106 replies to this topic

[Bigbacon]

OR....

they could just make up another variant and not worry that it didn't exist...

[Ovion]

Bigbacon, on 06 July 2014 - 09:52 AM, said:

OR....

they could just make up another variant and not worry that it didn't exist...

But, being they're using Battletech Lore, the Battletech License, and appealing to Battletech / Mechwarrior fans (sorta), using actual mechs and following actual variants, just making stuff up would be a bit bleh, especially when there's so many mechs that fit the criteria not in-game yet.

[luxebo]

Dalton Dakota, on 06 July 2014 - 08:21 AM, said:

On a side note, I'm limited to 5 posts for some odd reason, so this is my final one until 7/7 at 8:35pm.

You are limited due to Recruit status; finish up your Cadet Bonus in game so you can post without limit! This is just to limit spam and posts such as 'Buy Whole Kitchens for free' posts. Yeah, people these days... Besides that, http://mwomercs.com/...cussion-thread/ Is a pretty good look at what might or might not show up next or soon. They will be continuing single mech releases as Clan mechs slowly roll out. Just be patient, and don't hold your hopes up!

[Jalthibuster]

Grasshopper has always been one of my favorites in TT.

[The Basilisk]

There would be 3 viable variants of the Grasshopper in 3049 (now)
GHR-5H (standart)
GHR-5N ( - CT Large laser, + side torso PPC, + 5th large laser )
GHR-5J ( - 2med lasers, + AMS, - LRM5, +streak SRM2 )

But...yea there are still some good old mechs pending. Guillotine for example.

[The Basilisk]

Bartholomew bartholomew, on 06 July 2014 - 06:28 AM, said:

Would be nice to have, heard vindicator and mauler are next IS chassis.

There is only 1 Mauler variant that exists in 3049 and its just of the factory. So pretty much impossible to get your hands on that.
Vindicator could be.

[Ovion]

The Basilisk, on 06 July 2014 - 01:21 PM, said:

There would be 3 viable variants of the Grasshopper in 3049 (now)
GHR-5H (standart)
GHR-5N ( - CT Large laser, + side torso PPC, + 5th large laser )
GHR-5J ( - 2med lasers, + AMS, - LRM5, +streak SRM2 )

But...yea there are still some good old mechs pending. Guillotine for example.

The 5H is 3025, the 5N is 3062, the 5J is 3050.

[Hawk819]

Bartholomew bartholomew, on 06 July 2014 - 06:28 AM, said:

Would be nice to have, heard vindicator and mauler are next IS chassis.

Yep, they are. along with the King Crab. All three are on the docket for release. Just after Community Warfare 1.0 is released in the Fall '14.

[Dalton Dakota]

luxebo, on 06 July 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

You are limited due to Recruit status; finish up your Cadet Bonus in game so you can post without limit!

Thanks. Just completed that a few moments ago. Ended up with 10 wins and 15 losses. Like any new MMO, I have a way to go before I'm proficient enough to be competitive. Though I did have a few flashes of brilliance during the latter part of day, they were few and far between.

[SnagaDance]

Koniving, on 06 July 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

One of the thousands of reasons many say "Sized hardpoints" or "TT engine limits" (it'd give you reason to run one size of mech over another, as that heavier one is far more limited in what engine sizes it can do, limiting its weapon choices), or the one that I think would matter most: Stock-based Armor limits.

Amen! Brother Koniving!

[Denolven]

Sniper09121986, on 06 July 2014 - 06:53 AM, said:

Well, we already have Locust and Cicada, so Grasshopper is the only logical conclusion here

Koniving, on 06 July 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Don't forget Fleas.

And I bet the Grasshopper would have jump jets, just like the other ones.
Oh, wait...

*waiting for a Dragon with JJ and non-broken flamers*

[Koniving]

Denolven, on 08 July 2014 - 04:05 AM, said:

And I bet the Grasshopper would have jump jets, just like the other ones.
Oh, wait...

*waiting for a Dragon with JJ and non-broken flamers*

That won't happen. Though I must say, if PGI used stock armor to decide maximum armor... Dragons would be Kings on the field. The Dragon 1-C, Thunderbolt, and Grasshopper, are all mechs that would have almost as much armor as the highest armored Stalker.

The Cataphract 4X would have exactly the same armor.

On the medium side, the Shadowhawk would be the worst of the 55 tonners, the Griffin would be an okay middle ground, the Kintaro would be superior in armor as its worst armored variant has equal to or more armor than the Griffin's most armored variant. And the Wolverine would be the mech everyone suggests to new players, as its armor would be nearly as high as the Dragon 1-C's.

