I hate PPCs but AI seems to do really well with them, so I give mechs like the Awesome, Warhammer, hero Orion etc. to them and keep the autocannon mechs for myself.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. People seem to talk about them like they're the energy weapon of the gods but I'll take a Large Laser over a PPC any day. Maybe I just suck though lol
(Shudders) I made the mistake of giving the ai Ppc-x once. Never again. It gets precision weapons and orders to shoot something in a totally different direction to me.
I like the large laser more for vehicles, and the PPC more for breaking specific parts of mechs.
I can usually figure out the good path to hit a head or right torso with the ppc, but I can't reliably hit vtols or tanks with it.
The ppc hit is more satisfying, but being able to drag a laser onto target and get half or more of the damage done after a bad initial aim is really nice.
Yeah I was gonna say, PPCs feel like a genuine kinetic projectile that breaks parts vs Lasers the just burn them. That being said, you're right about accuracy problems, you can sweep a laser if you miss (or water hose it if you wanna spread damage)
I got a hero Warhammer recently and YAMLed the hell into it.
2x Binary Laser SB and 2x Inferno SRM6 in the torso with 4x MPulse in the arms.
Those twin Binarys are absolute monsters of a weapon. Can pass the beam across the legs of many lights and they instantly become several meters shorter.
The deal is that AI shoots PPCs the same way they shoot lasers - it's not a skill thing, they just "roll to hit". When you have the same chance to deal full damage or not with both types, then the version that doesn't spread its damage around at all is WAY better.
Whoosh! *Crackle*
Whoosh! *Crackle*
Whoosh! *Crackle*
AI are really good with PPCs but it's also really annoying hearing that every 0.3 seconds when I give my lancemate an Awesome. Seriously, they just rapid fire PPCs into everything. Enemy mechs, the ground, my rear, etc.
AI doesn't do very well with weapons that need to be constantly firing as they cycle through weapon groups.
For example if you have an AC/2 BF in group 1, then some medium lasers in group 2, then some LRMs in group 3 the AI will fire the AC/2 once, then fire the medium lasers, then fire the LRMs, then go back to the AC/2 when the player would be able to fire all groups at once, never not firing the AC/2.
So if you give them something that is low damage per shot but does lots of damage over time then they'll perform poorly with it.
Therefore weapons and weapon groups that have very high alpha strike potential are most suitable for the AI as it's okay for them to cycle through their other weapon groups while those are on their cool down.
So basically I should just load em up with shotgun type builds. Like load up Group 1 with a fuckton of instant damage, and then theyll just go in, unload group 1 destroy shit. And then we move on to next target
Doesn’t that feel like phoned-in, lazy programming? I mean aside from stepping on shit they were supposed to be protecting, the lance AI in MW4 Mercs seemed to perform way better. And I’ve even got TTRULEZ which does better for pathing but my lance is still pretty derpy with ammo usage (especially when shooting at blocked targets).
Not really it's more that players make weapon groups based on range, which is preferable for the player, while that fundamentally doesn't work out for the AI.
AI are actually programmed to fire weapons individually within the same weapon group (example if you have a large laser and a small laser in the same weapon group the AI will only fire the large laser until the small is also within range, then it will fire both).
So if players stop making groups for the AI that they would use personally then this issue is totally mitigated however it's easier to tell the player base that the AI doesn't use particular weapon types as effectively than it is to tell people how to create weapon groups that will allow the AI to use those weapons most effectively because people are happier to blame the AI than they are to accept responsibility. Especially in the MW:5 community, here it's always the AIs fault.
It's not about the weapon groups, it's about the weapons. The AI will simply not be effective with a 3x AC5 4x MLAS Marauder because it doesn't fire fast enough to use the AC5 properly. No messing with weapon groups will fix it.
On the other hand if I give an AI lancemate a 2x LBX10 6x MLAS Warhammer they can be very effective.
Untrue, just give them one weapon group with all those weapons in it.
You're probably trying to put the mlasers in one group and the AC5 in another, which will drastically reduce the fire rate of the AC5s. If they're all in one group then the AI will fire those as fast as possible all of the time.
They'll never be as effective as the player with any weapon but thinking outside the box with weapon groups will see them do significantly better than everyone gives them credit for that way.
This is a pretty good example of how it's easier to tell players that the AI doesn't do well with particular weapons than it is to try teach players how to arrange weapon groups to mitigate these issues - it's always the AI never the person controlling the AI.
Don't think you're running a fair test there.
Was the cooling the same in both mechs? Were the pilots of equivalent skill? Is a Warhammer just a better mech (example better torso twist and turning circle, is it's primary weapons in the arms where it can aim quicker and at wider angles)? Is a PPC just a better weapon anyway regardless of whether the player is using it or the AI?.
We're not talking about overall damage here, what we are talking about is how effective the AI are at using a particular weapon, so I'd suggest instead of comparing apples and oranges you just use the same mech three times on three lancemates on a instant action mission and then retry the mission with different weapons groupings, and maybe use something that is a better representation of reality than a YAML marauder build (example a jagermech with its three sets of weapons)
Good cooling and skills on both mechs. Both mechs have the ballistics in the torso. Marauder is the better mech of the two (better bonuses, higher DPS, longer range, more accurate, all its lasers in the arms).
This is the only test I have done with all weapons in 1 group but the result is consistent with my previous experiences using AC5 vs LBX10 on lancemates. I also have an AC5 Warhammer that significantly underperforms compared to the LBX10 Warhammer.
I don't think you're following me.
No doubt about it some weapons are just better than others but we are not talking about whether an LBX10 or PPC is better than an AC/5 (because it's a fact that is true). We are talking about whether the AI perform suboptimally with one weapon compared to potential performance. You're trying to compare two different weapons which is totally irrelevant here when you should be trying to compare the exact same weapon each time.
Your Warhammer with PPCs doesn't disprove that the AI cannot improve performance with AC/5s when given more optimal weapon geoups. They way to disprove that, the only way to disprove that, is to use the same mech with the same weapons in the same mission with the same pilot without you shooting.
I don't have PPCs on my Warhammers, I have one with LBX10 and one with AC5.
When I pilot the Warhammer myself, the AC5 version is better than the LBX10 version. When my lancemates pilot it, it's reversed and the difference is huge in favor of LBX10.
