30 replies to this topic

[Mistwolf]

So I've been looking at the screenshots and I'm thinking that all the mechs will start with 3025 tech.
While the mech lab does show the Gauss Rifle, all the mechs we see are equipped with older tech only. This would mean that the Cataphract will likely be the CTF-1X variant, and the Raven will be the RVN-2X (which also explains the Davion logo on it). The only mech that makes me question this is the concept art of the Cicada which has the Ultra Autocannon, however this may just be the concept art..
I'm thinking that we will be starting with a base tech mech and advanced equipment will become available through purchase.

[Roland]

Well, the timeline for the game is 3049, I believe. So, a lot of lostech has started showing up in the IS again, if I remember my timeline correctly.

[Frisk]

I expect the "clan invasion" to happen at the expected date and time.

Quote

The Clan Invasion (known to the Clans as Operation Revival) refers to the massive Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere, commencing with the arrival of Clans Jade Falcon, Wolf, Ghost Bear, and Smoke Jaguar in the near, coreward Periphery (The Rift and The Draconian Drift) in August, 3049. The Clan Invasion would continue for two and one-half years, and increase in scope to include three more Invading Clans, but would end with the the Battle of Tukayyid in June, 3052.

[Evinthal]

There will be multiple variants of each mech, not just one variant for each. The Hunchback has been said to have the HBK-4G and the HBK-4P "Swayback" variant, and I think I have even caught mention of the dual SRM-6 launcher HBK-4SP variant some where. The Catapult so far has been confirmed to have the CPT-C1 and the CPT-K2 variants. As for the Cataphract the story announcing it as one of the in game 'mechs mentions the CTF-3D variant while the artwork looks like it is depicting the CTF-1X variant.

So I think we will get a mixed bag of sorts with tech eras.

[Kartr]

We are most likely getting every variant for every 'Mech released that existed before or by 3049. The devs have said what equipment is going to be in the game for sure and it includes the UAC/5 LB/10X, ERLLas and many of the other LosTech type technologies. See this post.

Edited by Kartr, 31 May 2012 - 06:59 PM.

[Steel Raven]

3025 weapons was still the most common tech during the Clan invasion, one of the reason why the Clans weaponry freaked out grunts so much. Many read about rediscovered Pulse Lasers but didn't see them till they had Clan Pulse Lasers shooting them in the face.

[Targun Darklighter]

only about 25% of the total IS mech force is SL grade weapons. the mean 75% are 3025 tech

[Sassori]

3025 tech actually doesn't suck. The most powerful advantages of lostech come in two flavors: XL Engines for drastic amounts of tonnage and double heat sinks for drastically less heat issues.

Everything else is pure gravy. You /can/ however, have perfectly good mechs using all 3025 tech. None of the mechs they've picked so far flat out suck even in 3025 versions. Sure they've got strengths and weaknesses but, they don't suck.

Lets take a modified hunchback for example: Strop the AC-20 out, swap mediums for large lasers in the arms, add some heat sinks to get some better heat management, get some additional heat sinks in there and you end up with a pretty nice mech:

BattleMech Technical Readout

Type/Model: Untitled 'Mech
Tech: Inner Sphere / 3025
Config: Biped BattleMech
Rules: Level 1, Standard design

Mass: 50 tons
Chassis: Standard
Power Plant: 250 Magna Fusion
Walking Speed: 54.0 km/h
Maximum Speed: 86.4 km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor Type: Standard
Armament:
2 Large Lasers
2 Medium Lasers


--------------------------------------------------------
Type/Model: Untitled 'Mech
Mass: 50 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass
Int. Struct.: 83 pts Standard 0 5.00
Engine: 250 Fusion 6 12.50
Walking MP: 5
Running MP: 8
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: 16 Single 6 6.00
(Heat Sink Loc: 1 RT, 1 CT, 2 LL, 2 RL)
Gyro: 4 3.00
Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 5 3.00
Actuators: L: Sh+UA+LA+H R: Sh+UA+LA+H 16 .00
Armor Factor: 136 pts Standard 0 8.50

Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head: 3 9
Center Torso: 16 21
Center Torso (Rear): 4
L/R Side Torso: 12 16/16
L/R Side Torso (Rear): 3/3
L/R Arm: 8 15/15
L/R Leg: 12 17/17

Weapons and Equipment Loc Heat Ammo Crits Mass
--------------------------------------------------------
1 Large Laser RA 8 2 5.00
1 Large Laser LA 8 2 5.00
1 Medium Laser CT 3 1 1.00
1 Medium Laser HD 3 1 1.00

Not the best but, holds it own, has good mobility, good sustainable firepower at short to medium range and enough armor to not buckle instantly. More importantly it's sturdier than it looks. Without having an XL engine it can absorb tremendous damage to it's torso's. Sure might lose the arm and the large laser on it, but it's not a death sentence like with an inner sphere XL engine.
Something to think about.

