23 replies to this topic

[BodakOfSseth]

Right - so I was talking with a friend of mine and I realized I have this... disdain... for certain weapons that has carried over from my (meager) tabletop experiences...

For example, the LBX AC/10.
As I recall, it was a fairly useless shotgun that just spread the damage around. Good in early game to reduce armor overall, but fairly lame if you were focus firing.

He tells me that now, here it causes increased criticals when shooting at exposed internal structure... which could be pretty great late in a match.

So then one thing led to another, and I ended up this morning wondering:
Is it possible to purchase two of the same variants of a chassis? e.g. buy theSpider SDR-5k twice (I know, I know, waste of cash when you can just reequip a mech)
If you do purchase it twice, and load it out for two completely different roles with completely different equipment, is there a way to differentiate between the two beyond looking at key loadout items?
I see a Nickname for the mechs in the Mech bay - I ASSUME that's one way to do it - but is that nickname transmitted to other players in game?

Thanks as always, to those who answer.

[Unnatural Growth]

You can purchase as many copies of a specific variant as you wish. I've read posts by several players that have done this. Yes you can give each variant a different mech name. No, no one in game can see your mech's name.

Now as to why or why not the LB10X cannon is trash, and why any sane person would by a second Spider K, I'll leave that up to others to debate.

[Whiskey Dharma]

I use two LBX on my MAD-3R, it works nicely.

[BodakOfSseth]

Oh I'm sure the LBX10 is good these days. Extra crits on internal structure sounds nice. That's what lead me to the idea of getting a duplicate of one of my variants and reload it for 2x LBX with another weapon to strip armor first

[Lukoi Banacek]

Increased chances of crit are very low, even with the LBX and you are using alot of tonnage for that very minor opportunity to the detriment of pinpoint/focused damage from regular AC's.

LBX will honestly become a thing when ammo switching becomes a capability of that system.

Don't get me wrong, LBX builds can be fun, but they aren't optimal and it could very easily argued they aren't even "good," but that's an opinion not a fact.

[Hunka Junk]

Personally, I'd get a pregnancy test.

[Xaat Xuun]

I think the mech's nickname can be seen, but not sure,
but,
you could also just have them in different colors, there are 4 basic colors that can be bought with C-bills, use the filter to find them quicker, then clicking each

[Koniving]

ScottAleric, on 25 September 2016 - 07:27 AM, said:

Right - so I was talking with a friend of mine and I realized I have this... disdain... for certain weapons that has carried over from my (meager) tabletop experiences...

For example, the LBX AC/10.
As I recall, it was a fairly useless shotgun that just spread the damage around. Good in early game to reduce armor overall, but fairly lame if you were focus firing.

He tells me that now, here it causes increased criticals when shooting at exposed internal structure... which could be pretty great late in a match.

Are we talking basic tabletop, advanced tabletop (like through armor crits), or Megamek (which can handle 'all the (compatible) rules' at the same time)?

LB-10x was perhaps one of the most overpowered weapons you could have for the IS, so much so that you can pit four "Clan Buster" King Crabs (sporting twin LB-10X each instead of twin AC/20s) up against triple their battle value in Clan tech... and freaking mop the floor with them provided the through-armor crits rule is enabled. In fact I found it so ungodly unfair (as the Clan pilots facing these four computer-player controlled King Crabs) that I spent most of my time trying to get mechs to hobble around on one foot as each individual shot would take away up to 6 ER MLs or double to triple crit engines wiping them out. The sad thing is most of their crits would miss and hit nothing (no rolling crits enabled like MWO has; though MWO lacks through armor crits unless the damage removes the armor at the same time and still has some damage left; then all of it that hit at that moment can crit at once).

So it has always caused increased crits, since every hit has a chance of doing up to 3 crits in both BT and MWO, and an LB-10x would do up to 10 hits... talk about some shiskabob.
There's a reason LB-10x ammo is three times more expensive than AC/10 ammo in Battletech campaigns. It's the stuff of legend. But only if you're playing at least level 2 rules; basic tabletop won't really give you much glory there.

Consider teaming it up with an AC/5 in MWO if possible. The result is quite good.

Some LBX play.

Spoiler

Rawr.

I should note most of these vids are during when "LBX" was one of the four worst weapons in MWO...
...To people who clearly don't know their ****.


And LBX-20 for fun.
Clan LBX 10 and 20.

Now, multiple spiders? Yep; been there, done that. Skill tree it's pointless; but for ease of loadouts or faction play it's a good idea.
LBX spider, by chance? You can do it. Better off using an Urbanmech for the job though due to quirk nonsense and simply looking better.

UAC/5's a fun setup too. Bit easier to pull off.

Edited by Koniving, 25 September 2016 - 04:03 PM.

[Leone]

Lbxs were also a good work around for the LAM issue. Or other aerospace assets, due to the bonus against aerial targets.

