31 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

production costs are way less than prototype.

of course. but the F-22's production cost was around $300,000,000 per plane. thats production cost not prototyping.

the technology that would go into making a walking mech like an atlas would be at least on par with what went into the F-22.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 01 February 2014 - 10:15 AM, said:

of course. but the F-22's production cost was around $300,000,000 per plane. thats production cost not prototyping.

the technology that would go into making a walking mech like an atlas would be at least on par with what went into the F-22.

Maybe to it would. An Atlas-D costs 10 Million per Mech, Production. Prototype could have cost a few billion... for a government that ruled hundreds of planets, and could very well have had Septillions of C-bills for a budget... Whats a few billion?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 01 February 2014 - 10:20 AM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Regarding currency, a c-bill is likely worth a whole lot more than a contemporary dollar, and the ratio is only going to increase as the dollar continues to be debased further and further.

C-bills have a very solid backing, namely they represent units of transmission data for HPG communications. The dollar on the other hand is an entirely fiat currency, and all this Quantitative Easing that's been going on has been radically increasing the money supply (above and beyond the standard inflationary policy designed to drive debt-based spending to accelerate the economy artificially).

The Inner Sphere has only limited production capability when it comes to mechs and their more exotic components (fusion engines, Endo-Steel, etc.), which considering battlefield attrition would tend to keep prices quite high (a whole bunch of demand and a very low supply), yet we still have even Atlases valued in the low tens of millions. This suggests a very high exchange rate between dollars and c-bills.

Back to TtK, the whole point of battlemechs was that Standard Armor was radically better than Primitive Armor (what we use now), to the point where you could get away with the extremely high-risk profile of a humanoid mech in exchange for the mobility and utilty benefits it offers. The problem we're running in to with this game is that mech armor isn't really standing up for very long at all, in contrast to how it should be. Adding armor penetration mechanics would just make things that much worse (with the exception of certain specialized munitions, which already pay for their armor piercing capability in other ways).

Edited by Levi Porphyrogenitus, 01 February 2014 - 10:19 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 01 February 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

Regarding currency, a c-bill is likely worth a whole lot more than a contemporary dollar, and the ratio is only going to increase as the dollar continues to be debased further and further.

C-bills have a very solid backing, namely they represent units of transmission data for HPG communications. The dollar on the other hand is an entirely fiat currency, and all this Quantitative Easing that's been going on has been radically increasing the money supply (above and beyond the standard inflationary policy designed to drive debt-based spending to accelerate the economy artificially).

The Inner Sphere has only limited production capability when it comes to mechs and their more exotic components (fusion engines, Endo-Steel, etc.), which considering battlefield attrition would tend to keep prices quite high (a whole bunch of demand and a very low supply), yet we still have even Atlases valued in the low tens of millions. This suggests a very high exchange rate between dollars and c-bills.

Back to TtK, the whole point of battlemechs was that Standard Armor was radically better than Primitive Armor (what we use now), to the point where you could get away with the extremely high-risk profile of a humanoid mech in exchange for the mobility and utilty benefits it offers. The problem we're running in to with this game is that mech armor isn't really standing up for very long at all, in contrast to how it should be. Adding armor penetration mechanics would just make things that much worse (with the exception of certain specialized munitions, which already pay for their armor piercing capability in other ways).

Pixie dust. Comparing real currency to space bucks is Apples to Zagrums.


Note I pulled Zagrum out of my Ash and guess what? They apparently sell fruit!

I can't even make up a make believe name!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 01 February 2014 - 10:38 AM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Joseph Mallan, on 01 February 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

Pixie dust. Comparing real currency to space bucks is Apples to Zagrums.

Yet, is that not what you've been doing throughout this very thread?

Joseph Mallan, on 01 February 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

Maybe to it would. An Atlas-D costs 10 Million per Mech, Production. Prototype could have cost a few billion... for a government that ruled hundreds of planets, and could very well have had Septillions of C-bills for a budget... Whats a few billion?

Joseph Mallan, on 01 February 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

They are multi million dollar war machines and we do it right now. F-22 Raptor $150,000,000.00 per jet! Abrams 4.3 million per tank.

Joseph Mallan, on 01 February 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

B-2 Stealth Bomber 737 Million dollars.
F-14 38 million
Bradley 5.6 Million (compared to a Spiders 2.9 million)

The Abrams(4.6 Mil) is on par with a 65 ton Thunderbolt's 5.4 million C-bill price tag.

[Joseph Mallan]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 01 February 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

Yet, is that not what you've been doing throughout this very thread?

Dam!


Still Kho is way over inflating his numbers like a great politician

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 01 February 2014 - 10:34 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 01 February 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

Regarding currency, a c-bill is likely worth a whole lot more than a contemporary dollar, and the ratio is only going to increase as the dollar continues to be debased further and further.

