So... Quickdraw
#1
Posted 06 June 2013 - 10:07 AM
Anyone excited? Anyone? Over this Commando on steroid? The few variants on Sarna are all pretty much the same. But again, this thing can jump.
Maybe we could make a ghetto-Catapult out of it. Anyway.
#2
Posted 06 June 2013 - 10:34 AM
#3
Posted 06 June 2013 - 10:51 AM
#4
Posted 06 June 2013 - 11:25 AM
#5
Posted 06 June 2013 - 11:29 AM
#6
Posted 06 June 2013 - 11:35 AM
#7
Posted 06 June 2013 - 11:46 AM
#8
Posted 06 June 2013 - 11:50 AM
Geist Null, on 06 June 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:
Who cares about it's stock weapons layout? Nobody keeps mechs stock, as they suck compared to modified ones.
It's just a dragon with a smaller CT and jump jets, or a hunchback with more tonnage, speed, jets, and armor.
Edited by Wintersdark, 06 June 2013 - 11:50 AM.
#9
Posted 06 June 2013 - 01:07 PM
TONNAGE ISN'T EVERYTHING, PEOPLE.
The Quickdraw can carry 350+ armor, jump, and move at a hundred-plus klicks an hour. Nothing else in the game can do that. Nothing. It is fast, it is mobile, and its hardpoint layout is well-suited to carrying a weight-efficient mix of striker weapons. Medium lasers and SRMs have done the job for other strike 'Mechs in the past, I don't see why they couldn't be made to work for Quickdraws. Dragon pilots should be taking a serious look at this guy, as should pilots of 7M or 5J Trebuchets. I happen to be both, and am very much anticipating getting my hands on a Quickdraw to experiment with. In fact, let's experiment here:
A notional Quickdraw, stripped of all its weapons. Carrying a 350XL, the largest engine that generally makes sense for the machine, and remembering to subtract five tons for jump jets, we have 18.5 tons left over for payload...on a machine that hits 104 tweaked, carries 368 points of armor including maximum torso protection and jumps as well as a Jenner. Now. Let's start adding things, shall we?
There we are. Four additional DHS, four medium lasers, an SRM-6 and two tons of ammunition. Remembering the jump jets that our dress-up Dragon can't mount for us (and the second hand actuator a Quickdraw has that Dragons don't. Almost got me there, Smurfy...almost), we have 5.5 tons and 15 critical slots left. That is more than enough for an additional SRM launcher to pull off our existing ammo supply, or for a couple of additional beams and some extra DHS to cool them if we're working with a QKD-5* variant. Is it a lot? No - but the ol' HBK-4SP used to take down assault 'Mechs with the same sort of armament, except it went slower, carried less armor and didn't jump.
Assume for the moment that we get a variant with four beam and three missile hardpoints - not an unreasonable assumption, given the stock configurations and Piranha's need to differentiate them somehow. 5.5 tons and 15 critical slots is easily weight and space for two SRM-4 launchers and a third ton of ammo, as well as an extra half-ton to distribute back into the 'Mech's plating. This gives us four medium lasers - the primary dueling weapons of the popular DRG-FLAME/1C Gaussdragon configurations, and responsible for most of its kills - and twenty-one-and-change shots of fourteen SRMs per salvo. Again, moving over a hundred klicks an hour, with 368+ armor, and capable of jumping.
You could also, by cutting your initial SRM-6 down to an SRM-4 like your other two launchers (and by dropping the third ton of SRM ammo we almost got to keep. Curse you hand actuators!), click the ferro-fibrous armor button and trade out two of your medium lasers for a large, resulting in a 'Mech (8 remaining crit slots for 5x jump jets, 2x SRM-4, and 1x middle finger actuator) with greater heat efficiency, ranged punch, armor protection and ammunition efficiency in exchange for four points of alpha damage. That's a Quickdraw I can be proud of.
Or let's take it another way, and work with a variant we know, absolutely, that we're going to get - the 5K, with a guaranteed minimum of six energy and one missile hardpoint. Let's start with our basic, unarmed Quickdraw again, just to make things easier. Gives us 18.5 tons and 24 critical slots to monkey around with - not enough for your metatypical massed PPC boat, but enough for, say..
A casualty of that hand actuator I forgot until just recently, with no real way to make back the eighth crit slot we need short of dropping a jump jet and running one ton shy of maximum weight. C'est la vie. The 6e/1m variant is harder to work with anyways.
Or perhaps we do this. Two large and four medium lasers and no missiles at all. We have to slim the armor back down a bit, but it's a bit more heat-efficient than the ERPPC edition - a bit - and with better midrange capabilities. Not as exciting, and not really my preference, but solid enough.
Or you could go with a smaller engine, if 89 tweaked is sufficient for your purposes, and gain the tonnage for two ER PPCs and four medium lasers, backed by sixteen DHS. Your heat efficiency will still be crap, but you'll have a hefty energy armament backed by the mobility to get it where it needs to go.
