Fire Ant

Technological Mech

Fire Ant
Class		Light
Weight		30 tons
Armor		700
Perk Armor		875
Heat Dissipation		6
Speed		2
Buoyancy		0.1
Jump Heat		5
Load-points		17
Perk Load-points		21
Hard-locked		No
Hard-mounts		Ant Fire Laser X2, Ant Flamer X2, Ant Cluster, Ant cannon X2
Omni-mounts		none
Shutdown Level		100
Resistances
Ball	0%	Ener	0%	Expl	0%
Acid	0%	Chem	0%	Sonic	0%
DoT	0%	Electronics	0%	Melee	0%
Creator		Pinto Schnyder

The fire ant is a ant-like light mech built around heat weapons.

History

The Fire Ant is an heat based mech platform whose shape is inspired by the ant. The hexapede framework makes for a low profile stable mech platform. Particularly for one of its weight class. The Mech is Designed around harassing and crippling larger mechs with a variety of heat inducing armaments. The Fire Ant however is far from a one trick pony with its cluster missiles and ant cannon.

With the rise of the Throgg and their bio-mechs the Fire Ant has seen some renewed interest. While bio-mechs do not overheat, the flamers light them aflame, dealing aggravated damage over time. Sometimes the best way to deal with the infestation is to just burn it out.

Description

The Fire Ant looks like a mechanized ant. It's light frame stands rather low over the battlefield at just over 5 [scale meters] tall. The cluster missile pod is built into the ant's abdomen. The mandibles are not weaponized, the cockpit sits between them. The various guns are arranged around the main thorax section in a hexagonal firing pattern in the default arrangement with the flamers underneath, and the cannons on top.

Tactics

The fire ant has more weaponry then it can fire with its current heat dissipation. The spine slot is taken up by the cluster missiles so if you want to mount coolant you'd need to sacrifice that system. With careful weapon management (through a good gesture set) one can be quite deadly with the ant. The lasers make for a long range accurate heat inducing system. At long range if you are accurate you can exhaust larger mechs with repeat laser hits. Once the target mech begins to overheat you can get in close and bring out the flamers and ant cannon.

The flamers can be a nice aggressive way to force overheat, but they are short range, best played on ambush tactics and used in closer quarters. As noted before, they make a nice followup weapon to keep a mech cooked after they've overheated from your heat rays.

A core thing to remember about the heat engine as of this righting in MCM is that overheating attacks can not force a mech over 90% of their heat level. They WILL however reduce the mechs ability to shed heat by up to 75%. Your weapons merely set someone up for overheat. Once they do overheat, they'll be suck there for 4 times the regular length of time so long as you keep the heat on them with your flamers. If they are not being cooked, their heat shedding abilities will recover over time.

Be aware your target will break out of overheat a few times and get a few shots off. Be very careful about taking fire, the Fire Ant has real weak armor.

Against a fire ant or anything that induces overheat. Be very careful about attacking while cooked. Any attack is liable to freeze you up for a good amount of time. The ant doesn't take a lot of damage before exploding, so make your shots count when you're cooked and you may be able to kill it before it sizzles you.

Gallery

• 

  Left side

• 

  Rear

• 

  Right side