GUIDE oo Many Weapons, Not Enough Fingers; How to Excel at Mouse & Keyboard.

Ever since the first Mechwarrior game came out for the PC, one of the primary problems for any player has been managing all the different functions of the Battlemech. From weapons and sensors to modules and positioning, any player who's used a mouse and keyboard for any length of time has inevitably reached a point where they died, or let a teammate die, because they had to hit a button and were too occupied to do it. With this sort of problem in mind, a problem not limited to Battletech alone, some enterprising soul (whom I am too lazy to google right now) created the joystick; a roughly fist-sized modular controller that condensed a shitload of buttons into an easy-to-use one-handed form. The invention of the joystick largely eliminated the TMB-NEF problem, and has proved so efficient that many gamers consider it critically important to have one.

However, there are many reasons that you might not be able to use a joystick. If you're like me, you may have a problem with your hands that prevents you from using one for any length of time. Perhaps you don't have the money for one, or perhaps you just don't want to buy such a limited-use item. Perhaps you play Mechwarrior on a laptop, and don't want to or can't make space in your carry-bag for a giant bulky *****. Whatever your reasons, I have created this guide for you, my fellow K&M brothers and sisters.

[size=18pt]Rule #1; Match Your Weapon Groups By Range & LoE Type

The primary issue with K&M MWO play is that it can be difficult to manage all the different weapons on your mech. I solve this issue by grouping my weapons by a couple of different criteria;

[size=14pt]A) Range;

When grouping by range, it's important to make sure that all the weapons in a group have roughly the same MAXIMUM range. A group made up of a PPC and a Large Laser is a decent group, but a PPC and a Medium Laser should not go together. Likewise, a PPC and an AC/5, or a PPC and an ERPPC should not go together. Other common examples of bad groups include Medium Lasers and SRMs, or ER Large Lasers and Gauss Rifles. Common examples of good groups are ERPPCs and Gauss Rifles, or ER Large Lasers and AC/10s.

The general rule of thumb is that if there is more than 100 meters of difference in the max range, it should not go together. If you are experienced in ranging, you can stretch this difference by as much as 200 meters, but under no circumstances should you go any further.

[size=14pt]B) LoE Type

LoE is an acronym that stands for "Line of Effect". The LoE is a designation that tells you what method your weapon will use to deliver its payload to the target.

There are three types of LoE. These types are D, D(BD), and ID. D is Direct, D(BD) is Direct (Bullet Drop), and ID is Indirect.

Direct means that you must have a straight line of fire between the muzzle of your weapon and the target. If anything gets between the weapon and the target, the shot will be blocked and wasted. The upside to direct weapons is that they are the easiest to use, both for basic shooting and precision targeting. Energy weapons like lasers and PPCs are examples of Direct weapons.

Direct (Bullet Drop) is very similar to Direct; however, at long ranges, D(DB) weapon shots will fall towards the ground, which will cause the shot to hit a different target or miss entirely. It is more difficult to make precision shots with D(DB) weapons. However, the upside is that D(DB) weapons frequently have a longer maximum range than listed, because you can aim the weapon slightly higher and let the shot "Curve" into the target. Masters of D(DB) weapons can even shoot over low cover at long ranges by making precise adjustments to the angle of the shot. ACs are an example of D(DB) weapons.

ID is completely different from the first two; no matter what the range is between you and your target, the weapon will always fire its payload into a parabolic arc that changes based on the range between you and the target. The further away you are, the bigger the parabolic arc, and vice versa. This means that you can actually hit targets that you cannot see as long as the arc is not blocked by tall cover like cliffs. The downside to ID weapons is that they take a comparatively long time to hit the target, which means that a fast-reacting opponent can run away and dodge the shot. What's more, the time to shot impact is directly related to the parabolic arc of your shot-the bigger the arc, the longer it will take to hit. LRMs are an example of ID weapons.

A general rule of thumb is that D and D(BD) weapons can be combined into a single group, but ID weapons should not be grouped with D or D(BD) weapons.

[size=18pt]Rule #2; Chainfire Is Your Friend.

There are many threads about chainfiring already out there, and many helpful players who can tell you how it works. Thus, I will simply post a rule of thumb;

If you only have one weapon group, make a second group with those same weapons that is chainfired. If you have two weapon groups, assign them to weapon groups 1 and 2, and leave them as alphas. If you have three or more weapon groups, and your Heat Efficiency is higher than 1.25, Make the group with the highest heat chainfired, and leave the rest as alphas. If you have three or more weapon groups, and your heat efficiency is less than 1.25, make all of them chainfired.

[size=18pt]Rule #3; Know Your Cooldown Times

The weapons in MWO fire at different rates-this measurement is generally known as "Cooldown".

