Joy Sticks

JoySticks

One of the questions that comes up probably more than any other for this game we love to play is about joysticks. Which is the best? Well, I doubt I can answer that question, but I can give you lots of information so you can make your own decision.

Let me start by saying I don’t use a joy stick per se’, I use a controller and a mouse, but it wasn’t always that way. When I first started playing MechWarrior 2, I used a keyboard. That was it, a simple keyboard. As I got more fanatical about my playing, I bought a cheap joy stick, one of those 15$ jobs that probably didn’t even have a name brand. I still found myself using the keyboard for many functions but I felt like the joystick gave me a bit more accuracy on my shots and more of that ‘in the cockpit’ feel.

When my son got interested in playing the game, again, back in the MW2 days, I bought him a Microsoft Sidewinder force feedback version. This stick was quite expensive (at least it was to me in those days) but it seemed to have everything you would want in a stick, a throttle control, plenty of buttons, torso twist and accuracy. It felt good in your hand and it was easy to control. The best thing was it was rugged and very accurate. He liked it and every time I picked him up he would ask if he needed to bring his ‘stick’. He was (still is) a mech fan.

He seemed to like it so much that I decided I needed a decent stick for myself. At that time, there were several ‘on line’ auctions where you could buy things pretty cheap. The Sidewinders were out of my budget (at the time) so I decided to look on the ‘web’ to find a decent stick for a decent price. I had been to the local ‘Best Buy’ and ‘Circuit City’ stores and I had been touchy feely over all they offered. Best Buy had this one stick called the Wingman Extreme Digital. It had a twist handle, seven buttons, a hat switch and it was very heavy.

In those days, ‘UBid’ was my favourite auction house so I thought I would check there for this stick. If I could save a few bucks and get a stick I wanted, then goody for me. The sidewinders were selling for 50 to 70$ and I simply was too cheap to pay that for a stick for a game. They did, however, have this Logitech stick that I liked from looking at Best Buy. The bid was only 5$ with a 5$ shipping charge. I figured wth, 5$ is not a big deal, if I didn’t like it, I was only out 5 to 10$. I set my max bid to 7.50$ and I bid on 2 of them (always need a back up). I won the auction at 5.50$ each plus 5$ for shipping. They showed up less than a week later.

This stick was pretty nice. It had USB connections and a very heavy base. I loaded the software and connected it with no problems and it worked fine. Later that night, I would fire up the game and see what it could really do. I gotta tell ya, I was impressed. The stick was stiff but accurate, the twist was smooth and the buttons were placed where I could easily reach them. The only thing I did not like was the throttle control. I was a bit on the dinky side and actually tough to push back and forth. As with most things, once you got used to it, it was fine. Those 2 sticks gave me many years of use before the controllers inside began to die. I really liked the feel of the stick and as I said, I got 3 to 5 years of use out of them for only 12$ each.

When they got to the point where I could not use them anymore, I decided to buy another stick. This model was no longer made and I couldn’t find any on EBay or UBid. I went back to the retail stores to what was available.

Logitech had this slick looking stick out called the Extreme 3D Pro. Wow. It felt nice, had lots of buttons (12 I think), torso twist, and an easy throttle control. The only downfall I saw with the stick was that I had big hands and the actual part that you hold on to was a bit smaller than my previous Logitech stick. It was not uncomfortable, but it was smaller and I did like the way it looked and felt and those extra buttons, w00t! Needless to say, I bought it. Exceptional stick. 11 onths later I was taking it back to swap it for another one. The controllers (pots) had worn out and it would not hold calibration. I had purchased the extended replacement warranty and I kept my receipt. With no questions asked, Best Buy handed me a new one and home I went. I went through 3 more in just 3 months. I sent Logitech some emails as to what was going on. I even used some of my work contacts to actually call the product manager and find out wtf was up with his sticks.

I got tired of the monthly swap fest and decided to buy an EVO. Saitek had a decent rep and some of the guys I gamed with said they loved theirs. So I bought one. It was a bit lighter than the Logitech stick and taller and it had fewer buttons. I had to re-map my controls and go back to using the keyboard for some functions that I had mapped to the Logitech before, but the EVO was a nice stick. Once I got used to it and got it adjusted to fit, I really liked the stick except that it was so light. I liked it enough that I bought a second one (always have a back up) in case the one I was using died in the middle of a match. I still have them both and that was 3 years ago. They both work and there have been zero issues with calibration or accuracy.

Because I like to try different things, one day while browsing around in Comp USA, I ran across a Thrustmaster Afterburner II joystick. This beast looked interesting, it was a 2 part joystick that could be joined or separated. There was a throttle control on one side similar to that of a jet and a joystick side with torso twist. There were plenty of buttons and it was relatively heavy enough that I wouldn’t be sliding it all over the desktop while shooting or being shot. The price was reasonable so I bought it.

Every time you change sticks there is a bit of a learning curve to get ‘used’ to the new one. The Thrustmaster was no different. I like t use the single player mode to ‘learn’ a joystick. After several plays, I was ready to go online with it. The stick had a nice feel and was easy to operate. Everything was in easy reach of a finger or a hand control, the twist was easy and the aim was accurate. The size and weight were very nice and did not slide under my ‘heavy handedness’. I really liked this set up except that it took a lot of desktop real estate and I had to find a place to put it when I wasn’t gaming. Another thing about the Thrustmasters, I believe that they actually manufactured the Sidewinders for Microsoft. If they didn’t, there were some things that were mighty close in looks and operations, mighty close. The Thrustmaster was / is a quality stick. I still have this one too.

Somewhere along the line I had received a racing game and a baseball game for my PC. (I don’t own any gaming consoles, but I have bought many for my son). I found it difficult to use a joystick for auto racing or even playing baseball, it just didn’t seem right. I went looking for a controller. I found a very nice one called the Gravis Xterminator Digital Xtreme.

This little controller had everything you need in a game controller. Lots of buttons, a couple of hat switches, a throttle control, finger flippers, a ‘D’ pad and a very small joystick, all for 40$. I love this thing and I still have it. It works great and it has lasted for years. It doesn’t seem to lose calibration and its pretty accurate. I even used it to play MW4 when my 1^st Logitechs died. I don’t recommend it for MW4, but it does work and it does a decent job. For you console gamers out there, this is a nice controller to sue on your PC and it gives you the same feel as you console games.

I have seen many folks migrate to the Saitek X45 and X52. I have never used one so I cant comment on the quality or the accuracy. One of the guys on the Blood Pearls has a X52 and he swears by it. He wanted that dual controller, cockpit feel of being inside a mech. Every now and then I hear him on comms complaining about this button or that button or that the software wont let him do a specific task, but I have to say that he is not very tech savy and just the fact that he is using the Saitek software at all is surprising to me. The X52 is an impressive looking set up and Saitek has made great strides in the quality of their products. The internal controllers or ‘pots’ on this stick are different and made to last. Of course this stick is a bit on the upper scale as far as $ wise goes.

Back to the Logitechs for a moment. Logitech came out with a cordless ‘Freedom’ version of the Extreme 3D Pro. I bought one of these and I have to tell you I was impressed. I don’t care much for ‘cordless’ products, but this stick is nice. IT is more or less the same stick as the 3D, BUT, it has different internal controllers (pots) and of course it is cordless. The plan from Logitech was that people would ‘want’ cordless and they would phase out the 3D version and this one would become the forefront in their gaming sticks. That didn’t go over so well with the public, they actually liked the 3D Pro so Logitech began to upgrade their ‘pots’ in the 3D with the same switches used in the cordless version.

There are many other sticks out there and I can only suggest that you choose one that you are happy with. CH Products make a fine set up sticks but they are expensive. Again, expensive to me may not be to you and you have to figure the cost of the stick vs the time of use. If you pay more than a 100$ for a stick, but you get 4 or more years use from it, then the cost of ownership is only about 25$ for a year (or less). That is pretty reasonable. Look around, find something you are comfortable with and something you like. Some need lots of buttons, others need only a few. Accuracy is very important as is the ability to hold calibration. I suggest that if you buy retail, that you buy the extended replacement warranty, one that lets you swap out the stick if you are just not happy with it.

What do I use? Well, As you can see, I went through several sticks and tried many. I still have a bunch of sticks in my closet (keep my wife away from there), but I don’t use a joystick anymore. One of my team mates turned me on

to a Belkin Nostromo N52 Controller and

a mouse. Couple of years or more now and I am still using the same one and it does everything I need or want it to do. With 14 keyboard type buttons, I don’t lack for any actions. It also has a ‘D’ pad that doesn’t lose calibration as well as a throttle control. The software allows you to program the buttons in up to 3 ‘shift’ modes (that’s roughly 42 functions). I also use a Logitech MX 518 Laser Gaming mouse. I sue the mouse for torso twist, throttle control, firing groups 1, 2 and 3 and the Nostromo for everything else. I only use the keyboard for chat.

