170 replies to this topic

[Hawk819]

Sad, but true, if the Mad Dog, aka Vulture should see release, there'll be only 3 variants released: Primary, A and B. .only!!

The C variant will not see release due to the fact that it only has ballistic hardpoints to each arm and nothing else. Sorry, guys, but its true. I don't like it any more than anyone else here, but the decision is not mine to make. All I'm doing is suggesting it may come out that way. Nothing more.

[Odanan]

Hawk819, on 31 July 2014 - 02:01 PM, said:

Sad, but true, if the Mad Dog, aka Vulture should see release, there'll be only 3 variants released: Primary, A and B. .only!!

The C variant will not see release due to the fact that it only has ballistic hardpoints to each arm and nothing else. Sorry, guys, but its true. I don't like it any more than anyone else here, but the decision is not mine to make. All I'm doing is suggesting it may come out that way. Nothing more.

You can swap the side torsos omni pods, you know...

[Keeshu]

Hawk819, on 31 July 2014 - 02:01 PM, said:

Sad, but true, if the Mad Dog, aka Vulture should see release, there'll be only 3 variants released: Primary, A and B. .only!!

The C variant will not see release due to the fact that it only has ballistic hardpoints to each arm and nothing else. Sorry, guys, but its true. I don't like it any more than anyone else here, but the decision is not mine to make. All I'm doing is suggesting it may come out that way. Nothing more.

At least the C would have more options for customization than the Adder/Puma Prime.
But yeah, like Odanan said, you can swap out the Side Torsos from the other mechs.
Even if we end up only getting A,B, and Prime, We'll probably get the other ballistic arm from the C. After that we'll probably never get anything else for the Mad Dog ever again.

[Zechs Deluca]

Keeshu, on 31 July 2014 - 02:28 PM, said:

At least the C would have more options for customization than the Adder/Puma Prime.
But yeah, like Odanan said, you can swap out the Side Torsos from the other mechs.
Even if we end up only getting A,B, and Prime, We'll probably get the other ballistic arm from the C. After that we'll probably never get anything else for the Mad Dog ever again.

He is exactly right, it will be add-ons just like the Kitfox C right arm with the ECM and triple ams

[Keeshu]

I did some minor touchups on the OP, and added the Torso Twist mini section, and added a comparison between the Catapult and Mad Dog because some people were thinking the Mad Dog would outclass the Catapult in every way. Let me know if there's anything I should change/add/remove.

Edit: I've added some links to related Mechs now as well.

Edited by Keeshu, 01 August 2014 - 09:28 PM.

[TibsVT]

360 degree torso twist. Nuff said.

[mercenarie]

Keeshu, on 23 July 2014 - 04:29 AM, said:

Chin Turret
(If someone could make a small gif of the chin turrets doing the little wiggle or just aiming in the MW4 opening it'd be much appreciated. I don't have the tools required to do such a thing)

Like this one?

http://cdn.makeagif....2014/7SI5bn.gif

Edited by mercenarie, 07 August 2014 - 12:00 PM.

[Keeshu]

mercenarie, on 07 August 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

Like this one?

http://cdn.makeagif....2014/7SI5bn.gif

Eeyup. Thank you very much. Updated the OP with the gif. I guess now that I see the little animation itself, I didn't notice it could look down (not sure about up). Though, with the Mad Dog/Vulture overlooking the battle like a Vulture, it would be an interesting quirk to have it only shoot forward, sideways or downwards.

[101011]

Keeshu, on 07 August 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

Eeyup. Thank you very much. Updated the OP with the gif. I guess now that I see the little animation itself, I didn't notice it could look down (not sure about up). Though, with the Mad Dog/Vulture overlooking the battle like a Vulture, it would be an interesting quirk to have it only shoot forward, sideways or downwards.

Personally, what I want to see is a Hero Mad Dog with twin energy mounts in the CT and thusly giving it the unique chin-rack. It should be kept off of the other variants, however.

[Keeshu]

101011, on 07 August 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

Personally, what I want to see is a Hero Mad Dog with twin energy mounts in the CT and thusly giving it the unique chin-rack. It should be kept off of the other variants, however.

How are Hero Clan mechs going to work? It just worries me greatly. Unless there's some very negative quirks on this hero mech, and/or some very good positive quirks on the normal Prime and Alt Configs, there would be no reason to use anything but the hero mech since you can just swap out omnipods (and all the other Mad Dog CTs have no weapons)

Sarna and battletech engineer do not list any hero type mechs. Which means they'll either have to either A Make up a build of their own or B do the MW4 Vulture or C Nothing. Personally I'd prefer the Hero Mad Dog to be the MW4 Vulture. Slower torso twist than an Atlas (probably like a Dire Wolf), infinite torso twist, and the CT turrets that actually work, with the big oversized hitboxes. I don't see that happening though.
Though it depends on if they decide to apply these quirks to the normal Prime and Alt Configs or not.


