36 replies to this topic

[oldradagast]

Alistair Winter, on 06 October 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

Well, PGI has explained that the Awesome is supposed to be some kind of beginner assault mech, and that you should eventually progress to the 'high end' Atlas. So it's bad and it's supposed to be bad, by their logic.

I'm not quite sure why they want us to spend 6000 MCs (28 dollars-ish) on a beginner hero mech (Pretty Baby) that you'll eventually abandon in favour of real assault mechs, but I'm sure they have very good reasons. Oh yes. Definitely.

Adding to this: PGI's position is simply nonsense and lacks a fundamental understanding of Battletech. Mechs are not ranked on a scale of 20 to 100, with 100 being "the best." By their logic of the Atlas being the "best" avatar in the game, our goal should all be to having nothing but DDC Atlases in every position on every team. That would be incredibly boring and in no way look like an actual Battletech game. Every mech should be viable - there may be some weak versions, but there should be no junk chassis - and people should pick a mech based upon what suits their playstyle, not based upon some odd notion that it's okay for lighter mechs to be trash.

Personally, I think this is just an excuse for them not to go back and fix the Awesome's hitboxes. Afterall, the Stalker only weighs 5 tons more and is also thus supposed to be a trashy, low-end assault mech, but thanks to having excellent hitboxes, it's a great mech. Funny how that works.

[Gorgo7]

Taemien, on 06 October 2013 - 12:12 AM, said:

Fire them once every 10 seconds, not on their faster than a Btech turn cooldown they have ingame.

I took a Awesome into Forest Colony and fired 2 ER PPCs with 15 DHS, they cooled off in about 9.8 seconds. So I think the DHS are working well enough, you just get diminishing returns past 15. But that shouldn't matter too much, at 100 tons they don't diminish enough to make certain configs unusable.

An Awesome can mount 4 PPCs and be viable. You just can't fire all 4 at once, but you can allow a .5 second delay between one side and then fire the other for good effect.

Wow...perhaps we could ask the Dakka builds to reduce their output as well. Say AC's to one shot per ten seconds and UAC5 to twice per ten sec...
No.
20 double heat sinks and three ERPPC means shut down and engine damage after firing the ER's twice in rapid succession...4.5-5.0 sec(in order to avoid Ghost heat). Good damage over time but hardly devestating as the shutdown gets you murdered.
As before I don't have a problem with the awesome as a target, I often use my arms well enough to have them removed in combat and survive.

Cheers,
Gorgo7

[mike29tw]

General Taskeen, on 05 October 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

Because the Awesome uses 3 to 4 PPC's. Its canon. the Stock 8Q with 3 PPC's and 1 Small laser was basically close to heat efficient with just single heat sinks. It could fire 3 even at the same time and barely have any generated heat in the next turn.

Here is a record sheet to look at: http://bte.battletec...te/pdf/4957.pdf

Well I guess that's the first mech that sucks in stock loadout isn't it lol.

aniviron, on 05 October 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

It sounds like a pretty decent build on paper, and indeed, it was one of the first things I tried after ghost heat, and I tried again after the PPC nerf. It turns out that the PPC and the llas are good at very different things, and therefore have very little synergy. It builds tons of heat, and leaves you kinda okay at sniping, decentish at midrange, and bad at close combat.

What winds up happening is that you either have to fire both groups at once, which means your PPCs will miss behind the target, or the llas will be too far ahead and miss, or you fire as separate groups and the firing + reaim time means you never get to torso twist to spread damage- and now with an added hot running bonus!

I run 2PPCs and 2 LLas in my Highlander 733P. I do have spare tonnage for some SRM10 though in case I end up in a brawl, but overall it's a pretty good mid-long range build. You can do a little sniping and a little poptart, and high-heat nature of this combo means that you HAVE to torso twist and cool down before another strike. It forces you to make good use of your arm/torso armor.

And then I realize you're piloting an Awesome, which can neither jump nor tank damage as well as my Highlander. Maybe it's just Awesome that sucks though lol.

oldradagast, on 06 October 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

I tossed this idea out there a while ago, and while I sadly expect it'll never be implemented, it would help the Awesome a bit:

Any mech that can use only one type of weapon (energy, ballistic, or missile) has the "ghost limit" cutoff point for all weapons of that type raised by one.

So, if normally 2 PPC's of any type is max you can do without ghost heat, the Awesome 8Q would now be able to use 3 PPC's of any type before triggering ghost heat.

This would not only allow stock builds to be more viable, it helps balance out a huge drawback - being limited to 1 weapon type - and makes the Awesome 8Q fill a niche role as being the PPC king, which makes sense since that's the whole reason the mech was made.

