Vettie's Views The Atlas

Vettie’s Views

Welcome to my new forum. What I have set out to do here is to give you my view or opinion on each and every battle mech available to today’s mech warrior. I will try to get inside each mech and give you a feel for how they respond, the weapons slots, reasonable weapons load outs and what I feel is one of the most important factors in choosing a mech, how long it lasts under fire.

I must remind you that this will be my opinion, you must judge for yourself. Each pilot is different and has different wants and needs in a mech, everyone has different likes and dislikes. I hope to spend quality time in the cockpit of all the MP2.1A mechs and bring them to you pointing out what I see as strengths and weaknesses.

I have long thought about which mech to do first. I considered doing it by the way they are listed in the mech lab. I thought about doing it by my favourites list. Finally, I decided that it really did not matter as long as they all get done.

The choice has been made. The first review coming from test grounds of Vettie’s mind will be one mech of legendary status. No Inner Sphere Mech has bigger lore. No Inner Sphere Mech carries such a huge reputation. No other mech makes pilots look in all directions until they spot it on the battlefield. That’s correct readers, pilots and mech fans, I am talking about the legendary Atlas.

The only mech with possibly more legendary fame that even comes close in my mind is the Timberwolf, or Mad Cat built by the Clans. Why is that? What is it about the Atlas that has given ‘Legendary’ status to this battle mech? Why is it so feared? When the word ‘Atlas’ is spoken over comms, why do pilots stop and look for IT? In this article, we hope to find that out and more, we hope to bring you the secret of the legend.

I have to say, the only thing I find legendary about this mech, is the LORE and the legends. I can see where back in the Vengeance days, this mech was to be feared. It was only 1 of less than a hand full of mechs weighing 100 tons. The ground doesn’t seem to shake as hard anymore when an Atlas stomps by. Times were so that the Atlas was the biggest, baddest mech around in any setting, be it countryside, forest or cityscape, the Atlas was King. The Atlas is no longer the ‘King of the Battlefield’ it once was. Several additional designs have been issued since those days that the Atlas and Daishi ruled most battles. There is the Annihilator, the Fafnir, the Kodiak and those are just the 100 tonners that I can think of, there many others that weigh in with less tonnage but pack a bigger punch.

For starters, the mech is very tall, one of the tallest, if not the tallest available to a pilot. Possibly the Annihilator is taller, but only by a meter or less. Being that tall, the Atlas presents itself as a very large target allowing opponents to get a visual from far away. The Head of the Atlas appears to be as big as some light class mechs like the Uller (kitfox). Actually, the appearance is deceiving, because the hit box for the head is not as big as the depiction of the head. Problem is that shots to the head usually result in damage to the center torso.

I guess that because I started down this path I will discuss the defensive side of the Atlas before going into the offensive power, forgive me if I ramble and some of the topics seem to run together, but that’s the ways it goes, because some defensive things about mechs are also used on the offensive side as well. As mentioned, the center torso on the Atlas is one of the biggest in the game. Head shots, side shots and even rear shots seem to land damage to the CT. The right and left torsos are, I would say, normal as compared to other mechs, that is, the side torsos don’t seem to take on damage easily, but they do take damage. The arms, although armoured well, do come off with continuous pressure (shots). The legs are as stout as any other mech, but because the Atlas is such a giant, the legs are a prime target. Like the arms, enough shots will take the legs off. I simply find it easier to kill an Atlas through the CT. I really cant stress enough how seemingly fragile the CT of the mighty atlas is. Glass Armour comes to mind.

