190 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Honestly I think weapon tweaks are what the Awesome really needs... something to make it so it's turning ability and arm actuators will give it some significant advantage over the Stalker.

As it is right now, it only has one real claim to fame over its 85 ton brethren:

[Deathlike]

Trauglodyte, on 22 April 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

I get what you're saying, Victor. And I agree completely that, until PGI adds in a strict weight limit, the Awesome, Dragon, Cicada, and Flee will never see competitive play. It is, for all intents, like tying one hand behind your back. It is a fantastic mech that people can't seem to drive in a gaming environmen that is out of whack.

If you use the Cicada strictly for the ECM, it's "competitive" enough in the current environment.

I wonder if the CT hitbox should "grow" like the Dragon's... allowing XL engines to be more viable... or making the side-hitboxes bigger (making the CT slimmer), so that it is more capable of spreading damage around better.

Whatever that change is, Awesomes will simply always require a greater skill curve to pilot, like the Dragon.

BlightFang, on 22 April 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

Jenner and dragon would like some help too.

I can't speak for the Dragon, but the Jenner is fine for the most part. If you're not taking the advantage of energy arms with JJs, you're probably using it wrong.

Edited by Deathlike, 22 April 2013 - 02:44 PM.

[Jonathan Paine]

I think John MatriX82 is onto something with his re-defined hit-boxes. Generally speaking, any Awesome pilot worth his salt should strive to die armless. Those arms are almost big enough to shield that barn door of a torso. Almost.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

80 ton AWS-8Q with a 300 rated engine and speed tweak == 66.8kph
85 ton STK-3F with a 310 rated engine and speed tweak == 65.0kph
90 ton HGN-732 with a 325 rated engine and speed tweak == 64.3kph
100 ton AS7-D with a 350 rated engine and speed tweak == 64.2kph

AWS-9M with a 385 rated engine and speed tweak == 85.8kph
AWS-PB with a 400 rated engine and speed tweak == 89.1kph

An Awesome's max armor is 494
A Stalker's max armor is 526
A Highlander's max armor is 558
An Atlas' max armor is 614


The 9M and PB are outliers. And also happen to be about the only chassis' in the Awesome line worth taking. Everything the 8Q does, the 9M does better. And anything the PB does, the 9M does better.
AWS-8Q PPC sniper
AWS-9M PPC sniper, STD engine
AWS-9M PPC sniper, XL engine

Buffing the Awesome's engine further from a 300, to a 325 would give the 8 series Awesomes a tweaked speed of 72.4.

Let's face it, the Stalker is the better energy boat by FAR. The 8 series is to the 9M, in the same way that the 2x and 4x are to the 3L. The Awesome has the front profile of an Atlas, while having 130 points LESS armor while being only MARGINALLY faster, 2.6kph.

I use an HGN-733P that has completely replaced the 8Q. It has better armor, the same heat efficiency, better hardpoints, almost as fast (2.5kph slower), and has Jump Jets.


In fact, lets go DOWN in weight to the Cataphract.

70 ton CTF-3D with a 340 rated engine and speed tweak == 86.6kph
It's max armor is 434

Here's the CTF-3D being a better PPC sniper than the 9M, since it's got a smaller profile, faster, AND and jump jets.
CTF-3D PPC sniper emulating the 9M PPC sniper
And again...
CTF-3D 4xLL emulating the 4xLL 9M

The Cataphract makes a better Awesome than the Awesome. Since its considerably faster, smaller, and almost the same armor. The Awesome has 68 points to allocate to the side torsos and 100 to allocate to the center, whereas the Cataphract has 60 for the side torsos and 88 for the center. But it's smaller size and much faster speed more than makes up the difference.

[General Taskeen]

Victor Morson, on 22 April 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

Sure it should, situation depending. If you need speed for a formation with weight (League drops) limits, the Awesome does have a niche.

You're still not providing a valid reason.

The "gotta go fast" is a syndrome of min/max. Driving some stock builds (I say some, because in most of my testing only DHS holds up, an issue of heat balancing) is both challenging and rewarding, and is good practice to enhance piloting skill alone.

[Therrinian]

I love driving my 9M, in my eyes by far the best of the variants.
The awesome his main strength besides longevety and quite some punch is its speed.
The 9M really has to be run with a 380 or a 385 depending on your kind of missiles. When you are wizzing around doing nearly 90 in an assult while still dishing out tons of damage you are doing your roll well. It plays much like a 4SP on steroids.
unfortunatly I agree with the OP, the awesome has never been this fat before, only in PGI's incarnation. we're too easy to take down, it is deffenitly an underdog chasis.

Cant afford to take it to competitive matches...!

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

General Taskeen, on 22 April 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

You're still not providing a valid reason.

