148 replies to this topic

[Blueraja]

Bucky Goldstein, on 16 July 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

One thing I'd like to point out about the designs that I'd like some clarification on is that it looks like you're placing all your heat sinks on the chassis and that some of them will be directly mounted on the engine. if you divide the engine rating by 25 and drop the remainder, that'll indicate how many can be engine mounted, freeing up some crit slots hopefully.

Edit: Looks like you were just putting heat sinks for the engine as listed for CT placement. Mech's having 9 CT crit slots aren't possible. Otherwise the designs look pretty decent.

I have been trying to build this mech in skunk werks, but am having zero luck recreating your Atlas due to the lack of critical slots. Using an endo-steel chassis, and double heat sinks makes this build impossible due to the lack of critical slots. what am i missing?

[Bucky Goldstein]

Blueraja, on 16 July 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

I have been trying to build this mech in skunk werks, but am having zero luck recreating your Atlas due to the lack of critical slots. Using an endo-steel chassis, and double heat sinks makes this build impossible due to the lack of critical slots. what am i missing?

I specced it out for the OP in quickmech successfully, you may have put the speed as 4 mp walking & the engine that needs is too much. if you want to figure it out, the mech walks 3 (I figured it out by looking for where you get the number of heat sinks placed off of the engine and working the calculations backward for a 300 rated engine ... the ratings need are walk MP's multiplied by tonnage).

Edit: The sad part about this is the engine formula is stuck in my head, I didn't need to open a book for that in ages ... I looked at that from the mech speed (the speed listed in the description is cruise/walk speed) ... basically each 1 MP per turn on TT is 18kph.

Edited by Bucky Goldstein, 16 July 2012 - 11:41 AM.

[xRaeder]

Blueraja, on 16 July 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

I have been trying to build this mech in skunk werks, but am having zero luck recreating your Atlas due to the lack of critical slots. Using an endo-steel chassis, and double heat sinks makes this build impossible due to the lack of critical slots. what am i missing?

No its just a standard AS7-D Atlas. It uses the default Mech speeds. Make sure you're not using a XL Engine.

Make sure you set the double heatsink number to 14. 12 of them will be housed in the engine and 1 in each arm.

Edited by xRaeder, 16 July 2012 - 11:50 AM.

[Bucky Goldstein]

Blueraja, on 16 July 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

I have been trying to build this mech in skunk werks, but am having zero luck recreating your Atlas due to the lack of critical slots. Using an endo-steel chassis, and double heat sinks makes this build impossible due to the lack of critical slots. what am i missing?

xRaeder, on 16 July 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

No its just a standard AS7-D Atlas. It uses the default Mech speeds. Make sure you're not using a XL Engine.

Make sure you set the double heatsink number to 14. 12 of them will be housed in the engine and 1 in each arm.

@ xRaeder: I think the program Bluetaja uses is similar to Quickmech in that the mech info isn't stored in a database, so we have to build it manually with whatever load-out you listed here on your post. Back when the XL engines and other advanced tech were introduced to the TT I went through all the mechs in my unit to see what (if any) benefit a refit would do, so I went through a few trees writing out manual build-outs on blank mech sheets. It was fun but time-consuming.

Edited by Bucky Goldstein, 16 July 2012 - 11:59 AM.

[Eximar]

Blueraja,

Here it is in SSW:

