A quick and dirty run-down on all the achievements in BATTLETECH. Some plot spoilers within. Overview BATTLETECH has a lot of achievements, at 128. Luckily for we achievement hunters out there, most of them come from simply playing the game long enough, and only a couple require stupid amounts of luck and/or prior planning. This will be a quick, ugly run-down of best ways to knock out all 128. As of 5.10.18, this guide is still a work-in-progress. Please don't comment "hey you forget [achievement]" - i'm working on all of them, and ideally it'll be done soon. Please feel free to comment alternate ways of ticking off achievements that are listed, as I'm very interested if someone else manages to figure out a better way of doing things. Version History: 11.28.18: Whoops. I'm actually still alive, although this project definitely fell to the backburner after I burned out on Battletech. I'll be making an effort to finish the 1.0 achieves as well as the ones added in the Flashpoint update. Some of these may be theoretical strategies, as Valkyria Chronicles 4 is out and I don't really want to replay the entire Campaign again just because HBS added Ironman 7 months post-launch. 5.30.18: Still alive. I've added in a couple of achievements, mostly for the Campaign. More importantly, I've added what information I have about Complete Roster, which has been notoriously buggy. 5.10.18: v.67: 73/109 achievements listed, currently text-only. To-Do: Finish up all achievements, add images, clean up sort order to reflect how your achievements will look at 100%. Campaign All of these are earned during the Restoration Campaign. Story achievements are unmissable. A MechWarrior's Path - Established a history Awarded after character creation. Coromodir Lost - Suffered a terrible betrayal Finish the Prologue. Argo Rising - Recovered an ancient ship Complete Axylus Why We Fight - Started a war Complete First Strike. House Decimis Restored - Liberated the world of Panzyr Complete Liberation: Panzyr. House Karosas Restored - Liberated the world of Smithon Complete Liberation: Smithon. Family Reunion - Captured a villain Complete Served Cold. Grave Robber - Discovered ancient technology Complete Raising the Dead. House Gallas Restored - Liberated the world of Itrom Complete Liberation: Itrom. Necessity over Conscience - Learned an important secret Complete Extraction. House Parata Restored - Liberated the world of Tyrlon Complete Liberation: Tyrlon. The Sword of Restoration - Invaded a capital Complete Locura (Coromodir Pt. 1). A Hero Forged - Crowned a rightful ruler Complete Showdown (Coromodir Pt. 2) and the Restoration Campaign. I Am Iron Man! - Completed a Campaign with Iron Man enabled Since Ironman wasn't available until 1.3, this will require a new campaign if you've already completed the game. The game doesn't seem to be picky about other difficulty settings, so feel free to up payouts and salvage and lower enemy force strength. Otherwise, take it slow and build up your forces so that you can overpower encounters since there's no going back on a decision. Professional Scavenger - Start a campaign with 'Mechs requiring 8 parts, then complete 10 'Mechs You'll need to start a new campaign with custom difficulty options, then set it so that Mechs require 8 partial mech salvage to rebuild. I recommend you also switch salvage rights and contract pay to generous while you're there so that this is less of a slog. Keep in mind as you play that maximum salvage comes from headshots or pilot kills, then legging a mech, and minimum salvage comes from CT kills. I Thought You Were Dead - Complete the campaign with Dekker still alive Ha ha, memes! So far, it seems like this achievement is NOT awarded by: - Loading into a post-game save where Dekker is alive and in your company - Loading into a pre-1.3 save and finishing the campaign with Dekker alive and in your company Current speculation is pointing towards this achievement requiring Dekker to be alive, in your company, and participating in the final battle to unlock. Thanks to Marowi for providing info on this. Assuming the unlock requirements work as expected, the best way to pull this off is to bench Dekker ASAP, avoid ship morale dropping as it may trigger an event in which Dekker leaves the company, invest in sim pods in the Argo to train him up, and putting him in the biggest, most heavily armored Mech you have for the last mission. Combat Achievements Just Getting Started/Dropping Like Big Metal Flies/That's a Lotta Salvage - Destroy 50/250/500 Mechs These are inevitable if you play the game long enough, as they count Skirmish kills and kills across all your Campaign saves. Killer of Light - Destroy 50 Light Mechs Light Mechs are 35 tons and lighter. Mass of Mediums - Destroy 50 Medium Mechs Medium Mechs are 40 to 55 tons. Heavy Metal - Destroy 50 Heavy Mechs Heavy Mechs are 60 to 75 tons. The Bigger They Are... - Destroy 50 Assault Mechs Assault Mechs are 80 to 100 tons. Surgical Extraction - Kill a pilot without destroying their Mech "destroying their Mech" refers specifically to destroying the Center Torso. There's a couple of ways to kill the pilot without destroying the CT - While the simplest is to destroy the Head, that's not necessarily easy until later in the game. The more reliable method is pilot injuries. Non-lethal head hits, knockdowns, side torso destructions, and ammo explosions all inflict an injury on the pilot. Like yours, enemy MechWarriors have 3-5 injuries based on their Guts stat. Missile boats make MechWarrior takedowns easier, as the spread of impacts means you have more shots at hitting the Head than with energy weapons or ACs, and their high stability damage makes knockdowns more likely. If you have a missile-heavy lance, you'll likely get this by accident. If you somehow don't have it by late game, get a 10 Gunnery/10 Tactics MechWarrior, put them in something with +damage PPCs or AC/20s, and go pop the head off something with a Called Shot. While the text of the achievement suggests legging doesn't work, since the pilot isn't necessarily killed, I wouldn't be surprised if it does anyways. Feel free to drop a comment if you got this by legging a Mech. Alpha Striker - Destroyed an enemy 'Mech with an Alpha Strike You'll likely get this without trying, since "use all your guns" has the highest potential damage, especially if you have a mech built for high alpha (MLas Vindicator/Hunchback are good early choices). Protip: If your mech only has one weapon, every strike is an Alpha Strike. Kneecapper - Destroyed an enemy 'Mech's leg with a Called Shot If you somehow don't get this by accident in the late-game, use a 10 Gunnery/10 Tactics MechWarrior and use a Precision Strike to either leg with enough damage to blow it out. Look Out Below/On Wings of Flame - Destroyed 5/20 enemy 'Mechs with Death from Above Goomba Stomp some Mechs. DFA hit chance is determined by Piloting, and damage can be increased with certain leg mods. Easy enough if as you're wrapping up a battle, you choose to DFA the stragglers. Sock 'Em/Rock 'Em - Destroyed 5/50 enemy 'Mechs in melee Like Look Out Below, but without causing your Mechs arbitrary leg damage. Melee hit chance is also determined by Piloting, and damage can be increased with certain arm mods. Again, melee near-death mechs as you clean up the end of a skirmish. If your melee mechs have support weapons equipped, make sure they're either toggled off or your melee does enough damage to destroy the CT, as support weapons fire after a melee and don't count as the melee for purposes of kills. DFA kills count as melee kills, too. Stomp the Yard/Bug Stomper - Destroyed 5/50 enemy vehicles with melee Same as Sock 'Em Rock 'Em, but easier since vehicles take double damage from melee, and more satisfying since stepping on tanks is hilarious. Kick 'Em When They're Down - Made a melee attack on an enemy 'Mech that was knocked prone You'll likely get this by accident while collecting your melee kills. If not... just... melee a prone mech. Double Kill - Destroyed two 'Mechs in the same turn using Multi-Target The same Mech has to score both kills in a single activation of Multi-Target. Since you can't use Precision Strike or called shots while multi-targeting, you'll probably want to engineer this by sandpapering down the target mechs with LRMs first. Had Your Chance - Miss a Called Shot This isn't to simply miss the location of your Called Shot, but to miss the Mech entirely. use Precision Strike with a MechWarrior with ♥♥♥♥ Gunnery, ideally shooting through cover at the extreme of their weapon's range band. One Shot - Destroyed an enemy 'Mech's head with a Called Shot This actually kinda sucks to do. Even with a 10 Gunnery/10 Tactics MechWarrior, your max chance to hit the head on a Called Shot is going to be 18%. All you can do is take every opportunity for Called Shots to the Head. Missile-heavy loadouts will help you get knockdowns to open up opportunities for Called Shots. Alternatively, if you max out your Morale on the strategy layer and put a Comms System in each of your Mechs, you can spam Precision Strikes instead, which is the more consistent way to take Called Shots. I recommend keeping at least one 10/10 MW in a Mech with an AC/20, so you can attempt Beta Strike whenever you see an Orion. Beta Strike - Destroyed an enemy Orion with an AC/20 headshot Hey, we were just talking about this! This achievement arguably sucks harder than One Shot, since you still need a headshot kill, but it has to be with a specific weapon (AC/20) against a specific Mech (Orion). It doesn't require it to be a Called Shot, so if you get a phenomenally lucky random Head hit, you can pick this up by accident, but you may as well take the Called Shots when you get the opportunity. Highlander Burial - Destroyed an enemy light 'Mech with a Highlander Death from Above Either play a Skirmish with jump-capable Highlanders, or acquire one in the Campaign and keep an eye out for Light Mechs. This is probably faster to do in Skirmish since you can engineer the circumstances you need. In either case, just give that Locust the old goomba stomp and call it a day. Tis But a Scratch/It's Only a Flesh Wound/I'm Invincible!/We'll Call It a Draw - Removed one arm/both arms/both arms and one leg/all the limbs of an enemy 'Mech If you've seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know how to do this. If not, go get some culture. Precision Strike is your friend here - you may not want to try this until you have Comms System upgrades, because you'll be burning through a lot of Morale. Save one mech for last and go arm, arm, leg, leg. Doesn't matter whether you go left side or right side first, but I do believe you have to take down both arms before moving onto the legs. Obviously, you can't do both legs first as double legs kills the Mech. Mercenary Mode Achievements This is the stuff that's specific to the campaign while not tied to the story. Of Mercenary Mind/Work is Steady/Living the Mercenary Life/A Mercenary's Work is Never Done/Legend of the Periphery - Completed your first/10/25/50/100 mercenary contract(s) Priority Missions don't count, so you'll need to farm up some work. Progression is tracked across campaigns. Of Noble Heart - Negotiated for nothing but reputation in a completed contract Take a contract, drop the C-Bills and Salvage bars to the minimum, and complete it. "nothing but reputation" is perhaps confusing wording, as you'll still get some money and salvage, just the minimum amount for the contract. This must be done on a contract for a Successor State, the Magistry of Canopus, the Taurian Concordat, or the Arano Restoration, as those are the factions you can negotiate for a rep bonus with. Gimme the Goods - Negotiated for nothing but salvage in a completed contract Take a contract, max out the Salvage bar, and complete it. This is a good idea for Defend Base and Assassinate contracts anyways, since you're likely to encounter lots of Mechs and valuable Mechs, respectively, on those types of missions. 5 Millionaire/10 Millionaire/Big Money, Big Prizes - Saved up over 5/10/20 million C-bills You need to have the above amount of money at once in your Funds. The achievement pops as soon as you hit each milestone, so you don't have to keep it for any length of time. If you don't sell off salvage frequently and somehow don't have these by end-game, check your inventory: you likely have hundreds of jump jets, heat sinks, and stock weapons that can push you over the milestones. Hope They Last/Who's Next?