The "gotta go fast" is a syndrome of min/max. Driving some stock builds (I say some, because in most of my testing only DHS holds up, an issue of heat balancing) is both challenging and rewarding, and is good practice to enhance piloting skill alone.

JohanssenJr, on 22 April 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

80 ton AWS-8Q with a 300 rated engine and speed tweak == 66.8kph
85 ton STK-3F with a 310 rated engine and speed tweak == 65.0kph
90 ton HGN-732 with a 325 rated engine and speed tweak == 64.3kph
100 ton AS7-D with a 350 rated engine and speed tweak == 64.2kph

An Awesome's max armor is 494
A Stalker's max armor is 526
A Highlander's max armor is 558
An Atlas' max armor is 614

For it to have 130 points less armor than an Atlas and the same front profile, 2.5kph faster is not enough.

[MonkeyCheese]

As a mastered 9m pilot I think its perfectly fine, as long as you run it like a medium and try not to tackle a stalker, highlander or an atlas head on or alone.

You gotta run it as a long range fire support or a hit and run guerrilla fighter, and NEVER ENGAGE FIRST let your lights and other assaults do that for you.

as for the 8 series aws, pack them with ppcs/erll/lrms, and try not to brawl.

Edited by MonkeyCheese, 22 April 2013 - 03:28 PM.

[BlackSquirrel]

Here ya go.

http://mwomercs.com/...x-localisation/

[Roland]

Remove the engine cap for the Awesome, and you'll start seeing more of them.

The main role that the Awesome plays, compared to mechs like the stalker an atlas, is that it's lighter and faster.. or at least, that was a role that it filled well.

Currently, the 9M is the only really viable awesome variant that I actually enjoy piloting (the pretty baby would be decent, I suppose, but I wouldn't pay real money for it). It's viable because you can jack the speed way the hell up, and then you have something unexpected.. You have an assault mech which can get to where it needs to be on the battlefield much faster than expected. It's going to be less durable than an atlas, and have less firepower than the stalker.. but it's fast. It has a role... and back in closed beta, you saw a number of mechs like this.

Then, when the engine caps went in, basically all of the awesome variants lost the one thing they could do really well. They were relegated to the same type of slow, ponderous play that the stalker and atlas could already do better... as folks have noted, the Awesome is not super durable, especially when moving slowly.

Give the awesome back the one thing it could do well.. agility.

[Sephlock]

I'd like to see the return of the fast Awesome as well, but

1: People would complain, leading to a re-nerf.

2: The Awesome was supposed to be a long range weapons platform that bombards with PPCs. If possible I would like to keep the spirit of that design- preferably by matching mechs up by tonnage. That way you won't have Awesome pilots knowing that they are condemning their team to facing a Highlander or Atlas or Stalker.

The thing is, the weapons are mounted so low on the Awesome...

Hell, maybe you are right about the speed- if nothing else, the speed would allow the Awesome to dash out, snipe, and then dash back into cover...

I dunno.

[NRP]

I think PGI lowered the max speed with the last patch. My PB w/XL400 and speed tweak used to go 89.1 kph. Now it goes 88.5 kph. I haven't yet checked my other mechs.

Anyone else notice this?

[Zordicron]

John MatriX82, on 22 April 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

I've posted this elsewhere, but reworking hitboxes like this would improve survivability by far:
http://imageshack.us.../awshitbox.jpg/


In the mechlab, when you select the arm, the highlighted part comprehends also a wide part of the upper side torso, but in reality the side torso hitbox takes also all the shoulder, not like it's shown in the mechlab.

Why don't do they simply make that the upper side torso falls into the arm hitbox? For sure you'd lose arms often, but after that, all the upper side of the side torso would behave transferring HALF the damage to the side torso once the arm is gone.. By this at least the whole mech would be able to survive fairly longer and going XL may be easier also for the older and slow 8 series.

i was going to post something like this. this is how to make the awesome better without redoing the whole model to be smaller or drifting from cannon on armor or something.

basically, make the side torsos take up some of the CT(reduce CT size by making some of it side torso) and then make the arms take up some of the side torso. Result: arms take more damage, but Ct is harder to hit(smaller) and Side torsos are about the same, but reduce dmg taken because some of the dmg now hits the arms where it used to hit side torso.

I dont think it would take a monumental code change for this, and it would be a good place to start to see if the barn door can weather a little more of a beating after. Especially, especially because the left arm in a lot of the variants should be used as a sheild arm type, but basically cant because the hit box on the torsos is just too dang big compared to the arms.

[Keifomofutu]

Sephlock, on 22 April 2013 - 04:07 PM, said:

I'd like to see the return of the fast Awesome as well, but

1: People would complain, leading to a re-nerf.