The electronics package on the Atlas is top notch. This mech has every thing but jump jets. ECM, BAP, LAMS, IFF and Advanced Gyro are offered. For an Atlas, at minimum, I would take ECM, LAMS and IFF. Because the Atlas is such a monster, size wise, the IFF negates some of that defensively. What I mean is that, from range, even tho the Atlas is huge, proper camouflage and IFF negate the ability to be spotted if you are moving in cover, that is of course if you are not being totally stupid and charging in the open towards your enemy or enemy positions. Using IFF, your enemy can still spot you, but when they run their reticule on you, it doesn’t turn red unless you are within about 300 meters. On dark maps, or foggy terrain this becomes useful and keeps you from being picked up right away, allowing your big lumbering giant to quietly sneak into firing range. IFF also seems to help with your enemies getting a target lock for missiles. This MAY NOT be the case, but to me, it seems like it takes a wee bit longer to get lock on an IFF equipped mech than on one without IFF.

While we are on that thought, let me tell you what I think the uses are for an Atlas. Personally, I think the best use for the Atlas is in a support fire role. The Atlas can pack lots of fire power, spot enemies from long distances and can be used to bring lots of smack to an enemy. I prefer to use an Atlas in night drops, the darker the better. An even better use is night drops with team radar. At minimum, I would say, if you use the Atlas on day drops, use it in fog or where visibility is 500 meter or less. The reason I say this, is because even with IFF, the Atlas is huge and it has a big, glass CT. Keep it hidden, use its electronics and come out to shoot when you have an opportunity to hit an enemy that is not aware you are there or is already being pounded by a team mate. Its (the Atlas) lack of (many) ballistic slots does not lend this mech to being a brawler. Best use, medium to long range support fire from lots of cover.

Now let us look at the offensive end of this thing. The Atlas is an old school design with a decent array of slots. The torsos each pack missile slots, while the chest and right arm contain energy slots. The left arm houses a large energy slot as well as a ballistic slot. Additionally, there is a small energy slot in the head and a gun rack, or ballistic slot on the right side.

As said, it sounds like the Atlas has lots of slots for lots of weapons. It does, but, it seems that you can never pack enough of what you want on the thing. Let me give you an idea of what I mean.

One of my favourite configs for a Victor is to pack three large lasers (LL) and a HVAC20 with double ammo rounds. You can put this on an Atlas, plus one more LL! Sound killer? Its not. Heres why. The Atlas doesn’t jump and it’s a hot running mech. What does that mean? Well, to be able to run 4LL, the Atlas has to pack on heat sinks, and lots of them or the pilot soon finds himself flushing his coolant or shutting down. If you back off the 4th laser and just go with three, the Atlas runs very smooth.. Problem? I can run the 3LL HVAC20 on a Victor with jump jets and stay alive longer, saving 20 tons for somebody else to use.

As I have said, the Atlas is a hot running mech, but it has lots of energy slots. I suggest that pilots do not run Large Pulse Lasers (LPL) or Large X-Pulse Lasers (LXP) because even though the weights for LXP are only 5 tons, the numbers of heat sinks required in support raises the tonnage of the weapon from 5 ton to 8 tons (or more). For eight tons, I can pack on a Capacitor charged Particle Cannon (CapPPc).

Back to the ballistic slots, the Gun rack is a 4 slot ballistic slot. This will hold a HVAC20 or a Heavy Gauss Rifle (HG). The only other ballistic slot is a 2 slot on the left arm. This can hold a variety of weapons, but not a regular Gauss Rifle, LBX20, AC20 or HVAC10. To me, that is too bad for such a supposed terror on the battle field. You simply don’t get to put a lot of ballistic weapons on the Atlas.

If a pilot packs a full load of ferro armour on, then you have lots of free tonnage to work with. However, the base speed of an Atlas is very slow, somewhere around 51 KPH. Speed increases are reasonable in tonnage cost, but the Atlas will never be a speed demon. I think the 1st increase gets you to 55 kph or something close and cost 1 or 2 tons. The 2nd increase bumps you up to about 63 kph, but it cost 3 (more) tons. Each electronic cost you a ton except LAMS (1.5 tons) and Advanced Gyro (2 tons). If you took them all, you would spend 6.5 tons. If you took all the electronics and bumped the speed up to over 60 kph (63 kph is the number I believe), then it would cost you close to 11 tons and you havent put a single weapon on board yet. Suddenly, all that free tonnage is dwindling.

