Oftentimes when someone seems to be shooting their AC a little too much, accusations will be made that
the person is using a bugmech, a mech designed to get unlimited AC when it loses its arms. This is easily done by putting the later
rounds in the arms of the mech, and then shooting the autocannon ammo in the torso before you lose the arm with the remaining ammo.
I.E... AC20 in torso, first 2 tons of ammo in the torso, remaining 8 tons of ammo on the arms. Shoot more than 10 rounds of AC20 but
not all of it, then wait till the arm with the rest of the ammo falls off. In a hammer, of course the most common mech, this is easily
done. Once you lose the arm, you have unlimited ac20.
To prevent this is to require that the LAST TON of ac ammo goes with the AC. If the AC20 is in the
left torso, you have to put the last ton of ac20 ammo with it. In this way, the mech can never, as far as I know and have tested, go unlimited.
To prevent bugmechs, the LAST TON of autocannon ammo must occupy the same section of criticals as the autocannon itself.
Note that usually the easiest ways to save weight at the cost of space are:
Best: Install an XL engine
Medium: Change internal structure to Endo chassis
Least: Change armor ro Ferro armor
Also note that faster engines come with more heat sinks, so sometimes you can actually get more space by using a larger engine. To see how
much space you will save, fill in all the critical locations, count how many slots are free, change to a larger engine, and count how slots
are now free. Sometimes this is better and other times it's not worth it. Always use double heat sinks, since there is no advantage to single
heat sinks.
Always put maximum armor on your mech. If you don't have enough points to cover everything, you can sometimes
save weight by putting junk like ferro or endo slots in an arm and put only a point of armor on it or even none at all. Your opponent may think
he is hurting you worse than he is. :) Always put all the endo and ferro components in the arms.
Always put at least one jump jet on a mech. There are so many purposes for these, like quick turns in heavy
grav, closing on your opponent quickly and avoiding missiles. Then there are special manauevers, such as DFA(Death from Above). The only time
to forego jump jets is if you are using a stock mech(which are legal by the missile boat rule) to be able to use more missiles than normal(like Timberwolf Alt-D).
The easiest thing to blow off a mech are it's arms. Put the less useful stuff in the arms, since they are most
likely to be blown apart. Part of the reason for this is that due to the effects of lag, you will need to lead your target. You will hit the
arms first when you are finding the lag point, most probably. Since you will die with a critical to the head, you may as well put ammunition
here. If you're going to die anyway, who cares if there's an explosion.
Missiles are your only sure-fire kill. ALWAYS maximize on missiles and remember THERE IS A MISSILE BOAT
RULE. For full details, look at our link to the Missile Boat Rule. Any mech you make should have 3 racks of missiles. With heavy lag lasers
are your next bet. The thing to consider here is how much heat you are generating per damage as well as the range needed in the given terrain.
In general, large lasers(ER and pulse) are a BAD idea. The best lasers of all are medium pulse and small ER lasers, for different reasons.
Laser work well when grouped.
With heavy lag it is hard to hit your opponent, so small ER lasers are better since they have the highest
damage per heat at 2.5 damage/point of heat. They also weight less and with maximum heat sinks on a properly designed mech, you can support
sustained fire of 8 or so. Since the refire rate is not quick, if you have trouble hitting your opponent, they'll do the heat management for you.
If you CAN hit your opponent, then medium pulse lasers are your best bet. They have the second best damage
per heat at 1.75. They also have a very fast refire rate. These are the machine guns of lasers, so be very careful about heat build up. These
are also good because of their range. You can have 3-4 medium pulse lasers, but because of the fast refire, keep a watchful eye on your heat
management. If your opponent ever shutdown, give it all you got and he's dead.
If you can hit with them, AC's are the fastest killers. Heavy gravity makes it difficult to move quickly
and increases the effectiveness of all weapons. So under heavy grav, AC's are the weapon of choice. You can blow away a dire wolf at close
range in heavy G's in about 5-8 seconds with a properly equiped mech. Ammo is a real problem with these monsters.
The smaller the missile size the faster the refire rate. So LRM15 and LRM20 are slow refire, with LRM5 and
LRM10 much faster. SSRM6's fire faster than the larger LRM's as well. A popular missile config is 1 LRM20 and 2 SSRM6's.
Machine guns are also a great weapon under certain specific circumstances. A mech with 10 linked machine
guns at close range is the second fastest kill. The problems are the range and the fact that if a machine gun is at it's best an AC can
kill faster. You can outfit a mech as small as a kitfox in this manner, but they are not effective in sizes larger than a stormcrow. The
damage is spread out though, so it's best to aim at the chest, unless the legs are really big, like on a Dire Wolf or Warhawk. Since there
is no heat and lots of ammo for these weapons, when they are good, they are good!
The effects of lag are different on different weapons. From greatest effect to least effect, they are:
Autocannons,machine guns, SRM's, lasers, missiles(SSRMs and LRMs)
Remember never to walk in straight lines, always use curves. This makes the effects of lag work FOR you.
Vary your speed whenever possible.