Swayback Sniper

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Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 6:26 am

BlueFlames
Posts: 465
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:24 am
Location: SSX Vault 12
The recent Steiner chassis sale (which included a discount on C-bill cost, quite shockingly) and challenge gave me the means and excuse to finally fill out my Hunchback collection with an HBK-4SP and an HBK-4P. I spent most of the challenge with the 4P, initially in stock configuration, which was painful, until I rebuilt my C-bill reserves to the point where I could customize it.

This ugly bastard is what I've come up with. It's basically meant to either shoot-and-scoot, enabled by that big standard 260 engine, or to join a long-range firing line. If you're going to work with this loadout, mount the hunch lasers in the order in which they appear, with your ER large lasers in the first and sixth position. This will put them in the highest firing points in the hunch, minimizing the amount of the mech that you have to expose to pop off a shot.

Close-in, you can switch to the battery of small and medium lasers, but take care about your heat. The smalls build up more than you might expect, almost matching the heat buildup of the two large lasers. You can group and chain fire the smalls on their own to keep the buildup managable, but if you lose control of your trigger finger and add the large lasers to the rotation, you will quickly find yourself shutting down. At range, if you find yourself running hot, just sniping with the large lasers, that means it's time to reposition.

Also, at close range, don't forget to twist to the right. This will show your left arm and torso to your opponent, partially shielding your hunch. In a stock Hunchback, this isn't tremendously effective, but the upgraded engine increases the torso twist speed, allowing you to more quickly transition between shooting and shielding.

The laser in the head is mostly a weapon of last resort. Hunchbacks are candidate mechs for disarmament on the battlefield. If your hunch gets blown off, the head laser ensures that you can at least be a nuisance, until someone wastes their time, ammo, and attention to kill you.

In terms of alternate configurations, seeing those ten free slots and all those small lasers, there's some obvious options to use ferro-fibrous armor rework the secondary weapon battery or concentrate more completely on sniping.

The first that came to mind was dumping all your eggs into one basket, by dropping the secondary weapons altogether (except the head laser), in favor of another ER large laser. You'll have to monkey about with the weapon grouping, if you want to avoid ghost heat while firing, and you're up a creek, if someone gets in close, but you're increasing your ranged firepower by 50%.

Working from that, I thought about restoring the secondary battery, this time in the form of two medium pulse lasers and upgrading the head laser to a third medium pulse laser. The heat characteristics on this look a little better than the huge battery of small lasers, and the range on the medium pulse lasers is about twice that of the smalls, adding to the utility of the secondary weapons. Like the above mech, though, your weapons are concentrated entirely in the hunch.

That led me to wonder what it would take to push the secondary weapons back off to the arms. Not much, it turns out. I downgraded the head laser to a normal medium laser again to restore the armor values on the arms, where the medium pulse lasers get relocated. The lower mounting position for the pulse lasers isn't much of a problem, since in close-range defense, you're not going to be popping in and out of cover very much, unlike when you are sniping. You might also consider swapping the head laser and the right arm laser, so that if your hunch gets blown off, you're left with two medium pulse lasers, instead of a pulse and a normal medium laser.

[edit] Corrected the first link to reflect the build I was talking about in the post. Derp. [/edit]

Re: Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:04 pm

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Chimera
Posts: 325
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:52 am
Location: Madison, WI
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Saw this last night. Gonna post a reply here soon as I get a sec.
Pain is weakness leaving your body.

Re: Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 2:31 pm

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Chimera
Posts: 325
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:52 am
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I've been playing with the loadouts on my Trebuchet (TBT-7m) lately. I like the Treb because the way I have it configured its fast (99.8 kph), I have AMS and Radar Deprivation, and its really great for close quarter city fighting. The only problem I have is when it comes to the loadout. Beam weapon hardpoints are located only in the arms, which most players avoid because they are so easily shot-off. I tend to agree with that assessment but I actually like having weapons in the arms. It gives me freedom of movement to shoot up/down hills.

I've settled on packing two LL's in each arm and 2 SRM4's in either torso. It has enough punch to harass at long range, but it really starts to feast when a Daishi or Stalker or Atlas is up-close and personal and I can just pummel its back-armor with SRMs.
Pain is weakness leaving your body.