In MWO I just like walking around with my mech grade double barreled shotgun.

~Leone.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

I still remember MW4, where LBX was the go-to brawling weapon, and a pair of 20s or a trio of 10s could dump an assault 'Mech to the ground just from sheer impact force. Good times...

MWO's LB-10X is okay in a few applications where a standard AC10 wouldn't fit. You can cram two IS LB-10X in a side torso, which is useful for certain heavy and assault builds, and... no, that's pretty much it. In pretty much every other build, another AC would serve you better. The additional range over AC10 is pointless because of scatter, and the bonus crits don't have good enough rolls to be worthwhile most of the time. Some 'Mechs have good LB-10X quirks, but even with those it is barely in the same league as the alternatives.

C-LB-20X is reasonably good, but that's mostly because it's the only AC20 with no ghost heat, so you can run a double-barrel boomstick like a boss and not have to worry about cooking yourself. Even then, there are only a handful of 'Mechs that can even do that (six total, but only three that aren't troll builds) because of locked slots and equipment on most of the ballistic-heavy Omnis.

That said, the LB-10X and LB-20X hands-down make the most satisfying kabooms of any ballistic weapons in the game. Most of the other ballistics sound like guns, but LB10 and LB20 sound like cannons. Sometimes the hit in performance is totally worth the utter glee with which you can cruise around the battlefield like it's Evil Dead: Mechwarrior Edition and just go apeshit on bad guys with your double-barreled boomstick. And then there are the handful of very special 'Mechs that can mount four... but you won't see a lot of that sort of thing, and for good reason. 99.9% of the time, another AC would be more useful.

[knight-of-ni]

Yes, I have purchased two of the same variant. In my case it was for my drop deck.
If you want to tell them apart, just give them different paint.

I typically do not use the LBX10 unless the mech is quirked for it, but if it has the quirks then I use it like there is no tomorrow.
The LB10X has an increased chance to crit so, in this game, it is more advantageous to use this weapon after the enemy mech's armor is already gone.

[Unnatural Growth]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 25 September 2016 - 07:32 PM, said:

I still remember MW4, where LBX was the go-to brawling weapon, and a pair of 20s or a trio of 10s could dump an assault 'Mech to the ground just from sheer impact force. Good times...

MWO's LB-10X is okay in a few applications where a standard AC10 wouldn't fit. You can cram two IS LB-10X in a side torso, which is useful for certain heavy and assault builds, and... no, that's pretty much it. In pretty much every other build, another AC would serve you better. The additional range over AC10 is pointless because of scatter, and the bonus crits don't have good enough rolls to be worthwhile most of the time. Some 'Mechs have good LB-10X quirks, but even with those it is barely in the same league as the alternatives.

C-LB-20X is reasonably good, but that's mostly because it's the only AC20 with no ghost heat, so you can run a double-barrel boomstick like a boss and not have to worry about cooking yourself. Even then, there are only a handful of 'Mechs that can even do that (six total, but only three that aren't troll builds) because of locked slots and equipment on most of the ballistic-heavy Omnis.

That said, the LB-10X and LB-20X hands-down make the most satisfying kabooms of any ballistic weapons in the game. Most of the other ballistics sound like guns, but LB10 and LB20 sound like cannons. Sometimes the hit in performance is totally worth the utter glee with which you can cruise around the battlefield like it's Evil Dead: Mechwarrior Edition and just go apeshit on bad guys with your double-barreled boomstick. And then there are the handful of very special 'Mechs that can mount four... but you won't see a lot of that sort of thing, and for good reason. 99.9% of the time, another AC would be more useful.

The guns used to all sound better, before PGI did an audio "pass" on them. Now the AC 5 sounds too tinny, but the UAC 5 and AC 20 still sound good. The AC 10 is so-so. Maybe someone *cough, cough.... Koniving.... cough, cough...* can post some vids of his dakka builds from before the audio changes.

Sweet, sweet dakka sounds!

[JC Daxion]

well LBX's are better than they used to be..

They can save a bit of weight on mechs that don't have much room

extra crit is nice, but not something to rely on

The best part of them is they are great to use on hard to hit lights..


In the new ED system, they also use lower amounts of energy, so that could help with some builds.


Certainly not the best weapon, but no reason not to play around with it, especially in PUGLANDIA..

[SnagaDance]

Got to chime in with Koniving and Leone and declare that the LBX10 is actually a good weapon in tabletop, even using less expanded rulesets.

It weighs 1 ton less than the AC10 and also takes up 1 less crit space. It may have a slightly worse long range (18 vs 20) than the AC10 but it doesn't have a minimum range and its weapon brackets are favorable compared to the AC10.

Even on mechs sporting only a single ton of ammo you could always just choose to use regular ammo instead of cluster rounds.
At 2 tons of ammo or more you could mix up your ammo load and just fire the munition type you needed. Need to punch holes through armor? Regular rounds it is. Want to exploit holes in armor by doing more hits and thus forcing more crit roles? Load up the cluster rounds!

