Mech Commander 2 Vehicles and Weapons
A helpful compilation
By Anon I. Moose
Table of contents:
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Weapon Tables
3.0 Battlemech Tables
3.1 House comparisons
4.0 Vehicle Tables
5.0 Gameplay Tips
1.0 Introduction
I wrote this article because I couldn't find any FAQs on Mech Commander 2.
I ended up finishing the game before I finished the article, so instead
of spending hours on end polishing it into solid reference material, I'll
release it to the world as is. My hope is that someone will take this as
a base for a true Mech Commander 2 FAQ/Walkthrough.
If you just saw this on GameFaqs or wherever, here's a short description
of what the game's about:
Mech Commander 2 is a 3D real-time strategy game set in the Battletech
universe of giant robot combat. In this game, you control a
mercenary company which is employed by a succession of galactic
factions (otherwise known as Houses) trying to gain control of the
planet Carver V. There isn't anything particularly noteworthy about
Carver V, except that it's become the battleground on which the
frictions between the Houses explode in mechanized combat.
You can go to www.mechcommander2.com for the official hype (and a demo)
or look up reviews of the game at www.gamerankings.com.
2.0 Weapon Tables
Legend:
NAME The weapon's name.
T Weapon type. B = Ballistic, E = Energy, M = Missile.
R Effective range. S = Short (0-60 M), M = Medium (30-90 M),
L = Long (60-120 M). Note that each weapon has a minimum and
maximum range, and that ranges overlap.
DM Damage. How much damage the weapon does if it hits.
ROF Rate of fire. How many times the weapon can fire per time unit.
HT In Mech Commander 2, heat is only a consideration when building a
mech. Each mech has a number of "heat points" it can allocate to
weapon use, and each weapon takes up a number of heat points.
Size In the game, each mech has a "grid" of squares determining how much
space the mech has for weapons and add-ons. Each weapon takes up
a number of squares.
Cost The weapon's cost in C-Bills (the monetary unit in the game).
D*R Damage times rate of fire. A measure of the maximum damage a
weapon can pump out per time unit. Doesn't take into account
splash effects, miss rate, or penetration.
DR/HS (damage * ROF)/(Heat * Size). A measure of how efficient a weapon
is, comparing its damage capability vs. how much heat/space it
uses up.
BALLISTIC WEAPONS
Ballistic weapons tend to deliver more damage with less heat than
their energy-based counterparts, at the cost of using more space
and have limited ammo.
Note that the machine gun seems to be a very efficient weapon.
Again, this is because the table doesn't take into account
penetration effects.
NAME T R DM ROF HT SIZE COST D*R DR/HS
==== = = == === == === ===== ==== =====
Long Tom Cannon B L 15 1.4 20 2x5 29300 21.0 0.105
Clan Gauss Rifle B L 10 1.6 1 2x4 18500 16.0 2.000
Gauss Rifle B L 10 1.4 1 2x4 15300 14.0 1.750
Light Gauss Rifle B L 6 1.5 1 2x3 7200 9.0 1.500
Clan Ultra Light Autocannon B L 2 5.6 1 2x2 7500 11.2 2.800
Ultra Light Autocannon B L 2 4.5 1 2x2 5500 9.0 2.250
Light Autocannon B L 2 3.3 1 2x2 3500 6.6 1.650
Clan Ultra Medium Autocannon B M 6 2.8 3 2x3 10200 16.8 0.933
Ultra Medium Autocannon B M 6 2.5 4 2x3 8000 15.0 0.625
Medium Autocannon B M 6 1.8 2 2x3 5300 10.8 0.900
Clan Ultra Heavy Autocannon B S 12 2.7 8 2x4 14200 32.4 0.506
Ultra Heavy Autocannon B S 12 2.4 8 2x4 11800 28.8 0.450
Heavy Autocannon B S 12 1.7 7 2x4 7100 20.4 0.364
Machine Gun Array B S 1 4.0 0 1x1 900 4.0 4.000
ENERGY WEAPONS
These weapons never run out of ammo. The drawback is that they shed a
lot of heat, especially for the longer-range weapons. As a result,
energy weapons are more efficient in the short and medium ranges.
