624 replies to this topic

[Alaskan Nobody]

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 05:14 PM, said:

I had to play catchup a week or two later, so my recollection is probably incomplete and possibly incorrect on some details, but that's the gist of it.

Pretty much it, except that missiles were not a "slow" weapon like they are now, either.

They were not as fast as the ballistics were, but they were a lot faster than now.

[Void Angel]

ReXspec, on 15 May 2014 - 05:11 PM, said:

As rough as the firepower quotient is, it does it's job in conveying a one piece of simple data: How much damage your alpha does. Granted, when you have weapons that fire slower or faster then other weapons, it becomes difficult to calculate damage when fire rates are staggered like that, but it does at least give you a rough guideline for how much damage you put on a 'mech if you landed a single alpha on that 'mech.

With that, you can at least gain a rough idea of how much damage your 'mech does.

In response to your earlier post, I just don't bother to fine-tune my armor allocations, since players prefer different allocations - I'm also constantly monitoring my rear armor to adapt my loadout to my play style. If I start getting killed from the rear too much, I'll allocate more, if I find that I'm never getting my rear armor close to being breached, I'll allocate less. Other people have different preferences - heck, the mathematically challenged sometimes advocate a 2/3-1/3 split! Similarly, I don't pay too much attention to my ammunition placement. However, that being said, you are welcome to beat on my leg armor instead of my weapon torsos all you like. I'll tell you for free that I often place ammo on my legs. And if you have time to grind through my maxxed or near-maxxed Atlas legs, I'll have either wreaked so much havok on your team that it won't matter - or else the fight was lost no matter what. In either case, I'm going to do more damage before I die than if you'd targeted my torsos.

As far as my Atlas' firepower, it's more than sufficient; it puts out 16.5 sustained dps for 20 seconds if I'm hammering down on all my guns, and can sustain fire for an unnecessarily long 49 seconds without the lasers. This balances it at just the right balance between heat efficiency and damage output - I can overheat if I need to, and sustain fire for as long as I have to. I could drop my engine down to a 325 and put in, say Large Lasers, but that hurts my heat efficiency significantly: while my damage jumps up, my time to overheat goes down to 12 seconds - a net decrease in damage before overheat of over thirty-three percent. If you really want to get an idea of how much damage your 'mech does, build it up in Smurfy's and use the Weaponlab tool.

Eh, I don't remember missiles' projectile speed being higher; I just remember them emergency-nerfing the damage into the basement - many of the mathematically challenged thought they were "fine" that way - then re-buffed them slightly to where they were up until the NARCpocalypse.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

Eh, I don't remember missiles' projectile speed being higher; I just remember them emergency-nerfing the damage into the basement - many of the mathematically challenged thought they were "fine" that way - then re-buffed them slightly to where they were up until the NARCpocalypse.

If I remember right at one point they were ~500 speed, still painfully slow next to the balistic speeds (1000+ gauss is 2000 if I remember right) but a lot higher than the 180 (?) speed we have now.

(numbers may be wildly inaccurate, just finished listening to a bunch of tinfoil hats)

[Void Angel]

I don't think so, but there's no changelog... Wait, Smurfy's has a history of past patches, but I can't access it because Internet Explorer was made by vampiric monkeys, and I still need to troubleshoot Firefox's interaction with javascript on that site.

[Alaskan Nobody]

I'm on Chrome at the moment - I'll go digging.

Be back in a bit - and if I am not, tell my family I love them!

Edit: not finding much - there is a toggle at the bottom that lists a few - but it only goes back to 1.3.273, and doesn't seem to change anything on the site.

Edit: I think that might be Smurfy's thing though - not MWO's

Edited by Shar Wolf, 15 May 2014 - 05:55 PM.

[Void Angel]

Nah, Google can do that for me - Chrome spies on you constantly.

[Just wanna play]

Shar Wolf, on 12 May 2014 - 03:43 PM, said:

Use the third launcher

A pair of LRM5 weigh less than 1 LRM10
A pair of ALRM5 weigh the same as an ALRM10 - but still reload faster

this is always important to take into consideration guys, really with most weapons in general, always consider mutiple smaller weapons if you have free hard points, although one lil thing to take note of is the smaller the launcher the more heat produced per missile launched

and yeah chrome spies on you constantly......AND yeah internet explore was made by some...interesting, individuals

Edited by Just wanna play, 15 May 2014 - 05:57 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Shar Wolf, on 15 May 2014 - 05:53 PM, said:

Edit: not finding much - there is a toggle at the bottom that lists a few - but it only goes back to 1.3.273, and doesn't seem to change anything on the site.