As for the normal Mad Dog's quirks. I'd like to see an extended torso twist at least as a reference to MW4 and for a big difference from the Timber Wolf.
Anything else I'm not sure of, but here's just some suggestions:
Minor Pulse laser buff - Most clan mechs use ER lasers, the Mad Dog has a tendency to use pulse lasers.
Missile bay doors. Or some other minor buff related to missiles. Mainly because people tend to view the Mad Dog as a Missile boat (even though only half it's tonnage is for missiles excluding D's dual ATM 12s). Even if other mechs have whole alt configs for LRM boating (but generally don't have any LRMs on anything other config).

I can't think of any other quirks off the top of my head. Maybe I'm too tired.

[101011]

Keeshu, on 07 August 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

How are Hero Clan mechs going to work? It just worries me greatly. Unless there's some very negative quirks on this hero mech, and/or some very good positive quirks on the normal Prime and Alt Configs, there would be no reason to use anything but the hero mech since you can just swap out omnipods (and all the other Mad Dog CTs have no weapons)

Sarna and battletech engineer do not list any hero type mechs. Which means they'll either have to either A Make up a build of their own or B do the MW4 Vulture or C Nothing. Personally I'd prefer the Hero Mad Dog to be the MW4 Vulture. Slower torso twist than an Atlas (probably like a Dire Wolf), infinite torso twist, and the CT turrets that actually work, with the big oversized hitboxes. I don't see that happening though.
Though it depends on if they decide to apply these quirks to the normal Prime and Alt Configs or not.


As for the normal Mad Dog's quirks. I'd like to see an extended torso twist at least as a reference to MW4 and for a big difference from the Timber Wolf.
Anything else I'm not sure of, but here's just some suggestions:
Minor Pulse laser buff - Most clan mechs use ER lasers, the Mad Dog has a tendency to use pulse lasers.
Missile bay doors. Or some other minor buff related to missiles. Mainly because people tend to view the Mad Dog as a Missile boat (even though only half it's tonnage is for missiles excluding D's dual ATM 12s). Even if other mechs have whole alt configs for LRM boating (but generally don't have any LRMs on anything other config).

I can't think of any other quirks off the top of my head. Maybe I'm too tired.

I would make it so that either you had a negative C-BIll gain with any omnipods other than the Hero's, or just make it so that you can not swap them at all.

[Keeshu]

I don't see how c-bill gain would effect balance in game. Unless you're losing money between matches like the old repair+rearm, you're still going to use the same mech.
Based on your suggestion, I basically gave an extreme example of it (and would never happen), but basically if something was 2 times as powerful as any other mech, but it would prevent you from earning C-bills and stuff, people would use it all the time once they've finished getting the c-bills to master it and stuff because they won't have anything to spend c-bills on.



The not swapping thing I'm alright with though. However it does rather remove the one of the main features of clan mechs in the first place.

[greytiger]

Keeshu, on 07 August 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

How are Hero Clan mechs going to work? It just worries me greatly. Unless there's some very negative quirks on this hero mech, and/or some very good positive quirks on the normal Prime and Alt Configs, there would be no reason to use anything but the hero mech since you can just swap out omnipods (and all the other Mad Dog CTs have no weapons)

Sarna and battletech engineer do not list any hero type mechs. Which means they'll either have to either A Make up a build of their own or B do the MW4 Vulture or C Nothing. Personally I'd prefer the Hero Mad Dog to be the MW4 Vulture. Slower torso twist than an Atlas (probably like a Dire Wolf), infinite torso twist, and the CT turrets that actually work, with the big oversized hitboxes. I don't see that happening though.
Though it depends on if they decide to apply these quirks to the normal Prime and Alt Configs or not.


As for the normal Mad Dog's quirks. I'd like to see an extended torso twist at least as a reference to MW4 and for a big difference from the Timber Wolf.
Anything else I'm not sure of, but here's just some suggestions:
Minor Pulse laser buff - Most clan mechs use ER lasers, the Mad Dog has a tendency to use pulse lasers.
Missile bay doors. Or some other minor buff related to missiles. Mainly because people tend to view the Mad Dog as a Missile boat (even though only half it's tonnage is for missiles excluding D's dual ATM 12s). Even if other mechs have whole alt configs for LRM boating (but generally don't have any LRMs on anything other config).

I can't think of any other quirks off the top of my head. Maybe I'm too tired.

There are a few configurations that are unique to certain clan pilots.

Natasha has one called the Widowmaker, Aiden Pryde had his Timberwolf, ect.

The best way to do this would be to either lock the Omni pods, or have different 'non-removable'/set gear then the standard configurations.

just my .02 cents.