/Keep 'Em Coming/MechWarrior Factory - Hired 5/25/50/100 MechWarriors This is another sheer numbers achievement. Replace MechWarriors as they die or get fired. Your starting team doesn't count. Progress is tracked across campaigns. Deadeye/Danger Zone/No Guts, No Galaxy/Master Tactician - Maxed out a MechWarrior's Gunnery/Piloting/Guts/Tactics stat Get a single MechWarrior to 10 of each stat. Going from level 1 to level 10 of any stat takes 28,500 XP. You can scum this if you really want to, but there's really no need. Unless you're terrible at keeping people alive, you'll get multiple 10-10-10-10 MechWarriors by the end of the game. Top of the Crew - Your 1st MechWarrior to max out stats with 10s in all skills Just get a 10-10-10-10 MechWarrior, 4Head. Easy if you have a post-game save before 1.3 - all of your MechWarriors' skills will be reset to what they started at and XP will be refunded. This will allow you to re-allocate them to a 10x4. Tinkerer/Years of Sweat - Refitted 25/50 'Mechs Since any change of loadout, as well as replacing destroyed IS, counts as a refit, you'll get this pretty quickly. Saving the Metal! - Completed 25 'Mech repair work orders This is any repair of a Mech that's taken structure damage. If you brawl a lot, you'll probably get this quickly. If you play a scout and 3 LRMboats, play a couple missions in man mode to speed this along. Laser Show - Refitted a 'Mech with only Energy weapons Very simple to do. If you do a repair refit on a Mech that already only has Energy weapons, you'll get this. Protip: It doesn't have to be a good loadout - 1 medium laser only still fits the criteria. In 1.0.3, HBS "fixed an issue that trivialized completion" of these achievements, which might include one or both of the above methods. In this case, the easiest "legitimate" way to earn this would be to fill every hardpoint with the smallest weapon of its type, which for Energy would be the Medium Laser. Raining Fire - Refitted a 'Mech with only Missile weapons Same as Laser Show. The smallest Missile weapon is the LRM5 or SRM2. Bullet Farmer - Refitted a 'Mech with only Ballistic weapons Same as Laser Show. The smallest Ballistic weapon is the AC/2. Punchmaster 6000 - Refitted a 'Mech with only Support weapons Same as Laser Show. All of these are tiny. Tank Up - Refitted a 'Mech with the maximum amount of armor Armor is king, so you'll probably do this anyways. Totally Awesome - Refitted a 'Mech other than an Awesome equipped with three or more PPCs Keep in mind that this doesn't have to be a functional build. The mech can have no armor and overheat as soon as it fires, but as long as it has 3 PPCs, you're golden. This means you need to find a mech with 3 Energy hardpoints and 21 tons to spare. You should be able to fit this on the starting Blackjack or Vindicator if you strip them down. Look What I Made - Built 10 'Mechs by collecting/salvaging their parts Any combination of salvaging and purchasing Partial Mech Salvage will get you this, and it'll pop with the 10th Mech that you rebuild. Fresh Off the Lot - Purchased a new 'Mech chassis Some planets will have entire Mechs for sale, as opposed to the Partial Mech Salvage that you have to have three of to make a Mech. Just buy a Mech from one of these planets and it'll pop. In Over Your Head - Retreated once from a contract before any of your 'Mechs got destroyed Hit that Withdraw button in the corner of the screen once you've started a mission. Unsure if you need to enter combat first. One 'Mech Army - Successfully completed a contract using only one 'Mech This can be done easily early on, and hilariously probably easier in mid-game, all with the humble starting Spider. Take the Spider, max out its jump jets and armor, and add a Hit Defense Gyro if you have one. Put in your highest Piloting MechWarrior, and solo a Recovery mission. You're going to be abusing the defensive power of Jump Jets - once you are in range of enemies, jump into the zone (or as close as you can) and Brace. Depending on the Piloting of your MechWarrior and the quality of your gyro, you'll tank the enemy's one turn of fire with as high as a -45% chance to be hit, and 50% damage reduction on anything that does. After you've loaded the VIP, sprint towards the evac point. You should be able to make it out of range in a single turn. Complete Roster - Acquired all 36 launch date 'Mechs Hope you like PokeMech! The Mechs you have to collect are: Light: Locust, Commando, Spider, UrbanMech, Firestarter, Jenner, Panther Medium: Cicada, Blackjack, Vindicator, Centurion, Enforcer, Hunchback, Trebuchet, Griffin, Kintaro, Shadow Hawk, Wolverine Heavy: Dragon, Quickdraw, Catapult, JagerMech, Thunderbolt, Cataphract, Grasshopper, Black Knight, Orion Assault: Awesome, Victor, Zeus, Battlemaster, Stalker, Highlander, Banshee, Atlas, King Crab All you need to have is any one copy of each Mech, as opposed to one of each variant (which would involve hunting down 59 variants, and would suck). You must have every Mech in your possession, either active in the Mech Bay or in storage, at once for this to pop. You start the game with a Blackjack, Shadow Hawk, Vindicator, Spider, and Locust, and will be granted a Centurion As far as acquisition goes, remember that enemy Mech tonnage increases based on milestone Priority Missions. This does mean that you'll need to play the Restoration campaign to gain access to every chassis, and will probably need to do a fair bit of grinding unless you're godly at beheading Mechs. For easiest collecting, I'd recommend you make sure you've collected every Light Mech before starting First Strike (except the UrbanMech, which is only found in stores as of v1.0), and every Medium Mech before Liberation: Smithon. This achievement seems to currently be buggy for campaigns started before the 1.0.3 patch. A potential fix seems to be readying all Mechs that were in storage before the 1.0.3 patch and returning them to storage. You may also need to salvage/purchase another Mech to trigger the achievement. Thanks to Zloth for sleuthing out this fix. Career Mode These are achievements specific to Career Mode, the game mode added in the Flashpoints update. Survived A Mercenary Career - Completed your first Career Mode campaign with any rank Career Mode lasts 1200 in-game days. If you manage to make it to the end without going bankrupt or, presumably, dying, you win! Good job. A Veteran Mercenary/An Elite Mercenary/A Legendary Mercenary/A Career Unheard of in Over Two Centuries - Accomplished a Career Mode score at Veteran/Elite/Legendary/Kerensky rank Career Mode is also scored when you finish, it's currently unclear whether you receive a score if your career ends prematurely or if you have to ride out the entire 1200 days, but for the higher scores you'll likely need to use every day of it anyways. The minimums for each tier are: Veteran: 320,000 points Elite: 480,000 points Legendary: 720,000 points Kerensky: 784,000 points As of Patch 1.3, it seems that it is currently impossible to obtain a Kerensky rank as the upper limit of Career Mode scoring is 770,015. Thanks to Marowi for reporting this. Reputation These are the achievements for allying with the various factions of the game world. They're all very simple and boil down to "do missions for the faction, don't work against them, hit 100 reputation and hit Ally With Faction", so each individual achievement which I'm including for perfectionism's sake will likely include humorous anecdotes or Battletech lore. If you played a lot in post-game before Patch 1.3, it's possible you'll be able to load that save and ally with multiple factions, since reputation losses were insignificant compared to the amount of reputation gained, especially if you chose to forfeit part of your pay. Indomitable Will - Become Allied with House Steiner House Steiner is the northwestern-most faction of the Inner Sphere, or at least on maps of it (do cardinal directions exist in space?). They specialize in beautiful blonde boys, big guns, and big mechs, with 4 Atlases referred to as a "Steiner Scout Lance". They also are fond of cheating, with the last boss of MechCommander 2's campaign being a Steiner Colonel who pilots a jump-capable(???) Atlas. I'm aware that the Atlas can be fitted with Jump Jets in HBStech as well, but it was dumb then and it's dumb now. By Freedom's Sword - Become Allied with House Davion The Federated Suns position themselves as champions of freedom and liberty, but House Davion managed to turn a democratic government led by a President into a constitutional monarchy with House Davion at the head. Ironic, huh? One Vision - Become Allied with House Liao I guess this is the house motto of House Liao, but all I can think of is the (much better) "KANE LIVES" cutscene from Tiberian Sun. Man, too bad Westwood isn't around anymore. Honor The Dragon - Become Allied with House Kurita Wait, really? The Draconis Combine, whose emblem is a dragon, has the house motto of "Honor the Dragon". I'm surprised FASA had the restraint to not call them House Ryujin. We Stand United - Become Allied with House Marik The actual (relative) champions of freedom in Battletech, and also the George Harrison of the Inner Sphere. Hail to the Queens - Become Allied with the Magistracy of Canopus Remember this faction? The one that ostensibly bankrolled the events of the campaign? Me neither. Loyal to the Periphery - Become Allied with the Taurian Concordat Remember this faction? Ostensibly the bad guys, with Space Adam Jensen? I pretty much only remember Space Adam Jensen. Yar Har Fiddle Dee Dee - Become Allied with Pirates BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT WITH ME! DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE, YOU ARE A PIRATE! Keep in mind that basically every faction hates Pirates, so don't expect to go for Kerensky rank in the same Career Mode run in which you do this. Multiplayer Achievements Rookie/Seasoned MechWarrior/Grizzled Vet - Played 5/50/100 online multiplayer matches Play a lot of Battletech multiplayer. I don't have anything clever or insightful to say about this. Good Start/Champion in the Making/MechDominator/Legendary MechCommander - Won 1/25/50/100 online multiplayer match(es) See above. Hope you like playing scout/LRM boat lances? I guess? Try, Try Again - Lost 10 online matches Again, nothing insightful here. I believe you have to actual play and lose instead of just disconnecting, so... lose fast? Eck's Gon' Give It to Ya - Battled someone who has this achievement (and therefore has either battled HBS developer/BT tourney champ Chris Eck or battled someone who battled someone...who has) Convince Chris Eck (@Eck314 on Twitter) to play me (@Serothel on Twitter) in Battletech, DM me after the game, and I'll spread this achievement to you. P.S. Harebrained, you get a pass because the name of this achievement is great, but viral achievements are dumb. Cheese Achievements These are achievements that, while possible to do "legitimately", are most easily cheesed through single-player Skirmish and custom lances. Since you're reading a 100% Achievements guide, I'll assume you're willing to do the latter, although I'll include brief thoughts on the former where relevant. Getting the Hang of It/Champion of the Arena - Won 50/100 Skirmish matches This is... grindy. If you want to take this seriously, I suppose you could use the 100 matches to experiment with different lance compositions and learn the nuances of the various maps. Or, you could make a lance that stomps on a relatively powerless OpFor lance and grind these out mindlessly while catching up on or starting a new TV show. I recommend Brooklyn Nine-Nine by virtue of "it's hilarious". Who's Unbalanced? - Won a skirmish match using fewer 'Mechs than the AI opponent Man-Mode: Field Mechs that you're good with that have an advantage over the OpFor's Mechs, whether it be range, raw damage, whatever works for you. Easy Mode: 3 Atlases vs. 4 Locusts is still a 3v4. Plague of Locusts - Won a 4v4 match with all of your 'Mechs being Locusts This achievement is ambiguously worded, but thanks to user X-Juvenal89 we know that your mechs must be Locusts, but the OpFor lance doesn't have to be. However, the easiest thing for a Locust to kill is another Locust, so there's no sense doing anything but 4 Locust vs. 4 Locust. Man-Mode: There's a couple ways to go about this. With stock mechs, you can try the LCT-1M and keep the others ranged, but you have limited LRM ammo and minimal armor. What's probably easiest is to make the enemy Locusts LCT-1M, use the 1V or 1S configuration for your own Mechs, and get up close and personal. Easy Mode: Make a trash Locust variant. MechLab won't let you make a Mech with 0 armor in any location, so give it 5 armor everywhere. It also needs a weapon, so give it one Flamer (flamers plural are dangerous, flamer singular is trash). Use any of the stock Locusts (or your own variant, I prefer MLas+3SLas) to steamroll them. Atlas Shrugged - Won a skirmish match with an Atlas vs four AI Commandos Man-Mode: This is actually really hard, and while I won't say it's impossible, I'm not sure that it's possible with stock Mechs. 4 stock COM-2Ds will kill your MechWarrior through head hits before they breach your armor, and while there's less risk with COM-1Bs, damage from those lasers can add up. I'd recommend going against the 1Bs. For a mid-tier challenge, remove the SRMs from the 1Bs and replace them with lasers or more heat sinks so they're still dealing damage but have a lower chance of killing your MechWarrior, and run an LRM-heavy Atlas to abuse knockdowns and injuries. Easy Mode: Make a Commando variant with one Flamer and minimum armor. Laugh as your Atlas eats a Commando every turn. Age-Old Question - Won a skirmish match with three Commandos vs an AI Atlas Man-Mode: As mentioned above, the COM-2D model is your friend playing stock due to its SRM-heavy loadout. You should keep running to keep evasion stacks high, preferably ending moves in cover or out of LoS. Easy Mode: Make an Atlas variant with one Flamer and minimum armor. If you think you know how the rest of this section of the guide is going to go, congratulate yourself on being super right. Burn the Atlas down by whatever method you prefer, but keep your distance. It may not have guns, but its melee will still oneshot one of your Commandos if it hits CT. The Deadliest Catch - Fielded a lance of four King Crabs, won, and lost no 'Mechs Man-Mode: King Crabs are slow but powerful, and the bulk of their output comes from the double AC/20s. Make sure whatever lance you go up against doesn't outrange you. Watch your heat and ammo as well, as the AC20s have limited ammo and run hot. Easy Mode: 4 King Crabs vs. 4 Locusts or any Light lance. Cackle maniacally as double AC/20 hits oneshot Lights. The Trashmen Cometh - Fielded a lance of four UrbanMechs, won, and lost no 'Mechs Man-Mode: You'll be hard-pressed to find a similar BV lance that 4 Urbies can take down with no losses. The AC/10s can do some heavy damage, but your limited ammo means every miss is painful and the Urbie is basically useless once you're out. Good luck! Easy Mode: mike_hanna211 reports that this achievement requires the enemy lance to have 4 mechs, so dunk on some Locusts. Making the Most of What You've Got/Undaunted/Fortune Favors the Bold - Won a skirmish match with a Lance Value 15m less than the OpFor's Man-Mode: It's going to be tough to do this at higher deficits, as a greater LV divide means you're increasingly outnumbered and/or outgunned. I recommend you curate this fight by creating a lance that can exploit the weaknesses of the enemy lance and play to your strengths. Frustratingly, despite being a (theoretically) escalating challenge, completing a match at a 15m deficit does not unlock the achievements for 5m and 10m LV deficits. Be prepared to do this 3 times, and adjust your lance composition(s) to each deficit level. Easy Mode: All of that stuff, except you'll be exploiting the fact that Assault Mechs have extremely high BV even with few or no weapons attached.