Oh please......either leave the ghost heat as it is, or remove it. Don't add any more complication to it already...

[GumbyC2C]

Mycrus, on 06 October 2013 - 12:55 AM, said:

The pretty baby is the most heroic of the hero mechs..

The pilot has to be heroic to make it work...

this made me lol. I do really well with my Pretty Baby. But you have to be smart with it. Like all Awesomes, you have to use it the way it was meant to be used. Awesome's are not supposed to get into people's grills and brawl, though I have built PBs and 9Ms that could do that well too. They are supposed to be fire support either through missiles or energy weapon sniping. Stick to those roles on a good build and you will do very well.

[MadMaxMKII]

GumbyC2C, on 06 October 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

this made me lol. I do really well with my Pretty Baby. But you have to be smart with it. Like all Awesomes, you have to use it the way it was meant to be used. Awesome's are not supposed to get into people's grills and brawl, though I have built PBs and 9Ms that could do that well too. They are supposed to be fire support either through missiles or energy weapon sniping. Stick to those roles on a good build and you will do very well.

Amen
http://s14.directupl...06/odwqzbav.jpg

[Taemien]

Gorgo7, on 06 October 2013 - 06:21 AM, said:

Wow...perhaps we could ask the Dakka builds to reduce their output as well. Say AC's to one shot per ten seconds and UAC5 to twice per ten sec...
No.
20 double heat sinks and three ERPPC means shut down and engine damage after firing the ER's twice in rapid succession...4.5-5.0 sec(in order to avoid Ghost heat). Good damage over time but hardly devestating as the shutdown gets you murdered.
As before I don't have a problem with the awesome as a target, I often use my arms well enough to have them removed in combat and survive.

Cheers,
Gorgo7

As I said before, don't fire them on cooldown. Long range weapons aren't meant to do that except for Gauss. With 4 PPCs you can fire off a blast of two, wait a couple of seconds and fire the others.

Optimal? Probably not, but boating has its limits. Of course there is other weapons that can be used, you don't have to fill tonnages with all PPCs either.

[Gorgo7]

Taemien, hard to follow that advice concerning firing them and cooling off at your leisure. Opportunity comes and goes. It simply seems to me that you are willfully ignorant when it comes to energy weapon builds. Take a look at http://mwomercs.com/...ey-are-too-hot/

Cheers,

Gorgo

[Taemien]

Gorgo7, on 06 October 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

Taemien, hard to follow that advice concerning firing them and cooling off at your leisure. Opportunity comes and goes. It simply seems to me that you are willfully ignorant when it comes to energy weapon builds. Take a look at http://mwomercs.com/...ey-are-too-hot/

Cheers,

Gorgo

I'm not convinced of that argument simply because PPCs have no ammo as well as capable of putting 100% of their damage into a single location whereas lasers cannot.

There's too much focus on making boats. I simply believe boats should be inferior to mixed loadouts. They are simpler to use and therefor should yield lesser results. Thats the price you pay. Its actually more complex than that. But that discussion is beyond the scope of this thread.

You could make ERPPCs cool off mechs when fired (as in have -15 heat) and Awesomes would still be inferior. That much is a fact. There's more to the problem with Awesomes then simply PPC heat. PPCs are only one class of weapon Awesome can mount. And I really doubt the state of PPCs right now is really that bad compared to what the real problem, which is its silhouette and size.

[aniviron]

GumbyC2C, on 06 October 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

this made me lol. I do really well with my Pretty Baby. But you have to be smart with it. Like all Awesomes, you have to use it the way it was meant to be used. Awesome's are not supposed to get into people's grills and brawl, though I have built PBs and 9Ms that could do that well too. They are supposed to be fire support either through missiles or energy weapon sniping. Stick to those roles on a good build and you will do very well.

Avoid getting close? My AWS-8R Honey Badger derivative begs to differ. Getting under 400 damage in this mech is rare for me unless I severely screw up. Just fire off a few PPCs now and then while waiting for the fatties to roll into your SRMs. Funny thing about that, this mech works best against other Awesomes.

[MustrumRidcully]

oldradagast, on 06 October 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

Adding to this: PGI's position is simply nonsense and lacks a fundamental understanding of Battletech. Mechs are not ranked on a scale of 20 to 100, with 100 being "the best." By their logic of the Atlas being the "best" avatar in the game, our goal should all be to having nothing but DDC Atlases in every position on every team. That would be incredibly boring and in no way look like an actual Battletech game. Every mech should be viable - there may be some weak versions, but there should be no junk chassis - and people should pick a mech based upon what suits their playstyle, not based upon some odd notion that it's okay for lighter mechs to be trash.