This thing is very comfortable and it doesn’t slide around on your desktop. More so, it doesn’t take up much space on your desktop either. Its left hand only, but remember this, it is just a ‘smaller’ version of your keyboard, so its not a big deal. You just use your left hand to push some keys or your thumb to do what ever you set the ‘D’ pad up for using the software included. The software included also allows you to write macros. You could set up a macro to do certain things, like go active for 3 seconds, then back to passive and repeat this function until you stopped it, or set it so that it chain fires weapons, or even chain fires within a group, all at the touch of a button.

Belkin has just released a tournament edition that is all black and has the button ‘lit’ so you can read them in the dark. It offers a couple of other slight modifications, but overall, it’s the same controller as the N52, it just looks cooler. I have to tell you, I was against the N52 at first because it is a left hand controller and I never had much success using a mouse for gaming. It took me a week or so of learning curve ‘for the mouse’ but I have not regretted it at all. The N52 is not so expensive (even less now that a newer model is being released) (roughly 30$ and dropping) and it is very sturdy. I suggest you get a decent mouse for better accuracy and speed, but again, the price of a mouse changes every month or so as newer faster models come out. The best thing is, you need a mouse for everyday use anyway, so why not get a good one?

Well that about raps up my input on joysticks and controllers. I hope that somewhere in there you found something useful. The important thing to remember is to get something you are happy with and something that works for you. You might have to try several before you find the right one or you might just get lucky right off and get one that ‘fits’ you. Just because this is mech warrior, don’t be afraid to use the keyboard, or keyboard and mouse or even a ‘console type’ controller if that is what works for you. The important thing is that you are playing the game and having some fun.

The Blood Pearls

(actual NASA photo but it matched our Teams logo, w00t!)

Remember all, this is a re-post form the Blood Pearls Web Site and some of the contents may be a bit dated but anyway...

Today I am not reviewing a battlemech, nor am I going to discuss any weapon in particular. Nope none of that, instead, I am going to talk about the Blood Pearls. It is hard to ‘review’ yourself objectively but I will give it my best shot.

Where to start? Well, that part is easy, lets start from the beginning, the beginning of the Blood Pearls, that is.

Over a year ago, there were a couple of teams that were a part of NBT Mercs. St. Ives Compact and Black Knight Mercenaries are the two teams that come to mind. Sure there were many more teams, but these two formed the nucleus of what we now know as the Blood Pearls.

Smaga, Cowcrusher, Hacksaw, Prime 24, and Leon were all part of St. Ives Compact along with some others like Pirate and Dottie, Alistair, Space Jimmy (I believe), Creamedweasel and a handful of others like Caccus, Sgt. Steve, Futher and even Paladin if memory serves me (and please guys note the corrections if there are any, I slept once since those days).

Hugh and I were part of the Black Knight Mercenary team, a house merc for St. Ives. There were others Dark Knights (aka BlackKnights), Knightshade, Boomer, Spewdog, a couple of guys from Holland and of course Deathreach.

As mentioned, BKM were house mercs for St. Ives. The Compact was located in a very hard to defend area on the Mercs Universal Map and seemed to be under constant attack. There were drops nearly every night if not for the team, at least for a pilot or four.

St. Ives became too much to handle as members started drifting away for real life issues or joining other teams like the Federated Suns. Black Knights were going through the same sort of troubles, not enough folks for our own drops, Cbill issues and so on. Independently, the leaders of both teams announced that the two team would go on the inactive status as they tried to reach team decisions as to what to do next.

I played in a BKM drop against CapCon on a Tuesday night and on Wednesday I woke up to find out that we had no team. What a shocker. Later that week it was announced that the two teams, or remaining players from each would merge into St. Ives Compact.

That appeared to be a good solution for all involved as BKM had played with and for St Ives many times and we all seemed to do well together. Sorry to say egos, strong wills and a few personalities got in the way of what would have been a very strong team. I am not going to point fingers, name names or place blame, instead, I will say that a merger is a very tough thing to do. It was a difficult situation.

After only a few short weeks the St. Ives Compact folded. Some of the members moved to FS, others formed another Merc Unit and still others went on to form The Blood Pearls, a pirate unit, our home in the MW4 Universe.

If my memories are correct, Smaga, Cow, Hacksaw, Pirate, Dottie, Weasel, Prime, Leon, Space Jimmy, Hugh and I were the 1st members of The Blood Pearls. Others joined us along the way, AC and Ninjawolf from VP, Sparrow, Buddha and Lil Puma, Dread, Deathreach, Bruiser, Homer, Mongo, Bec, Ivy, MechMasta, Soul and I really hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. I know there were others like 5050, Mousewing and Dozer, but I have named the ones I can recall.

We started with a team in trouble; the Blood Pearls were a pirate team in NBT before we tool the reigns. They had a 27% win record and had squandered all the cash. When The Blood Pearls left NBT we had better than a 60% win record, the maximum amount of cash allowable in NBT Automation and a Clan Heavy Factory producing Ares on a weekly basis as well as our own Jump Station and 5 planets.

Some of this was accomplished through wheeling and dealing, but the win % is done on the field of battle. Now think about that for a moment. This team went from 27 % to 60%. The 60% number includes all battle records from the previous owners. Most of that was done playing 1 or 2 times a week over a 6 to 7 month period. Our actual win % was probably in the upper 80 to 90% range.

In MWL we are running at 70%. MWL is a different ball game with, for the most part, a different set of targets, but yet, BP continues to do well.

BP continues to do well. That is what I really wanted to concentrate on in this article. What makes this team do so well? Is it one or two ace pilots? Do we have better mechs? Are we running hacks?

Yes, no and absolutely not answers those questions. 1st and foremost let me dispel any rumours of hacking. BP does not now, nor have we ever hacked. Both Practice servers currently in use have hack protection. Most teams we play in MWL run Cloak. Cloak has merc shield built in, i.e. built in hack protection.

Do we have better mechs? No. Every team in MWL has the same mechs.

Do we have 1 or more ace pilots? Maybe, but again, I don’t think this is the reason for success.

Lets put the last 2 items together and add some to that. All teams in MWL have access to the same mechs, where as in NBT, we had what we started with, those that we purchased and those that we salvaged / stole in raids. In MWL, a team can use ANY mech. So I say, it’s not the mechs, but the mech selection.

Ace pilots? Sure we got some aces. But an ace is not going to win by himself. 2, 3 or more? Maybe we do have that many, but again, aces wont win anything in a team environment. Now we close in on the key. Team. Teamwork. Team practice. Knowing each other, playing with one another and acting as a team has won us more than any other factor.

The Blood Pearls used to be King of the Brawls. I would say that at one time, there were none better in a mech brawl than the Blood Pearls. That may still be so, but our tactics have changed over time.

We have become a more patient team with the ability to play many varied tactics in the same game. We can go from range to brawl to range all in the same confrontation.

Where do we attribute this? Well, I am going to have to say a couple of things about our leaders before I go to the pilot base. Cow and Smaga have very in depth knowledge about almost every map in the game. Both have game savvy knowing what weapons on what mechs work with other weapons and mechs. I try to help out with configs some and pilot assignments, but these guys for the most part build the plan.

Both are exceptional drop commanders, leading a team on the field is not an easy thing, whether its 4 pilots (a lance) or up to 8, but these guys do it very well. Looking for the enemy, finding the enemy, making sure we are all together on targets, getting the team to operate as a team.

The pilots on this team are very disciplined. They listen well to the DC. They follow instructions. They shoot well. These simple sounding things make life for a drop commander much easier.

As a team, we spend a lot of time in the practice server, trying different things and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Everyone listens to everybody’s ideas. We play on the map and figure out what works or at least what we think will work. Many times I have seen it that we come into practice with what we want in mind only to find out that on the field it simply doesn’t work well enough or like we thought it would.

Another thing this team does is to play in the opens together. This is one of the best ways to learn one another, what a pilots tendencies are, how they react under extreme circumstance, how well they respond to the call for help, how well the concentrate on a specific target. The Blood Pearls do this and more or less they do it every night.

One of the most important factors that I have not covered is respect. I firmly believe that each member of our team has respect for each and every other member. That goes a long way in this game. We can all count on one another and we play the game as a team.

Teamwork. Teamwork. Teamwork. That is the final answer. The better a team works together, the stronger the team is. It’s all about the teamwork. For the Blood Pearls it has become second nature.

