A little fun fact. While the Atlas is a favorite of the Lyran Commonwealth it is mostly produced in the Federated Suns. This is the main reason why they have an Atlas III and not by the Lyrans
Game designer here. If I ever wrote a weapon for a game of mine, named it DEFIANCE and didn't make it comedically terrifying, I'd deserve to have my license revoked.
Or, just hear me out, it starts out as weak, but does the SC2 void ray thing, but to an insane degree. Starts out tickling, but melts everything 3 enemies deep right before the reactor overheats.
There is a Defiance 'Mech in Battletech. It's Defiance Industries attempt at upgrading the Warhammer. Which worked. It's a better Warhammer. But at the cost of 2 and a half Warhammers. But Defiance industries at the time of designing the Defiance were playing politics. And they did so poorly. Getting some Mercs sent to their HQ basically. And the Defiance got passed over for a big military contract. For the Fafnir, which is another Defiance Industries product. Which is heavier than the Defiance. More heavily armed, yet for some reason cheaper.
@@stormsurge2103I just looted one from the arena, am gonna trick it out w/ masc and a 400xl engine/ assault greatsword which I think is heavier than the axe and does more damage. Itll probably sprint for about 81kph 😅😂
It's a canon Mech effectively: The Berserker. 100 tons, hatchet, Class 400 XL engine and MASC. So it's as fast as a Banshee, and goes up to as fast as a Charger once that MASC is activated. While still having Atlas levels of armor. Also it has ECM, an anti-missile system, a head-mounted flamer (just so the Poor Bloody Infantry don't feel left out) and two large pulse lasers and an ER PPC to have some fun while rolling in. And then there's the variant with a light engine, C3 unit, tripple strenght myomer and a massive brace of ER medium lasers in palce of the large pulse lasers, so it can activate that TSM very reliably. Made, of course, by the nice people from Defiance Industries.
Pirate variants in the YAML mods for MW5 almost all have melee weapon hardpoints. You could have an Atlast AS7-P with a claymore if you want. I run a pirate Cyclops in my current playthrough that goes 80kph with a greatsword in one hand and an LBX20(c) in the other.
that fear line. I remember playing mechwarrior 5 and the first time I saw an atlas on the field, it rolled out from behind a heavy wall that kept it off sensors. As soon as I saw that skull I went full "S**T S**T S**T! FALLBACK!"
Remind me of one of Mechwarrior Online trailers where a Warhammer pushes forward into a cloud of dust only to come face to face with an Atlas. That shit was terrifying.
All I can think about is trying to animate a wrestling match between an Atlas and some lighter Mech like a Hatchetman or something, just to send to this channel. For Soup Stock.
It is a joke. The Lyrans have a bad habit of appointing inept commanders for political reasons, and also enough industrial infrastructure to rival two or three other great houses at once. End result is that they have a doctrine of attrition and just keep producing heavier mechs in greater numbers than anyone else. So they compenste for operational ineptitude with oversized mechs than just outgun everything else. Hence the Steiner Scout Lance, 400 tonnes of stompy mechs.
@@justanabramspassingbyYou probably won’t see, but in one of the mechwarrior games there was footage of ‘mechs attacking a city, one of them being an Atlas. The news anchor covering the footage says that the city was attacked by a contingent of ‘light ‘mechs’. So since then the Atlas has been considered a scout mech, and since the Steiners have more money than god, everyone says the Steiner scout lance is just 5 Atlases
A long long time ago, in Mechwarrior 4, I used to run an Atlas that had all the normal weapons replaced with 4 large lasers and an SRM 6. The rest of the weight, I put into armour and most notably, engines. It was the best performing mech I've ever ran in the multiplayer lobbies my friends and I used to run. Yeah, it was an Atlas that could run. At 65km/h on a flat surface.
I love the Atlas! I was once playing the Battletech ttrpg with a group and when we were all rolling what mechs we’re starting out with from the RATs we got 3 lights and 2 mediums… then I rolled an Atlas lmao. Best part was my character was supposed to be done back country hick so I decided he found it buried in his crop field then piloted it for the planet militia and had a locust leg for a leg actuator
The Atlas is the in-game equivalent of if Andre the Giant was a giant robot... It's big and imposing, slow but powerful, and it packs one hell of a punch while being somewhat hard to take down. But if you take it to the ground it'll be pretty much over. It's highly revered and widely acknowledged as one of the greatest ever, but everyone knows it has flaws and how to exploit them. Just... Don't let it close. Under any circumstance. If it closes you probably haven't taken out the mechs trying to flank you and it's going to grab one of those little mechs and beat you with it...
