The Sunder

Black Knight brought us several mechs to the game we all love. Showing up as a gift from the Lyrans, let me introduce you to the Sunder. Weighing in at 90tons, the Sunder looks to me to be an intended replacement for the Awesome.

Offering ECM and LAMs, the Sunder has an ‘ok’ electronics package, but neither are installed from the factory. Both options are suggested to be used, because this is a big mech.

Having ferro armour it hold 17.5tons when full, only 1 ton more than the Awesome. The speed setting is a bit slower at 68kph. It’s not until we visit the slots that we see the real differences between an Awesome and the Sunder.

The Sunder can pack on some serious firepower such as 4 PPCs, 2 CapPPCs and 2 standard PPCs, A Heavy Gauss and a Cap PPC, 6 LLs, 5 or 6 LXP and any missile system you want. The Slots are nice, each side torso housing a 3-slot energy, a 3-slot missile in the center, and a 4-slot energy in the right arm. The left arm houses a 4-slot omni.

The Sunder also handles heat comfortably allowing the pilot to use less heatsinks and more firepower. It is sometimes referred to as “the Refrigerator”.

So, the Sunder offers more firepower than the Awesome but less speed. It is slower but it has ECM. It weighs 10tons more but it can take any ballistic in the game today. Is it better than the Awesome?

Well…., let’s look a little closer. The Awesome was built on a standard frame. The Sunder is built on an Endo Steel Frame. This suggests to me that the Sunder is little bit weaker and that once an area of the mech is destroyed, the damage will begin to transfer to the adjacent area much quicker. In my experiences with a Sunder, this proves out. The Sunder seems weak or fragile to me for a 90ton assault mech.

Stripping the stock load of weapons and heatsinks, adding in the electronics options offered and maxing the armour, a pilot is left with an astounding 48.5tons of free weight to be used for speed upgrades and weapons load outs. I suggest that the Sunder be loaded with spec armour. If you do, the Sunder still has 40tons of free weight for weapons.

I don’t have a lot of time in the driver’s seat of a Sunder. It is not one of my favourites. For what it is, I like the Awesome better. Many have done well in a Sunder. It is one of the few mechs in the game that can alpha fire 6 Large Lasers with only 10 heatsinks and not shut down. It has ECM which allows you to get in range to use that alpha shot, but it’s still not up there on my list.

Vettie’s View? I rate the Sunder at 3 minutes. This is average for an assault. It is my opinion that the Sunder is just an average mech with a big weapons load. The large amount of energy weapons that it can pack is a big factor in the life of the mech during battle combined with ECM ability. I personally believe the mech is too fragile for 90tons.

Post MP3 Sunder

I have to say I do not use a Sunder very often. It is not up there on my favourites list. It weighs 90 tons but it doesn’t seem all that tough to me. In any case, I will run thru the Sunder today and give you what I do know.

From the Factory, this baby has no electronics installed. There are 15 heat sinks and a speed setting of 68kph (remember Vettie always rounds the numbers down). 16.5 tons of Ferro Fibrous armour almost fills this mech, but it holds 17.5 when completely filled. The weaponry pre-installed includes a LBX20 for those intimate moments, 4 Large Lasers for when you wanna say “hi” and 2 Medium Lasers to back up that LBX Cannon. Not too bad. This thing is set up for medium to short range smack and those 15 heat sinks will keep cool while you pressurize someone.

Filling the armour (with ferro) and stripping away the weapons and heat sinks yields 51 tons to play with. Wow, that’s a lot. The speed is still set at 68 and the next upgrade will cost you 3 of those tons and boost your speed to 75. The slots are nice too. Each side torso has a 3-slot energy rack while the center torso has a 3-slot missile rack. The Right arm houses a 4-slot beam rack while the left is a 4-slot omni rack.

Looking over the slots again, first impression leads you to think energy based weapons. Staring at the mech with no weapons let you expand the usefulness of this mech beyond lasers. That omni slot will hold any missile in the game or multiples of other missiles (you could pack 7 LRM5s or 7 srm4s). That same slot could also hold any ballistic (except a rail gun, but it’s a Clan weapon and I review things from a puretech stand point) including a Heavy Gauss, a regular gauss, a couple of light gauss and any of the auto cannon types. The rest of the slots are made for energy weapons so PPCs (including the CapPPC in the right arm) or lasers. IF you use this as strictly an energy based platform you can easily pack 6 large lasers and add ECM and LAMs and still have 15 heat sinks, 16 if you shave ½ tonn of armour or skip the LAMs (Vettie recommends LAMs if they are available). Another nasty config is to load 2 CapPPCs and 2 Standard PPCs, put the rest in heat sinks (15). The 4 (or 5) Large X-Pulse is another mech that hurts. Another config that sounds messed up but really works pretty good is to keep the speed at 68, load 2 Large Lasers, 2 HVAC5s and an Arrow Cluster (with extra ammo) and add a couple of heat sinks. The HVAC5s keep an enemy mech bouncing while the cluster does area damage. The 2 Large Lasers add lots of damage when the enemy gets within 650 meters.

