124 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

Regarding light mech buff. I don't think 2-5 pts more armor is a buff.

If it makes the difference between one shotting and two shotting its a huge buff. And in many cases it does make that difference.

[Foxfire]

What they need to do is reduce the number of critical space that FF takes up.

IMO it should use a maximum of half of what it currently does and it should be proportional to the amount of armor that you can equip... e.g. lights use the least amount of crits and assaults use the most. I don't think it would be unfair to change to 7 for Assault, 6 for Heavy, 5 for Medium, and 4 for Lights.

As is, it is nowhere near good enough to justify 14 crits.

Edited by Foxfire, 14 September 2013 - 05:28 AM.

[scJazz]

Xanquil, on 14 September 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Sorry I have to say no also, for one major reason The Clans. If you buff FF you just make almost all clan mechs that much better, That is something we do not need.

I was sitting on the fence regarding this idea until I read this post. Now I'm firmly against.

[Drunk Canuck]

Khobai, on 12 September 2013 - 01:32 AM, said:

Its a bad idea. Its basically a straight up buff to Light mechs. Light mechs are already more survivable than assaults and light mechs are the only mechs that use ferrofibrous regularly. Mediums and heavies only use it in specific builds, but its not that common.

If you want to buff FF, buff it in a way that assault mechs can use it too.

No they aren't. If you think light Mech's are hard to kill, either the pilot is bad or the person shooting at the light can't aim worth a damn. I can leg and instant kill lights who try to circle me, it's all a matter of timing and patience. As soon as a light is legged, they are done, there is nothing to keep them alive. A few extra points of armor is not in any way shape or form, going to protect them and allow them to escape once they are legged. Improving FF armor makes sense, and I think it's not just lights that would see the improvement, brawler heavies and assaults would see their survivability go up a fair bit. It would also entice heavy players into equipping lighter weapons in order to brawl longer and survive those dastardly LRM attacks while they close the gap.

PS. I have seen Spiders with their broken hitboxes still get mauled into oblivion in 30 seconds from a combined strike of multiple Mech's. It's all about legging light pilots to kill them.

[Xanquil]

Foxfire, on 14 September 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

What they need to do is reduce the number of critical space that FF takes up.

IMO it should use a maximum of half of what it currently does

That is what Clan FF does. (7 crits) in addition Clan gives 20% instead of 12% so do you realy think the Op idea is a good one knowing that. Weight and crit space is something that PGI is not going to change, mostly because they want to be able to sell any of the listed mechs in any of the official Battletech tech readouts.

[Khobai]

Ferro is not Hardened Armor, it should not increase maximum armor.

Ferro simply needs to be equal to Endo. So just increase the armor per ton from 112% to 125%.

[Foxfire]

Xanquil, on 14 September 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

That is what Clan FF does. (7 crits) in addition Clan gives 20% instead of 12% so do you realy think the Op idea is a good one knowing that. Weight and crit space is something that PGI is not going to change, mostly because they want to be able to sell any of the listed mechs in any of the official Battletech tech readouts.

That is why I don't like the idea of increasing the amount of armor that you can equip with FF.

The issue with FF isn't how much weight savings that you get.. it is that you don't get the weight savings on a level to justify the crit slot investment.. which is what makes Endo pretty much a no-brainer in the vast majority of situations.

[StainlessSR]

All this would do is allow you to spend 14 crits to increase your armor as the weight of the extra armor would negate the weight saved.

EDIT: removed erroneous data

Also, what the others have said about why this is not a good idea.

Edited by StainlessSR, 16 September 2013 - 01:39 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

OK - lets try it logical

the ammount of armour a Mech can carry is reduced by - what weight?
If it is weight and FF is a lighter material - than if a armor location has 1.43tons it could have 1.43 tons of FF too - reducing in more armorpoints.

the ammount of armor a Mech can carry is reduced by - volume?
that means a Mech can carry a sheet of 1m² with 90mm thickness at a given location. I mount FF that is lighter for the same protection - but FF need more volume - so i need 110mm for the same protection as 90mm standard....wait

I can mount 110mm FF but not 110mm Standard?

So it is a composition of both?

A location can carry only 1.43tons and maximal 110mm thickness: that result in 1.43tons standard armor and 90mm thickness
or 1.3tons and 110mm FF thickness.

Does that make sense? Wouldn't it be better to combine both armor types? Well that is Light FF (that is the heavy cousin of FF consuming less volume)

However - I voted YES - because the only reason using FF - is not in game - so it has to be a better alternative.

[Zyllos]

I think what people are missing is that for any mech to gain any benefit in armor (12% more), they have to lose the 12% weight reduction to pile on more armor points.

Think about this. A Jenner already has FF, ES, and all that great stuff and is built to 35t. This new change gets implemented. This person's built still weighs 35t, but the player will see he does not have the maximum armor points available. This means the person would have to drop something to gain the extra 12% in armor.

