65 replies to this topic

[FrostCollar]

Sephlock, on 08 March 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

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

I don't give a poop about the timeline.

DO WANT!

It'd only be a small skip, and the Bushy's worth it.

[Kartr]

Mercworks, on 08 March 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

I think that you missed the point. It's not that I think the mechs are "bad" necessarily, it's that PGI keeps adding new mechs to overly represented tonnages and roles (Centurion, Hunchback AND Trebuchet) while completely ignoring some iconic mechs or mech slots (such as the Phoenix Hawk medium scout leader or the Wolverine jumping brawler). Also, the 55 ton and 75 ton classes are actually mathematically the "sweet spot" for mech design. The 75 tonner (mostly because of the 300 engine) gives the most payload for the 4/6 movement class (until you get to endo steel, which takes a crapton of crit slots). The 55 ton chassis has the most payload for a 5/8/5 jumper. The Phoenix Hawk is either the best frame for 6/9/6, or is tied with the 40 ton slot, but can carry more armor. There's nothing comparable in the current line up. My point was that PGI keeps adding more mechs into either niche roles (like the Cicada) or already overburdened slots (like the Trebuchet and the Jagermech).

How are the Hunchback, Centurion and Trebuchet the same roles? One is a slower close range brawler, the second is a jack of all trades and the third is a jumping long range support 'Mech. You're more than likely never ever going to get either the Wolverine or Phoenix Hawk so why even bring them up? Third if you want a jumping brawler get yourself a TBT-5N or 7M SRM6 and MLas or MPulse. A "command" 'Mech that jumps like the Phoenix Hawk get either of those Trebuchets put a LLas and a couple MLas on with a BAP and maybe some missiles.

As for the "sweet spot" someone already pointed it out, you get an extra half ton, big freaking deal. Sacrifice a half ton of armor or an extra ton of ammo, if you're customizing it doesn't really make a big deal.

Overburdened slots? You have the Catapult and Trebuchet (plus an Awesome variant) that act as missile support. Trebuchet is faster with less armor while the Catapult is slower with better armor, how is that an overburdened slot? (2 'Mechs different weight classes and different strengths/weaknesses) The JaegerMech? You have the Awesome and the JaegerMech (with a Catapult and Cataphract variants) that preform long range direct fire support. One is an Assault class that uses energy weapons and the other a heavy that uses ballistics. Again not a whole lot of burdening going on.

I get it you want your precious unseen 'Mechs and you're upset they aren't putting any in and/or you want to min/max to the max and are a little frustrated about that .5 tons you can't use. Get over it they are giving you what they can in a game that is still "beta" and under heavy development. And none of the 'Mechs they've given us are crappy or redundant.

der langsamere, on 08 March 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

when was Angel ECM (the one that stops Streaks) developed out of curiosity?
After the battle of Luthien? THREE YEARS ON?
Yeah... thats how

The ECM in MWO is neither Guardian nor Angel nor like either of them and that's the problem.

ECM Suite(from TW pp. 134):
Within its effect radius, an ECM suite has the following effects on the following systems. The ECM suite does not affect other scanning and targeting devices, such as TAG and targeting computers.

Active Probes (BAP): Active probes cannot penetrate the ECM's area of effect. The probing unit would notice that it is being jammed, however.

Artemis IV FCS: ECM blocks the effects of Artemis IV fire control systems. Artemis-equipped launchers may be fired as normal missiles through the ECM, but they loose the Cluster Hits Table bonus. In other words we should still be able to lock LRMs when someone has ECM but the lock on speed and increase in individual missile hits would go away and it'd be as if we weren't Artemis equipped

Narc Missile Beacon: Missiles equipped to hom in on an attached Narc pod lose the Cluster Hits Table bonus for that system if the pods themselves lie within an ECM "bubble." The Narc launcher itself [...] is not affected by ECM. If you Narc a guy and he is protected by ECM your missile boat can still lock and fire like normal, he just doesn't get the bonus the Narc normally gives.

Angel ECM Suite (TO pp. 279):
The Angel ECM Suite works like standard ECM, but can also block the [...](Jihad era equipment not applicable here)[...] and even negates the locking systems of Streak missiles. Streak missiles fired into or through a hostile Angel ECM bubble will not fire if the to-hit roll fails, but on a successful Streak launcher attack, the attacker must roll on the Cluster tables as though the launcher were a standard (non-Streak) model. Your Streak SRM2s now fire like regular SRM2s

MWO ECM from here:

David Bradley said:

When a Mech is hidden by a friendly ECM:

Enemy Mechs will have to come within 1/4 the normal distance (200 m instead of 800 m, by default) for hidden Mechs to show up on their battlegrid and HUD.

The Beagle Active Probe is of no use in extending this range.

