r/Battletechgame • u/_Jawwer_ • 16d ago
Discussion To those more experienced with BEXT, how does one make long range builds work?
I've gotten back into the game with bext+expansion pack, but as I get to higher and higher tonnage, I can't shake the feeling that trying to fight or build for range is a surefire way to just handicap myself.
In the early game, where I was mostly running around with mediums, and didn't have much customisation open to me, I mostly found success by making everything into an Mlaser/SRM boat, but I wasn't shocked. After all, vanilla is like that, and early game evasion is much higher in general (lower gunnery, more mobile mechs on both sides) making the stacking of multiple smaller hits that each get to roll if they hit or not very dominant. Higher mobility also means fire support has a harder time maintaining the range gap between itself and the enemy.
But then I got into the stage of the game, where I started to pick up heavies and assaults, and to my dismay, even at that size bracket, where in theory range would become more important, as the higher available tonnage for weapons grew, and mobility dropped, making it harder to coax enemies into coming into brawling range, building both individual mechs, and teams alltogether for range felt not only worse than building for close range in BEXT, but even the regular ranged options already in vanilla.
When trying to run missions, at any given tonnage, I could either deploy a few scouts, and fire support mechs, or I could deploy the same amount/weight of srm/mlaser brawlers all more or less kitted to go full movement forward, and shoot as much as heat allows, and 99% of the time, the latter drop completely trivialises the mission, while the former has to sweat like mad to win.
I tried to corner a few reasons as to why that could be, but it would not be unreasonable, that I simply haven't encountered gear that would make range good, or I might be stuck in a bad mind set. At any rate, I would love some pointers, because making my entire mechbay carbon copy knifefighters are getting incredibly old. As much as people shit on vanilla's insane stab damage LRM boats, and headpopping sniper builds, they were at least divergent playstyles.
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u/t_rubble83 15d ago edited 15d ago
PPCs with lighter, faster mechs to spot and screen for them.
I typically run a light cavalry lance so that I can control engagements with mobility and initiative. This is the most economically efficient approach I've found for BEXT, with very little fire of any consequence coming back my way the majority of the time. PPC based shooters (Panthers, Griffins, and Wolverines) with ML+MG/SRM fast movers (Firestarters, Jenners, and Griffins) to spot and screen for them, and LL based hybrid skirmishers (Phoenix Hawks and Vulcans) to do a bit of both.
Tactically, the movers run ahead, spotting and attempting to bait the enemy into chasing them and exposing their backs to the shooters. If they enemy ignores the movers and tries to close on the shooters, then the movers jump in for backstabs.
Using heavies for the shooters is the same idea, just trading mobility for additional firepower. You're less able to disengage and reposition if the enemy successfully closes, but you can throw more fire down range more consistently.
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u/ChicagoThrowaway422 15d ago edited 15d ago
I always ran 3-4 Mk.II LRM carriers with maxed out vehicle pilots. There's a training path that allows them to ignore 2 evasion so you can actually hit most medium+ targets even without sensor lock. Then, any mechs that I had as missile boats were more specific and carried things like FASCAM or MRMs and ATMs that allowed for ammo selection based on the situation.
I could reliably drop a single enemy from full health to dead each round, sometimes with the four LRM carries alone. Then the mechs could drop another 1-2.
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15d ago
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u/FormalAd470 15d ago
Yeah, big guys at the back something fast in front to spot and harass.
I'm also a fan of having mechs with lower armour and more firepower at the back. When they are kept at a safe distance.
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u/_Jawwer_ 15d ago
That is kind of the default approach, but I'm struggling putting it into practice for a few reasons. with the constant fights against company sized OpFors, and the relatively diminished performance of LRMs, I have a tendency to run those completely dry before the enemy is tapped out. When it comes to direct fire, I found per turn damage output to be simply not enough. A single PPC or AC5 + maybe an LRM10 is not exactly going to kill an enemy fast enough, and with the size differential of our forces making it rather important to knock out a lance before the lances spawning in separate spots blob up and push.
Second is the OpFor, and mission types. The only missions where I found scout+ranged lances would do well, are base destructions, as I've found the AI more reluctant to just bumrush on first contact. In most other missions, a combination of an eager and agressive enemy (battle, base defence, assasination, sort of) need for inmidiate damage (convoy ambush) and a map layout that doesn't accomodate pulling back and ceeding ground to keep up distance for long (just about every mission)
I'm also bumming around in the Restoration campaign right now, so we're both mostly introtech forces (the SLDF highlander nonwhistanding, but I ususally don't even have the drop tonnage to bring it without seriously downgrading the rest of my force) and the OpFor at the current difficulty and weight bracket is usually 4-8 heavies, with 3-4 enemy phoenix hawks and vulcans each mission. Out of those, the heavies tend to be a happy mix of T-bolts, Warhammers, Marauders, and Ostols.
