What to know for your first match of MechWarrior Online

Jumping into MechWarrior Online can be a daunting task during the Open Beta; there isn't a tutorial to the different mechanics in the game and some of them can seem odd if you've not played a MechWarrior game before. With this in mind, I've worked with my clan to come up with the major components of MWO's gameplay so that you can hop right into the game without being completely clueless. All keyboard and mouse controls are referred to by their default but you can rebind many of them (and this is greatly encouraged personally).

In any game, movement comes first; you have to walk before you can run. The standard WASD keys work for movement but W and S do not move you immediately forward or back but adjust your throttle higher or slower while X sets your throttle to 0, bringing you to a stop as quick as possible. You can see your KPH listed as the leftmost yellow bar in the bottom center of your screen (#1 above). Different mechs have different max speeds, acceleration, and braking speed, so give every mech you pilot a little test run when you first get into the match to know what to expect.

A and D turn your legs, represented by the dotted line on your minimap (#2) and the upward triangle on your compass (#3). This is an important distinction from other FPS's where A and D cause you to strafe; Mech legs move independent of their torso, allowing you to aim your weapons in one direction while moving in another. In order to help bring your torso in-line with your legs, press the C key, helping you quickly face forward which is handy when you start to get confused which way you're going in the midst of combat.

Finally, some mechs are equipped with Jump Jets, allowing them to jump leap atop buildings and over obstacles. Press and hold the spacebar to begin firing the jumpjets but keep an eye on the fuel gauge, the thinner bar near your speedometer (#1), because your legs will take damage if you fall from heights. You will not have a fuel gauge if your mech is not equipped with Jump Jets.

Your mouse controls your torso and arms, represented on the minimap by the 'vision cone' (#2) and the downward triangle on your compass (#3). The weapons mounted on your torso can only fire directly in front of you and are shown with the traditional crosshair while weapons on your arm follow the movement of your mouse faster, allowing for faster target allocation and tracking (#4).

In order to readily know where your weapons are equipped they are grouped by their appropriate crosshair in the weapons display in the lower right (#5). The weapon groups denoted by the different numbers to the left side of the display replaces the traditional weapon swapping, allowing you to fire any grouping of weapons you want with a single click or keypress. Each mech comes with a default set of weapon groupings but you'll often want to customize those. In order to do so, use the arrow keys to navigate rows and columns, pressing Right-Ctrl to toggle a particular weapon on or off for that numbered weapon group. With my above setup, my medium lasers are set to group one and my LRM 20 missile racks are set to group two.

By default, left-click fires you selected weapon group (again, selected using the arrow keys) and is usually rebound to only fire group 1. Right-click fires group 2, after this, you will want to rebind the keys based on your personal setup and preference. My mouse has ample available buttons so I've bound groups 3 and 4 (unused in the example setup) to my side mouse buttons but you can easily rely on the number keys or use the E and F keys which have no default use.

Most weapons can be dumb fired with ballistic and missile weapons requiring a bit of a target lead to compensate for travel time, energy weapons require you to maintain the beam on an enemy mech to do maximum damage but the LRM (Long Range Missiles) and Streak SRM (Short-Range Missiles) benefit and require (respectively) getting a lock on an enemy mech.

To do so, press the R key to toggle through available enemy mechs in your Line-of-Sight or an ally's. This centers a red square over the enemy mech to help you spot them (depending on environment and their paint scheme) and when you center your reticules upon the red square you'll see a circle appear around your cursor, getting smaller until it turns red.

You've got a lock, FIRE and let them have a taste of high-explosives! Streak SRMs are guaranteed hits but are only usable out to 270m but LRMs can be fired out beyond 1000m and even over buildings or hills near you, so long as you maintain that lock until impact. Beware of firing LRM from a great distance as the "Incoming Missile" warning gives enemy mechs plenty of time to find cover on the battlefield near them, keep an eye out for your crosshair to flash red with any weapon to confirm that you're hitting with your weapons.

Every weapon has an optimal range, listed in the middle of the weapon grouping (#5) but many weapons will do reduce damage beyond that range, though SRM will detonate at 270m. The PPC energy weapon and LRMs also have a minimum range, 90m for the PPC and 180m for the missiles. Weapons in or out of range will change colors appropriately in the weapon grouping, so while you're still learning it's a good idea to keep an eye down there but after a while you'll be confident enough to just use the rangefinder near the crosshairs (#4) to know which weapons to use.

All this firepower does come with one major downside: heat. As you fire weapons, they generate heat which must be managed to avoid overheating, so keep a close eye on the % Heat gauge to the right of your minimap (#6). You'll get plenty of loud and flashing warnings as your heat gets to dangerous levels but if you do overheat it isn't the end of the world.

Your mech will simply begin a shutdown sequence, leaving you a sitting duck for any mechs to take potshots at but pressing the O key will allow you to override the shutdown and get you back up and moving again though I suggest you not fire weapons until you've cooldown some more or you do have the chance of blowing yourself up. If you don't manage to override the system, you can power up and power down using the P key. Powering down in the middle of the fight may seem like a silly idea, but sensors only pick up powered down enemy mechs within 200m instead of the normal 800m and they always have to have you in LOS, allowing you to hide yourself away for flank attacks or to avoid a large group of enemy mechs. That covers the vast majority of important commands necessary to keep your mech intact and to dismantle your opponents but there's a few other important commands to know.

Q will bring up the pilot name, mech type, and current 'health' percentage of allied mechs, normally shown as blue triangles on the battlefield (#4). The Z key and middle-mouse click toggle the mech zoom levels of 1x, 1.5x, and 3x, allowing you to more precisely aim long-range weapons. H toggles thermal vision, N toggles night vision, and V toggles a 4x Picture-in-picture zoom that has to be unlocked. B will bring up an overview map that shows the layout of the map, the location of you and friendly mechs (in blue) and spotted enemy mechs (in red). T is used for all chat while Y allows you to communicate to just your team.

 

I hope this is was informative and gave you an idea of what to expect for when you make your first drop into MWO. As always, check out the above video for some gameplay, allowing you to see much of this information in motion. If you're interested in playing in the Open Beta, head over to MWO Mercs and sign up. Feel free to add me as a friend, username Lonrem. Until next time, see you on the battlefield.