2: The Awesome was supposed to be a long range weapons platform that bombards with PPCs. If possible I would like to keep the spirit of that design- preferably by matching mechs up by tonnage. That way you won't have Awesome pilots knowing that they are condemning their team to facing a Highlander or Atlas or Stalker.

The thing is, the weapons are mounted so low on the Awesome...

Hell, maybe you are right about the speed- if nothing else, the speed would allow the Awesome to dash out, snipe, and then dash back into cover...

I dunno.

I think with DHS and the buffed sniper weapons the fast awesomes would be balanced just fine this time. The dominant variant of fast awesome from beta generally packed in a massive engine 4xsrm6 and 2 ml and would just circle the atlas packs. But the main difference was lack of DHS so they couldn't be countered at long range with big energy weapons.

This was also back when the srms fired straight out to 275 meters and not in an angry cloud. The srms have been weakened multiple times since then. I wouldn't be surprised if a new build of fast awesome used 2LL and 4xSSRM2s instead.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 22 April 2013 - 04:27 PM.

[Roland]

Sephlock, on 22 April 2013 - 04:07 PM, said:

I'd like to see the return of the fast Awesome as well, but

1: People would complain, leading to a re-nerf.

2: The Awesome was supposed to be a long range weapons platform that bombards with PPCs. If possible I would like to keep the spirit of that design- preferably by matching mechs up by tonnage. That way you won't have Awesome pilots knowing that they are condemning their team to facing a Highlander or Atlas or Stalker.

The thing is, the weapons are mounted so low on the Awesome...

Hell, maybe you are right about the speed- if nothing else, the speed would allow the Awesome to dash out, snipe, and then dash back into cover...

I dunno.

Yes, the 9M is actually quite capable of being a high speed, long range sniper, despite it's horrifically located hardpoints (seriously, WTF is with a mech having FOUR freaking hardpoints in the Center Torso??).

I honestly don't think folks would really cry for a nerf.. the original engine caps went in, not because of the awesome, but because folks were jacking the speed up on mechs like the hunchback to 120kph (although, given how much better long range weapons are, and the fact that you can actually reliably hit fast mechs, I'm not sure if having really fast hunchbacks would be totally imbalanced either any more).

No one ever thought the Awesome was overpowered, in the entire history of this game so far.

[Edwyndham]

Most Awesome builds would benefit tremendously from fixing some of the really bad terrain meshes in most of the maps. If I could reliably corner snipe with 2 ER PPCs in the right arm? Deadly. Unfortunately, most of the PPCs do some convergence crap due to invisible terrain meshes and fly away at impossible angles into nothing. Only way to corner snipe is to expose yourself so much that they can hit your CT, which means corner sniping is almost useless.

Try corner sniping around some of the rocks in the water on Forest Colony to see what I'm talking about.

Stalker works way better currently because most terrain meshes (Tourmaline aside) are accurate vertically, so you can just hill hump with the 4 PPCs or whatever in the arms without exposing yourself too much.

Even the meshes on most the buildings in River City are bad in this way. Heavily favors sticking your head above it (that's why you get poptarts galore) but punishes the corner snipers (Awesome especially)

[Trauglodyte]

I'll be the first to argue how ridiculous engine speeds are in this game. We've got mechs designed for 95kph doing 150kph. It makes no sense and something needs to be done about it. Unfortunately, even if you tuned down the engine speeds, the Awesome 8 series was still designed to go as fast as the Stalker, Highlander, and Atlas. It wasn't until the 9 series came out that anything changed. Beyond that, I just think some work needs to be done on the hit box and convergence, as a whole, needs to be addressed. Add to that a heat scale and things would make the Awesome shine a lot more. But you can't expect something as big as the Awesome (I absolutely love the design from top to bottom - except for the feet) to go unscathed in combat. And, I'll venture to say that a great many people that play this game just are not good pilots. So, combining bad pilots with a "kill everything" attitude, a giant barn door sized torso, and mediocre speed (8 series) and you've cooked up a recipe for not-awesome.

[Deathlike]

Roland, on 22 April 2013 - 04:15 PM, said:

Yes, the 9M is actually quite capable of being a high speed, long range sniper, despite it's horrifically located hardpoints (seriously, WTF is with a mech having FOUR freaking hardpoints in the Center Torso??).

Think of the CT hardpoints as interchangeable or shared. If you counted them as 2 shared hardpoints, the # of hardpoints is the equivalent to the rest of the Awesomes. It's not quite exploitable because of the limitations of the placement... so it makes sense from a balance standpoint.

[wirikidor]

I bought the Pretty Baby since it was on sale... my first Awesome... and I hate it. It's terrible. Atlas is better... Stalker is better... I feel like I'm too easy to kill in an Awesome.

[Writer]

Raise the Engine Cap on all Variants, redefine the hitbox for its side torso, and give it a small heat dissipation quirk.