The AI sucks with high rate of fire weapons because they don't fire quickly enough. That is my position and you claimed that weapon groups had something to do with it. I did a test and changing the weapon group made no difference.
>Therefore weapons and weapon groups that have very high alpha strike potential are most suitable for the AI as it's okay for them to cycle through their other weapon groups while those are on their cool down.
This statement needs to be qualified. You can use a wide variety of weapons to do "alpha strikes" like massed SRMs or medium lasers/MPLs, but putting two Heavy Rifles or Gauss Rifles to fire simultaneously can also be considered alpha striking. They should not be treated the same way in terms of suitability for AI use.
Let's not forget that the AI misses far more often than the average human player, even if it has 60/60 skill. For example, the Heavy Rifle has an excruciatingly long reload time, so if the AI misses it takes a long time before it can fire again. Contrast this with a good human player than can nail his or her HR shots 90-99% of the time. That's why weapons that have the longest reload times are NOT good for the AI because the long reload plus propensity to miss equates to low DPS. Instead, you'll want something that fires reasonably fast, like the LB 10-X AC, so that even if the AI misses it won't take a long time to pull off another shot.
Moreover, consider alpha striking with something that fires faster than the HRs in the example above, like eight MLs with the Thunderbolt Top Dog. I use this exclusively as a personal 'Mech, and my primary configuration is to fire all eight MLs simultaneously as a classic alpha strike configuration. However, would I use the same config for the AI? Certainly not. Knowing that the AI misses far more than me, I would split the MLs into a minimum of 2 groups of 4 , or 4 groups of two. Even if the AI misses with quad ML group 1, it can still have another chance at firing quad ML group 2. In contrast, if you do a single 8 ML group, the AI will fire all of them together and upon missing, will have to wait of ALL the 8 MLs to cycle before being able to fire again. Obviously, the lower the skill of the AI pilot, the lower the DPS. The point here is that the lower the weapon skill of the AI (assuming it's not 60/60 yet), the less you should be grouping a lot of the same weapons together. This reduces the penalty of missing shots, which can be almost insignificant with a skilled human player.
LRMs I think are massively underappreciated for lancemates, particularly when you have all the missile upgrades installed on mechs that all have LRM perks (YAML mod) and T5 Artemis Stream launchers! You just tag a mofo, and they get deleted while your lance safely snipes from behind cover
Another vote in favour of LRMs, even better if you fit good sensors/C3 on your own mech as a pathfinder. The lance mates can often move from behind cover, but the range usually makes any damage they take inconsequential.
Best lances I have ever had are homogenous, with torso main weapons.
Light: 3 Panthers. Strip out the JJs and replace with sinks and armor. 3X PPCs and LRM 10s are deadly in the early game missions. Yeah, they're not torso mains... but they have a load of armor for a light mech. Plus PPCs.
Medium: 3 hunchbacks. 2 of them are the AC20 models, and the last one is the LRM model (or the SRM model, with the SRMs swapped out for LRMs). This combo has shredded assault mechs. Pretty reliable up to about 60-70 difficulty missions.
Honorable mention to the Centurion. 3x stock Centurions is a pretty deadly force. Not a torso-primary mech, but the combo of AC10 / LRM10 / 2x MLAS is fairly deadly in early missions.
Heavy: 3x Archers. LRM hell. Plus they can be pretty nasty, especially the model with 2 LLAS.
Assault: 3x Awesomes. 9 PPCs = deleted enemies.
As far as lancemate builds.... my only real rules are no JJs, and no T4+ weapons larger than MLAS in the arms.
Im a bit surprised by the other answers, my lancemantes with LRM end very soon within minimal range using only lasers, SRMS, etc. I give them SRMs because of this and because they seem to be targeted less frequently than me. They also slay with PPCX
Well there's your problem, the ai is stupid as shit and when the LRMs go on cooldown they run straight towards the enemy to pew pew them with small lasers. Then the lrms come back online so they turn their backs towards the enemy to get to a good position to launch the lrms.
Don't give them any backup weapons. Just give them lrms.
No, i dont use any mods. I am thinking that I have returned to mw5 after a couple years, maybe they were bad with LRMs in the base game and I havent noticed they are better now.
Not playing with mods is a poor decision. PGI released this game so it required mods to be halfway decent. Great thing is the fan base went above & beyond to finish the game for them. It is not as bad as it used to be, but it still needs a handful of relatively large mods.
Large pulse lasers.
Looking at the stats, they should be marginally more powerful than PPCs, but they just don't feel as punchy and I feel like I end up with lower damage output whenever I use them.
But if you thought the AI were marksmen with PPCs, boy howdy...it's like they're incapable of missing with pulse lasers.
Can’t go wrong by being the up close guy with tag or narc and your slower lancemates having 4xLRM20 or 4xLRM15 and backing you up from a distance. The AI even swoops in on tagged opponents more enthusiastically than giving lancemates an order to attack a specific mech.
Awesome with PPC’s
Rifleman with Large Lasers
Highlander with AC 20, SRM’s, Supercharger, Masc and hardened armor.
All are my best set ups for AI lance mates.
I never give the AI something, be it a mech or a weapon, that I can't afford to just write off. I've also noticed they tend to want to use all of their weapons ie lrm boat closing in to use med lasers.
So would it be better for AI to just have only weapons of a specific type? Like either make them an lrm boat with only lrms, or short range only and not have it have a little of each?
Mostly but not exactly. Plan out how they are going to fight in every encounter. If you send them to attack something, they charge at it until they are in the desired weapons range. So a Battlemaster or Warhammer with machine guns is going to end up in machine gun range. Where a Marauder with has nothing smaller than a medium laser is going to try to fight in the 150-300 m range. I like to strip the machine guns off the Battlemaster and put in light rifles, it takes some double heat sinks and costs some other weapons but works out a little better. I think I have one that also runs an lrm5. When my lancemate has that Battlemaster it handles vehicles and vtols very quickly, and doesn't get so close that it sponges enough damage to lose arms.
I also direct each lancemate to a location and leave them there to fight, that way their urge to follow me around doesn't interfere with their best practices for fighting at their optimal range. Sometimes that means I have to move them several times on a drop, but it's worked out better than directing them towards a specific target or having them follow me.
I like EW Ravens, RVN-1X as my wingman - Guardian, BAP TAG, NARC and one ML because it has to have a weapon. It protects your lance and provides targeting data. The OPFOR ignores it completely because it’s basically unarmed.