So how does this unfairly benefit Light mechs?

Edited by Zyllos, 16 September 2013 - 06:05 AM.

[Zyllos]

Foxfire, on 15 September 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

That is why I don't like the idea of increasing the amount of armor that you can equip with FF.

The issue with FF isn't how much weight savings that you get.. it is that you don't get the weight savings on a level to justify the crit slot investment.. which is what makes Endo pretty much a no-brainer in the vast majority of situations.

While I do agree that Clan mechs would have 20% FF at only 7 critical slots, this could be balanced/fixed. Also, it goes back to what I said earlier. For anyone to utilize the extra armor points, they have to equip extra tonnage equal to 20% of the armor to have any gain, thus you have to drop equipment for it.

[Strum Wealh]

Zyllos, on 16 September 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

I think what people are missing is that for any mech to gain any benefit in armor (12% more), they have to lose the 12% weight reduction to pile on more armor points.

Think about this. A Jenner already has FF, ES, and all that great stuff and is built to 35t. This new change gets implemented. This person's built still weighs 35t, but the player will see he does not have the maximum armor points available. This means the person would have to drop something to gain the extra 12% in armor.

So how does this unfairly benefit Light mechs?

Indeed - to take it a step further, a lot of people tend to miss that it's supposed to present the option of 1.) carrying the same number of armor points for less weight (at the cost of critical spaces) or 2.) carrying a greater number of armor points for equal or lesser weight (at the cost of critical spaces).

In MWO, Standard Armor is available at a ratio of 32 armor points per ton (double the value used in BattleTech), while Inner Sphere Ferro-Fibrous Armor in MWO is available at a ratio of 36 armor points per ton (1.12x the number of armor points per ton as MWO Standard Armor).

However, the maximum armor load of any given BattleMech is not a function of armor tonnage, but number of armor points.
For example, the maximum number of armor points that can be equipped to a MWO Centurion (or any other 50-ton 'Mech) is 338 - it cannot carry any more than that, regardless of the actual mass of the armor material.

• As such, a MWO Centurion carrying a full load of Standard Armor (that is, 338 armor points of Standard Armor) is carrying 10.56 tons of armor.
  
• By contrast, a MWO Centurion carrying a full load of Ferro-Fibrous Armor (that is, 338 armor points of Ferro-Fibrous Armor) is carrying only 9.39 tons of armor, rather than 10.56 tons of armor (a difference of ~12%), despite having the same level of protection/durability as its fully-armored Standard Armor equipped counterpart.
  
• However, a MWO Centurion carrying only 9.39 tons of Standard Armor (the same weight/mass as a full load of Ferro-Fibrous Armor) would have only ~301 armor points to spread across its body, rather than 338 (a difference of ~12%).

That is the point of Ferro-Fibrous Armor - it is an exchange of protection per unit of mass/weight for internal volume (and, when R&R was a factor, repair cost).

Clan-made Ferro-Fibrous Armor (assuming it maintains the 1.20x ratio from BattleTech) increases the level of protection per unit of armor mass/weight (to 38-39 armor points per ton) while reducing the cost to internal volume (to only 7 critical spaces, versus the 14 critical spaces required for IS-made Ferro-Fibrous Armor).

As such, the MWO versions of (for example) the Hellhound or Nobori-nin (both being 50-ton Clan 'Mechs that equip Clan Ferro-Fibrous Armor by default) would be able to carry a full load of Clan-made Ferro-Fibrous Armor (338 armor points - the same as the MWO Centurion, or any other 50-ton MWO 'Mech) for only 8.80 tons and 7 criticals (versus the 9.39 tons and 14 criticals needed by the fully-armored MWO Centurion equipped with IS-made Ferro-Fibrous Armor).

If we're taking the stance that some change is necessarily needed (which is niot necessarily the case), What I would like to see is normal IS Ferro-Fibrous Armor retaining its normal properties (consumes 14 criticals and grants 12% more armor points per ton) and gaining a small (no more than 10%) universal damage reduction element, while Clan FF likewise retains its normal properties and has the same universal damage reduction element added to it.
What one ends up with would be:

• IS & Clan Standard Armor: 32 pts/ton, 0 criticals consumed, 0% damage reduction
  
• IS Ferro-Fibrous Armor: 36 pts/ton, 14 criticals consumed, 10% damage reduction against all weapons
  
• Clan Ferro-Fibrous Armor: 38-39 pts/ton, 7 criticals consumed, 10% damage reduction against all weapons

The point of making the degree of damage reduction small (no more than 10%) is to have Ferro-Fibrous Armor not intrude too far into the domains of those armors whose primary characteristic is damage reduction: Hardened Armor (50% universal damage reduction), Laser-Reflective Armor (50% damage reduction versus energy weapons only), Reactive Armor (50% damage reduction versus missile & artillery weapons only), and Ferro-Lamellor Armor (20% universal damage reduction).