I love me personal atlas I used in MW5. Jump jets, stupid amount of armor, and 10 medium lasers. It wasn't fast, or flashy, But disco death mode was fun then I punch things in the face really really hard
The mech getting force-fed its teeth by an Atlas in that picture is a warhawk. Dire Wolf arms usually have stubbier gun barrels where as that looks like the ERPPCs employed by warhawks. Still impressive
The fact that it's a Warhawk makes it even more nonsensical. Why the fuck would a Warhawk pilot EVER let an Atlas get that close? You're faster, you have more firepower, your guns have longer range, your targeting computer allows you to make called shots so you can literally core an Atlas with two salvoes before he can even shoot back even if you're both running straight towards each other at maximum speed (well, he'll get a salvo of LRMs off, but that's it). Seriously, what the fuck are you doing in melee range? At least a Dire Wolf can't outrun the Atlas. And it doesn't come with a targeting computer standard in every configuration, though given the absurd firepower it brings to bear it would probably rip an Atlas apart in about the same amount of time
@The PirateMongoose you're right, but if I had to guess meta wise, rule of cool, and in lore, that pilot's best skill was outrunning commonsense. That or it's a cool propaganda pic
@@thepiratemongoose8965clanners are pretty crazy, and smart atlas pilot can try to bait him into coming into a cramped city where it's alot harder to keep range. Before tukkiyid clanners impressions of the innersphere was very low so they seriously believed that they needed to keep moving forward and steam role the opposition. Their thinking, by intent by fasa, was meant to be alien by design and most players who play clan usually play it wrong. They don't just give up their code of conduct just because of a single, or sometimes multiple infractions. To give up on it is to give up on kerensky and most would just kill themselves before, and some probably did especially early clan invasion and prior.
Ahh, the Atlas, literally my favorite mech and the one that got me into battletech, nothing says assault, like 100 tons of armor with enough fire power to say "fuck you" to an entire lance of mechs while you smoke a cigar inside your Deaths head cockpit .
Need to collaborate with Tex from Black Pants Legion. Guaranteed the epicness of his voice with your ideas would have battalions of artists scrambling to depict if not animate these glorious scenarios.
Wait, 1:20, Steve is a real person? I've watched 4(?) videos with no Steve and was convinced it was just a running gag, lol, like that old video series from The Onion that goes "I'm ____ , filling in for ______, who [ridiculous excuse here]."
The atlas is a generalist mech. It has good armor, decent weapons, par speed. If you want a battletech a-10, you're looking at the Annihilator, or the Bane. Bunch'a gunbeds on bricks
The Atlas is more a "I am still breathing and I am about to make this EVERYONE ELSES PROBLEM" mech then an A-10 like mech. It wasn't built around any weapon or idea other then that.
@@averywhitaker3513 Eh, if you want Mech built around a bigass gun, it's the Hunchback or Hollander. Or the Mechbuster or Lightning or Transit, for aircraft.
The gun on the Atlas 3 is a RAC 10, also the right arm has a heavy mech shield which serves to counterbalance the weight of the RAC on the left. I have the original dossier from Wizkids when they came up with the thing back in the early 2000's. Not sure if they changed it later on but this is how they explained it back then.
The Atlas is what made me dislike assault mechs, slow as a snail and mostly a short-range combatant. My introduction to the setting was Mechcommander 2 with very open terrain, which made it practically worthless. Then I swapped out the weapons and made a pseudo-Atlas II and my opinion changed. That thing was a monster, anything that got in the range of the AC10 and the ER lasers just died. I still prefer more mobile and lighter mechs that can decide the combat range. Still, I can't hate the ugly thing. It stomps things.
18:10 I always put max jump jets on my assaults to minimize the chances of them getting flanked and to basically be able to ignore terrain when traversing the battlefield. But there are better loadouts for long-range Atlases than 2 PPC and 1 Gauss. My current favorite is 2 LB2X, 2 LL, 2 ERLL, LRM15+LRM5. I also put in 1 ERSL and 2 MG to deal with any rude strangers or birds who want to get into my personal space. Seriously, washing bird guano off is a real chore.
Up to 3rd edition the Warhammer Graced the cover of the Battletech game box (Ironically with many of the MBR-04 Destroid Tomahawk's UN Spacy Markings from Macross). Then the FASA/Playmates, then Harmony Gold/FASA lawsuits happened, and by 4th edition, enter The Timberwolf on the 4th edition Game box cover. May have ended up there anyway, The Timber Wolf is a powerful and popular mech, but, one must not forget that the timing Warhammer became an unseen at a similar time probably had something to do with it.
Depends on when- as mentioned in other comments, Warhammer and Atlas dominated the early art, while the Marauder was often the pinnacle of the sourcebooks and literature. The MadCat showed up ~early 90s with the Clan Invasion. After the shitshow that was Jihad/DarkAge/Early IlClan, I have zero idea what is the current face of the IP, although the Atlas maintains a popular and distinct presence in both canon and non-canon art; it's face is still the logo for HBS' Battletech video game.
Y'all make very good points. That's part of why I was open to having it being shared. Especially since Timberwolf gets decked every five seconds in the mechwarrior intros 🤣
So in battletech extended mod i rigged my atlas with ecm and best melee mod i can find and flamethrowers. He just runs into enemy formation to punch out enemy mechs and occasionally overheat his victims
May I recommend the college short film Mechwarrior: Age of Destruction here on RU-vid? It has an Atlas III among other mechs beautifully animated, kicking the crud out of each other.