For really heavy missions, I use the Battlemaster with Guardian.
I must really suck at making weapons groups because my lancemates with LRMs will blow through all their ammo trying to shoot an enemy blocked by a rockface. I swear there will be that ONE tank behind that ONE steep hill by the bullshit outpost we’re defending, and they’ll dump ALL of their missiles into the hill.
Ai seems to do well with torso mounted longer range weapons with little variety. So I just make a boat with whatever weapon type and it usually works out fine
My best ally ever was a light rifle Firestarter with an upgraded engine and two flamers, with turn rate and ballistic upgrades it zoomed around everything overheating it slowly and ripping out bits of armour.
I love giving the lance Firestarters with no lasers, just MGs and flamers, they're ridiculously effective and even if they get torn up, it's a Firestarter.
Using TTRULEZ, fwiw. I also hate using PPCs, but lancemates can make a heck of a lot better use of them. I also love LRMs for the AI, but it works best if you order them to hold a position. Otherwise they will close to whatever the shortest optimal weapon range is for their load out.
My latest strategy has been to put all three AIs in assaults with all long range kits. Right now it’s a PPC boat, a gauss boat, and an LRM boat. I take a fast (100+ kph) medium full of flamers. Order them to hold position at a good vantage point, they pulverize almost everything on the map as soon as it spawns and I charge in and melt the leftovers. The medium can get a bit beat up on really dense missions, but the assaults are usually untouched.
Typically anything long ranged. The problem with close combat is that most enemies have solid close combat options. Only LRMs jam at close range meaning a JagerMech can still lay down a pounding on close range Mechs.
On the other hand, there's a lot of Mechs with fairly limited long range options that you fight. The typical Atlas for example can only engage with its LRM20 until it gets to 400m.
So I typically run my AI with long range weapons like LRMs. Normally, the lance can outmuscle other dedicatedly long range lances or shell out short ranged Mechs before they get too close.
You can wind up with the game just dropping crap on top of you, but I find that it tends to be more consistently good than bad.
I've found that giving a fast light a tag, and a few lrms on some mediums or heavies really helps me out as I tend to brawl it out with assaults.
It's like handing a child a laser pointer and having their angry older brother lobbing baseballs at who ever the laser is touching.
One type of build where I have a lot of success is large amounts of a single energy weapon, e.g medium lasers.
-Thunderbolt Top Dog with 9 medium lasers
-Banshee 3P with 6 medium pulse and motive upgrade (AI can use it with no penalty)
-Hunchback 4P with 8 medium lasers
And so on. Black Knights do really well too, as well as the Battlemasters.
When designing a build for lancemate I will mix Large and Medium lasers, starting with Pulses then moving down to Standard and SB variants if the heat is unmanageable.
I highly recommend the lancemate status bar mod because it shows you their heat bar which means you can troubleshoot and tweak the builds.
I've noticed LRMs over SRMS for AI
PPC, Gauss, and Rifles of any variant go well with AI over anything rapid fire.
And Lasers in general seem to hold their mark with AI.
Basically if you take the human ability to think tactically around situation, the AI does a great job at. Think Point Contact Front, Fire, done.
I probably spent two weeks of playing nightly with a Battlemaster and a Marauder as lancemates #2 & 3. Got to the point where I figured out that I needed six Battlemasters, and four Marauders to never have to put them in anything else no matter how dense the mission drops were.
If I run either of them, I attract too much damage, but the lancemates seem to hold their position well, kill at a reasonable pace, and not lose too much armor most of the time.
PPCs. I don't mind them but the lancemates absolutely slay with them.
LRMs are good, especially if you're a sniper with NARC beacons then they're scary good.
PPC or LRM spam seems to be the most effective I've found (lrms have to be careful because the AI loves to rush into close combat), SRM bombers are also pretty effective in the AI's hands (Stalker 2 Larges, 4 mediums, 4 Artemis 6s and the AI pilots will shred mechs left and right, was my go to mech for me and my lancemates for the entire vanilla campaign until I got the nightstar, they still stayed in the stalkers and killed anything I didn't headshot immediately).
Even high leveled pilots with high ballistic skill seem to miss lots of shots, I usually avoid giving AI pilots ballistic heavy mechs since they love spamming ammo into things that really do not need an AC20 round to kill like turrets or light vehicles when a medium laser or two will do the job fine (against moving targets it feels like a 10 ballistic pilot vanilla misses about 40% of its shots)
Basically just have mechs with LRM+PPC in each weight class. I stand my lance mates on hills away from the action as much as I can.
I do also keep some short-range monsters on tap too though - or at least some Jenner types, fast with MLAS or something.
The main key to me is to not mix weapon ranges for the AI idiots… I mean teammates.
Ai does nicely with energy/missile mix.
Take their missiles away on defense missions, they will hit your defense target. There is a battle master that is just a bunch of lasers that works quite well.
Ai are stupid though, there is no fix for this, it is inevitable.
My regular path for my lancemates is:
Panther
Centurion
Thunderbolt
BattleMaster
Atlas
Pretty much the same pattern for all of them. Big gun, lots of lasers, a little bit of missiles.
The 4th lancemate will be in something with EMS BattleMaster or Stalker.
Give them missiles and take away any small weapons. The AI is great at metal rain but they try and bring all weapons into range so if you have a small laser on your missile boat it's now a brawler and good luck pilot.
I would either go for a laser boat with a bunch of m-lasers with some back up in form of a 10-AC BF for my hunghback, while it is not great when fighting in long mission, I can still fry pilot's cockpit or cutting parts with ease.
Or if I want to go all balistic I will just slip all AC or machine gun I could find on my Hero Black Jack and proceed to shoot the ever loving out of all enermies from the backline.
Another I kind a like is Hero Commando with backstabbing tactics using SRM and M-laser. Great for raiding mission where just need to grab stuffs and run or when your AI lancemates keep the ernermies busy so you can throw srm at their thin cockpit's back.
Full lance of 1E Annihilators. ER large lasers on everything you can strap them to, and more cooling than Canada when they hit the aircon. And the best part, you'll have plenty of time to get to that knitting you've been meaning to finish!