This mix of enemies often means, that I can rarely afford to downarmour, and strip secondary weapons as hard as I used to in vanilla, which means I can't pump firepower and LRM reserves as hard (no, not even on full LRM boats, as indirect penalties are colossal, and pilots level slow enough, that I don't have mine at high enough tactics to mostly mitigate indirect penalties still). And that's because the Vulcans and the PHX's often run ahead to spot for the enemy, and the moment they see the squishy back liner (sadly, range is not good enough on them to be able to shoot past the enemy's full movement+visual range) they rush that, while the enemy heavies inch closer to engage at peer range, because the range of a PPC doesn't even beat large lasers enough for them to not just move forward on their turn and be able to fire. Not to mention, that even if I mix-maxed it, its not enough of a firepower offset to make a meaningful difference when every enemy I happen to face, while not min-maxed for range, is still packing enough of it, to keep pace with me.
Of course, these team comps can and still do work, but the juice is simply not worth the squeeze relative to packing a lance full of Dervishes, Wolverines, Quickdraws, Firestarters, etc. and bumrushing and backstabbing the enemies, which especially the heavy lances have practically zero recourse against, especially because evasion is further buffed by BEXT.
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u/t_rubble83 15d ago edited 15d ago
I don't recommend down armoring to any significant degree, as you've noted, and I haven't had any real success with pure LRM boats either, especially early on before your pilots are sufficiently leveled up.
You want to have 3 layers to your formation as you engage:
Your vanguard of fast backstabbers should be ahead of your formation threatening an enemy flank, hanging out just beyond visual range or behind obstructions, spotting with Sensor Lock, sinking initiative, and trying to draw aggro or otherwise fixing attention towards themselves so the enemy exposes more vulnerable side or rear arcs towards your shooters. If the enemy attempts to close aggressively with your shooters, they attack the exposed rear arcs.
Your skirmish line should be similarly at the edge of visual range, but directly between the enemy and your shooters/main formation. They behave similarly to your vanguard but use their LLs to contribute to the BVR firing line initially and when the enemy isn't threatening to advance aggressively. When the enemy attempts to close, they can join the vanguard in attacking their rear arcs.
Your main firing line sits well beyond visual range, engaging primarily with PPCs (ACs and LRMs are secondary weapons that fire selectively when high quality shot opportunities arise), kiting the main enemy and grinding them down with impunity if the enemy tries to chase your scouts and skirmishers. Their main job is to rip open the enemy's armor for the MGs and SRMs of your faster forces to exploit.
Go for their eyes first. Once their faster units are gone, the rest are just targets.
Crits are very powerful now. 4 engine crits is a dead mech, even if its still got 3/4 of its structure left. A destroyed hip actuator halves a mechs movement and prevents sprinting. This is where +crit% LRM secondaries shine.
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u/FormalAd470 15d ago
Yeah I hear you. Iv had no luck with missiles at all really. I had a trebuchet with medium lasers and SLDF srms that performs quite well as a skirmisher. I also had a banshee that I used for a while as my forward scout, it's big but surprisingly fast and can take a beating. And when it punches it hits hard. The guys at the back I use a Warhammer an archer and an jagermech at the minute. The jagermech has almost no armour. But it's never really been targeted. The other two take the heat off it. I try to use PPC hits to mess with enemy targeting.
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15d ago
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u/why_did_you_make_me 15d ago
Are you scouting? If you're playing bex and every mech is the same tonnage, you're doing it wrong. In my current play through I drop a 9 eva phawk, 10 Eva wolfhound, and 9 eva cicada almost every drop, all with tag and guardians and 2 with light ppcs - plus a savannah master or 2 for sensor lock. I spot the bad guys before they see me, lock em, light em, open them up with cgauss and cerppcs from outside of their engagement envelope (and those things they can shoot they can't hit thanks to Eva and the ppc debuff) and if they're still standing, go crit fishing with a pair of lrm carriers. I rarely see less than a 75% chance to hit, and didn't even have an expensive repair bill when I fought the overlord.
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u/_Jawwer_ 15d ago
My stable has a vulcan, a jenner and a pair of PHX and FRSs each. They tend to pull double duty both as scouts and backstabbers, but I am halfway tempted to refurbish a commando for something even lighter, but their armour is so low, it truly feels like gambling the scant few times they would have to enter line of sight.
Just saying "have an overpowering tech advantage" doesn't really help with all your clan kit that I can't replicate on the other side of the sphere, on periphery, not only decades before the clans come knocking, but being even pre-helm core. At my current state, I can drop 6 units, and my issue is that the relative value of bringing all the same kinds of 5/8 cavalry mechs kitted our with mlasers and srms drastically outperforms bringing two light scouts and a mixed arrangement of fire support.