Lets looks at a few configs. One of my favourite configs is to put 2 CapPPCs and a regular gauss rifle with 63 speed, full ferro armour and all the electronics. This gives the Atlas some mobility and a powerful smack from 800 meters. A seasoned pilot can hide to the side of a hill or behind a clump of trees, using ECM and IFF and really put some damage on enemy mechs 700 to 800 meters away, often times getting a couple of alpha rounds off before being located and taking on return fire.

Another config I like is the one I mentioned before, that is, 4 large lasers and HVAC20, again with all the electronic goodies and some speed increase. While this variant requires you to get closer and pack on some heat sinks for 100% heat efficient (or less) maps, it has a lot of damage. The HVAC20 seems to recycle in harmony with the lasers and with the travel time of the weapon, it acts like a 5th laser (all most instant hit at less than 500 meters) but does the damage of 3 or more lasers. If you are able to close on your opponent without taking much damage along the way in, this config will certainly put some smack on the bad guy once you get in range (550 for HVAC).

Often overlooked is the ability of the Atlas to be a missile platform. This thing can carry LRM20s and smaller. With ECM and BAP, you are not always seen but can lock on quickly from 800 to 1000 meters away. For what ever reason, I like the LRM15s better and have built a config or two loading LRM15s, a couple of regular PPCs and toss in an AC10 for good measure. The PPCs hurt the bad guys, while the missiles forces them to turn away, or go a different route, giving you or your team a chance to get into a better position or fall back some, whatever the situation calls for. TheAC10 has a good recycle rate and range of 600 meters, slapping the enemy with 10 damage points and quite a bit of knock.

The ballistic slots on an Atlas will not allow you to put two regular gauss rifles or two HVAC10s, but they will hold three Lt Gauss rifles, six mini gauss rifles or three AC10s. You wont get much more crammed on if you have electronics or speed or any combination. The energy slots allow two PPCs, or two CapPPCs or 5 large lasers or a mixture of these not to mention that an Atlas can hold 11 medium lasers. Again, I must say, heat sinks are a must with this chassis and energy based weapons.

The Atlas is a very good candidate for specialty armour. Reflective or reactive armour changes the ‘glass’ center torso to more like hard baked ceramic. To me, the biggest problem in taking specialty armour over ferro is the loss in tons for available weapons. Because of the size of the Atlas, you loose around 9 or 10 tons if you elect to go with full specialty over ferro fibrous. That’s a couple of large lasers or a RAC5 or a mini gauss. If you do elect to do so, and you guess correct as to which armour to take, the benefit is there in the longer life of the mech. Because the Atlas is so big, and because the Atlas is, well, an Atlas, it tends to draw lots of fire, that bit of extra protection added by specialty armour results in your opponents calling you a hacker, or screaming to their team mates that the Atlas is not taking damage. It’s a trade off, extra weapons for extra life, but it could be worth it.

The terror of the battlefield does not have jump jets. It is a ground based attack or defense platform. If you increase the speed on the Atlas, the handling seems to improve quite a bit. Once you get to about a 63 speed, although slow, it does seem to handle okay for a mech of that size. It turns relatively quickly and has decent torso twist. This mech is not a very good climber, but it can climb most hills even if the progress is very slow. The Atlas is better suited for rolling terrain or city fighting.

For city fighting, I suggest large lasers, LBX10s or AC10s and rocket launchers, MRMs or SRMs. A reactive Atlas in the city can take some abuse especially if advanced gyro is added to stabilize the platform while handing out lots of love for the enemy. I have to say on a team radar, night, with rain, city map, turning a corner to find an Atlas is a scary thing. Of course, running through that city and sending that silly, grinning Atlas to the scrap yard is a fun thing to do.

I guess this brings an end to my review of the Atlas. Here is the part where I get to chime in with pure opinion and you guys get to think what an idiot I am or how brilliant I am or whatever.

