Russian roulette

[peridot]

I'm currently playing GearHead 1, and getting close to the end - I actually fought Typhon once but lost my mech. It seems to me that at this level, combat is always a gamble. You go for the highest mecha piloting you can, and you build a mech with all the weapons you need and 0, -1, or -2 MV. So the enemies mostly miss. But when they do hit, the weapons they're using do so much damage that you basically get destroyed in one hit. Is this a pretty accurate description of what's going on, or is my strategy/tactics off?

I have noticed a few things that can make a difference. Walking seems to be a bad idea (shame I took sure-footed) because when you lose legs you crash and you're basically dead. (Just how many legs do you need to lose? For two-legged mechs it seems to be one, for my favorite the Kojedo I think it's two, but I'm not sure.) Smoke and drone launchers are a reasonable way to take on enemies one at a time. Running (and presumably jumping) makes you harder to hit, but also makes it harder to hit your enemies. Long-distance sniping is handy to keep out of harm's way, but in cluttered battlefields doesn't work so well.

Note that I'm not complaining that the game is hard - it should be, by this point! - but that it's not really possible to tell when I should bail out of a fight, because I go from "no damage at all" to "mecha destroyed" in one shot. Am I missing something?

[Phil Munoz]

Do you equip any armor at all?  It's been a while since I played gearhead, but I remember the kojedo has a turret and 4 legs, right?  I'm quite sure you can find armor for the body and turret, but I'm not sure about the legs.

I think armor helps a lot, well at that point I think it only makes you take 2 shots to get killed, instead of just one...

So put on some good armor and pick your best one-shot-one-kill weapons and hope you hit first.

[EarthquakeDamage]

It'd help a lot if you strapped a shit ton of storage modules on your mecha.  It looks like Radcliffs come with two, the Monstrous comes with several (those thruster pod things), the Chimentero comes with two, and a few others.  Find the lightest ones you can, put 'em on your mecha, and don't put anything in them.  When you get hit, a random module will take the damage.  A destroyed storage module does not bleed overkill damage to your torso, unlike every other type of limb.  So, with enough of those, there will be a very good chance they'll take the blow and you'll survive.

This strategy doesn't work nearly as well with GH2 since it's much harder to stuff tons of limbs on a single mecha.

[Inu]

If you're using a biped walker, armour up your legs first and/or have the ability to skim with Hover Jets outside of the legs. Otherwise get a multi-ped like an Ovaknight. I've had it happen too many times that when it comes to armour on any part of the body, it would be the legs first.

[peridot]

The Kojedo already has four legs, and I had them all armored. (Incidentally, one of my pet peeves is items that have identical names but different properties; I had to search through a mountain of "Class 4 Leg Armor" to find ones that would fit the Kojedo and weighed only 0.5 tonnes.) The storage modules are an interesting idea, though you do end up with kind of a frankenmech. Also weight is an issue - with a Kojedo I am usually able to strap on all the heavy-hitting guns and armor I need and still stay at only -1 MV. Still, if I can scavenge storage modules that weigh 0.5 tonnes each, I suppose bolting a few on to soak up damage couldn't hurt.

It still doesn't address the Russian roulette aspect, though: it reduces the chances I'll get blown away with that one shot, but it doesn't provide much in the way of warning that I'm in danger. I'm thinking of other games - in Angband, for example, you can usually get away with just wading in and whacking away. If you suddenly see that *Low hitpoint warning* message, you bail out and come back more carefully. In GH1, I walk into combat, start shooting, and almost always win - but my first sign of trouble is usually "Kojedo destroyed!". I suppose I don't actually lose a character, so it's not quite a fair analogy, but I've lost several sets of top-end hardware this way.

[Inu]

Heavy Missiles work wonders against groups, and when you are closer, a drone launcher or two will thin out the numbers, or at least keep them busy while you go pew pew.

[Joseph Hewitt]

I'd say that the biggest problem is that you're trying to do the final battle in a Kojedo- you should upgrade to something larger and more durable.

Another part of the problem may be that the final battle requires different tactics than any other mission. You need to be able to survive all the mecha and enemy NPCs, then kill Typhon as quickly as possible. Nukes are great because they might make your enemies go haywire, and as long as they're haywire you don't need to worry about them.

For someone with Sure Footed an Ovaknight with heavy or nuclear missiles might be a good choice. If you have Mecha Engineering, an Escher body with Savin legs and the turret from the Gobuksan makes a pretty good arachnoid.

Remember that you don't need to destroy everything, just Typhon. If playing with a close combat specialist this is pretty much the only way to win the final battle.

[peridot]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

I'd say that the biggest problem is that you're trying to do the final battle in a Kojedo- you should upgrade to something larger and more durable.

I had a Zerosaiko (with improved weapons, of course), and that got one-shot-killed too. My current mech is a Chimentero, which hasn't gotten blown away yet, but doesn't seem to have a lot of free weight for armor.

