Artgathan, on 10 February 2014 - 09:44 AM, said:
I understand what you're saying and your intention. However, consider what this example has accomplished - it's homogenized the people. The "poor" person went from having 10% of the "rich" person's wealth to having 91% of the "rich" person's wealth. Sure, the absolute difference is still $9, but at this point the different in meaningless.
The problem is that this sort of flat increase disproportionately benefits people on the lower end of the scale (in this case, light mechs).
Consider this: you've added 100 armor to an Atlas. This may increase it's TTK by ~10%. Adding 100 armor to a Jenner will increase it's TTK by ~50% - ~90%.
With the 100 point on all mechs system, Said Jenner actually gets 10 points less health than its current max is now. Said Atlas gets 94 points more health. What exactly are you complaining about? Seems the fact is polar opposite of your complaint. I believe you misunderstood it. It's stock + 100. For many mechs this significantly lowers their health. And for some it raises their health.
Typically it raises the health of the weak, under performing mechs whose sole redeeming value was high armor. And for the most part it hurts the mechs that have an immense amount of firepower potential but from lore have paper thin armor.
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Interestingly enough, a random example is the 30 ton mechs Spider and Urbanmech. Right now the Spider outclasses the Urban mech in every aspect, especially when you consider speed, armor, etc.
Urbanmech however has quite a bit more armor stock to make up for the fact that PGI would limit it to 62 kph with speed tweak. But what good is that if the Spider can equip the same armor?
After the stock + 100 concept, the Spider (stock 112+100) only gains 2 points of extra armor (212) versus the current max (210) for them.
The Urbanmech, however, makes up for its speed with 6 tons of armor (at 32 points per ton is 192). If using the current system it's dead on arrival. The proposed system, 192 + 100 = 292. Armor makes up for lack of speed.
Time to kill for every mech is equally raised versus stock. There's no discrepancies. No oddities. It's like taking your finger to all of the sliders on your equalizer and raising them all at once. It's equally raised.
If, by stock, it was meant to be hard to kill it will then be hard to kill. (Thunderbolt, Awesome, Dragon, Atlas, Raven 2x and 4x, Jenner F, Hunchback, Kintaro, Wolverine).
If, by stock, it was meant to be easy to kill it will then be easy to kill (Jagermech, Victor, Jenner D, Raven 3-L, Locust, Cicadas, 2 out of 3 Shadowhawk variants).
Yes, Locusts will still be easy to kill. Just as easy as a Jenner D will be or a Cicada 2A. Difference is all mechs keep their structure value. Locust has a structure of 69. Jenner of 119. Cicada of 137. Thing is Cicada's supposed to be a lot faster than the Jenners, too, making up for the fact that it has such light armor.
And as for where the Firestarter stands, in terms of armor it's better than 2 Jenners, the Raven 3-L, Locusts and Commandos. However, it is inferior to the Jenner F, some firestarters are inferior to the Raven 2X and all of them are inferior to the Raven 4X.
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Of course, Buckminister came up with an interesting compromise. Stock + unset # of tons more = new max. A ton of armor depends on the type. 32 for standard, 36 for Ferro. But this creates two different armor maxes depending on whether you have standard or ferro armor and requires the breaking of a second but admittedly nearly as stupid tabletop rule. (Unset means he doesn't care what it is.)
But basically Buck's idea is: Stock with 1 ton standard = 32 additional points to stock is the new standard max.
If we use 3 tons, that's 96 points of armor.
The Jenner D, Locust, Cicada example 128 armor stock is 4 tons. + 3 tons armor = 224 new max instead of 228. (4 stock + 3 tons additional = 7) * 36 (points per ton ferro armor) = 252 if you had Ferro.)
Edited by Koniving, 14 February 2014 - 07:35 AM.
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