I am not going to single out any pilots and point to out good and bad things. I will use a couple of examples though. AC. You guys remember him? We all spent a lot of time with AC, in games, in practice and in the opens. AC used to get on all our nerves, ramming guys, doing DFAs, shooting you from behind and so on. Any of you play with him lately? All that time he spent with all of us turned AC into one deadly pilot. AC is actually leading drops for CJF in Hardcore. Quite a turn around.

I am another example. As a 1 v 1 pilot I am terrible. I tend to charge my opponent, even now after all these years. I don’t shield my ct very well. I am still learning to spread damage and how to avoid missiles. Put me on a team that practices teamwork and I am a different story. Many times being one of the last standing, not because I lay back and let team mates rush in or get picked off first, because I still have the same tendencies of charging and not protecting my ct, but because I listen to the DC (if its not me) and I go for the called target. I have spent a lot of time with many of you in the opens and I have learned how you play and I account for that in the way I play. I may not be very good as a single player, but I am one of the best team players.

The Blood Pearls as a team are one of the best. I firmly believe that given the time to practice, the Blood Pearls will defeat any opponent. I also know we are going to get beat. One of the things about the Blood Pearls, if they do get beat, they find a way to overcome it and take it to that team on the next meeting. That is what we do. It takes a team and we are a team.

I will wrap this up with a statement that I received from one of the Clans that we never faced in NBT Mercs. Just prior to league shut down, we had some open schedules against WoB and we were trying to get these last battles scheduled before the league shut down. One of the Clans, knowing the league was almost over, sent out drop ships launching on every planet they could reach in hopes of finding someone to attack, not us in particular, but any team. They happened across one of our planets. When that happened in NBT, the Leaders had access to a forum called battles schedules or something like that. This was where teams exchanged threads and tried to agree on a time and date to play and from there you would schedule a server. These were OPEN threads to those that had access to the forum, meaning anyone could read them.

Once we received automation notification of the attack I posted in the forum that we would withdrawal from the battle as the league was nearing end and we didn’t see anyway to get the game scheduled prior to league end. The reply from the Kahn (leader) was that they were very sorry to see that. The Clan had not intentionally launched against US, but was very excited to get the opportunity to face us on the battlefield. When I posted a follow up apology, he again posted a comment I hope I never forget, a tribute to our team. He said, “ I and the members of our Clan are very sorry this game will not be played. We have many contacts in the K Cluster (home worlds of the Clans) and we have heard nothing but good about this pirate team that call themselves The Blood Pearls. We have read posts in the GC (General Council forum for Clans and Clan Leaders) about how well you perform and about the damage you have caused many of our fellow clansmen. It is rare for such a small team to do so much damage and play so well that the other Clans WANT to play you. Sorry that this could not have happened in the course of this league for we will not be going forward into HC as I hear you may not be going forward either. Good Luck to the Blood Pearls.”

Let me repeat the important part … “…We have read posts in the GC (General Council forum for Clans and Clan Leaders) about how well you perform and about the damage you have caused many of our fellow clansmen. It is rare for such a small team to do so much damage and play so well that the other Clans WANT to play you. …” I tip my hat to The Blood Pearls.

Damn fine job team, damn fine.

Post Op Vettie

Post Op Vettie

Well folks this one went off much better than the first back surgery I had. I had heard rumours and I guess it true that most folks who have one back surgery end up having more than one.

I didn’t really have time to get nervous or anxious. They told me to report to the hospital at 8.30a and that by 10.30a they would be working on me. I showed up at 8.15a to get the “I’m here” paperwork started. The pre-registration room was packed and Ms. Vettie and I had to share a love seat. By 8.40a I had my little arm band on and was looking for the bar. They gave me one of those little buzzer things like you get when you go to your favourite restaurant at 7.00p on a Friday night. I was wondering around the gift shop, starving, and drooling over the fresh doughnuts when I asked the cashier where the bar was.

She looked at me like I was a dumbass. Huh? She said. I said, I’m old enough, they even gave me an arm band in there (as I pointed to the registration office). She snickered and explained that the arm band wasn’t for drinks, but that’s how they would identify me. I said, well I would hope that the surgeon that was gonna operate on me, that he would at least know me by sight and if not, then at least by my checkbook. She agreed, but said it was their policy.

I went out for a smoke and the buzzer went off. I put out my smoke and wandered back in where this pretty little nurse was waiting on me with a handful of papers. She told my wife that they would just take me for now and ‘prep’ me. Once that was done, they would come get her.

This is probably a good time to mention Ol Vettie has an aversion to needles and talk of blood. The actual ‘stick’ doesn’t bother me as much as talking about it does. I told the nurse that I was a ‘hard stick’ and not to tell me what she was doing, but rather just do it and be done with it. I mentioned too much conversation about it and she would need some help getting me off the floor. So she did her business and I didn’t pass out.

The nurse sent for my wife and just about the time she showed up the anesthesiologist showed up. We went over all the questions and I told him that the last time I went ‘under’ I was very sick when they brought me around. He said they could give me something for that and hopefully it would not be as bad or I wouldn’t be sick at all.

Turns out, this guy is best friends with my wife’s boss. She is an office manager for a plastic surgeon. Her boss and the ‘sleepy time’ doctor race motorcycles for fun. And I am talking about those ‘ninja’ type cycles that go way too fast and you have to lean way over when taking a curve. So I asked the guy what I thought was a reasonable question. I said, would you let someone that did that for fun put you to sleep? He said why. I said, well if you have no more regard for yourself than that and you are willing to take that much risk with yourself, why wouldn’t you do the same with a patient? He snickered some and then he realized I wasn’t kidding. A few minutes later a different anesthesiologist showed up. This guy was real nice and calm, he didn’t ride motorcycles and I felt better.

Moments later my surgeon showed up to go over what they were going to do and roughly how long it would take. From there they wheeled my bed in to the ops room and told me to just relax. 10.44a and I was hungry. (no feeding the animal from midnight the night before, not even any water). Boy was I hungry.

They told me to count, but usually they save count down from 100 backwards. This time they just said count. I remember saying 17, 32, 44, 11 and then I woke up. I was in the recovery room. I had a nice nurse sitting beside me asking me questions.

Are you awake? I think I am. Do you know your name? I think I do. Do you know where you are? Maybe. Do you have any pain? Yes. Where is your pain? My back and my throat and my stomach. Are you sick? No just hungry. Heres some Ice Chips, maybe that will help. Thanx.

She ran a few tests and checked my blood pressure. All was well. I was completely awake now and talking without being a dumbass. She said I couldn’t have any chips and cheese dip nor a margarita, or at least I couldn’t have them right now. I said please, but she said no. She got up and went to check on my ‘transport’ to a room. Several people walked by and a few stopped to check on me, I asked each one in turn for something to eat, chips and dip or something, tacos, a subway sandwich, anything. They laughed and said no.

My nurse comes back and she had some large fellow with her. Down the halls and off to the elevator we go. Next stop, my room. My wife was already in there and she came over to give me a hug. As she bent down to hug me, I whispered chips and cheese dip and 2 tacos please. As with everyone else, she laughed and said no.

I had a nice room with a flat screen TV. I had my own nurse and a tech. They had to keep an eye on my vitals and blood pressure. My nurse administered my meds and got my bed set to where I was comfortable. After all that was done, I asked her if I could have something to eat. I explained that I had not eaten since the night before and that it was going on 2.00p and I was starving. I have to tell you, I never thought graham crackers and peanut butter we so good. She also brought me a popsicle, grape flavoured, and a big ol’ hospital cup of water. She told me I could order my dinner by calling some extension number.

I called the number and ordered chips and cheese dip with 2 tacos and Spanish rice. I love that stuff. When m dinner arrived I was pretty excited. When they uncovered it, I was pretty disappointed, but I was really hungry so I figured WTH. Baked chicken with a bed of rice pilaf and some carrots and broccoli. Well it was food and I was hungry so I ate it.

I didn’t sleep much that night, not because I was in too much pain (I was but not too bad) but simply because I had been out most of the day. I have to tell you there is not much on TV at 2 to 4a on a Monday night / Tuesday morning. TNT is your best bet because they run shows all night long. It also seemed like when I finally did dose off that the tech would come in and take my blood pressure or the nurse would come in and check stuff or give me a shot of some kind.

Morning rolled around and my wifey came back around 6.30a. She brought me some home made biscuits filled with bacon. I love bacon. Bacon is great. I scarfed ‘em down pretty quick because I was still very hungry. Around 7 or so the Physical Torture lady showed up to get me up to walk. 2 laps she said. 4 is what we did, but I told her I wanted more food. She said breakfast was on the way.

