139 replies to this topic

[LoPanShui]

Dude, Wasp. How has no one mentioned the Wasp?

"Hello I have no armor and also only two weapons and also if everything hits I do 9 damage and also not if I am standing in water because my MISSILE LAUNCHER IS IN THE LEG."

Seriously. Freaking useless except as a low BV distraction and target drone.

At least the Charger can charge. A solid full speed charge evened the odds against a Fafnir for me once. And at least the Banshee can fist fight decently well and has solid armor. But a Wasp? Really? Did you have a spare blank 'Mech sheet but your printer ran out of ink so you couldn't get an infantry sheet or something? Come on.

A stock mechanized infantry platoon has the same damage profile as a Wasp and is harder to kill.

[LauLiao]

Ostscout 7K. No weapons, just a TAG. I do believe that this was the only completely unarmed mech ever conceived.

[Saori Arai]

Marack Drock, on 16 November 2013 - 10:06 PM, said:

Locust

1 Med Laser
2 Machine guns

Need I say more.

But its a quick scout 'Mech sir.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Victor Morson, on 18 November 2013 - 03:07 AM, said:

I knew the Charger would come up. I used to think it was hilarious wayyyy back when I first got into BattleTech.

Then I played some games with it. It's actually scary, if you use it for it's namesake: Charging. It's a low BV 'mech that can kick and smash like no other, and fire all 5 lasers every single turn while doing so thanks to the way they are setup. They're certainly nowhere near as good as other assaults, but for their BV they have caved in more than a few heads.

Plus, the Charger's alternate variants are some of the very best assaults available in 3025. There's some really amazing ones if you're playing a T1 game.

I'd take a Charger over a Dragon any day, at least.

EDIT: Also I'm sick of people saying what [ weight class here ] are "supposed to be" while citing numerous examples of them not being that.

Keeping in mind that I mostly play mechwarrior RPG campaigns where we have to be concerned with logistics, drop ship capacity, mech cost, mech availability, etc and we need to accomplish a variety of tasks I strongly disagree with you on 5/8 Charger>Dragon (especially the 1G model with a PPC). While a charger can do 64 points of damage after an 8 hex charge compared to the Dragon's 48, a Dragon has the weaponry to deal a good amount of damage at range and is a better all around mech. Hell, if you fight on anything less than clear flat ground the 400STD engined Chargers are basically useless and it costs more than a Dragon. If you're concerned with BV then a Charger can be one hell of a good mech due to its low BV but in terms of a mech an army would choose to purchase it's low on the totem pole.

That being said, a 4/6 Charger is optimally weighted for its speed and is an excellent mech (I'm fond of the the CGR-1A5 myself). Even the 5/8 XL Chargers aren't all that bad although they do lose a couple of free tons to a lighter 70/75 ton XL engined mech. Kurita of course saw fit to take the charger add some decorations to the mech, rename it the Hatamoto-Chi and had themselves a pretty damn good mech.

Also I agree with you that mech classes shouldn't be pigeon holed into a given role.

Edited by Narcissistic Martyr, 18 November 2013 - 12:47 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

LauLiao, on 18 November 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

Ostscout 7K. No weapons, just a TAG. I do believe that this was the only completely unarmed mech ever conceived.

The Ambassador doesn't even have a TAG unit...

[Deadmeat313]

The Yeoman, because look at it.

[Kenyon Burguess]

the slowpoke. 10 tons of Liao insanity with a single med laser, running at 38.8 kph

[Will9761]

Victor Morson, on 18 November 2013 - 03:07 AM, said:

EDIT: Also I'm sick of people saying what [ weight class here ] are "supposed to be" while citing numerous examples of them not being that.

Well whether you like it or not it's true. When you turn Assault mechs into scouts they will be undergunned and outclassed by better opponents who can hit harder.

[akakiwu490]

Will9761, on 18 November 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

Well whether you like it or not it's true. When you turn Assault mechs into scouts they will be undergunned and outclassed by better opponents who can hit harder.

Seems to me like the only mechs that tend to work well outside of their pigeonholed roles are med/heavy.

Seems like a lot of the mechs in the med/heavy weight classes have no problem moving across the supposed role boundaries. Cicada is medium but acts like a slightly more heavily armed light. More survivability, more firepower, slightly less speed (not by much). List goes on.

Granted a lot of these are kind of on the edge of their weight class, but you get a lot more flexibility in the medium/heavy mechs for various combinations of speed/arms/firepower than you get at the assault/light ends.

That said, that is my impression and I don't know nearly as much about BT as some of you.

[Alaskan Nobody]

akakiwu490, on 18 November 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

Seems to me like the only mechs that tend to work well outside of their pigeonholed roles are med/heavy.

Seems like a lot of the mechs in the med/heavy weight classes have no problem moving across the supposed role boundaries. Cicada is medium but acts like a slightly more heavily armed light. More survivability, more firepower, slightly less speed (not by much). List goes on.

Granted a lot of these are kind of on the edge of their weight class, but you get a lot more flexibility in the medium/heavy mechs for various combinations of speed/arms/firepower than you get at the assault/light ends.

That said, that is my impression and I don't know nearly as much about BT as some of you.