[Kartr]

I am looking forward to the Clans arriving just so we can have the joy of building capable and durable 'Mechs to fight them. Plus the sheer challenge of taking on Clans when we're just using IS tech is going to be very fun.

[Kenyon Burguess]

Garth Erlam, on 08 May 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

QUESTION: Can you give us a list of weapons and equipment you expect at launch? Or at least what you KNOW will make it as of today? -Sprouticus

ANSWER: The weapon list is every Inner Sphere weapon available in the time frame, and they should all be in for launch. The following is a list of the weapons and equipment available at the time.
Weapons
Ballistic:
AC/2, AC/5, AC/10, AC/20
LB 10-X AC
Ultra AC/5
Gauss Rifle
Machine Gun

Energy:
Flamer
Small Laser, Medium Laser, Large Laser
ER Large Laser
Small Pulse Laser, Medium Pulse Laser, Large Pulse Laser
PPC
ER PPC

Missile Weapons:
LRM 5, LRM 10, LRM 15, LRM 20
SRM 2, SRM 4, SRM 6
Streak SRM 2

Equipment:
Standard and Endo-Steel Internal Structures
Standard and XL Fusion Engines
Jump Jets
Standard and Double Heat Sinks
Standard and Ferro-Fibrous Armour
CASE

Obviously not all of this will be stock, and some things will be harder to get than others. The equipment list is everything that I can guarantee for launch, though we’re likely to also have most, if not all, of the following ready to go:

Artemis IV
Anti-Missile System
Active Probe
ECM Suite
Narc Beacon
TAG

Hope you guys enjoyed this, and we'll run another one of these soon!

also the date is 3049 amt in MWO so here: http://www.sarna.net...l_Readout:_3050

Edited by Geist Null, 31 May 2012 - 08:16 PM.

[Adrienne Vorton]

well i think thats the point in playing multiplayer-online games, ain´t it? starting with basics and earn better stuff by playing the game...so my guess (and what i would like to be true) is that some rediscovered tech is already floating into the IS, but all we mechwarriors have to get our hands on it before we can actually use it on the fields

[Adridos]

Mistwolf, on 31 May 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

...and the Raven will be the RVN-2X (which also explains the Davion logo on it).

Raven-2X (another crappy Davion variant ) has dumped the EW equipment for a large laser (on a Raven, those Davions are dumb). The picture we saw had normal equipment of 2 MLs, SRM and NARC, so it is one of the captured Ravens before refitting to Davion "standards" (As crappy as virtually possible™).

Edited by Adridos, 02 June 2012 - 02:45 AM.

[Hayden]

Christopher Dayson, on 31 May 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

3025 tech actually doesn't suck. The most powerful advantages of lostech come in two flavors: XL Engines for drastic amounts of tonnage and double heat sinks for drastically less heat issues.

Double heat sinks were ALWAYS my biggest pet peeve in TT. They just unbalanced so much. XL engines atleast had the disadvantage of being more fragile, but double heat sinks never had any kind of disadvantage... I don't know if they'll do anything to address that in this game, but I wouldn't be opposed to them poking around with it.

[LordDeathStrike]

my atlas will bristle with clan weapons, ill pry them from your cold dead hands if i have too, but i will have clan weapons! mainly a clan G rifle, clan uac 20, some clan large and med er lasers. dont see any reason to use clan lrms, IS ones are better with artemis 4, but some clan streak 6s would be nice for the brawler build.

the nice part about clan mechs, their heads are poorly positioned for the most part, since clanners consider it against honor to kill the pilot and take his stuff in tact. makes life as an atlas driver with a G rifle large lasers and a 7x zoom mod good.

timber wolf faceing side = 33% head shot surface
dire wolf faceing side = 25% head shot surface
vulture = 25% head shot surface
just to name a few of the ones we will see swarming at us.

the thor is kind of a pain, its almost got IS profile on its off set head, but i bet i can still get a bead on it before he sees me.

by comparison, my atlas, has a very small 5% of its frontal surface area that can count as a headshot, namely the one eye hole in the skull mask, the rest counts as a CT hit!

Edited by LordDeathStrike, 02 June 2012 - 03:14 AM.

[Aethon]

Hayden, on 02 June 2012 - 02:58 AM, said:

Double heat sinks were ALWAYS my biggest pet peeve in TT. They just unbalanced so much. XL engines atleast had the disadvantage of being more fragile, but double heat sinks never had any kind of disadvantage... I don't know if they'll do anything to address that in this game, but I wouldn't be opposed to them poking around with it.

