Murder of Stormcrows

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Murder of Stormcrows

PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:22 am

BlueFlames
Posts: 465
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:24 am
Location: SSX Vault 12
I've been playing around with alternative Stormcrow configurations today. Like with my Hunchback, I hope that what I've come up with and my thought process will prove useful.

(Note that, though I use the Stormcrow C variant for the builds in Smurfy's, because of how you can juggle omnipods, these are all possible with any base variant.)

My starting point was the configuration I've been using for weeks now, which is a Support Crow. It's not bad for fire support, with thirty LRM tubes. The four medium lasers can ward off curious light mechs or provide supplemental damage against targets at medium range. The down-side is that it runs wicked hot, when you're firing both the lasers and the missiles, which makes it difficult to put down covering fire, if you waited a little too long to relocate in the face of an incoming force. Still, I've gotten pretty good at riding that line between really hot and automatic shutdown, so it's a configuration I've stuck with for some time and saved for possible future use.

Three thoughts struck me today, though:

1) With the Mad Dog released to the high rollers among Clan mech buyers, it's been missiles, missiles everywhere, making AMS desirable and additional LRMs less desirable.

2) Two of the five mechs in the next wave of the Clan invasion are ECM-capable, so LRM tubes will be largely dead weight from the end of this year through the beginning of next year.

3) The most popular Stormcrow builds are energy builds. Given the current and expected near-future environment, such direct-fire builds will be more useful than an indirect support build.

My first idea was two large pulse lasers and a bunch of medium lasers. These weapon systems combine well, because of the large overlap of ranges, but everything I came up with initially looked so horrible on paper, I didn't dare to even prototype them in-game. I know that there are good, high-damage configurations using large pulse lasers and medium lasers, but I found that to get an active probe, a small targeting computer, and AMS into the mech required dropping too many medium lasers and heat sinks for it to feel worthwhile.

If large pulse lasers are too hot and heavy, ER large lasers generate a little less heat, weigh less, and are less demanding of crit space. The last point is important, because you can use the Prime head omnipod to shove a large laser into the head, right between your pilot's testes (only good can come from this). That in mind, I made Sniper Crow Mk. 1. Remember that I was complaining of heat problems with the Support Crow? This has the same problem, except that large lasers run hotter than LRM15 missile launchers, so even with the extra heat sinks, this configuration runs just about as hot. Since your main form of attack is to shine a bright light at your enemy, you will find yourself repositioning while under fire far more often.

Well, the large lasers are obviously the primary weapons, so they need to stick around, so what can we do in the name of heat efficiency? Sniper Crow Mk. 2 downgrades the medium lasers to small lasers and uses the two tons for an additional heat sink and an upgraded targeting computer (mk. 2, up from mk. 1). This was working pretty well for me, and I ran it for several matches. One thing that I kept noticing was that I consistently finished each match (or the ones I survived through) with about ~2,000 rounds of AMS ammo remaining.

What do we do with an extra ton and one more free slot? Heat sink. Sniper Crow Mk. 3 really is that simple a change. I also tossed the hand actuators back onto the mech, just to say that I used every crit slot the mech has to offer. The only practical effect of that change is that the hands are a part of the arm hitbox, so the arms make marginally more effective shields for your torso. This is the build that I am running with currently.

As a thought exercise, I considered what I might do, if I were to drop the AMS from the design altogether, presumably when the LRM madness subsides a bit. A couple of ideas came to mind. Proto Crow 1 swaps the Prime right torso for a C right torso and move the large laser in the head to the higher torso mount and use the extra ton to upgrade the targeting computer to a mark 3. Proto Crow 2 also picks up the C right torso but does so to move all of the left torso equipment into the right torso. The left torso is then switched to the prime omnipod (for the twist speed bonus), and an extra heat sink is installed, instead of upgrading the targeting computer.

So this draws an immediate comparison to my Hunchback 4P, given the similar primary armament, and if you are just looking at the guns, the Mk. 2 and 3 Sniper Crows appear inferior to the Hunchback. You'd be right and wrong in drawing that conclusion. The secondary battery on the Sniper Crow is less threatening than that of the Hunchback, but the Clan large lasers have greater damage potential on their own, and all the extra heat sinks makes it easier to continue using those large lasers, even at ranges when the secondary weapons will be in use. Put another way, when something gets within close range, the Hunchback stops firing its large lasers and starts using its medium & medium pulse lasers, while the Sniper Crow will start using its small lasers and merely reduce its rate of fire with the large lasers. The weaponry is basically a wash between these two mechs as a result. What the Clan tech and five extra tons buys you is a little extra armor, the AMS and electronics package, and a lot of additional speed.

The real disadvantage of the Stormcrow in a sniper role is exposure time. Clan large lasers have a much longer burn time than their Inner Sphere counterpart, meaning that to get the additional damage, you have to keep your head up longer. What's more, the Stormcrow's cockpit and weapon mounts are much lower on the chassis than they are on the Hunchback. When the Hunchback pokes its head up to shoot, all that's exposed are the head and the gun(s). When the Stormcrow pokes its head up to shoot, most of its side torso sections are exposed, and because the cockpit is so low-slung, there will be occasions when you think you're behind cover, and in fact, the other team can (and inevitably will) still give you a haircut.

Despite those issues, I've still had some success with the Sniper Crow, while playing it today. When I'm not getting lost on Mining Collective and rolled over by a Direwolf, while trying to navigate back to my team, I can score damage numbers in the 400-500 range, comparable to my LRM configuration. The difference is, since I'm using direct-fire weapons, instead of a missile hose, I can actually focus my damage more easily on specific components and get quicker kills.

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