I'm going to comment to share what I have learned and trying to allow the AI to maintain around 1000 damage points. First things first is to recognize 3 things the AI seems to do:
1. They shoot weapons by groups (chain fire will be fired as one.).
2. They only shoot the weapons once in range. This means they will close in on a target for short ranged weapons and try to back out once they cycle to LRM. Try.
3. They will only shoot if the heat permits.
With these 3 main things in mind, weapons must be grouped to be range compatible and to not ramp up too much heat. As such here are some mechs I find works well for AI:
Heavy: Black Knight, any common variant. Max armor, remove any lasers or items, use only PPC weaponry and pad with heat sinks. Each PPC is in their own group to prevent overheating. Usually I use PPC in arm and 2 PPC-X in torso. Rate of fire is fast of enough to not need medium lasers and PPC range ensures AI does not feel the need to close in. Upgrades should prioritize torso twist, speed boost and heat generation in that order. Torso twist upgrade will push the twist rate to the ideal spot for 64kmh at 120 degrees/s so they can bring those 2 torso mounted PPCs to bare faster. Speed boost will allow them to "dodge" damage more and get behind slower mechs which becomes very helpful late game. Less heat generation means the AI will shoot more. So what you end up with is a faster Awesome that shoots a lot, cheaper to repair and deploy.
Medium: Wolverine, any common variant. Max armor, dump jump jets (AI suck at jumping), and max heat sinks. Each weapon in their own group. The main advantages of the Wolverine over ALL the 55tonners is that it has 144 degrees/sec torso twist by default while having a smaller frame. Most of the other 55 tonners sit between 100-120 degrees which is means the Wolverine can bring it's SRMs to bear much faster which is critical for the speed they are going. They must not slow down and their torsos must keep twitching to spread out the damage. Since the SRM is the actual main weapon, give it two tons of ammo while the AC-5 gets 1. For the K and M variants, use a PPC-X instead of any of the arm mounted lasers which complement the "in your face" combat style of the Wolverine while keeping heat low. All upgrades should focus on removing heat from the SRM or the PPC to maximize fire rate.
Light: Firestarter, A or H. Max armor, dump jump jets, replace all flamers with small lasers and pad out with heat sinks. ML in their own group, arm mounted SL in their own group and torso mounted weapons in their own group. Flamers make the AI move too close as they will be in fist punching range of heavier mech or suffer dismemberment from PPC-Xs. The main trick is to use all the range improvement upgrades which will allow level 4 small lasers to reach out to 342m and level 4 MG to 241m which most will recognize is within the average combat range found in MW5. This ensures the AI can deliver the damage of almost 6 ML at ML range in a 35 tonner.
Light: Wolfhound, any common variant. Max armor, replace LL with PPC-X and ML with SL, pad out with heat sinks. PPC-X in it's own group, all torso lasers in their own group. The PPC-X RoF is very high so the back up of the medium lasers is not necessary. The SL allows minimum heat build up in between the PPC-X cooldown. Upgrades focus on energy range extension again which will also allow the PPC-X to reach those LL ranges too.
Assault: King Crab, any variant. Max armor, drop the LRMs, AC20 (no BF or RF), at least 1.4H/S, rest is AC20 ammo. Group AC20 each in their own group. This build only works if you have all the ballistic range upgrades or else the abysmal torso twist and standing turn rate will lose an arm fast. With all the ballistic range upgrades and improved range upgrade, a level 3 AC20 reaches out to 393m with a projectile speed of 583m/s. This is almost as fast as a level 1 AC10 (450m/s at 600 m/s). This means that the AI will shoot these AC20 like AC10s and the AI is very good at shooting AC10s. You will watch assaults melt in front of you as 6 level 4 AC20s hit their torsos from ML range. Ofc you can always use Gauss rifles and focus on ballistic cooldown upgrades instead but AC20s tend to be more common at least in early game.
Other mechs worth mentioning are:
Dragon-SDW: AI can run equipment like MASC always on without consequences. This mean if you add speed boost upgrade, a PPC-X and a AC-10 or SRM6, you will have an even faster Wolverine with AMS capability. Just mind the heat.
Battlemasters: Battlemasters have very poor torso twist rate for their torso heavy weaponry. So torso upgrades are a must if you want to see them do much better and have their weapon arm blown off less since the AI is very bad at aligning their torso to faster enemies. Torso twist upgrades will change their torso twist from 85 to 103 degrees/sec which is medium mech territory.
Quickdraw 5A: Using torso twist, speed boost and laser duration upgrades, only lasers and max heat sinks, brings this mech alive. Group arm and torso lasers in their own groups. If you can, use MP, DHS and some energy heat upgrades to witness the AI dismember mechs.
The common through line with these mechs is that AI should have important weapons in the torso but if that is the case, then torso twist becomes very important. Also the weapons in the torso should not linger on the enemy more than it has to so the AI "unlocks" off the enemy instead of taking all the damage to the torso. You can put weapons that linger in arms like lasers but the enemy AI tends to focus on big weapons first so if the big weapon is in the arms, they will shoot that first. Since lost limbs and internal damage are expensive and lengthy repairs, it's best avoided.
I hate PPCs but AI seems to do really well with them, so I give mechs like the Awesome, Warhammer, hero Orion etc. to them and keep the autocannon mechs for myself.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. People seem to talk about them like they're the energy weapon of the gods but I'll take a Large Laser over a PPC any day. Maybe I just suck though lol
I also prefer Large Lasers or Pulse lasers to PPCs. They just feel more accurate.
Projectile Speed: Light I feel like this is the main benefit of energy weapons no?
Except for PPCs, as they are a ball of plasma that is launched at the target with an electromagnetic cannon.
But aiming is *haaaaaard...*
Fit ppc-xs. Don't need to aim with a shotgun. I have an ANH-1E with 4 of them. It's horrific.
Only if you pilot that mech - or you don’t mind getting your ass shot off by AI…
(Shudders) I made the mistake of giving the ai Ppc-x once. Never again. It gets precision weapons and orders to shoot something in a totally different direction to me.
Yup... horrific
i find aiming with those pretty fun and satisfying. more then with ballistic weapons.
I like the large laser more for vehicles, and the PPC more for breaking specific parts of mechs. I can usually figure out the good path to hit a head or right torso with the ppc, but I can't reliably hit vtols or tanks with it. The ppc hit is more satisfying, but being able to drag a laser onto target and get half or more of the damage done after a bad initial aim is really nice.