A quick guide covering basic gameplay and advanced strategy and tactics. Introduction "Know thyself. Know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." - Sun Tzu I have been a fan of Battletech and the MechWarrior series for a long time. In fact, I remember playing the original game out of the box on a hex map. Some of the offerings since then have been great, some significantly less so, but I've always enjoyed the rich lore of the expanded universe. Heck, I even played the card game! But I didn't really know what to expect when I started playing Battletech a few weeks ago. I admit now that I didn't take it as seriously as I should have. Needless to say, it's been a crash course since then. This guide was created so that I can share some of what I've learned in hopes of sparing others from making the same mistakes I did. I will only cover some of the basics of gameplay and moderately advanced tactics and strategies. If you are looking for a more definative and complete guide, I will direct you to Kurisu's "A General Gameplay Guide". https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/editguidesubsection/?id=1389215573&sectionid=2532067 While I may not agree with everything he states, I highly recommend it to any budding mechwarrior trying to learn his/her craft. "Yours is the superior intellect..." Joachim in Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan A Few First Thoughts These topics are some of the least known but best ways to improve your gameplay and mech loadouts right out of the gate. 1. Managing Heat Generally speaking, the fewer heat sinks, the better. Unless you are building a dedicated energy platform, they take away tonnage that could be allocated for heavier weapons. A heat neutral mech is a poorly designed mech. Heat should build every round, forcing you to be as effecient and effective as possible in allocating damage resources. When your tank/brawler is heat critical, you should be looking for someone to punch in the face. Switching to a melee attack is a good alternative to being forced to fire only one or two weapons to keep your mech from shutting down and cooking your pilot. It's also a hugely damaging attack, strips gaurded and ignores cover, applies a massive amount of stability damage, alllows your mech to cool, and fires the ever-so-hoped-for anti-personnel weapons. These include machine guns, flamers, and small lasers. 2. Anti-Personnel Weapons Upgraded small lasers are the most heat efficient and pound for pound the hardest hitting weapons in the game. For 5 heat on a +++ weapon you get 30 damage and 50% crit. And it will only cost you half a ton. That means you could load up 4 small lasers for only a couple of tons. 120 Damage for twenty heat and two tons! Did I mention they fire AFTER the melee phase? That means they crit more easily as well. Best weapon in the game. If you can just get in range... Flamers are great as well. My King Crab has four mounted. I love that I can shut down a mech or roast the pilot inside AND do 40 points of regular damage after I kneecap my victim. It's a thing of beauty. Haven't used Machine Guns much, but I hear they're great for landing injuries on pilots. 3. Not So Great Weapons PPC's suck. Yup. They are one of the worst weapons in this game. I'm sorry. Too much heat. Too many tons, I would only use them on a dedicated energy platform with a +3 TTS energy mod. Why would I add a PPC to my sniper loadout (the only real place for it) when I can mount an LRM15 or 20 that hits harder, has better stability damage and produces far less heat? Medium Lasers aren't the answer. I know, your probably saying WHUT? Ok, I'll try to explain. The best medium lasers come with a damage increase of +10 and an +1 accuracy mod. First of all, beam weapons already have an inherent accuracy boost so they really don't need the extra accuracy. And they generate 10 heat. 10 HEAT. Doesn't seem like a lot. But when you start stacking them, your heat goes through the roof. For comparison, my +++A/C 20 does 120 damage and 60 stab damage for 25 heat. Four ++ medium lasers do the same amount of damage but spread out and with no stability damage for 40 heat. You do the math. I'm not saying you shouldn't use medium lasers. I'm saying use them more as fillers and don't go overboard. 4. Equipment Cockpit modifiers that protect your pilot are good. Comm systems are great. Rangefinders not so much. Gyros should be installed on every mech. I use hit defense on my boats and snipers, and stab defense on my tanks/brawlers. Thirty percent stab reduction on my rampaging assault ensures that he is still rampaging after the first round. TTS accuracy mods on missile boat and sniper only if you can afford the tonnage. It's a nice perk, but it can cost you in tons the difference between an LRM15 and an LRM20. Please note, you cannot improve your accuracy beyond your base rating with TTS mods. However, they will improve your accuracy in most cases. For example, if your base accuracy is 80 percent and you have a bunch of negative modifiers like firing uphill, firing out of a weapons' optimum range, ect all of which drops your accuracy to say 60 percent, a TTS mod would effectively erase those negative modifiers. That's a damage difference of almost 25%. Double Heat Sinks are the bomb. Use them and try not to lose them. They are irreplaceable. Arm and leg actuators just take up space and tonnage, don't use them unless you are running a funky melee setup. Although I REALLY wish I could afford that +60 stab damage arm mount on my King Crab..talk about knocking someone into tomorrow. 5. SRM's In terms of weapons, SRM's are my favorite. Great damage, good range, and their ability to crit or add stab damage is excellent. Plus they just look cool. In terms of heat and damage efficiency, the SRM4 is better than the SRM6. It's almost half the heat for two-thirds the damage. Great weapons to loadout together in a package with a couple of lasers. A stock loadout of 1 SRM6, 1 SRM4, 1 SRM AMMO, and 2 MEDIUM LASERS will produce 130 raw possible damage, and up to 30 stability damage for 8 tons and 42 heat. Not bad. Rares will increase your damage by 60 for the same amount of heat. This means for the same 8 tons you have a 42 heat, 190 damage alpha strike that does a large amount of stability damage as well. Pilot Stats and Skills This section took me the longest to understand and quite honestly may be different based on your playstyle. With a few notable exceptions, everything except the hard data should be prefaced with "Generally speaking..." The FOUR STATS are: Gunnery: Increases your base to-hit percentage. Simple, effective, and used with every shot. Points in this category are never wasted. Piloting: Increases max evasion by 1-2. Increases Melee to-hit percentage by up to 25%. Sprint 20% longer. Increases mech unsteady threshold by two. Reduces DFA damage by 25%. My favorite skill tree, this has so much to offer a hotshot mechjock. The max evasion is good, the sprint is excellent, (especially on heavier platforms), but the unsteady threshold increase is where it really shines. In the late game, and especially with slower assault brawlers, it's not your armor that you worry about, it's getting knocked over by mulitple volleys of stability damage. This skill is great for every mech the pilot straps into. Guts: Increases max health by 1-3. Decreases recoil penalty by up to 2. Increases mech heat threashold by 30. My second favorite category, this skill tree offers some great survivability perks. Not only are you harder to kill, you can shoot that AC/20 almost every round without worrying about accuracy fallout AND your mechpilot won't cook as quickly in his/her seat. Heat threshold is critically important in Battetech because heat=damage output. The more you're able to fire your weapons, the quicker you knock out the opposition. Once again, every mech will benefit from this pilot skill. Tactics: Decreases indirect fire penalty by 1-3. Decreases minimum firing range by 45-90 meters. Increases called shot to-hit percentage. My least favorite skill tree because it's so specialized. The indirect fire penalty reduction is only good for missile boats and the minimum range penalty reduction really only shines on extremely long range weapons like PPC's and LRM's. The called shot bonuses, however, are nearly indespensible. Which is why I recommend getting every pilot to Called Shot Mastery fairly quickly. The FOUR SKILLS are: Gunnery Skills - Multishot, Breaching Shot Piloting Skills - Evasive Movement, Ace Pilot Guts Skills - Bulwark, Juggernaught Tactics Skills - Sensor Lock, Master Tactician Okay, here is the REAL meat of this section. How do you build your pilots? Well, that depends on how you build your lance. In my opinion, there are a few rules to stick by. ONE. Don't mix Bulwark and Evasive Movement. They are counter productive. One gives you bonuses for standing still, and one gives you bonuses for moving. You won't EVER do both in the same round. TWO. Sensor Lock is overrated. I'll tell you why later. Just trust me. In my opinion it's only good at the beginning of an engagement to uncover a target for a sniper shot or if you have absolutely nothing better to do. And I would argue in most cases it's better to brace. THREE. Multishot, Breaching Shot, and Ace Pilot are tactically situational and will not be efficient when compared to Bulwark or Master Tactician. Juggernaught is so specialized it's almost a joke. Don't get it. You should only have one pilot at a time in a deployed lance with one or two of these perks at the most. FOUR. Master Tactician is hands down the best pilot skill in the game. WHY? Because you use it every round your pilot is on the field. EVERY ROUND. And it allows you to choose to move and fire before your opponent in the same weight class. AND it allows a heavy mech to reserve twice and an assualt mech to reserve once. AND when they reserve they eliminate stab damage. I cannot stress how much moving and firing before your opponents mechs in the same weight class puts you at a huge advantage. Use this to core out an unfortunate target before they even get to shoot. My optimum pilot deployment includes a Vangaurd(Tactics 8, Guts 5) or Lancer(Gunnery 8, Guts 5) for my missile boat, a Vangaurd for my Sniper, a Scout(Tactics 8, Piloting 5) for my Tank/Brawler, and a Scout for my off-tank/finisher. Lance Makeup Disclaimer: Lances and loadouts can be modified for different tactical situations and are not one size fits all. What works for someone may not appeal to the guy next door sitting at his computer eating cheetos. In addition, there are certain missions that require unique loadouts to complete. Be flexible and open to learning new techniques. Mechs, like pilots, should be specialized for the roles they will fill in combat. Although some platforms can perform mulitple tasks easily, others may be regulated to the "melta-your-face-with-ten-laser-beams" only category. I categorize my mechs a little bit different than the stock loadout screen suggests. As shown in the last section, my optimum lance consists of a missile boat, a sniper, and two tanks. The strategy is effective in the mid to late game and for most, but not all, missions. Simply put, it involves my missile boat softening the target, eliiminating evasion with heavy stability damage, followed by a knockdown and called shots to key components or the destruction of the target. The stability damage is critical. I don't expect to hurt an assualt mech with dual 15's or 20's, but if I'm loaded for +2 stab damage, I can usually reach their unsteady threshold, stripping them of their evasion completely. This is then followed up by a scapel-like strike by my sniper, using Precision Shot to either core out the center of a lighter mech or shave off the torso of a heavy/assualt. My sniper also uses heavy stab damage weapons to hopefully tip the mech as well. My sniper loadout is a guass rifle, a rare A/C 5 with increased damage and stab damage, and an LRM15 or 20 with stab damage and CRIT PERCENTAGE. Why the crit on the missiles? Why the missiles at all? Well, missiles travel slower than ballistics and beam weapons and they do heavy stability damage with great crit ability. By the time they reach the target area, it's usually only structure or it's destroyed, transfering damage toward the center. And if I'm smart, I've targeted their ammo supply. BOOM. Injured pilot, exploded torso, tipped mech. The fact that they have range compatibility with my other weapons is just icing on the cake. My brawlers are usually a heavy and an assault or two assaults. I usually run a King Crab loaded for bear in one slot and either an Atlas or another 80+ ton mech in the other slot. The tanks have excessive ballistic loadouts like 2 A/C 20's or 4 SRM's with extra damage and heavy stab damage with a couple of medium lasers thrown in. They are meant to approach and pressure the target(s) and thus are expected to move almost every round. This means the pilots benefit generously from the Evasive Movement perk and jump jets. Let me stop and say something here. Jump jets are critical on your brawlers. Not only do they allow you to travel farther than a regular move (though usually not as far as a dead sprint), you can choose any facing, you get more evasion pips, and you don't have to worry about terrain movement modifiers. In addition, you can choose to fire or brace after jumping. It's worth the 3 or 4 tons in my humble opinion. So, shoot to knock down. Stability damage is king here. Once the mech is knocked over, it injures the pilot again (important when salvaging whole mechs), and allows your brawlers to finish the job with called shots. Thus my treatise on the importance of the tactics tree. If, for some reason, the mech has survived, it's initiative is reduced by 1 for the next round which means you get more free called shots. Knockdown is death sentence in Battletech. Learn it. Love it. Live it. One final note. There is some disagreement on using Sensor Lock vs firing. Hmm. To reveal a target and reduce its evasion by two is nice I guess. But wouldn't it be better to brace and wait until next round when the target reveals itself and then use the above mentioned tactics to knock it over and reduce it's initiative? Some mechs have no problem replacing evasion pips. I believe its a wasted move in most cases. FYI The following are a few final thoughts and some general tips on gameplay. 