Update - not finding anything on Smurfy - and the patch notes section of the forum has been decidedly unhelpful.
(I remember a lot more speed changes than what I am finding there)

[Cimarb]

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 05:54 PM, said:

Nah, Google can do that for me - Chrome spies on you constantly.

I'm not sure if you are trolling... you do realize that Chrome is made by Google, right?

[White Bear 84]

Cimarb, on 15 May 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

I'm not sure if you are trolling... you do realize that Chrome is made by Google, right?

But it is ok for Google to spy on us though, Chrome can't, even though technically that means that google is, therefore it should be ok, given that it is google spying on us and not chrome, but google is doing it through chrome, therefore chrome is clearly spying for google...

Let's just all agree to disagree and not get in on the semantics of who is spying on who for who...

And all this time IE is still loading....

Blob.

Edited by White Bear 84, 15 May 2014 - 06:37 PM.

[Void Angel]

Cimarb, on 15 May 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

I'm not sure if you are trolling... you do realize that Chrome is made by Google, right?

Chrome's default settings relay a lot of information back to Google - of course I know who makes Chrome, or the statement doesn't make sense.

[ReXspec]

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

In response to your earlier post, I just don't bother to fine-tune my armor allocations, since players prefer different allocations - I'm also constantly monitoring my rear armor to adapt my loadout to my play style. If I start getting killed from the rear too much, I'll allocate more, if I find that I'm never getting my rear armor close to being breached, I'll allocate less. Other people have different preferences - heck, the mathematically challenged sometimes advocate a 2/3-1/3 split! Similarly, I don't pay too much attention to my ammunition placement. However, that being said, you are welcome to beat on my leg armor instead of my weapon torsos all you like. I'll tell you for free that I often place ammo on my legs. And if you have time to grind through my maxxed or near-maxxed Atlas legs, I'll have either wreaked so much havok on your team that it won't matter - or else the fight was lost no matter what. In either case, I'm going to do more damage before I die than if you'd targeted my torsos.

Again, that depends on the damage you've sustained in a fight. If you're chest has taken more damage then your legs, of course I'm going to target your chest. But if a leg is vulnerable and I know you have ammo in that leg, Imma take that leg as a souvenir and set fire to your ac/20 ammo.

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

As far as my Atlas' firepower, it's more than sufficient; it puts out 16.5 sustained dps for 20 seconds if I'm hammering down on all my guns, and can sustain fire for an unnecessarily long 49 seconds without the lasers. This balances it at just the right balance between heat efficiency and damage output - I can overheat if I need to, and sustain fire for as long as I have to.

This is assuming you're getting good hits with your SRMs, which presents a risk that your SRMs will do very little damage. And even if you get those hits, if you're within range of my Brawler, that means I'm hammering you with an AC/20, two streak SRM 2s, an ML and an LPL--all while suffering very little heat as long as I watch my heat with the LPL.

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

I could drop my engine down to a 325 and put in, say Large Lasers, but that hurts my heat efficiency significantly: while my damage jumps up, my time to overheat goes down to 12 seconds - a net decrease in damage before overheat of over thirty-three percent. If you really want to get an idea of how much damage your 'mech does, build it up in Smurfy's and use the Weaponlab tool.

It's only a decrease if you don't know how to manage heat. Plus, again, you're taking a gamble with the SRMs: They may or may not do damage to your target.

Here is "Brawler" in detail.

Sure, it's a little less heat efficient, but my weapons are hard-hitting, consistent and accurate. Not to mention I have an LRM 20 to soften my targets until I close the distance.

Edited by ReXspec, 15 May 2014 - 11:20 PM.

[Void Angel]

Eh, the link's broken - you forgot to save your changes.

But at any rate, no, it's ALWAYS a decrease in overall damage done, even if the dps rate is slightly higher. At any point down the line toward not using the energy weapons at all, if I calculate total damage done before overheat, the Medium Laser variant comes out ahead - and if I set the sliders to equalize time to overheat, the ML variant always does more dps. So heat management can't impact that - the only time the Large Laser build is going to do more damage over time is in the kind of over-the-hillcrest peekaboo action that the chassis absolutely sucks at.

Also: remember, not everyone has significant problems with hit registration on SRMs.

[Tourgasm]

Ok I don't understand why you guys are complaining about atlas missle boats?

I run one, it's a AS7-D that works great it has 2 LRM 15's, 3 medium lasers and an A/C 2 on it. works like a dream. It's built like a tank and it moves just as slow.