Mass: 100 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Tournament Legal
Era: All Eras (non-canon)
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/E-F-E
Production Year: 0
Cost: 10,410,000 C-Bills
Battle Value: 2,370
Chassis: Unknown Endo-Steel
Power Plant: Unknown 300 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 32.4 km/h
Maximum Speed: 54.0 km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Unknown Standard Armor w/ CASE
Armament:
1 Gauss Rifle
1 LRM-15 w/ Artemis IV FCS
2 Large Pulse Lasers
2 Medium Lasers
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown
================================================================================
Equipment Type Rating Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Endo-Steel 152 points 5.00
Internal Locations: 1 HD, 3 LT, 3 LA, 3 RA, 2 LL, 2 RL
Engine: Fusion Engine 300 19.00
Walking MP: 3
Running MP: 5
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: Double Heat Sink 14(28) 4.00
Heat Sink Locations: 1 LA, 1 RA
Gyro: Standard 3.00
Cockpit: Standard 3.00
Actuators: L: SH+UA+LA+H R: SH+UA+LA+H
Armor: Standard Armor AV - 304 19.00
CASE Locations: 1 LT, 1 RT 1.00
Internal Armor
Structure Factor
Head 3 9
Center Torso 31 48
Center Torso (rear) 13
L/R Torso 21 31
L/R Torso (rear) 11
L/R Arm 17 33
L/R Leg 21 42
================================================================================
Equipment Location Heat Critical Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Pulse Laser RA 10 2 7.00
Large Pulse Laser LA 10 2 7.00
Gauss Rifle RT 1 7 15.00
LRM-15 LT 5 3 7.00
Artemis IV FCS LT - 1 1.00
2 Medium Lasers CT 6 2 2.00
@Gauss Rifle (32) RT - 4 4.00
@LRM-15 (Artemis) (24) LT - 3 3.00
Free Critical Slots: 1
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 10 Points: 24
3 5 6 3 0 4 0 Structure: 8
Special Abilities: CASE, SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA, IF 1

[Graphite]

Bucky Goldstein, on 16 July 2012 - 11:58 AM, said:

@ xRaeder: I think the program Bluetaja uses is similar to Quickmech in that the mech info isn't stored in a database, so we have to build it manually with whatever load-out you listed here on your post.

Yes. If you want all official mech files, download MegaMek (TT converted to computer): http://sourceforge.n...10.zip/download
Inside the zip file you download, go to data/mechfiles/ and you'll see another zip file called mechs. Take this and uncompress it, inside it has all official mechs, sorted by year and clan vs IS. Quickmech can open these files.

Eximar, on 16 July 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

Blueraja,

Here it is in SSW:

Or, for the sake of your eyes, here it is instead in quickmech:

===============================================================================================
Atlas xRaeder						   IS  100t	Biped		  BV2: 2370
MP: 3/5/0		   14 Double HS		Endo Steel				 C-Bills: 10,410,000
Engine: Standard	Gyro: Standard	  Cockpit: Standard		  LLAA LHA  RLAA RHA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Standard:                              LA: 33	  H:  9	   RA: 32			Total: 304   (19.0t)
						 LT: 30 /12  CT: 44 /18  RT: 30 /12  
						 LL: 42				  RL: 42	  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crits:	LA							H							 RA							
		   1 Double Heat Sink                                                                 1 Double Heat Sink
		   1 Large Pulse Laser										 1 Large Pulse Laser
 
		  LT							CT							RT							
		   1 LRM 15					  2 Medium Laser				1 Gauss Rifle
		   3 LRM15 Artemis Ammo										4 Gauss Rifle Ammo
 
		  LL														  RL							
============================================================================[QuickMech v0.8]===

Hmm, formatting on these forums is nasty...

xRaeder, on 16 July 2012 - 07:20 AM, said:

You're right. I hadn't noticed until now. But technically they are quadrupling the amount of armor you can carry.

If you look at this video you can see that the Mech starts off with 320 pts of armor (while in TT it starts off with 160 --- 160x2 = 320). But according to TT you can only have a maximum of 169 (if they followed TT and just doubled the amount it would be 169x2 = 338 pts)pts of armor on a Hunchback. However this mech is showing that you can add up to 700 points of armor.

I'm guessing (only a guess) that 700 isn't the max for a Hunchback, it's the max for any mech - in other words the Hunchback max will still be about 340.
700 is more than enough to double max armour on a 100 tonner.


BTW, could someone please confirm that the first Cataphract is 1.5t underweight (or tell me I'm an fool...)?

Edited by Graphite, 16 July 2012 - 06:41 PM.

[xRaeder]

It was. Forgot to add the Guardian ECM Suite.