Inner Sphere DHS actually do have a disadvantage: 3-slot critical size. You can't mount them in the legs or CT, and quite often cannot even mount them in the L/R torso, due to their sheer size. Sometimes, as with an energy-heavy design, you actually end up with the tonnage, but not the space, and end up needing those old-school heatsinks. It's most common with slower engines (even more with slower XL engines); It's admittedly rare, though.

Edited by Aethon, 02 June 2012 - 03:33 AM.

[LordDeathStrike]

Aethon, on 02 June 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Inner Sphere DHS actually do have a disadvantage: 3-slot critical size. You can't mount them in the legs or CT, and quite often cannot even mount them in the L/R torso, due to their sheer size. Sometimes, as with an energy-heavy design, you actually end up with the tonnage, but not the space, and end up needing those old-school heatsinks. It's most common with slower engines (even more with slower XL engines); It's admittedly rare, though.

clan double heat sinks are 1 ton 2 crits. so no they have no disadvantage, since you can fit one in each leg, 1 in torso and for 3 tons, and 6 crits you now have a mech with 26 effective heat sinks, for 3 tons and 6 crits. keep your engine standard and put one double hs in each side torso for 30 heat sinks for 5 tons and 10 crits. spend the rest of your tons and crits on er ppcs/lasers and you get the idea, cheap piece of **** mech.

[trycksh0t]

Adridos, on 02 June 2012 - 02:45 AM, said:

Raven-2X (another crappy Davion variant ) has dumped the EW equipment for a large laser (on a Raven, those Davions are dumb). The picture we saw had normal equipment of 2 MLs, SRM and NARC, so it is one of the captured Ravens before refitting to Davion "standards" (As crappy as virtually possible™).

Ahem, if I may. The Davion refit of the -1X into the -2X was done for several reasons. First off, the Davions were not equipped to produce the EW Equipment mounted on the captured -1Xs. Secondly, the EW Equipment on the -1X was HORRIBLE. It weighed 7.5 tons, took up 4 crits, and only provided Guardian ECM and BAP capabilities to 3 hexes (90m). Dropping worthless equipment in favor of a hard-hitting laser was a fantastic move. The lovely electronic warfare specialist -3L didn't show up until 3048.

[Woodstock]

The only thing I wanna get my hands on is XL engines

[Aethon]

LordDeathStrike, on 02 June 2012 - 03:42 AM, said:

clan double heat sinks are 1 ton 2 crits. so no they have no disadvantage, since you can fit one in each leg, 1 in torso and for 3 tons, and 6 crits you now have a mech with 26 effective heat sinks, for 3 tons and 6 crits. keep your engine standard and put one double hs in each side torso for 30 heat sinks for 5 tons and 10 crits. spend the rest of your tons and crits on er ppcs/lasers and you get the idea, cheap piece of **** mech.

I was only talking IS DHS; Clan DHS, and LHS, only really have one downside: cost...and that isn't very significant. That said, if you're trying to keep cost down, and you have a machine like the Glass Spider (in its main configuration), you don't need even 10 single heatsinks, so you might as well keep the design set up for single heatsinks, to keep the cost lower.

[wanderer]

LordDeathStrike, on 02 June 2012 - 03:11 AM, said:

my atlas will bristle with clan weapons, ill pry them from your cold dead hands if i have too, but i will have clan weapons! mainly a clan G rifle, clan uac 20, some clan large and med er lasers. dont see any reason to use clan lrms, IS ones are better with artemis 4, but some clan streak 6s would be nice for the brawler build.

And this is why Mechwarrior 4 is bad planning for Mechwarrior Online.

Clan LRM systems weigh half the tonnage of Inner Sphere ones, for starters- and Mechwarrior 4 may have used the same names, but frequently utterly hosed the actual -function- of items. I look forward to the pained screams of MW4 players realizing exactly how screwed up Microsoft was when they made MW4 into an arcade game with Battletech names.

Quote

the nice part about clan mechs, their heads are poorly positioned for the most part, since clanners consider it against honor to kill the pilot and take his stuff in tact. makes life as an atlas driver with a G rifle large lasers and a 7x zoom mod good.

timber wolf faceing side = 33% head shot surface
dire wolf faceing side = 25% head shot surface
vulture = 25% head shot surface
just to name a few of the ones we will see swarming at us.

the thor is kind of a pain, its almost got IS profile on its off set head, but i bet i can still get a bead on it before he sees me.

Not being able to super-snipe is going to make the screaming even sweeter. Now I know why they didn't put VOIP into MWO, I'd be too busy recording to play the first week!

Quote

by comparison, my atlas, has a very small 5% of its frontal surface area that can count as a headshot, namely the one eye hole in the skull mask, the rest counts as a CT hit!

Expect the same small and harder-to-hit targets for "headshots" in MWO for everyone, the better to avoid people puttering around trying to burn cockpits for max salvage. Zoom-and-boom = Just no.