Videogames: Newbies Guide to MechWarrior Online

The Basics

MWO is a PvP game based in the BattleTech universe where two teams of giant robots (Mechs) battle each other for control of resources.

This game is not your average first person shooter. It’s not about who is fastest on the trigger, it requires tactical teamwork in order to be good at this game, plus an understanding of how to build your Mech for maximum effect. That means it does have quite a learning curve, but on the other hand it also means that the game has real longevity — you can be playing this for months or years without getting bored.

The other great thing about this game is that it is also completely Free to Play! Yes, it’s true that you can buy Mechs and add-ons for real money, but you can buy pretty much anything with in-game currency, or earn it via special rewards, so the game is genuinely free. There is no play to win, so you can be fully competitive without spending a penny.

First thing to do is get the game. Easiest way is to grab it via Steam. Once you have the game installed, be sure to play through all the tutorials! Not only do you need to do this to learn the game, you also earn a really big in-game currency (C-Bills) payout for every tutorial mission — so it’s doubly worth it. So take your time and do all of these training missions carefully.

You can find the default key commands listed here. Don’t worry, you don’t need to learn all of them — you only need to know a few basic ones at first. You can also remap them if you are left-handed or have specific needs.

If you have a HOTAS joystick-and-throttle system you can use that, but even though the Mech graphics show your pilot using a joystick in the cockpit you will quickly find that using a mouse or trackball is considerably better than the joystick. However using a HOTAS throttle for movement is very useful, so if you have one of those it’s worth setting it up.

Once you’ve done all that — and it might take a while, there’s a lot to learn— you’ll be ready to jump into real action in Quick Play mode. You get a selection of Trial Mechs to choose from, so you can try out a few different types. You will probably want to pick a Medium or Heavy Mech to start with.

You will die. A lot. Get used to it, because this game is punishing on newbies. On the positive side, the first time you get a kill you will feel like you just lost your virginity, so it’s worth sticking to it.

Weight Classes

Mechs are divided into 4 classes:

• Light — fast and agile, not much armor, great for spotting targets for the big mechs to shoot at or sniping enemies from behind. Fun to drive, but not easy to play. Teams really need Light Mechs though, so if you can master one you will get in a team any time.
• Medium — decent armor, speed, and weapons (and cheap to buy). This is what you should pilot as a beginner. You will also usually get in a game much faster in a Medium Mech because teams are often low on them
• Heavy — the standard Battlemech. Less agile than Medium Mechs, but better armor and weapons. Most people pilot these, which means that if you’re in a Heavy you can sometimes wait for ages for a game to start, since teams need a mixture of classes. If you don’t mind the wait Heavy Mechs are a strong competitive choice.
• Assault — big Mechs that are really slow but massive tanky behemoths of pain. Fun to drive, but you need to be in a good team, otherwise some asshole in a Light Mech is (literally) going to run rings round you and take you down. Not for beginners.

A standard Quick Play Mech Team is 12 Mechs, divided into 3 Lances of 4 Mechs each. Alpha Lance is composed of Light & Medium Mechs (recon, skirmishing), Medium & Heavy mechs are in Bravo Lance (support), and heaviest Mechs are in Charlie Lance (assault). Stick close to your team (marked as blue diamonds on the map), and especially close to your Lance (turquoise diamonds); its safer and you earn more XP and money if you stay with your Lance formation and support and protect other Mechs, even if you don’t kill anything yourself. As a newbie, hang back behind the big guys and provide support fire to back them up, and keep an eye on the flanks to make sure the team doesn’t get ambushed. Do not get out in front, you’ll die in seconds.

Red diamonds on the map are enemy players. If you have Long-Range Missiles you can shoot at Mechs that appear on the radar even you don’t have line of sight on them — you can lock on to a target up to 1000 metres away just as long as somebody else in the team has eyes on them.

Weapons

There are 3 major weapon groups:

• Energy weapons (e.g. Lasers, Pulse Lasers, PPCs)
• Ballistic weapons (e.g. AutoCannons, Machine Guns)
• Missile weapons (e.g. Long Range Missiles, Short Range Missiles)

Lasers are the bread-and-butter weapon choice, and most Mechs will have at least a couple of them. They don’t take up much space, and don’t need ammo, but they can be heavy and they do produce a lot of heat.

Many people supplement Lasers with Missiles for either long range support or short range burst damage. Missiles pack a lot of punch, but their damage is spread out compared to the pinpoint damage you get with Energy weapons. You need to carry ammo for them.

