74 replies to this topic

[Ecrof]

The max center armor on these 20 ton mechs is lower than there cockpit armor of 18. They will be a walking one shots. Even with broken hrs they would be easy to kill unless they have (spider) hit boxes.

edit
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...echlab#modified

Edited by Ecrof, 28 August 2013 - 04:26 AM.

[Hexenhammer]

Wait till the fix hit detection on high speed mechs!

[Judas Augustine]

Is that for the front AND back of the center torso?

[Wintersdark]

Errr, you know the Locust has a maximum of 24 for it's Center Torso, right?

[Ecrof]

Wintersdark, on 27 August 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

Errr, you know the Locust has a maximum of 24 for it's Center Torso, right?

With no back armor.

[stjobe]

Well, to be fair the TT version only had a single point more CT armour than head armour; 10 on the CT, 9 on the head.

And yes, 2 points on all three rear torsos.

It never was the most durable of 'mechs - but the way it moved it was damned hard to hit, so let's hope it's small and fast in MWO as well.

[Macbrea]

TableTop wise this mech looks like: LCT-1V

So, it was a one shot kill in table top frequently.

Edited by Macbrea, 28 August 2013 - 07:49 AM.

[Macbrea]

The issue with the locus will be the same issue with the raven. Unlike the squat Jenner the Locus is suppose to be a tall thin mech. It will get legged extremely easily.

[Alistair Winter]

I don't know why people keep bringing up TT. TS' point is that it's going to do badly in this game. People are responding by saying that it did badly in TT. Well, whoop dee doo. That's like someone complaining about Republic Trooper class in Star Wars The Old Republic, and other people responding "It's ok, they died a lot in the movies too!"

Anyway, I'd like to see a Locust vs Kintaro duel. Locust has, at best, 1 large laser and 4 machine guns. Kintaro has 1 large laser and 5 streaks, the latter doing 25 damage per salvo without ever missing. Good luck using speed to avoid those missiles. I imagine the Locust will be legged in 10.5 seconds (that's 3 SSRM cycles, with a total of 75 damage) and killed within the next 7 seconds.

[Gevurah]

Same reason I wrote a thread up about these 20 tonners specifically called 'what's the point' - I don't see a value to this until they update the metagame to provide some serious role warfare incentive or contract-based bonuses (like +5 million cbills for all 12 of you if you go in 120 tons less than the recommended amount) etc.

[Macbrea]

The way you make mechs worth it to play is impose the Matchmaking system on it.. It had been mentioned that if the system was set up,

Group Size	Minimum Tonnage	Maximum Tonnage
2	40	125
3	160	180
4	210	245
5	265	305
6	315	365
7	370	425
8	420	485
9	475	545
10	525	605
11	580	665
12	630	730

This would mean that a group of two bring in an Atlas can only also bring in a 25 ton mech or less. If you queued up for a 12 man match your group is limited to 730 tons. The devs stated this is how the system is intended to work. Otherwise, why wouldn't 12 people just all bring the 100 ton mechs? What is the point of a smaller mech.?

[sC4r]

well this is possibly best thing you can fit into locust
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...echlab#modified

looks like downgraded spider that "might" be smaller (dont forget pgi scaling)
so yea 20 tonners will be as i said in someone else topic... flies you squash with mechsized newspaper

[mailin]

Alistair Winter, on 30 August 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:

Anyway, I'd like to see a Locust vs Kintaro duel. Locust has, at best, 1 large laser and 4 machine guns. Kintaro has 1 large laser and 5 streaks, the latter doing 25 damage per salvo without ever missing. Good luck using speed to avoid those missiles. I imagine the Locust will be legged in 10.5 seconds (that's 3 SSRM cycles, with a total of 75 damage) and killed within the next 7 seconds.

I'd take that bet. The advantage the Locust may have is the ability to stay out of streak range, but still hit. If the pilot is good enough he should be able to use cover to frequently get behind his opponent to pop him in the back with his LL. It isn't too hard to stay more than 270m from a streak cat or a splat cat in my Spider but still hit with with my mplas. Granted, they don't do as much damage at that range, but if it keeps the A1 busy trying to close on me I've done my job.

[mailin]

Macbrea, on 30 August 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

why wouldn't 12 people just all bring the 100 ton mechs? What is the point of a smaller mech.?