Jack of all trades, master of none.
Anything that sits in the middle of the road stat wise, will be able to cover a variety of required tasks, perhaps not as well as a more specialized unit, depending on the games rule implementation.
Think of Red Mages in the Final Fantasy games - they are either the worst or the one of the best

[Mechteric]

The Banshee is way worse than the Charger. Its not as fast and only carries 1 PPC, 1 AC5 and 1 SLAS. ON A 95 TON MECH.

Thats medium mech armament.

http://www.sarna.net...ee_(BattleMech)

[Karl Streiger]

CapperDeluxe, on 19 November 2013 - 06:42 AM, said:

The Banshee is way worse than the Charger. Its not as fast and only carries 1 PPC, 1 AC5 and 1 SLAS. ON A 95 TON MECH.

Thats medium mech armament.

http://www.sarna.net...ee_(BattleMech)

And it can deals serious damage using its hands or legs. Not to forget about the charge. Like the charger really deadly. Regarding its damage - AC 5 and PPC is not that bad in 3025.
It would be a bad build in MWO but its not that bad in TT - where maybe a 50t Mech can have the same fire power but not the armor or the speed for any good.

[Autobot9000]

I think the Banshee is so bad.

PPC+AC5+Small Laser for a ninety-five ton assault. It can run at 4/6 TT speed, which is insane for this tonnage, but that mech used its weight as a weapon simply crushing lighter enemy mechs, because appearantly the weapon setup just didn't scare even a medium.


http://www.sarna.net...anshee1.jpg.png

[akakiwu490]

Shar Wolf, on 18 November 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

Jack of all trades, master of none.
Anything that sits in the middle of the road stat wise, will be able to cover a variety of required tasks, perhaps not as well as a more specialized unit, depending on the games rule implementation.
Think of Red Mages in the Final Fantasy games - they are either the worst or the one of the best

First off props for actually knowing the whole saying. Love when people say "jack of all trades" like it's a 100% good thing.

Definitely agree to a reasonable extent. Seems like a lot of cross-class mechs I've read about in the TROs and Sarna get that description. But again I think the Cicada is stand-up example, since it basically competes with a lot of scouts but has more going for it on the front lines.

I know I've read of at least a couple other mechs that do just as well in their (unexpected) role as any other mech of the same weight class, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Could be I'm imagining it. Could also be thinking of some omnimechs where the flexibility of loadout counts a lot toward taking on multiple roles. Feel free to correct me.

[LoPanShui]

Dragons are just mediums that need to lose their freshman five, which doesn't make them bad, but come on.

Locust > Wasp. How is anyone even having this argument? Locust is faster, has more armor, and is actually useful against infantry. Meanwhile the Wasp is good for... Umm... Like... Hoping your enemy wastes a turn shooting at it instead of your better units?

[Will9761]

RedDragon, on 18 November 2013 - 03:21 AM, said:

Especially if it comes from a Lyran

Your faction's culture and worlds came from both Steiner and Kurita. So your should be thanking House Steiner for giving you the support to fight off the snakes in your little war.

[RedDragon]

Will9761, on 26 November 2013 - 08:34 PM, said:

Your faction's culture and worlds came from both Steiner and Kurita. So your should be thanking House Steiner for giving you the support to fight off the snakes in your little war.

Sorry that the irony took a glancing shoot at you – I didn't mock the Lyrans, it's just funny that you say "Assault mechs are supposed to be walking Juggernauts of destruction not scouts!" as a Lyran, who are known as the inventors of the Steiner Scout Lance

[Tyrnea Smurf]

Wasp and Stinger. Both are terribad.

Stingers worse IMHO simply because it carries that ton of MG ammo (MG ammo touching off really should be treated like a thermal nuclear explosion, 2000 rounds which do 2 point of damage each = 4000, ALL of which gets counted against internal structure in a ammo explosion - IE every time a MG ammo bin went off in my home game I put a mushroom cloud token on the map to mark ground zero )

And its like what 9 points of damage to have a chance to get that MG ammo explosion on a Stinger?

Worst mech ever.

[Victor Morson]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 18 November 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

Keeping in mind that I mostly play mechwarrior RPG campaigns where we have to be concerned with logistics, drop ship capacity, mech cost, mech availability, etc and we need to accomplish a variety of tasks I strongly disagree with you on 5/8 Charger>Dragon (especially the 1G model with a PPC). While a charger can do 64 points of damage after an 8 hex charge compared to the Dragon's 48, a Dragon has the weaponry to deal a good amount of damage at range and is a better all around mech.

If by all around better 'mech and "good amount of damage" you mean the single worst weapon load out of any heavy in the BTU, and I suppose you have a point!

Also if you're playing a campaign worried about logistics, why would you want an ammo-dependent Dragon?

EDIT: PS, the Charger is also good at kicking heads clean off. I'll take that over a joke loadout, half of which is pointing backwards, any day.

Edited by Victor Morson, 30 November 2013 - 04:25 AM.

[Victor Morson]

LoPanShui, on 19 November 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

Locust > Wasp. How is anyone even having this argument?

Jump jets and a better medium range makes the Wasp - in super low BV light 'mech games - give the Locust a run for it's money.

Really they're both awful and the best Locust-alike is the Stinger.