The point being, there's plenty of ways one could go about crafting for themselves a Quickdraw that would make them squee their tea and let them move about the battlefield wreaking what havoc they saw fit. Dragon pilots are used to working with tight weaponry constraints - or damn well should be at any rate - and thus are already in a great position to make effective use of this new chassis. Not everyone in this game is slobbering over the largest possible chassis capable of carrying the greatest number of autocannons, and it's getting to be downright insulting listening to the hysteria over how useless a fast, decently armored jump-striker is going to be.
Maybe let it release first, folks?
#10
Posted 06 June 2013 - 01:29 PM
So, with STD engine a 5/8/5 treb has half a ton less free space than a 5/8/5 QD with ES&FF. Now, if the arms are more flexible it's slightly superior to a treb. Problem is with a QD you fight Cats, Phracts, Drags, and Jags vs cents, cics, BJ, and hunchies. So, it's just like being a Dragon pilot, you will always be outgunned. Now some folks (me) are fine with that but on the whole your team suffers since using your speed to cap or flank doesn't work so well without voice chat.
With an XL350 the QD has the same free space as the treb so again the meta concerns are the killer for the QD IMO.
Of course dragon pilots like myself are likely to be all over this if we don't get cored so darn fast.
Edited by Narcissistic Martyr, 06 June 2013 - 01:33 PM.
#11
Posted 06 June 2013 - 01:31 PM
#12
Posted 06 June 2013 - 02:52 PM
I really hate "Clan 'Mech 'X' is better" posts
Anyways. Martyr. You claim to be a Dragon pilot, but I'm honestly not sure I buy it. First of all, you mentioned standard engines in your post, and no Dragon pilot worth the name uses standard engines. Like, ever. The weight/speed advantages of an XL engine are far, far more critical to 'Mechs like the Dragon and Quickdraw than the minorish gains in durability a standard engine provides.
Secondly...you mention that making use of your machine's speed to cap or flank doesn't work well without voice comms. Pardon me whilst I cackle in great amusement. Do you play Conquest, Martyr? Have you played Conquest? Have you never managed to be that guy in the right spot at the right time to turn a bad fight into a winning one, even in Assault? It's kinda what me and my Flame do.
I dunno, man. It just sounds an awful lot like you're in the wrong 'Mech even if you do run Dragons. These are the sorts of arguments I've been hearing from Cataphract and (eventually) Orion pilots. Y'know, those guys who feel that 35, 55, 75, and 100 are the only valid BattleMech tonnages and any machine that doesn't devote fully half of its weight to multiple large ballistics is Bad 4 Teem. Those guys the Quickdraw isn't for.
#13
Posted 06 June 2013 - 03:07 PM
Or you know, equip BAP and go streaking.
Streak missling.
Using SSRM2's.
#14
Posted 06 June 2013 - 03:27 PM
2xLL, 2xML, 1x SRM6, 1xSRM4 (with two tons of ammo), an XL345 engine driving me at 93.2/103.5kph with room left for 3 JJ's ... and only 13 DHS... It might run a tad hot, but I *think* it'd still get three alphas before shutdown, even with no efficiencies (and really, why would a build like this ever want to just hold down all of its firepower?).
I hope I haven't missed a calculation, because I think I'm using ever critical slot (counting the hand actuator).
I'm very excited for this mech. The speed to get there, the firepower to do something and the armor to come back again.
#15
Posted 11 June 2013 - 09:20 AM
#16
Posted 12 June 2013 - 03:55 AM
Looking forward to it, and if its only a sleek Dragon getting less-easy cored.
#17
Posted 12 June 2013 - 03:09 PM
#18
Posted 12 June 2013 - 03:40 PM
Edited by armyof1, 12 June 2013 - 03:41 PM.
#19
Posted 13 June 2013 - 11:09 AM
STD 300
5xJump Jets
4xMedium Pulse Laser
1SRM4, 1xSRM6, 2 tons of ammo (20 shots)
Endo-Steel, Ferro-Fibrous (near max armor), 2 extra DHS mounted in the engine.
Will run a bit hot, not the fastest mech but quite maneuverable.
Alternatives:
-Swap 2xMPLS to 2x Medium Lasers and 2 DHS, no need for Ferro-Fibrous then and better heat management.
-Trade one Jump Jet for 13th DHS.
-Swap all MPLS to Medium Lasers, a couple of heat sinks and extra ton or two SRM ammo. Alternatively add Artemis.
-XL engine (must get rid of Ferro-Fibrous) for extra weapons, speed, heavier weapons, more ammo... Will be vulnerable though, don't really like running with an XL engine.
#20
Posted 17 June 2013 - 06:16 PM
The configs I'm thinking would use medium lasers and SRMs, and I feel that the Quickdraw does have the speed and mobility to use those effectively regardless of the map.
It looks like it can somewhat zombie with the CT missile slot provided the ammo for the launcher is stored in the head.
I'm definitely getting a version of the Quickdraw tomorrow. Had some fun playing this 'mech on tabletop.
And a little off-topic to the fellow waiting for the Summoner: The Mad Dog is a closer 'mech to compare against the Quickdraw, since the Mad Dog is a 60 tonner with a 300 XL engine and FF armor. Since it's an omnimech, it can also mount jump jets.
Edited by TELEFORCE, 17 June 2013 - 06:20 PM.
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