It is impossible to talk about the mech's performance without weapon balance in HBS Battletech game.Forget about table top balance, since HBS pretty much changed a lot of values here and there, and they added a thing called stability damage, which is loosely related from roll when a mech is taken more than 100 damage (20 from tabletop). Here are quick summary.1) PPCs are way too hot and limited thanks to nerfs on numbers and the nature of the game where long-range combat is rarely effective.2) HBS buffed ballistic weapons, with ammo explosion far less common since all empty critical spaces are now acting as pads.3) HBS kind of nerfed missile weapons' raw damage but gave them immense stability damage.4) With all of visibility changes and maps themselves, range hardly matters in this game.5) This game uses hardpoint system, which was invented in MW4 era and used by MWO and now this game.

Well, faster a mech can move, it has less tonnage available. Really simple.The problem is this issue is far more severe than everyone would think.Quickdraw is a 60 ton mech, and Vindicator is a 45 ton mech. However, there is only 0.5 availabe tonnage difference between two despite the fact that Quickdraw weights 15 tons more! It gets far worse after you use additional tonnage on armor.Yes, for that Quickdraw actually moves more distance than Vindicator does.

And yes, because since it is a 60 ton mech, Quickdraw can put more armors than Vindicator (but also make available tonnage problem worse), but you really have to consider whether fast movement and a bit more armor are really worth for losing so much tonnage.The truth is, unless we are talking about light mechs and melee mechs, speed hardly matters (yes, you can ignore Escort if you want) in many situations, while additional armor is still worth it.And then the initiative issue strikes these fast-moving heavy mechs. While they can move fast, they STILL have lower initiative compared to lighter mechs, which limits tactical choices available to them.However, it does not mean speed is completely worthless.

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Higher speed mechs can position far better than slower mechs, allowing those mechs to flank the targets.Finally, unlike traditional TT, this game follows hardpoint system which was invented during MW4 era. Basically, there are some limits on what weapons could be placed on which part of the mech. This creates a lot of interesting choices, strengths and weaknesses on individual mech.For instance, a mech that has all the weapons on arm really can't shield (that is, showing only side of the mech so the enemy cannot hit center torso directly) because it will lose weapons on the arm.Some have weird hardpoint locations, such as Shadowhawk's missile port on head. It means you cannot put bigger missile weapons such as SRM6, while other mechs such as Griffin, while having same 3 missile hardpoints, does not suffer this issue.More interesting is probably ballistic locations for Atlas and King Crab. For Atlas, both B locations are on a single side torso, this restricts the size of weapons you can put if you are going to use both hardpoints. Also very vulnerable against a human player, since he/she will try to get rid of that ballistic side torso asap.But then, unlike King Crab, Atlas can shield, while King Crab, with each AC20 on each arms, will lose a lot of firepower if it tries to shield and loses an arm in process.In conclusion, you want to find some balance between available tonnage and speed with initiative issue in mind, as well as hardpoint locations.This is a comprehensive spreadsheet for mechs, and so much more. But for now, we are focusing on mechs.

The spreadsheet has information for all mechs for its available tonnage and other information. Just like tabletop, light mechs are rather lackluster compared to heavier mechs. This game is NOT Mechwarrior Online.It would be so much better if evasion mechanic is stronger, and/or we could deploy more than 4 mechs, and/or there is a tonnage limitation.But none of them are reality thus light mechs hugely underperform most of the time, with exception of some certain main missions which have some sort of time limit on certain objectives.Of course, there are exceptions, such as Firestarter. But the mech's strength is mostly from having a lot of support hardpoints, not the strength as an light mech.Even worse in 1.1, light mechs have the smallest stability health compared to heavier mechs.

Assault mechs have twice more stability health compared to light mechs. Most of the case, light mechs are simply no competitive against heavier mechs.You really want to ditch lighter mechs and deploy heavier mechs as much as possible. It is very highly recommend to ditch THAT Spider and Locust at the start of the game. The best way is keep playing main campaign until Argo mission where you get a free Centurion (without weapons though), which is one of the best medium mechs thanks to its immense available tonnage and excellent weapon hardpoints.Speaking of ditching mechs. 4) Panther.So finally a mech with some good tonnage. Of course it sacrifices speed, making the mech not-so-good choice for scouting, but at least it can pace with medium mechs no problem.Stock setup is not so good because PPC and SRM has some serious range conflict.

