35 replies to this topic

[zhajin]

based on what they have said so far. there will likely be a handful of variants that will dominate everything and become the new meta. the rest will be completely useless. think ravens in the early days of ecm.

best case I suspect clans will throw off balance for at least another year. and i highly suspect I will finally just give up on PGI after clan completely throw off what little balance there is now. releasing clans at this time is just a horrible idea.

[CarnifexMaximus]

Since the vlog yesterday discussed being able to modify armor on clan mechs I have been screwing around with the summoner in Solaris Skunk Werks.

Sadly I couldn't really get it to boat 3 ultras. But the D might make a funky inverted dragon slayer/highlander with armor stripped from one arm and the other side sporting a ppc arm with a side torso ballistic.

But it does seem to do a brawler victor style setup (uAC20, Mediums, SRMs) quite nicely once you deal with the idoitic 54 point center torso armor and 34 point arm armor. I was thinking of posting some builds up, but I think its still too early to call how this is actually going to play in the game.

Ammo placement might be a pain on these mechs. Mostly the head crit is spoken for by ferro/endo distribution and in the case of the summoner the legs are off limits because of its JJs. You are pretty much left with CT/Side Torsos and Arms which normally are not my favorite places to begin stuffing ammo.

[Roadkill]

Craig Steele, on 10 February 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

They will more likely follow the 'fixed' standards set by canon which means largely arms and torsos are where weapons / ammo go.

I doubt PGI will go out of their way just to make your day bad, they'll just follow the canon?

They've already said flat-out that they're not following canon. And they explained why - canon Clan mechs are not in any way balanced with IS mechs.

[Craig Steele]

Roadkill, on 12 February 2014 - 03:55 PM, said:

They've already said flat-out that they're not following canon. And they explained why - canon Clan mechs are not in any way balanced with IS mechs.

The reference was to where the 'fixed' slots will be on omni's.

They follow canon often enough, and they're unlikely to rewrite a mechanic like that unless its an impact to game balance.

[CrashieJ]

you know guys, with clantech coming, there will be a few design factors most people will follow due to reduced crit sizes and other rules.

Double Heatsinks in the legs and CASE in the Arms for clan Gauss Rifles and any ammo you can cram into there.

so we might end up seeing Super-Cool running, non-exploding mechs in high water places like Forest Colony and Caustic Valley.

[TehSBGX]

mwhighlander, on 09 February 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

Hint: You will be able to make a jumping double UAC20 Summoner (Summoner Prime base model + Summoner Alt config. D)


Oops, I leaked more spoilers again!

That sounds like the most epic lulz build ever

[Roadkill]

Craig Steele, on 12 February 2014 - 04:11 PM, said:

The reference was to where the 'fixed' slots will be on omni's.

They follow canon often enough, and they're unlikely to rewrite a mechanic like that unless its an impact to game balance.

But that's exactly the point. It is an impact to game balance. Clan Mechs are overpowered compared to IS Mechs by design in the board game. One way to help correct that for MWO is to play with the locations of the "fixed" criticals for Clan ferro and endo.

Of course that won't help fix the Daishi, as it uses standard armor and internals. Twin UAC/20s plus twin UAC/10s is a completely viable build using Prime arms and B side torsos.

[TELEFORCE]

Roadkill, on 13 February 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

Of course that won't help fix the Daishi, as it uses standard armor and internals. Twin UAC/20s plus twin UAC/10s is a completely viable build using Prime arms and B side torsos.

Why does the Dire Wolf need to be fixed?

That's not exactly a viable build there. The weapons are 44 tons alone, which only leaves 6 tons for ammo for all of your guns, which isn't enough to last a game, that's for sure! (The Dire Wolf only has 50.5 tons capacity for weapons and equipment.)

And a dual UAC/20 Summoner won't be possible. There isn't enough free tonnage for a configuration like that. I believe the Summoner has 22.5 tons of pod space. Two UAC/20s alone weigh 24 tons. You could try two UAC/10s, but then you have only two tons of ammo for each gun.

Although with the recent remarks by the devs regarding armor distribution, I'm not clear if you can actually adjust the armor tonnage, or if you can only move armor points around the chassis. If you could adjust armor tonnage, then some of these configurations would be possible or more effective.

Edited by TELEFORCE, 13 February 2014 - 09:33 AM.

[SniperCon]

Clan mechs are transformers and can turn into aerospace fighters.

[Roadkill]

TELEFORCE, on 13 February 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:

That's not exactly a viable build there. The weapons are 44 tons alone, which only leaves 6 tons for ammo for all of your guns, which isn't enough to last a game, that's for sure! (The Dire Wolf only has 50.5 tons capacity for weapons and equipment.)

6 tons of ammo is plenty when every shot kills a target. ;-)

Okay, fine, "downgrade" it to 4 x UAC/10. Now it carries 10 tons of ammo and still does 80 points of direct fire damage every 2.5 seconds. Though I'm guessing that'll probably generate ghost heat... AC/10 doesn't do it currently because you can't carry 4 on any chassis, but I bet they'll add it once Clan tech is released.

TELEFORCE, on 13 February 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:

Why does the Dire Wolf need to be fixed?

Oh wait, right. Right!

NOTHING TO SEE HERE. MOVE ALONG! DO NOT NERF THE DAISHI!

[Craig Steele]

Roadkill, on 13 February 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

But that's exactly the point. It is an impact to game balance. Clan Mechs are overpowered compared to IS Mechs by design in the board game. One way to help correct that for MWO is to play with the locations of the "fixed" criticals for Clan ferro and endo.

Of course that won't help fix the Daishi, as it uses standard armor and internals. Twin UAC/20s plus twin UAC/10s is a completely viable build using Prime arms and B side torsos.

So are you arguing for them to change the fixed slots to reduce the 'impact' of some current meta builds or against a change and to use Lore settings?

[TELEFORCE]

Well RoadKill, as consolation, dual UAC/20s and a single UAC/10 would work very well, I think Or replace the UAC/10 with a Gauss rifle.

[Roadkill]

Craig Steele, on 13 February 2014 - 05:32 PM, said:

So are you arguing for them to change the fixed slots to reduce the 'impact' of some current meta builds or against a change and to use Lore settings?

Huh?

I'm not arguing for anything. I just pointed out that they could easily manipulate the "fixed" critical slots that are used by the chassis' ferro and/or endo to help prevent overpowered builds. In fact it sounds to me like that's clearly on the table based on what they've told us. But it wouldn't be sufficient as demonstrated by the Daishi, which uses neither ferro nor endo.

Doesn't bother me either way. They're already going to have to nerf Clan tech so much that it's going to be unrecognizable from the TT point of view. Neutering the "Omni" part of Omnimechs isn't going to make Clan weapons less powerful, though, so I'm not sure I understand the point of doing it.

[Khobai]

Unless PGI somehow limits large ballistics on clan mechs like the daishi you will be able to make super mechs.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Khobai, on 13 February 2014 - 09:14 PM, said:

Unless PGI somehow limits large ballistics on clan mechs like the daishi you will be able to make super mechs.

not necessarily

[Roadkill]

BLOOD WOLF, on 13 February 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

not necessarily

Yes, necessarily.

Even just a pair of TT-derived Clan UAC/20 would constitute a super Mech in MWO, and that can be mounted on the already-announced Daishi Prime unless PGI somehow limits large ballistics on Clan Mechs.

You either limit them in some way, or you've created super Mechs. The question is not whether, it is how.