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.