DRG-5N Extreme Opposites (2x ERPPC, 3x MG, XL340)

This one is actually a rather curious build, but very potent in the hands of a skilled pilot. with its high heat efficiency you can actually chain fire those ppc's into a constant stream and still be able to avoid overheating with a minimum of firing discipline. though it will not be able to beat a poptart in its own game, it can actually lay supressive fire with excellent efficiency.

The advantage of such build is that you can use it for point snipping quite well AND can use it for brawling if need be (although like all dragons it is best used as a flanker rather than a front brawler). the machine guns are there to provide extra close range punch (since they dont build heat) as well as crit seeking, and i am quite curious to see how well it will do with the upcoming damage buff.

You can also remove the mg for an extra DHS and enough tonnage to upgrade to 345 Xl engine, but the benefits are quite meager, 2% heat efficiency increase and 1kph extra of speed.

 

I'd probably drop a few heatsinks and get a bigger engine in there (XL350, probably).

 

I think Dwergi means something like this...



I added AMS and a ton of ammo for it (upcoming missile changes will hurt without AMS)

I stripped all the DHS off the mech and upgraded the engine. You had far too many DHS on this mech for over half your weapons being almost zero heat generation. The PPCs you can not fire constantly anyways due to cooldown so this should still be relatively heat managable. If you need more DHS then tweak your armor levels or strip AMS+Ammo or both and add another DHS or two.

I added an extra ton of MG ammo (you have 3 MG on here, you will find they consume 1ton very quickly)

I added Ferro-Fibrous Armor and maxxed your mech armor; your leg armor was too weak and you would most likely lose a leg to a single Stalker alpha or have lights come and rip your legs off once their test shots discover how little armor you had in them. I know I shoot legs with a single medium laser most times just to double check because its faster to take off legs than chew through torso armor sometimes.

NOTES: Wow, what shitty diminishing returns while going from a 340 XL to a 350 XL. Only 3kph?!?!?

 

Diminishing returns? It's the same as going from 200 to 210, 3 kph. The formula is linear: (Engine Rating) * 16.2 / (Chassis Max Weight) = speed.

Are they doing anything to buff AMS? Because faster missiles = less effective AMS (think tower defense with faster creeps).

 

Diminishing returns poor choice of words? How about shit return. Only 3KPH for that extra 1 ton of engine upgrade? No thanks. Maybe I'm just not used to seeing such large engines give so little output. It's been a while since I've been in anything heavier than a Cataphract.

I would imagine if they are boosting missile speed they would boost AMS a tad.

 

Actually 340-350 isn't bad. 300-305 is (1.5 tons to go from 300 XL to 305 XL), after that it's smooth sailing up until about 360. 0.5 tons on most of those, 1.0 tons on 340-345 and 350-355. One thing to keep in mind is that as engines get bigger, they get heavier per upgrade, otherwise bigger mechs would easily go faster than lighter mechs.

 

actually you guys got it COMPLETELY wrong. too many heatsinks on a mech for a mech with hal its weapons not generating heat? you ever fired a PPC before? the MG are not meant to be the mech primary weapon, the dual ERPPC are. and those heatsinks are meant to fire constantly, thas why the heatsinks. as for the engine, yep, diminushing returns, the top egine for the chassis adds 5 kph, not worth it since you are not going to race with a jenner anyway. legs? in all the time i've been playing this game (since close beta) i only been legged when running with lights, specially since the high alpha meta came in, and 99.9% of the players will always aim at your very big and easy to hit CT than trying to leg you.

 

That is what we said yes; or at least what I said.

Yes, I run a 3M with an ERPPC as its primary weapon. I'm familiar with them and how they work.

I'll log into game and try your build out right now so I can see what you are talking about versus what I am talking about.

You and I have never faced each other then because with your leg armor your would be dead in about 12 seconds (assuming I'm not near my heat threshold). I ALWAYS leg-check a mech bigger than I am when running in pretty much anything under 50 tons.

ADDITIONAL INFO AFTER TESTING
- 19.5 seconds for the PPCs on Chain Fire before you shut down
- 12.8 seconds for the PPCs on Group Fire before you shut down (roughly 5 shots)

Opinion? Making the PPC your primary weapon and expecting to be able to spray and prey isn't efficient enough. On mechs of this tonnage you simply don't have enough PPCs to make the alpha worth while and chain firing while moving isn't always easy; especially against lights (at least for me) as they will simply outrun your PPC blasts as they circle around you. Using the Machine Guns to deal with lights isn't efficient either as it takes a TON of machine gun ammo to even strip the armor off a light.

This is all subjective of course and is my own opinion. If this is what works for you then rock on with it!

 

not saying is foolproof or that its better, but by experience, regardless of weight or armor, you will problably kill a dragon faster by shooting the CT rather than the legs, leg shoots are a more viable tactic when the enemy is harder to hit (not the case with the dragon).

as for the ERPPC heat issue, you'll see what in talking about, put it on chain fire and you can shoot a constant stream for quite a bit. it works like a 3 ac/2 dragon in terms of heat management, only its 10 dmg per shoot instead of 2.