Before I give my final analysis, let me tell you my rating system. There is the standard 1 to 5, or 1 to 5 stars, or 1 to 10 and that kinda thing. Vettie has his own rating system. I rate things on based on how I would pick that mech for use in a drop and how long I think it will last with me driving it once the firing starts. As most of you know, most battles last less than 7 minutes and most are only about 2 to 3 minutes. Sure you get the occasional battle that goes on and on because all but 1 pilot got wiped on the other team and he runs and hides trying to run out the timer, but those do not count in my rating system. To make it simple, 7 Minutes is the best mech available, 5 minutes is certainly above average, 2 minutes sucks and 1 or less minute equals why the hell did I take this piece of crap? You will see several mechs in the 3 to 4 minute category as there is a lot of mediocrity among mech chassis as I see it. So on with the opinion and rating.

The current Atlas, in my opinion, has an undeserved reputation. For the most part, I find the mech to be fragile with a CT that is (seems) twice the size of the Black Knight. The hundred ton beast can not hold a devastating alpha set of weapons. It is slow, big and can not jump. There are plenty of other assault class mechs that I feel do a better job at everything, everything except carrying the reputation and the legends. This mech is decent, but Vettie does not like the Atlas.

Vettie’s rating: 2 minutes. Poor for an Assault Class Mech.


The Atlas Revisited

Well, I went to the mech lab to build a new config for the re-born Atlas. As you know, MP3 will not allow you access to your old configs (this is one of the security measures put in), so if you want to bring back any of that old glory you once felt, you gotta start from scratch.

I am one of those guys that could (and does) spend hours in the mech lab. I like to set up my pc as a ‘mini’ server for me and a bot in the coliseum. I don’t advertise the server and I password protect it. I choose the coliseum because it is a confined area and the map is 100% heat efficient, what you see is what you get. If a mech runs hot here, it will run very hot on Griffon Base or Tangle and others.

So tonight, I go into the mech lab to build an Atlas. My process may be the same as many others, or it may be unique, but I will tell you how I go about it. First, I decide what it is I want to do with this mech, long range, mid range, short range, brawl, missiles or whatever. After I have decided, I strip all the heat sinks and weapons from the mech so that I am looking at just the chassis. Next, depending on my use for the mech, I put on whatever electronics are needed. In this case, I went with an all around support mech, so it gets all the goodies.

MP3 took nothing away from the Atlas, so it can still hold, ECM, BAP, LAMS, IFF and A Gyro, so this model gets em all. Then I go to the armour section and I hit this button called MAX ARMOR (they spelled it wrong, it should be MAX ARMOUR) but what ever. Now I get to add the weapons.

Some years back, in some hints and tips I read who knows where, it said that weapons put in the number 1 slot in the mech lab will last longer than those installed in other slots. Early in my mech life, I believed that and I used to put what I thought of as my main weapon in the first slot, in other words, I installed my ‘best’ weapon first. I’ve no idea if that is true, especially now since we have learned so much about hit boxes and panel destruction and weapons groupings, so I don’t do that anymore. Instead, I put the weapon I want to be on my 1st trigger on first. This means that I have to know what I want in the way of weapons before I put them on, or, I put them on then take them off and re-arrange them, or I just use the groupings sections after I install them all.

Many of you like many different types of weapons installed on your mech. I am not one of those pilots. I try to put things that work well together, whether its same range weapons, or same (close to) recycle time and such as that. I rarely have more than 2 types of weapons, 3 at most and the 3rd is usually a missile type weapon.

One of my favourite configs for the MP2 Atlas was 4 Large Lasers and a HVAC20. When I went to create the same for MP3, I realized something that I knew about that had not yet dawned on me. The heat scale in MP3 was once again tweaked as were some of the weapons. I knew the HVAC20 has a reduced range and damage factor and well as decreased cycle time (faster now), but I didn’t think much about the heat factors until I had the config built and went to give my new creation a name. Whoa, was I in trouble, even after the leftover points and stripping the armour to get an additional heat sink, I was still under 50% DOH!