It takes twice as long to achieve a missile lock against a hidden Mech.

Narc beacons will stick to hidden Mechs, but they won’t provide their normal bonuses until the Mech leaves the ECM’s range.

Artemis IV does not provide any bonuses against hidden Mechs.

When your Mech is disrupted by an enemy ECM:

You will not know where your teammates are, and they won’t know where you are, unless you have direct line of sight to each other.

You cannot share any targeting data with the rest of your team, and vice versa.

Your Beagle Active Probe ceases to function.

You cannot achieve any missile locks.

Your TAG laser can still fire but provides no bonuses.

Your battlegrid and targeting information will flicker.

Shorter detection range is not in the real rules and is THE problem especially since it is being applied to every 'Mech friendly to the ECM unit that are within range. Because units can't be detected until they are within 200m a whole team can "cloak" right up to or past their enemy. Combine that not being able to share targeting data (which only applies to C3 systems) and the fact friendly 'Mechs in enemy ECM are invisible, means that a team with ECM can sneak up on and destroy enemy 'Mechs without their team even knowing they are in danger much less assist.

The fact that it blocks all missile locks and not just Streak is another problem since in TT you target enemy 'Mechs and not hexes (unless you're using special munitions) and ECM doesn't stop that. In MWO targeting enemy 'Mechs with LRMs is represented by the locks we get and if we can't get them because of ECM then ECM is suddenly far far more powerful than it is in TT and more powerful than it was ever intended to be.

My point is that ECM isn't like Angel ECM at all, it is its own breed of super, abominably powerful ECM that is not representative of any ECM that exists in BattleTech.

[OneEyed Jack]

Xeren KelDar, on 08 March 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

I think this is overstated a lot of the time especially for the 50-55 tons gap. At 5/8/5 the difference in payload potential with max armor is half a ton. That's it. Factoring in the newer tech (XL, Endo, Ferro) you can expand that to about a 2 ton difference. Breaking it down even further, Endo-Steel and Ferro Fibrous do not increase the tonnage gap (keeping it at .5 ton difference) so the massive advantage most people associate with the 55 ton weight is....a small laser.

This. The best you're seeing is 2 tons gained, and only if using XL, and at speeds most people won't use XL in a medium mech. At higher speeds you will see this gain dropping drastically. At 6/9/5 (since MWO doesn't change max JJs by speed) you see this difference drop to 1/2 ton even using XL and the 50-tonner actually beating the 55-tonner by 3 full tons in payload if using a standard engine. Of course MWO offers a smoother transition than TT, but this still shows the trend. If you're going to pick nits, it must be allowed that the 55 does gain a few points of armor, assuming both at "efficient max."

As to the value of the 55-tonners, themselves, only the the hardpoint system saves them from being useless. The stock designs would be some of the worst mechs ever seen, for most of them. Most of them use combinations of small weapons to give themselves versatility in TT, but TT doesn't use firing groups and the minimum ranges are not hard limits, but long ranges are and weapons gain sharply-defined increases in difficulty of hitting at various ranges, with those ranges particular to each weapon. Also, missiles don't require achieving a lock, except Streaks, which obtain lock instantly with a successful dice roll. Basically, it changes the individual effectiveness of weapons at varying ranges, making longer-ranged weapons better at hitting even with the max range of shorter-ranged weapons. However, selecting any combination of weapons to fire is somewhat simpler than in MWO, since you can simply select from any available weapons.

The point being that a mech that may work fine under the more stratified TT rules suffers from the differences. AC5/LRM5/SRM2/ML, the loadout of the basic Shadow Hawk (2H) would be ****-poor in MWO. LRM5 is almost useless, requiring a lock and doing basically nothing vs anyone with AMS, and not much without it. SRM2 is really only useful for stacking when more than one hardpoint is available in place of a single 4-or 6-pack for slightly faster cycle time (but you don't have tonnage for bigger launchers or want Streak). AC5 is OK, but not really good. ML is one of the best weapons in the game, but a single one is not terribly effective. None of them really combine into decent fire groups, and even all of them combined don't make a decent alpha, even if you could manage to land them all in the 90m sweet spot in which they can all hit.

Sure hardpoints will let you improve the loadout, but then you're not really piloting that "special" mech anymore, are you? Then it becomes more akin to playing TT with home-made designs using real models as proxies.

As to the "re-seen" mechs, the X-TRO "Project Phoenix" designs are just updated variants. The mechs themselves were never removed from canon, so there's no canon reason not to use redesigned versions at this point in the timeline. Likewise, I seriously doubt that Catalyst or WizKids is withholding rights on these mechs in particular, considering the free marketing involved. I'd say that if PGI/IGP declines to include them, it would be for totally in-house reasons.