Either.PPC + LRM10 for long range.4 X ML + SRM6 for short range.would be better than stock setting. You can completely remove armor from the left arm to do some tonnage saving. With frontal armor maxed out, you will get 14.5 ton of available tonnage.Panther is indeed a usable mech, but you still want to go for bigger tonnage mech if possible.Verdict: Keep it til you get medium mechs. 5) Jenner.Ah Jenner, it is a powerful mech, if you make it into paper. But with frontal armor maxed out, you can only get about 6 tons of available tonnage. Quite not enough.The trick is either going for full lasers (4 X ML) or full missiles.

You can put 2 X SRM6 and two tons of ammo by striping all arm armor and additional striping on other places. Or you can go 2 X SRM4 and get some more armor and jumpjets.I have to say 2 X SRM6 is very powerful, for an light mech.Verdict: Keep it til you get medium mechs. 6) Firestarter.A very extremely useful mech with 6 support hardpoints. It also has 6 energy hardpoints and 2 ballistic hardpoints, but they are not really important factors. It is not like you can utilize those two ballistic hardpoints on 35ton mech with 3025 IS tech weapons.Right now the best setup would be the mix of machineguns and small lasers. Unless you are making this for multiplayer, you will find flamers' fuel is too short.This is really a good mech, and for some main campagin objectives, you really want to have at least one.Verdict: Get it.Well, I guess this one is only one with 'Get it' verdict. 2) Vindicator.Basically straight upgrade from Panther, with similar setup.

By being slower, this mech can have similar available tonnage compared to heavier medium mechs.Once again recommended setups are basically enlarged versions of Panther's. Either PPC + LRMs as a stability damage dealer, or medium lasers with SRMs as a finisher. Both choices are strong, but with a bit slower speed Vindicator would be a bit more useful as a stability damage dealer rather than shorter range setup.Verdict: Keep it. 3) Blackjack.Oh yes, very first mech you will ever control, as this is your main character's mech.Fortunately, this mech is quite powerful thanks to large available tonnage, as same as Vindicator's.Stock setup is already quite powerful. While AC2 is lackluster, it kind of works well with medium lasers. Only problem is their minimum range issue. In shorter range, AC2's accuracy goes down, in longer range, medium lasers' accuracy goes down.

But this can be overcome by spending some experience points on pilot customization.Of course, the stock setup is hardly optimized though. You can get rid of AC2s and put a single AC5 or two large lasers instead. With just three jumpjects, four heatsinks and maxed out frontal armor, you get a very powerful finisher. I recommend 2 X LL + 2 X ML build.Verdict: Keep it. 5) Hunchback.So, among with Centurion and Enforcer, Hunchbacks have the largest availabe tonnage for all medium mechs, a.k.a 'trooper' mechs.

Yes, Pretty much all 55 ton mechs to 60 ton heavy mechs have lesser availabe tonnage compared to these three. Which makes them really, really strong.So, 4P is pure energy variant, and 4G has that AC20 on its right side torso. Considering heat issues, both of them actually end up having similar alpha strike damage (8 X ML vs AC20 + 2 X ML) The problem is that medium lasers do zero stability damage, while AC20 does.4G is extremely powerful and you should get it if possible. Since large available tonnage allows you to put a lot of heatsinks, but once again without stability damage, the mech is relatively weak, but you can still use it as a decent finisher. Only because it has so much available tonnage to put many heatsinks.Verdict for both variants: Get it. 6) Centurion.If you finish the Argo mission, you will get a A variant without any weapons equipped.And this particular variant is the best medium mech you can ever get.

This mech pretty much have everything; lasers, missiles, and one ballistic. Perfect hardpoints for this game. And with being one of the three mechs with the largest availabe tonnage, you really, really want this particular variant.You can do 3 X SRM6 + 2 X ML which does incredible raw damage AND stability damage, or AC20 + ML/missiles for huge pinpoint raw damage AND stability damage, or you can use it as LRM boat with extremely powerful LRM 20 + LRM 15 + LRM 5 setup, with four tons of ammo if you do some armor stripping. It's total of LRM 40, 2/3 of LRM power from an 85 ton assault mech Stalker.