 

Michael, I'm with czar on the heat. 44% efficiency =/= full-time firing. I run a 2xER PPC Trebuchet poptart with something like 16-18 DHS, and after a few alphas I need to cool-down or only fire one on cooldown (even then I can't keep it up). However, with 14 or 19 DHS, you won't be able to keep up constant fire on them.

A lot of people say the like to leg heavier mechs, but the fact is in-game it happens very rarely. I even tried getting in on that bandwagon until I realized that I won't likely get stuff more than orange on the leg before they're dead CT, and I didn't actually do much to help against that target. Granted, I'm not running Jenners yet (nothing against them, just haven't done them yet), so my experience is in the pea-shooter spider and then lights with SSRMs.

 

I've updated the info at the bottom of my last post after testing it live.

Also, he isn't a poptart. A poptart can use cover to cool down in between alphas or during high heat situations. Application specific building.

 

Which means if my poptart runs into heat problems, his non-poptart definitely can! (That, and I don't always poptart, I like running around in the thick of it to continue to deal damage when the brawl is behind cover...or I fall down the hill).

 

Right, which is why I said his ERPPCs as the primary weapon, and the expectation that he will just continually fire, are inefficient for this type of mech. Wading into combat in this thing will get you (at least me) killed.

I posted the build alterations that Dwergi was talking about to save everyone time and effort so they could just load it up and look at it. I added the AMS because I have a feeling that missiles are going to be the death of mechs like this.

Personally, I don't use dragons. At all. Like ever. So whatever works for people. For me I wouldn't use a double ER PPC build as my main weapons and only have machine guns as a backup. Lights will just shred this; at least with me at the stick because I suck at circle of death light mechs with PPCs (miss more times than not or they simply don't register on a hit)

 

i agree with you michael, this thing is NOT a poptart, and it WILL lose against one if it plays its game. the advantage i got on this one is that i can act like a erppc cicada, positioning myself for firing then retreating when found, with its cooldown rate, i can do this a lot faster than a cicada cause i can lay 4 ppc fire before repositioning and will be cool to another 8 shoots when i'm in position again, the Mgs adds critseeking and point defense for minimal costs, since i only had space for another DHS and it could be spared.

as for brawling with it, it works for me, as long as i remember the key thing about brawling with a dragon: you are NOT a front brawler, you are a flanker. avoid fighting alone and make good use of you speed, and you can be a deadly asset. the cooldown on this one allow you to do that with impunity if you are disciplined and the mgs allows you to keep harassing while cooling.

and plus, lights HATE it when then get close to me thinking they'll get a easy poptart picking.

 

think of the ppc stream the same way you think of a triple ac/2 stream. you can fire indefinetly for over 4 or 5 seconds, and on this game, this is a LOT even for an ac/2 boat. keep it on chain fire and pay head to betty warning about heat. in 2 seconds you are ready for another volley. DO keep a coolshot at hand if you find yourself in a prolonged brawl or know when to make the exit and you do fine in it. i constantly racks betwen 400 and 500 dmg per match, with usual minimum of 300 dmg. and thats considering in a crappy shoot (too used to my 4 LL 1C i guess).

 

I wade into combat with my dual-ER PPC Trebuchet and do just fine, and I don't have the machine guns as backup. I think his original build is actually pretty solid. Dwergi suggested a minor shift of DHS/engine, and your post made even more changes. With the MG buff coming up in a few days, this might actually be a viable option (I was thinking 2xLL, SRM6, 3xMG for a similar build). The two builds you're looking at are radically different in terms of heat, though: 35% efficient vs. 44% efficient. I think sacrificing 5 DHS is not the answer.

 

Skribs, the set up you just gave is curiously the same setup i made on one of my first effective dragon builds at long time ago. back then i dropped the mg's to make room for more DHS cause they where completely useless and used the ballistic arm as a shield, haven't tried it out since then, and mg's got buffed twice since then. the upcomming buff is precisely why i choose to put the mg's back in instead of the single streak i had in the "original" build.

EXACTLY my thoughts. 5 DHS wont look much on the spreadsheet, but its 5 more points to the maximum heat threshold and more 5 heat dissipation per second, which is the 2 things that make the stream fire viable.

 

Im not gonna argue a point that is completely dependant upon play style.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinions; even if I disagree

I shall bow out and let ya'll figure this one out while I go kill stuff.

 

This is actually one of my favourite mech builds, period. When I was mastering the Dragon I had a tough time finding a build I liked for the 5N but I saw this and ran with it. Really fun.

 

Max Engine...SRM 6...2xPPC...3MGs...enough ammo
lol i had to be smart in stripping armors just to get SRM6
•I need AMS too but I think not for this engine already
I like the idea of the machine gun (back-up)(and steal a kill too), I removed several DHs for the SRM 6 and ammos too
•In cases like this, after removing heat sinks, I mounted PPC to consume less heat
•Since I don't have enough tons for the SRM ammo, I stripped armors in the legs (because after all, the torso is the main target, the cause of death most of the time), also from the arms too.

If you will try it in real game, the cool eff. is fine

- No more slots for Artemis, and removing Ferofibrous will destroy everything


lol that's true, Dragons are weak in anchor and body turn, especially when your PPCs missed wth it's the end of your life. You can match them in Assault mechs but still, you still don't get a chance. But sometimes your MGs can help you while waiting for your PPCs to load xD but before you can use them you'll see yourself dead already