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Topic: Purpose of a Mech?

Well I thought I had the game kind of figured out. I was having a lot of fun in my assault bot. I upgraded to nearly all the best gear I could find at the time until I couldn't anymore. At that point I was making around 2 million NIC an hour, my little bot was farming 200-275 kernals in about 45minutes.

So I thought since I hit a little wall, it was time to upgrade some more. I bought my Kain and put all the necessities on him then started my journey to one of the outposts. I figured harder enemies would be farther out and more money would be had there.

Except...

I'm freaking running from everything. And at a slower rate than my Arbalest too. I can kill the stuff but it costs me 3-4x times as much money for ammo to do it. And so much longer. The other NPC mechs are surrounded by little bots that disrupt my scanning and slow or drain my accumulator.

I get for pvp reasons you don't want to make all the little bots obsolete. But this is seriously dampening my whole outlook of this game. Why in the world do I even want a mech. And if I don't want a mech, did I already beat the game?

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I loved the game at first, but now I'm getting more and more frustrated by the lack of direction.

I know that some extensions will help me fight smaller bots, but will there be any point? If I can kill smaller bots faster without EP in my assault bot, shouldn't I just stay inside that?

Is there a purpose to having a mech? Outside pvp reasons? Help me understand sad

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

You most likely lack the appropriate skills to make your mech as good as an assault bot.

Do you have as many points in Adv. Robot Control as you do Basic Robot Control?
How about with Adv. weapons skills?

Quickly upgrading to a new tier without spending the appropriate EP is a big mistake that a lot of people seem to be making.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Kernal prices are hilariously imbalanced.  They need to remove low level kernal orders or ALL kernal NPC orders and the players will decide their worth.  They will then dramatically drop in price and be more balanced for the difficulty it is to get each type.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Golden One wrote:

You most likely lack the appropriate skills to make your mech as good as an assault bot.

Do you have as many points in Adv. Robot Control as you do Basic Robot Control?
How about with Adv. weapons skills?

Quickly upgrading to a new tier without spending the appropriate EP is a big mistake that a lot of people seem to be making.

No, I understand the extensions. And you're right that it's part of the problem.

My question though is that is there any point? My belief is that if I put so much money into a mech and time. The rewards should match appropriately. I'm making 2 million an hour now, my mech should make 3-5 million once I get the extensions. Especially if it's costing me four times as much for ammo.

I need some reassurance that something like that is waiting for me. Right now it seems better and less risk to just stick with my assault bot. Which sucks because I feel like there is no more purpose to the game.

5 Reply by Gremrod (edited by Gremrod 2010-12-20 22:05:39)

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Adal wrote:
Golden One wrote:

You most likely lack the appropriate skills to make your mech as good as an assault bot.

Do you have as many points in Adv. Robot Control as you do Basic Robot Control?
How about with Adv. weapons skills?

Quickly upgrading to a new tier without spending the appropriate EP is a big mistake that a lot of people seem to be making.

No, I understand the extensions. And you're right that it's part of the problem.

My question though is that is there any point? My belief is that if I put so much money into a mech and time. The rewards should match appropriately. I'm making 2 million an hour now, my mech should make 3-5 million once I get the extensions. Especially if it's costing me four times as much for ammo.

I need some reassurance that something like that is waiting for me. Right now it seems better and less risk to just stick with my assault bot. Which sucks because I feel like there is no more purpose to the game.

TBH, the game isn't really meant for solo players to a certain extent.

But you will need to get some extensions up.

Also what level nav do you have? Your Kain fitted correctly should move faster then your assault.

Also find a spawn with maybe two mechs or a mech and only three bots etc.

It's not a problem with the game, the game just changes a bit when you move into mechs.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Pre-release guys should start thinking about mechs, but they still can't drive them very well, unless they gimped themselves with an assault. Really need around 120k EP to drive a mech decently. You should have every applicable combat extension to 5-8 range before thinking about driving a mech. For now assault bots are the way to go. I don't see mechs being very useful for soloers/duoers. I see them as more of a group thing. Get 2-3 mechs with 2-4 assault bots to farm the harder spawns on beta. A solo mech on beta is a dead mech if you get spotted by hostiles.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Adal wrote:

I'm freaking running from everything. And at a slower rate than my Arbalest too. I can kill the stuff but it costs me 3-4x times as much money for ammo to do it. And so much longer.

Now you learned the lesson why mechs on alpha islands are useless atm. Without an Alliance or a a war u cant find good spots on Beta Islands.