With + and variant, you can pretty much put any mech from zero stability damage to unsteady state with one full alpha salvo.Seriously, you want CN9-A. And it is highly probable you will use this mech until some good Assault mechs appear.Unlike A variant, AL has no ballistic hardpoints, instead four laser hardpoints and two missiles, which makes the mech relatively weak, but still better than others. The best use of AL would be 2 X LRM20, which actually weights more than LRM 20 + LRM 15 + LRM 5. This makes AL not as strong as A unfortunately. 2 X Large Lasers + 2 X Medium lasers are also very effective as a finisher and have long range.Verdict for both variants: Get it. 8) Kintaro.Well, you can guess with its whooping 5 missile hardpoints, but I have to say Kintaro is one of the best medium mechs available. Sadly, it does not have a lot of available tonnage like trooper mechs (Centurion, Hunchback, Enforcer), which limits choices.Yes, it has 5 missile hardpoints, but you don't want to put too heavy ones there, it will be very hot, with very limited ammo and little armor if you go too big.

Best bet is just using SRM4s, which are extremely heat-efficient among SRM family.Verdict: Get it. 9) Griffin, Wolverine, Shadowhawk.Why did I list all three here? Because they are actually all interchangeable. If you look at the hardpoints, speed and available tonnage, they are literally same mechs, with some differences.-Both Griffin variants do not have ballistic hardpoints.-Wolverine has ballistic hardpoints on its arm.-Shadowhawk's infamous head missile hardpoint, and its strong melee (85 compared to 70 from other two), which CAN make some difference for instance when you need to kill that heavy vehicle asap.Those three are really skirmisher mechs, which can pretty much max out armor, put a lot of jumpjects, can have respectable firepower. They are not hard hitters like trooper mechs, but they can tank and distract enemies when your Hunchback tries to core them with its AC20.That said, with proper pilot skill, they are actually better scouts than light mechs.I have to say, despite head missile hardpoint, Shadowhawk is probably the best of three with its powerful melee attack, and both variants have all three missile hardpoints for 2 X SRM6 + 1 X SRM4 + ML. But Griffin comes really close with non-weird missile hardpoints that would allow reinforced cockpits to protect pilots from head damage.Main campaign spoiler:You will be able to play with Griffin 2N, which is a lostech version with ER PPC.

ER PPC is like. Basically worse version of normal PPC in this game. Don't get much hope with that mech. This mech is unobtainable and does not appear anywhere in the game.Verdict for both Shadowhawks: Get it.Verdict for Griffin 1N: Keep it.Verdict for Wolverine 6R: Keep it.Verdict for rest of them: Sell it. 1) Dragon.Do not trust Yang's words, it is terrible. There is a reason why you can easily get its fragments after a certain main campaign mission is completed.Because it is truly terrible, because basically the mech is almost entirely consisted of a big engine to move faster.Big engine = low available tonnage.

And both Dragon and Quickdraw went extreme for this case.Well, NOT that terrible because it has a very interesting aspect; super duper 90 points melee punch.Well, Shadowhawk DOES can do 85 point melee punch, and as being a 55 ton mech it can have almost same armor as Dragon and higher initiative, and moves at the same speed.Yeah, just sell it.Verdict: Sell it. 2) Quickdraw.Most likely very first heavy mech you will ever encounter (you will know why), and there is a reason why it is chosen as the first heavy mech.Because they are even worse than Dragon I mentioned above.I mean, at least Dragon has that super duper 90 points melee punch, but Quickdraw actually has the LOWEST melee damage (55). Both variants for Quickdraw are truly irredeemable.Well, you CAN do something with 4G variant with two missile hardpoints, but very low available tonnage completely cripples this mech.

You can try medium laser build, but there are better medium mechs for such build as well.As enemies, they actually carry a lot of firepower ( 2x LRM15 and 4 Mediums), which hurt a lot. But they have paper armor, even at 100% condition thanks to low tonnage. Hit them and they will die very fast.Verdict: Sell it. 3) Jagermech.Finally, we are behind those terrible 60 ton mechs, and moving into usable mechs, and pretty much rest of heavy mechs are usable to amazing thanks to large available tonnage.Now, one thing that you must realize is Jagermech has almost all of its firepower on its arms. You can't shield with this mech unless you are willing to lose half of the mech's firepower in no time.However, it pretty much overcome that problem with really, really good hardpoints and arm-mount weapons' bonus (+5% to hit).Both available variants are extremely powerful; you will feel missions will be much easier if you manage to get one of them relatively early.For A variant, you can go either super hard punching 4 X SRM6 or go for same LRM build from Centurion (LRM20 + LRM15 + LRM5), or more LRMs if you are willing to sacrifice armor.