Thoughts?

[Foxfire]

Zyllos, on 16 September 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

While I do agree that Clan mechs would have 20% FF at only 7 critical slots, this could be balanced/fixed. Also, it goes back to what I said earlier. For anyone to utilize the extra armor points, they have to equip extra tonnage equal to 20% of the armor to have any gain, thus you have to drop equipment for it.

That still wouldn't make FF useful in many cases. I find that I am hitting the crit slot cap with Endo and standard armor on everything from lights to heavies(I haven't played around with Assaults yet.. though it wouldn't surprise me if the Atlas had the crits available on a full load out). You'd have to have a pretty light weapon load out for the weight class to be able to fit FF in most cases which, with the way the game is now, wouldn't be a fair trade off unless you made it a significant bonus.

[CuriousCabbitBlue]

Foxfire, on 14 September 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

What they need to do is reduce the number of critical space that FF takes up.

IMO it should use a maximum of half of what it currently does and it should be proportional to the amount of armor that you can equip... e.g. lights use the least amount of crits and assaults use the most. I don't think it would be unfair to change to 7 for Assault, 6 for Heavy, 5 for Medium, and 4 for Lights.

As is, it is nowhere near good enough to justify 14 crits.

I like this idea

and was thinking

why not buff both?

make standard stronger again ballistics and FF stronger against energy weapons meh just a random idea or something like that

would say give it stealth properties but there is too much of that with emc alone lol even if it was just a tiny reduction in detection range

butttt

I like your idea more lol

[Prezimonto]

What I'd like to see is that FF increases the total armor by 12 to 20% (should be balanced), but doesn't give you a weight savings (that's essentially going into the ability to pack more armor on your mech)...

In addition I'd like to the ability to over weight a single location to +20 to 30%. So most players would probably beef up the CT, but I could easily see Hunchies liking the upgrade so they can toss extra armor on the hunch, or the cent and griffin throw extra armor on the shield arm.

This makes FF an strong defensive choice (slightly better armor everywhere and quite a bit better armor on a single location) at the cost of weight. If you can then pack endosteel and FF on the mech the somewhat offset each other.

I do realize that getting rid of the weight savings would break a lot of builds, so maybe that's not viable. I still like the idea that a player could choose to spend the extra weight on more armor and specifically, fairly heavily over armor one location of choice.

So it might look something like this: your maximum stock armor is 300 you upgrade to FF, giving you both a 12% weight savings in armor and increasing your maximum FF armor to 336. You can assign the extra 36 points as either a blanket 12% increase to everywhere but the head (extra goes onto the CT), OR you can choose to over armor one location by up to 30% and the left overs (which will be less than 12%) can get divvied up as you please. FF upgrade might give you a little set of check boxes on the paper doll... check a location and the rest grey out... letting you over armor that location. This provides some serious flexibility for the FF upgrade, and let's it be a potentially purely defensive upgrades or a much weaker offensive upgrade to endosteel.

In addition... how about we beef up the standard engine/SHS/base structure... give them bonuses to internal HP(so just a buff to "stock" equipment, not a nerf to anything else)... I've got a thread on all of this here:
http://mwomercs.com/...-survivability/

Strum Wealh, on 16 September 2013 - 03:07 PM, said:

If we're taking the stance that some change is necessarily needed (which is niot necessarily the case), What I would like to see is normal IS Ferro-Fibrous Armor retaining its normal properties (consumes 14 criticals and grants 12% more armor points per ton) and gaining a small (no more than 10%) universal damage reduction element, while Clan FF likewise retains its normal properties and has the same universal damage reduction element added to it.
What one ends up with would be:

• IS & Clan Standard Armor: 32 pts/ton, 0 criticals consumed, 0% damage reduction
  
• IS Ferro-Fibrous Armor: 36 pts/ton, 14 criticals consumed, 10% damage reduction against all weapons
  
• Clan Ferro-Fibrous Armor: 38-39 pts/ton, 7 criticals consumed, 10% damage reduction against all weapons

I like the damage reduction idea as it makes FF a purely defensive option and I don't think it's wildly imbalanced at 5 to 10% damage reduction against the extra tons in Endosteel.

I still strongly think that while the implentation that TT used makes sense, it's just bad balance in MWO against Endosteel, because we don't have to send our mechs back to the factory to have a new skeleton put in place. FF is a smart upgrade in a setting that has a more robust level of economics and repair, but in this game it's just better in nearly every way.

Edited by Prezimonto, 27 January 2014 - 06:20 AM.

[SaltBeef]

Like the idea but not the 12 % number , should be better but!,... only a little better and clan should be better than inner sphere since their armor values may be pegged.