Personally, I think this is just an excuse for them not to go back and fix the Awesome's hitboxes. Afterall, the Stalker only weighs 5 tons more and is also thus supposed to be a trashy, low-end assault mech, but thanks to having excellent hitboxes, it's a great mech. Funny how that works.

Don't worry, it's just their position at this time. They once aimed for the goal of having all mech weights be competitive and relevant for the entirety of your mechwarrior career. Maybe they'll adopt that position again at some point, who knows?

[GumbyC2C]

aniviron, on 07 October 2013 - 12:45 AM, said:

Avoid getting close? My AWS-8R Honey Badger derivative begs to differ. Getting under 400 damage in this mech is rare for me unless I severely screw up. Just fire off a few PPCs now and then while waiting for the fatties to roll into your SRMs. Funny thing about that, this mech works best against other Awesomes.

I like that build. Like I said in my post, I have built a few that are good at brawling. The main problem with brawling in an Awesome is that it is not for new players. You have to be mindful of that barn of a CT you are sporting. I have even taken to using XLs in most of my Awesomes because I am so rarely hit in the RT or LT.
I have had a lot of success with this one:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...76918153b25334b

I group each arm's lasers into a fire group and just alternate fire and rarely overheat.

[Hisashi No Oni]

Well sadly the Awesome is the worst victim of this version of BT/MW. With ghost heat, broken half working PPC's, and for some unknow reason engine size restrictions. The Awesome is totally unawesome and from my point of view the worst Mech in the game ATM. The most straightforward to the point Mech of all the Mechs is just a walking target and I pity anyone who bought one....Like me! *shakes fist at Dev's*

[aniviron]

GumbyC2C, on 07 October 2013 - 05:23 AM, said:

I like that build. Like I said in my post, I have built a few that are good at brawling. The main problem with brawling in an Awesome is that it is not for new players. You have to be mindful of that barn of a CT you are sporting. I have even taken to using XLs in most of my Awesomes because I am so rarely hit in the RT or LT.
I have had a lot of success with this one:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...76918153b25334b

I group each arm's lasers into a fire group and just alternate fire and rarely overheat.

I ran almost exactly that build in my 8T for a few months, and it wasn't too bad. That said, it ran hotter than I liked, and I really felt the only thing keeping it alive was the fact that being able to ambush people meant 4llas to the back. Ever since I had to switch it to 2 + 2, it pretty much killed the build for me and I haven't used mine in over a month, took the engine out and put it in something else. Would love to see other close-in builds for the 8T that work, I'm not wild about LRMs; but maybe I should give them another try since lockons are crazy easy now.

[Deathlike]

aniviron, on 05 October 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

It sounds like a pretty decent build on paper, and indeed, it was one of the first things I tried after ghost heat, and I tried again after the PPC nerf. It turns out that the PPC and the llas are good at very different things, and therefore have very little synergy. It builds tons of heat, and leaves you kinda okay at sniping, decentish at midrange, and bad at close combat.

What winds up happening is that you either have to fire both groups at once, which means your PPCs will miss behind the target, or the llas will be too far ahead and miss, or you fire as separate groups and the firing + reaim time means you never get to torso twist to spread damage- and now with an added hot running bonus!

What I've found from combining LL and PPCs is that you want to fire your PPCs as often as possible, with the LL if you are strictly dealing with lights and/or close range combat. Ideally, following PPC damage with LL is optimal ONLY if you have enough extra heat capacity to play with (at the moment).

ERL should be OK, but the heat generation issue after firing a PPC can be difficult.

I did try to run this on the 733P, and it was already (could fit like 19 DHS or so on it) and it seemed OK. It wasn't a great build, but it was manageable if you have the heat management discipline.

It's just easier to just give the tombstone of the Awesome these words:
Awesome: Was Sorry Its Name Was Sheer Irony
or
Awesome: Died In Irony To Its Namesake

Edited by Deathlike, 07 October 2013 - 07:37 PM.

[Ngamok]

SirLANsalot, on 05 October 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

The AWS chassis need a different set of pilot efficiencies.

Would work if they got rid of the Pinpoint Efficiency and put in a per chassis one in the Elite tree.

[Kaspirikay]

Really, I think Awesomes should have a boost to cooling amount because of their large surface area.

[Almond Brown]

General Taskeen, on 05 October 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

Because the Awesome uses 3 to 4 PPC's. Its canon. the Stock 8Q with 3 PPC's and 1 Small laser was basically close to heat efficient with just single heat sinks. It could fire 3 even at the same time and barely have any generated heat in the next turn.

Here is a record sheet to look at: http://bte.battletec...te/pdf/4957.pdf

Well there is your answer right there. Fire all 3 and then count to TEN.