53 replies to this topic

[JazzySteel]

Roland, on 05 June 2012 - 08:41 AM, said:

Given the large advantage in mobility the lighter team would have, they would likely be able to dictate the exact terms upon which the battle took place... They could simply stay out of range of the Atlases, and chew them appart from range.

Its hard to outrange Gauss Rifles and LRMs (what the majority of Atlas pilots will run. Even without the Gauss those LRMs hurt.

[Teralitha]

I think , in the context of this online game, putting a limit on the BV or tonnage per match would solve any issure there.

[Roland]

JazzySteel, on 05 June 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

Its hard to outrange Gauss Rifles and LRMs (what the majority of Atlas pilots will run. Even without the Gauss those LRMs hurt.

The thing is, though, that the lighter team could keep locks on the assaults using fast movers, while firing the missiles from cover, making it difficult for the slow assaults to return fire.

Again, it's all theory until we get in game, but based on past incarnations of mechwarrior, slow moving assaults do not win the day in coordinated matches.

[Solis Obscuri]

The main issue confronting a lance purely composed of assaults would be mobility. In addition to having a typically lower ground speed, the assaults in-game have demonstrated lesser torso-twist angles than lighter 'mechs, and would have little access to recon information. As a result, they'd be forced almost to a standstill to cover one another's flanks, or else they'd be continually subjected to hit-and-run flanking attacks and sniper fire, as well as being at risk of separation, due to low speeds hampering the ability to regroup. And once they slow to a crawl...

Major Bill Curtis, on 05 June 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

Artillery strike.

/match

Pretty much, and I think that's why the devs are putting those tools in. Having a bunch of assault PPC boats and Gausszillas camping your base gets a lot less appealing when you know these are going to be inbound.

Kobold, on 05 June 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

IS heavies don't move appreciably faster than assaults without XL engines. They certainly aren't fast enough to make them appreciably harder to hit with weapon fire. Look at how fast the Hunchback can move in the videos. No semi-skilled player should have problem landing all his weapons fire on a target that speed.

Not true at all. If anything, the I.S. assaults typically suffer a speed penalty until XL engines, unless they sacrifice a fair degree of armor or firepower for the larger engine. Assault 'mechs with 6/4 movement and 3025 tech like the Zeus, Victor, and Cyclops have no substantial armor or firepower advantage over heavies like the Marauder or Crusader, and even the more solid 6/4 designs like the Battlemaster and Thug wind up making concessions, and are close to heavy designs like the Orion, Thunderbolt, and Flashman in terms of armor and firepower. The really "mighty" assaults like the Atlas, Stalker, Awesome, or Highlander are all restricted to 3/5 speed or lower without XL engines.

Kobold, on 05 June 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

So again, assuming equal skill pilots (and assuming no nonsensical stacked matches, like a bunch of PPC weilding Cicadas against a bunch of slow moving assaults armed only with very short range weapons), my money is on the assaults every time.

Assuming everyone stand like a tree and shoots at each other on an open, featureless plain, I tend to agree, it's a battle of armor and gunnery.

Once the fight is mobile, on terrain that provides concealment, the values of piloting and tactical coordination come into play to a much greater degree, and assaults suffer in that area (regardless of how good the pilots are) due to limited maneuverability and an inherent weakness at reconnaissance.

[Dark Severance]

JazzySteel, on 05 June 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

Its hard to outrange Gauss Rifles and LRMs (what the majority of Atlas pilots will run. Even without the Gauss those LRMs hurt.

I'm just curious how many people have paid attention to the dev blogs. The game isn't setup exactly like Mechwarriors we are familar with. You can't just load up on as much hardware of any option as you would like. There is a hardpoint system that does limit certain designs to a degree. Not to mention Gauss Rifles themselves aren't easy to use, just like Autocannons as you have to lead and fire because they don't just instantly fly to the target like lasers. Erratic and fast movers can dodge these shots. LRMs are a different story but there are different mechwarrior modules which will deal with that.

Mech Lab Hardpoints : http://mwomercs.com/...blog-6-mechlab/
Information Warfare: http://mwomercs.com/...mation-warfare/
Role Warfare: http://mwomercs.com/...3-role-warfare/
Role Warfare (cont): http://mwomercs.com/...e-warfare-cont/
Community Warfare: http://mwomercs.com/...munity-warfare/
Mech Warfare: http://mwomercs.com/...warfare-part-i/

Although a good core of it will be around piloting, there are a lot of factors that can make up for lack of skill or give the edge to another group when players are evenly skilled. Even in Battletech, a group of large mechs usually were out maneuvered by more mobile, faster mechs. The more weapons, also means less options for constant firing because of heat issues or weight of the weapons while smaller mechs usually won't have these issues.

[Ian]

Quote

The more weapons, also means less options for constant firing because of heat issues or weight of the weapons while smaller mechs usually won't have these issues.

How does more weapons and heatsinks equate to less options.....

[Aegis Kleais]

Medea, on 05 June 2012 - 06:15 AM, said:

Post a Match between 4 Assault Mechs vs 1 Assault 1 Heavy I medium and 1 light.

I am curious to see why the 4 assaults wont win or do maps force you to have one of each.

They spoke about a time where they had like a lance of assaults get decimated by 2-3 LRM boating Catapults and a spotting light.

Tonnage does not make might. It's a rule that many people who oversimplify the rules of warfare will make.

[Dark Severance]

Ian, on 05 June 2012 - 02:27 PM, said:

How does more weapons and heatsinks equate to less options.....

