Raptor6789, on 25 March 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:
Hey, nice thread. Would you mind imparting some of your thought processes and methodology in making these mechs more efficient? Or would someone be able to point me to a source with this sort of info?
Your goal is generally to scrimp tonnage wherever you can, and in order of efficiency. XL engine is the best savings, of course, but comes at a very serious drawback - so it is a player choice, not a flat out optimization. So I wont really cover that. Otherwise, you want:
- Double heatsinks are a must on every build. It's 10 free tons, and if you keep the engine over 250. Even for zero heat builds, like the Gaussapult, it doesn't hurt to have doubles - and if you have any heat generation you pretty much require them. This should be the first upgrade on any new mech you get. Single heatsinks are a waste of tonnage, and unless you need 35+ single heatsinks, then they are a waste of critical space as well (ironic to some).
- Endo Steel if possible. Endo Steel gives you back 5% of your weight to spend elsewhere, albeit at a heavy cost of critical shots. Every single light, medium, and most heavy loadouts should have zero difficulty fitting in Endo Steel. It is a little trickier when it comes to Assault Mechs -- sometimes you can (most competitive players usually want to), but builds requiring lots of heatsinks just cannot spare the extra space.
- Ferro Fibrous is a pretty poor savings, usually only around a ton or so of extra weight to work with -- but it is a savings so if you can fit it in, then so much the better. Lights can usually do this fine, and so can most mediums, but it becomes very very hard on Heavies and impossible on Assault mechs.
- Use as many of the critical slots as you can. There's no reward for being a minimalist. Most "optimized" designs (some exceptions) try to leave themselves with anywhere from zero to two critical slots left unused.
- Don't put armour where it is not needed (again, a few exceptions - like the Centurion shield arm can sometimes apply). Light mechs need maximum leg armour, but almost no one else does - its a safe place to strip a ton or so without it being a risk. Same with arms. Unless you have your most important weapons in your arms, you can get away with taking a little bit off. Torso armour is usually maxed for all mechs, but lights can get away with taking points off of the head.
Now all five of the above synergize with this fourth point - which is the big one:
- Engine size. There are optimal engine sizes, and there are sub optimal engine sizes. There isn't exactly a pattern, and I can't really go engine to engine, but it's something you just need to watch for. The 250 engine is generally the benchmark -- if you have anything smaller then you have to waste internal slots on heatsinks that would otherwise be in the engine. This makes is less likely that you can cram in endo steel or ferro fibrous, meaning you have fewer tons to work with - but if you spend a little more on the engine, then you can make all that cost back in the bonus from Endo Steel or Ferro Fibrous. Generally any Engine multiple of 25 is a good engine. Every 25 points of engine mean you can insert one extra heatsink inside the engine, meaning you can add a heatsink without spending 3 criticals of internal structure, meaning more chance of Endo Steel/Ferro Fibrous, meaning more tonnage savings and thus more optimization.
- Atlas builds usually aim to run a 325 or 350 engine, Stalkers like 275 and 300, Awesomes almost all go for 300 (or 350/375). Fifty ton mediums usually want a 250 or 275 if it is allowed. Light mechs usually use the largest or second largest engine they can get, and heavies can vary pretty dramatically, so I wont bother.
- After all your optimizations are added, your loadout is finished, and all your critical slots are used up or to the point where you are totally happy with all the stuff you have crammed in there -- then, at that point, if you have tonnage left over, then you look to increase the engine size a little bit more. If you can get a full 25 points larger, you might need to redesign a bit, but otherwise, this is where you can move a 250 up to a 260, or a 300 up to a 310 or 315. It's hard to know which ones are good deals and which ones are bad, but take a look at the tonnage numbers (and don't worry about the price spikes every 25 points). Also keep an eye out for some weird ones -- the 200XL is a terrible deal and you are better off with a 195XL. The 260XL and 265XL are the same tonnage, so why not take more speed for free. Anything over 325 really starts to get into diminishing returns territory, and anything over 350 means you are paying an awful lot for very little -- unless you are running, say an Awesome 9M, where you have nothing better to do than up the engine size, you probably dont want to go past the 350 mark, or even the 325.
After you go through all that, you should be looking at a fairly optimized mech. There's more to it, of course, I didn't really cover heat efficiency (on smurfy, a cooling efficiency in the 20's is pretty hot, 30's is decent, 40's is pretty good, and 50's is quite cool) but these are the things you are aiming to achieve when assembling an optimized mech. Ammunition is pretty consistent -- LRMs is usually 2 tons for every size 10 or larger launcher, SRMs is one ton per missile rack (maybe 4 tons for 3 SRM6s), Ballistics are 3 tons per gun (4 for AC/20, 2 for AC/5 and /2, 1 for MGun). Of course it varies by player preference - some LRM boats really want to have all the ammo they ever need. Some brawlers can get by with a little less ammo to spend more on heatsinks or engine size - so it's your call.
The other, last point, is generally try to keep yourself to 3 weapon groups or fewer. Having 4 or 5 weapon groups gets really hard to manage and control, and even if you are great at it, having so many different weapons means that you are often shooting and hitting enemies in different locations with each shot, making the damage really imprecise. 30 points of damage to one exact location is often better than 40 points of damage split across four different sections. So it helps to keep your weapon groups simple, organized and effective.
18
I had a faster XL engine (320 I think) and more DHS, but otherwise the same.