[Denolven]

Koniving, on 08 July 2014 - 04:19 AM, said:

Though I must say, if PGI used stock armor to decide maximum armor...

Wait, I always assumed they took the fluff as basis for ingame strenths/weaknesses. Where did they get those max armor values from, if not from the tabletop game?
I'm all for deviating from the TT in order to to adapt to the different medium, but seriously, if a mech is tough in the source, it should be tough in the derivation, no matter which medium is used. The meaning of things should be kept, and only the formalities should be adapted (to ensure that the idead behind is not lost and works in the medium).

Edited by Denolven, 08 July 2014 - 04:35 AM.

[Koniving]

Denolven, on 08 July 2014 - 04:34 AM, said:

Wait, I always assumed they took the fluff as basis for ingame strenths/weaknesses. Where did they get those max armor values from, if not from the tabletop game?
I'm all for deviating from the TT in order to to adapt to the different medium, but seriously, if a mech is tough in the source, it should be tough in the derivation, no matter which medium is used. The meaning of things should be kept, and only the formalities should be adapted (to ensure that the idead behind is not lost and works in the medium).

Tabletop. Stock values.

Lots of info.

Spoiler

However, in tabletop most armor is not modified in any serious gameplay and if it is it comes at cost, due to repair and rearm's severity, financial limits spanning across an entire team, and a number of other reasons. Often players will run many lightly armored units over running just a few heavily armored ones. Also in serious gameplay, endo steel mechs will leave you nearly bankrupt making Ferro favorable, but even then it's kind of iffy.

The basic changing of a Commando 1-B from its stock to double heatsinks and swapping the LL with 2 ML, putting the saved tonnage into armor takes between 2 and 3 months. It took a little extra for my attempt because the technician and his 12 assistants (which most players would have 1 or 2 assistants to a technician) wound up breaking one of the medium lasers during installation.

Converting an Atlas D into an Atlas K with no other changes was a little cheaper than buying an Atlas K (19 million C-bills versus 22 million C-bills), but took 1 year and 7 months with a God mode technician (absolute best you can possibly have) and 12 assistants. Even then, one of the ER LLs had a cooling jacket problem and would produce extra heat.

In one fight, Lordred tried repairing the mechs that went up against mine.
One mech took 2 weeks to repair, mostly armor damage and reloading ammo.
Another mech took 3 months to repair. Replacing some structure, reloading ammo, replacing a laser, armor repair, complete cockpit replacement, replacing an AC/20.
There were others with various problems but the most memorable was an Atlas D-DC. I had destroyed its shoulder and upper arm actuators, leaving the arm limp and useless. I had also broken a foot actuator.
After 2 years and 9 months, the regular technician and his 2 assistants finally threw their arms up and said "I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do, you will want to scrap this." The Atlas D-DC could have walked again, but it would never have a functioning right arm.

My absolute favorite though, was one shotting an Annihilator with a through armor critical using a Hyper Assault Gauss in a MadCat MK II. Critical hit on the Gyro, the mech spent the next 3+ minutes struggling to get back up, destroying itself, crushing its own limbs as everyone fights in a free for all around it. I finally got away from a Warhammer with ENERGY SHIELDS long enough to put the damn pilot out of his misery (since the ejection system was destroyed in the first fall that also broke the pilot's arm, he couldn't escape! The poor guy).

Anyway back to MWO, with the really seriously forgiving repair and rearm costs^1, very few people would risk an XL engine (though no one really knew if you had CASE in both side torsos with your XL you'd cut your repair bill in half), and Endo Steel was something like 900 cbills per point to repair, which would be 79,200 for 88 points of structure destroyed. Add this with repairs for damaged weapons, heatsinks, etc., and you were looking at something pretty costly especially if you didn't do so hot. Of course at the time, battlemechs lived longer and took more abuse because delayed convergence removed pinpoint aim and no one would aim and calibrate their shots (by keeping on target for a second before firing), so damage got spread like crazy, meaning you lived longer...and had a bigger repair bill.

For comparison, Ferro was about 250 cbills per point, so losing 88 points would be 22,000. Compared to standard armor which was about 200 cbills per point. (Rough estimates based on memory mind you).

In the end, many people stuck to standard heatsinks when possible, used Ferro instead of Endo, and avoided XL engines if they were on a budget. We wouldn't have the min/max craze of the same proportions as we do today.