1. Move past the initial starting area fairly quickly. It's designed to keep you poor and doesn't have much to offer in terms of mechs and loot. 2. In the beginning, don't advance the campaign too quickly. There are missions designed to test your tonnage and damage output and no amount of tactical manuevering/creative scout loadouts will suffice. Unless you enjoy bloody noses from beating your head against a wall. 3. Before you launch, check the store. This helps to decide what priority salvage to choose at the end of the mission and is generally a good idea at every stop. It's also important to know that shops spawn different items depending on their planet characteristics, i.e. "manufacturing", "inner sphere", "rich", ect. 4. Max out your front armor, 2/3 to 3/4 rear armor. Armor is life. 5. Present your better side if possible. If your taking a beating on your left side and your armor is slagging off at an alarming rate, manuever so that incoming damage is most likely to hit your undamaged or least damage side. 6. The AI is both brutally smart and remarkably dumb. Prepare for both and take advantage of the lapses in intelligence. For example, I've seen a lonely surviving scout mech take on my full lance in a suicidal run of rabid revenge instead of kiting or retreating. Or manuever through a pile of super overheating radioactive ash causing shutdown. But I've also witnessed the AI perform complex flanking manuevers and priority targeting. In fact, if one of your mechs gets damaged or knocked down, it WILL focus fire with every mech, turrent, and vehicle it can until you're either destroyed or get up. And then they'll continue to focus your most damaged mech until you run screaming for cover. Heck, I've even seen the computer priority target the most "dangerous" weapon that my lance carried, usually an A/C 20 in an arm or torso slot. 7. Guarded, Entrenched>Evasion>Cover. Hard to beat 50% damage and stab damage reduction. 8. Playstyles can vary significantly and there's no "correct" way to load out a mech or train a pilot. There are good, better, and even better ways, however mechs and pilots can be specialized for different roles and can perform strikingly effective in different tactical situations. That's all I have for now. Thanks for reading my guide. I hope you learned something! Feel free to comment. Feedback is useful for improving my guide. Give me a rating as well if you feel so inclined. Happy hunting, mechwarriors! Trouble

大家好， 由于Unity引擎存在安全问题，我们将为《暴战机甲兵》发布一个热修复更新。此更新仅针对Windows和Mac版本；我们仍在研究Linux版本的解决方案，预计很快会有结果。 你可以通过以下链接了解更多关于该安全问题的信息：https://unity.com/security/sept-2025-01

There are quite a lot of mechs, but there are some far better than others, and there are some far worse than others. This guide will tell you which ones to get, and which ones to sell. 1. Current Weapon Balance In This Game (as of 2020 1.9.1 Patch). It is impossible to talk about the mech's performance without weapon balance in HBS Battletech game. Forget about the table top balance, since HBS pretty much changed a lot of values here and there, and they added a thing called stability damage, which is loosely related from roll when a mech is taken more than 100 damage (20 from tabletop). Here are quick summary. 1) Normal PPCs are way too hot and limited thanks to nerfs on numbers and the nature of the game where long-range combat is rarely effective. 2) HBS buffed ballistic weapons, with ammo explosion far less common since all empty critical spaces are now acting as pads. 3) HBS kind of nerfed missile weapons' raw damage but gave them immense stability damage. 4) With all of visibility changes and maps themselves, range advantage is shockingly small. 5) This game uses hardpoint system, which was invented in MW4 era and used by MWO and now this game. Thus there are hard limit on customization on mechs' weaponry unlike MW3 and older games. Consider the fact that the fastest and the most reliable way to kill a mech in a game is... 1) Knock the mech down with weapons with high stability damage. 2) Use free precision fire to destroy center torso. 3) Keep doing this since a player is always outnumbered by 1:2 or even 1:3 if you got a bad roll on a mission difficulty. These three requirements mean that you need a heat efficient weapon that does a lot of damage to quickly destroy knocked down mech's center torso. Energy: The biggest issue for all energy weapons with exception of PPC is that they have ZERO stability damage. They do not contribute knocking down a mech, which makes them highly undesirable when you want to knock down enemy mechs. However, unlike missiles which now have complicated mechanics, energy weapon can reliably focus-fire well with precision-strike, very well-suited for a finisher job mechs which are supposed to have very high alpha damage to kill downed mechs. Try grab ER Medium lasers and pulse lasers as many as possible. PPC can be still somewhat usable on light mechs and lighter medium mechs which do not have enough tonnage for anything other than energy weapons, and can utilize internal heat dissipation values (-30). Good example of mechs that can be used with PPC are Panther and Vindicator. It's a bit different for Snub PPC, which is essentially en energy version of LBX cannons, which is better than LBX cannons themselves. While standard ones is about as sub-par as normal PPC, enhanced versions such as +10 damage or stability damage is exceptionally strong because the damage applies to each shot. It means +10 damage Snub PPC actually does total of 50 additional damage to the target. +10 stability damage alone gives total of 75 stability damage, which is just 5 damage shy from normal LRM20, with 4 tons less and no need for ammo. It is highly recommend to look for those enhanced Snub PPCs for your light and medium mechs. Ballistic: With introduction of UAC, Ballistic is the best weapon as of 1.9.1. They are very good weapons against vehicles, and can instantly kill some of lighter mechs and/or cripple mechs if luck is involved. LBX versions usually have far better values than standard ACs, but the catch is LBXs are shotguns, which acts more like LRMs rather than pinpoint ballistic. LBX-2 suffers least from this huge drawback, but the problem of heavier LBXs is that they have to compete with LRMs for their job. With LRMs can do indirect fire and have more range, LBXs are unfortunately not really good choices for your mechs. LBX-2 is exception and it acts like a better version of AC-2. But the real deal is UACs. They fire twice, and the enhance versions usually have negative tonnage advantage, which makes them lighter than normal ACs. Only issue is rather massive refire penalty for heavier UACs. After firing UAC for couple of times, the accuracy decreases so much that you have no choice but not fire every 3rd or 4th shot. But lighter UAC does not suffer much from refire penalty, thus making UAC-2 and UAC-5 exceptionally strong weapons. Even with refire penalty UAC-10 and UAC-20 are generally much better than normal AC-10 and AC-20 regardless. Missiles: They were the best weapons in this game before the intorduction of UACs. SRMs give you both very high raw damage AND very high stability damage. However, now SRMs don't do well for precision strike because for each shot they lose precision strike hit chance bonus, cutting down overall alpha damage about 10~25%, which is actually significant. For tonnage, heat and damage involved, UACs match SRMs, with better range. LRMs' damage is rather deceiving, due to its forced spread damage nature that does not bring pinpoint damage, but the LRMs' role is not for damage dealer; they are for dealing stability damage to knock down mechs and remove evasion charges by making target into 'unsteady' status. LRM's rules are so crucial against heavier mechs which have huge stability health. It is always wise to grab any +stability damage variants as many as you can. Even with the introduction of LBX, with indirect fire, LRMs are still better choice for stability damage. Support: The hardpoints for small lasers, machineguns, and flamers. They were actually quite powerful, but then they got a huge nerf bat on 1.1. Small Laser is a bit hot now, and flamers just do not have enough ammo for single player missions, Machineguns got the least nerf because precision strike penalty does not matter much at close distance, but it is still nerf regardless. They really need to be boated to be useful, thus look for mechs with a lot of support hardpoints are very valuable. Conclusion. 1) Lasers : Good for finisher and maybe generalist, but with lack of stability damage hurt. 2) ACs : Most powerful with UACs. Can do both raw and stability damage, but all of them are direct fire. 3) SRMs : Second vest for generalist with high damage, still effective for finisher. 4) LRMs : All about stability damage. Dedicated role. With all of balance situations, your typical lance composition would be... 1) 2 LRM boats. Primary weapons : LRMs + some side weapons. 2) One high-alpha finisher. Primary weapons : UACs, Lasers, SRMs + some LRMs. 3) One generalist. Primary weapons : UACs, (Snub-PPC), SRMs, Lasers, LRMs. (weapon choices are ranged from best to worst). LRM boats are... LRMs. High alpha finisher should have a lot of lasers and maybe some SRMs to reliably focus fire knock down mechs, and one generalist mechs that should have some stability damage in case two LRM boats failed to knock down the target completely. Additional Info https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lbJj-yOgFc1sXgW7Cjcn_gzE1-VPiIOV-bV4tlUgOdU/edit#gid=1245211847 You can quickly look at the spreadsheet and realize what's going on the weapon balance. It is good to remember that numbers from this spreadsheet does not account stability damage. 2. Mech's Speed, Available Tonnage, Initiative, And Hardpoints. Well, faster a mech can move, it has less tonnage available. Really simple. The problem is this issue is far more severe than everyone would think. Quickdraw is a 60 ton mech, and Vindicator is a 45 ton mech. However, there is only 0.5 availabe tonnage difference between two despite the fact that Quickdraw weights 15 tons more! It gets far worse after you use additional tonnage on armor. Yes, Quickdraw actually moves more distance than Vindicator does. And yes, because since it is a 60 ton mech, Quickdraw can put more armors than Vindicator (but also make available tonnage problem worse), but you really have to consider whether fast movement and a bit more armor are really worth for losing so much tonnage. The truth is, unless we are talking about light mechs and melee mechs, speed hardly matters (yes, you can ignore Escort missions if you want) in many situations, while additional armor is still worth it. And then the initiative issue destroys these fast-moving heavy mechs. While they can move fast, they STILL have lower initiative compared to lighter mechs, which limits tactical choices available to them. That being said, it does not mean speed is completely worthless. Higher speed mechs can position far better than slower mechs, allowing those mechs to flank the targets. Finally, unlike traditional TT, this game follows hardpoint system which was invented during MW4 era. Basically, there are some limits on what weapons could be placed on which part of the mech. This creates a lot of interesting choices, strengths and weaknesses on each individual mech. For instance, a mech that has all the weapons on arm really can't shield (that is, showing only side of the mech so the enemy cannot hit center torso directly) because it will lose weapons on the arm. Some have weird hardpoint locations, such as Shadowhawk's missile port on head. It means you cannot put bigger missile weapons such as SRM6, while other mechs such as Griffin, while having same 3 missile hardpoints, does not suffer this issue. More interesting is probably ballistic locations for Atlas and King Crab. For Atlas, both B locations are on a single side torso, this restricts the size of weapons you can put if you are going to use both hardpoints. Also very vulnerable against a human player, since he/she will try to get rid of that ballistic side torso asap. But then, unlike King Crab, Atlas can shield, while King Crab, with each AC20 on each arms, will lose a lot of firepower if it tries to shield and loses an arm in process. Finally, all mechs have basic 10 heatsinks which are embedded and not shown on the mech lab. The lostech versions of the mechs are configured with double heatsinks. It means instead of normal -30 heat generation, those lostech versions have initial -60 heat generation, making those mechs incredibly valuable. In conclusion, you want to find some balance between available tonnage and speed with initiative issue in mind, as well as hardpoint locations. