Hey folks. Longtime lurker of the site and message boards. I love the layouts and ideas you guys have provided, so I decided to register an account and see what you fine people thought of my leveling Cicada. This is a stick and move, mech. It is designed to find good cover in a pinch, and unleash barrages that both soften the armor and provide a diversion while your heavies and assaults move into position. With the XL330, yes you are squishy. But with that extra maneuverability, you shouldn't get hit often enough to matter. This, naturally, is a work in progress, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results so far. It mitigates heat fairly well if you fire in the right burst sequence, and it moves as fast as a cat turd on a tin roof. My groupings are pretty straightforward: Groups 1 & 2 are my medium lasers; paired up (Group-2 is on Chain Fire, just in case), with the Large Pulse routed by itself to Group 3. Again, the heat is spectacular for such a small amount of DHS if you maintain fire discipline. You can pinch off two alphas on this little sucker before having to disengage to cool. (Remember, stick and move.) I named this mech The Ali, because its play-style reminds me of the legendary boxer, Mohammed Ali (whom I've been a fan of for going on 30 years now.) It dances around, wears you down, and finally unleashes a punch you weren't expecting.... Tell me whatcha think. All suggestions/gripes/complaints/concerns are welcome.
If you haven't used all your energy slots, I don't think the LPL is worth it over 2xML. It's slightly faster fire time and slightly more range, but it takes up 5 tons. Compare it to the Laser Lancer build, and you have the same max DPS and alpha, but it runs 4.5 kph faster, has about 60 more armor, and sustains 3.38 DPS instead of 2.93.
I decided to play with this build using the XL 300. It runs a bit hotter than the 6 mlas version, but it positively shreds light mechs--the LPlas really goes a long way for those with less than aimbot level skills. I'm probly around average skill level and I'm getting 400 damage with this build pretty regularly.