But I don't recommend to do it.For S variant, 3 X AC5 is probably the most dominant build. It's insanely powerful and insanely cool unlike PPC. You get the idea. Because AC2 is rather bad, 4 X AC2 are not recommended however.Or you can go a boomstick with AC20 or dual AC10 with less armor. It has so many choices that are usable.As enemies, Jagermech basically has no armor; only 480 total, even worse than Quickdraw. But they truly have immense firepower, so you really want to kill them asap.Verdict for both variants: Get it. 4) Catapult.So, Catapult is perhaps one of the most recognizable mechs from Battletech/Mechwarrior/Mechcommander games.

And they are all famous for being a missile boat.Unfortunately, this C1 variant does not do enough missile justice with just 1 missile hardpoint on each missile pods (arm). Really only use is 2 X LRM20, but LRM20 is heavier than LRM15 + LRM5 combo. Hence Catapult loses some tohnnage.You will have a bit better luck with just going laser builds instead, with three large lasers and one medium lasers will give you very powerful focus fire damage. Good thing is that you can trim armors from arms to put 1 more heatsink or two.Now, the interesting one is probably K2. It is actually a good variant if you build it right.

So here is a interesting story. The reason why K2 is good is. Essentially combination of how PGI shaped the mech in MWO and how HBS implemented hardpoints and jumpjets.Those two ballistic hardpoints on side torsos of K2 are, if we follow HBS implementations, should be just support hardpoints because in MWO machineguns use ballistic hardpoints, and those two hardpoints are really for machineguns.

But, for some reason, K2's ballistic hardpoints are still there in this game, and instead HBS just put additional support hardpoints, not removing ballistic hardpoints.In lore K2 variant does not have jumpjet thus K2 does not have jumpjets in MWO, but in HBS, by following TT more closely, you can put jumpjects on pretty much all mechs, thus allowing K2 to have jumpjets.And these two ballistic hardpoints save K2 because in current Balance, PPCs are basically unusable. They are way too hot, even with just 2 and a lot of heatsinks.Thus you have no choice but transform K2 into a ballistic mech with these two ballistic hardpoints. 2 X AC5 may seems a bit weak but still give respectable firepower. You can TRY put one PPC on that build, but then it just becomes really, really hot. What you can do is shave some more armors from its arms, and put 2 X AC10 instead, which brings a lot of firepower.Or you can do same thing with C1 with lasers, except the problem is you can't trim arm armors (because each arm has that energy hardpoint) so ironically energy variant K2 cannot put more heatsinks than missile variant C1. All hail to PGI's hardpoint inflation!As enemies K2 has a fatal weakness; it has machinegun ammo in its center torso. If you just keep focusing on center torso, that ammo will explode, instantly kill the mech.

Make sure you remove the ammo when you field one for yourself.Verdict for both variants: get it. 5) Thunderbolt.Thunderbolts may appear a bit more compared to others. Because it has three variants compared to just two from others, and they are quite good.5SS is probably one of the mechs that definitely got a lot of boost from large laser buff.

Well, what you can do is 2 X LL + 2 X ML + SRM6, which give you very reliable focus fire damage as well as increased combat range from those two large lasers. Or you can do 3 X LL + 2 X ML, giving up stability damage for more focus fire damage. But this will run a bit hotter.5SE has 2 missile hardpoints, and with three support hardpoints and 5 energy hardpoints.

You can go either typical 2 x LRM20 or try use SRMs and small lasers + medium lasers for heat-efficient close-range mech, or can copy exact same builds from 5SS.5S is obviously best with available ballistic hardpoints. Huge AC with SRMs/lasers will be the ideal build. Idealy AC20 but you can try AC10 if you want bigger SRMs and/or lasers.Verdict for all three variants: Get it. 6) Cataphract.With just one variant, this rare 70ton mech is a basically upscaled version of Enforcer; no missile hardpoints, one ballistic and bunch of energy hardpoints.