Yeah I was gonna say, PPCs feel like a genuine kinetic projectile that breaks parts vs Lasers the just burn them. That being said, you're right about accuracy problems, you can sweep a laser if you miss (or water hose it if you wanna spread damage)
I got a hero Warhammer recently and YAMLed the hell into it. 2x Binary Laser SB and 2x Inferno SRM6 in the torso with 4x MPulse in the arms. Those twin Binarys are absolute monsters of a weapon. Can pass the beam across the legs of many lights and they instantly become several meters shorter.
I love the binary lasers. What variant is that fit?
WHR-BLK from Yet Another Campaign Hero Mech (mod). Absolutely tore our lance to pieces when we fought it, and then I made it even better.
They are god weapons…if you can manage to be a 100% accuracy pinpoint sniper lol but ppcx tho that’s just nice
The deal is that AI shoots PPCs the same way they shoot lasers - it's not a skill thing, they just "roll to hit". When you have the same chance to deal full damage or not with both types, then the version that doesn't spread its damage around at all is WAY better.
I seem to always have one lancemate that shoots me in the ass with a PPC
Yes! They always snipe at 500 m with the PPC-X, and hit you in the back with it.
Whoosh! *Crackle* Whoosh! *Crackle* Whoosh! *Crackle* AI are really good with PPCs but it's also really annoying hearing that every 0.3 seconds when I give my lancemate an Awesome. Seriously, they just rapid fire PPCs into everything. Enemy mechs, the ground, my rear, etc.
My AI lancemates always seem to do really well in the Awesome.
So true they just snipe choppers across the map
AI doesn't do very well with weapons that need to be constantly firing as they cycle through weapon groups. For example if you have an AC/2 BF in group 1, then some medium lasers in group 2, then some LRMs in group 3 the AI will fire the AC/2 once, then fire the medium lasers, then fire the LRMs, then go back to the AC/2 when the player would be able to fire all groups at once, never not firing the AC/2. So if you give them something that is low damage per shot but does lots of damage over time then they'll perform poorly with it. Therefore weapons and weapon groups that have very high alpha strike potential are most suitable for the AI as it's okay for them to cycle through their other weapon groups while those are on their cool down.
So basically I should just load em up with shotgun type builds. Like load up Group 1 with a fuckton of instant damage, and then theyll just go in, unload group 1 destroy shit. And then we move on to next target
Gauss rifles, heavy rifles, AC20s, PPCs all suit the AI quite well.
Doesn’t that feel like phoned-in, lazy programming? I mean aside from stepping on shit they were supposed to be protecting, the lance AI in MW4 Mercs seemed to perform way better. And I’ve even got TTRULEZ which does better for pathing but my lance is still pretty derpy with ammo usage (especially when shooting at blocked targets).
Lazy programming? From PGI? No, never. /s
Not really it's more that players make weapon groups based on range, which is preferable for the player, while that fundamentally doesn't work out for the AI. AI are actually programmed to fire weapons individually within the same weapon group (example if you have a large laser and a small laser in the same weapon group the AI will only fire the large laser until the small is also within range, then it will fire both). So if players stop making groups for the AI that they would use personally then this issue is totally mitigated however it's easier to tell the player base that the AI doesn't use particular weapon types as effectively than it is to tell people how to create weapon groups that will allow the AI to use those weapons most effectively because people are happier to blame the AI than they are to accept responsibility. Especially in the MW:5 community, here it's always the AIs fault.
It's not about the weapon groups, it's about the weapons. The AI will simply not be effective with a 3x AC5 4x MLAS Marauder because it doesn't fire fast enough to use the AC5 properly. No messing with weapon groups will fix it. On the other hand if I give an AI lancemate a 2x LBX10 6x MLAS Warhammer they can be very effective.
Untrue, just give them one weapon group with all those weapons in it. You're probably trying to put the mlasers in one group and the AC5 in another, which will drastically reduce the fire rate of the AC5s. If they're all in one group then the AI will fire those as fast as possible all of the time. They'll never be as effective as the player with any weapon but thinking outside the box with weapon groups will see them do significantly better than everyone gives them credit for that way. This is a pretty good example of how it's easier to tell players that the AI doesn't do well with particular weapons than it is to try teach players how to arrange weapon groups to mitigate these issues - it's always the AI never the person controlling the AI.
I just tested it. Putting them in the same group made no difference. Marauder lancemate did 600 damage, Warhammer lancemate did 1200.
Don't think you're running a fair test there. Was the cooling the same in both mechs? Were the pilots of equivalent skill? Is a Warhammer just a better mech (example better torso twist and turning circle, is it's primary weapons in the arms where it can aim quicker and at wider angles)? Is a PPC just a better weapon anyway regardless of whether the player is using it or the AI?. We're not talking about overall damage here, what we are talking about is how effective the AI are at using a particular weapon, so I'd suggest instead of comparing apples and oranges you just use the same mech three times on three lancemates on a instant action mission and then retry the mission with different weapons groupings, and maybe use something that is a better representation of reality than a YAML marauder build (example a jagermech with its three sets of weapons)
Good cooling and skills on both mechs. Both mechs have the ballistics in the torso. Marauder is the better mech of the two (better bonuses, higher DPS, longer range, more accurate, all its lasers in the arms). This is the only test I have done with all weapons in 1 group but the result is consistent with my previous experiences using AC5 vs LBX10 on lancemates. I also have an AC5 Warhammer that significantly underperforms compared to the LBX10 Warhammer.
I don't think you're following me. No doubt about it some weapons are just better than others but we are not talking about whether an LBX10 or PPC is better than an AC/5 (because it's a fact that is true). We are talking about whether the AI perform suboptimally with one weapon compared to potential performance. You're trying to compare two different weapons which is totally irrelevant here when you should be trying to compare the exact same weapon each time. Your Warhammer with PPCs doesn't disprove that the AI cannot improve performance with AC/5s when given more optimal weapon geoups. They way to disprove that, the only way to disprove that, is to use the same mech with the same weapons in the same mission with the same pilot without you shooting.
I don't have PPCs on my Warhammers, I have one with LBX10 and one with AC5. When I pilot the Warhammer myself, the AC5 version is better than the LBX10 version. When my lancemates pilot it, it's reversed and the difference is huge in favor of LBX10. The AI sucks with high rate of fire weapons because they don't fire quickly enough. That is my position and you claimed that weapon groups had something to do with it. I did a test and changing the weapon group made no difference.