NAME T R DM ROF HT SIZE COST D*R DR/HS
==== = = == === == === ===== ==== =====
Clan ER PPC E L 7 2.2 15 1x3 14900 15.4 0.342
ER PPC E L 7 1.5 15 1x3 8000 10.5 0.233
Clan ER Large Laser E L 4 2.5 12 1X2 7700 10.0 0.417
ER Large Laser E L 4 2.0 12 1x2 5300 8.0 0.333
Clan Heavy Large Laser E M 9 1.8 18 1x2 15000 16.2 0.450
PPC E M 7 1.5 10 1x3 5700 10.5 0.350
Large Laser E M 4 2.0 8 1x2 3800 8.0 0.500
Clan Large Pulse Laser E M 2 6.2 10 1x2 6000 12.4 0.620
Large Pulse Laser E M 2 5.6 10 1x2 5000 11.2 0.560
Clan ER Laser E M 2 3.0 5 1x1 4500 6.0 1.200
ER Laser E M 2 2.4 5 1x1 3000 4.8 0.960
Clan Heavy Laser E S 5 2.0 7 1x1 4700 10.0 1.429
Flamer Array E S 3 1.7 7 1x1 1800 5.1 0.729
Clan Pulse Laser E S 2 4.0 4 1x1 2400 8.0 2.000
Pulse Laser E S 2 3.5 4 1x1 2000 7.0 1.750
Laser E S 2 2.4 3 1x1 1700 4.8 1.600
MISSILE WEAPONS
Note that LRMs are capable of indirect fire. That is, they can fire at
units they don't have direct line of sight with, as long as some other unit
does. Additionally, Swarm LRMs have splash damage, so they can cause
damage to the target even if they miss.
NAME T R DM ROF HT SIZE COST D*R DR/HS
==== = = == === == === ===== ==== =====
Clan LRM Rack M L 3 2.1 4 1x1 4500 6.3 1.575
Swarm LRM Pack M L 3 1.1 2 1x1 2600 3.3 1.650
LRM Rack M L 3 1.1 2 1x1 1700 3.3 1.650
Thunderbolt Missile M M 13 1.7 8 2x4 16400 22.1 0.345
Clan Streak SRM Pack M S 2 3.2 2 1x1 2200 6.4 3.200
Streak SRM Pack M S 2 3.0 2 1x1 2000 6.0 3.000
MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT
Armor and heat sinks trade off space for extra hit points/heat points.
Only some mechs are equipped with Jump Jets, you can take the jets off
to free up some heat for weapons.
HOUSE The house most likely to field this type of mech.
WT Weight, in tons.
ARM Armor points.
SPD Maximum running speed. All mechs have the same walking speed,
but will run at their individual top speeds when a run order is given.
X Extra equipment:
J = Jump Jets. Allows mech to jump, can be removed to free up
the 7 heat points it uses.
I = Intermediate sensors. Radar. A pilot with Sensors skill can
determine additional information about the enemy units on the radar.
A = Advanced sensors. Longer-range than Intermediate sensors, and
can display additional information about enemy units. This
effectively acts as a "+1" on the Sensors skill; if a pilot's Sensors
skill is 0 (none), he's given a Sensors skill of 1 when he rides
this mech.
S = "Stealth" ECM. This mech will be invisible to mech-bound sensors
or sensor towers. It can only be detected by direct Line of Sight.
The catch is that stealth mechs have a very low profile, and can't
mount most of the larger weapons.
COST The mech's cost when new, in C-bills.
Space The space capacity of this mech.
Damage capacity ranges: These numbers are obtained by adding the D*R values
for its weapons for each of the 3 ranges.
A Cyclops has a gauss rifle and 4 LRM Packs. It's long-range damage
capacity, then, is 14.0+4x3.3 = 27.2
Note that the ranges overlap. At 110 meters, a Cougar can fire
its long-range weapons, and dish out up to 25.2 points of damage
per time unit. At 80 meters, the Cougar can fire its medium- and
long-range weapons, so the damage capacity is to 24.8 + 25.2 = 50
punishing points of damage per time unit. At 50 meters, the Cougar
is too close to fire it's long-range weapons, so the damage capacity
goes down to 24.8 points. Get under 30 meters, and the Cougar is
too close to fire ANY weapons!
NAME HOUSE WT ARM SPD X COST SPACE S (0-60) M (30-90) L (60-120)
========= ======= === === === == ===== ====== ======== ========== ===========
Fire Ant Bandit 30 80 97 27.3
Urbanmech Bandit 30 80 54 J 9.6 10.8
Cyclops Liao 90 272 65 A 12.0 9.6 27.2
Lao Hu Liao 75 194 86 J 40.8 22.4
Catapult Liao 65 176 65 J 14.4 33.0
Men Shen Liao 55 176 97 AS 28.0 16.5
Starslayer Liao 50 176 86 J 32.4 16.0
Sha-Yu Liao 40 112 119 JI 7.0 18.8
Raven Liao 35 96 97 AS 18.0 14.4
Anubis Liao 30 96 130 JI 8.0 13.2
Bandits: Underpowered, underarmored, underequipped.