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fnaqQv8nnYpy9gtQm75-D6fmYfNJ5u3OALSIe8ckOuo This is a comprehensive spreadsheet for mechs, and so much more. But for now, we are focusing on mechs. The spreadsheet has information for all mechs for its available tonnage and other information. 3. Too Light To Assault. In this game, light mechs are rather lackluster compared to heavier mechs. This game is NOT Mechwarrior Online. It would be so much better if evasion mechanic is stronger. At least now there are missions with limited tonnage and stuffs, but the majority of missions still have no limit on tonnage and no negative consequence for bringing heaviest mechs possible. With no missions elements favoring low tonnage loadouts, light mechs hugely underperform most of the time, with exception of some certain main missions which have some sort of time limit on certain objectives. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Firestarter. But the mech's strength is mostly from having a lot of support hardpoints, not the strength as an light mech. Even worse in 1.1, light mechs have the smallest stability health compared to heavier mechs. Assault mechs have twice more stability health compared to light mechs. Most of the case, light mechs are simply not competitive against heavier mechs. You really want to ditch lighter mechs and deploy heavier mechs as much as possible. It is very highly recommend to ditch THAT Spider and Locust at the start of the game. The best way is keep playing main campaign until Argo mission where you get a free Centurion (without weapons though), which is one of the best medium mechs thanks to its immense available tonnage and excellent weapon hardpoints. Speaking of ditching mechs..... 4. DO NOT SCRAP. DO SELL. Yes you get MORE money if you don't scrap unneeded mechs. 1) Store the mech first. 2) Go to Store, go to sell. 3) Sell that stored mech. You will get more money from selling the mech to the market than using scrap. There is absolutely no reason to not use selling over scraping. 5. Light Mechs. 1) Locust. They are all fillers. You do not want to use them, even in the worst situation. This mech literally has only about 2.5 tons of available tonnage left if you decide to max out frontal armor. Just not worth it. All of them are not worth it at all. Maybe 1V, which you can do 1ML + 3SL and do some backstabbing, but there are far better mechs with enough tonnage to get better weapons. Verdict : Sell it. 2) Commando. Still no. Well, definitely better than Locust, with 1B variant you can do 2 X SRM4 + 1 X SRM2, which is respectable firepower, but still these light mechs have almost no armor and will die quickly once enemy mechs focus fire on them. Verdict : Sell it. 3) Spider. NO. JUST. NO. Verdict : Sell it. 4) Panther. So finally a mech with some good tonnage. Of course it sacrifices speed, making the mech not-so-good choice for scouting, but at least it can pace with medium mechs no problem. Stock setup is not so good because PPC and SRM has some serious range conflict. Either... PPC + LRM10 for long range. 4 X ML + SRM6 for short range. would be better than stock setting. You can completely remove armor from the left arm to do some tonnage saving. With frontal armor maxed out, you will get 14.5 ton of available tonnage. Panther is indeed a usable mech, but you still want to go for a bigger tonnage mech if possible. Verdict : Keep it til you get medium mechs. 5) Jenner. Ah Jenner, it is a powerful mech, if you make it into paper. But with frontal armor maxed out, you can only get about 6 tons of available tonnage. Quite not enough. The trick is either going for full lasers (4 X ML) or full missiles. You can put 2 X SRM6 and two tons of ammo by striping all arm armors and additional striping on other places. Or you can go 2 X SRM4 and get some more armor and jumpjets. I have to say 2 X SRM6 is very powerful, for an light mech. Verdict : Keep it til you get medium mechs. 6) Firestarter. A very extremely useful mech with 6 support hardpoints. It also has 6 energy hardpoints and 2 ballistic hardpoints, but they are not really important factors. It is not like you can utilize those two ballistic hardpoints on a 35ton mech with 3025 IS tech weapons. Right now the best setup would be the mix of machineguns and small lasers. Unless you are making this for multiplayer, you will find flamers' fuel is too short. This is really a good mech, and for some main campagin objectives, you really want to have at least one. Verdict : Get it. 7) Urbanmech. UUUURRRRBBBIIIIEEE! The urbie! .... It is good. The movement is indeed that of assaults, but it has the armor of medium. It is an usable mech. It is really a stop-gap in case you fail to find a proper medium mechs.... but you get that Centurion for free if you progress main missions. Verdict : It's the Urbie. The Urbie. You should have at least one, regardless how bad/good this mech is. 8) Flea. So the DLC mechs in general have 'quirks' and for Flea it has defensive one. It has +2 Hit Defense, making it a bit more tankier than other light mechs. But still it is just a 20 ton mech so it will die very quick as soon as it loses evasion charges. FLE-15 variant looks good with 5 support hardpoints, but the problem is it simply does not have enough tonnage to actually utilize them unlike Firestarter. Verdict : Sell it. 9) Javelin. It is a better version of Jenner. It loses some speed but for that it obtains more armor and more usable tonnage while 5 tons lighter than Jenner. It means you can pull off 2 X SRM6 build with a bit more possible tweaking. But yeah, that energy-only version should be avoided. Verdict : Keep it til you get medium mechs except 10F which you should just sell it right away. 10) Raven. The problem is that ECM is rather meh with current implementation, and sensor lock simply cripples an ECM mech way too easily. Area Sensor Lock is just.... well, not very good with such low range. Still 3X can do some heavy damage with its two missile hardpoints. You will get one for free if you do a specific mission. I'd say just give one of major powers for favor points. Verdict : Sell it for 1X, keep it for 3X 6. Medium Mechs 1/2. 1) Cicada. So, just how bad is Cicada? This is what you need to know: You cannot max out frontal armor on 2A variant. It is not possible. Even if you put zero armor on backside. 3C is a bit better and almost as fast as 2A, still it has only 5 tons of available tonnage after maxing out frontal armor. Just. NO. Verdict : Sell it. I mean you should try to NOT get a fragment on this mech. Seriously. 2) Vindicator. A straight upgrade from Panther, with similar setup. By being slower, this mech can have similar available tonnage compared to heavier medium mechs. Once again recommended setups are basically enlarged versions of Panther's. Either PPC + LRMs as a stability damage dealer, or medium lasers with SRMs as a finisher. Both choices are strong, but with a bit slower speed Vindicator would be a bit more useful as a stability damage dealer rather than shorter range setup. Verdict : Keep it. 3) Blackjack. Oh yes, very first mech you will ever control, as this is your main character's mech. Fortunately, this mech is quite powerful thanks to large available tonnage, as same as Vindicator's. Stock setup is already powerful and surprisingly balanced. While AC2 is lackluster, it still works well with medium lasers. Only problem is their minimum range issue. In shorter range, AC2's accuracy goes down, in longer range, medium lasers' accuracy goes down. But this can be overcome by spending some experience points on pilot customization. Of course, the stock setup is not fully optimized though. You can get rid of AC2s and put a single AC5 or two large lasers instead. With just three jumpjects, four heatsinks and maxed out frontal armor, you get a very powerful finisher. I recommend 2 X LL + 2 X ML build. Verdict : Keep it. 4) Trebuchet. Once again big engine problem hurts this mech. In order to have high speed, this mech is left with less available tonnage than both Vindicator and Blackjack. LRMs are therefore bad for this mech due to lack of tonnage, but you can use it as an LRM boat if you truly do not have any medium mechs that have more than 1 missile hardpoint. But with such movement speed, you should use it as SRM + Lasers. ....but I still think you should just sell it. Verdict : Sell it. 5) Hunchback. So, among with Centurion and Enforcer, Hunchbacks have the largest available tonnage for all medium mechs, a.k.a "trooper" mechs. Pretty much all other 55 ton mechs to 60 ton heavy mechs have lesser availabe tonnage compared to these three. Which makes them really, really strong. 4P is pure energy variant, and 4G has that iconic AC20 on its right side torso. Considering heat issues, both of them actually end up having similar alpha strike damage (8 X ML vs UAC20 + 2 X ML) The problem is that medium lasers do zero stability damage, while (U)AC20 does. 4G is extremely powerful and you should get it if possible. 4P is ok... since large available tonnage allows you to put a lot of heatsinks, but once again without stability damage, the mech is relatively weak, but you can still use it as a decent finisher.... only because it has so much available tonnage to put many heatsinks. Verdict for both variants : Get it. 6) Centurion. If you finish the Argo mission, you will get an A variant without any weapons equipped. And this particular variant is the best medium mech you can ever get. This mech pretty much has everything; lasers, missiles, and one ballistic. Perfect hardpoints for this game. And with being one of the three mechs with the largest available tonnage, you really, really want this particular variant. You can do 3 X SRM6 + 2 X ML which does incredible raw damage AND stability damage, or (U)AC20 + ML/missiles for huge pinpoint raw damage AND stability damage, or you can use it as LRM boat with extremely powerful LRM 20 + LRM 15 + LRM 5 setup, with four tons of ammo if you do some armor stripping. It's total of LRM 40, 2/3 of LRM power from an 85 ton assault mech Stalker. With + and ++ variant, you can pretty much put any mech from zero stability damage to unsteady state with one full alpha salvo. Seriously, you want CN9-A. And it is highly probable you will use this mech until some good Assault mechs appear. Unlike A variant, AL has no ballistic hardpoints, instead four laser hardpoints and two missiles, which makes the mech relatively weak, but still better than others. The best use of AL would be 2 X LRM20, which is heavier than LRM 20 + LRM 15 + LRM 5 setup. This makes AL not as strong as A unfortunately. 2 X Large Lasers + 2 X Medium lasers are also very effective as a finisher with long range. Verdict for both variants : Get it. 7) Enforcer. Twisted version of Centurion CN9-AL, Enforcer has a ballistic hardpoint, but it has zero missile hardpoints. However, good thing is there are big, big ballistic weapons called (U)AC10 and (U)AC20, which alleviates hardpoint number issue for ballistic hardpoints. Just like Hunchback, you'd really want to get UACs since there is no missile for additional stability damage needed unlike Centurion. Of course, with generous amount of energy hardpoints, Enforcer can be also used as a finisher with multiple medium lasers, with enough tonnage for heatsinks. Verdict: Get it. 8) Kintaro. Well, you can guess with its whooping 5 missile hardpoints, but I have to say Kintaro is one of the best medium mechs available. Sadly, it does not have a lot of available tonnage like trooper mechs (Centurion, Hunchback, Enforcer), which limits choices. Yes, it has 5 missile hardpoints, but you don't want to put too heavy ones there, it will be very hot, with very limited ammo and little armor if you go too big. Best bet is just using SRM4s, which are extremely heat-efficient among SRM family. Verdict: Get it. 9) Griffin, Wolverine, Shadowhawk. Why did I list all three here? Because they are essentially all interchangeable. If you look at the hardpoints, speed and available tonnage, they are literally same mechs, just with minor differences below: -Both Griffin variants do not have ballistic hardpoints. -Wolverine has ballistic hardpoints on its arm. -Shadowhawk's infamous head missile hardpoint, and its strong melee (85 compared to 70 from other two), which CAN make some difference since it can easily kills vehicles with melee. Those three are really skirmisher mechs, which can pretty much max out armor, put a lot of jumpjects with respectable firepower. They are not hard hitters like trooper mechs, but they can tank and distract enemies while your Hunchback tries to core them with its AC20. That said, with proper pilot skills, they function better than lights as scouts. I have to say, despite that head missile hardpoint, Shadowhawk is probably the best of three with its powerful melee attack, and both variants have all three missile hardpoints for 2 X SRM6 + 1 X SRM4 + ML. But Griffin comes really close with non-weird missile hardpoints that would allow reinforced cockpits to protect pilots from head damage. Main campaign spoiler: You will be able to play with Griffin 2N, which is a lostech version with ER PPC. Unfortunately, ER PPC is a worse version of normal PPC in this game. But, the mech is an Lostech version with massive initial -60 heat per turn, which allows you to use that ER PPC without any problems. With this it is probably the best skirmisher mech you can obtain. It will be obtainable from places like black markets. Verdict for both Shadowhawks: Get it. Verdict for Griffin 1N: Keep it. Verdict for Wolverine 6R: Keep it. Verdict for Griffin 2N: Protect it with your life. Verdict for rest of them: Sell it. 7. Medium Mechs 2/2. 