BATTLETECH – Building a Mech
Steps:
-Allocate Armor
-Set aside Tonnage for 3-4 JumpJets
-Add heavier weapons
-Add ammo
-Add Medium Lasers
-Add Heatsinks until your heat efficiency is at 4 or 5
-If previous step is not possible, remove heavier weapon and replace with Medium Lasers and heatsinks until you’re at heat efficiency 4 or 5.
-Add 4-5 JumpJets (This is done last so that you will have a more accurate representation of heat efficiency)
Some steps can be done out of order but NEVER Allocate armor last you will almost certainly want maximum possible front armor. Only case when it is okay to do so is if the mech is a dedicated LRM Boat.
Don’t try putting LRMs on each of your mechs, this will just waste tonnage and is not efficient enough turn wise. It’s best to just keep all LRMs at a single mech then attack in one salvo. This will make it so that your enemy will not be able to remove stability damage until you are ready to knock it down. This will also make sure that every other mech is efficient at what it do, not wasting ammo and weapon tonnage where it could be put to more armor or JumpJets or heatsinks. Splitting LRMs to all of your mechs will waste turn attacking where they could be getting to a better position.
It is better to use same types of weapon at the same mechs also known as “Boating” because of equipment sharing and ease of manipulating ranges. For example an AC/5 needs about 2 tons of ammo but 2 AC/5s will only need 3 tons of ammo. However mixing an AC/2 and AC/5 will need different ammo types. To some extent energy builds benefits more to heatsinks than mixed builds, going pure energy will net better sustained fire than mixing Energy + Ballistics.
Is better to use weapon with similar Range Profiles. Some weapons like AC/2 or LRMs have a significant accuracy reduction if at a minimum range. Granted it is mitigated with heavy investment in Tactics stat thus less of an issue late game, it’s still a significant disadvantage. Mixing weapon ranges necessitates to maintain a small specific range in which Optimal ranges overlap. Else you risk reducing your damage output by a significant amount.
It is easier to maintain a range of just greater than 180m (ie. an LRM Boat) than greater than 180m AND less than 400m (ie. SRMs + LRMs). This will also make Bulwark less effective due to the need to reposition a lot.