Yes.
>Therefore weapons and weapon groups that have very high alpha strike potential are most suitable for the AI as it's okay for them to cycle through their other weapon groups while those are on their cool down. This statement needs to be qualified. You can use a wide variety of weapons to do "alpha strikes" like massed SRMs or medium lasers/MPLs, but putting two Heavy Rifles or Gauss Rifles to fire simultaneously can also be considered alpha striking. They should not be treated the same way in terms of suitability for AI use. Let's not forget that the AI misses far more often than the average human player, even if it has 60/60 skill. For example, the Heavy Rifle has an excruciatingly long reload time, so if the AI misses it takes a long time before it can fire again. Contrast this with a good human player than can nail his or her HR shots 90-99% of the time. That's why weapons that have the longest reload times are NOT good for the AI because the long reload plus propensity to miss equates to low DPS. Instead, you'll want something that fires reasonably fast, like the LB 10-X AC, so that even if the AI misses it won't take a long time to pull off another shot. Moreover, consider alpha striking with something that fires faster than the HRs in the example above, like eight MLs with the Thunderbolt Top Dog. I use this exclusively as a personal 'Mech, and my primary configuration is to fire all eight MLs simultaneously as a classic alpha strike configuration. However, would I use the same config for the AI? Certainly not. Knowing that the AI misses far more than me, I would split the MLs into a minimum of 2 groups of 4 , or 4 groups of two. Even if the AI misses with quad ML group 1, it can still have another chance at firing quad ML group 2. In contrast, if you do a single 8 ML group, the AI will fire all of them together and upon missing, will have to wait of ALL the 8 MLs to cycle before being able to fire again. Obviously, the lower the skill of the AI pilot, the lower the DPS. The point here is that the lower the weapon skill of the AI (assuming it's not 60/60 yet), the less you should be grouping a lot of the same weapons together. This reduces the penalty of missing shots, which can be almost insignificant with a skilled human player.
what mech has 8 missle slots?
Hero Longbow (YASV) has 8. MAD-4HP (basic YAML I think) has 9.
LRMs I think are massively underappreciated for lancemates, particularly when you have all the missile upgrades installed on mechs that all have LRM perks (YAML mod) and T5 Artemis Stream launchers! You just tag a mofo, and they get deleted while your lance safely snipes from behind cover
Another vote in favour of LRMs, even better if you fit good sensors/C3 on your own mech as a pathfinder. The lance mates can often move from behind cover, but the range usually makes any damage they take inconsequential.
stalkers, archers, kintaros are what I try to keep my lancemates in
Until they decide to rush the lance target and punch them...
Ha! our ideas crossed in cyberspace, JINX, you owe me a coke. 😁
Best lances I have ever had are homogenous, with torso main weapons. Light: 3 Panthers. Strip out the JJs and replace with sinks and armor. 3X PPCs and LRM 10s are deadly in the early game missions. Yeah, they're not torso mains... but they have a load of armor for a light mech. Plus PPCs. Medium: 3 hunchbacks. 2 of them are the AC20 models, and the last one is the LRM model (or the SRM model, with the SRMs swapped out for LRMs). This combo has shredded assault mechs. Pretty reliable up to about 60-70 difficulty missions. Honorable mention to the Centurion. 3x stock Centurions is a pretty deadly force. Not a torso-primary mech, but the combo of AC10 / LRM10 / 2x MLAS is fairly deadly in early missions. Heavy: 3x Archers. LRM hell. Plus they can be pretty nasty, especially the model with 2 LLAS. Assault: 3x Awesomes. 9 PPCs = deleted enemies. As far as lancemate builds.... my only real rules are no JJs, and no T4+ weapons larger than MLAS in the arms.
Im a bit surprised by the other answers, my lancemantes with LRM end very soon within minimal range using only lasers, SRMS, etc. I give them SRMs because of this and because they seem to be targeted less frequently than me. They also slay with PPCX
Well there's your problem, the ai is stupid as shit and when the LRMs go on cooldown they run straight towards the enemy to pew pew them with small lasers. Then the lrms come back online so they turn their backs towards the enemy to get to a good position to launch the lrms. Don't give them any backup weapons. Just give them lrms.
Yeah AI seems to perform best if you keep all it's weapons within the same range. Prob even remove the melee from the weapon groups for long range.
Ill try that, thanks
Do you by chance use TTRULEZ as well? I’m wondering if that mod just makes them inept with LRMs…
No, i dont use any mods. I am thinking that I have returned to mw5 after a couple years, maybe they were bad with LRMs in the base game and I havent noticed they are better now.
Not playing with mods is a poor decision. PGI released this game so it required mods to be halfway decent. Great thing is the fan base went above & beyond to finish the game for them. It is not as bad as it used to be, but it still needs a handful of relatively large mods.
Large pulse lasers. Looking at the stats, they should be marginally more powerful than PPCs, but they just don't feel as punchy and I feel like I end up with lower damage output whenever I use them. But if you thought the AI were marksmen with PPCs, boy howdy...it's like they're incapable of missing with pulse lasers.
Can’t go wrong by being the up close guy with tag or narc and your slower lancemates having 4xLRM20 or 4xLRM15 and backing you up from a distance. The AI even swoops in on tagged opponents more enthusiastically than giving lancemates an order to attack a specific mech.
Awesome with PPC’s Rifleman with Large Lasers Highlander with AC 20, SRM’s, Supercharger, Masc and hardened armor. All are my best set ups for AI lance mates.
I never give the AI something, be it a mech or a weapon, that I can't afford to just write off. I've also noticed they tend to want to use all of their weapons ie lrm boat closing in to use med lasers.
So would it be better for AI to just have only weapons of a specific type? Like either make them an lrm boat with only lrms, or short range only and not have it have a little of each?