10) Assassin. The quirks given to this mech is unfortunately a bit flawed. With ignoring some evasion it should be good for killing light mechs, and with enough speed that seems appropriate.... ...But it simply does not have enough firepower. It is a 40 ton mech, with relatively large engine with just 14 usable tons. What actually kills an light mech is completely removing its evasion bonus, not trying to ignore some of it. If this bonus is applied to entire lance (well, that would be too OP I guess) then this mech is probably the ultimate light mech killer, but it only applies to itself. 21 is probably better version with four missile hardpoints. You can still use it as hard-hitting SRM boat and it works that way well. Verdict for Assassin 21: Keep it. Verdict for Assassin 101: Sell it. 11) Vulcan. That 90m bonus range for support weapon makes Vulcan an logical upgrade from Firestarter.... except it has only four support hardpoints for 2T while Firestarter has 6. Not to mention you lose 1 initiative as a medium mech. But that 90m DOES make big difference. You can safely sell off 5T. With +10 melee defense it is also durable against mechs that try to melee. The best usage for Vulcan would be equip it with flamers and make targets overheat. AI usually orders overheated mech to melee the target, and for that this quirks works well. ...Of course, except with limited ammo you really cannot use flamers well on singleplayer. Verdict for Assassin 2T: Keep it. Verdict for Assassin 5T: Sell it. 12) Hatchetman. Just like some of melee-oriented mechs (Dragon, Shadowhawk, Banshee), except the mech is truly made for melee. You can put all melee mods so that it hits like a truck, or you can put some weapons and use it as a normal mech with strong melee damage just like Shadowhawk, either works to certain degree. Obviously 3X is far better choice than 3F with additional hardpoints. Verdict for Hatchetman 3X: Keep it. Verdict for Hatchetman 3F: Sell it. 13) Phoenixhawk. It is not as good as you'd think. So the playstyle is always jumping around and shoot, since it has 20% damage boost when the mech has jumped. It also has jump distance boost. The problem is jumpjet does make a lot of heat, and Phoenixhawk, with just 20 tons of usable space, does not have enough tonnage to carry all the heatsinks and jumpjets cool the mech. Fortunately, it has an lostech version (1B). It has additional 8 usable tons and tons of energy and support hardpoints, which makes it insanely powerful and have enough cooling power to continuously use jumpjets. Of course, you are not really going to salvage it from the battlefield though. Verdict for Phoenixhawk 1B: Get it. Verdict for oithers: Sell it. 14) Crab. The mech is all about energy. ALL energy. Once again it has an lostech variant (27B) and of course it is super duper powerful. But it is still a boring, simple mech. There is something NOT boring though. If you do "Steel Beast" Flashpoint mission, you will get a Crab with ballistic hardpoint (BSC-27). Of course the issue is with just 26.5 usable tons, it can't carry big guns well like trooper medium mechs. Verdict for Crab 27B: Get it. Verdict for Crab 20: Keep it. Verdict for BSC-27: KEEP IT. It is an unique mech and you are not going to get it anywhere after the mission. 8. Heavy Mechs 1/2. 1) Dragon. Do not trust Yang's words, it is terrible. There is a reason why you can easily get its fragments after a certain main campaign mission is completed. Because it is truly terrible, because basically the mech is almost entirely consisted of a big engine to move faster. Big engine = low available tonnage. And both Dragon and Quickdraw went extreme for this case. ... Well, NOT that terrible because it has a very interesting aspect; super duper 90 points melee punch. ... Well, Shadowhawk DOES can do 85 point melee punch, and as being a 55 ton mech it can have almost same armor as Dragon and higher initiative, and moves at the same speed. ... Yeah, just sell it. Verdict: Sell it. 2) Quickdraw. Most likely very first heavy mech you will ever encounter (you will know why), and there is a reason why it is chosen as the first heavy mech. Because they are even worse than Dragon I mentioned above. I mean, at least Dragon has that super duper 90 points melee punch, but Quickdraw actually has the LOWEST melee damage (55). Both variants for Quickdraw are truly irredeemable. Well, you CAN do something with 4G variant with two missile hardpoints, but very low available tonnage completely cripples this mech. You can try medium laser build, but there are better medium mechs for such build as well. As enemies, they actually carry a lot of firepower ( 2x LRM15 and 4 Mediums), which hurt a lot. But they have paper armor, even at 100% condition thanks to low tonnage. Hit them and they will die very fast. Verdict: Sell it. 3) Jagermech. Finally, we are behind those terrible 60 ton mechs, and moving into usable mechs, and pretty much rest of heavy mechs are usable to amazing thanks to large available tonnage. Now, one thing that you must realize is Jagermech has almost all of its firepower on its arms. You can't shield with this mech unless you are willing to lose half of the mech's firepower in no time. However, it pretty much overcome that problem with really, really good hardpoints and arm-mount weapons' bonus (+5% to hit). Both available variants are extremely powerful; you will feel missions will be much easier if you manage to get one of them relatively early. For A variant, you can go either super hard punching 4 X SRM6 or go for same LRM build from Centurion (LRM20 + LRM15 + LRM5), or more LRMs if you are willing to sacrifice armor... but I don't recommend to do it. For S variant, 3 X AC5 is probably the most dominant build. It's insanely powerful and insanely cool unlike PPC... you get the idea. Because AC2 is rather bad, 4 X AC2 are not recommended however. Or you can go a boomstick with AC20 or dual AC10 with less armor. It has so many choices that are usable. As enemies, Jagermech basically has no armor; only 480 total, even worse than Quickdraw. But they truly have immense firepower, so you really want to kill them asap. Verdict for both variants: Get it. 4) Catapult. So, Catapult is perhaps one of the most recognizable mechs from Battletech/Mechwarrior/Mechcommander games. And they are all famous for being a missile boat. Unfortunately, this C1 variant does not do enough missile justice with just 1 missile hardpoint on each missile pods (arm). Really only use is 2 X LRM20, but LRM20 is heavier than LRM15 + LRM5 combo. Hence Catapult loses some tohnnage. You will have a bit better luck with just going laser builds instead, with three large lasers and one medium lasers will give you very powerful focus fire damage. Good thing is that you can trim armors from arms to put 1 more heatsink or two. Now, the interesting one is probably K2. It is actually a good variant if you build it right. So here is a interesting story. The reason why K2 is good is.... essentially combination of how PGI shaped the mech in MWO and how HBS implemented hardpoints and jumpjets. Those two ballistic hardpoints on side torsos of K2 are, if we follow HBS implementations, should be just support hardpoints because in MWO machineguns use ballistic hardpoints, and those two hardpoints are really for machineguns. But, for some reason, K2's ballistic hardpoints are still there in this game, and instead HBS just put additional support hardpoints, not removing ballistic hardpoints. In lore K2 variant does not have jumpjet thus K2 does not have jumpjets in MWO, but in HBS, by following TT more closely, you can put jumpjects on pretty much all mechs, thus allowing K2 to have jumpjets. And these two ballistic hardpoints save K2 because in current Balance, PPCs are basically unusable. They are way too hot, even with just 2 and a lot of heatsinks. Thus you have no choice but transform K2 into a ballistic mech with these two ballistic hardpoints. 2 X AC5 may seems a bit weak but still give respectable firepower. You can TRY put one PPC on that build, but then it just becomes really, really hot. What you can do is shave some more armors from its arms, and put 2 X AC10 instead, which brings a lot of firepower. Or you can do same thing with C1 with lasers, except the problem is you can't trim arm armors (because each arm has that energy hardpoint) so ironically energy variant K2 cannot put more heatsinks than missile variant C1. All hail to PGI's hardpoint inflation! As enemies K2 has a fatal weakness; it has machinegun ammo in its center torso. If you just keep focusing on center torso, that ammo will explode, instantly kill the mech. Make sure you remove the ammo when you field one for yourself. Verdict for both variants: get it. 5) Thunderbolt. Thunderbolts may appear a bit more compared to others.... because it has three variants compared to just two from others, and they are quite good. 5SS is probably one of the mechs that definitely got a lot of boost from large laser buff. Well, what you can do is 2 X LL + 2 X ML + SRM6, which give you very reliable focus fire damage as well as increased combat range from those two large lasers. Or you can do 3 X LL + 2 X ML, giving up stability damage for more focus fire damage. But this will run a bit hotter. 5SE has 2 missile hardpoints, and with three support hardpoints and 5 energy hardpoints. You can go either typical 2 x LRM20 or try use SRMs and small lasers + medium lasers for heat-efficient close-range mech, or can copy exact same builds from 5SS. 5S is obviously best with available ballistic hardpoints. Huge AC with SRMs/lasers will be the ideal build. Idealy AC20 but you can try AC10 if you want bigger SRMs and/or lasers. Verdict for all three variants: Get it. 6) Cataphract. This rare 70ton mech is a basically upscaled version of Enforcer; no missile hardpoints, one ballistic and bunch of energy hardpoints. You can do upscaled version of Enforcer with a big UAC and bunch of lasers, 3 X LL + 2 X ML, or very simple yet effective 4 X LL. It barely has enough tonnage to support 4 large lasers, heatsinks and just one jumpjets with some armor triming. The ECM one (0X) is very interesting. Unlike Raven, ECM is somewhat workable on this mech since it has enough firepower. The usable tonnage does take massive hit (only 33.5 tons) But still enough to take a large UAC and some lasers. Unfortunately the sensor lock cripples the mech just like Raven's case. Verdict for both variants: Get it. -continued- 9. Heavy Mechs 2/2. -continued- 7) Grasshopper. Yet another one variant only chassis. This time it is upscaled Firestarter. Most interesting is that it has a lot of support hardpoints. Too bad they got nerfed. Because medium lasers were also nerfed, now Small Lasers + Medium Lasers will be incredibly hot. It is better to use Machineguns + Medium Lasers instead. If you do not need upscaled Firestarter, you can always use its tonnage and energy hardpoints with bunch of large lasers and medium lasers. Verdict: Get it. 8) Blackknight. Among with Orion, Blackknight has the largest free tonnage available for Heavy mech class. It means it has enough tonnage for large lasers and heatsinks to cool the mech down. It also has tons of energy hardpoints. It has an lostech version with -60 heat per turn, which makes it as the most powerful energy-focused heavy mech available in this game. 2 X LL + 5 X ML will give you immense focused firepower. You could go 3 X LL + 2 X ML, but then you lose about 35 damage compared to the former build. With the range still hardly matters, I'd say go for 2 X LL + 5 X ML. Blackknight also does have a lot of support hardpoints, but that's Grasshopper's job if you ask me. Verdict: Get it. 9) Orion. The final, and the best heavy mech is here. It's the best heavy mech, with the largest free tonnage, with the heaviest armor as a 75 ton heavy mech in the class, missile hardpoints and ballistic hardpoint; both variants have everything they need to be amazing mechs. V variant will be the better one thanks to 3 missile hardpoints, and you really just want one big gun instead of two smaller guns on K variant anyway. But each missile hardpoints of V variant are located on each arms, which makes shielding quite tricky for this mech. Well, at worst, V still can be used as an excellent LRM boat thanks to three missile hardpoints. K variant is all about AC20 and a bunch of SRMs. Orions are very powerful mechs with a lot of tonnage available as well as good hardpoints, but it does not mean they have same protection as Assault mechs. But they are good enough, and as a heavy mech they can initiate earlier than Assault mechs, which helps knockdown-to-kill strategy easier. Verdict for both variants: Get it. 10) Rifleman. Basically an lighter version of Jagermech, You lose 2.5 usable tons but gain quirks (100m+ view distance and -2 recoil/range penalty). Well, Those are REALLY strong quirks thus making Rifleman better version of Jagermech.... ....Which is quite absurd lore-wise, because Jagermech is supposed to be a replacement for Rifleman, which is an older design. But just like Mechwarrior Online, Rifleman is once again beating Jagermech no problem. Exception would be a missile variant because it has no missile variant. 