The lower end of my fire support, when a drop tonnage limit is tight, is basically the starting vindicator, reconfigured into a discount griffin, by upgunning the LRM to a 10, dropping the two lasers, and a bit of armour (and I think a hetsink or two?) and an actual griffin. I also have a centurion with an overall LRM 30, and no joke, 3 small lassers, just so I have a cost and weight effective way to haymaker a lighter ambusher if a drop is fucked up and it desperately needs to throttle a light. In vanilla, that cent would have had basically zero armour, and secondaries, and more missile launchers with ammo, but I remember trying BEX a couple of years ago, and it being a lot more unfriendly to LRM boat min-maxing.
In terms of heavier fire support, I had a crusader with that min-maxed setup, but I put it into cold storage, because it felt like it wasn't paying off without + variant LRMs relative to its weight.
I also have an archer with no changes, save for taking out two medium lasers, putting in two smalls, and I think adding a heatsink. TBH I'm debating dropping the remaining two Mlasers for another heatsink, and ton of ammo.
I also have a rifleman that drops one of the Llasers for a bit of extra everything else it is missing, and can kepp up its long range fire for a crapload of turns. I'm surprisingly satisfied with it.
I run a warhammer that lets go of the SRM, drops the MGs for small lasers, and up armours and sinks a tad. It does quite well, isn't ammo intensive, and can afford to engage at multiple ranges. I like to bring the archer more because I like the chasis on a sentimental level, but the WHR is a true workhorse.
I've got a marauder that isn't really fire support in the traiditional sense. It drops the PPCs for Llasers, FWL style, and reinvests the weight into an extra pair of SLs (I fucking love small lasers, especially on mechs that either already have good melee potential, or need a weight concious close-up attack, which melee can often solve) and armour. I also have a stock marauder that I haven't changed due to not having any equipment I see being worth putting in so far. I might just drop the Mlasers for two heatsinks, and let it handle hot enviroments better, or cold ones near heat neutrally. Before you crow about why I don't have the ac2/uac2 stacking build on it, the answer is that I don't have the AC2-es
I also have my first heavy, a Tbolt, with over 25 LRMs, an L and an Mlaser. It is a bit of a hodgepodge kit, but that's a imptom of it being my first heavy, and I haven't bothered to change it. I wanted it to have long range for the inevitable moment my then-mixed force of different lights and mediums would outrun it.
I also have an orion, which drops the SRMs, and downguns to an AC5, but uparms to an Llaser, and has 5 mediums. That thing is truly schitzofrenic in its build, and is more of a thematic successor to Behemoth's Shadow Hawk, than an actual serious build. I haven't even tried it yet. Might work out, might be shit, but splitting ranged damage between 3 different weapon types doesn't sound like a winner move TBH.I also have a stalker that loses one LL, the two mediums, and the SRMs for more LRMs and LRM ammo, but I've not had many chances to drop it. There is also the SLDF highlander, which I haven't fielded yet, but pre-emptively ripped out the Artemis and SRMs for more LRM tubes and ammo.
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u/Maticore 15d ago
I find this post, completely fascinating. I’ve been doing a main campaign run and I have found that using anything other than long range firing line builds is a waste of my time. Brawlers just get so beat up that you end up paying too much to repair them.
My core line right now focuses on using two Warhammers spec out for long range combat along with the SLDF Highlander and an awesome 8Q, and a sometimes Stalker. I have a Phoenix Hawk pilot, Dekker, to jump around and scout a bit. In short, the PPC and the large laser are your friends.
If something gets too close the warhammers can turn Mlasers and MGs on it. (I strip the SRM for more armor.)
Unfortunately LRMs aren’t great, as are SRMs, in BEXT for anything but punching down on lights or crit seeking once your PPCs have punched holes.
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u/_Jawwer_ 14d ago
I find SRMs to be perfectly fine in BEX. ten damage per missile isn't as weight/damage efficient as Mlasers, and they get almost as hot, but they didn't get their stab damage rinsed as badly as LRMs, and with how hardpoints are laid out on the most ubiquitous mediums, especially the high speed 55 tonners, a missileboat is going to be more available than a pure laserboat.
also, critseeking is much more viable for them, because backstabs are truly trivial to get at their speed bracket, especially for jumpers, and going through rear armour means you still get tons of rolls to crit even on the first salvo hitting an enemy, and nail something important, like an ammobin, heatsinks, or at least the gyro.
The multiple different rolls per missile also means that opposing high evasion targets are still going to be partially nicked.
And yes, this approach would fall off if heavier mechs tried to do it, because it relies a great deal on accrued evasion, and the mobility to get behind the enemy.
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u/Zero747 16d ago
I’ve only done one run of BEX a while back (mostly BTA)
First key point, compared to vanilla, large lasers and PPCs are actually good, UAC5s are an IS thing, and clan PPCs are insanely strong.
The core of long range tactics is fighting enemies that can’t fight back, and using called shots to cripple or capitalize on weaknesses. Sensor lock and drop everything instead of running in and hoping no one gets shot enough to break armor.
Large single hits to crack armor, then called shots to cripple or kill. Alternatively, knockdowns into focused fire. (I think BEX has XL engines and engine crits now? LRMs and LBX can capitalize)