27 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

Yep. Comparing an old-tech Dragon to a Clan War-era Bushwacker? They're two seperate generations of tech- the first is a product of the low-tech Succession Wars, the second the first generation of the post-Clan innovations.

And the -1G, the well-named Grand Dragon is a respectable calvary 'Mech, one of the first true heavy cav designs in the timeline. The PPC/LRM combination packed respectable firepower for it's weight, and it towed enough armor and speed to keep itself firing for quite some time. People call the Dragon a brawler, but honestly it's always played the long game well. The lasers are more to keep enemies honest than anything else.

A -good- Dragon pilot may never even fire the lasers if he's cunning enough on the move. Those things pack obscene levels of ammo per weapon by most standards and forget upping the AC size. Try the very much canon -1C variant. Adds three tons of armor and turns the AC into a /2 for harassment fire...and at long ranges, that thing with all that armor is frustrating to kill, even if it doesn't pack a huge punch. You'll be wandering around and *bink bink bink* a -1C just rattled your back armor with an LRM salvo and a few rounds from it's plinker rifle, or pushed a damaged section over to the red...and then just zipped away.

Edited by wanderer, 29 May 2012 - 04:56 PM.

[Insidious Johnson]

uh.. yeah. Best thing about Dragons is they can use shouts like FUS RO DAH... oh wait, nvm. Yup... I'm gonna stand by that statement.

[Gigaton]

Xenois Shalashaska, on 29 May 2012 - 05:41 AM, said:

The second flaw with that mech is that "centre torso" is a massive buldge that protrudes out by like 20kilometres & most likey will be ripped to shredd by all ballistic weaponary.

I suspect that the sides of the "bulge" will not be center torso, but left and right torso respectively. Only the middle of the bulge should really be center torso, to prevent gimping the 'mech due to it's geometry too much (of course, such things can also be balanced to a degree by making the 'mech turn and torso twist well, or by giving it more module slots).

Even if it doesn't provide people with easy way to core the 'mech such jutting torso will still make leading easier and will make it more difficult to use arms to shield LT/RT when compared to 'mechs like Centurion.

Madddog, on 29 May 2012 - 08:40 AM, said:

Problem with the Dragon is that it sucks. period. under gunned for a heavy, a bushwacker has double the fire power.

As the others said, try fitting endo, XL and ferro on the Dragon first. One of my Dragon builds has 2xLLAS, GR and MPLAS, and more armour than stock Bushie to boot. One has GR and ERPPC and goes 97km/h. In 3025, you need to sacrifice quite a bit to have 86km/h heavy. 3025 55 ton meds with speed of 86km/h aren't exactly paragons of raw firepower either (they typically have less than Jenner).

Edited by Gigaton, 29 May 2012 - 06:08 PM.

[wanderer]

Gigaton, on 29 May 2012 - 06:02 PM, said:

As the others said, try fitting endo, XL and ferro on the Dragon first. One of my Dragon builds has 2xLLAS, GR and MPLAS, and more armour than stock Bushie to boot. One has GR and ERPPC and goes 97km/h. In 3025, you need to sacrifice quite a bit to have 86km/h heavy. 3025 55 ton meds with speed of 86km/h aren't exactly paragons of raw firepower either (they typically have less than Jenner).

Dragons are actually 60 tonners, and they pretty much push the envelope- 300 rated engines are about where weight gets really silly, though you can push a little further into the 65-ton range at times. Of course, once XL engines come along, the era of heavy designs with Dragon levels of speed or higher (the later Dragons actually move as fast as the MWO Commando!) isn't outrageous at all.

Although the real "heavy-fast" champ of 3025 has to go to the Scorpion, which manages to hit light 'Mech speeds and still something resembling firepower and armor- barely -for a medium. The Charger of course is the all-speed-whats-firepower option in the assaults.

[Tandris]

I can't help but feel that the Dragon's role is as a medium/light mech scout killer. With speeds to match the scout mechs and firepower to smash them to pieces.
It zips in, targets the scouts and rips them up and then speeds away again. Having it stand toe to toe with a real brawler mech isn't going to get you too far. Just my 2 cents.

[Raven Starbinder]

I personally prefer the dragon, unless you can strip away enough tonnage in the Catapult to get 2 ppc in each torso. Yet still have enough armor for and extended fight on top of enough heat sinks.

Edited by Raven Starbinder, 30 May 2012 - 11:03 AM.

[Goldhawk]

Xenois Shalashaska, on 29 May 2012 - 05:41 AM, said:

G-day people of mechwarrior online forum sanctuary of die hard prophets & believers.

Just analysing the dragon mech & its seems like a go getter mech with decent speed/ armour and weapons.

The obvious down fall of this mech is its design shape. The first i noticed is a massive right arm with its main armament of a ac5 which people will probly upgrade to 2x ac10 or ac20 for bigger punch & replace the lrm10 with srm 6 of such. If that arm is blowm off i expect that more than half its fighting efficiency dropped.

"LIKE BOOM YOU AINT KILLIN NOTHING QUICK"

The second flaw with that mech is that "centre torso" is a massive buldge that protrudes out by like 20kilometres & most likey will be ripped to shredd by all ballistic weaponary.

Then if you think about the catapult as the second heavy in the line up. It has the same fate with the exception that the left torso & right torso protrude just as the centre torso. The survivability is more likely to the catapult excusing the part where the arms are its weapons & are even more easily blown apart.

So just as the matrix, the problem is choice. You have already made the choice but do you understand why. Its the purpose that binds us, creates us, purpose that drives us. Its the purpose that controls us.

How dare you make fun of Chunky! Yes, he has a potbelly, but he's obviously trying to get in shape. See how fast he runs.... 97 kph!
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Grand_Dragon

Well, here's a twist. If I can fit the PPC on the other arm, and you blow off my right arm, expect to be VERY surprised.

Ha HA! You have no primary.... *PPC Crackle* Ahhhhh!

[wanderer]

Raven Starbinder, on 30 May 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

I personally prefer the dragon, unless you can strip away enough tonnage in the Catapult to get 2 ppc in each torso. Yet still have enough armor for and extended fight on top of enough heat sinks.

Let's put it to you this way.

The Awesome is considered awesome because it can fit -three- PPC's efficiently. At assault weight.

There's a lovely dual-PPC Catapult though, the -K2. That's K for Kurita, even! Those'll be arm mounts, however. Right now, none of the current heavy 'Mechs have a hardpoint configuration that would fit a pair of PPC's in their torso.

Four PPC's is a feat you won't see done till the later Awesome-9Q comes around, as no heavy has the space to pack that much firepower and even remotely enough cooling to keep up with it.