4D is a pure energy variant, and honestly it is not that great. While it has a lot of usable tonnage, it is still a 60 ton mech in the end. Try get Blackknight or Warhammer for a better laserboat. Verdict for Rifleman 3C: Get it. Verdict for Rifleman 3N: Get it. Verdict for Rifleman 4D: Sell it. 11) Archer. As a missile boat, it is a straight upgrade from Catapult with quirks and added tonnage. +75% SRM stability damage is not something you can laugh about with 2S variant. Just like Catapult's case, 2R is a weaker variant with just two missile hardpoints. Verdict for Archer 2R: Get it. Verdict for Archer 2S: Get it. 12) Warhammer. Why? WHHHYYYY????!? WHHHHHHYYYY DOES 6R ONLY HAVE ONE BALLISTIC HARDPOINT? It is just very disappointing decision, considering the fact that Catapult K2 was ok with two ballistic hardpoints but somehow 6R did not carry dual ballistic hardpoints from MWO. The result is that it has really weird combination. So.... one ballistic, one missile and four energy hardpoints. Warhammer does have +20% energy damage boost quirk, but for 6R it hardly makes sense with just four hardpoints anyway. Such a wasted oppounity here. Either using UAC20 or Gauss rifle on one side and LRMs on other side, making it lighter lostech Highlander would be logical choice for the mech build. 6D is decent laserboat with the quirks, but 7A takes the cake as an lostech version with -60 heat advantage. Verdict for Warhammer 6R: Keep it. Verdict for Warhammer 6D: Get it. Verdict for Warhammer 7A: Protect it with your life. 13) Marauder. If you ask an experienced player "What is the best mech in this game?", about 80% of the answer will be Marauder. The reason is that Called Shot boost. With maxxed out tactics and gunnery, the chance for headshot using called shot is 35%. With sufficient firepower, it can somewhat reliably does heatshot every single turn, which makes the mech very powerful. Lance-wide 10% damage reduction is also great. Though, I do have some reservations against Assaults. In unmodded game, An Atlas, Kingcrab, Annihilator and Bullshark also can pretty much one-shot most of mechs (including themselves) with called shot to the center torso because the firepower is just overwhelming. And unlike Marauder, the chance is so high that they do not rely on luck at all. Not to mention those mechs are also tankier than Marauder even with 10% damage reduction. If there is no tonnage limit or you do not need higher initiative, the reason to use Marauder instead of heavy assaults is a bit weak. That said, it is safe to say Marauder is THE BEST HEAVY MECH CHASSIS in this game. Oh yeah, even further, there is an lostech variant (2R) on top of all of these quirks, which makes it the best mech in the game period. Verdict for all Marauder variants: Just buy get it. 9. Assault Mechs 1/2. 1) Awesome. Yes, it does have whooping 120 melee damage, only surpressed by Banshee and heavier mechs, but problem is it is too slow to be used as a melee mech, so forget about it. This mech is a really only single assault mech that can do well as a pure laserboat, Only other mech that can come close is Stalker with 6 energy hardpoints with a bit more tonnage, but in reality it will do less dps and alpha damage because Stalker has to use 5 X LL + 1 X ML instead of Awesome's 4 X LL + 3 X ML. Stalker actually ends up with less damage and hotter with less heatsinks with additional weight from one more large laser. There is actually another mech which has immense tonnage with 6 energy hardpoints (see Atlas), but that one could have some other builds. And, seriously, Stalker is best served with LRMs. Other mechs such as Banshee and Battlemaster do not have enough tonnage to put heatsinks, so they are actually worse despite the fact that they are heavier mechs. Too big engine problems. So yes, if you get rid of PPCs for good and embrace large lasers, Awesome is extremely powerful finisher, with 4 X LL + 3 X ML for 8Q variant. we are talking about 235 alpha damage, with 160 damage to distant targets. It is purely powered by newly buffed large lasers. If you really need stability damage, then you can do like 1 PPC + 3 X LL + 2 X ML, but you will find it will be suddenly so much hotter. And there is 8T variant with missile hardpoints anyway. With missiles, 8T variant can give you cooler setup with mix of SRMs and lasers. But then you are giving up focus fire damage for precision strike. With just 2 missile hardpoints, 8T are not an ideal LRM boat. Verdict for both variants: get it. 2) Victor. Basically tonnage-wise they are Orions, with a bit more armor, one less initiative as an Assault mech. Not sure that is good compromise. Victors suffer same problem as low tonnage heavy mechs... just a bit less extent. 9B has interesting three ballistic hardpoints, which you can use it as 3 X AC5... just like 65ton Jagermech. Verdict for both variants: keep it. 3) Zeus. Take a Victor, remove some missile pods and add 4 energy hardpoints, and you get Zeus. Basically slightly worse version of Victor depend on the setup. It would be better if medium lasers were not nerfed, but with the nerf, you would not see much tonnage savings from using lasers due to need of additional heatsinks. Good thing is as a single variant, you won't be seeing this mech often. Verdict: Sell it. 4) Battlemaster. in MWO, Battlemaster is a very good mech because its hardpoints are quite high that you can peek and shoot very easily. But in this game, physical locations do not matter. With energy weapons being really bad, Battlemeaster is sadly just a better version of Zeus with more energy hardpoints available. It still moves quite fast, and medium laser spam can be powerful... but way too many heatsinks would be used to cool down the mech. With fast movement, however you can use it as an Assault scout mech... if you need one. Problem is medium lasers are further nerfed now this mech is too hot to be useful at this point. At least as a 85ton mech, it can use ligher Jumpjet H instead of 2ton Jumpjet A, unlike Banshee. OH I almost forgot. It DOES have ballistic hardpoints, if you really want to have a big gun on this mech. As well as just one missile hardpoint, but you can forget about it. This certainly makes Battlemaster a bit more better than other 'fast' assault mechs... but the problem is, despite it is probably the fast assault mech with the most available tonnage, which means, 1) No ballistic hardpoint usage. 2) Can't use large lasers effectively due to tonnage restriction. At this point only reason why this mech does not demoted to "sell it" is because there is no better alternative for a scout Assault mech. Verdict: Keep it. 5) Stalker. Finally, some assault mechs with actual assult mech free tonnages. Stalker is indeed slow (just like rest of mechs below except Banshee) Assault mech that carry huge weapons, with tons of space available. As we talked at Awesome section, you can forget about 6 energy hardpoints; the gist is four missile hardpoints, absolutely ideal for LRM15 for each hardpoints. You can do LRM20 + LRM10 instead of just four LRM15 if you like, with a bit less available tonnage since LRM 20 + 10 weights more than two LRM15. If you really want an energyboat and still does not have Awesome, you can use Stalker with 5 X LL + 1 X ML, but it will run rather hot. You can do 4 X LL + 2 X ML, but now that is quite low dps and alpha damage as an slow assault mech. Or, you could mix SRMs and MLs. Problem is there are better brawling mechs and Stalker's high tonnage should be used more wisely. But if you do not have enough Assault mechs, 4 X SRM6 and bunch of MLs do give scary firepower. Anyway, grab it as soon as possible. Among with Highlander 733, it is the best LRM assault mech available in the game. Verdict: Get it. 6) Highlander. Very stable assault mech, with a lot of free tonnage available. Continuing from Stalker; 733, with four missile hardpoints, is the best LRM assault among with Stalker. Now, despite the fact that it weights 5 ton more, 733 actually does not have more tonnage than Stalker for several reasons. 1) The difference in free tonnage is only 3 tons (75.5 vs 60.5) 2) From 90 ton mech, you have to use A variant for jumpjet, which weights two tons instead of one. 3) Highlander can put more armor. They are basically same performing mechs for LRM boating purpose, with Highlander may be a bit more durable if you decide to sacrifice jumpjets, which I really do not recommend even for the LRM boat. If you already have an Assault LRM boat, 733 still can use its single Ballistic hardpoint for brawling close-range mech. Grab an AC20 and put some SRMs, it will be good substitution for Atlas or King Crab, with just a bit less armor. 733P has two builds; 1) You can use it as triple LRM20, but just like LRM 20 + 10 build, it is not as effective as 4 X LRM15. So it is not as good as 733 for using as an LRM boat. 2) 3 X LL + 1 X ML + 2 X SRM6. Very powerful, versatile with bunch of stability damage with focus fire damage. You can adjust number of energy weapons and missile weapons for your like. Main campaign spoiler: Annnnnd we have 732B, a lostech version. Unlike disappointing Blackknight and Griffin ones, this particular Highlander is actually amazing out of the gate, with very little adjustment with weapons, and it will be freely given after that particular mission is over. It is one of two lostech mechs you can obtain from completing the campaign. Now, I understand some spreadsheets for this game lists this mech as having same free tonnage as non-lostech variants, but it is not true. 732B has 5 more tons than other variants thanks to lostech. Which means it has more free available tonnage than non-lostech Atlas and King Crab! Well, only 0.5 ton, but you get the idea. It is an extremely powerful mech, and other than some armor distribution adjustment, stock setup is actually really good and you really do not need to modify it much. Verdict for 733: Get it. Verdict for 733P: Get it. Verdict for 732B: Protect it with your life. -continued- 10. Assault Mechs 2/2. 7) Banshee. OH here we go. The biggest engine rating in Battletech universe, for mechs, is 400. This mech has 380. ... REALLY BIG ENGINE that is. The ignorable side effect is it only has 37.5 tons of available tonnage. For comparison, 65 ton Catapult has 39 tons of available tonnage. ... Just kidding, this is not definitely an ignorable side effect. You can use it as a pure melee mech at least. This is only possible because as a 95ton mech, Banshee has enormous amount of armor. With all of arm mods and leg mods, Banshee can do some serious punch. Thing is, even after 380 rated engine, it can only go as fast as 65 ton heavy mech, not to mention it suffers initiative problem...... These problems are quite hard to overcome. Added 5/25: People also comment that Banshee can be equipped with a lot of support weapons... but as an assault weapon with the lowest initiative, I am not sure how effective it would be (Grasshopper is already borderline slow). And a problem with melee interaction is that those support weapons hardly focus well. It is always better to have one big punch that leftover damage would go to CT, than small lasers and machineguns firing everywhere. I still recommend to put arm/leg mods as much as possible for bigger melee/DFA damage. Unless you are interested in weird builds such as these, I suggest to sell it asap. Verdict for both variants: Sell it. 8) Atlas. Perhaps Atlas is the one of the most well-known mechs. Maybe not as well-known as Clan's Mad Cat (Timber Wolf), but that skull-looking head and overall mech shape is quite something to be remembered. Among with King Crab, Atlas boasts a bit more durability (a bit more structure point, and about 30 points more armor), and with such hardpoint placement location, Atlas can do shielding a bit better than King Crab, without the fear of losing heavy ballistic weapons on the arms. It's really a simple mech compared to King Crab (which have some interesting problems and tricks). Super durable, super heavy, super slow, and... super powerful. We DO have an interesting