Mechwarrior 5: Twenty Tips

I thought I'd follow up yesterday's post with a few general pointers with things I've picked up while playing this game:

1 - In a fire fight kill weakest things first (usually). Luckily these are often also the fastest so if you draw them to you, you can pick em off before the heavies arrive. Heli-planes (especially the fat Igors) should always be a priority.

2 - Cover is important. Trees are actually OK temporary cover but they block your fire too.

3 - Salvaged mechs will sell for less than the displayed amount, depending on damage and reputation in your current system.

4 - Putting together a mech from scrap is expensive and you won't make money if you only intend to sell it. Only put together something you intend to pilot.

5 - Putting a mech into storage strips it of gear. It will cost time and money to refit again.

6 - Keeping mechs ready in the hangar costs money, as do pilots. You can review this in the operations / stats tab.

7 - Due to inbuilt perks, "hero" mechs are superior to everything else. If you can buy them, do so. We no longer look at rare mechs on the market or salvaging any because of this.

8 - Jim loves fighting in close quarters but this also puts him at risk since he would be the closest target for everything and occasionally gets too blood thirsty in chasing down quicker enemies that lure him into ambushes. Remind players like him to pull back every now and then, preferably behind cover. It helps that his mechs can jump(jet) into or over cover and usually have lots of armor.

9 - I love using light mechs that go fast. Speed and distance usually mitigate lots of damage, so much that I strip out jump jets so that they can run faster. Combined with LRMs this is great for scouting to find target buildings / mechs and taking down turrets / light tanks / heliplanes and artillery emplacements. For raid missions (destroy one structure here, there and there then escape) this rocks. The flip side is standing still is a death sentence, so I leave any "capture the objective" to my brothers unless there is fantastic cover (and even so, then heli-planes will get me).  

10 - DL loves sniping so he's usually pouring on the hurt from far away. As long as Jim or I can see the enemy, he can get a  missile lock on them even if he doesn't have line of sight. Now that he has a thumper armed Cyclops, he does want line of sight though because that's pretty much a giant sniper rifle he has mounted on his mech. You can use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out to help aim for long shots.

11 - Heat sinks are important, shutting down in the middle of battle sucks. Don't rely on the planet temperature to do it for you (yay for snow storms). In a pinch you can also run into some water (if you can find any) to cool down faster.

12 - Don't punch mechs heavier than your mech. You'll just wreck your arms.

13 - When things blow up they can damage you. This includes your own missiles and tanks you've punched or stepped on.

14 - I always try to design my mechs without any gear in the arms as those are always the first to go, even if you aren't punching. Put all your weapons, ammo and heatsinks in your torso where there is more armor. This isn't always possible on every mech due to slot availability but it's a good starting point to work towards.

15 - Many cantina missions are easy and give nice upgrade rewards, always load up on those. Also remember to actually install said rewards after you earn them!

16 - During defend the base missions, always try to fight away from the base. If the mission is a "setup your hold" without a base, we normally pick some high ground to hold and then the fastest mech (usually me) goes to trigger the objective to spawn enemies... who then hunt for you. If you can outrun your enemies, you can lead them on a merry chase while you allies whittle down other foes. Just don't run in a straight line.

17 - During "destroy the base" missions, if you don't have machine guns it is simply faster to ram all the buildings. You'll take a little damage but you'll take much more if you take your time destroying the base as infinite enemies keep spawning in. Airstrikes are very fun in flattening large zones too, but its often better to negotiate your reward to be loot shares and repair insurance.

18 - Beach head missions are probably the hardest to do, so its always worth taking down the radars to get additional allies to assist. Note: if you don't take out the artillery as well then said allies won't last very long as they don't know to stand outside the red circles.

19 - Don't be afraid of cliffs, even if you don't have jump jets. Your legs can take it. More importantly, enemy units will NOT walk off cliffs - meaning this is a great way to get distance from them.

20 - If you need to escape to your drop ship to end a mission, it only requires one mech making it there so send the fastest.