A reasonable speed after speed tweak, Good all range fire with a Gauss, Quad MLas for other occasions, and something extra in the form of SRM4 for that extra punch when necessary. It is a simple mech with a simple design. You may think of swapping out 1 ton of ammo for an extra DHS. You do lose a bit of crit buffering that way and will havve to choose your shots a bit better, but it does help a bit with the prolong use of MLas.
The idea is that this mech is easy to use. Reasonable speed, reasonable armor, and reasonable heat management. It is easy to get used to, and easy to pilot, there is not alot to worry about, other than maybe the lack of JJ. You can throw this in a pug to grind xp and cbills when you feel like slacking off a bit while you are piloting. And yes, that means it is also not specialized in any role. So it might be good if you stay somewhat close to a group.
I ran a build like this for a long while. The biggest problem I had was that glass gauss. I swear I took more damage to the LT with this build that I did in all of my other Flame builds combined. -- I like the crit-padding and the copious quantities of Gauss ammo. I would move the explosive SRM ammo to the head, though. You could put a ton of Gauss ammo in the CT and put the AMS ammo into the RT. The AMS ammo doesn't blow up too badly, and the location is padded well enough.
I almost never got headshot in the head with a dragon. Something about the gigantic CT making headshots on them unlikely. Buy yeah putting AMS in the head maybe better.
I still like my Flame and come back to it from time to time. My current loadout is pretty similar to your, skipping the AMS and a ton of Gauss ammo for a bigger engine.
I doubt how much the 3 tons for that srm4+ammo are really spent effectively. You can just as well mount an even larger XL engine! http://www.mechspecs.com/forum/index.php?topic=976.0
The thing is - when mounting a potent long range weapon like the Gauss enabling some early game sniping, speed isn't that necessary for a Dragon. But on the other hand, the extra 'Oomph!' granted by the SRM4 already proved to be worthwhile for me. It's that little extra punch needed for finishing opponents off fast enough when you're not in the position to snipe with the GR anymore.
Definitely one of the best builds out there for the Flame. Early game sniping power and fast flanking attacks and skirmishes mid- to late-game.
This build (as most viable Dragon loadouts) is alive as hell on the current PTS for the 3060-years technology: Gauss Rifle +4x ERML + SRM6 @ 300 Light Engine. Skilling into Mobility, Survival and Firepower this thing is tanky as hell and dishes out some respectable damage while still moving at around 95 kp/h.
Awesome to read! I am a huge dragon fan but never got around to buying the Flame (chose Fang) but with new LBX20 and such coming I was eyeballing it.
5/5, Such a perfectly balanced build for the dragon chassis. Good at everything from sniping to brawling.