Ballistic weapons are for people who like guns. Big guns. They are relatively light and don’t generate much heat, but they take up a lot of space and you need to pack a lot of ammo.

It’s probably easiest to start with a Mech that carries a maximum of two of the above choices. Usually this will be Lasers+Missiles or Lasers+Ballistics.

Buying your first Mech

Once you have finished the tutorials you will have earned enough C-Bills for your first Mech. There are a bewildering number of choices, so here are some hints:

Players are divided into two main factions: the Inner Sphere and the Clans. Each Faction has its own specialised type of Mech. Inner Sphere Mechs tend to be cheaper, but usually need a lot of customisation to become really competitive. Clan Mechs are stronger out of the box, but much more expensive. In Quick Play mode you can run any type of Mech, but if you want to take part in Faction Warfare mode you can only play Mechs from your Faction.

Here are some solid Medium Mech choices from the Inner Sphere. Note that each Mech also comes in several variations — the ones listed have been proven to be pretty useful to start with:

• Bushwacker BSW-P2 (good if you like lots of weapon choices)
• Enforcer ENF-4R (good if you want an agile Mech with lots of lasers)
• Griffin GRF-2N (good close-range Mech that is invisible to enemy radar)
• Centurion CN9-A (good if you want a tough Mech with wide weapon choices)
• Hunchback HBK-4P (good if you want something tanky that can get right in an enemy’s face)

If you don’t mind spending some real money, the Solaris 7 Hero Pack on Steam has some very good Mechs and is an excellent buy, especially if you can get it in one of the sales. The Griffin Ares and Rifleman Dao Breaker Mechs from that pack are very good Inner Sphere starter Mechs.

Tweaking your Mech

Once you earn some money you can start to customise your Mech.
Assuming you are piloting an Inner Sphere Medium Mech, here are a few basic tips on customising it:

In most cases, you will want to start by changing from Single Heat Sinks to Double Heat Sinks, which are much more efficient and can save you some weight. Double Heat Sinks are a must in almost every case, so always do this change first with every new Mech! Cooling efficiency is a major factor in the game and measured in a range from 0–2. You’ll want to aim to have this around 1.3 or higher.

Switching your Mech’s structure from Standard to Endo-Steel can also save you considerable weight at the cost of some space. Usually worth it if you are packing Energy weapons or Missiles. If you are carrying Ballistic weapons you might want to keep the space instead.

Put Ballistic and Missile Ammo in the Head slot, or in the Leg slots. Don’t put ammo in the Center Torso slots. If you are running an Inner Sphere Mech, don’t put ammo in the Side Torsos either, unless you also equip a C.A.S.E. (Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment) system in the same area to reduce the effects of an ammo explosion. Clan Mechs come with C.A.S.E. as standard.

Inner Sphere Mechs can use Standard, Light or XL (extra light) engines. The Standard engine is pretty useless, so you will probably want to change that. Light engines give you more power for less weight, and XLs give you even more — the problem with XL engines though is that they make it easier for enemies to blow you up, so that’s something to watch out for.

Bigger engines also include extra Heat Sink spaces for free, so that’s also another advantage. Engines are expensive though, so choose carefully before you buy one!

Inner Sphere Heavy and Assault Mechs usually benefit from running Light engines because they usually provide the best compromise of weight and power. On Light Mechs XL engines are generally preferred because you need as much speed and agility as you can get. With Medium Mechs it’s more of a toss-up, but in general I still recommend using Light engines on these instead of XLs in the majority of cases.

If you really like tweaking your Mech, you can play around with builds here.

You can use XP to unlock new skills: note that XP you earn is tied to the Mech you are piloting, so you have to unlock skills for each individual Mech you pilot. Start by unlocking some Firepower skills. Also aim to unlock the Heat Gen skill nodes, they will make a huge difference. If you are still overheating even after that, consider unlocking some of the Operations skills as well.

Builds for Solaris 7 Mechs

If you have the Solaris 7 Mech Pack here are some good starter builds that should perform a lot better than the basic setups they come with. In all cases I have left the stock engine in place since buying engines can be incredibly expensive for new players, and I have tried to use basic equipment to keep the costs down. In each case, copy the line of code starting with A and ending with 0, then open the in-game Mechlab, click on Import, and paste the code in.

