Gameplay Tactics

placeholder for aggregating all the dinky articles about specific tactics such as legging, alpha striking, ballooning, lrm camping, etc

Alpha Strike

An alpha strike is an attack where a 'Mech fires all its weapons simultaneously.

Alpha strikes are very effective because they tightly concentrate damage, leading to heavy damage to or destruction of some components. Some 'Mechs are designed to make use of alpha strikes. Notably, the Puma variant C is capable of crippling any light 'Mech with few well-placed MBL alpha strikes, as is the 2 CGauss Vulture A, the Madcat MKII A or any variant of Novacat.

Any 'Mech can unleash the alpha strike, but it's not always an effective tactic. Firstly, the 'Mech should be wielding weapons with similar characteristics, for example only UACs, only Lasers, or only PPCs/Gauss (which behave similarly) -- these setups allow all weapons will hit the same or very close spot of the 'Mech, inflicting concentrated damage (though weapons can be grouped more freely when shooting slow targets at very close range). Secondly, some alpha strike configurations will cause severe overheating, which will damage one's own 'Mech and threaten a shut down or self-destruction. Examples of 'Mechs with hazardous alpha strikes include the Madcat MKII C (especially when jump jetting), and variants of the energy weapon-heavy Awesome and Novacat 'Mechs, some of which can peg the core temperature gauge in a single alpha strike.

There isn't much defense against an alpha strike, other than attempting to make the enemy pilot miss the shot, or shielding vulnerable components by turning or using terrain. However, alpha strikes generate severe amounts of heat in a short time (especially when it's based on energy weapons), so it may help to raise his heat with PPC shots or (preferably) Flamers. Further, if the opportunity arises, destroying or heavily damaging the back armor of an alpha-striking mech will force the pilot to be more conservative with heat or risk self-killing, since incurring heat damage after the back armor is destroyed will instantly destroy the mech.

Ballooning

Ballooning is an VTOL tactic of hovering above the height of 1000 meters, descending just below this boundary to attack. This allows them to stay beyond the lock-on range of most Missiles and being impossible to detect with Radar as long as they maintain Passive. Though still vulnerable to dedicated ground AA units and Aerospace Fighters, they remain difficult targets persistently inflicting damage to ground units.

History

This maneuver was a very common VTOL tactic until beta 0.2.0, when AC5 damage was increased to the point where AA units could destroy a Hawkmoth in a few seconds, even above 1000 meters. This caused VTOLs to nearly disappear completely from games.

Beta 0.3.0 increased VTOL survivability making them capable of surviving much more while flying closer to the ground, therefore ballooning isn't a profitable tactic any more. A better tactic is using terrain as cover or flying in the blind spot above the 'Mech and spraying them with missiles.

Circle Lock

Circle Lock, popularly known as the "Circle of Death" is a maneuver that occurs when two opposing Mechs try to get behind one another in order to fire outside of their torso radius and thus risk no return fire. It often occurs at 200-50m as both Mechs run full speed while turning in the same direction while they have their torsos turned to face each other. This results in the two orbiting each other and firing trying to accurately fire, and ultimately trying to get behind the other mech for a free shot. This happens at very fast speeds between Osirises and Harassers, and at very slow speeds even among Assault Mechs.

The advantages of this maneuver are twofold:

• First, it forces the enemy to focus his movement and attention toward you, leaving teammates free to pick and choose when and what to fire at while keeping the enemy from running away towards his teammates, for if he does, he exposes his back to you.
• Secondly, it creates a situation where one can fire close range weapons but still be moving to avoid enemy fire who have difficult to lead weapons. This applies chiefly to the opponent you are engaged in the Circle with, as sprinting in a tight orbit can make leading ballistics projectiles, tracking accurately with lasers, and leading/tracking Short range missiles, all much more difficult than if standing still.

Legging

Legging is the deliberate targeting of one or both legs of a Mech, with the intent of crippling and toppling it. Severe damage to a leg will reduce a Mech to a painfully slow limp and limit its turning ability, while destroying a leg will cause the Mech to fall over. Leg armor is stronger than center torso armor but tends to be a larger target, making this a potentially faster way to disable a Mech than chewing through the torso armor; however, once legged, the Mech can fall in such a way that it can still fire upon enemies. It may also be more difficult to guarantee a hit on a rapidly moving Light Mech leg with certain weapons such as Gauss rifles that fires a fairly slowly reloading shot and provides no splash damage -- though a hit with such a weapon is extremely damaging to a Light Mech leg. Suddenly destroying the leg of a rapidly moving Mech can send it tumbling somewhat comically, and destroying the leg of a jumping mech will send it through a wild tumble to the ground.

The pilot of a legged Mech may attempt to continue firing on enemies within his range of view. However, being unable to move, the pilot is often left unable to defend himself, and must choose between waiting for death in the crippled unit (which can make more sense from a CBills or time perspective), or ejecting in order to return to base or to continue fighting as a Battle Armor. If the legged mech mounts jump jets, it's possible to (clumsily) reorient your mech to have a good field of view of the enemy, or twist your mech into a position where it's almost impossible for enemy mechs to fire upon your torso.

If a Mech pilot notices that the enemy is deliberately targeting legs, he can accelerate to make a shot on the legs more difficult. Terrain may also be used to shield legs, while still being able to fire upon the enemy -- in some situations, it may even be possible to fire on the enemy's legs without exposing your own legs to hostile fire.

Honor

Legging is often considered a cheap, dishonorable tactic, although its use tends to be forgiven when used in desperation or uncommonly. Chronically focusing primarily on enemies' legs, however, will draw ire and often result in other players going out of their way to leg you.

Points

Legging a Mech will not immediately reward as many points as a traditional center-torso kill, but in many cases the legged Mech can be destroyed for points more or less at leisure.