BattleTech Guide to Weapons and Armor - What is the best Mech equipment

[@AlanW]

I play D&D, and while I like to try to take advantages of the rules to get optimal builds, I can't ever quite get to the point where I am making spreadsheets and doing estimated damage calculations, but I still appreciate you doing it here!

[@SykenPlays]

Cool, good to know, what version of DnD are you playing? DM or player? As for the spreadsheets - it is hard to „visualize“ the differences of weapons otherwise, specifically as the game is a very mathematical one.

[@AlanW]

@@SykenPlays Used to DM in the AD&D days, but getting back into it am just doing player stuff. My neighbor makes adventures under "Dread Unicorn Games" and has been running 5e campaigns.

[@epitelous6029]

I used to play ad&d in the birthright campaign setting when I was a student. Was very sad when TSR stopped its development. Besides adventuring birthright offered turn based political ruling...

[@ScarredCitizen]

Just found this video. I was cleaning the attic the other day and found a bunch of my Battletech books, maps, record sheets, mini's. Well now I'm here cause I'm trying to find a Battletech group and this game slightly scratches that itch.

[@adaptabledisease]

@@ScarredCitizen RIP fasa

[@chummer2060]

I hadn't done any math, but I noticed when I put a bunch of SRMs on a mech, it turned into quite a beast. This data will help with my next playthrough, thanks!

[@fortusvictus8297]

This is a little out of date. L Lasers are more efficient in the current build for example. Equipment stats can change with each DLC update.

[@Anyguy4321]

This was the only good guide I could find on this game. Thank you for the in-depth explanation.

[@Ocnain]

You forgot something: UAC and other high damage weapons might be ineffective by its tonnage, but they also deal all the damage in a single mech part, don't spreading it on various different places. That alone means you might destroy two mech parts in a single shot, whereas the other weapons can't do that. A single UAC 20 shot in the shoulder or the head may mean a dead/incapacitated robot instantly.

[@SykenPlays]

Thanks for the Input, very much valued.

[@joshiechoi]

Wow, I just discovered your channel/videos, and your analysis is amazing. Thank you for breaking down all the data objectively. I also love your end game builds.

[@SykenPlays]

Hi Josh, You are very welcome. If you are interested in a hardcore run, feel free to check out the actual run that I did. Good luck on your game!

[@parismccoy20]

I agree, I'm very impressed.

[@wedgeantilles8575]

Great video and very helpful excel sheet! One thing to consider when you take a look at the effectiveness armor vs weapons: You can't just compare armor / ton vs weapondamage / ton. Because is on different parts. If you hit the left arm, you do the weapon damage / ton like you calculated. However, armor that is on the right arm, on the right leg, on the head... doesn't do anything. Only the armor that you put on the left arm is usefull. That reduces the efficiency of armor / ton quite a lot. How much obviously depends on the situation. If you are in a firefight and you are taking fire from every direction, every part of your mech is hit - than every armor point spent was valuable. If you are hit only directly on the centre, than only this armor has any value - and every armor you put into legs, arms... is useless. If you increased armor on e.g. 5 parts, but 4 parts are never hit, the effectiveness of your armor on the part that was hit is reduced by 80%. In reality you will probably get hit on a lot of different parts - maybe not on every mission, but on a lot. That's why I definitly don't want to say armor is "not good" or something like that. It's just a detail that you keep in mind when playing with numbers in an excel sheet :)

[@SykenPlays]

You are very welcome !

[@TheAnalogRebellion]

Thank you for this video! There isn't enough content out there about this game and I need all the help I can get. :P

[@SykenPlays]

Glad to be of service!

[@megasstevros1782]

This was great, very well thought through and presented

[@SykenPlays]

Thanks Megas, appreciate your feedback

[@Vonriga]

Thank you for this video. I am new to the game (tabletop & PC) so, after this first viewing, I will need to rematch this a couple of times. I will also be checking your othervide

[@davesym]

Aw yeah! Spreadsheets!

[@SykenPlays]

They are efficient :) I take the point that they are less sexy to view through.

[@carlwells9504]

I like your general reasoning with efficiency of armour but a lot can be said for a low armor indirect LRM missle boat. I had a stripped down Centurion with LRM20 LRM15 and LRM5 finish storyline on hardest difficulty (Light/medium/heavy/assault lance play through).

[@SykenPlays]

There are multiple ways of playing the game - I simply gave one (optimized) way. Other options work as well

[@EasyThere]

I would add a dmg/range column then do an avg of all 3 for a custom battle rating. Great video. Very informative.

[@SykenPlays]

Great tip!

[@EasyThere]

@@SykenPlays Great series gonna try and watch em all

[@Vonriga]

Thank you for this video. I am new to the game (tabletop & PC) so, after this first viewing, I will need to rematch this a couple of times. I will also be checking your other vids. Thank you so much.

