21 replies to this topic

[Ialti]

Well, after assault vs. world, what are your thoughts on the Awesome? Would you all be opposed to giving the engine cap a little bump?

[Brilig]

They could be faster. I would like to see them thinner. Or more heavily armored.

[Keifomofutu]

Awesome's during the tournament were 2000 points below the best variants of other assault mechs. Bare minimum awesome needs access to 325 engine.

[Solis Obscuri]

I'd like to see them get access to a 320 at least.

But I think they need a CT hitbox adjustment more than anything.

[John MatriX82]

325 cap for all 8 series or this:


I think the arm hitbox should continue and behave like it's shown in the mechlab. This way you could go XL easily or last longer, since when your arm is blown off, only 50% of the damage is transferred from the shoulder to the side torso.

Edited by John MatriX82, 25 April 2013 - 12:43 AM.

[Hammerfinn]

I think the speed of the Awesomes is fine. The hitboxes and profile are the real problem here, as pointed out.

[Xelchon]

Honestly speaking? I can survive in a 9M and Pretty Baby but only because their available speed compensates for the lack of resilience. The current Awesome is not close to having the resilience an assault 'mech should have. The current awesome variants, all of them, can easily use XL engine because there is almost no occasion in which side torso is cored faster than the center. I love awesome, and I play it a lot; trust me, my remark hits home.
You can say; Yes, awesome has more mobility than an assault so it is made less resilient. (Which we are pointing out here on this thread that is not) Even so, the 'mech's CT hitbox is severely problematic. Hell, its sad. I played a match with my Centurion just yesterday, and we pitted against 2 DRG, 1 CICADA, 1CN9 with my other fellow Centurion, and we took them down 2vs.4 with scarce LRM support. The opponents were not pros, but that is not the point. What I want to say by telling this is that we took a lot of fire. I am not saying Cent. is broken, it's fine.
The point is; It is sad that I know, my Awesome being 30 tons heavier than the CN9, wouldn't survive even half the fire I took on that occasion.

Edited by Xelchon, 25 April 2013 - 02:36 AM.

[Elizander]

Awesome engine cap should at least be 320 rating for the standard models.

[Peiper]

The problem is not speed, hitboxes or whatever. The problem is frankenmeching. The Awesome is special in Battletech because its one of the only mechs that boats PPC's. The Stalkers don't have any PPC's or Gauss Rifles, and the Atlas has no more than one AC20 or Gauss and no PPC's if I recall. The Highlander has no more than one PPC/Gauss/large AC mounted on any of it's variants.

I remember a year ago when we were begging for PGI to announce the Awesome as one of the first mechs we could play with. We wanted a PPC boat.

Well, now EVERY mech has PPC's or large autocannons. Part of this is because we don't have any other targets to shoot at besides mechs, so we use mech killing weapons. We can't torch bunkers and light woods on fire with our flamers. We can't shoot down aircraft with our AC/2s. We can kill infantry with machine guns. We can't knock out in buildings and turrets indirectly with LRM's. We don't have to worry about little vehicles and battlearmor, so we don't need small, medium lasers, AC/5's, SRMs.
The other part is that despite what the mechs were designed to do lore-wise, and despite what the mechs LOOK like, we can turn them into something completely different and wreck what makes any of the mechs unique. We mind as well trash several chassis because they have no purpose when another mech can do their job better.

PGI says they want to honor classic battletech, but they missed the boat with how their hardpoints work. They are stuck thinking about weapons as ballistic/energy/missiles. Hardpoints should be based on the model of the mech their looking at, and size, rather than type.

Weapon Hardpoints should look like this:
Large bore (PPC's, Gauss, large ACs)
Medium bore (L.Lasers, medium AC's)
Small bore (S/M Lasers, M guns, AC2s, flamers)
Large missle racks (LRM 10-20)
Small missle racks (SRMs, SSRMs, LRM 5s)
-and-
Support gear like NARC and TAG should not use hardpoints.

While it's still BETA, they should redefine hardpoints. Then you'll see a much bigger variety of mech builds out there...