variant though. Well, actually, this Atlas II cannot be considered as a variant of Atlas, rather it is a different mech. It just uses same model as Atlas. Just like lostech Highlander, this Atlas has far bigger available tonnage than non-lostech Atlas; 78 tons. With 13 tons more than normal Atlas, you will feel space restrictions rather than tonnage restriction when you configure this mech. Fill it with the biggest and the heaviest weapons you can deploy is all I can say, and yeah, while it indeed has more energy hardpoints, but until HBS actually balances this game, please don't go for energy-heavy build. It is simply waste of a mech. I guess you can go ridiculous 6 X LL, but if you punch your calculator a bit you will realise you are losing a lot of damage for just increased range, where in this game range is not that important. Oh and yeah, Large lasers have ZERO stability damage as well. Now, during the mission, you really do not want to fire those ER Large Lasers. They are hotter than normal large lasers and you will find the mech gets hot rather fast. Keep using cooler AC20, missiles and medium pulses but try not to use ERLL often. Verdict: Get it. Verdict for II: Protect it with your life. 9. King Crab. Another 100 ton Assault mech, with more focused on firepower. It definitely has more missile hardpoints, for instance, but it does not make an excellent LRM boat because all of those missile hardpoints are located on a single side torso, making it unable to put large size missile weapons. However, you can still do 4 X SRM6 which they alone are quite powerful. Popular builds are either using that dual AC20, or 4 X SRM6 + 4 X MLs which are actually more powerful than dual AC20 among with far better heat management and more alpha strike damage. Compare to Atlas, having ballistic hardpoint on each arms is a bit troublesome; if you try to shield your mech, your arm will be first to be gone from damage, among with the gun installed with it. At the same token, King Crab would not instantly lose a lot of firepower if it loses a certain torso; for Atlas it means both AC20 are gone, while for King Crab, you can still fire other AC20. Other than that, it has same availabe tonnage as Atlas, with a bit less structure and armor. Very valuable mech no matter what. Yes, at the very last campaign mission, it seems Victoria's King Crab is a special one. It is not even canon variant since none of them have medium pulse lasers. Unfortunately, you cannot get this mech, ever. It does not give you fragments. Sometimes the game gets bugged and gives you the fragment. However, you cannot combine it with other normal King Crab fragment, therefore completely useless. Verdict: Get it. 11. Conclusion. And... that's it. Just want to say this mech guide is strictly single-player only. Multiplayer is all about SRMs, flamers and AC20 so act accordingly is all I can say about it. 12. Update history. 2/24/2025 : 1) The update after 7 years! Mostly cleaned a lot of grammar issues til Medium mech section. 6/25/2018 : 1) Initially updated for 1.1 balance. 6/17/2018 : 1) Preparing for (hopefully) upcoming patch. 5/29/2018 : 1) Fixed moar typos. 2) Jaegermech => Jagermech. Thanks @C4rter for pointing this out. 5/25/2018 : 1) Fixed insane amount of typos and grammar errors. 2) Add a bit more description for Thunderbolt. 3) Add some more updates and thoughts for Banshee. 4) Awesome as well. 5) And Battlemaster. 6) Moved up Hunchback 4P from "Sell it" to "Keep it". For a finisher it is not really a bad mech. 7) URBIE.

BattleTech Extended Commander's Edition is a great next step up from playing vanilla. It is a good next play through before moving onto Advanced or RogueTech. The problem is you need to make so many choices at career setup without knowing how they will effect you throughout the game. This guide explains a few things I have found useful to know at career setup to make your BEX play through the way you want it to be. Disclaimer: This guide focuses on players with mid range skills who want a fun experience with manageable progression above an absolute authentic simulation play through. I humbly leave the fully hard play style to those better at the game than I am. I also acknowledge the players who freely give advice on all the BattleTech forums and on Steam that have helped me understand the game. BEX - what makes it different - a few basics In this guide I am focusing on the career mode, not campaign. I am also playing on standard difficulty. The differences between BEX and vanilla (game mechanics): More planets - a huge new map of the inner sphere and a higher technology level All the Major House factions - many new small factions too New tech and new Mechs - hundreds of new Mechs, Vehicles and weapon variations Endo Steel chassis, Ferro armour, double heat sink engines, ECM, Anti-missile systems Mech quirks or abilities are nerfed - no Marauder headshot bonus, etc. Pilot fatigue - can be disabled Variable start year - 3025 to 3061 More start location choices More choices on starting settings - * more on this later Ability to drop up to 2 full lances - requires specific "Bigger Drops" patch Bigger maps and many new maps Free joint exercises - random second support lance can appear Ability to choose which Mech variant you assemble - requires unlock during game **CLANS** - a huge really fun game changer. Fight the Clans and get really cool tech. Things you need to know about BEX There are a few things that BEX does differently to vanilla that can make a big difference to your career. Please don't see this a big whinge from a bad player. It is just how it is in BEX and you will have to learn to adapt. Mid career flat spot You start doing half skull or one skull missions. You will see the normal light Mechs with the odd Medium showing up. All is good and you slowly upgrade your lance to all Mediums and think your are ready for two or two and a half skulls. This is where the flat spot kicks in. These 2+ skull missions are so random and sometimes so hard you can't win with the Mechs you salvaged early in the game. Or you are fighting the same old Mechs you always see and get no better salvage Mechs. Sure everyone says - step up to higher skulls to see better Mechs - but you just get your arse kicked more. After enough grind, you get to a lance of 55T or 60T mechs and the same story - all the Mechs are the same and missions are too hard. Forums say the variable difficulty range on mission skulls is quite random, so BEX routinely hands you a whipping. Too many enemy Mechs The missions in BEX are so variable you never know how many lances will show up. In vanilla you can be pretty sure of a 4 v 4 battle on most 2 skull missions (with possible reinforcements later on). In BEX I often see 4 v 12, with 2 reinforcements already on the field when you arrive. Bad landings Expect to land right in the middle of the enemy sometimes - even with them in your rear arc Hint: Reserve, reserve, reserve. Don't move or shoot because everybody will have 5 evasion on mission start. Let the AI use all its moves. This way they remove their own evasion for you making them easier to hit and if they shoot you they often miss due to your high evasion. Good Mechs are rare Don't expect to see really good Mechs in the shops, even in the Black Market. The rarity has been changed on the good Mechs. Annihilators are extremely rare. Marauder is hard to find. Atlas is not too bad. All the good Mechs are nerfed No Marauder headshot bonus. No Annihilators 20% on cannons (I think). New quirks and bonuses, but not so good as vanilla. Clans - fight them or ignore them, you choose Everything about Clan Mechs and weapons are better. They are tougher, have more armour, better weapons and more of them, and better heat management. They have a Star of 5 Mechs vs your Lance of 4. So beware, they will rip you to pieces if you are not ready, but beating them feels good and you get to take their stuff. Setting up for fun and success - career start choices In the previous section, I called out a few things you need to be aware of when playing BEX. This section is about choosing the start settings for a fun playstyle that focuses on developing my lance and having good manageable fights. Step one - install "Bigger Drops" patch Why? - because it allows you so much more freedom with Mech combinations and it smooths out the 'mid career flat spot' where you can't beat the ridiculous odds in 4 v 12 battles. Go and read the forums about it. Bigger Drops is a whole new level of fun. It will not make you overkill every mission, not to start with. The start settings For an enjoyable career I choose these: **Reduced Argo upgrade costs** Three Mech parts to build a Mech Unequipped Mechs - I like the challenge of finding the weapons Normal difficulty and fight difficulty Normal payments and salvage - allow rare salvage Normal pilot progression (experience) Start planet - SLDF cache - gives some good early weapons Which start year - the big choice You can start around 0325 but you will not see much good new tech until 3050. I start some time after 3050 (post Helm core) to see all the new Mechs and tech. Reduced Argo upgrade costs If you choose reduced upgrade cost you can just do the upgrades quickly and get the benefits and have more fun. We all did the full cost slow build in vanilla, why do it again, its boring. Playing BEX - its not about the career, its about after the career Playstyle Hints for BEX Playing BEX is not about the career. The career is great in vanilla and if you maxed it, don't bother running another prefect career in BEX. The fun in BEX starts after 1200 days when working your way towards a fully brutal, monster lance that can rip the Clans apart. You will not do that in 1200 days in BEX. The Mechs and Tech are pretty hard to get and it takes a long time. There are few things you can do to make live a little easier. [1] Rush the Argo upgrade for Mech Workshop This allows you to combine any 3 Mech parts into any variant you have seen before. For example; if you have 2 Stalker F parts and one Stalker H, you can make an F or H. This really speeds up getting the right Mech chassis you want. Only works for same Mech types, Endosteel and Standard don't mix [2] Get friendly with the Pirates, so you can buy Black Market access early and cheaply. Always run around with a spare $500k in the bank just in case. [3] Don't keep too many Mechs in storage Sell them and buy stuff. Look at the guides on the good Mechs to keep and which to sell. Plan for your future lance early on and only keep the best ones. [4] Buy Weapons and Mech parts now for later use Plan for the future. If you see a rare Mech part or really great heavy weapon you can't use now, buy it for later. Some stuff you will never see again if you let it slip by. For example, I bought 2 Silver Bullet Guass Rifles early and didn't have a Mech big enough to put them in. Waited 200 or 300 days to use them, but so worth it. Buy rare ammo - SB Guass ammo, Light Guass ammo, Guass ammo - I bet when you see the weapon, they won't have any ammo for sale. Buy rare Mech parts - it can take 1000 days to get 3 Anni parts, but if you didn't buy the first one, when you see that third one you will wish you did. Try Outreach to buy Annis. [5] Missions to look for Look for missions with heavy or assault Mechs in the description to get good salvage early. Clash of the Titans is 4 v 4 v 4 battle with 2 x OpFor with an assault Mech each. Hang back to a corner, trigger the first OpFor and run while they will fight each other. Sit back and pick up the pieces. Titan Attack is a base defence mission with an assault Mech. Tag Team, Search Denial and Joint Operation are good too - If these are on a planet with both Pirates and ComStar (former SLDF) there is a chance Comstar will appear and you can loot their LosTech. Look for a description that mentions LosTech and two lance working together, this means they will likely turn up. The second lance will turn up in a few turns and it will be Comstar (the guys with no markings). [6] Upgrade command and drop limits Getting even 1 extra Mech on the ground can change your day and speed up your salvage rates. [7] Refit Mechs with long range weapons and Use Sensor Lock I pick my start settings to give me Tactics so I can buy Sensor Lock really early. Just lock targets and hit them with range weapons. Especially useful early career if you re-config your Mechs with Large Lasers or PPCs. I had 2 x Talons on startup and sensor lock helped them kill long distance when all the OptFor has is Light Mechs with Medium Lasers or SRMs. Update: Just found out if you spec your pilot for Sensor Lock and Master Tac and you are in a Zeus (chariot chassis), you can Sprint and Sensor in the same turn. Massive advantage! [8] Early career use weapons with accuracy bonus not damage It is better to hit and do some damage than not hit at all. Early game you need all the help you can get to just hit something, so use hit bonus weapons over damage bonus weapons. When your pilots get good hit bonuses switch to weapons with damage bonus. Also, use lasers, they hit better. Arm mounted weapons get +1 to hit over torso mounted. Conclusion Thanks for reading. Happy to hear suggestions or correct me on stuff I got wrong.