In one of my many readings from different sources, I once read that if your heat index was below 50% it negated the ECM installed on your mech. I have never tested that, but I did believe it back in the Vengeance Days because I read it from a Microsoft or FASA article and one of my old teammates told me the same thing. Again, I do not know if this is still true, but running below 50% heat efficiency is hard to control unless you chain a lot.

I am not sure how much the heat scale has changed, but this config was no longer viable in my book. Back to the lab, strip it all off and start over. Well out of the lab came a big old mean machine. My new Atlas has 2 CapPPCs and a Heavy Gauss rifle with extra ammo, all the electronics and lacks only .5 tons being fully armoured.

Now to take it for a ride. I put another Atlas in as a level 8 bot and jumped in the coliseum. When a level 8 bot with 5 Large Continuous Beam Lasers starts shooting you from about 850 meters and you haven’t even located him yet, well, that is just not a good time for your joystick to decide to flake out on you. I quickly lost my ability to turn or even twist and bring the nose down to look straight ahead instead of staring at the sky. Within a few minutes, the bot had destroyed my new mech and had me cussing the joystick.

After shutting my PC down, removing the stick and slapping one of my back ups on, I went back into the game and made the controls adjustments. I ran a couple of instant action games after calibrating my stick just to get the feel of it again. That all done, I went into testing mode.

The re-born Atlas has some changes. There is a leg mounted missile rack that I don’t remember from before. The twist of the torso seems a bit faster as does the turning ratio. The mech does seem to be a bit sluggish to start moving and of course, if you go into reverse, it seems to take a bit for it to kick it in. It feels as if you are moving slower, but the base speed actually has changed from 51to 57 (I think).

One thing has changed, the CT is still as big as many medium mechs, but it is a lot tougher now. I put several bots in the server and faced them all in a destruction battle. I was fighting other Atlas and its brother the Warlord. The Atlas holds up much better now.
You still don’t want to take many hits to the CT, but it will take a few more to bring it down.

Another thing I noticed is the poor artistic work down to the Atlas. I know this is a MS original mech and it was done many years ago, but after looking at some of the new mechs, this one just looks sad. The Missile rack on the leg, looks like someone hung a large multiplexer or modem on the leg. The ‘hip gun’ looks like a very simple box with a barrel coming out of it, not nearly large enough to hold a Heavy Gauss Rifle. Some of the inside textures (like the inside portion of the hands or arms) are just simply smooth with no textures on them. Never figured out why mechs had hands (if they weren’t clutching anything) other than to give them that giant human look. I prefer the hands to be gun barrels or missile slots, but that is my bitch.

The Atlas moves up a bit in my eyes. It is somewhat tougher now, but it still can’t carry enough weapons to support the legend the name brings to mind. Now with the introduction of the Behemoth and Marauder II, the Atlas doesn’t seem as big as it is. The Atlas still has one of the best electronics packages in the game and it can bring a decent can of whoop ass to the party, just don’t over expose that massive, MR. Atlas the body builder chest, and this mech could live till the end of the battle. I still don’t think it holds enough ballistics, therefore leaving it more energy dependant. That is more of a problem now with the heat scale changed as it has. To use lots of lasers or PPC based weapons as well as some ballistics, you have to take heat sinks now. Some of my configs that had no heat sinks before, have 2 or 3 now, just to make them manageable. Some pilots are better with heat than others, and I put myself in the middle there, I would rather not shut down in the ‘heat’ of battle (pun intended), so I will opt for more heat sinks and less weapons in many mechs.

Those of you that never cared for the Atlas should give it a look now. Other than the slow speed, it’s a decent mech on the right maps. Many of the mechs seem slower now and of course, those new big monsters ARE slow. The Atlas is not as agile as some, but it is more agile than a Behemoth or an Annihilator.

Vettie’s Revised View on the Atlas? I give it 2.5 to 3 minutes, better than before, but still weak in the CT and weapons loads departments. Maybe I need to look at the Atlas as a missile boat…..