I'm not sure how useful the ECM Suite will be for a Mech like that, whose role is to skirt around the enemy. So far what I've read it only effects being Tagged or NARCed, and this is a solo Mech, meant to go into the rear Area and mess the support Mechs up.

Once I get a handle on how the ECM Suite works I might switch it to an AMS system.

Edited by xRaeder, 17 July 2012 - 05:10 AM.

[Blueraja]

thank you very much gentlemen! it's been a long time since i have looked at the tabletop rules, and I couldn't figure out how you were placing that amount of tech on the Atlas. I thought it was too good to be true, but I'm glad that is a doable mech! Nice job on the config!

[xRaeder]

Graphite, on 16 July 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

I'm guessing (only a guess) that 700 isn't the max for a Hunchback, it's the max for any mech - in other words the Hunchback max will still be about 340.
700 is more than enough to double max armour on a 100 tonner.

Hrmmm. From an interface design standpoint it doesn't make sense to list the maximum amount of armor that an Atlas could mount while viewing a Hunchback.

So either it is an old build of the Mechlab that doesn't take into account which Mech you are viewing or the Hunchback really can mount 700 pts of armor in this game.

It might make sense that it can if they are trying to make it so that Mediums and Lights stand more of a chance against the Assaults and Heavies that this game will have. The devs might be making it so that the only difference between the different Mech classes is the weight of the equipment they can mount and their movement speed. Which in a way makes sense from a balance perspective.

I dunno.

[Blueraja]

OK. So I started with your Atlas design (THANKS!), and made changes that I would roll with. What do you guys think?

54kph
endo-steel
16 double heat sinks (2 in each arm, rest in engine) 36 Max Heat, 32 Heat Dissipation
max armor
LT: LRM-15, 1 LPL, 2 tonsLRM-15 Artemis Ammo, 2 tons Gauss Rifle Ammo, CASE
CT: 2x MPL
RT: Gauss Rifle, LPL

In My opinion, this gives slightly better damage output, has slightly more armor, and better heat dissipation, at the cost of less ammo.

[xRaeder]

Blueraja, on 17 July 2012 - 06:55 AM, said:

OK. So I started with your Atlas design (THANKS!), and made changes that I would roll with. What do you guys think?

54kph
endo-steel
16 double heat sinks (2 in each arm, rest in engine) 36 Max Heat, 32 Heat Dissipation
max armor
LT: LRM-15, 1 LPL, 2 tonsLRM-15 Artemis Ammo, 2 tons Gauss Rifle Ammo, CASE
CT: 2x MPL
RT: Gauss Rifle, LPL

In My opinion, this gives slightly better damage output, has slightly more armor, and better heat dissipation, at the cost of less ammo.

Well a couple things. If your Gauss Rifle in your RT gets a critical hit on it, it acts as an ammunition explosion according to TT rules. So it would be important to have CASE. Gauss ammo doesn't explode, but the gun will basically.

Your LRM15 also doesn't have a Artemis IV FCS with it. In Skunkwerks you need to go to the Equipment tab, and under Missile Guidance select the checkbox "Use Artemis IV." This adds a ton to any missile weapon you equip.

I would also suggest putting the Gauss ammo in the RT so that if you lose your LT you don't lose the ammo feeding the Gauss Rifle.

Even if those issues were to be resolved there is a downside to having 2x LPLs + 2x MPLs. That is the MPLs have a range of 6 and the LPLs have a range of 10. A difference of 4. Whereas the Medium Lasers in my build have a range of 9, only a difference of 1.

So while you can Alpha your MPLs and LPLs at a range of 6, if you want to engage the enemy at medium ranges with the LPLs you can only use those (plus the Gauss and LRM15 of course). The MPLs will more than likely be out of range.

With my build I can Alpha all my energy weapons at a range of 9 without worrying about heat. I'll probably be using the Gauss Rifle in those cases as well. So 1 heat (gauss rifle), 20 heat (2x LPLs), plus 6 heat (2x medium lasers). This Alpha will ruin anyone's day more than most builds as it works well at medium and close range.