The Sunder is versatile in its weapons loads although all the slots may not be where you want them. What is nice is that the torso slots are high on the body of the mech so you can use those slots behind a hill without exposing too much of yourself. The arms ar slightly higher than the waist line so again you can protect the lower portion of the mech with terrain and still use all the weapons.

The Sunder is built on an Endo Steel Frame. This means the outside is tough but once a panel is damaged or destroyed, the internals take it pretty quick. Vettie likes to put spec armour on the Sunder. As I said, the outside is already solid, so making it reflective or reactive adds to the toughness. Many use a Sunder on colder maps and use the 6 large laser or 4 Large X-Pulse configs. On those same colder maps you will be facing opponents with ERLarge Lasers and / or ERPPCs as well as the Inner Sphere versions. Reflective is a good choice. Once loaded with either spec armour completely, you still have 37 tons to work with (assuming 68kph and ECM and LAMs). Shaving .2 tons gives you 38 tons and you wont miss the .2 tons. This really toughens up the mech quite a bit.

That has always been the problem for me, the mech seems fragile. I have seen Col Bird and Commander Homer run Sunders that just wont seem to die, but I am not as talented as they are and my identical Sunder dies alarmingly fast (or so it seems to me). At 90 tons, this beast should be tough. I have a few Sunders in my Mech Lab and as many have spec armour as those that don’t. I guess that as with all mechs, you have to use it for a while to learn the specifics.

The Sunder is a big target. It is tall and has a wide profile. ECM extends the life of this mech by making it harder to detect. When it runs, it looks like it is hunched over and shuffling its feet, even while heading at you at 75kph (or more). It just looks fat. The arms are also big targets on this mech, but if fully armoured (ferro), they are worth 54 damage points. That basically means a 55pt (or more) alpha shot will take an arm off. The legs can take up to 78 points before being blown out. The CT is big and wide but it only holds 72 points of damage. Protect your CT, turn, twist, use terrain, but protect the CT.

This mech can dish out some damage. Many different weapons load outs can make this mech an all purpose machine. My biggest problem with it, is that it seems fragile. The CT is big and weak (similar to the BK). Play smart when using a Sunder, don’t just rush right into the fray.

In my original review, I compared the Sunder to an Awesome. Both have ECM, both have a center mount missile rack and both are basically energy based platforms. The Sunder gets a slight edge because of the omni slot and it weighs 10 more tons than the Awesome.

I set up my server and loaded it with a couple of evenly matched BOTs, 1 Awesome and 1 Sunder. With matching load outs ( each with 4 ppcs) and another round with the Sunder using 6 LLs while the Awesome had 5, and I let them fight. In both scenarios, the fights came to an even split in waves for 15 minutes. That’s right, the number of kills in both fights were dead even. The difference was in the cooling power of the Sunder.

This is something I haven’t touched on in this review and that is the cooling ability of the Sunder. Unless something changed in MP3, the Sunder is the coolest mech in the game. By that I am speaking of the heat dissipating ability, or the way the Sunder handles heat.

At one time in our game, all mechs had a ‘number’ that the heat ability was based on. The heat scale in the game was hosed a bit and roughly stated, all mechs had more or less the same ability. MP2 (if I remember correctly) changed the heat scale and the way heat was handled. To us, the players, everything seemed to get hotter. Lasers, when fired, would heat you up real fast as would PPCs and a few other weapons including missiles. Depending on the heat index of your mech and the number of heat sinks, the cool down time varied, whereas before, all mechs (more less) cooled at basically the same rate. What does all this mumble talk mean? Simply put, the Sunder handles heat better than any mech in the game (unless something in MP3 changed). This also means you can run more energy weapons on this mech with fewer heat sinks than on similar mechs.

I rated the Sunder pre MP3 at 3 minutes. I said some thing to the effect that this was average for an assault and that I thought it was just an average mech with the ability to carry a large energy based weapons load out. More or less that is still true. The omni slot can make this mech a threat across all weapons platforms. If you utilize this slot for missiles coupled with the missile rack it becomes a different beast altogether. Pack that slot with a Heavy Gauss and load Large Lasers every where else and at 600 meters this thing will rip you apart. It has decent speed and using the ECM ability on normal radar maps help extend the threat. I guess the rating increases a little from 3 minutes, to 3 to 3 ½ minutes. Just about average. The Endo Steel Frame and weak CT hold this mech back from being a deadly threat. Its easy to core through the CT and once cored a pilot has to decide to lay back a bit or go all out and hopefully take someone with you as you die.
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