I got to go home around 10.30ish and I feel pretty good. Yes I am sore and yes I have some difficulty in moving about. Once I get up and get going, things aren’t so bad. It’s the getting up and going part or the stopping and setting down or laying down part that gives me the most trouble. Doctor says that should pass within a few days.

So, Ol Vettie is more or less back and I will be posting to my blog every now and then. I have several reviews already done. I just need to look them over before publishing them and I need to get some screenies of them.

Thanx for the support folks.

The Thor

Another favourite in store today, at least it is one of my favourites. I am going to talk about a Clan staple Mech. The solid centerpiece of Clan Technology. Weighing in at 70tons, The Thor is brought to center stage today. The Clan Thor in its current rendition is possibly the most versatile, toughest, most useful battlemech in the game. The weight, 70tons, is one place to start. That weight gets a drop commander a lot of options. On the low end of the tonnage for the Heavy Class Battlemechs, the Thor out performs most heavies and many Assault Class Mechs. Starting with the electronics, The Thor offers a very good package. ECM, LAMs, Enhanced Optics and Jump Jets are the options. Lacking only BAP (for Clan Tech), this is a damn fine group to choose from. Almost every non-brawl configuration a pilot will dream up will include ECM and Jump Jets. This heavy class battlemech is very agile. It offers what few others do, a 360 torso twist. Why is this important? If you get into a bad spot, you can rotate that torso and fire away with full effect while running at full speed away from your enemy. The Thor is rock solid. It is rare that I run anything other than Ferro armour on it, simply because the Thor can stand up to some damage. The arms and legs are very tough, with the special slot, or missile pod probably being the weak spot of the mech. The Thor has some very nice slots and offers good speed. Each arm is a 3 slot omni, while in the torso you will find a 2 slot ballistic as well as a 2 slot energy and a 1 slot omni, all topped off by a 2 slot missile rack. This array allows for many choices of armament. Possibly, the most popular is the 2 Gauss 1 ERLL load out. This config gives the pilot a lot of bang at 800 meters. The slots on this mech offer much variety to Drop Commanders or pilots. It can play long range throwing in 2 ERPPCs, it can go ranged power with the 2 Gauss 1 ERLL config listed above, it can be a missile platform loading the arms and torso omni slots with missiles, it can take 3 ERLL and still fit a ballistic or missile or both. It can brawl, taking 2 LBX 20s, 1 LBX10 and a Heavy Medium laser (I have knocked a lot of mechs down with this one). The speed range on this mech is also very good, ranging for 60kph to 103kph. Back in the Vengeance days, I had 3 favourite mechs that I drove often. In open servers, I liked the Daishi, the Mad Cat and the Thor. There were many mix tech servers in those days and I would load my Thor with 2 light gauss and an ERLPL laser with all the ammo I could get while maintaining ECM, jumpies and 79 speed. This was a deadly mech on such maps as Frostbite where the snow was falling and the fog was thick. I often used a Thor in maps like Big City because of the agility. Often facing Daishi’s, MK2’s and Atlas, I racked up many more kills than deaths in those 30-minute respawn team battles. Hell, we didn’t even have comms back then, just team chat. It was the Thor that got me my first invitation to become part of an actual team. Lunacy was the map and I figured out that on Lunacy, I could run 2 Clan Gauss and an ERLPL with zero heatsinks and not overheat. I had joined the side with a group of others who were on a team known as Hit Men for Hire. The other team was made up of several from a team known as The Outlaws. The Outlaws had this guy named Odin that week in and week out was on top of the Microsoft Kill Leader board (anybody remember those days?) These guys on my side kept typing how good this guy was and that he could rip you up and you would never even know where he was to return fire. When the map launched, a few minutes passed as we made our way around the map staying in cover as best we could. Out of nowhere, I began taken fire. Odin and his Thor did me in in just a few seconds. Once I respawned, I put it in my head that that was the last time of the night Odin would pad his numbers on my behalf. I quickly made my way back to the where the battle was raging. I saw Odin pop snipe a Cauldron Born crushing it with ease. The next time he jumped, I laid a full volley of dual gauss and erlpl on his ct, not letting up on the pulse until his mech fell back beyond cover. The team chat lit up with “you should not have done that, and Vettie is soon to die” type comments. I was a noob and I didn’t care. Odin jumped again and I killed him. I held my spot and waited for him to come back. He did and again I put him away. In all, I killed him 8 times during that battle, I managed to kill 3 others and died only 3 times. I got an offer to join HFH. That was my first team. The point is this; the Thor can take it and dish it out. A properly handled Thor is capable of destroying much larger mechs, often many before making the scrap metal pile itself. It’s a do all mech, speed, firepower, toughness, handling, agility, load outs, this mech offers it all. Bad points you ask? Sure, the Thor has some. The cockpit offers little to no side view. The view from inside to out when looking up is often obscured by the roof of the cabin. The 360 torso can be hard to get used to, often causing an unfamiliar pilot to wander off course while he or she thinks they are going straight. Also, in hilly terrain, the 360 can sometimes cause you to get stuck on a hillside while you try to figure out which way your legs are facing because your torso is facing open ground. Same thing in cities. Buildings seem to get in the way of the legs while the body faces the enemy from behind you and you end up being stuck while they pummel away at you. The missile pod seems weak for a special slot, but it is not often used as anything more than a target. The Thor is one of the most powerful mechs in the game. It has some downfalls, but not many. It is tough, hard to bring down and packs a deadly load for its weight. Rating this mech is pretty easy to do. I have driven it often and know it well. There are many better than me in one, but few who like it more. Of the Clan Battlemechs, the Thor is my favourite. Even back in MW2 days, I liked the Summoner. Vettie’s View? I rate this mech at 4 to 4 ½ minutes. Excellent for its weight.

Let me start by saying that the Thor is one of my most favourite mechs. Back when I wrote the review for the Thor, the rail gun was not around, nor the beast that carries it. That being said, I will re-visit the Thor today and bring you my point of view about it. I have stated the Thor is one of my favourite mechs and that is very true. You don’t see me driving one very often anymore. There are some very good reasons behind it. The Thor is an old school omni mech. By that I mean, that in its days, it was possibly the meanest mech on the battlefield. But today, there are parts of the mech that seem really weak. Actually, the parts are not any weaker than they were before, its just that some of the new weapons allows for alphas much higher than before. The arms of a Thor can carry a plethora of weapons, any 3 slot weapon or combination of 2 slot and 1 slot or multiple 1 slot or just a 2 slot. A ‘standard’ load out for the Thor is two Clan Gauss Rifles and an ERLarge Laser. The Gauss Rifles are mounted in the arms and represent roughly 41% of the alpha value of the Thor (Gauss = 18pts ea (x2) and the ERLL = 7pts (I think) for a total of 43 or 44pts (44 if the ERL = 8 )). The arms of a Thor hold approximately 1.80 tons of Ferro Armour. This converts to roughly 54pts of damage before the arm gets destroyed. A Rail Gun carries a 56pt damage rating. One hit from just a Rail Gun can take out almost half the fire power of a standard Thor. One hit. Now add to that approximately another 30pts from twin ERPPCs and you are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 86pts of damage per hit from 900 meters away. The Rail Gun (at least on my end) doesn’t seem to have much knock so most times when I have been hit, the arm is gone and I don’t even know it. That is just one example. The ‘standard’ Canis carries a 66pt alpha, capable of taking any one part of a Thor off or coring the CT (or any of the torsos). Other mechs can carry that alpha number / the same weapons, but for some reason they seem more tightly grouped on a Canis and on the receiving end, it feels like you take the ‘full’ hit. The Thor itself hasn’t really changed, but the competition has. Mechs have gotten bigger and can carry more fire power than ever. Even Heavy Class Mechs are carrying more bang now. I am not saying the Thor is a shelf mech. No sir! As Heavy Class Mechs go, the Thor is one of the best. The electronics are great, the load out is great and it has speed and jump jets. The 360 torso give it a feature that very few mechs have allowing you to twist and turn avoiding incoming missiles or direct fire and still be able to shoot back with full alphas if need be. Because its an omni mech, the Thor has many uses, range mech, sniper mech, missile boat, mid range support mech and even brawler. This machine can do it all. It has speed, it can take a good load of weapons even with spec armour. Overall, its relatively small and is easily maneuvered. The torsos are tough and can take a pounding. There is no way this mech should be put away, it just needs to stay away from a Behemoth or a Canis.. My original rating gave this mech 4 to 4 ½ meetings. With the introduction of the Behemoth and the Rail Gun that changes things. I would down grade the rating reluctantly to a 3 to 3 ½ minutes, but this mech is better than this.

