kinda the same thing as the Trebuchet but with 5 tons more potential.. all good in my book. LRM boats feel good to use. I usually have one or two mid or long range LRM support Mechs in my setups.

So yea I don't really have anything interesting or unique here to add based on my dozens of hours of play time at this point.

I've noticed a lot of the stock mechs, and the mechs that I fight against in multiplayer, seem to try and be a lot more versatile, with a mix of support and long range weapons so they can perform in lots of different situations. Personally I don't like this, and I try to specialize each mech as much as possible, rather then have them be a jack of all trades. If i'm putting LRM's on a Cent with Bulwark then why would I also give him SRM's? I feel like if you get to the point where those weapons would be effective then you've already lost.

i use a Wolverine as my LRM dude got a Orion with a get up and close punch you in the face loadout got a dragon heavy mech with also is my scout? "it kinda works" with a AC20 Canon on it one shots light mech's and my main mech i am gonna call it spoiler mech cause you get it from a story mission it's OP and it's got a gauss rifle that shew's through armor. My strategy more being about dealing damage then scouting i don't wanna waste a mech slot just to have a light scout. give me big bulky mech with high damage. O yeah this is a singleplayer loadout havn't played multiplayer yet.

I don't have any interest in PvP, and my campaign mode lances are generally the heaviest stuff I can bring, but I do have specific roles I always make room for.

I will generally always have

- 1 LRM boat for indirect fire support, whether it be the Shadowhawk with 2 LRM10s and an LRM5, Trebuchet with 2 LRM15s, Catapult with 2 LRM20s, or a Stalker with way too many LRM launchers.

- 1 fast, usually jumpjet capable mech for skirmishing. This is usually the Shadowhawk, Grasshopper, Thunderbolt, or Highlander, all with at least one LRM launcher, and a variety of AC/5 or AC/10, SRM, and Medium lasers. I treat this as my scout.

- 1 heavily armored brawler with a pilot that has bulwark. I used a customized Shadowhawk for this (boy do I get a lot of usage from this mech), before moving up to Orions and Battlemasters.

- 1 mech that I will change up depending on the biome, the mission objective, and my available pilots. Another indirect/direct fire support for base destruction (Enforcer, Jaegermech, Awesome, etc), another skirmisher or brawler depending on which pilot is recovering in the med bay.

I haven't tried any skirmish yet, though I've made some cool loadouts I wish I could just import into the skirmish list. That said, some of the lances I sent out on some missions worked much better than others. One of my favorite lances was:

-A Commando I built into a small LRM boat, piloted by someone with Multi-target and sensor lock. Great for scouting and able to lower mobility on multiple targets from safe cover. Also 10 LRMS + M Laser can still be dangerous in the right situations.

-A Vindicator, stock build. Put someone with high piloting in there and use it to harass and "speed tank" by jumping often. Does heat up like crazy if PPC and jumpjets are used, but realistically its not there to fire much off.

- Thunderbolt, TDR-5S. While the enemies are busy swatting at the Commando and Vindicator, this mech can not only fire some decent LRM volleys while moving up, but once it has line of sight it can dish out some punishment.

-Hunchback, HBK-4G. Heavily armored to tank, AC-20. nuff said.

Quickdraw

Griffin

Orion

Jagermech

I'm getting pretty exasperated with multiplayer right now, as everyone seems to be using identical missile builds. Put 50 LRM's on a catapult and run it as far away as possible, then stick two medium mech with SRM's in as your forward assault. The stability damage will go through almost anything, even if you're entrenched in a swamp, and once you're knocked down you're pretty much fucked.

The range on those LRM's is just stupid. If you have visibility on a target you can hit it, even with 4 pips of evasion your accuracy is unlikely to go lower than 40%. I've tried several combinations of counter-lances but very few seem to work.

I'm hoping there's some balance changes soon because it sucks right now.

@sweep: Yeah, they need to bring in ECMs and AMS into the game, and maybe some vertical cover that can act as an means to help counter indirect fire.

Late to the party but I just really got into this game. What I really wanted from it was a sandbox where I could slowly build up my mech collection, tackle missions at my own pace and hit the story-missions when I was over-prepared for them..and you only really get that post tutorial and after the first major story mission. Now, I'm not sure I am gonna tackle the second story mission until I've got an entire lance of customized heavies if I can find them.

As it stands right now I've finally gotten around to being able to field 200ton+ lances, though I have yet to run into any heavy mechs. I lucked into one-shotting the shadowhawk (in my game at least) that accompanied the pirate queen in the first story mission, and was able to get pick up all 3 parts at the end of that mission. Which lets me field a pair of them now with what I feel is a very busted setup.

For me, the shadowhawk gets a bunch of SRMs (as many as can fit), ammo and 1 big gun (a large laser in my case) which is often turned off, but nice to have). with everything else devoted to maxed armor. It over-heats like crazy, but between the really high melee damage and the burst-down the SRMs can do at close range, these are the most deadly mechs I've got.

I've also made the call to specialize pretty much all my other mechs. They are either close-range, or long range, and almost all of them have more then the default starting armor values. Bulwark is so broken that the higher armor values start, the more that 50% damage reduction matters. I don't think I am going to have a single pilot who doesn't have that skill.

Otherwise, I've finally gotten a heavy enough mech to load up on a decent number of LRM10s (which is the best I can buy/find at the moment). And am getting to experience the joy of a LR missile boat. My other Long Range mechs is going down the dual AC/5's route and essentially stands in for my scout. Its the mech I'd put the one pilot with sensor lock I take with me, the one I put on top of the hill, and thus one who is down in firepower a bit because it tends to take the first round or two of attacks before my short-range mechs can fully engage.

And that is how I have always played these games. Overheating? Psh if I don't cross the line I don't have to worry about it. A lot of fiddling with guns so I can fire the max amount every single round etc.

My biggest regret with this game is that PPCs suck. Those were/are my favorite weapons in any of this universes games. Battletech or mechwarrior. I adore them. But they just don't compare well to other options. No indirect fire, extreme heat, etc. If I ever mod this game, making PPCs broken so I can field a mech with 4+ of those things (as is always my dream) and not be gimping said mech by doing so, is first on my list.

Don't play Skirmish. Have a 70ish hour save that's running postgame 5-star missions. My current assault team:

Highlander running AC-20, LRM 20, SRM-6, and 2-3 MLs. LRMs to harass until I close and core out mechs with an alpha.

Stock King Crab: Close in. AC-20 until dead.

Stalker: Rebuilt into a LRM boat. That thing can carry a lot of missiles. A lot. A LOT.

Atlas: Comboed this guy for fire support with the stalker or close combat (AC-20 and some MLs) depending on how the fight goes.

I don't have much in the way of range and wind up taking some knockdowns. But when this lance gets in close it'll CT strike and kill 2-3 heavy/assaults in one turn.