[SmokinDave73]

Awesomes need some love. I think it would be nice to see a slight engine cap increase but it is not their primary problem. Their primary problem is obviously their hit boxes. The awesome is just way to wide and the people that created the Awesomes model for PGI could of toned down the broadness and tweaked it without hurting the awesomes original look at all. The side torso armour value on an awesome without stripping loads of armour from the back is also only 50. Which is 6-8 more than the Cataphract which is a 70 ton mech. I just cannot believe that a mech that weighs 10 more tons has only 6 more points of armour, it’s just plain silly epically since it’s the most easiest mech to target single components out in the game. I really hope PGI look into balancing mechs and weapon's after the final state rewind comes in because atm the game is becoming a 1 shot sniper twitch shooter. I loved it back in close beta that is used to take minutes to take down an assault mech not seconds....

Edited by SmokinDave73, 25 April 2013 - 05:08 AM.

[Demos]

Would love, when they would bump the max engine size of the AWS-8x series to 320.
Would also be nice to mimikry some other 80t-canon designs (Thug, Hatamoto series). which have a 4/6 movement rating.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Raising the Engine Cap makes faster Awesomes with less firepower.

We need Hitbox Adjustment, or Hardpoint Sizes (in that case the Awesome would have great sized Hardpoints)

[Eddrick]

John MatriX82, on 25 April 2013 - 12:43 AM, said:

325 cap for all 8 series or this:


I think the arm hitbox should continue and behave like it's shown in the mechlab. This way you could go XL easily or last longer, since when your arm is blown off, only 50% of the damage is transferred from the shoulder to the side torso.

^This. Changeing the Hitboxes like they are displayed in the Mechlab would go farther then a speed increase.

Peiper, on 25 April 2013 - 03:42 AM, said:

The problem is not speed, hitboxes or whatever. The problem is frankenmeching. The Awesome is special in Battletech because its one of the only mechs that boats PPC's. The Stalkers don't have any PPC's or Gauss Rifles, and the Atlas has no more than one AC20 or Gauss and no PPC's if I recall. The Highlander has no more than one PPC/Gauss/large AC mounted on any of it's variants.

I think this is the source of the problem. But, I prefer to just limit the size of the Hardpoint simlar to MW4/MWT. While, still keeping the number limit as well.

[Carrioncrows]

The thing is, the AWESOME needs that speed increase. Why? To afford more heat sinks.

Having a Assault mech with all energy and missiles in a slow engine is a death sentence. Look at the stalker it has a ton of hardpoints but people generally only use 4 ppc's on them. Simply because they need all the heat sinks they can get.

[3rdworld]

The awesome is just like the dragon. Anything it wants to do well, something smaller or larger can do it better.

If they gave them actual chassis based bonuses, like the Awesome has an extra 3 heat sinks worth of dissipation, you could make them relevant.

But I am not seeing that kind of chassis based tuning happening.

[Straften]

Am I the only one who sees Awesomes and thinks "Yeay, C-bills!"? They should be a little more of a threat. Even in my hunchback I think of them as easy XP/CB. It's kinda sad.

[MasterErrant]

-well the engine caps seem a little arbitrary.. some mechs getting +2 or more to base. ( +1 being a multiple of the mechs weight) teverything should be able to get a minimum +1 that would be a 320 for the AWS.

so yes.

[Royalewithcheese]

John MatriX82, on 25 April 2013 - 12:43 AM, said:

325 cap for all 8 series or this:

This is a great idea. I'm also a fan of giving them ballistic hardpoints, because they seriously need to be thrown a bone at this point.

[Victor Morson]

Yes, on the condition they rename it and reskin it from "Awesome" to "Charger." It pretty much is a Charger already!

That said, no. To fix the Awesome they need to put in WEIGHT or BV matching not mess with it's stats. If it cost far less to use for the team than a Stalker/Highlander/Atlas, you'd see a lot more pop up.

EDIT: Also, the Quirk system could be very helpful here. If you gave the Awesome 10% better heat efficiency, for example, you'd suddenly find that it would be a viable option over the Stalker.

Edited by Victor Morson, 25 April 2013 - 11:57 AM.

[hercules1981]

No the awesome doesn't need a motor upgrade as much as hit box refinement. This HAS TO BE DONE PGI NOW. Make the dam hit boxes just like in mech lab like every1 can. Smaller side torsos would be very nice I don't know how many times I was side torso cored in the 9m as I was torso twisting and moving constantly with a Xl 380 so I was movin.