[Strum Wealh]

The Dervish is currently in production (by the Federated Suns), has respectable speed for a Medium (86.4 kph), is at the heaviest (and as yet unrepresented) weight-bracket for the Medium class (55 tons), is jump-capable, and does have three variants that could/should be available (three being the minimum needed to unlock the Elite pilot efficiencies):

• DV-6M (basic variant)
  
• DV-6Md (non-Royal Star League era variant that uses LosTech and upgrades the LRM-10s to LRM-15s (with 3 tons of ammo); all required LosTech - XL Engine and CASE - has been rediscovered)
  
• DV-7D (available in 3047; uses Endo Steel internal structure, Ferro Fibrous armor, CASE, and DHS; upgrades the SRM-2s to Streak SRM-2s (with one ton of ammo))

The main point against the Dervish is that all of the variants are fairly homogeneous - missile launchers in both arms and both side-torso locations, and an additional energy weapon in each arm.

Hypothetically, PGI could differentiate them by:

• DV-6M: add one additional energy hardpoint to each side-arm (for a total of two energy hardpoints in each arm, one missile hardpoint in each arm, and one missile hardpoint in each side-torso)
  
• DV-6Md: add one additional missile hardpoint to each side-torso (for a total of one energy hardpoint in each arm, one missile hardpoint in each arm, and two missile hardpoints in each side-torso)
  
• DV-7D: add one additional missile hardpoint to each arm (for a total of one energy hardpoint in each arm, two missile hardpoints in each arm, and one missile hardpoint in each side-torso)

As described, each Dervish variant would have a total of 8 hardpoints (which may be a minor ptoblem, considering that many other Mediums and most Heavies only have 6 hardpoints), with one (DV-6M) being more energy-heavy, one (DV-6Md) focusing on missiles mounted in the slower-tracking but better-armored torso, and one (DV-7D) focusing on missiles mounted in the faster-tracking but more-vulnerable arms.
Differences in the number of missile ports/holes (two in each arm, 10-15 in each side-torso) would also come into play.

-----

The Kintaro is also in production (with the primary production facility being on Mars), also has respectable speed for a Medium (86.4 kph), is also at the heaviest (and as yet unrepresented) weight-bracket for the Medium class (55 tons), but is NOT jump-capable. It also has three variants that could/should be available:

• KTO-19 (basic variant)
  
• KTO-18 (tech-downgrade Succession Wars variant; replaces FF armor with standard armor, replaces Narc launcher (mounted in CT) with another SRM-6 launcher (mounted in CT))
  
• KTO-20 (recovered LosTech variant; equipped with FF armor and DHS, replaces Narc launcher with a Large Laser (mounted in CT))

One of the main issues against it is the high degree of similarity (in terms of necessary location and number of minimum hardpoints) between the KTO-19 and the KTO-18.

This could be addressed, hypothetically, by giving each Kintaro variant an additional hardpoint (for a total of 7 hardpoints per variant) - an extra energy hardpoint in the CT of the KTO-20 (for a total of two in that location), an extra missile hardpoint in the CT of the KTO-18 (for a total of two in that location), and an extra energy hardpoint in the KTO-19's right arm (for a total of two in that location).

-----

The Banshee is effectively the only viable choice for the 95-ton slot at this point in the timeline - it's the only one with at least three timeline-appropriate variants (where at least three are needed to be able to unlock the Elite pilot efficiencies).
And several of those variants come stock with a 380-rating engine, making the Banshee exceptionally fast for its mass.

[Xeren KelDar]

OneEyed Jack, on 08 March 2013 - 05:01 PM, said:

This. The best you're seeing is 2 tons gained, and only if using XL, and at speeds most people won't use XL in a medium mech. At higher speeds you will see this gain dropping drastically. At 6/9/5 (since MWO doesn't change max JJs by speed) you see this difference drop to 1/2 ton even using XL and the 50-tonner actually beating the 55-tonner by 3 full tons in payload if using a standard engine. Of course MWO offers a smoother transition than TT, but this still shows the trend. If you're going to pick nits, it must be allowed that the 55 does gain a few points of armor, assuming both at "efficient max."

Very true, the 55 tonner will have more armor since it can hold one ton more so that's an extra 16 in TT or 32 in MWO. The 55 tonner definitely has some advantages, but its not the huge gap people seem to think it is. While I would definitely like to see more diversity in mechs because more mechs the 50 ton mechs fill the niche very nicely and the omission of the 55 ton mechs isnt this great travesty its made out to be. Your example highlighting the differences as it appears in MWO supports that and even shows an advantage to the 50 tonners at a certain point. I think they got a good stable with the Hunchback, Trebuchet, and Centurion allowing medium pilots to fill just about any role the want with those three chassis.

[Lucy Cameron]

Looks like I have a long wait ahead for a Thanatos.

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