The Black Knight

Lucky eleven. That was my number in high school football and college rugby. Hopefully, this will be a lucky post. Some of you are going to like it. Some of you are not. It is important to remember, this is MY view of the battlemech, not the best view, but my opinion of this mech. Discussion posts are encouraged.

So what is the mech de jour? The Black Knight. The IS, 75 ton, Heavy Class, battle mech known as the Black Knight. My 1st encounter with one of these was several years ago after just purchasing MW4 Mercenaries.

I was playing Griffon Base while driving a Victor (shocker there, huh, Vettie in a Victor?) At the time, I was not entirely clear on ‘puretech’ and my mech had 2 clan gauss rifles and 1 light gauss rifle(edit: I think it was an ERPPC not a light gauss). I was circling to the far left of the base running passive. Checking the mini map, I determined that I was about even with the rear left corner of the base. I started my attack run. After crossing a ridge, out of the heavy fog, I saw a figure jumping up into the air. Light gauss round ripped into my left torso taking my armour to about 60%. This enemy had a shield on one of his arms, and boy did he have some speed. I decided to give chase. I turned in his direction and went radar on. Again this ghostly figure popped up some 700 meters in front of me. I unloaded my gauss rifles and ripped the shield from his arm. When he touched ground, I lost him in the fog. I continued very slowly in the direction of where I last saw him. Little did I now he had gone on to the next ridge as was patiently waiting on me to top the ridge where I saw him jump. I did and 2 more gauss rounds found a home in my center and left torso. I was now without left torso and about 65% center. Instead of backing down and selecting a different route to this enemy I could not see, I made the mistake of jumping straight up from where I was in hopes of putting a visual on him. The video animation of a Victor blowing up in heavy fog saturated night sky is pretty cool unless you are driving the Victor.

After that mission ended, I went to the mech lab to see what had hit me and why I could not see it on radar. Well, now, the reasons are very clear to me.

A Black Knight has the best set of electronics offered in the game with the exception of IFF Jammer. In fact, the Black Knight is the ONLY mech in the game today with ECM, BAP and Jump Jets. I repeat, The BK is the ONLY mech with that combo of electronics available to it. This combo, sometimes referred to as the ‘holy trinity’, makes this battlemech the ultimate sniper or command mech.

I might have forgotten the speed. A Black Knight rolls off the factory floor with a 75kph rating. A three-point expenditure takes this baby up to 81kph. This mech is agile. The higher the speed setting, the better it seems to turn.

The weapons load out on this thing is very good as well. For the most part, the Black Knight was introduced as an energy mech holding 4 PPCs, or many lasers. However, it has a 2 slot ballistic as well as 2 three-slot omnis. These omni slots can hold 2 regular gauss rifles, 2 HVAC 10s or 2 Arrow Thunderbolts.

A Black Knight is an offensive weapon. Introduced in the Vengeance Module of the same name, Black Knight, it was brought about to be an uber pirate hunter. When Mercs was introduced, very little was changed on the mech itself. The downfall of this battlemech is the center torso.

The CT of the Black Knight is as big as Atlas is tall. I believe that you can hit this mech anywhere NEAR the ct and it will register as a center hit. Additionally, the Black Knight does not have many internals even though it is listed as having standard armour / internals.
The BK is weak in the center.

I have mentioned how the Black Knight is an offensive weapon, a sniper, a command mech. It lends itself well to specialty armour because it has a lot of free tonnage for its overall weight. In fact, I encourage the use of spec armour for those of you like Ol’ Vettie here, a pretty good pilot, but not the greatest in a BK. The spec armour gives the ct the stiffness needed to absorb a couple of extra hits, thus allowing you to get off a couple of extra rounds of fire.

The Black Knight, even with specialty armour, is relatively heat efficient. I run a PPC boat, full reflective armour and only 6 or 7 heat sinks and rarely have issues with over heating on the right maps. I don’t suggest it on solar desert, or even tumbleweeds.

In the right hands, this mech can be deadly. It is a dangerous threat.. The electronics coupled with jumpies allow you to be stealthy, spot you opponent, jump from cover and lay down some heavy fire often without being detected on radar. A good pilot can find those spots on maps where you are able to ‘hide’ and send fire from 1000 (+), rip a mech to shreds and never be seen. RAC2s or HVAC 2’s also make good long distance weapons for those snipers out there that can do this. These weapons have enough knock that your target cannot return fire with any accuracy. The BK is fast enough and agile enough to move from that ‘spot’ and relocate to another, picking up where you left off.

The Black Knight is not used as much in the opens or mission play because of its weak CT. Again, I say, learn to use it. Learn to turn and spread you damage. The package and load out on this mech are worth it if you can learn to survive in it. Rushing or charging the enemy is not a good idea. It won’t hold up.

Well it time for the rating. A quick round up then the numbers should do it and set off a pretty good discussion thread. Personally, I like the Black Knight. I am terrible at driving them, but I have started to use them more often in the opens and I find that I am slowly getting better. As with many things, it takes time to use it well and I am one that exposes my ct longer than I should on most mechs that I drive. In my view, the BK offers the best electronic package in the game. It looks cool. It has very good slots allowing for a varied load out. It has speed. It can take spec armour and still take a good load out.

Now for the not so good stuff. In league games, it is often target uno. The enemy knows the electronics for the unit are housed in this unit and will try to make it the 1st to die. With a CT the size of Montana, the BK often goes down very quickly. Other bad things about the BK? The CT. Nothing else needs to be said. If you can protect your CT, it can be one of deadliest mechs in the game. If you cant, it’s just a dead mech in the game.

Vettie’s View? I rate this mech at 3 to 3 ½ minutes. The package, speed and weapons load push this mech way up. The center torso makes this mech a soft target in the hands of an average pilot (like me). Protect it and it will serve you well. Drive it like an average mech and die.

Before MP3, I had tried many times to use the Black Knight. To me, it is one of the coolest ‘looking’ mechs in the game and it had ‘the package’. By that I mean it had the complete electronics package, ECM, BAP, LAMs and Jump Jets, all added to a 75 ton frame that had some speed. Even with all that electronic gear a pilot could really pack on some weapons, dual arrows, a couple of light gauss rifles and an PPC, or a bunch of lasers, or heck, even 4 PPCs. Potentially, this had the makings to be the most devastating mech in the game.

I mentioned in my 1st review, that this baby was intended by Microsoft to be ‘uber’. In following the story line, you as a member of the legion, would take over for you now dead boss. You would pilot this ‘uber’ mech and take you merc group from a light lance to an assault lance getting the big money and the big mechs. To make this a bit easy to accomplish, Microsoft tossed in the Black Knight Battle Mech with lots of firepower and capabilities to help you on your way, oh yeah, and to keep you interested in the game so you would buy the next edition (Mercs).

When Mercs came out, the Black Knight wasn’t changed. It still had its ‘uberness’ . The only thing that kept this mech from being over the top was it’s H U G E center torso hit box that was as fragile as those little glass blow up things your wife or girlfriend likes for you to buy her. That big torso kept this mech in check.

Today’s lack Knight it not that much different. MekTek did take it to Area 51 and make some changes, but not many. I was privileged enough to be on the MP3 Beta Test Team and although I am not supposed to tell you what is in store (MP3.1 or MP4 if they call it that), I can tell you there were many discussions on the Black Knight.

MekTek keeps a record of what they are doing and they keep a discussion thread about what they should or might do. They keep this very neatly done in a bulletin board type thread and they people assigned to make sure all actions are closed before they go to release candidates of their work. I kept a sharp eye on some of the threads and one that interested me was the Black Knight thread. There were MANY discussions on what electronics to take away and what fixes to put in and on and on. I cant tell you what went on or who said what, but I can tell you the BK we have in MP3.02B is a compromise between several MekTek members finally agreeing that we got it right.

The ability to take Arrows (or any missile) was removed. This is not because the BK was devastating with Arrows, but more so because of the introduction of the new types of missiles (artemis) to the game. The center torso was tightened but LAMs were given up. All in all I think MekTek did the right thing with this mech. It is still a mean machine that can remain hidden and snipe you literally to death, but it does a weaknesses such as the CT and no LAMs. This last change, no LAMS, allows support mechs to actually be able to fire at and hit the BK at long ranges without being destroyed by a BK in the process. Don’t get me wrong, I think EVERY MECH should have the ability to take LAMs and I think it is a pilots preference as to whether they DO or not. I see the logic and I agree with what MekTek did.

I also mentioned MekTek tightened the center torso. I also see this as a good thing. I do no know for such, but I think they made the side torsos bigger, thus leaving a smaller center torso. This added to the overall toughness of the mech. In the right hands, this thing is dangerous.