Unfortunately, the only vehicle capable of carrying an atlas is the Heavy Battlemech Recovery Vehicle, and to do so, it reduces its top speed from 64kph to 32 kph, slower than the Atlas riding it. Now theoretically if you had the time to equip a Battlemech Recovery Vehicle (50t version of the 70t HBRV) with Lift Hoists, you could carry around an Atlas at 64kph, roughly 10kph faster then it's top speed, but understandably it'd be impossible for it to fire from atop it as the recoil would likely topple the precariously balanced mech and vehicle alike. Also, on the table top an Atlas' punch only does 10 Damage, so depending on where it hits, a Stinger could very well survive the first blow.
My favorite Atlas variant is the one with six missile hardpoints because I just load that thing with SRM6s. My friends call it the Splatlas, big brother of the Splatapult that runs a similarly themed loadout. Just outright deletes anything lighter than 60 tons in one shot. 60+ takes two.
Fun scenario: a lance is supposed to take a city but is badly damaged except the Atlas they kept in the rear because it would be too expensive to repair. But with no alternative, the pilot picks up a headshot mech and uses it as a shield on approach, tossing it as a nuclear grenade when the reactor goes critical.
I remember how in 1 job in mech warrior 5 my Lance almost got decimated by just 1 Atlas, took a mech, 3 arms and a leg with him, what finally put him to the ground was a punch from my almost destroyed Warhammer
15:00 That's a Warhawk, not a Direwolf. It's jowl-armor plate is seen under the violating fist and the heavy brow armor is over the forearm. The image is just an astronaut decking the shit out of a bloodhound for being in the way.
17:36 I absolutely LOVED that version of the Atlas. What's more terrifying than an atlas? What if ... *IT CAN FLY?* AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Honestly when I first played that mission all those years ago as a kid it was unbelievably terrifying when that guy just bloody jumped out of the base right in front of my lance. He blew off an arm of one of my mechs *mid flight* with the gauss rifle no less. And then proceeded to disrupt my entire lance because he landed right in front of them.
Lol, always loved the atlas. In MWO I got my hands on an ECM Atlas and loaded it up with an ac-20, 3 srm6's and large or medium lasers for weight, with max armour and a standard engine so I could zombie mech reliably. Turns out its real good at jumpscares and movie monster shenanigans.
20:41 ... This reminds me that in MWO I decided to make a Uziel Mech who's entire armament is 2 RAC/5's. It's basically a cockpit sandwiched between the two massive guns with enough ammo to blot out the sun and some tin foil to pretend it has armor. ... Arms? what are those?... To be fair, unlike the Atlas III, I did balance out the "Full Potato" by giving it one in each torso ... or more accurately making each of it's torsos a gun.
I remember in the old lvl1 days an Atlas was dropped by a lance of ac 20 toting urbies during a city invasion by the Lyrans. Another time I seen a single locust drop an Atlas from attacking it from behind using hit and run tactics during a lvl 1 double blind game, sure he scored a 2* on the spot holding the AC 20 ammunition with a Machine gun but a win is a win. So how in the world can anyone be scared of this overgrown paperweight?
14:37 don't know if it has been said or if you figured this out later but the mech getting its face folded in is a Warhawk, the direwolf shares a pretty similar design with it correction number 2: Atlas 3 uses a Rac 2 ... a variant of the Atlas 3 however uses probably TEH most ludicrous of a gun which is a Hyper Assault Gauss 30 (there's also a HAG 40 ... you know ... BECAUSE!)
Just discovered your channel. Am enjoying your content. Please keep it up. Any chance you could put up your podcast on RU-vid Music? Hope you like this suggestion. Thank you.
Ah yes, the rac...2 a big (not) gun capable of coring an assault mech in... 6-7 turns. (Thats 60-70 seconds for yall outside of the tabletop.) And that gun jams more often than a rock band.
The RAC5 isn't considered a very good weapon on the tabletop, it has a high jam chance. You generally have to fire in bursts of 5 and because of the cluster table only 2-3 of those shots hit plus they scatter in different locations meaning you don't get armour penetrations. Its sometimes better than an AC10 but not as good as an UAC10, AC20, or Gauss.
Genuinely surprised that the RAC is only 5 on the Atlas III. With all the hyping you did with it i thought it would have been a RAC10 or something unrealistic.
14:55 Uhhh that's actually a Warhawk being punched by the Atlas. It doesn't matter. Its destroyed but for identification purposes, it has the 2 long PPC barrels in each arm and the LRM 10 on the shoulder. The Dire Wolf just has the little stubby Large laser ports in the arms.
while most speak about the atlas, the Madcat, Marauder or Warhammer to me personally the mech that represents Battlemech/Mechwarrior the most is ... the Baby Atlas also known as the Orion ... or the Onion i honestly think the Orion very underappreciated and after all it's THE MECH that has been used by "almighty soup stock" himself