^1(it's chump change compared to BT. For example a Commando with an XL engine and DHS was typically 32,000 cbills when destroyed to repair it. You'd have to completely replace the Commando in BT. An Atlas D would typically be 100,000 to 500,000 depending on how it did, meanwhile you made 150,000 for doing almost nothing and 250,000 easily and could make up to 800,000 on a really good match; the repairs for an Atlas D in BT can be in the millions to "I'm sorry, this mech can never function again.").

-----------

Anyway, in Smurfy, check out the stock armors of mechs. You'd be quite surprised.

For example the Jagermech might have the best potential firepower in the game with the best ballistic hardpoints for an Inner Sphere mech, but its armor is sorely lacking. Shadowhawks? Paper dolls except the 5M, which is supposed to be 5 million cbills more expensive than it actually is in MWO. Meanwhile all the others are about actual price. The 3M Griffin, 7K Wolverine, and the Kintaro 20 are all in the teens of millions (cheapest being 13 million) in BT, but that ultra high armor, ultra weight saving XL engine, etc. is amazingly pricey.

Another funny thing about BT pricing is what I think is the coolest thing as it proves something. An XL 300 engine for a Jenner is about 2,900,000 cbills. An XL 300 engine for an Atlas is 12+ million cbills. What does that say? That engines are NOT cross-compatible. You'd see a LOT fewer of these meta builds.

If MWO had BT's engine limits, there wouldn't be a speed superiority in the Raven 3-L over the other Ravens. But the Victor? Engine choices would be 120, 240, 320, or 400. Lets see someone make a heat efficient poptart with that.

-----------

If MWO based its armor not on BT's "make your own mech design limits" but instead on stock armor values... The Cataphract 3D would be the worst Cataphract in terms of armor (alongside the 1X; but it'd be easier to turn the 1X into a speed demon where the 3D's JJs and ballistics would bog it down to a slower engine). Meanwhile the Cataphract 2X is the middle ground, the Muromets is (on paper when you break down the armor) half a ton lighter in armor to the 4X, which the 4X can't even equip the armor tonnage it states it has on paper. It says 14 tons of armor, but it can only equip 13.5625 tons of armor in MWO and BT due to the "make your own mech design limits."

If we simply took the stock armor of all mechs and added 3 tons (96 points in MWO), the results would be amazing and yet even the wimpiest armored mechs would be able to equip enough armor to survive.

Here's a quick example, the Hunchback and the Catapult C1 have identical armor. Most Centurions fall short, though Blackjacks have identical armor to Centurions despite being 5 tons lighter. The Centurion AL, however, has the most armor of 50 ton mechs and (unlike the other Centurions, had a local area radar instead of what MWO featured). Sure its 2 arm lasers + 1 CT front laser and 1 CT rear laser are less than favorable, but its armor made up for it.
Little more on that.

Spoiler

The most armored Shadowhawk literally matches the Centurion AL in armor, where the two second most armored match a regular Centurion and a Raven 2X/most armored Firestarter stock.

Most Locusts and a Jenner D (the best Jenner in MWO) have identical armor. The Locust with the worst armor also happens to have the best hardpoints (or at least weapons) of any Locust and is intended to carry huge weapons, which if governed by its stock armor + 3 tons it would have LOTS of tonnage for it.

But if we did that we'd have some weird problems with mechs that have ferro.
So if we took stock armor tonnage instead of stock armor, and then use that to create limits.. A mech with 320 points of standard armor would be 10 tons stock + 3 = new max at 13 tons = 416 points. A mech with 360 points of Ferro armor would have 10 tons of stock armor, + 3 tons Ferro would be 468 points. But if you traded Ferro for standard, you'd have 320 stock, 416 max.

We just made Ferro useful, as well as made it so that there are reasons to pick other mechs.

For example the Raven 3-L might have better hardpoints and ECM, but it already has ferro armor (which corrected is 162 stock not 161). Meanwhile the Raven 2X and 4X have vastly superior armor, with the 4X being 1 ton short of the 60 tonner Quickdraw, and the 2X having identical armor to the most armored Firestarter, the FS9-A.

What I love most about this concept is the end result. For example the difference between an Awesome 8Q (480, 15 tons) and a Victor K (368, 11.5 tons) at stock is 112 points or 3.5 tons of armor. With the + 3 ton max idea, the Awesome 8Q at max would be (576, 18 tons) and the Victor K would be (464, 14.5 tons). The difference is 112 points of armor or 3.5 tons. And with ferro instead, it'd be (8Q, 648. Victor K, 522) which is now 126 points difference, but again 3.5 tons difference.