The BK has 19 to 20 tons of standard internal armour., Max Ferro Armour applied, the BK holds 14.4 tons and still has more than 41 tons available for weapons and electronics. At standard speed (75KPH), and applying all the electronics, ECM, BAP and Jump Jets, that still leaves more than 35 tons for weapons and heat sinks.

The weapons slots are mostly beams type, however each arm contains a 3 slot beam or ballistic rack and the left arm house a 2 slot ballistic rack. The Black Knight was set up to be an energy mech, but it can hold a good assortment of ballistics. I am under the opinion that it is a better energy boat, but do not hesitate to load up with ballistics.

Some time ago, I wrote and article about the new heat scale and how it affected ALL weapons but mostly the affect on beam weapons. As we all know, lasers or PPCs create heat when fired. I suggest that for each large laser of PPC taken on a mech, that at least two heat sinks be applied to help in heat dissipation. Pulse lasers require more and PPCs do too, altho PPCs heat comes in spikes and drops faster than that of lasers. Vettie suggests 3 to 4 heat sinks per weapon to keep the mech running mid yellow or below. My thoughts are, even if I have to take one less weapon, I can fire ALL of them at ANY time rather than being shut down from the heat. Also remember that PPCs apply heat to the target as well.

All that being said, I still like the BK as an energy mech. The torso twist is very good, the speed is good and the load out is good. IF you can dodge missiles, or use terrain for cover, the Black Knight is a lot tougher than it used to be. Vettie has a few configs that he uses on certain maps and they seem to work. If there arent several Behemoths around with n00b cannons mounted the BK can hold its own with almost any other mech in the lab. The Black Knight lends itself well to spec armour still allowing for decent weapons. Spec armour works well on the BK to tighten up that CT even more.

I think that even tho my original rating of the mech was 3 to 3 ½ minutes, I am going to raise it to a solid 4 minute rating regardless of the loss of LAMs. This mech is agile and has excellent electronics. It is still best at range, but now it will last longer.

Special Edition

Special Edition

Ol Vettie has been in a lot of pain over the past 3 to 4 weeks. About 2 years ago, I had spinal fusion on my lower back, S1 to L4. Somehow, I had managed to break my back. The S1 socket suffered a clean break and actually fell about one inch and slipped to the right side. The rest of my spine stayed intact except for the sciatic nerve.

This is a bundle of nerves the comes out of your spinal and more less controls things in your body, like leg movements and pain. The S1 break fell on the sciatic nerve and caused some major nerve damage. I had surgery to fix the back but there is no real fix for the nerve, its one of those hope it heals on its own type things.

Anyway, recently, L3, the disc set above where my surgery was originally done ahs burst and is pinching the nerves that come from that area. This has caused some major pain and some issues with control of my right leg. More or less, the use of it has been limited.

I got the news today from my surgeon that it can be fixed and I can expect a 90% chance of a full recovery. There will be some bone shaving and a disc removal and replacement. This surgery is not nearly as serious as the first one I had. I am scheduled to go in on Monday.

What this means is that I will be down for a week or two and may not be posting much. I would hope that folks would continue to stop by and maybe leave a comment or two every now and then. As soon as I am able, I will be back on line and posting as soon as I am able.

Thanx for being there and reading my stuff. There is lots more to come, just a temporary set back.

Vettie out…

The Black Hawk

A milestone, ten reviews and still writing. This week the focus is on the Medium Class Battlemechs. Today’s choice is the Clan Black Hawk, otherwise known as the Nova.

Many of you, like me, have played the MechWarrior Series since the very 1st release. I did not care much for MechWarrior 1, but when Activision came out with MechWarrior 2 I had to have it. That was a great game. Probably the 1st one to bring BattleTech to our desktops.

MechWarrior 2 brought us many battlemechs but perhaps my favorite of the all was the Nova. That little beast had everything you could want, speed, weapons, jump jets, speed, toughness, speed, and weapons, did I leave anything out? I used to try to play all the scenarios on both teams using just the Nova. Man the hours spent….

That brings us to the MekTek version we have in today’s game. I have a split decision on this one. I loved the MW2 Nova. I like the MP2 Nova. They are not the same. The artist and testing teams did a fantastic job of bringing the Black Hawk to our screens, but I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. The Nova I remember had its arms connected to its legs and had no torso twist whatsoever. Our MP2 version is much different, very good, nice, but different.

The Black Hawk does hold true to its namesake form in many ways, its fast, it’s tough, it has good weapons slots and did I mentions its fast? The base speed from the factory is only 84kph, but a couple of engine upgrades and you are topping 100kph very quickly. It can take jump jets. It can hold a good variety of weapons.

The weapons slots are actually very nice. The right arm has a 3-slot energy and a 1-slot omni; the left arm has a 3-slot omni and a 1-slot energy. The ‘chin’ is split into 2 special slots, or actually 4. Each side of the ‘chin’ has a 1-slot energy and a 1-slot omni. This load of slots allows for many varied weapons. Gauss Rifle, ERPPC or 2, ERLLs, many ERMLs, Pulse Lasers of all sizes and CUACs up to and including the CUAC20.

Offensively, this mech is often used as a brawler and it is well suited for that. Heavy Large Lasers, or Heavy Medium Lasers with some Heavy Small and a crap load of speed will get the Black Hawk into any fray anywhere on the battlefield very quickly. Many use Machine Guns on this baby, coupled with its speed, a Black Hawk can chew away at any size mech. CUAC2’s are a good option, allowing the pilot to rip away, move to another position and fire again. This mech is often used as an objective killer in Mission Play maps.

At 50 tons, the Black Hawk packs 10 ½ tons of Ferro Armour when full. The chassis is very low to the ground making it a difficult target to pick up, coupled with blazing speed; it can often simply run away from danger. The torso of this mech is rounded, sloping down on the nose a bit allowing it a natural deflector of incoming ballistic shots. The arms are huge on this puppy, but do stand up well under fire. The legs are also relatively big making them prime targets for you leggers out there. I would have to say the legs are probably the weak point of the mech. I have noticed that there are a couple of spots on the rear of the mech that take damage with ease, often allowing the mech to die with only 2 or 3 shots well placed. I’ve spent a lot of time chasing these things only to end up shooting the ass end for a hopeful kill.

Not exactly like the MW2 version, this mech does have some torso twist, albeit, very limited. This tends to be a draw back if you get yourself in a close quarters fight. The speed helps you to utilize nearby terrain and break free from a close brawl. Just keep you head about you if you do get into a tight brawl and use the advantages this mech has, speed and a strong torso. Spread that damage and make your shots count. Run away and close from a different angle. Keep away from the circle of death, unless you got lots of room.

This mech is a favorite of many. It has many uses. It is tough and hard to kill. It’s easy to leg or arm. The main part of the payload will be in those arms so protect them as best you can.

Vettie’s rating? I have thought about this one for a long time. I have not been very successful in one of these, but that doesn’t make it a bad mech. As I have pointed out, it is stout and tough to bring down. The payload can be heavy and the speed is incredible. I wanted to give it a lower rating, because I seem to die so fast in one. The fact is, I haven’t spent the time in it that is required to learn this mech and its nuances. The rating, 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. Very good for a 50 tonner.

Bots

I have spent a great deal of time in the mech lab and in a server with just Bots. I have mentioned several times how I am very disappointed with the MP3 Bots. It seemed to me that each time MekTek released a new mekpak that not only did we get some great mechs and new maps, but they made some bit of change to the Bots. Each change to the Bots got them one step closer to human behavior.

Many will argue that AI can not replicate actions of a human because you don’t know what you don’t know. That is, you don’t know what a human will do under any given set of circumstances. Regardless of training, regardless of repetitive actions, somehow, some way, the kaos theory always creeps into the equation. The best you can do is to make the machine, or Bot in our case, behave the way you want a person to behave the majority of the time.

What I saw MekTek trying to do with the Bots was to move them as close as possible to being a team mate. A team mate that acted as you acted and when crunch time came, it would react in the most logical manner for the given circumstances and evolve its actions as the circumstance changed. Up through MP2.1A MekTek had done a reasonably good job based on what they were able to work with within the game.

MP3 came out and like everyone else, I was excited to try out the new battlemechs. I wanted to work up some configs and try them against existing mechs just to see how they faired. When you are part of the Beta Test team, you tend to take only the stuff you are beta testing to see how it/they respond. If you have six or so Beta Testers in a server together typically, each one will take one of the ‘new models’ so you have six or so ‘new models’ running around shooting one another. Not much testing is done regarding the interactions of the older models.