Mostly but not exactly. Plan out how they are going to fight in every encounter. If you send them to attack something, they charge at it until they are in the desired weapons range. So a Battlemaster or Warhammer with machine guns is going to end up in machine gun range. Where a Marauder with has nothing smaller than a medium laser is going to try to fight in the 150-300 m range. I like to strip the machine guns off the Battlemaster and put in light rifles, it takes some double heat sinks and costs some other weapons but works out a little better. I think I have one that also runs an lrm5. When my lancemate has that Battlemaster it handles vehicles and vtols very quickly, and doesn't get so close that it sponges enough damage to lose arms. I also direct each lancemate to a location and leave them there to fight, that way their urge to follow me around doesn't interfere with their best practices for fighting at their optimal range. Sometimes that means I have to move them several times on a drop, but it's worked out better than directing them towards a specific target or having them follow me.
From my experience. Yes it matters.
I like EW Ravens, RVN-1X as my wingman - Guardian, BAP TAG, NARC and one ML because it has to have a weapon. It protects your lance and provides targeting data. The OPFOR ignores it completely because it’s basically unarmed. For really heavy missions, I use the Battlemaster with Guardian.
Devious tip; gonna try that!
LRMs, but only for defense missions
I must really suck at making weapons groups because my lancemates with LRMs will blow through all their ammo trying to shoot an enemy blocked by a rockface. I swear there will be that ONE tank behind that ONE steep hill by the bullshit outpost we’re defending, and they’ll dump ALL of their missiles into the hill.
Anything with MASC or a Supercharger because they cheat. Otherwise I, the human, can generally use the other systems more effectively.
Ai seems to do well with torso mounted longer range weapons with little variety. So I just make a boat with whatever weapon type and it usually works out fine
My best ally ever was a light rifle Firestarter with an upgraded engine and two flamers, with turn rate and ballistic upgrades it zoomed around everything overheating it slowly and ripping out bits of armour.
I love giving the lance Firestarters with no lasers, just MGs and flamers, they're ridiculously effective and even if they get torn up, it's a Firestarter.
Using TTRULEZ, fwiw. I also hate using PPCs, but lancemates can make a heck of a lot better use of them. I also love LRMs for the AI, but it works best if you order them to hold a position. Otherwise they will close to whatever the shortest optimal weapon range is for their load out. My latest strategy has been to put all three AIs in assaults with all long range kits. Right now it’s a PPC boat, a gauss boat, and an LRM boat. I take a fast (100+ kph) medium full of flamers. Order them to hold position at a good vantage point, they pulverize almost everything on the map as soon as it spawns and I charge in and melt the leftovers. The medium can get a bit beat up on really dense missions, but the assaults are usually untouched.
Typically anything long ranged. The problem with close combat is that most enemies have solid close combat options. Only LRMs jam at close range meaning a JagerMech can still lay down a pounding on close range Mechs. On the other hand, there's a lot of Mechs with fairly limited long range options that you fight. The typical Atlas for example can only engage with its LRM20 until it gets to 400m. So I typically run my AI with long range weapons like LRMs. Normally, the lance can outmuscle other dedicatedly long range lances or shell out short ranged Mechs before they get too close. You can wind up with the game just dropping crap on top of you, but I find that it tends to be more consistently good than bad.
I've found that giving a fast light a tag, and a few lrms on some mediums or heavies really helps me out as I tend to brawl it out with assaults. It's like handing a child a laser pointer and having their angry older brother lobbing baseballs at who ever the laser is touching.
One type of build where I have a lot of success is large amounts of a single energy weapon, e.g medium lasers. -Thunderbolt Top Dog with 9 medium lasers -Banshee 3P with 6 medium pulse and motive upgrade (AI can use it with no penalty) -Hunchback 4P with 8 medium lasers And so on. Black Knights do really well too, as well as the Battlemasters. When designing a build for lancemate I will mix Large and Medium lasers, starting with Pulses then moving down to Standard and SB variants if the heat is unmanageable. I highly recommend the lancemate status bar mod because it shows you their heat bar which means you can troubleshoot and tweak the builds.
I've noticed LRMs over SRMS for AI PPC, Gauss, and Rifles of any variant go well with AI over anything rapid fire. And Lasers in general seem to hold their mark with AI. Basically if you take the human ability to think tactically around situation, the AI does a great job at. Think Point Contact Front, Fire, done.
I probably spent two weeks of playing nightly with a Battlemaster and a Marauder as lancemates #2 & 3. Got to the point where I figured out that I needed six Battlemasters, and four Marauders to never have to put them in anything else no matter how dense the mission drops were. If I run either of them, I attract too much damage, but the lancemates seem to hold their position well, kill at a reasonable pace, and not lose too much armor most of the time.
PPCs. I don't mind them but the lancemates absolutely slay with them. LRMs are good, especially if you're a sniper with NARC beacons then they're scary good.
PPC or LRM spam seems to be the most effective I've found (lrms have to be careful because the AI loves to rush into close combat), SRM bombers are also pretty effective in the AI's hands (Stalker 2 Larges, 4 mediums, 4 Artemis 6s and the AI pilots will shred mechs left and right, was my go to mech for me and my lancemates for the entire vanilla campaign until I got the nightstar, they still stayed in the stalkers and killed anything I didn't headshot immediately). Even high leveled pilots with high ballistic skill seem to miss lots of shots, I usually avoid giving AI pilots ballistic heavy mechs since they love spamming ammo into things that really do not need an AC20 round to kill like turrets or light vehicles when a medium laser or two will do the job fine (against moving targets it feels like a 10 ballistic pilot vanilla misses about 40% of its shots)
Awesome 8T with 2x big LRMs and 2x PPCs... works really well for the AI
Basically just have mechs with LRM+PPC in each weight class. I stand my lance mates on hills away from the action as much as I can. I do also keep some short-range monsters on tap too though - or at least some Jenner types, fast with MLAS or something. The main key to me is to not mix weapon ranges for the AI idiots… I mean teammates.
Ai does nicely with energy/missile mix. Take their missiles away on defense missions, they will hit your defense target. There is a battle master that is just a bunch of lasers that works quite well. Ai are stupid though, there is no fix for this, it is inevitable.
Archer with 4 LRM 10’s and 2 medium lasers. My bots and my son just wreck with that load out.
My regular path for my lancemates is: Panther Centurion Thunderbolt BattleMaster Atlas Pretty much the same pattern for all of them. Big gun, lots of lasers, a little bit of missiles. The 4th lancemate will be in something with EMS BattleMaster or Stalker.
Energy and lrm thunderbolts are great for a Sorta MBT role on most missions for my ai lancemates
Steiner Scout Lance, AC20’s and missiles
Give them missiles and take away any small weapons. The AI is great at metal rain but they try and bring all weapons into range so if you have a small laser on your missile boat it's now a brawler and good luck pilot.
