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.