No matter what... the difference in stock from stock of all mechs is translated to maximum from maximum from stock is always preserved with this idea.. keeping every characteristic and trait of the stock mechs' armor differences.

Edited by Koniving, 08 July 2014 - 06:28 AM.

[Ngamok]

Sug, on 06 July 2014 - 09:24 AM, said:

Giant slow energy boat. Super viable in Mwo.

There really aren't any 70+ ton Heavies that are faster than 64.8 KPH

But I'd vote for a Guillotine over a Grasshopper though.

[Denolven]

Koniving, on 08 July 2014 - 05:15 AM, said:

Tabletop. Stock values.

Lots of info.

Which means they translated the armor system to the new medium by just copying the values. Sounds like PGI.
That happens so often, it's not even funny. It's been known for decades that if you transfer something to another medium, you need to abstract the things that worked, then translate it to the new system.
It's like copying a successfull TV show and releasing it in another culture with translating the words instead of the meanings. Just copying never works.
So sad.
Aside from that, the whole cost system in MWO sucks. From what I've been told, in TT everything had its price, in one way or another. In MWO you simply take the better stuff, because there's no price to pay (other than initial C-Bill cost, which is the cheapest and one of the worst ways of doing it). If I had anything to say, everything would have both advantages and disadvantages. So if you want extra power, you have to pay with extra risk.

Well, I'm almost sure PGI knows that there are alot of good ideas in the community. Problem is they are unable to adapt their software quickly due to bad architecture, so they are literally paralyzed when it comes to switching/adding software parts. I've worked in software development long enough to recognize that from outside.

Anyway, thanks for the background info. I bet if we ever met in voice comms, we would keep on rambling for hours about how the latest MW franchise should have been .

Edited by Denolven, 08 July 2014 - 06:22 AM.

[Tesunie]

Dalton Dakota, on 06 July 2014 - 06:06 AM, said:

Greetings. New to this MMO, but not to BattleTech. I was looking through the current 'Mech list for heavies and did not see one of my favorites, the Grasshopper. Does anyone know if the devs have plans to put this venerable 'Mech into the game?

From what I heard, PGI intends to place ALL THE MECHS into the game at "some time". No idea in what order they intend to release them, but they already have a lot of mechs to place into the game...

I personally can't wait for a Crab or King Crab...

[Dawnstealer]

Mentioned this in another post, but I was thinking about that "Three Variants" thing. So PGI is only making mechs that have three variants for XP grinding reasons (or because it's easier on the model-makers - three for the price of one).

But now that we've gone through most of the mechs with 3+ variants, there's a large number of iconic mechs that aren't lucky enough to have that many variants.

What about releasing a handful of 1-variant mechs, and you need to own three different ones to unlock the Elite efficiencies? This would open the door for Assassins, Hatchetmen, etc.

Tesunie, on 08 July 2014 - 06:24 AM, said:

I personally can't wait for a Crab or King Crab...

King Crab all the way - I'll be piloting that one until the game turns into dust.

[Koniving]

Denolven, on 08 July 2014 - 06:21 AM, said:

Which means they translated the armor system to the new medium by just copying the values.

I wish they did that. They just copied points over and doubled them. But they failed to do that with ferro.
In TT every ton of standard armor is 16 points, and every ton of Ferro is 18 points. Clean, even, non-abuseable.
In MWO, every ton of standard is 32 points (double), but every ton of Ferro is 12% more, coming out to 35.(really long and impossibly incomprehensible decimal)... instead of 36 (double).

It's mind boggling, and because of it you can get right up to 0.18 of 0.2 tons before it actually counts as 0.2 tons. Most 50 ton mechs in MWO probably weigh 50.18 tons as a result after customization and that's just for the standards. Meanwhile Ferros can never get perfect tonnage. The Clans have an easier time because they get more points per ton, but eh.. it's still one of thsoe goofy numbers where I can be at x.8 tons, and slap in a 0.25 ton MG and be perfectly X.0 tons.

[Tesunie]

Dawnstealer, on 08 July 2014 - 06:34 AM, said:

Mentioned this in another post, but I was thinking about that "Three Variants" thing. So PGI is only making mechs that have three variants for XP grinding reasons (or because it's easier on the model-makers - three for the price of one).

From what I heard (a while ago) was that PGI is going to get the "easy" mechs out of the way, those mechs that already come with three different variants. Then, after those mechs are done they will go and get the "less fortunate" mechs that don't have the required three variants and "make up their own" to fill in the gap.

They still have a lot of mechs to go through, so I wouldn't expect to see the non-three variant mechs for a while...