C-bills have a very solid backing, namely they represent units of transmission data for HPG communications. The dollar on the other hand is an entirely fiat currency, and all this Quantitative Easing that's been going on has been radically increasing the money supply (above and beyond the standard inflationary policy designed to drive debt-based spending to accelerate the economy artificially).

The Inner Sphere has only limited production capability when it comes to mechs and their more exotic components (fusion engines, Endo-Steel, etc.), which considering battlefield attrition would tend to keep prices quite high (a whole bunch of demand and a very low supply), yet we still have even Atlases valued in the low tens of millions. This suggests a very high exchange rate between dollars and c-bills.

Back to TtK, the whole point of battlemechs was that Standard Armor was radically better than Primitive Armor (what we use now), to the point where you could get away with the extremely high-risk profile of a humanoid mech in exchange for the mobility and utilty benefits it offers. The problem we're running in to with this game is that mech armor isn't really standing up for very long at all, in contrast to how it should be. Adding armor penetration mechanics would just make things that much worse (with the exception of certain specialized munitions, which already pay for their armor piercing capability in other ways).

It didn't stand up to well on TT either when whole companies of Mechs were destroyed in less than 2 minutes worth of turns. 100 seconds of combat took Hours to play out.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Joseph Mallan, on 01 February 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

It didn't stand up to well on TT either when whole companies of Mechs were destroyed in less than 2 minutes worth of turns. 100 seconds of combat took Hours to play out.

At a minimum TtK has been reduced by half simply due to cooldown reductions across the board. More likely, it's been cut by a factor of 10, considering the combination of radically increased RoF with human-controlled accuracy and pin-point precision group fire. I'd love to have a proper 12v12 brawl last a whole 2 minutes in MWO. Usually it's more like 20-30s with the rest of the time spent hunting down fleeing survivors or stragglers.

[Joseph Mallan]

My experience, even in a stomp is it takes over 4 minutes to kill a whole Company.

[Khobai]

Quote

At a minimum TtK has been reduced by half simply due to cooldown reductions across the board. More likely, it's been cut by a factor of 10, considering the combination of radically increased RoF with human-controlled accuracy and pin-point precision group fire. I'd love to have a proper 12v12 brawl last a whole 2 minutes in MWO. Usually it's more like 20-30s with the rest of the time spent hunting down fleeing survivors or stragglers.

Its not a factor of 10.

1) precise aiming allows CT destruction to occur 5 times faster (decrease TTK by x5)
2) armor was doubled (increase TTK by x2)
3) weapons fire about three times as fast, but are also limited by three times the heat (id say this more or less cancels out for most weapons)

So I gather mechs die 5/2 = 2.5 or approximately 2-3 times faster than tabletop.

Autocannons however are an exception to 3) because autocannons can fire indefinitely in MWO without overheating. So in the case of autocannons, mechs die much faster than 2-3 times. The best example being a Quad AC5 Jager/Phract curbstomping an Atlas in about 20 seconds, or the equivalent of 2 rounds in battletech. Normally it would take 10+ rounds to destroy an Atlas with quad AC5s in tabletop, assuming all shots automatically hit. So ACs are killing mechs at least 5 times faster than tabletop. Aside from precise aiming/convergence, ballistics are the second biggest offender in the game right now for speeding up TTK.

Edited by Khobai, 01 February 2014 - 11:37 AM.

[Mr 144]

Joseph Mallan, on 01 February 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

Prototype Car costs in the ballpark of 10x the market value of a production model. It will costs hundreds of millions to billions to develop but not to produce. I work in prototype Khob, production costs are way less than prototype. It takes us 6-10 hours to make a prototype Camshaft at $33 an hour for the man hours, an I don't know how much our salary inspectors make. So one cam runs between $800-$1000 per cam. You can buy one at AutoZone for abut $200!

Off subject, and just for curiosity (we're in the same general business) what's your overall shop rate? Big3 or aftermarket? I "invented" an indestructible duramax connecting rod, and didn't get paid squat other than bragging rights, lol.

[Tombstoner]

Thank you for the corrections i was under the impression that internals had been buffed to armor equivalent levels.
even if armor is double the value of internals, all that means is the penetration rate can never be above 25% to keep damage rates proportional so you cant destroy the internals before armor. No need to buff internals

With that the whole point is create a window of opportunity for a viable critical hit system and some degree of improved weapon specialization. Pulse lasers have an inherent penetration capability. it's one of the attractive features of using a pulse.
This idea promotes the use of pulse weapons for brawling, with a counter for balance in the form of resistance to penetration.

P.S. The B-2 has started to become too expensive to loose so its use is being curtailed to all but the most important missions. much like assault class mechs should be. but yea tanks would basically own mechs and in the situation of a combined arms ambush mechs really don't have much of an advantage other then height.

We will see elemental before battle mechs any way... Darpa mech project is about hauling equipment for combat personel. i suppose that an armed drone versions is viable.