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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1524 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 9, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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There is a new Mechwarrior 5 expansion! This time we got a full campaign focusing on the Ghost Bears. Which is a huge callback to the Ghost Bear's Legacy expansion for Mechwarrior 2. Some people have fond memories of that I guess. I mostly just remember a bunch of broken missions that frustrated me to death, even attempting to cheat through them when I was 12. Like the super buggy underwater level. The MW2 engine was just not up to the challenge that the mission designers threw at it.

Anyways, I'm told this DLC is 12 missions, I've complete 3, I'm super into it. Story is good so far, none of the characters annoy me, and the Rifleman IIC with a targeting computer replacing the small laser, and some extra armor instead of jump jets is awesome. Just a really solid sniper mech. Haven't unlocked the Kodiak yet though, so we'll see.

I think the difficulty starts a little higher than the base game, which is to be expected. The first mission was a bit of a wake up call for me, and I had to knock the rust off real quick. Especially since you don't get to change your loadout or get a sense of your unit's strengths or weaknesses. After that I felt better. I noticed only two or three of your pilots have the evasion skill, and I don't see reduced armor damage on the research panel. Either because they removed it, or the game was balanced around it being maxed out from the jump. I kind of appreciate this because evasion and reduced armor damage were OP paths that the original campaign was balanced around you maxing out ASAP. I literally saw the CEO of the studio saying certain missions were effectively gated behind you having maxed those out by then. Kind of bullshit IMHO to softlock you in a campaign because you researched the wrong tech. Then again, this was in 1.0 of the game, and I know they rebalanced a lot of the missions people felt were just way too fucking hard since then. What I'm trying to say is, early signs indicate the balance in this expansion is more promising.

I’ve never understood small lasers. They always felt like a terrible heat/damage ratio. And the range!

What’s the intended use? Or are they just there to fill slots for cheap?

Small lasers are pretty weird. Every now and again you see some meme build in MWO that's a light mech going 200 kph spamming 10 small lasers that's just impossible to hit and cores you from behind. But mechs in MW5 tend to not have the sort of build flexibility to let you minmax that crazily. Or HBS Battletech for that matter. Although I think at some point HBS Battletech let you fire your small weapons while you meleed? Was that a thing? Man it's been a long time since I played that game.

But yeah, on most medium mechs and every heavy or assault, small lasers get stripped for more armor.

HBS Battletech

Small lasers are daggers and highly mobile mechs with lots of support hardpoints are rogues. An ER SLAS++ off the black market hits as hard as a stock large laser but generates like half as much heat and still only weighs half a ton. If they didn't have piss-squirt range they'd be the best weapons in the game by miles.

What you do is you put four of them sumbitches on an SLDF Phoenix Hawk with max armor and jets, fill the five standard energy hardpoints with say those MLAS++ with the extra 10 damage, and stuff the rest of it with double heat sinks. With the +20% damage from the vectored thrust kits you're looking at like a 400 damage alpha coming off a jump.

Then you just scoot it around the edge of a battle and dare the enemy to either chase it and turn their backs to the rest of your oncoming lance, or ignore it while it rips their guts out from behind one by one. You just drop in directly behind them like "nothin personnel kid" and blow their rear CT out through their front CT.

It's an absolute monster, on par with a dooded up SLDF Marauder or Atlas II.

Although I think at some point HBS Battletech let you fire your small weapons while you meleed? Was that a thing?

Yeah, that is how it works. Melee lets you fire your small weapons alongside the melee hit itself.

This is where the mods really shine. Stiff like letting all non LR weapons fire in melee or having lots of great choices for speedy mechs that can boatany small lasers and core anything they can get behind (with EWAR to survive to do it again).

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