[@SykenPlays]

You are very welcome Vonriga, glad to have you on board.

[@HalIOfFamer]

In table top lrms are also weighted that way. For the lrm 5 it's not a problem(in table top not in this game) because clustering is independent of chance to hit, so you are rarely hitting with all 5 missiles even on a 100% chance to hit. The lrm 15 is just an oversight in table top tho, it is the most efficient launcher damage wise.

[@SykenPlays]

I see, thanks for the info!

[@doctorj4050]

Finding this video made me both very happy and very sad. Happy a nice and clean chart showing what weapons to gun for and which to leave in a ditch. Sad my beloved Gauss Rifle is mathematically mid :(

[@SykenPlays]

There are other factors for loadouts and Gauss Rifles can be quite good on a ranged sniper Mech. It just serves a different purpose.

[@nikolatasev4948]

The excell is quite interesting and helpful. However, either I'm missing something, or the heat adjustment is per slot, not per ton. E.g. the SRM4 weights twice as much as the SRM2, deals twice the damage and outputs twice the heat. Meaning if you put 4 tons of either SRM2 or SRM4 the damage and heat output should be the same. So the DMG/ Ton heat adjusted penalizes large modules. That aside, I very much like the approach, and would like to play around with it. I was playing long range so far, but maxing armor and going close range sounds reasonable indeed.

[@SykenPlays]

There is certainly still a detailed level of optimization. It is a fine line between going way too deep into the matter vs. hitting the main point. The core aspects of the weapon categories & how useful they are still remain very much similar.

[@Z1pZ1p3r]

Numbers. I like numbers. Very informative. Thx.

[@SykenPlays]

I appreciate a condensed 10 minutes, number-driven type of video. Glad that you like it.

[@Z1pZ1p3r]

@@SykenPlays Numbers and to the point. I wish more people would do that instead of rambling.

[@THEGRUMPTRUCK]

One strategy that always sees me through is an Awesome with 5 Large Lasers, and Called Shot on CT. Even against other assaults it is a 1-2 turn kill.

[@SykenPlays]

That is a good point

[@Kiririn_Kousaka]

Before I watched this video, I just played One Shot GG - style with the AC20 x2. They are ineffective but super cool in game play lol

[@SykenPlays]

It is a legitimate way of approaching the game. The challenge with AC20s is that you need to get very close to the enemies. If you can handle the return fire, I am sure you will have no problems :)

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

I come from the classic table top, is there any value in high single target damage? Where it opens up a location and then spamming out LRMs/SRMs for criticals on those locations?

[@SykenPlays]

Keep in mind that on TT you typically have a 1on1 situation with similar point buy. That is not the case in the BT game. The game expects you to regularly punch up your weight class and the AI will not set intelligent traps or focus fire. Hence, the fights typically end up with both sides fighting on medium to close range. In that case it becomes a wear and tear test of your armor outlasting the other armor.

[@epitelous6029]

I noticed during you videos series that you are not fond for jumping around. Is it because of heat generation and the need to modify your heat sink strategy? I think you should do a run where you have as limitation the use of all jump jet slot in you mech's builds.

[@SykenPlays]

Hi Epi, that is a good idea to have a run with limitations. As for the jump-jets: They are not bad, but they generate a lot of heat and you essentially trade quite a bit of fire-power in order for mobility. Whilst it makes sense for smaller Mechs, my experience for larger Mechs is that the game is very much a case of efficient use of armor and firepower. If you end up with ~60% less damage and deal 150-200% of the damage of the enemies each round without overheating, you end up dealing 4x the effective damage and will be able to very efficiently go through the enemy Mechs.

[@EldritchElric]

@@SykenPlays Very often you don't need to trade JJs for firepower, you can trade them for armor. You won't need nearly as much if you have JJs. I wouldn't say a 700 alpha damage A-II or a 474 alpha WHM-7A are underpowered, even less when all damage is from long range, and that's while running with negative alpha heat and single digit alpha heat with a max distance jump. Also with free facing you have more control over what side of the mech are you exposing to the enemies without sacrificing movement points or evasion, thus optimizing the armor you do have.

[@doctorj4050]

Does “Thermal Exchanger” change the math, in the Spreadsheet? In this example you go to The Draconis Combine (Kurita) and buy Thermal Exchanger from the faction shop. The ones bought are not +, just a nice -10% would this help the more heat intense weapons? example PPC,Large laser and LB 20-X On that same note are the Thermal Exchanger + and Thermal Exchanger ++ just to rare to really consider?

[@SykenPlays]

The thermal exchanger makes heavier enemy weapons more feasible. Essentionally, the rule of thumb is that you want to be able to sink most of the heat. If you can do that, you take as much damage as you can get.

