What's the conventional wisdom on MekTek designed mechs? Are they harder to kill than other like armored MS mechs? Anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest this, but does anyone have any empirical evidence?

MEKTEK MECHS ARE UBER!!!! >_:ph34r:

Generally speaking, they are harder to kill. For example the Black Lanner has missile pods on the side that absorb about 50% of all torso hits until they're destroyed. Plus they generally are more flexible than MS mech in terms of loadout.

There's a reason that you don't see MS mechs much on the servers anymore.

hey nano, well my general rule of thumb is leg the mektek mechs.
black lanner: leg it
black hawk: arm it, leg it, leave it!
gargoyal: leg it, arm it, torso it, leave it, call the pilot a noob, and threaten to go get my own!
all them buggy lights: i was lucky to hit it! so i start at 800m on them.
cyclops: leg it
that godzilla thing: laugh at it, leg it, and laugh at it limping, send your buggy lights after it (cause it never has lasers on it)
hollander!: run for my life! look for a laser boat and hid behind him until the hollander loses intrest.
canis: shoot it in the crotch, which i miss and hit in the leg anyway.
gesu: chase it down, imposing your own brand of anti jeho justice on it the best you can. (be sure to check its ping)
deimeos (sp): laugh at it as every one in range beats it down, and pads their stats with it.

follow this simple guide and you should have no problems with the maxed out code and buggyness of the mektek "must turn every game into a brawl" mechs from MP2, MP2.1, and MP2.1a. i hope this helps. oh and nano, i saw that you said hi to me the other day in an open, im sorry i didnt reply. i didnt mean to snub you. wont happen again.

There have been several theories regarding the toughness of the MekTek mechs. One says that the level of detail of modeling is higher than the MS mechs and somehow mucks up or overloads the game engine causing extra NDB. Another says that the MekTek mechs don't have proper internal damage transfer between sections or special armor areas. The third, which I believe to be true, is that the hitbox arrangement of the MT mechs makes them tougher to kill. As noted above, the Lanner has specials which overlap the CT. The Ares, Canis, Gargoyle, and Blood Asp also have special sections (missile pods, beam racks, shoulder gun racks, whatever) that often take hits that would damage torsos on other mechs. If you aren't using the damage bar display, you won't see any damage register when the specials take the hits and you'll think no damage at all is occurring. To avoid all these overlapping hitboxes, follow Vash's advice and just leg the damn things.

That is ALWAYS the answer....

Thanks for the insight guys. Leg em...I should have thought of that. And Vash...NP dude! I'll see ya on another open soon!