What do you mean "more durable"? Are some (say) "Left Arm" more durable than others? Is there a way to tell by examining them? A lot of my limbs are scavenged with Tech Vulture, so I don't often know where they came from.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Another part of the problem may be that the final battle requires different tactics than any other mission. You need to be able to survive all the mecha and enemy NPCs, then kill Typhon as quickly as possible. Nukes are great because they might make your enemies go haywire, and as long as they're haywire you don't need to worry about them.

Ah, the nuke is an interesting idea. In my first confrontation with Typhon, though, we took potshots at each other from across the map; I missed him a few times with my Phase Cannons, and he missed me a few times with his Acid Spores and Death Waves, but one of his shots finally got through and blew me away long before any of the other mecha came into range. So it wasn't his entourage that was the problem, it was hitting him at all.

I use particle cannons a lot; how valuable is overload compared to haywire? I guess haywire keeps mecha from closing in you, while overload just makes it harder for them to hit you. Also I guess it's much easier to hit with a nuke than any aimed weapon, and they get a group of mecha all at once.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

For someone with Sure Footed an Ovaknight with heavy or nuclear missiles might be a good choice. If you have Mecha Engineering, an Escher body with Savin legs and the turret from the Gobuksan makes a pretty good arachnoid.

I'll have to try that. I do have one Ovaknight I managed to capture during a main quest mission. (I fought three or four in the "Combat Zone" that leads to Warter, but frustratingly
 that doesn't allow salvage.) I haven't captured a gobuksan yet, but they're not that expensive. Savin legs I have lots of, since I'm meeting them in the Gyori arena now.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Remember that you don't need to destroy everything, just Typhon. If playing with a close combat specialist this is pretty much the only way to win the final battle.

I shudder to imagine playing the whole game with a close combat specialist. At least with sniping I can usually fight one at a time.

[Frumple]

I'll throw out that haywire is, in many cases, massively powerful; probably the best status effect you regularly see. You probably know what haywire does (Makes the afflicted move and turn randomly) but what makes it so deadly is the weapon arc factor. If they're not able to aim toward you, they can't fire at you. The only thing that can mitigate it is turrets, which have a 360 arc... but even then, that random movement eats up time, time they could be using to shoot instead. It's a vicious, vicious debuff.

---

On more durable: There's this number in the upper left of the item desc, usually with DP somewhere beside it. The higher that number, the more damage it can soak up before going kaboom. That's why large size limbs (The amount they can take before breaking is related to the size of the limb) are much harder to take apart than smaller ones.

Last point; CC's not impossible... so long as you can find a nice line of throwable weapons. Three or four throw/return peices and an intercept gun or two and you're fairly well set. GH1's a lot easier in that reguard anyway, without the whole space drift thing to deal with. In any case, the damage you deal with higher level melee can get pretty incredible.

[peridot]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

For someone with Sure Footed an Ovaknight with heavy or nuclear missiles might be a good choice. If you have Mecha Engineering, an Escher body with Savin legs and the turret from the Gobuksan makes a pretty good arachnoid.

So I've been building such a beast, and I find that the combination you suggest - Esher body, Savin legs, Gobuksan turret - has an MV of -4 before I add anything to it. I can build smaller lighter mech with a comparable weapons load with an MV of -2 or -1, if I don't worry much about durability. So how important is MV versus durability? Just how much easier to hit will I be with an MV of -5 than an MV of -2? It seems like the attacks that do hit do hundreds or thousands of points of damage, so I'm not sure how much I gain from building a very tough mech...

[SharkD]

Quoting: peridot

(Incidentally, one of my pet peeves is items that have identical names but different properties; I had to search through a mountain of "Class 4 Leg Armor" to find ones that would fit the Kojedo and weighed only 0.5 tonnes.)

Yeah, this is kind of annoying.

[EarthquakeDamage]

If you keep dying quickly, try ignoring defense.  Build an offensive monster and overwhelm Typhon (and friends) with massive firepower.  Load as many big bad weapons as you can.  Spend some time maxing your Speed and Initiative before the fight, so you can launch everything you have faster than the enemy can get more than one or two shots off.  For weapons, try nukes, single-shot high-DC long-range monsters (if you have Sniper), and/or missiles with a high ammo count and mid-to-high DC (the heaviest ones come with very few missiles, so ignore those).  I recommend Superheavy Particle Cannons for the sniping since they're very long range and fairly strong (IIRC range 108, DC 13).  You might also try Heavy Gauss Rifles (IIRC range 96, DC 24).  Any special effects that improve damage (e.g. Armor-Piercing, or Brutal to tear down external armor) are a plus.  Since I think Typhon flies, Anti-Air will help.  I'm pretty sure all Particle Cannons have AA btw.

Note that missiles are probably your best bet for a purely offensive mecha.  They use Sensors instead of Targeting.  I think they also use Perception instead of Reflexes, though.

If you use guns instead of missiles, aim for the weakest limb.  You'll focus the damage on one spot rather than spreading it over his 6-10 body parts.  The overkill damage when you destroy a limb can destroy the torso if you hit hard enough.  If your skills aren't high enough to reliably hit limbs, aim for the torso instead, since no torso = dead.