Re: Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 1:25 am

BlueFlames
Posts: 465
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:24 am
Location: SSX Vault 12
Arm-mounted weapons are great, if you're planning to use those weapons for close/mid-range brawling, keeping light mechs away, or even using LRMs, which launch into a steep climb to clear obstacles. Those mounts aren't problematic because they're fragile, but because they're often physically lower than torso mounts. Sometimes this is reversed, as in the case of the Jagermech and Blackjack. Either way, if you're using direct-fire weapons at long range, those higher mounts are more desirable, because you can expose a smaller part of your mech for a shorter period of time, giving less opportunity for other mechs to snipe you.

For the kind of fighting you're doing with the Trebuchet, the arm mounts sound ideal for your lasers. Even if you're not on a hill, a light mech that tries to give you any trouble will be in for some extra hurt, since your arm lasers will more quickly track its legs.

Re: Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 12:53 pm

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Chimera
Posts: 325
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:52 am
Location: Madison, WI
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We should probably start getting some drops going. God knows I'm tired of this single-queue nonsense.
Pain is weakness leaving your body.

Re: Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:00 am

BlueFlames
Posts: 465
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:24 am
Location: SSX Vault 12
Absolutely. I've typically been playing after work, which is late (getting online post-midnight), but I'll endeavor to be on earlier, when I'm off work.

Re: Swayback Sniper

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 6:48 pm

BlueFlames
Posts: 465
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:24 am
Location: SSX Vault 12
I've been tinkering with this design, since the implementation of the new reward system. Of particular interest is that using TAG to aid teammates in target selection and locking is worth perhaps a little too much money right now. This means that, if you're in a mech capable of operating on the flanks, you naturally want your own TAG laser, and we have one more environmental pressure to use AMS.

Caveat: I have yet to test these designs, but I thought I'd post them, in case any other Swayback owners might be interested.

That in mind, here is where we left off.

The first thought that came to mind was that I could downgrade one of the medium pulse lasers to a medium laser to free up a ton and shove a TAG laser in the hunch. That would be a good idea, except that I had used up every single crit slot in my previous design (as I am wont to do), so freeing up a single ton was inadequate. Downgrading both pulse lasers to medium lasers had the side-effect of improving heat efficiency, though, so I dropped two double heat sinks, freeing up two more tons and six crit slots. That permitted the mounting of the TAG laser in the hunch, AMS with a ton of ammo, and BAP to automatically counter the ECM of any light mechs that may come to harrass you. The spec sheet.

I did take a bit of a circuitous route to get to that design. Along the way, I hit upon a design with a 275-rated engine. Compared to the previous design, you lose the BAP and AMS, but you regain a lost heat sink and get the obvious benefit of improved mobility. Sometimes the extra speed can be better than AMS, when dealing with incoming missiles. This is probably the better design, if you're starting from scratch and good at ducking for cover, but I had already bought the 260-rated engine a while back.

Now, if your concern is less with being helpful in getting your team's missile support to focus on one target and more with grinding out a shedload of C-Bills, Fantastic Tuesday discovered a wonderful consequence of a mech's torso and arms moving independently of one another. tl;dw - What's better than one TAG laser? Two TAG lasers. You're goddamn right. That in mind, one of the designs, early in the process, featured a TAG laser in the hunch, and one in the left arm. Twelve free crit slots felt sub-optimal, though, so I did some further fiddling and came up with this hothead. I'm not sure how viable this one is, given how energy-heavy it is for only thirteen double heat sinks, but it's a double-TAG mech, so it's already pretty gimmicky.

Since we're on the subject of TAG, a couple of points to remember about effective use of TAG:

• Prioritize targets providing ECM cover to the main enemy force. D-DC Atlases are perfect victims for TAG, but also pay attention for Kit Foxes, Cicadas, Spiders, and Ravens hanging out in the main enemy line.

• Be aware of where your team's missile support is coming from. You don't want to TAG targets that are out of range or especially those that have tall, vertical cover between them and your team's launchers, as you will just be coaxing your team into wasting ammunition.

• You (should) have other weapons. If you're out on the flank, and the enemy team thinks that it has cover from your team, use your weapons to either flush or lure them out, then TAG the ones in the open to call down the missiles.

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