In general, you should arrange your weapon groups in ascending order based on cooldown times. The weapon group with the lowest cooldown time is Weapon Group 1, the weapon group with the next lowest cooldown time is weapon group 2, and so on and so forth.



With experience, it is possible to bend, break, or add on to these rules, and several players better than I have already done so. Indeed, I encourage you to grow beyond these rules and make your own control style. However, these rules will keep you from getting wasted by joy-stickers and more experienced players as you go into battle.

Good luck, and happy hunting!

 

How about grouping weapons based on actual projectile velocity? For instance, grouping of an ERPPC and a Gauss is a good combo, but both projectiles travel at different speeds and need to be compensated for. Longer shots obviously being much harder to hit with both projectiles on the same intended target. The answer to this is just experience imo.

Sometimes, a weapon can be used as a sort of tracer weapon to help guide a shot against a fast moving target. Hitting a light with a large laser? not hard. Hitting a light with almost any a/c? much harder. How about when hes moving faster than 150 kmh? You can use the laser and its long duration to help guide how fast the enemy mech is moving and where it will be best to use your follow up a/c shot. As a duck hunter i can guarantee you that following through with a shot will net you more overall hits, and therefore damage, by following through with your shot instead of just making a twitch pot shot. You need to be able to judge where the mech is going to be and not just where he is now. The laser can help with this.

This same logic is also a good reason as to not be worried about SRMs coming out in weird numbers like in the victors. Often times the first volley may miss, but since you are following through with the target, more times than not the second or third "weird" volley will connect. Something is better than nothing.

 

I don't understand your intro about joystick and mouse+keyboard. I see no disadvantage, except maybe immersion, of m+k - I actually see only advantages, especially when it comes to aim.
Also since there are only 6 weapon groups in MWO, weapon management is not limited by hardware (except maybe for the helpless playing on pad). You can bind at least 4 of those groups on your mouse (*), and the other 2 easily fit on your keyboard (**).

Anyway.
My point on the subject is simple.

1/ Except for badly conceived builds (or crazy experiments) 6 groups are more than enough, mechs don't have enough hardpoints to force you to group different weapons together.
2/ All weapons have different characteristics, so there will always have a situation where you should not fire them together.

[size=18pt]=> don't group different weapons together. Just don't.
There is absolutely no reason for you to do so, and there is hardly no exception to this rule (***).

Thus weapon grouping is not a question of matching different weapons together, but of how to organise your loadout in order to be flexible. In other words, it's not a question of grouping weapons, but on the contrary of distributing them.
The main points of interest are:
1/ hardpoint location: don't group arm weapons with torso weapon. In the best case it causes damage repartition, in most cases it's just useless heat generation.
2/ weapon position: mostly left/right arm. The building never caused you any harm, please don't shoot it.
3/ heat management: you might want to create sub-groups for hot weapons.
4/ ammo management: mostly with LRMs, if you like warning shots.

I also strongly believe a well conceived build is a build allowing easy and flexible weapon management.



(*) right and left clicks, plus mouse wheel up and down does a good job and is doable on any mouse. If you can't bind mouse wheel with the in game options, edit your actionmaps.xml file with something like that:

Code:

(**) Left shift, left control, left alt, space and similar are good options. The thing you need to keep in mind is you should be able to press hit with your pinky or your thumb, not the three other fingers you need to control movement.

(***) one is the PPC+gauss combo, since you will mostly use them combined. But still you need to make separated groups to be flexible (fire the gauss only when you overheat, fire the PPC only when you don't want to waste ammo, etc).

 

@Leonhart; Thank for mentioning that. I prefer quail to duck, but it's the same principle. I debated adding that one in, but it was past midnight and I figured someone else would do it.

@epikt; I have a few problems with your post.

1)

First off, you completely ignored every single reason I gave for why someone might prefer to use a K&M setup.

Here's a recap;
"However, there are many reasons that you might not be able to use a joystick. If you're like me, you may have a problem with your hands that prevents you from using one for any length of time. Perhaps you don't have the money for one, or perhaps you just don't want to buy such a limited-use item. Perhaps you play Mechwarrior on a laptop, and don't want to or can't make space in your carry-bag for a giant bulky *****."

You addressed none of those issues. As an example, a friend of mine who plays WarThunder has severe arthritis in her hands, and keeping them clenched around a joystick, or bending them certain ways, for more than a minute causes severe pain. Yes, she has tested this multiple times. Your personal concept of what's best for playing MWO is effectively useless to her.

Also, last I checked (namely, yesterday), there is no joystick the same size or smaller than a mouse that doesn't sacrifice the benefits of a standard size joystick. If you travel as much as I do, this is a serious problem.