There was the already stated benefit versus flyers but the cluster rounds were also good against vehicles as any hit against a vehicle (even those striking armor), means a crit roll.

I'm not really seeing the downsides of the weapon in TT. Unless you play without the full rules of the weapon itself (the ability to choose the type of ammo before the battle).

[BodakOfSseth]

Koniving, on 25 September 2016 - 03:38 PM, said:

...So it has always caused increased crits, since every hit has a chance of doing up to 3 crits in both BT and MWO, and an LB-10x would do up to 10 hits... talk about some shiskabob.
...Consider teaming it up with an AC/5 in MWO if possible. The result is quite good.
...I should note most of these vids are during when "LBX" was one of the four worst weapons in MWO...To people who clearly don't know their ****.

Dense info. Thank you. Clearly you are a fan, and my impression may be mistaken. I'm fine with that. That said, the poor Cataphract CTF-3D (which is the mech I'm asking for) is not really the one to do it on, as you end up wasting the UAC jamming quirk. I'll keep an eye out for something that it would make sense to stack a couple LBX10's on down the road, and other weapons to couple it with, because scatter bothers me, and I'd want to save the ammo for blasting at exposed structure - as that's when it seems to have the most effect.

Koniving, on 25 September 2016 - 03:38 PM, said:

Now, multiple spiders? Yep; been there, done that. Skill tree it's pointless; but for ease of loadouts or faction play it's a good idea.
LBX spider, by chance? You can do it. Better off using an Urbanmech for the job though due to quirk nonsense and simply looking better.
UAC/5's a fun setup too. Bit easier to pull off.

Food for thought. My question was about multiple chassis is in general, and I was using a spider as an example. Though I'm not quite sure I understand - "Skill tree it's pointless" - Is that to say, if I pick up 3 spiders and two are the same variant, I can't do that skill specialization thing I hear so much about? i.e.: To achieve this skill specialization thing I have to have 3 different variants?

That said, If'n I'm going to do any ridiculous heavy weapons on an ultralight mech, I'll probably fake a Hollander, because... HOLLANDER. I'd just need to find a chassis in the right weight that could support the hardpoints and add an ECM.
...And a cloaking field.
...And chamelonic armor.
...And Predator sound effects.

...just sayin'.

[JC Daxion]

ScottAleric, on 27 September 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

Dense info.

Yes,,, Please forum moderates change Kon's title to this! Welcoming committee just does not fit..

[Koniving]

ScottAleric, on 27 September 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

Food for thought. My question was about multiple chassis is in general, and I was using a spider as an example. Though I'm not quite sure I understand - "Skill tree it's pointless" - Is that to say, if I pick up 3 spiders and two are the same variant, I can't do that skill specialization thing I hear so much about? i.e.: To achieve this skill specialization thing I have to have 3 different variants?

To get the "Elite" section of the skill tree unlocked, you need three unique variants of a chassis.

Also:
Hollander.

Build.


And my "Predator" with Purple blood instead of neon green.

[Koniving]

Also I agree on the CTF-3D, though an LBX + UAC/5 might work neatly.
I generally prefer to have my LBX and AC/5 combination in the same body part, though, like an arm. While it's nowhere near as useful in MWO as it is in tabletop (Megamek with all the rules; I love doing big campaigns), the LBX helps me hunt down weak spots in enemy armor to focus on.

Victors are especially a good place to try it out. Maulers as well. It's hard to stack them in the same place but Jagers can produce some good results as well.

The way everything is "quirk" run, I find it best if the quirk is mostly or entirely "ballistic" and not specific. Then it covers the LBX too guaranteed.

Edited by Koniving, 27 September 2016 - 07:50 PM.

[762 NATO]

I run the bejeezus out of LB10s. Cent 9-D is one of my most played mechs. May even have a macro set up for when it wins a solo brawl... But yeah, multiple mechs of the same variant only makes sense for FW and when you don't feel like switching everything around, like in a group that drops nonstop with less than 30 seconds between.

Cheers!

[Metus regem]

In TT, the LB series were / are borderline OP, the ability to use either cluster shot or solid shot made them extremely versatile, not to mention that they were lighter, smaller and ran cooler than their AC counterpart. As to LB's being a "mech shot-gun" or a "Flak-cannon" is debatable, and often one that gets heated, as it is described as both in different sources. I'm of the camp that thinks it should launch a canister that bursts into sub-munitions at around 50-100m from the target, this would actually make them useful at their max range. For MWO, that could look like them having a reduced spread on a target that is locked on.

As it stands in MWO, you are often better off taking an AC/10 or cUAC/10 (if Clan), as they have a better chance at actually destroying equipment than the cluster shot out of a LB-10x... MWO uses some weird liberal use of the rules from TT...