[YueFei]

Tourgasm, on 15 May 2014 - 11:04 PM, said:

Ok I don't understand why you guys are complaining about atlas missle boats?

I run one, it's a AS7-D that works great it has 2 LRM 15's, 3 medium lasers and an A/C 2 on it. works like a dream. It's built like a tank and it moves just as slow.

I could build a 2xPPC sniper out of a HBK-4SP, but even if it kind of works, that setup would be better done on a HBK-4P.

And that one isn't even due to a difference between different chassis, but simply due to a difference between variants within the same chassis line.

You can make a missile boat out of an Atlas, but if you wanted to missile boat there are other chassis that can do it better.

[ReXspec]

Void Angel, on 15 May 2014 - 10:08 PM, said:

Eh, the link's broken - you forgot to save your changes.

But at any rate, no, it's ALWAYS a decrease in overall damage done, even if the dps rate is slightly higher. At any point down the line toward not using the energy weapons at all, if I calculate total damage done before overheat, the Medium Laser variant comes out ahead - and if I set the sliders to equalize time to overheat, the ML variant always does more dps. So heat management can't impact that - the only time the Large Laser build is going to do more damage over time is in the kind of over-the-hillcrest peekaboo action that the chassis absolutely sucks at.

Also: remember, not everyone has significant problems with hit registration on SRMs.

Fixed the link.

And yeah, not everyone has problems with SRMs, but the performance with SRMs accross the board is inconsistent. And inconsistency in the regard that in some situation (or with some people) SRMs will work great. While in others, they will hit people and do very little. I think it's a wise investment to get weapons that at least have consistent performance. Even if they do run slightly hotter.

Edited by ReXspec, 15 May 2014 - 11:24 PM.

[ReXspec]

Tourgasm, on 15 May 2014 - 11:04 PM, said:

Ok I don't understand why you guys are complaining about atlas missle boats?

I run one, it's a AS7-D that works great it has 2 LRM 15's, 3 medium lasers and an A/C 2 on it. works like a dream. It's built like a tank and it moves just as slow.

TL;DR version: There are way too many people who think Atlases can perform at the Chassis' maximum potential if they make LRMs their primary weapon on the Atlas. Truth is, the Atlas performs best when it is armed to the teeth with a mix of Ballistic, missile, and energy weapons. For one, the Atlas simply doesn't have enough missile tubes to be a truly effective missile boat. Two, because of the limited slots the atlas has for missile weapons, the missiles on an Atlas can really only act as a supplementary weapon to it's existing armament.

And yeah, on your particular build, you may have missiles, but my ranged atlas ("Reacher") can counter your atlas for two reasons: 1. I have ECM and AMS (if you somehow knock out my ECM).

2. I have a plethora of heavy-hitting ranged weapons which can put damage on you faster and more consistently then missiles can.

We're not saying Missile boat atlases can't WORK. We're just saying that an atlas devoted to missile weapon systems is a sub-optimal load-out for the chassis.

Edited by ReXspec, 15 May 2014 - 11:33 PM.

[BOWMANGR]

23 pages discussing viability of an Atlas LRM boat? Really?
Having all that damage sponging armor just sit there just to fire a few missile racks while other mechs are fighting in the frontlines is not sub-optimal. It's WORTHLESS.

Get in there!

There is nothing more frustrating for a Medium pilot to bust your balls to play well, die and then spectate a fully armored Atlas throwing 15 lrms every few minutes thinking he does his part. You are seriously gimping your team if you are behind the frontlines chucking missiles in an Atlas.

There is nothing more to say. Don't do this. Please.

[Cimarb]

BOWMANGR, on 16 May 2014 - 12:03 AM, said:

23 pages discussing viability of an Atlas LRM boat? Really?
Having all that damage sponging armor just sit there just to fire a few missile racks while other mechs are fighting in the frontlines is not sub-optimal. It's WORTHLESS.

Get in there!

There is nothing more frustrating for a Medium pilot to bust your balls to play well, die and then spectate a fully armored Atlas throwing 15 lrms every few minutes thinking he does his part. You are seriously gimping your team if you are behind the frontlines chucking missiles in an Atlas.

There is nothing more to say. Don't do this. Please.

That is exactly why there are 23 pages on this topic already. You feel it is wrong, while others do not (such as myself).

I'm done arguing about it, as I have already stated my points several times in this thread, but suffice it to say, just because you don't like the build doesn't mean it's worthless to others.

[M0rpHeu5]

Missile boat with ECM wrong? I am not supporting missile boat atlai but this doen't mean it's a bad idea.