While some competing builds will be hitting harder with PPCs/ERPPCs in the arms instead of LPLs, I will be recycling twice as fast for more damage over time.

Edited by xRaeder, 17 July 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Mikelius]

I love the Atlas, might just carbon copy it into my founders!

[Jakob Knight]

Mikelius, on 17 July 2012 - 07:39 AM, said:

I love the Atlas, might just carbon copy it into my founders!

Well, one of the drawbacks to the Atlas is that it has pretty limited options for customization, so people will likely be running one of only a half-dozen viable builds in the game. You can't upgrade the speed without a massive loss in payload, the armor is already at maximum (the extra points from another half-ton are hardly noticable), and the 1-for-1 hardpoint setup currently in makes mounting more than 6 weapons impossible, even with the tonnage you do have. I've tinkered with it a bit, and found my configuration isn't that different in overall performance from the Atlas here. I suspect that will be true of many people, as trying for much wider variation leads to unused tonnage (due to lack of crit space) or unused hardpoints (due to lack of tonnage). In short, the Atlas will have few surprises for an enemy and everyone will have a good idea how big a pounding one will give them when they encounter it.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 17 July 2012 - 08:24 AM.

[Blueraja]

Hmmm. I remembered that Guass Rifle ammo didnt explode, which is why i didnt use CASE in the right torso. Didnt remember that the weapon exploded...

I just missed the Artemis FCS, my bad

The reason range point is a VERY good point, and something I didn't consider as someone tried to close on me. This is probably why your design scored a higher BV than mine.

I never liked PPCs................

Thanks for the insight!

Edited by Blueraja, 17 July 2012 - 09:47 AM.

[light487]

Anyone have an Awesome builds to share with the reasoning for building it in that way? I look at the stock model with 3 PPCs and a single small laser and I wonder about that small laser taking up space.. I also wonder what could be done if a PPC was removed leaving 2 PPCs.. and what could be reconfigured to make this a lot more useful as an Assault mech..

[xRaeder]

light487, on 17 July 2012 - 03:13 PM, said:

Anyone have an Awesome builds to share with the reasoning for building it in that way? I look at the stock model with 3 PPCs and a single small laser and I wonder about that small laser taking up space.. I also wonder what could be done if a PPC was removed leaving 2 PPCs.. and what could be reconfigured to make this a lot more useful as an Assault mech..

Not a whole lot you can do with the stock Awesome AWS-8Q. The Mech, and all it's variants seem to all be geared towards long range duels.

There are some variants that replace one PPC or another with a LRM rack of some sort.

The most important question is whether or not you want to use the XL engine and suffer a little less survivability.

[Temu]

CASE doesn't protect in the event of a Gauss explosion, only ammo explosions.

[xRaeder]

Temu, on 17 July 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

CASE doesn't protect in the event of a Gauss explosion, only ammo explosions.

Incorrect, at least according to Sarna.net.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle

"Since the Gauss Rifle fires solid metal slugs, with neither propellant nor explosive, Gauss Rifle magazines are not susceptible to ammunition explosions. However, if the weapon itself is struck by enemy fire, the capacitors that power the electromagnets will release their stored energy, with an effect similar to an ammo explosion. (In game terms, a critical hit on a Gauss Rifle is equivalent to a 20-point ammo explosion.) Some 'Mechs employ CASE in the section containing the Gauss Rifle to protect internal components in the event the weapon explodes."

Edited by xRaeder, 17 July 2012 - 04:44 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Well, one of the drawbacks to the Atlas is that it has pretty limited options for customization, so people will likely be running one of only a half-dozen viable builds in the game

I don't even think there will be half a dozen viable builds. Probably just two.

[Graphite]

Temu, on 17 July 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

CASE doesn't protect in the event of a Gauss explosion, only ammo explosions.

Yes it does (work for gauss explosions).

Edited by Graphite, 17 July 2012 - 05:54 PM.