[Krujiente]

Ferro fibrous was useful in Tabletop because endo steel was too expensive to put on a lot of mechs for no reason. Its not so useful here because we're dealing with 12 mechs built for maximum most expensive efficiency. Also if you have trouble with light mechs you're not using enough lasers, there's no reason to not have at least 1 laser on everything you use, I always pick off lights like ripping the legs off a fly (and actually feel a similar amount of guilt whenever I see "component destruction". Anyway, I would be okay with this trade off. and approve of this, I would put it on my zombie cent to get higher armor and probably would put it on a lot of less-energy dependent mechs for the armor bump.

[technopredator]

I disagree with 12%, for the 14 slots it takes it should give

• 20% more armor or
  
• 20% less weight

it should be a trade off, depending of what you want. And no damage reduction, because it already comes when you add 20% more armor and why should absorb 10% of damage? because it makes you wonder: what property does FF have that dissipates 10% of energy received? it'd be like having a permanent shield and that's unfair IMO unless it has a good justification, like being canon or something like that.

Edited by technopredator, 16 March 2014 - 12:44 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

technopredator, on 16 March 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

I disagree with 12%, for the 14 slots it takes it should give

• 20% more armor or
  
• 20% less weight

it should be a trade off, depending of what you want. And no damage reduction, because it already comes when you add 20% more armor and why should absorb 10% of damage? because it makes you wonder: what property does FF have that dissipates 10% of energy received? it'd be like having a permanent shield and that's unfair IMO unless it has a good justification, like being canon or something like that.

The "12% more armor points per ton" value for IS FF and the "20% more armor points per ton" value for Clan FF are dictated by BattleTech canon.

• "Armor may be mounted in full- or half-ton lots, and provides a base amount of 16 points per ton of standard armor (8 points per half-ton). The use of alternative armor types such as ferro-fibrous can modify this amount as shown in the BattleMech Armor Table, allowing for generally higher points-per-ton ratios at a cost in greater bulk (and fewer open critical slots on the Critical Hits Table)." - TechManual, pg. 54
  
• "For instance, a BattleMech that uses 4 tons of Inner Sphere ferro-fibrous armor would receive 71 armor points (4 tons x 16 points per ton x 1.12 = 71.68 armor points, rounded down to 71), while 1 ton of the same armor would provide only 17 armor points (1 ton x 16 points per ton x 1.12 = 17.92, round down to 17)." - TechManual, pg. 55

The aforementioned "BattleMech Armor Table" is found on page 56 of TechManual, and gives the "Base Points Multiplier" for IS FF as 1.12 & the Base Points Multiplier for Clan FF as 1.20 - that is, IS FF canonically provides 12% more armor points per ton over Standard Armor while Clan FF canonically provides 20% more armor points per ton over Standard Armor; the 12% and 20% values were not arbitrary selections on PGI's part.

Additionally, it should be noted that three of the resistive armor types (specifically: Reflective Armor, Reactive Armor, and Ferro-Lamellor Armor) are, from an in-universe perspective, derived from Ferro-Fibrous Armor.

• "Ferro-Lamellor Armor is an enhanced hybrid of ferro-fibrous armor and WarShip-grade Lamellor armor developed by the Clans for use on smaller battlefield units such as BattleMechs, Combat Vehicles and fighters." - TacOps, pg. 279
  
• "Workers at Coventry Metal Works accidentally 'discovered' a potentially effective form of laser-reflective armor (also known as glazed or 'reflec' armor) while working on a batch of ferro-fibrous armor. The resulting high gloss alloy sharply reduced the effects of laser and flamer fire, but initially proved over-sensitive to the localized subsurface heating effects of particle cannon fire." - TacOps, pg. 280
  
• "An anti-ballistic variant of ferro-fibrous armor, reactive armor (also known as Blazer armor) uses a series of micro-explosive charges to reduce all damage from shaped-charge-type weapons such as missiles, mortars and artillery weapons." - TacOps, pg. 282

All three are so similar in terms of material composition and manufacturing process that they even share vulnerabilitirs to certain specialist technologies (such as the AX Warheads developed by the IS to counter the Clans' heavy use of FF armor; see page 367 of Tactical Operations).
As such, PGI could assume that normal FF armor could have some additional common properties of those three resistive armor types - such as a small resistance to each damage type (which the later, specialist armor types then improve upon as a matter of their design).

[ExAstra]

This may be a far-out-there suggestion, but we could also consider polarized armor in the way that was done in MW4?

Ferro Fibrous Armor weighs the least, but you could get Reflective armor to absorb more energy weapon damage or Reactive armor to absorb more ballistic damage.

Again just an alternative suggestion to consider.

Looks like I'm too late anyway, oh well lol.

Edited by ExAstra, 13 July 2014 - 06:32 AM.