You can do upscaled version of Enforcer with a big AC and bunch of lasers, 3 X LL + 2 X ML, or very simple yet effective 4 X LL. It barely has enough tonnage to support 4 large lasers, heatsinks and just one jumpjets with some armor triming.Very powerful mech, too bad you are not going to see this mech often due to the fact that there is only one variant available in this game.Verdict: Get it.-continued. 8) Blackknight.Among with Orion, Blackknight has the largest free tonnage available for Heavy mech class. It means it has enough tonnage for large lasers and heatsinks to cool the mech down. It also has tons of energy hardpoints.2 X LL + 5 X ML will give you immense focused firepower. You could go 3 X LL + 2 X ML, but then you lose about 35 damage compared to the former build.

With the range still hardly matters, I'd say go for 2 X LL + 5 X ML.Blackknight also does have a lot of support hardpoints, but that's Grasshopper's job if you ask me.Main campaign spoiler:Lostech one is meh. You will know why when you will be able to play with one. Just like lostech Griffin, it is unobtainable, mission-only mech.Verdict: Get it. 9) Orion.The final, and the best heavy mech is here. It's the best heavy mech, with the largest free tonnage, with the heaviest armor as a 75 ton heavy mech in the class, missile hardpoints and ballistic hardpoint; both variants have everything they need to be amazing mechs.V variant will be the better one thanks to 3 missile hardpoints, and you really just want one big gun instead of two smaller guns on K variant anyway.

But each missile hardpoints of V variant are located on each arms, which makes shielding quite tricky for this mech. Well, at worst, V still can be used as an excellent LRM boat thanks to three missile hardpoints.K variant is all about AC20 and a bunch of SRMs.Orions are very powerful mechs with a lot of tonnage available as well as good hardpoints, but it does not mean they have same protection as Assault mechs. But they are good enough, and as a heavy mech they can initiate earlier than Assault mechs, which helps knockdown-to-kill strategy easier.Verdict for both variants: Get it. 1) Awesome.Yes, it does have whooping 120 melee damage, only surpressed by Banshee and heavier mechs, but problem is it is too slow to be used as a melee mech, so forget about it.This mech is a really only single assault mech that can do well as a pure laserboat, Only other mech that can come close is Stalker with 6 energy hardpoints with a bit more tonnage, but in reality it will do less dps and alpha damage because Stalker has to use 5 X LL + 1 X ML instead of Awesome's 4 X LL + 3 X ML.

Stalker actually ends up with less damage and hotter with less heatsinks with additional weight from one more large laser. There is actually another mech which has immense tonnage with 6 energy hardpoints (see Atlas), but that one could have some other builds.And, seriously, Stalker is best served with LRMs.Other mechs such as Banshee and Battlemaster do not have enough tonnage to put heatsinks, so they are actually worse despite the fact that they are heavier mechs. Too big engine problems.So yes, if you get rid of PPCs for good and embrace large lasers, Awesome is extremely powerful finisher, with 4 X LL + 3 X ML for 8Q variant. We are talking about 235 alpha damage, with 160 damage to distant targets. It is purely powered by newly buffed large lasers.If you really need stability damage, then you can do like 1 PPC + 3 X LL + 2 X ML, but you will find it will be suddenly so much hotter. And there is 8T variant with missile hardpoints anyway.With missiles, 8T variant can give you cooler setup with mix of SRMs and lasers. But then you are giving up focus fire damage for precision strike.

With just 2 missile hardpoints, 8T are not an ideal LRM boat.Verdict for both variants: get it. 4) Battlemaster.in MWO, Battlemaster is a very good mech because its hardpoints are quite high that you can peek and shoot very easily.But in this game, physical locations do not matter. With energy weapons being really bad, Battlemeaster is sadly just a better version of Zeus with more energy hardpoints available.It still moves quite fast, and medium laser spam can be powerful. But way too many heatsinks would be used to cool down the mech. With fast movement, however you can use it as an Assault scout mech. If you need one.

