Home

What is it?

Li Song Mechlab (LSML) is an open source tool aimed at making you perform better in PGI's MechWarrior: Online.

Why would you want it?

There are several unique features that make LSML desirable:

• Always up-to-date, LSML reads weapon and 'mech data directly from your game install. As soon as you patch MWO, you have the updated data, even unreleased mechs that are added to the data files are available.
• Accurate expected average damage and heat metrics. Including ghost heat, quirks, weapon jams, weapon spread, spin-up, double fire and other weapon properties. See statistics for more info.
• Critical hit simulations to see how likely an item is to survive in combat.
• Search for mechs by criteria: e.g. at least 4 energy, 2 ballistics, has jump-jets, at least 60 tons, with a top speed of at least 70 km/h and has ECM (Timberwolf with right torso TBR-BH omnipod, or TNS-4P).
• Compelling graphs to show you damage and alpha strike over range, even allowing you to examine individual weapon groups.
• Tools that help you build mechs at break neck speed. See Smart Place and Auto Armour.
• Mech statistics are also modelled such as turning rate, max angles, total damage capacity of your ammo etc.
• Exporting and importing of loadouts from the in-game Mechlab allows you to avoid working with PGI's Mechlab at all!
• No downtime, the tool runs on your computer and isn't dependent on a remote server being online and updated.
• Fast search functionality allows you to quickly find mechs your looking for.

How do I use it?

Cool, I'm sold, how do I use it?

Installation

Download the latest release and install it.

When starting the game for the first time, it will look for MWO installations. If your game is installed in a default location it will just use that, otherwise you will be prompted to browse to the game install or to let the program search for it(could take a while depending on how big your hard drives are), or you can just use the bundled (potentially old and out of date) game data files if you don't have a game install.

Next you will be prompted to select a garage file. This file stores all your loadouts and is auto saved when you add new mechs and exit the program, no need to manually save.

Building your first 'Mech

Click the big honkin' New 'Mech button up top to find a mech by criteria or just type the name of the 'Mech you want to build into the search bar and double click on a chassis you want to build. A new window opens up for the loadout.

Change the structure/armour/guidance/heatsink type you want in the panel left of the right leg. If building an omni-mech, change the omnipods in the dropdowns of each component.

Double click on the equipment you want on the left. It will be automatically placed on the mech with Smart Place, it will even move things around to make the item fit if possible. Or you can click and drag to manually place. Drag the armour sliders to the right of the head to adjust how much armour (in 0.25t increments) you want and the relation between front and back, Auto Armour will distribute the amount of armour as to best protect your equipment and engine from exploding. Use the up-down arrows on the components to manually tweak the armour if it's not to your liking.

Ammo is only displayed for equipped weapons.

You can also right click on equipment and ammo to fill the remaining space on the 'Mech with that item type (e.g. when boating laser and heatsinks). Or to remove all instances of that item from the 'Mech.

Review the damage and heat attributes on the panel to the right of the 'Mech and view the damage over range graphs by visiting the Weapon Lab up top on the menu. Consider changing the map under the heat section to see how the map heat affects your loadout. See how many "combat seconds" your ammo will give you in the armaments panel and decide if you need to adjust.

Click Loadout > Add to garage to save it in your garage. The garage is saved automatically to the file you selected when starting the first time.

What is this critical hit info when I hover on an item?

It shows a calculation of how likely it is that the item will survive after the armour is stripped.

• Crit. Hit% is the probability that the item in particular is hit.
• Survival is the likelihood that the item will survive until that location is destroyed, assuming large damage weapons such as PPC.
• Buffer is the effective total amount of damage that needs to be done to this location before this item is destroyed, this is an indication of how well buffered the item is from crits. Consider adding more items to the location to improve buffering.

Wait! The numbers are different to what the in-game 'Mechlab shows me?!

See the page about statistics it explains what LSML computes and why it's sometimes different from other tools.

Where can I see the cooldown of weapons?

The term "cooldown" is used ambiguously to mean the time between consecutive shots and also the time it takes for weapons to cooldown after the firing animation completes. In order to be explicitly clear about what LSML computes, we use the term Firing Period instead. See Cooldowns for more info.