The bonusses on assault bots are more effective on alpha islands. A good assault bot easily can kill a new learned Mech.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

something that you can do, until you get your advanced skills higher, is switch back to light weapons on your mech, the larger reactor cpu and accumulators, along with a better accumulator recharge rate, can actually make a mech into a quite good stand and fire platform for the same mobs you currently fight with your assault. you lose some dps doing so, but your costs will be lower than in medium weapons, and if you fit two small armor repairers along with the small weapon loadout, you have some pretty efficient tanking ability without having to kite mobs.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Depends on what your shooting with the mech really. You need hit dispersion at seven plus to make a Kain worthwhile vs assaults and vs lights don't bother. You should be shooting your weapon size vs your weapon size really.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

god thanks the mechs are not npc seeded anymore, or the forum would overflow with such topics...

what the others wrote: Mechs are meant to fight Mechs, and to do it effectively, you need at least the same extensionlevels for weapons and bot as you have on your assault - just to compare them.

11 Reply by BoxerSlayer (edited by BoxerSlayer 2010-12-20 23:52:48)

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Even with precision fire at level 10, you will miss on assaults constantly.
4/(9 * 0.7) = 63.5% hit chance.

This is worth it in pvp (in some situations), but not pve, as the ammo cost will *** you profits.

pve farm on alphas, mechs not worth it. On the betas it really really is though. Go hit some mech only spawn, you will be laughing all the way to the bank (relative current pve earnings).

If you are bored, spent some nic on some cheap bots and go pick a fight somewhere. Take a couple a friends, and you will probably even have a good time.

TLDR: There is no current content on alpha islands where a mech is usefull, go to the beta for that.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Neoxx wrote:

Kernal prices are hilariously imbalanced.  They need to remove low level kernal orders or ALL kernal NPC orders and the players will decide their worth.  They will then dramatically drop in price and be more balanced for the difficulty it is to get each type.

Yes remove the biggest incentive for solo players to ever come to the betas

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Mechs kill other mechs.
3 mechs together will scare off a ewar roam unless there is 15 of them.
The difference between an mech and a light robot is so small that it's cheaper and more effective to stay in an assault or ewar robot.

It's all situational based and a mech has less situations it can survive in than an ewar robot does.

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14 Reply by Blackomen (edited by Blackomen 2010-12-21 00:54:21)

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Sadly this game does not properly scale effectiveness vs. cost of bots. Bigger bots are more powerful, but only by a very tiny amount. 2 bots of a lower class will always kill a bot of a higher class. And those same bots combined cost 1/4-1/2 of the bigger bot. If you bring 10 mechs and they bring 10 assaults to a fight, the mechs win. To be honest, the only "real" advantage to mechs over assaults, is their range, and that can have a huge impact in pvp.

Bigger stuff is better, but only by a minuscule amount due to dispersion and apparent inability for spaceage technology to accurately hit over small distances. Even though modern weapons can travel 200km and fly in a window at 900mph without scratching the sides.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Range, damage, fitting options and armor points. Mechs have advantages in all that will increase over time due to the % nature of extensions.

Its possible for an assault to take out a mech solo in pvp, as I have done it, but its no small task.

Mechs are the way forward, and as soon as you can afford to lose mechs on a regular basis, its time to switch.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Vorgrim Scout wrote:

Range, damage, fitting options and armor points. Mechs have advantages in all that will increase over time due to the % nature of extensions.

Its possible for an assault to take out a mech solo in pvp, as I have done it, but its no small task.

Mechs are the way forward, and as soon as you can afford to lose mechs on a regular basis, its time to switch.

Its easy to kill a mech with an assault because you dont have enough EP to pilot the mech anywhere near as good as a mech.

Later on in the game the best chance to kill a mech with an assault would be a speed fit Waspish vs a tanked Artemis with lots of terrain to dodge around.  The Waspish keeps raining down the pain on the Artemis while it keeps firing into the dirt.  If you make any of them meet on level ground the mech will nearly always win unless it is just as dumb as the dirt it was previously hitting.

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17 Reply by franko (edited by franko 2010-12-21 07:37:49)

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

So where is progression in this game ? if im not on beta i need to use my assault for few months to get skills to sit in mech ? only thing i can do if i have battle char is to farm npc, and now i need to kill same mobs for 2 months using same bot ? where is sandbox ? where is fun ?
Why more advanced bot is worse in killing than cheaper and less advanced ?
Why experience in piloting light/assault bots is useless when you use mech? So you can use that light turret in bot but in mech you doing less damage ? wtf. and if you use medium you cant hit *** on alpha...

So lets see:
It faster, cheper, safer to kill lvl1 mission mobs that any other mobs using even "better" mechs... and if you want be effective you cant do other things ? Sorry devs but i dont pay for a such fun.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

On the pvp islands, your better off with an assault bot. Your game pretty much caps out there if you never plan to leave the alpha islands. On Pvp islands Mechs make farming other mech npcs much easier. They just "SUCK" against smaller targets. I do however agree that smaller bots are being made too strong vs. larger bots.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

franko wrote:

So where is progression in this game ? if im not on beta i need to use my assault for few months to get skills to sit in mech ? only thing i can do if i have battle char is to farm npc, and now i need to kill same mobs for 2 months using same bot ? where is sandbox ? where is fun ?
Why more advanced bot is worse in killing than cheaper and less advanced ?
Why experience in piloting light/assault bots is useless when you use mech? So you can use that light turret in bot but in mech you doing less damage ? wtf. and if you use medium you cant hit *** on alpha...