One of my favourite things to do is to pit ‘same weight class’ mechs against one another. I will build what I consider to be a good config for each mech. I will set up the server to a battle or destruction mode and set the map to the coliseum. I will then load one of each mech of the selected weight class as a Bot and I will take a camera ship. Its pretty much like a ‘Solaris’ Bout from that point on. I set the server to waves and launch. This give you a pretty fair idea of how well each mech stands up to others its size and what weapons are more effective.

The Bots in MP3 were mostly reset back to the Microsoft Original Bot files. The AI for these is really pretty bad. I had been used to Level 7 bots being very accurate but cautious, level 8 was deadly and steady and level 9 just didn’t miss because of aim and would close on a target quickly. As I said, MP3 Bots were reset. Now, Level 7 Bots missed a lot and were over cautious, not moving far from a friendly mech. Level 8 Bots were terrible shooters that liked to play the slow rush game. Level 9 Bots still missed often but would execute the n00b rush from launch point. But instead of rushing you and trying to kill you right away, the Level 9 Bots would keep running past you to your spawn point, often turning a side chassis to you and pointing that one arm as if to say “go ahead make my day”. Once they reach your spawn point they will turn and come back after you.

Last evening, while trying to put together an article for Vettie’s Views, I simply got tired of the Bot antics. They were really poor performers on the field of battle. I decided to try a little experiment. I created a folder in the directory where the bot files are located and I moved all the MP3 bot files into that folder. I then opened the MP2.1A directory and copied the bot files from MP2.1A into MP3 to see if they would work.

Next I cranked up the game. I set the game to one of my favourite maps and loaded in some Bots for both teams. I crossed my fingers, said ‘oh what the hell’ and launched the game. It worked! The Level 9 Bots were now deadly accurate and quick to charge your position en masse. Not only did they charge, but they did it as a group and team fired on the mechs until the targets were wiped or until they were wiped. None of these did the ‘kept running past the enemy’ crap and then turning and coming back for them. No, these Bots came to fight.

Wow!, I thought. Finally back to some decent Bot files. I decided to load in a few Bots at levels 8 and 7. Through the many hours I have spent playing with / against the Bots, I had discovered that Level 7 Bots worked best on missile boat mechs. They would move within range and actually use their missiles without continually closing on the target. Once the target was destroyed, The Bots would then move until they found the next would be victim. I figured out that Level 8 Bots were the best ‘team mates’ for humans and other Bots. They would close on a target as a team often with multiple mechs firing on the same target. They would not charge an enemy in a n00b rush, but instead would work their way to the target. Their shooting was very accurate, but they DO miss, much like a cautious human player, using cover to maneuver and firing when they have a clear shot and every once in a while missing. None of these bots would intentionally try to leg an enemy, unless they were currently legged themselves, whereas the current MP3 Bots try to leg you from the 1^st shot. No, these Bots would shoot for CT, legs or arms just get in the way.

I did several different experiments with Level 7 through Level 9 Bots loaded on each team to watch them perform and evaluate not only mechs but Bots. I have say, this was a good idea. It worked just like the code writers had originally put these files in the game. Now fighting a team of Bots is much more like fighting some humans except for the occasional ‘stuck’ bot.

Level 7 Bots worked best with missiles or long range only weapons. Although they would eventually ‘charge’ the enemy, for the most part they behaved like support mechs, firing from their range. They may not always fire at the target you hope they fire on, but they do fire and keep in weapons range. Level 8 Bots, as I mentioned above, had the most human like behavior, staying with a human and/or other bots as a group and utilizing cover to close on an enemy. I think Level 8 should be the most used Bot. Level 9 Bots make for very good brawlers, or short range mechs. They do close on an enemy, but not in n00b rush fashion. I did notice though, that if you load a team with all Level 9 Bots, they do tend to rush the other team, but if you sprinkle 2 or 3 in the mix, they tend to hang close to the Level 8s. Level 9s are extremely accurate, rarely missing of their own accord. Misses by Level 9s are generally due to terrain features like trees or hills, or the target managing to get under cover.

Knowing that Level 9 Bots rarely miss, you would think that loading long range weapons, including missiles, would be the way to go to insure your team inflicted as much damage on the way to the target as possible from as far out as possible. For some reason, that doesn’t pan out with Level 9s. They seem to hold their fire until they close to about 600 meters or so. I looked at the abi file for these bots and I am simply not literate enough to figure out what to change to increase their range of fire.

I played several games utilizing the bots and the game played much better. The Bots were merciless and deadly, but not stupid. Often when one bot was a big distance from his team, after receiving fire from the enemy, it would back off and hold up until more of its team mates showed up, much like a reasonable human would do, search for cover and try to get help by going to the help or getting the help to come to you. I actually enjoyed playing a few rounds with the bots. The best part is that they don’t type insults in the chat window, they just get owned and come back for more.

I don’t mean to say that the Bots are easy, far from easy with the right mix of levels. Sure 1 on 1 or even 2 on 1, the bots will almost always be taken down by a human, even me. Now you get 6 to 8 of them playing like a team and they are hard to beat, or they are good to practice against.

There are a few things to remember when playing against bots. A Head Shot has no effect on a bot until you get a second head shot (second shot kills the mech) on it. Taking out the hud on a bot does not affect the ability of the mech to target you at any range. A bot does not suffer the cracked windshield that you and I see. Legging a bot, or nearly legging it does not keep the bot from closing on you. A bot will not try to protect its leg, but instead will continue to fire at you and move in your general direction. Disarming a bot will not hinder it from trying to kill you. Once a bot has lost one or both arms, it begins to act like the Black Knight in ‘Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail’. It will not turn and run away. Weapons knock has very little affect on a bot. Hitting a bot with a HV20, or 2 HV10s, or UAC5s or whatever, may knock the bot around, but it will not cause the bot to loose its aim on you. There are some weapons that provide enough knock and if chained successfully WILL prevent a bot from returning fire on you, but you would have to be in an assault class mech capable of holding enough ballistics to do this. Knocking a bot down does not cause the bot to loose its ability to target you and it will continue to shoot you even from a horizontal position. If you manage to get enough firepower mustered on a bot AND it falls down, it WILL continue to shoot you and fire missiles at you (if so equipped). A bot will get up and fire again and again and…

I have to say that I hope MP3.02 (and beyond) does some serious work to the Bots as well as the mechs and maps and security fixes. MP3 bots were certainly a let down. I understand that the reason MekTek reverted to Microsoft Bot Scripts is because the MekTek scripts caused issues with some maps and even caused servers (hosted or dedicated) to crash. I will say that I never ran into that problem on either of my machines on any map that I played in any mode. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an issue, it just means that I never encountered the issue. I was very disappointed with the bot file in MP3, but I have found a work around. By sometime later tonight, both my machines will have the bot files replaced with Mp2.1A bots.

From the time I originally wrote this, I have since learned a little about scripting the bots and how to make them perform ‘better’. I have gone into my own bot files and created what I think are some decent bots for practicing against. I have not altered level 5 and below, just level 6 through 9.

My intent was to have level 6 bots as a ‘guard bot’ or range bot, one that would not stray far from the drop zone OR other bots on its team, but one that would utilize missiles or longer ranged weapons. The thing is, bots fire when they ‘see’ they have a clear shot on target IF their weapons have recycled and are ready to be fired. This is good for direct fire weapons, well, except for missiles. You see, missiles, when fired, will fly to whatever point they were aimed unless disrupted by terrain or other obstacles entering the flight path UNLESS those missiles happened to have had a ‘lock’ on target. Unless a BOT has BAP or is using Artemis Equipped Missiles, it is pretty rare that a bot will get a lock BEFORE it fires the first time. I have also discovered that unless the bot is fired upon, it will not shoot targets at 1000 meters. I have altered the scripts that allow my bots to shoot at stuff that far (given the correct weapons) but it is pretty rare that they do it.

My Level 7 bot was to be a team mate, a general all purpose bot that could take any config and do well with it. If a human was on the same team as the bot, my level 7 will follow the human to battle if the human moves slowly enough. My level 7s are set to aggressive, however, they start out in a non aggressive fashion seeking the enemy. Level 7s will examine they current mech they are in and the weapons load and determine their best mode of fighting based on mech and weapons load. They will utilize terrain and they will chain fire the hell out of you. They are also set to examine the target damage and shoot for that area. If there is no damage, then they ‘aim’ for the CT. IF you leg has damage or an arm or whatever, they will shoot that area until they are destroyed or until they destroy the damaged area. From there they migrate back to the CT. These guys are set up so that they do miss and they are not always 100% accurate.