Problem is medium lasers are further nerfed now this mech is too hot to be useful at this point.At least as a 85ton mech, it can use ligher Jumpjet H instead of 2ton Jumpjet A, unlike Banshee.OH I almost forgot. It DOES have ballistic hardpoints, if you really want to have a big gun on this mech. As well as just one missile hardpoint, but you can forget about it.This certainly makes Battlemaster a bit more better than other 'fast' assault mechs. But the problem is, despite it is probably the fast assault mech with the most available tonnage, which means,1) No ballistic hardpoint usage.2) Can't use large lasers effectively due to tonnage restriction.At this point only reason why this mech does not demoted to 'sell it' is because there is no better alternative for a scout Assault mech.Verdict: Keep it. 5) Stalker.Finally, some assault mechs with actual assult mech free tonnages. Stalker is indeed slow (just like rest of mechs below except Banshee) Assault mech that carry huge weapons, with tons of space available.As we talked at Awesome section, you can forget about 6 energy hardpoints; the gist is four missile hardpoints, absolutely ideal for LRM15 for each hardpoints.

You can do LRM20 + LRM10 instead of just four LRM15 if you like, with a bit less available tonnage since LRM 20 + 10 weights more than two LRM15.If you really want an energyboat and still does not have Awesome, you can use Stalker with 5 X LL + 1 X ML, but it will run rather hot. You can do 4 X LL + 2 X ML, but now that is quite low dps and alpha damage as an slow assault mech.Or, you could mix SRMs and MLs. Problem is there are better brawling mechs and Stalker's high tonnage should be used more wisely. But if you do not have enough Assault mechs, 4 X SRM6 and bunch of MLs do give scary firepower.Anyway, grab it as soon as possible. Among with Highlander 733, it is the best LRM assault mech available in the game.Verdict: Get it. 6) Highlander.Very stable assault mech, with a lot of free tonnage available.Continuing from Stalker; 733, with four missile hardpoints, is the best LRM assault among with Stalker.

7) Banshee.OH here we go. The biggest engine rating in Battletech universe, for mechs, is 400. This mech has 380.REALLY BIG ENGINE that is. The ignorable side effect is it only has 37.5 tons of available tonnage. For comparison, 65 ton Catapult has 39 tons of available tonnage.Just kidding, this is not definitely an ignorable side effect.You can use it as a pure melee mech at least. This is only possible because as a 95ton mech, Banshee has enormous amount of armor.

With all of arm mods and leg mods, Banshee can do some serious punch. Thing is, even after 380 rated engine, it can only go as fast as 65 ton heavy mech, not to mention it suffers initiative problem. These problems are quite hard to overcome.Added 5/25: People also comment that Banshee can be equipped with a lot of support weapons. But as an assault weapon with the lowest initiative, I am not sure how effective it would be (Grasshopper is already borderline slow).

And a problem with melee interaction is that those support weapons hardly focus well. It is always better to have one big punch that leftover damage would go to CT, than small lasers and machineguns firing everywhere.

I still recommend to put arm/leg mods as much as possible for bigger melee/DFA damage.Unless you are interested in weird builds such as these, I suggest to sell it asap.Verdict for both variants: Sell it. 8) Atlas.Perhaps Atlas is the one of the most well-known mechs. Maybe not as well-known as Clan's Mad Cat (Timber Wolf), but that skull-looking head and overall mech shape is quite something to be remembered.

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Among with King Crab, Atlas boasts a bit more durability (a bit more structure point, and about 30 points more armor), and with such hardpoint placement location, Atlas can do shielding a bit better than King Crab, without the fear of losing heavy ballistic weapons on the arms.It's really a simple mech compared to King Crab (which have some interesting problems and tricks). Super durable, super heavy, super slow,.

Super powerful.We DO have an interesting variant though. Well, actually, this Atlas II cannot be considered as a variant of Atlas, rather it is a different mech. It just uses same model as Atlas.Just like lostech Highlander, this Atlas has far bigger available tonnage than non-lostech Atlas; 78 tons.

With 13 tons more than normal Atlas, you will feel space restrictions rather than tonnage restriction when you configure this mech.Fill it with the biggest and the heaviest weapons you can deploy is all I can say, and yeah, while it indeed has more energy hardpoints, but until HBS actually balances this game, please don't go for energy-heavy build. It is simply waste of a mech. I guess you can go ridiculous 6 X LL, but if you punch your calculator a bit you will realise you are losing a lot of damage for just increased range, where in this game range is not that important.

