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