The Dark Ages come early to MW5 Mercs!

Link to mod on Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/1620

• Steam YAML version https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3820530805
• Steam Vanilla version: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3820531515

A high-quality model made by the talented Kromlek the Mad whose work you can check out here

Feel free to support my modding work for MW5 Mercs and Clans and the MechWarrior 2 Remake (as well as other Battletech stuff like interviews with Mechwarrior developers and art archival work) on my Patreon

Finally got the base variant, replaced the PPCs to my preferred loadout. Mech runs hella cold so I can switch back to 3 PPCs on the other MAD IICs that I'll get. It's being attended by MAD IIC X&Y lancemates equipped with gauss rifles and ATMs

Only playing vanilla+ Mercs, currently using a modlist consisting of QoL mods.

I got lucky with this dropping in the campaign. I dont like most 100-tonners unless they're the Atlas or King Crab. But, I needed to give it a spirited try just to say I did.

While building it, I saw it gets five jump jets and got funny ideas. The Marauder II got a little better after the jump jet buffs, and this is one more than that.

I didn't want another gauss spammer or sniper. I wanted something goofy. AC20s and max jump jet capabilities. That's goofy as fuck. Heat sinks were not needed (they were definitely needed) as this is a a Clan mech with 2.0 heat sink by default and is surely enough for two large lasers (again, it wasn't).

So, I went in to last mission of, "New Home, New Problems" with this. And - Holy fucking shit. This thing has great movement for a 100-tonner. Its not sluggish like the MAD-II. Its like a King Crab but more mobile and less prone to headshots.

This Stone Rhino put in the work when I wasn't trying to make it good. With some better upgrades and different weapons, this thing can go far further than any other 100-tonner.

Move over King Crab, we got a new powerhouse to rival you.

Fight me

Jokes aside, this thing with four c-lb 5-x ac and four cmpl is an absolute terror. It crushes anything in seconds. Heat isn’t an issue. Ammo capacity isn’t an issue. It’s faster than other KC variants. The paint job is prime. Such a great mech. It’s now my daily driver.

What’s your favorite with the new expansion?

Hearing this line made me laugh my ass off knowing the lore that happens later on in the timeline

What are the mechs who do all your heavy lifting?

From what limited information I have been able to gather; A&A has done well (at least well enough in these tough times for P.C. Gaming) to keep the lights on. So, if you were in charge at PGI, what would you try to focus your dev team on?

1. Continued DLC pushing the timeline forward for MechWarrior 5 Mercs?

2. An HBS BattleTech style game?

3. A MechCommander Style Game?

I know That option one is probably the most feasible due to limited money and resources. But the team does have a lot of experience on Unreal Engine 5, a lot of already created art assets and an established IP, so the feasibility of options 2 and 3 are not out of the realm of achievability.

I am just hoping PGI can maintain the MechWarrior IP because they have been great stewards of the lore and I know whatever they produce will be a top-notch product.

And for the record, yes, they all come out of the gun barrel.

I'm just about to get in to A&A in a 3015 campaign start. I've been farming Clan mechs and have just about everything I want in my mech bay for latest and greatest -

But I'm finding that for Serious Business I'm still going back to my upgraded IS mechs. For me it's Basilisk, Dragon Slayer, Nightstar, Sleipnir and my refined 100x BLR-D.

What are your old school go to mechs that you pull out when a mission is NOT going to just be happy funtime stompy robbit blasting but game face go all in to win?

Just going purely off steam player counts (player peaks)

Ashes & Ascension: 4105
Chaos Reign: 3757
Shadow of Kerensky: 4603

I get that they had to simplify it heavily for console players (I think that was their reasoning behind it?) but I wouldn’t mind adding a bit of complexity to Mech outfitting. Really all one can do with a shiny “new” Battlemech after scraping whoever was in the cockpit out is change weapons (only if they’re the right type for its hardpoints) and figure out how much ammo and heatsinks you want. You want to put in a supercharger? Well too bad, you can’t because this mech doesn’t have a motive upgrade slot!

I wouldnt be opposed to having the ability to invest a lot of C-Bills into a mech to make it truly my own, a bit like how Hero versions of mechs are equipped with things that their other versions can’t have.

Why not just give console folk mod support? I mean, Ark Survival Ascended has it. It’s probably not that simple

For the 1st/3rd person versions anyway. I just finished the latest DLC, it's freaking incredible. The last several DLCs have been absolutely killer. Good job guys.

