ON1-VA This has been a pretty fun build so far. I don't exactly LOVE taking an Orion into close range, but this is one variant I don't always hate it on. I have the up close firepower to either quickly murder something in my face, or I slap them with 20 SRMs + some burst fire from the UAC + ML and they get the message and back off in a hurry. UAC5 provides the ability to poke at mid range decently. The reason I went with the UAC5 is that I am not focusing around the ballistic slot here, I am using it as a supplement to my damage. I can manually slow fire it from range to poke/harass, and when I need to, I can usually fire off 2-5 really quick shots into someone up close before it jams. If it does jam, it isn't the end of the world because I am rocking some solid damage otherwise, if it doesn't jam, I get to burst out some pretty reasonable damage for low heat. MLs are backup more or less, having them in the arms helps chase around lights that are circling you up close. Whenever I'm playing my lights and someone chases me around with arm mounted lasers I generally back off pretty quickly, so I like the ability to have them here. The SRMs are pretty much the focus here, obvious choice for this variant: MISSILE FISTS! Arm mounted 10 pack SRMs are pretty mean, the arm mounting allows for some very nice shots that a lot of mechs can't pull off due to most missile slots being in the torso usually, so this Orion has a nifty advantage and I wanted to make the most of it. So far this has been my most successful loadout for the VA, followed closely by a more support oriented LRM based build, but I feel like LRMs are a waste of the unique 4 slots of arm mounted missile hardpoints. There are plenty of other 'Mechs with the ability to field a lot of LRMs and they do it better than the Orion generally. My only gripe is the general squishiness of the Orion. Without the ability to really take much focused fire, you need to be able to either quickly get in and out of battle, or be able to deliver a bigger punch than the guy in your face if you aren't fast enough to escape at will. I'm also considering going with a bigger engine for more speed but less firepower, to perhaps enable the Orion to get in and out quicker to increase my survivability, but so far my findings with all the Orions has been that speed doesn't really increase my durability all that much, even with a bigger engine the Orion still kinda moves like poo. Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome, thanks for reading my long winded post!