Level 8s are set up to be as sneaky as possible and very aggressive. They start out in a bad mood and they want to get the battle over as quickly as possible. They are very accurate, but they still miss. These guys have been known to go passive if the human on their team does so. A level 8 bot of mine will be the leader of the bots unless there is a level 9 present. IF there are no Level 9 but more than one level 8s, the one with the best electronic package is the leader of the bots. IF it is attacked, the other bots (including level 7s) will come to its aid as soon as the can unless they are currently involved in a fire fight themselves.

My level 9 bots are set up to be the leaders of bots. Again, if there is more than one level 9 on a team, the level 9 with the best electronic package is ‘the’ leader. All others will protect him should he come under fire. A level 9 is aggressive but cautious. These guys are the most accurate of my bots but they are not 100%. They are just damn good shots. They will seek out the best attack route to the enemy and will start engaging at range (if they have the weapons to support range fire) but as they close in they get more and more aggressive.

One thing I have not figured out how to do is to make my bots jump over obstacles or jump climb a hill that they have trouble walking up. They seem to jump snipe just fine and even jump to avoid missiles if a lock has been put on them, but for whatever reason, I cant get them to jump over things or up hillsides. I ma still working on that and again, I am not a script writer nor a programmer so it’s a trial and error experiment for me.

When I first starting messing with the bot scripts, I really screwed them up. I had 12 bots standing around not moving or shooting. Doh! I went in and made some adjustments and actually got them to move around, but they wouldn’t shoot. Then I got the ‘Im gonna stand here and walk in circles’ thing going. I got past most of that and actually got them to move around and shoot. At one point, not knowing what I had done, I had it so that if I loaded more than one of the same level bot (say 2 level 7s) that neither of the bots would do anything until the other one was destroyed. That was bizarre. Of course, I also had it so that they would shoot anything that had a weapon, even their own team mates. That was a mess. I would drop in and the darn bots would start shooting me as well as the others on my team, it was like a Solaris match but the game was team battle… yeah that was a fun fix.

Anyway, I am always working on my bot files to make them more interesting and to make them tougher opponents. Lots of folks don’t like to play against bots but sometimes that’s all you have. For those times, I want my bots to be better than the average joe mechwarrior, I want them to be a challenge. I will say tht I always try to give the ‘bot team’ more players than the team that holds a human (or multiple humans), even as much as a 2 to 1 advantage, because, after all, they are just bots.

Assault Drivin n00b!

Vettie’s Views Special Edition: Assault drivin’ n00b!

That’s right, Im an assault drivin’ n00b! Many of you know my favourite mech is a Victor. I have bunches of configs, more than I can remember, but surely one for every occasion.

What about you? Are you an assault drivin n00b? Many of us are. If you play in the open servers, Sunder, MP3 Mission Play or one of the various mix tech servers, before your night is through you will almost always end up driving an assault mech. I don’t think it is so much for the fire power as it is for the survivability. There are lighter mechs that I could opt to take that can pack the same or even more fire power than some of my favourite Victors. I choose to drive the Victor because I like it, I have learned it and I do ok in it. I simply don’t have the talent of some, like Smaga in his BK or Cow in his Thor, to be effective on a continual basis in the opens in a heavy or lighter mech.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a BK, a Thor, a Grizzly and a Thanatos. But, to compete with Behemoths, Marauder IIs, Gladiators, Kodiaks, Cyclops and Highlanders, I need to drive something that will stand up long enough to allow me to kill them. On a good night in the opens, I will finish with more kills than deaths and somewhere in the top 4 or 5 on my team as far as kills go, on a good night. Sure there are times when I get lucky and have the top kills, but there are many more times that I finish somewhere around the bottom of the list, having 1 or 2 kills.

On Team Battle maps, I prefer to take a heavy. I don’t have to worry about the turrets eating me up as usually there are no objectives and I can concentrate on locating and killing the enemy. If you notice my favourite heavies listed above, all of them have jump jets. I am not very good with missiles. I don’t like them and I hate to be on the receiving end of a missile barrage. I do like PPCs, Large lasers and Gauss rifles.

On Mission Play maps, I almost always run a Victor. Sometimes, if the Victor seems too small, yes I said if the Victor was too small, I will run a Gladiator or a Highlander. Every once in a while, I will drive a Marauder II, but I don’t think I have ever driven a Behemoth on a mission play map. Again, I like the ability to jump and move, so I stick with assaults that have that ability. I do use a Cyclops once in a while on shoreline holds but that is about it. I used to like the Templar, but when I did like it, the hit boxes were fubar and the mech was very brittle for an 85ton beast. Now that has been fixed and they gave it ECM, but I just don’t use them much.

Like I said, I have a Victor for nearly every battle. I have long range Vics and short range ones and I have medium ranged ones. I have Brawlers and Snipers. I have some that are very fast and some that creep along at 61kph. The sad part of all this, for nearly every Ferro Armoured version, I have the same weapons load out (if I like it) in reflective and reactive armour. So, if I find a config that works, like the HVAC20 3xLL version, I will build one in both spec armours for possible use in drops. Now this doesn’t always work because some weapons are simply too heavy, like the IS Gauss rifle. At 16 tons, if you load a Victor with spec armour and jump jets and throw a couple of gauss rifles in, there is simply not enough tonnage left over to add many more weapons.

One of my favourite Victors is a very simple config. Two Standard Gauss Rifles and a PPC, 72KPH, ECM, JJs, LAMs and near full (ff) armour round out this simple config. This seems to be a good all around config that can be used in many varied situations or at least, I use it in many situations. The punch and damage of the standard gauss smack enemies around pretty good, while the ppc adds a little warmth to their hearts as well as static to their sound and vision.

On Sunder you will see a wide variety of assault mechs, Daisys, Masakaris, Battlemasters, Hauptmans, Mad Cat MKIIs as well as all those listed above. Big is in, big is survival, big is fire power. Lots of big mechs moving around looking for other big mechs to blow up. Sure you see Thors or Ares or Tenchis or Archers, but for the most part big is the selection of the day.

So, are you an assault drivin n00b? If so, what is your choice of assaults and your favourite configs? Go ahead and post, there’s no shame, n00b.

Well, its been awhile since the original post. Many nights in Sunder have passed and many new configs have sprouted their way to the top of my (our) list. I thought it might be interesting to re-visit this subject and try to spur some interest as well as posts from what you guys think.

First off let me say that sunder is still basically an assault fest. I have noticed the types of assaults have changed a little. We see Behemoths and Canis in less numbers and we are starting to see more Battlemasters and Daishis than before. The Blood Asp and Warthogs are also showing up. On proper maps, Longbows are more abundant now and we are starting to see more Sunders. Of course the Highlander is still popular as is the Cyclops.

The best thing we are seeing is that more and more heavy class mechs are making their way back. I think this can be attributed to the ‘broken’ Tenchi and a new popular favourite, the Wildcat. The re-worked Black Knight is also making more frequent showings.

Lets look at the different mechs listed here and out some ‘whys’ into what we are seeing. Lets start with the Behemoths. This mech is huge. It is slow and it is a walking target. The saving grace for a Behemoth is the Rail Gun (a broken weapon in my eyes). When one of these makes an appearance on the battlefield, everyone that sees it from the opposite team will make a move to try and get a shot at it. Why? Because it’s a Behemoth. These things take tons of abuse, but they can be killed. Just stay away from the Rail Gun.

I am not sure why the slight reduction in the number of Canis now being seen in Sunder. Its still the same tough mech with way too much firepower for its weight and still much too hard to kill. A couple of things come to mind as to why the dwindling Canis population. The players that used them so much don’t play in Sunder much anymore and those that did use them and still play in Sunder have actually tried to learn how to play other mechs.

The Battlemaster is making more and more showings and I think this is due to the fact that you can safely pack six ERLL on the Clan version and still have some speed and near (if not) full armour. On ‘No Radar’ or ‘Team Only Radar’ maps, a Battlemaster with 4 CLBX-10s and a bunch of speed will net you several kills in a hurry. This mech also is a good to load up on CUAC 2s which, if used right, can be a nasty weapon very similar to the HVAC 2 of the Inner Sphere.

Sometime during MP3 release(s), MekTek updated the Daishi by increasing the toughness and adjusting the CT hit boxes. This 100 ton beast LOOKS much smaller than the Behemoth, but it is almost just as tough. I think it carries a better assortment of weapons and of course it is more agile (but so are rocks). More and more Daisies are showing up on the battlefields. It is still fun to kill a daisy.

The Blood Asp has slithered up the charts and increasing numbers of them are rambling over ridges and hills to blast your butt right outta your mech. This has always been a relatively tough mech, but I think people are finally starting to realize that a Blood Asp can carry ECM and BAP with a 360 degree torso and a sweet weapons load