[@Valryia]

Would it be okay if I asked for your spreadsheets? These look like really useful materials on how to build mechs for this game

[@SykenPlays]

I had them in googledocs, but they are since gone. I know it is not a very satifying answer, but maybe you can take a screenshot (not optimal, but at least a start)

[@Valryia]

@@SykenPlays no worries, thank you regardless ^^

[@VndNvwYvvSvv]

Have yoy tried BEX? It feels a lot more realistic and true to the real game. I'd love to see videos like this and "how to build an effective lance" but assuming the 4-mech, no vehicle, 200 ton limits

[@SykenPlays]

Yes, I tried all of the big4 mods. The challenge is mostly that the game mod viewers interest is very limited, hence I did not follow-up with another run.

[@Foxman_Noir]

Where can I get that excel file?

[@SykenPlays]

pause the video and screencap :)

[@MdYeasin-mx2zg]

see, i understand that lasers on paper seem to be the best weapon types,then why do i get the most kills with srm6 and lm20? probably because i just miss 80% chance to hits with lasers but most missiles hit with 60% chance.

[@SykenPlays]

Can‘t answer that without knowing your playstyle. The rocket launchers are insofar good weapons as they are always doing damage. A 20% hit chance on them means that it deals 20% of the damage as opposed to an all-or-nothing hit from a laser or projectile weapon. That could be the reason why rockets are finishing hard to hit and heavily injured targets.

[@MdYeasin-mx2zg]

​@@SykenPlays i now know why. My mechs miss 80% chance to hits on lasers

[@andrewstambaugh240]

Once you rip armor away, a lrm salvo is likely to kill. Before that, it may or may not kill a locust... Also, if you have done several pilot damage, the indirect fire arc has a slightly more preferable head shot chance than front. Combine that with a high salvo count, and it's going to happen now and then.

[@Netgazum]

Just put a UAC/10 on a Marauder and a MechWarrior with Tactics 9/10 and you are good to go for headshots, if you want the round to end fast.

[@SykenPlays]

It is one amongst many strategies, but it has disadvantages (specifically if it doesn‘t work)

[@Netgazum]

@@SykenPlays I dunno, I have collected many mechs doing this and usually end battles in 8 to 10 rounds. Other mission types can take longer but I really only ever target the head and it works too well I think.

[@dwwolf4636]

Snubnose PPC. Or Clan Large pulse L.

[@SykenPlays]

Both of them are great, but unfortunately not part of the core game. I am typically not reviewing the mods, unless in rare exceptions.

[@andrewstambaugh240]

Snubs are mods, they are vanilla game with it's dlc. I'd suggest you include them with a note about them being dlc weapons.

[@RafaelOliviera952]

There is any comunity of battletech online match and discussions ?

[@SykenPlays]

Yes, there is - typically it is via Reddit. The community is more active around the TTRPG scene, but the game was featured relative regular as well

[@ScarredCitizen]

@@SykenPlays yes. Exactly what I was looking for.

[@kaylow225]

Gauss ranking seems off. It's an automatic 5 structural damage on hit, bypassing armor. And since structure is where a mech is destroyed, this should be taken into account. Even better with a ++ Gauss. A Gauss ++ on a Marauder with TTS to ballistics and pilot with Called Shot Mastery and Recoil Reduction traits is an absolute assassin. I've wiped out entire Assault lances with head shots with very little damage to my lance. All that for 5 heat.

[@SykenPlays]

I see your point, certain weapons, just due to their base damage can be used for head-sniping. That however doesn't automatically increase their ratings, I judge them based on their utility and not just for a niche situation (specifically if you play with the reduced hit chance for head, the marauder sniping tactic becomes much less significant). Equally, the amount of times that it doesn't work and you have spent your entire turn to do sub-standard damage, needs to be factored in as well.

[@kerbalette156]

Awesome ty

[@SykenPlays]

Glad you liked it.