If your all-out offense fails, bring friends.  Lots of friends.  Can't find friends?  Build 'em!  Robotics is pretty sweet in GH1 (and doesn't exactly suck in GH2, though it's a Talent rather than a Skill).  Let them rush into battle ahead of you to draw fire.  High Leadership will net you extra lancemate slots, I believe.

If all-out offense with friends fails, I guess you need to spend more time leveling.  Maybe add a high-end ECM suite and boost Electronic Warfare for extra defense.

I'm pretty much out of ideas at this point.  Just remember that what JH said:  You only need to kill Typhon.  Ignore his allies.  Don't worry about trying to survive the fight.  Just kill that son of a bitch any way you can.

Oh, wait!  One last idea:  Shields.  Lots of shields.  Give yourself several extra arms with shields and melee weapons.  Every shield and melee weapon should give you an extra defense roll AFAIK.  Beam shields/weapons are preferred, since they take no damage from ballistic/missile attacks.

Also, I think mounted (hand or mounting point) weapons have a slightly better attack bonus than installed weapons.  Get some mounting points.  And arms may have a bonus over other module types.  And while I'm at it, I'll recommend weapons with a high ACC rating over special effects if you're trying to kill with raw damage.  In fact, I'm pretty sure Haywire and several other effects won't work on Typhon since it's BioTech instead of Metal.  I never tried, myself, since I usually focus on damage over effects anyway.  Then again, I'm not a particularly good player either.  I do have a fair bit of patience for grinding, though, and that helps.

[peridot]

I took another swing at it, and I did manage to beat Typhon, albeit with one savescum.

My final mech was an Ovaknight with two Phase Cannons, two Breaker Cannons, two Superheavy Particle Cannons, a Drone Launcher, a Smoke Launcher, a Pulse Cannon (the one that has INTERCEPT, don't remember what it came off), and a Heavy Missile (the one from the Harpy with BRUTAL BLAST 3). I think there was an L-cannon in there too. I was also wearing class 4 leg armor, class 6 arm and head armor, and class 8 body armor. This monstrosity came in at only an MV of -3 (though I fiddled around with missiles until it came out to the maximum possible load).

Fighting Typhon was just a question of getting within range to fire off the drone launcher. On my first attempt, he let off a Death Wave that I didn't dodge, and I was kaput. On the second attempt, I managed to get in close enough to fire the drone launcher, and after that nobody was shooting at me any more, so I just got in range of the breaker cannon and he went down in two or three shots.

This is sort of what I mean by Russian roulette - if he hits me my mech is gone and I don't know where I'll find another Ovaknight. If he doesn't I can blow him away. All or nothing. I guess I wasn't as smart about this as I might have been - I didn't realize you could fire a Smoke Launcher at nothing just to lay down a smokescreen (I thought you had to have an enemy to target, and they were all out of range).

I do wonder if maybe some AI changes would make the Drone Launcher a more reasonable weapon. As it stands, the enemy mecha concentrate all their fire on the drones, leaving me free to blow them up at my leisure (though the drones make intact capturing more difficult). When a drone launcher was fired at me, I just ignored the drones until I'd destroyed all visible mecha - the damage the drones were doing was nothing compared to the damage the high-level enemies that launched them woud do if I left them. Only the limited range of the Drone Launcher keeps it from totally unbalancing the game (and at that I didn't really explore the possibilities of launching drones at an empty space between me and the enemy).

[Inu]

Ovaknights are a dime a dozen... Getting any other mech/vehicle is MUCH harder than getting yourself an Ovaknight.

Drones only attract the fire only if they are closest to the enemy. They also have decent lasers on them which allow for popping off limbs. I usually reserve several 60 and 120 packs of swarm missiles or a single Heavy Missile (at the cost of some armour) just in case I get droned, because they tend to make battles annoyingly longer (in real time) and add the risk of them blowing off some bit of my mech that I just know will come in handy later in a fight.

Drones are a weapon which I can trust an AI to do well with because they are effective at against players (or other AI) who aren't in it for mecha combat or do not know how to effectively deal with them.

Heh... I've never used smoke launchers because I don't know how to use them.

[peridot]

Quoting: Inu

Ovaknights are a dime a dozen... Getting any other mech/vehicle is MUCH harder than getting yourself an Ovaknight.

Sure, if you find one you can blow the head off and capture it easily; but the only place I ever fought another one was in a Main Quest battle which, for no discernible reason, didn't offer salvage.

Quoting: Inu

Heh... I've never used smoke launchers because I don't know how to use them.

Well, like missiles, they're cheap things you can strap on while trying to adjust your mech to the highest weight that still gives you MV -2. I planned on using them either to fog up a crowd of enemies in hope of separating them, or on laying down some cover so I could close without getting shot up, but I only ever used them on a convoy mission (where they did fine at keeping the attackers away from the truck).