Not worth keeping after you've found better units.
House Liao: Their mechs tend to be faster than the other major houses,
and more likely to have "exotic" components like advanced sensors, jump jets,
and "stealth" ECM. They pay for this by being relatively under-armed.
Liao mechs make excellent scout/covert ops units, and their stealth units
are the only ones in the game that can take out sensor towers/proximity
alerts without setting them off.
House Steiner: Slow, heavily armored, with devastating close-range attacks,
Steiner are the choice for the player who just wants to pound his opponent
into submission.
House Davion:
Victor Davion returned from the Clan homeworld of Strana Mechty with a wealth
of new technology, both mechs and weapons. The Madcat is the archetypical
clantech design: decently fast, lighter than average for its load, and a
world of hurt for anyone on its sights, especially at long range.
Davion also fields some older mechs, but they're not nearly as big
a threat as their Clan units.
4.0 Vehicle tables
All houses seem to be equally likely to field any of the vehicles below.
SUPPORT UNITS
These are the units you can request in the middle of a mission.
Hover vehicles
These units can move over the ground and skim over water.
However, they have the same problems moving uphill as their
tracked/wheeled counterparts.
Non-combat units
These units don't have weapons, but may be enemy targets.
If at all possible, capture resource trucks instead of destroying them,
they're worth 4000 RPs each!
STUDY THE MAP:
When you first start a mission, pause the game and spend some time just
looking around. Take note of turret emplacements, repair bays, and resource
bunkers and trucks. Some resource trucks won't show up in the map, so
keep your eyes peeled for moving trucks during the mission!
A good trick to find structures is to follow the roads you find and see where
they lead. Most military facilities are linked by roads either to each other
or to civilian population centers.
REPAIR AND SALVAGE:
Resource points (RPs, for short) do not carry across missions, any RPs you do
not use at the end of a mission are lost. The two most important things
you can buy with RPs are Repair Trucks and Salvage planes.
Repair trucks will repair all armor damage and ammo depletion for your mechs,
short of replacing lost limbs/weapons. This is a must for the longer
missions.
Some missions have Mech Bays you can capture. You may think of these as
bigger, fixed versions of the repair truck.
Salvage planes will pick up any non-exploded downed mech from the battlefield
and bring it to limited working condition on the spot. You still need to
repair any existing damage to the mech. One of your units must be within
sight of the target mech for the Salvage plane to spot it. These salvaged
units are pretty worthless during the mission (the limited capacity of Repair
Trucks and Mech Bays is better put towards patching your starting units),
but your employer will fix any repairs after the mission is over, which
means you effectively get a free like-new mech for the next mission!
I'd recommend using any RPs you can spare for battlefield salvage after you've
finished the mission but before your mechs head to the extraction point.
HOPPING:
An often-overlooked movement method is hopping. Simply put, any jumping mech
can just keep hopping ad infinitum, which in some cases is much faster than
simply walking/running. The drawback is that you might as well forget
about stealth, everyone will see you jumping.
AMBUSH:
One tecnique that can be easily exploited/abused is to lure enemy units into
an ambush. In the current version of the game, most enemy units will follow
the luring mech all through the map, oblivious to anything else firing at
them.
TURRET CAPTURE:
This is dangerous, but can be very rewarding when you use the turrets to
fire upon enemy units you've led back to it (be careful with enemy mechs,
though... they can recapture turret control towers and use them to fire
at you!).
The trick with capturing turret control towers is to use cover
for your advantage. Look at the map. Figure out a path that will have
buildings and other obstructions blocking the line of sight between the
turret emplacements and you for as long as possible. Note that the turret
control itself counts as an obstruction! With LRM turrets it gets more
complicated. LRMs are capable of indirect fire, so you have to avoid LOS
from the LRMs, the control tower, and from any lookout towers associated
with the turret grouping.
In the execution stage, the key is timing. Turrets that are not currently
looking at you will need to turn around/pop out and focus on you before
firing. If possible, start your attack run from beyond the turrets' detection
range, move fast, and keep buildings between you and the turrets. Keep close
to the ground; if you jump, count on every turret in the vicinity spotting
you and getting at least one good shot in you.