Firestarter Firestorm

Ac:820P0|Xb|Y?|Y?pF0|KO|PG|PG|PG|Y?|i^qF0|KO|PG|PG|PG|Y?|i^rH0|0@|0@sH0|0@|0@tI0uI0vB0w<0:0:0

Griffin Ares

Ad::20j0|eb|i^pX0|OG|OG|W@|W@qX0|OG|OG|i^|f?rT0|F@|F@sT0|F@|F@tT0uU0|AO|]OvB0|]Ow>0<0<0

Rifleman Dao Breaker

Ae::2041|f?|^bp`0|Y?|i^|0=2q`0|Y?|i^rX0|Y?|Y?sX0|k?|k?|Y?tY0|AOuY0|FO|FOvB0|FOw<08080

Banshee Siren

Af:830J1|^d|i^|i^|i^|i^|i^|f?pl0|c?|i^|LG|LGql0|o?|LG|LGr01|c?|c?|c?s01|C@tc0|JO|fOuc0|AO|^OvB0|^OwN0D0D0

Atlas Kraken

Ag:030P1|Nd|i^|i^|b?p01|[<2|o?|JO|JOq01|C@|C@r41|f?|Z<2|i^s41|i^|b?|i^tA1|^O|^OuA1|^O|^OvB0|AOwL0D0D0

Mad Dog Revenant

Ah:L<:41|oB|oBp]0]X7|VR|5C|VR|l^q]0[X7|VR|VR|5C|l^rX0ZX7|oBsX0^X7|oBth0_X7|l^uh0`X7|l^vB0YX7w<0;0;0

Faction Warfare

Faction Warfare is the more “hardcore” mode of MWO. It’s pretty punishing, but can be a lot of fun (and the rewards are great). Unlike Quick Play mode, in Faction Warfare the players on each side must all be from the same faction: Inner Sphere Mechs fight on one side, and Clan Mechs fight on the other.

My Unit is Hidden Tradition, and we normally fight as Inner Sphere loyalists. If you need a Unit and like the idea of defending the Inner Sphere against invasion, just ping me at the details at the bottom of this article and ask to join.

Faction Warfare has two game modes: Scouting and Invasion.

Scouting

In Scouting mode each team has 4 players, each piloting a Light or Medium Mech with a maximum weight of 55 tons. One team has to run around the map collecting data from intel beacons, and then rendezvous with a dropship for extraction; the other team must attempt to stop them (usually by killing them all). So speed is really important in this mode — you will usually want a Mech that can do at least 80 kph and do quick burst damage with its weapons.

So bear that in mind when you are buying your first Mech — it’s a good idea to get one that you can use for Scouting. The Bushwacker and Griffin are solid choices for Scouting on the Inner Sphere side since they are each a full 55 tons; alternately the Stormcrow is a good choice if you prefer to join the Clans.

Invasion

For Invasion games in Faction Play you will need to have a Drop Deck which consists of 4 Mechs with a total combined maximum weight of 265 tons if you are playing on the Inner Sphere side, or 255 tons if playing on the Clan side. So for your second Mech purchase I recommend that you get a decent Heavy Mech so you can start building out your Drop Deck. The classic choice for Inner Sphere is the 70 ton Warhammer-6D — it’s an easy Mech to pilot and it can lay down some very good damage. On the Clan side, the 65 ton Ebon Jaguar is a solid choice that can fit well in any Drop Deck.

If you have the Solaris 7 Mech pack you already have enough Mechs to enable you to form a decent full Inner Sphere Drop Deck without needing to buy anything else. Use the following Mechs, and set them up to drop in this order:

1. Atlas or Banshee
2. Rifleman
3. Griffin
4. Firestarter or Urbanmech

Note that the stock builds on each of these Mechs is pretty terrible so you will have to do a fair amount of tweaking before a Drop Deck like this is really competitive!

Get ready to drop

That should be all you need to get yourself started. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, and don’t worry if you die every time and feel like you’re terrible. That’s how we all started — some of us are still pretty terrible but who cares as long as you have fun!

Feel free to send me a Friend request in-game: my handle is Caimbeal, or message me on Steam: rodney418. If you want to join our unit Hidden Tradition, just send me a message and ask to join. We are always happy to have new people fight with us.

See you on the battlefield!

Useful Links

For more information and useful tools see the following links:

• MechWarrior Online main site
• MWO Wiki
• Mech Quirks (list of special abilities each Mech has)
• Mech DB (all Mechs listed with prices and building tools)
• Battletech Universe (50 page PDF with all the lore & background you ever wanted)