So lets see:
It faster, cheper, safer to kill lvl1 mission mobs that any other mobs using even "better" mechs... and if you want be effective you cant do other things ? Sorry devs but i dont pay for a such fun.


mechs arent better they fill a different role, this isnt bigger =better infact ift should be even more so a bot should have problems hitting mechs and mechs should have problems hitting bots

20 Reply by franko (edited by franko 2010-12-21 08:20:32)

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Ekim wrote:
franko wrote:

So where is progression in this game ? if im not on beta i need to use my assault for few months to get skills to sit in mech ? only thing i can do if i have battle char is to farm npc, and now i need to kill same mobs for 2 months using same bot ? where is sandbox ? where is fun ?
Why more advanced bot is worse in killing than cheaper and less advanced ?
Why experience in piloting light/assault bots is useless when you use mech? So you can use that light turret in bot but in mech you doing less damage ? wtf. and if you use medium you cant hit *** on alpha...

So lets see:
It faster, cheper, safer to kill lvl1 mission mobs that any other mobs using even "better" mechs... and if you want be effective you cant do other things ? Sorry devs but i dont pay for a such fun.


mechs arent better they fill a different role, this isnt bigger =better infact ift should be even more so a bot should have problems hitting mechs and mechs should have problems hitting bots

Yes i understand this now... so if i have assault , and dont want go to beta to be farmed by early access people is end of game for me ? that was fast... sad
Account expiry time: 2010-12-29 09:02:00

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

franko wrote:
Ekim wrote:
franko wrote:

So where is progression in this game ? if im not on beta i need to use my assault for few months to get skills to sit in mech ? only thing i can do if i have battle char is to farm npc, and now i need to kill same mobs for 2 months using same bot ? where is sandbox ? where is fun ?
Why more advanced bot is worse in killing than cheaper and less advanced ?
Why experience in piloting light/assault bots is useless when you use mech? So you can use that light turret in bot but in mech you doing less damage ? wtf. and if you use medium you cant hit *** on alpha...

So lets see:
It faster, cheper, safer to kill lvl1 mission mobs that any other mobs using even "better" mechs... and if you want be effective you cant do other things ? Sorry devs but i dont pay for a such fun.


mechs arent better they fill a different role, this isnt bigger =better infact ift should be even more so a bot should have problems hitting mechs and mechs should have problems hitting bots

Yes i understand this now... so if i have assault , and dont want go to beta to be farmed by early access people is end of game for me ? that was fast... sad
Account expiry time: 2010-12-29 09:02:00

Your stuff, can I have it?

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

BoxerSlayer wrote:
franko wrote:
Ekim wrote:

mechs arent better they fill a different role, this isnt bigger =better infact ift should be even more so a bot should have problems hitting mechs and mechs should have problems hitting bots

Yes i understand this now... so if i have assault , and dont want go to beta to be farmed by early access people is end of game for me ? that was fast... sad
Account expiry time: 2010-12-29 09:02:00

Your stuff, can I have it?

so how often do you go to the movies and ask for a free viewing ? open chat with the owners of an area and come to an agreement and im sure anyone will let you farm bots
its the ore we hoard

and wtf does early access have to do with anything my combat character is younger than you and ill still wipe the floor with you......

back on topic:D

i dont think you read what i said ill tldr: no bot should make another obsolete

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Ekim wrote:

so how often do you go to the movies and ask for a free viewing ? open chat with the owners of an area and come to an agreement and im sure anyone will let you farm bots
its the ore we hoard

and wtf does early access have to do with anything my combat character is younger than you and ill still wipe the floor with you......

back on topic:D

i dont think you read what i said ill tldr: no bot should make another obsolete

Pretty much everything people have said have confirmed my fear. There's not much I can do right now until I amass enough EP.

But even if I get enough EP, I'm only going to be marginally better than I am now... ? How are people not more upset I wonder.

You pvp guys are in the same boat too. If I, and other people like me, don't move up. You'll be stuck fighting (or rather not fighting) the same guys over and over. Just like I'm having to fight the same bots right now.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

Yeah I saved up money and some nice Ext for my Mech but when I started hunting I made at least 5x the money on my assault. Then my Kain got blown up by a bugged e-bot running on mountains and shooting through them. I kinda feel like the game can just sit on the shelf for a month or two before I start playing again. I haven't got the time to play team most of the time and I am done grinding L1 newb spawns.

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Re: Purpose of a Mech?

If you guys are thinking you can jump into this game, and a week later be an amazing mech pilot, you have no idea what game this one is heavily influenced by. (Hint: it starts with an 'E' and ends with an 'E', and there's a 'V' in the middle.)

Hate to say it, but... go back to WoW.