The AI pilots are deadly with accurate long range weapons such as LP LASERS and gauss
I would either go for a laser boat with a bunch of m-lasers with some back up in form of a 10-AC BF for my hunghback, while it is not great when fighting in long mission, I can still fry pilot's cockpit or cutting parts with ease. Or if I want to go all balistic I will just slip all AC or machine gun I could find on my Hero Black Jack and proceed to shoot the ever loving out of all enermies from the backline. Another I kind a like is Hero Commando with backstabbing tactics using SRM and M-laser. Great for raiding mission where just need to grab stuffs and run or when your AI lancemates keep the ernermies busy so you can throw srm at their thin cockpit's back.
I’ll tell you the opposite I sold my marauder 2 because it kept getting trashed and killed one of my pilots
Full lance of 1E Annihilators. ER large lasers on everything you can strap them to, and more cooling than Canada when they hit the aircon. And the best part, you'll have plenty of time to get to that knitting you've been meaning to finish!
I'm going to comment to share what I have learned and trying to allow the AI to maintain around 1000 damage points. First things first is to recognize 3 things the AI seems to do: 1. They shoot weapons by groups (chain fire will be fired as one.). 2. They only shoot the weapons once in range. This means they will close in on a target for short ranged weapons and try to back out once they cycle to LRM. Try. 3. They will only shoot if the heat permits. With these 3 main things in mind, weapons must be grouped to be range compatible and to not ramp up too much heat. As such here are some mechs I find works well for AI: Heavy: Black Knight, any common variant. Max armor, remove any lasers or items, use only PPC weaponry and pad with heat sinks. Each PPC is in their own group to prevent overheating. Usually I use PPC in arm and 2 PPC-X in torso. Rate of fire is fast of enough to not need medium lasers and PPC range ensures AI does not feel the need to close in. Upgrades should prioritize torso twist, speed boost and heat generation in that order. Torso twist upgrade will push the twist rate to the ideal spot for 64kmh at 120 degrees/s so they can bring those 2 torso mounted PPCs to bare faster. Speed boost will allow them to "dodge" damage more and get behind slower mechs which becomes very helpful late game. Less heat generation means the AI will shoot more. So what you end up with is a faster Awesome that shoots a lot, cheaper to repair and deploy. Medium: Wolverine, any common variant. Max armor, dump jump jets (AI suck at jumping), and max heat sinks. Each weapon in their own group. The main advantages of the Wolverine over ALL the 55tonners is that it has 144 degrees/sec torso twist by default while having a smaller frame. Most of the other 55 tonners sit between 100-120 degrees which is means the Wolverine can bring it's SRMs to bear much faster which is critical for the speed they are going. They must not slow down and their torsos must keep twitching to spread out the damage. Since the SRM is the actual main weapon, give it two tons of ammo while the AC-5 gets 1. For the K and M variants, use a PPC-X instead of any of the arm mounted lasers which complement the "in your face" combat style of the Wolverine while keeping heat low. All upgrades should focus on removing heat from the SRM or the PPC to maximize fire rate. Light: Firestarter, A or H. Max armor, dump jump jets, replace all flamers with small lasers and pad out with heat sinks. ML in their own group, arm mounted SL in their own group and torso mounted weapons in their own group. Flamers make the AI move too close as they will be in fist punching range of heavier mech or suffer dismemberment from PPC-Xs. The main trick is to use all the range improvement upgrades which will allow level 4 small lasers to reach out to 342m and level 4 MG to 241m which most will recognize is within the average combat range found in MW5. This ensures the AI can deliver the damage of almost 6 ML at ML range in a 35 tonner. Light: Wolfhound, any common variant. Max armor, replace LL with PPC-X and ML with SL, pad out with heat sinks. PPC-X in it's own group, all torso lasers in their own group. The PPC-X RoF is very high so the back up of the medium lasers is not necessary. The SL allows minimum heat build up in between the PPC-X cooldown. Upgrades focus on energy range extension again which will also allow the PPC-X to reach those LL ranges too. Assault: King Crab, any variant. Max armor, drop the LRMs, AC20 (no BF or RF), at least 1.4H/S, rest is AC20 ammo. Group AC20 each in their own group. This build only works if you have all the ballistic range upgrades or else the abysmal torso twist and standing turn rate will lose an arm fast. With all the ballistic range upgrades and improved range upgrade, a level 3 AC20 reaches out to 393m with a projectile speed of 583m/s. This is almost as fast as a level 1 AC10 (450m/s at 600 m/s). This means that the AI will shoot these AC20 like AC10s and the AI is very good at shooting AC10s. You will watch assaults melt in front of you as 6 level 4 AC20s hit their torsos from ML range. Ofc you can always use Gauss rifles and focus on ballistic cooldown upgrades instead but AC20s tend to be more common at least in early game. Other mechs worth mentioning are: Dragon-SDW: AI can run equipment like MASC always on without consequences. This mean if you add speed boost upgrade, a PPC-X and a AC-10 or SRM6, you will have an even faster Wolverine with AMS capability. Just mind the heat. Battlemasters: Battlemasters have very poor torso twist rate for their torso heavy weaponry. So torso upgrades are a must if you want to see them do much better and have their weapon arm blown off less since the AI is very bad at aligning their torso to faster enemies. Torso twist upgrades will change their torso twist from 85 to 103 degrees/sec which is medium mech territory. Quickdraw 5A: Using torso twist, speed boost and laser duration upgrades, only lasers and max heat sinks, brings this mech alive. Group arm and torso lasers in their own groups. If you can, use MP, DHS and some energy heat upgrades to witness the AI dismember mechs. The common through line with these mechs is that AI should have important weapons in the torso but if that is the case, then torso twist becomes very important. Also the weapons in the torso should not linger on the enemy more than it has to so the AI "unlocks" off the enemy instead of taking all the damage to the torso. You can put weapons that linger in arms like lasers but the enemy AI tends to focus on big weapons first so if the big weapon is in the arms, they will shoot that first. Since lost limbs and internal damage are expensive and lengthy repairs, it's best avoided.
Well it depends, modded either TTAIRULEZ, maximum firepower for a specific role. Vanilla, long range weapons. Always.