I dropped just this morning with a 12 man. We had a mixture of mechs including me in a Spider, a Jenner and a couple of Cicadas. Out of the 6 matches I dropped, we only lost one. Lights are fast and they can really mess with any well-designed plan. Remember, these weren't pugs we were dropping against, but another 12 man team and both teams were on comms. Both teams may have made some mistakes, but lights give you the ability to quickly take advantage of an enemy mistake; something you can't necessarily do in a heavier mech.

[Alistair Winter]

mailin, on 30 August 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

I'd take that bet. The advantage the Locust may have is the ability to stay out of streak range, but still hit. If the pilot is good enough he should be able to use cover to frequently get behind his opponent to pop him in the back with his LL. It isn't too hard to stay more than 270m from a streak cat or a splat cat in my Spider but still hit with with my mplas. Granted, they don't do as much damage at that range, but if it keeps the A1 busy trying to close on me I've done my job.

It's much harder to hit your target more than he hits you, when he's running towards you and you're trying to run away. So if the pilots are equally skilled, the advantage of being smaller and faster is negated, especially on maps with dense terrain. How much more does the Locust need to hit the Kintaro with his large laser than vice versa, in order to be winning the fight, when it's wearing paper armour? Well, the Kintaro has a maximum of 72 CT armor, while the Locust has a maximum of 24 CT armor. So it needs to be more than 3 hits by the Locust for every 1 hit by the Kintaro pilot.

If you're staying outside 270 meters, consistently staying behind the Kintaro to hit its back is even more difficult, so that seems like a bad strategy. Imagine that the Kintaro is in a circle with a radius of 270 meters. In order to move from the edge of the circle to the opposite side, without entering the circle, you need to move at least 850 meters. Which means you need to move at least 500-600 meters in order to get a glimpse of the rear armour. No decent pilot will let a light mech get behind it with those parameters.

At best, the Locust can play the role of a harasser, engaging so little that it barely does damage, while the Kintaro isn't able to do significant damage in return. So at best, you can keep the Kintaro occupied without being able to take it out. But if that's your goal, any other light mech will do the job much better, having potentially two large lasers instead of one, or even 2 PPCs.

[mailin]

Here's a loadout with an ER LL and 2 MGs. http://mwo.smurfy-ne...cb5b2547bf61a0f

[mailin]

I agree that the Locust sort of combines the worst features of the Commando (no JJ) with the worst features of some Spider variants (not enough options for weapons). Still, I am looking forward to piloting this mech, even if it's only long enough to get them mastered.

[Gevurah]

Its only possible selling point is if it does something better than other variants that are of higher tonnage.

We already know it will have an inferior payload and inferior armor.

The only real hope here is that it will either bring something new to the table (MASC? 180KPH top speed?) or ... I dunno. That's about it, I guess.

[Macbrea]

So, what our saying is 2 locus (2 x 20tons) are about equal to 1 cicada (40 tons) and it takes 3 locus (3 x 20 tons) to equal 1 Kintaro. (55 tons). When a limit of tonnage per drop comes in, this becomes an effect. Yes, a Raven is more effective then a Locus. But, if for instance in the above chart I quoted from the devs, 3 people drop with a group of one stalker (85 ton) and one catapult (65 tons) this leaves 30 tons left over for that last guy.

He gets to choose something with 30 tons or less.

People complain that medium mechs lack a purpose. They become far more important when you cannot bring all Assaults/Heavy mechs to a match. The really light mechs like Locus become very important when a match also isn't a call of duty run down the range kill all the other side match. You will notice it is designed for scout, harassment and point capture.

[Redshift2k5]

Macbrea, on 30 August 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

So, what our saying is 2 locus (2 x 20tons) are about equal to 1 cicada (40 tons) and it takes 3 locus (3 x 20 tons) to equal 1 Kintaro. (55 tons). When a limit of tonnage per drop comes in, this becomes an effect. Yes, a Raven is more effective then a Locus. But, if for instance in the above chart I quoted from the devs, 3 people drop with a group of one stalker (85 ton) and one catapult (65 tons) this leaves 30 tons left over for that last guy.

He gets to choose something with 30 tons or less.

People complain that medium mechs lack a purpose. They become far more important when you cannot bring all Assaults/Heavy mechs to a match. The really light mechs like Locus become very important when a match also isn't a call of duty run down the range kill all the other side match. You will notice it is designed for scout, harassment and point capture.

for this reason, someone who can perform well in a lighter mech will be a credit to their team. Not just lights, but also replacing traditional Heavy roles with Mediums to free up tonnage to bring the biggest Lights and appropriate Heavies/Assaults.

also, a team will be able to roll in nothing but 55 ton mechs for maximum team weight:speed cohesion.