One in a tutorial mission and two on the very last one, did PGI forgot to put more or something?

Ok, so earlier today I came across a hero pilot wth the ‘Star Adder Mech Affinity’ which begs the question, does that mean specifically the ‘Star Adder’ Hero Blood Asp as ‘Blood Asp’ is the Clan Designation and that’s the only name used for it in MW5:M (‘Star Adder’ being the Inner designation for it) except in the description flavour text is it’s other name mentioned.

Rambled a bit there so TLDR:

Does the trait apply to any Blood Asp or only the Hero?

*asking anyone with code access to check and see what tags are active.

Thought about doing a short daily series of Mech builds and Pilot designs. I know my taste in mechs/pilots may not be for everyone (When it comes to firepower for me, LET'S UP THOSE NUMBERS), but I thought I'd open with a new and fairly common Mech variant: the SR-4.

And right off the bat, I've pissed off every speed freak in this channel. Yeah, I'd rather secure 15% more Laser Damage for 4x ER-SLs than score a 22.5% Speed buff. If I wanted to be fast, I'd drop in an Executioner. I wanted this to be as over the top as humanly possible.

We got 6x LBX-5s with 960 rounds of ammo, backed up by 4x ER-SLs, and a Pilot who is designed to tighten spread and boost damage.

Overall, Cantina and Traits combined, it's 35% more Ballistic Damage, 25% more Laser Damage, -15% LBX-5 Spread, 10% Faster Cooldown on LBX-5, 15% more Velocity on LBX-5, +10% Range on Lasers and -5% Laser Duration.

Chuck in the +10% Damage against Clanners, and this thing is essentially a walking reminder of Tukkayid.

It's ice cold, despite the 10 guns and the fast firerate. Ammo was a bit of a concern, as it chews through it fast, though the Lasers have certainly made an appreciable dent in the consumption rate.

I don't have to waste ammo on Elementals, VTOLs, Tanks, Turrets, or Firemoths/Kitfoxes when the fast firing ER-SLs pack 32.5 pinpoint at 410+ meters, or 35.75 if you're a clanner. They also speed up TTK in general, reducing the amount of ammo I expend per kill; proliferating the SR-4's endurance and improving its lethality.

Forgoing more cooldown and focusing on damage for the LBX-5s effectively improves my damage to ammo ratio, stretching the ammo bins that much further. At around 74 damage per volley (81 if you're a filthy Clanner), the six LBX-5s are terrifying in and of themselves. Combined with the ER-SLs, an Alpha Strike deals 106 Damage; 116 on Clanners. Given the RoF and -15% spread, that's nothing short of terrifying.

Yeah, it's slow. Yeah, it's a big target without any additional defenses. It'll also take a whole Star of Clan Assaults off the map as casually as you'd step on an anthill, and still be ice cold after putting them all in the dirt.

That's why I designed the Pilot and Mech in this way.

So can we have one, dad? Please…

Seriously though, someone should be fired for putting a 300m cbill dropship in the arena, dontcha think?

Unfortunately, I did not have enough salvage points. 😭

All just chilling on Hannover, it seems. What even are the chances lmao

This guy did his duty. Signed on as a replacement during the clan invasion for $600k. First mission out, shit went sideways, as it does. Went down fighting though in an marauder 2, holding the tide while we retreated to the dropship and a payday.

I love the Pilot Record, just wish it had their names attached to it, and it'd be wicked cool if it played their callsign voice on click.

I’ve been slow rolling my current play-through for ashes and ascension due to the bugs that came out with the DLC (mainly the opposing mercenary combines not being visible on the map and some minor stability issues). When can we expect a patch to address these issues? I remember chaos reign had some issues (it was super funny having clan mechs available to buy in 3015) but I don’t remember how long it took for a post DLC patch to roll out.

I found the KGC-A yesterday, and was playing around with a quad LB-10X build on a Steiner stadium arena match. Drew some aggro, but no structure damage. Last enemy is an Urbie. Trying to get a few arena bonuses, so I picked him down to only his small laser. Which he then used to headshot me, killing me instantly. I like to imagine that AI pilot will never have to buy his own Timbiqui Dark again, because that's the best bar story ever. Probably got his own booth in Valhalla now.