[Solis Obscuri]

Strum Wealh, on 30 July 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

Well, there are the official cutaways...

Vulture


Mad Cat


The Vulture blueprint claims a 120mm (~4.73") diameter for its LRMs (the same as the bore for the Marauder's GM Whirlwind AC/5... and the same as the bore of the M256 gun used by the Abrams MBT), while the Mad Cat blueprint claims a 200mm (~7.87") diameter for its LRMs (larger than the shells of the Demolisher's 185mm ChemJet Gun AC/20s... and substantially larger than both the Hellfire missile (178mm) and the AMRAAM (180mm)).

Yet, these 120mm & 200mm missiles are supposed to still weigh a mere ~8.33kg (the same as the Catapult's 75mm LRMs; for comparison, the 178mm Hellfire weighs 45-49 kg & the 70mm Redeye weighs 8.3 kg), and the Vulture Prime is supposed to be able to accommodate 240 of these 120mm missiles (two tons of ammo, one ton in each side-torso with a launcher) and some sort of drive system to feed them to the launcher, while the Mad Cat Prime must accommodate 240 of these 200mm missiles (two tons of ammo, one ton in each side-torso with a launcher) and some sort of drive system to feed them to the launcher.
Yet, neither cutaway labels - or provides any accommodation for - an ammunition bin in the side-torso, much less one big enough to hold the required number of missiles.

Clearly, the Clans are utilizing a relatively primitive & limited form of transcedental engineering to create dimensionally-transcedental ammo bins...!?

Yeah, I was always left scratching my head looking at Battletech missile racks...

LRM ammo/ton =	120 missiles
1 ton =	1000kg
Mass of LRM =	8.3kg

A real world 9.7kg missile


Size of LRM portrayed in BT


Equivalently sized real-world missile

Mass of AGM-114 =

49kg

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 14 August 2014 - 02:43 PM.

[_NARCoMAN_]

[Keeshu]

Would you guys consider 6 LRM 15 or 6 LRM 10 Artemis effective/viable? With default armor it only has 7 tons of ammo to use. Would that be enough? Would dropping 1-2 tons for some ER small lasers for when you run out of ammo/self defense be a good idea?
Do you think 2 LRM 15/20 and 4 SRM 4/6 with medium lasers is an effective build as well? Is 8 tons of ammo enough?

I just mention these builds because they are things that the Timber Wolf cannot do.



Unimportant story time, feel free to skip this:
On a side note, I just tried to use 2 LRM 10s, a narc, and a tag laser on a Trebuchet. Let's just say, I couldn't get into a match without at least 2 Kit Foxes (usually with some other ECM units) sticking close to each other. So using a NARC was pointless.I had a hard time getting into a position to use the TAG laser for more than 10 seconds (and it made me really wish I had more direct fire weaponry than just 1 ER Large Laser). Whenever the Kit Foxes were NARCed by someone, they just shredded up any LRMs that I'd shoot to nearby enemies. The only ECM counter I didn't bring was BAP because I was feeling overconfident and was already lacking firepower+ammo. I'll always use BAP from now on, target info gathering + temporarily removes ECM for LRM boat allies just makes it just so damn good for it's tonnage and makes it easier to surgically remove parts using direct fire weapons.
I'll have to try using LRMs again after the Kit Fox craze is over. Direct fire weapons are just so damn easy compared to LRMs.

[Ens]

well i´d truly like to have this baby on my clan account....but when it comes to hitboxes, the Mad Dog will be like the Dragon of the Clans i guess...

[MechB Kotare]

Asheron Realaidain, on 14 August 2014 - 03:10 PM, said:

^ Always

Classic > MW4 FatDog

Actually looks like 60 tonner.

Edited by MechB Kotare, 02 September 2014 - 03:19 PM.

[Codeine Radick]

Solis Obscuri, on 14 August 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:

Yeah, I was always left scratching my head looking at Battletech missile racks...

LRM ammo/ton =	120 missiles
1 ton =	1000kg
Mass of LRM =	8.3kg

A real world 9.7kg missile


Size of LRM portrayed in BT


Equivalently sized real-world missile

Mass of AGM-114 =

49kg

Well, there is nothing to say that in 1000 years we have not been able to make missiles out of ultralight materials, is there?

[Cherry Bomb]

Hawk819, on 31 July 2014 - 02:01 PM, said:

Sad, but true, if the Mad Dog, aka Vulture should see release, there'll be only 3 variants released: Primary, A and B. .only!!

The C variant will not see release due to the fact that it only has ballistic hardpoints to each arm and nothing else. Sorry, guys, but its true. I don't like it any more than anyone else here, but the decision is not mine to make. All I'm doing is suggesting it may come out that way. Nothing more.

In that case it would make the most sense to add the arm pods alone you can mount like the Kitfox that has the "C" arm but no C chassis itself.