Oh and yeah, Large lasers have ZERO stability damage as well.Now, during the mission, you really do not want to fire those ER Large Lasers. They are hotter than normal large lasers and you will find the mech gets hot rather fast. Keep using cooler AC20, missiles and medium pulses but try not to use ERLL often.Verdict: Get it.Verdict for II: Protect it with your life. King Crab.Another 100 ton Assault mech, with more focused on firepower. It definitely has more missile hardpoints, for instance, but it does not make an excellent LRM boat because all of those missile hardpoints are located on a single side torso, making it unable to put large size missile weapons.

However, you can still do 4 X SRM6 which they alone are quite powerful.Popular builds are either using that dual AC20, or 4 X SRM6 + 4 X MLs which are actually more powerful than dual AC20 among with far better heat management and more alpha strike damage.Compare to Atlas, having ballistic hardpoint on each arms is a bit troublesome; if you try to shield your mech, your arm will be first to be gone from damage, among with the gun installed with it. At the same token, King Crab would not instantly lose a lot of firepower if it loses a certain torso; for Atlas it means both AC20 are gone, while for King Crab, you can still fire other AC20.Other than that, it has same availabe tonnage as Atlas, with a bit less structure and armor. Very valuable mech no matter what.Yes, at the very last campaign mission, it seems Victoria's King Crab is a special one. It is not even canon variant since none of them have medium pulse lasers. Unfortunately, you cannot get this mech, ever. It does not give you fragments.Sometimes the game gets bugged and gives you the fragment. However, you cannot combine it with other normal King Crab fragment, therefore completely useless.Verdict: Get it.

6/25/2018:1) Initially updated for 1.1 balance.6/17/2018:1) Preparing for (hopefully) upcoming patch.5/29/2018:1) Fixed moar typos.2) Jaegermech = Jagermech. Thanks @C4rter for pointing this out.5/25/2018:1) Fixed insane amount of typos and grammar errors.2) Add a bit more description for Thunderbolt.3) Add some more updates and thoughts for Banshee.4) Awesome as well.5) And Battlemaster.6) Moved up Hunchback 4P from 'Sell it' to 'Keep it'. For a finisher it is not really a bad mech.7) URBIE. Something I would call attention to on the PPC is the fact that it gives a Malus to enemy mech Targeting systems (accuracy) and seems to have the highest base chance to critically hit a module (Ammo rack explosion, Weapon Destroyed.). It's a hot weapon, but it is definitely high-risk, high reward and has much more use than just its damage dealing potential.I'd go so far as to say that having one or two PPCs distributed across your Lance is absolutely crucial thanks to the control ability and critical hit chance. If you're doing well, by the 2nd to 3rd year of the campaign you'd have space for a total of 18 active battlemechs. A healthy and balanced ratio to have is 4 light, 6 mediums, 4 heavy and 4 assaults if you value pilot skill, tactics and upgrading mechs over stock.

If you are stock, have limited pilots or funds and want to go for the most difficult missions; instead have 4 mediums and 6 assaults. 2 of those assaults are standbys or swap ins for combat roles or different conditions.

It's also healthy to have 2 mechs which are ballistic / missile heavy and 2 which are energy heavy or 1 of each with 2 hybrids. You want mechs which are heat manageable for each location you visit. Unfortunately with the assault mech selection in this game you don't really have many options outside of hybrids so put brawler and gladiator pilots in those mechs and favour weapons platforms over gimicks, Zeus and Banshee is meh and I consider an Orion a scarier opponent to them. If you have any of the DLC installed and as of Heavy Metal, this guide is now out of date, the game has seen two balance changes since this guide was last updated.However, some of the points still apply; with access to lostech the Jenner is much more capable. Also, some missions, such as flashpoints.require. full lightmechs, so regardless of what this guide says, you do need light mechs. Unfortunately most of them outside of the Jenner and Firestarter are terrible; The Suburban mech has been added to the game, along with the Raven, which is a decent fast equipped with ECM which in 3025, assuming you've reached Flashpoints unlocked in campaign is super rare lostech outside of the version equipped to the Raven.

Cicadas are bad, because you can not modify the engine to make it a heavy light. Instead get a Hunchback, a Blackjack, a Vindicator and an Enforcer. You start with two of them at the start of the game.