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

Your reasoning for armour being the most efficient use of weight seems a bit... off... Not questioning the conclusions or in-practice results, I'm not very good at the game after all. Armour is just 80 equivalent damage per ton, a medium laser is (~25 damage per ton x mission turns x uptime). Weapons can get their effects more than once per mission, armour can't. A more apt comparison would be ammo, in which case a box of AC20 ammo is roughly 500 damage per ton (depending on the gun it's feeding), much better than armour. Of course, this ignores the weight of the gun and relies on all of those shots hitting (then again, any armour you leave the mission with is also 'wasted', you want your mechs leaving the mission perfectly peeled with no ammo left). I suspect the most efficient damage/ton mech (either dealt or received) would be a naked mech carrying a UAC20++ and stuffed to the brim with ammo. You're looking at ~46 damage per ton at 1 box (12 ton UAC++, 120 damage per shot) but each additional ammo box makes it more efficient, the 2nd box alone takes it up to ~85 damage per ton and it just keeps getting better from there. We have to ignore energy weapons and melee here because they both provide theoretically infinite damage. I think that better reasoning would be something like: armour makes missions safer and more reliable. You can pack more damage than you need into all your mechs and still have enough weight spare to max armour. If you don't have enough weight spare, your mechs are overgunned, oversinked or using inefficient weapons. Your heat-adjusted DMG/ton formula also appears to be off. It seems like a flat bias towards low-heat weapons regardless of their damage/heat. As an example of this off-ness, 2 SRM2s and 1 SRM4 are identical in every aspect except slot usage and cost. They both weigh 2 tons, they both fire 4 shots that deal 8 damage, they both generate 8 heat. The heat-adjusted DMG/ton of 2 SRM2s is 40 compared to the 10 of an SRM4. Getting a 'true' heat offset is probably impossible given how contextual it is, you can't really know the 'right' amount of heatsink weight to offset a given weapon or if to include exchangers, which are better value/ton on hotter mechs. A Medium Laser takes 4 tons to cool, but only if you want 100% uptime and have already used all your internal sinking. If you forced me to make a formula, I'd probably go for something like: AVERAGE(total damage/heat, total damage/ton, total damage/ton). This puts all the SRMs at 12, AC2s at ~5, Medium Lasers at ~17, PPCs at ~5 and AC20s at ~6. These numbers look about right to me. Including damage/ton twice is arbitrary, but I figure that weight is about twice as important as heat. This is, however, bending data to fit a desired outcome, it tells us very little we didn't already know - MLas and SRMs are efficient, PPCs suck, ACs are mathematically bad but can sometimes hit breakpoints.

[@SykenPlays]

Without going to long into an explanation: The game is hardly playable without armor, as any body-hit will automatically start destroying systems. Since most of the time, you cannot alpha strike the enemies, you need to win a game of attrition. With bulwark and cover in the woods, your armor ratings are essentially doubled and are always active (no heat generated, etc.). I was trying to convey that in a brief, comprehensive analysis.

[@5volt793]

Well the ammo comparison alone doesn't work, you want (weapon+ammo)/average shots landed per mission. I run an ac20 blackjack which hits about 90% of the time. with 1 ton of ammo I usually use all 5 rounds in a mission and rarely need more. On that build I'm getting about 450 damage for 15 tons total weight so 30 damage per ton, much less than the 80-140 per ton blocked for armour(my blackjack pilot also has bulwark which increases the armour's effectiveness substantially). There is also some value added to the weapon by the fact that when an ac20 lands it almost always takes out an enemy weapon if not a whole mech, reducing incoming damage, but I'd need to be scrapping 150 damage worth of enemy weapons per shot(50dam*15tonnes/5shots) to even reach the benchmark of 80/tonne and I definitely am not.

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

@@5volt793 IIRC I ran the maths after making the comment and AC20s are the least weight-efficient. I don't think accuracy matters, remember that every point of armour you have left at the end of a mission is also wasted. If we're going to include accuracy we're looking at a much more complicated comparison, for which there is no mathematically 'right' answer, so any formula you try to make will be heavily impacted by personal biases and be no more valuable than pure vibes. You want "enough" firepower and "as much as possible" armour. With optimised designs and skilled play, you can bring the "enough" bar low enough that you can max out armour.

[@bf5175]

Interesting video so far but I find your discussion on weapons lacking because you do not factor range and the ability to indirect fire. You seem to gloss over it. A weapon's other shortcomings are easy to overlook if that weapon allows you to stay in a position where the enemy literally cannot shoot you.

[@SykenPlays]

I discussed it earlier in one of the guide videos. The factors that you are describing are relevant on paper, however - in contrast to the tabletop version - the maps are relatively small and you are not up against a similar „point buy“ of enemies. If you are fighting 10-12 Mechs, weapons with ammunition have an inherent disadvantage. If maps are small, weapons with range are less likely to give you a massive advantage. Sniper builds (long range targeting shots) and LRM boats are viable options to play the game. That being said, both of these builds are not particularly strong and I personally would advice to go with the most straightforward option if you are inexperienced. The AI has a tendency to rush into your face and in this environment, good Damage to Heat Ratio and armor on all slots is what will win you the encounters. Hope that helps to provide context to your question.

[@NeostormXLMAX]

Yeah but arm armor is useless if you dont plan on melee, or using arm weapons

[@SykenPlays]

That is incorrect a) destroyed body parts cost a lot to repair b) hits on destroyed parts transition the dmg to the next body part, therefore you want as much of a buffer as you can get to protect the torso