Two in particular to keep watch for. The Caustic map, which has a higher ambient heat than the others will cause your Heat to spike much quicker. Similarly, the Snowy Mountains map (whatever it is called), allows you to dissipate heat much faster.
Matches are won by either eliminating all the other opposing Mechs or by capturing your enemies' Base.
There are two "Bases" - yours and your enemies'. Either of these can be captured by being inside the marked proximity line surrounding the base. Each Mech inside that line speeds up the capture time.
There are boundaries to the maps, marked on your HUD by an orange line. You will get a warning light and a timer if you go out of bounds. If you stay out of bounds when the timer runs down, your Mech is destroyed and you are out of the match.
The Matches are timed. 15 minutes, but in over 140 matches I have never seen one time out. Most matches last 5-10 minutes tops. Some just a few minutes.
Allies are marked in Blue, enemies in Red. Targets are visible to all Mechs on your Team to the farthest Mech forward in your group (hence the use of Scouts).
A couple of things have become painfully obvious in the matches I have done so far.
- Running off on your own gets you killed ... quickly. The only exception to this are Scouts, typically Light Mechs with a high ground speed and some tracking equipment to assist in homing for missile batteries.
- Brawling one on one also gets you killed. You want the odds to be in your favor, so two or three to one is ideal.
- In a disorganized group, half the damage you take will be from your own teammates, trying to get a bead on a target if you happen to step into the line of fire.
- Unhealthy reliance on LRMs (Long Range Missiles), to sit back and spam missiles at distant targets. The community refers to the LRMs as the "I win mode" - not that it isn't effective, and these LRM "Boats" are racking up kills and XP, but what they are missing is actual experience in close quarters. When you close with these guys they will often continue to fire their LRMs at you, which don't arm until they get about 240 meters out. So missiles are just bouncing off you while you shred them.
- Most players don't bother with heat management, particularly on the Caustic Plains map. I have killed many, MANY an opponent because they quickly overheated and stalled for several moments while I parked behind them and unloaded on the less heavily armored rear sections.
PUGs can be gruesome for a couple of reasons, not that you have much choice, but be wary of a few things.
- AFKs - every other Match has one or more Mechs that just sit in the same spot and never move.
- Discos - you will also get a fair number of disconnects. Between the DCs and the AFKs, you can faced with being 8 to 5 or worse, and that is ugly.
- New players trying out their weapons for the first time and shoot you in the back - that's your own teammate. Whenever a Match starts I try to move at a 90 degree angle from the rest of the group to discourage friendly fire.
- Newb cowboys feeling pretty butch in their Awesome or Atlas that wade into a group of three or more opposing Mechs. They're toast ... stay away.