You have more weapons because you have space, however since you are also adding bigger weapons that means more heat sinks. Lets look at a Awesome base build with 3 PPCs. To continously fire those 3 PPCs you would need 30 heat sinks on the mech, which at that tonnage either means sacrificing armor or speed just to fit that. That means even though you have 3 PPCs, you really can only fire 2 at the most without over heating and you'll have to cycle carefully to watch your heat between the other one.

Taking a Jenner for example, I can max out armor, speed and fit 4 medium lasers with a few extra heat sinks to spare. I still have to cycle my weapons, usually in groups of 2 although you can do 3 and then the extra one continuously. Since the medium lasers cycle faster than the PPCs and the heat dissipate at a faster rate, the Jenner actually pumps out more DPS than a Awesome. In sheer firepower, the Awesome can deal 30 points of damage and run close to shutdown, while in that time the Jenner could of fired its medium lasers 2-3 times and generated half the heat and dealt the same amount of damage. This has been the experience from Multiplayer Battletech back on GEnie, from Battletech 3025 during EA as well as Mechwarrior. In the table top game most big weapons have a minimum range, which let smaller mechs get in close and eliminate the bigger weapon/long range advantage.

[Skylarr]

TwoFaced, on 05 June 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

Pure tonage based on lore would win.

I can not think of many lore based battles where the lower tonage didnt RUN FOREST RUN away.

Your wrong. Skill and terrain are a factor also.

[Frostiken]

I think peeps are being a wee bit optimistic about the outcome here.

[Dark Severance]

JazzySteel, on 05 June 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

Its hard to outrange Gauss Rifles and LRMs (what the majority of Atlas pilots will run. Even without the Gauss those LRMs hurt.

Again you really should look at the dev blogs. The other thing is you don't need to outrange them. Targeting uses line of sight. The light mechs will have sight with the target, which lets the LRM launchers of another mech sit back in an valley out of sight of the enemy and lob missiles at the Assault mechs. The Assault mechs won't be able to fire at those launchers unless they move to engage. They'll need to either fight, split up and do a little of both and either way that means they aren't focusing fireing.

In the actual table top game you only had to get into minimum range. A fast moving mech can do circles around an Assault and stay within minimum firing range. Long Range Missiles usually had a minimum firing range of 6 hexes, PPCs 3, Gauss Rifle if I recall was 2. That is why a lot of base designs contain a short/medium range weapon to fend off fast moving mechs. Online games instead of having a minimum range effectiveness (although they can do this with PPC/Gauss Rifles too, not sure if they are) but LRMs would probably need a lock to fire or a range to arm the missiles. But typically just the fact that mechs are moving fast, makes them harder to target, focus fire while they can focus fire on key points easier because well... bigger mechs are bigger and easier targets.

[UncleKulikov]

AussieGiant, on 05 June 2012 - 08:01 AM, said:

I'm hoping for an availability system to limit pure Assault lances.

They should be rare, cost a ton and be extremely expensive to repair.

That in itself should make an All Assault set up reserved for very specific instances. If the meta game is organised well then people should be able to opt out of facing a 12 Assault mechs company.

I'd rather that other roles are valuable enough to the game to make an all-assault lance a very risky proposition within the match itself, not in the metagame.

Dark Severance, on 05 June 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

You have more weapons because you have space, however since you are also adding bigger weapons that means more heat sinks. Lets look at a Awesome base build with 3 PPCs. To continously fire those 3 PPCs you would need 30 heat sinks on the mech, which at that tonnage either means sacrificing armor or speed just to fit that. That means even though you have 3 PPCs, you really can only fire 2 at the most without over heating and you'll have to cycle carefully to watch your heat between the other one.

Taking a Jenner for example, I can max out armor, speed and fit 4 medium lasers with a few extra heat sinks to spare. I still have to cycle my weapons, usually in groups of 2 although you can do 3 and then the extra one continuously. Since the medium lasers cycle faster than the PPCs and the heat dissipate at a faster rate, the Jenner actually pumps out more DPS than a Awesome. In sheer firepower, the Awesome can deal 30 points of damage and run close to shutdown, while in that time the Jenner could of fired its medium lasers 2-3 times and generated half the heat and dealt the same amount of damage. This has been the experience from Multiplayer Battletech back on GEnie, from Battletech 3025 during EA as well as Mechwarrior. In the table top game most big weapons have a minimum range, which let smaller mechs get in close and eliminate the bigger weapon/long range advantage.

Uh, the Awesome can fire all 3 PPCs for 3 turns in a row before suffering a negative heat effect. Then you just fire 2, and next turn you are completely cooled and can fire all 3 PPCs again.

Tabletop, 3025 rules. Awesome with 3 PPCs and 28 heat sinks.

[GrimFist]

I guess this is the part where we see how they try to balance the game play to see how it evens out.

Let's face it. If your playing defense in an urban environment you could go pretty heavy outside of some kind of JJ scout, who in turn could be a medium. Some missions come down to BV, who ever has more has an edge.

So I am eager to see how this works.

[Dark Severance]

UncleKulikov, on 05 June 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

Uh, the Awesome can fire all 3 PPCs for 3 turns in a row before suffering a negative heat effect. Then you just fire 2, and next turn you are completely cooled and can fire all 3 PPCs again.

Tabletop, 3025 rules. Awesome with 3 PPCs and 28 heat sinks.

Again tabletop rules PPC has a minimum range of 3 hexes. Depending on the version of Mechwarrior they don't usually have a minimum range, but they offset it by having it generate more heat. More heat than can usually be cycled by heat sinks. Online they could not fire 3 PPCs, 2 PPCs at a continual rate every time they recharged without overheating.