2) Much of the rest of what you said is just a re-hashing of something I already mentioned, such as this bit;

[quote author=epikt link=topic=2819.msg16663#msg16663 date=1376152280]
weapon grouping is not a question of matching different weapons together, but of how to organise your loadout in order to be flexible[/quote]

Change "flexible" to "effective", and that quote is exactly the same as my entire post. The only difference is in the methodology; I'm assuming that someone reading this is either unable/unwilling to use a joystick, or is unskilled in the game and wants some basic, easy rules to work with. You're assuming that only skilled players willing to use joysticks are reading this.

All that being said, this bit here is useful as a set of supplementary rules;

[quote author=epikt link=topic=2819.msg16663#msg16663 date=1376152280]
The main points of interest are:
1/ hardpoint location: don't group arm weapons with torso weapon. In the best case it causes damage repartition, in most cases it's just useless heat generation.
2/ weapon position: mostly left/right arm. The building never caused you any harm, please don't shoot it.
3/ heat management: you might want to create sub-groups for hot weapons.
4/ ammo management: mostly with LRMs, if you like warning shots.

I also strongly believe a well conceived build is a build allowing easy and flexible weapon management.



(*) right and left clicks, plus mouse wheel up and down does a good job and is doable on any mouse. If you can't bind mouse wheel with the in game options, edit your actionmaps.xml file with something like that:

Code:

(**) Left shift, left control, left alt, space and similar are good options. The thing you need to keep in mind is you should be able to press hit with your pinky or your thumb, not the three other fingers you need to control movement.

(***) one is the PPC+gauss combo, since you will mostly use them combined. But still you need to make separated groups to be flexible (fire the gauss only when you overheat, fire the PPC only when you don't want to waste ammo, etc).
[/quote]

 

This is almost exclusively how I group weapons. First priorities, location and range. I use left-side main weapons on Mouse 1, right-side main weapons on Mouse 2. "Main Weapons" being my primary fire source, EG; ACs, Large Laser or in a JR7-F, Left-Arm Lasers and Right-Arm Lasers. I use my side mouse buttons as ways of grouping secondary weapons (SRMs, LRMs, non-primary lasers) and to manage heat. Finally, I use my Scroll-Click as an alpha for those up-close and "oh-fudge!" moments.

I just find grouping my main weapons to which side of my mech they reside in feels more natural to me when peeking out from behind cover. If I only have one arm-mounted weapon, I'll often group weapons to make a cooler group for when I start heating up.

 

We got communication problem here.

You did not read me.
I am using a mouse and a keyboard!
More than that, in my opinion mouse and keyboard is superior in every way, and no one except the roleplay oriented player is willing to use a joystick.

Errh, no, really not.
I'm saying one must not group different weapons. How can it be re-hashing of what you said? It's the complete opposite.


Anyway, I think I got what you had in mind when you wrote your post.
You're looking to lower the number of weapon groups to the max, in an "effective" way (*). Indeed a new player (or whoever has trouble using more than n weapon groups) might be interested in it.
But even with this in mind, I adopt an opposite philosophy: rather than grouping different weapons and for example firing ERLL with AC/10 (awfully terribad!) in order to lower the number of your weapon groups, make a build that does not require to operate more weapon groups than you can.
At a basic level most builds can be piloted with no more than 3 weapon groups.


(*) mine is at the opposite, in the limit of the 6, I tend to use a lot of weapon groups to cover most of the situations (stacked, separated, chainfired, etc), still without mixing different weapons.
Btw it's the reason why I wrote "flexible", and not "effective". You can't change what I wrote and then decide it the same as what you did.

 

Wish they would allow zoom to be bound to the mouse wheel.

Forward roll = Zoom
Backward roll = Normal

Then I would have an extra button on my mouse I could use for something else LOL

Other than that? Mouse and Keyboard all the way. Joysticks were great back in the days of MW4 when things weren't quite so twitchy like they are now in MWO but now precision is king.

 

I remember joystick gaming back in the days of MW2... Good times! Had a 1337 joystick for Janes Combat Sims.

 

thanks fr the code. How do you bind mousewheel up then?

 

"mwheel_up" for mousewheel up.
Of course you can edit any weapon group by changing the number in "m_wg*".

 

There is one big exception to the range and cycle-time grouping guidelines. The brawling group.

If your mech has a large number of weapons mounted in the arm or torso compartments, it makes sense to create a group for brawling situations. I usually keep group 1 for range and group 6 for brawling (it's as easy to switch between 1 and 6 as it is between 1 and 2, but 2 is LMB for most users).

For example Shotgun Atlases and Archflames both have LBX-10 canons and SRMS in their torso compartments. The LBX has twice the range and 75% of the cycle time, and twice the flight speed of the SRMs, but inside 200m it doesn't matter.