52 replies to this topic

[Cptn Goodvibes Pig of Steel]

G'day,

Personally, I just think that armour, across the whole range of mech's, is undervalued or not effective as it should be! I do realise that values are carried over from the tabletop game and adapted to the computer game, but there does seem to be an imbalance between firepower and overall mech durability. Unfortunately, this seems much more drastic and not very favourable to heavier mechs carrying large amounts of armour. To speak in economic terms, why would any of the waring factions, invest significant amounts of capital and resources into heavier mech's which don't really last all that longer on the battlefield than a lighter, cheaper mech? Maybe this is reflected in cannon lore, with the high numbers of light and medium mechs in service? At any rate, addressing this issue, could mean longer games than the regular fifteen minute fare. Do we need to look at the relative effectiveness of armour and maybe bump it up a tad?

Regards

[Mobile Ordnance Platform]

agree

torso twist speed and side torso armor quirk would help (a bit)

but that hardpoint / tonnage ratio is a issue.. not sure how they can improve that

in any case it needs something to help it in the current environment

[Sarlic]

happy mech, on 01 December 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:

if you try to force the atlas to be a brawler because "it got to be a brawler", obviously it will not work, you need range

balance your build, like with any other mech

atlas has great arms for shielding, learn to use them, twist, circle the enemy and be ready to retreat, rather than rush in

use your right side (torso and arm, they are nearly at same height) to peek and hide, ac10+ppc, gauss+erll

use your left side for short range defence or long range support, mpl, ll, lpl, srm, ssrm, lrm5+a

you need to be able to adapt and keep pace with your team, it is NOT a solo mech

Your comment is appreciated. But please get on-topic.

I am not talking about playstyle. I know how to play. I am talking about the current line up of the Atlas.
That line up is weak and getting weaker with more and more mechs getting added.

Edited by Sarlic, 01 December 2014 - 10:24 AM.

[happy mech]

Sarlic, on 01 December 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

Your comment is appreciated. But please get on-topic.

I am not talking about playstyle. I know how to play. I am talking about the current line up of the Atlas.
That line up is weak and getting weaker with more and more mechs getting added.

many of the comments were more on playstyle, i did try to address those

atlas is 100 tons, engine usually 300-350, around 7 hardpoints, 1 or 2 ballistic but in 12 slots, 2 or 4 energy, some of which are in ct, and 1 or 3 missile slots
it has hand actuators, which is great
arms are quite far from each other though, so you usually do not want to expose your whole mech
regarding damage, it is not like a banshee, stalker, jagermech, or other mechs, but you have those hand actuators, and big arms, so you can shield yourself, and aim at specific locations while still shielding yourself, while constantly moving
atlas is very resilient and can put a pressure on your team, but it is a different playstyle (still) than a dps cannon (like a direwolf)

now, is it underpowered? dps wise, yes, mobility wise, you have decent torso twisting and arms maneuverable like commando, if you combine this with some lrm or ssrm you can hit things even on retreat, gotta make use of that
so before asking for a 50% armor bonus or something like that, i think people should try a more mid-range build that can stay with the team and still be useful regardless of map (like alpine peaks)

to the twisting quirk, it makes sense, though a 100 ton mech should feel a little hulky (if it is focused on close range though, maybe it was designed to twist fast?)

[Tim East]

The AS7-K.

All Atlases need some help, but that poor beast especially. No hardpoints really, not much survivability in the current environment, the quirks did little to help it since PPCs have had some hit detection issues and you have to expose most of your mech to even hit anything besides the dirt with them anyway. At least the S can shoot a slew of SRMs or LRMs, and the DDC has ECM, and even the BH has loads of silly energy hardpoints.

[Neput Z34]

In my humble experience the biggest problem with an Atlas as a weapons platform besides its lack of mobility, is you got to be out in the open in order for your weapons to clear the terrain.
What i mean by that is, the arm / torso mounted energy hard points along with the ballistics are all about waist level of a mech. Only the 1st missile hard point mounted slightly below the pilots seat.
So to engage an enemy mech with direct fire weapons you must full expose your self to potential return fire from entire enemy team. At that point you are dead, because you are too slow to get back in cover, no mater how much armor you have or how hard you torso twist to spread out the damage.

This relegates an AS7 to basically a camping around corners to surprise some one or 100 tons of ECM damage sponge, possibly both.

As far as weapons hard points go, AS7-K is one short, and all could possibly use +20 armor to both front side torsos.

P.S.

Food for though; Misery vs AS7 "apples to oranges" ?

Edited by Neput Z34, 01 December 2014 - 05:55 PM.

[happy mech]

i think atlas could get some arm armour and structure quirks (+18/+10 for the start?) and twisting speed quirk (25%?), promote what this mech shines at

[Mad Ox]

With XP weekend got out my Atlases to close them on Mastering this weekend a bit and found the following to be true.

1- STD only engine from the front the side torsos are much much to easy to drag down. 300-350 size should do but try and go big need the speed and boosted twisting.

2- Weaponry locations are mighty compact and close in even for a big monster all around gut area for most apart. I keep a LRM10+ART for some long range supporting fire but otherwise stick to close in brutality; ML, MPL, AC20, LBX10 x2, SRM4/6. Stuff ya can trigger off together and rip enemy apart. Leads itself to a nice side to side movement spreading damamge out but pointing you back on target once cooldowns are over.

3- Center Torso front is very narrow with and odd big wide spot being waist and pelvis. Both of which really are not were people tend to aim so the sides get hit alot more often up front Main reason why XL engine bad idea. Also why that torso with gun in it so easily taken out its rather large and easy to hit.

Most if not all of this been noted but until you see for yourself hard to really deal with it I guess. use LRM's at beginning of battle to figure out how things are going where enemy is then once things settle in then use that Power Atlas has to crush mechs.

Always watch your back flankers are sooooo annoying. But decent team and good timing on your part should keep that rear covered.

[POOTYTANGASAUR]

Stop being a bad atlas pilot. If you can't 1v1 a d wolf at 270 meters and win ur trash.

[Neput Z34]

To clarify and expand upon my previous post:

AS7-K needs much bigger buffs or more weapon hard points to be even considered on par with other IS assaults. 1 more ballistic hard point in the right torso?

AS7-RS has Large Laser Range and Rate Of Fire / Cycle Time boost and could really use a Heat Reduction,

AS7-DDC only has a miserly 10% to AC20 velocity and 5% to the rest of the of auto cannons.
+11 HP to side torso is nice but it will not save your AC20 from a 4 MG :censored: once your armor is gone. At the very least relocate the ECM hard point to the CT?

AS-7D & 7S seem to be alright in terms of quirks / bonuses, but it is still an 100 ton mech with only 3 more tons of weapon payload and armor then an 85 ton mech @ 62.4kph and less critical space, not counting the engine slots for heat sinks.

I still would like to see +20 to +32 points of armor on RT, CT, LT of all AS7s or raise the max armor allocation cap by that amount on those locations.

Edited by Neput Z34, 02 December 2014 - 06:08 PM.

[UndeadEdd]

Sorry for the slight off-topic, but:

Neput Z34, on 02 December 2014 - 06:01 PM, said:

but it is still an 100 ton mech with only 3 more tons of weapon payload and armor then an 85 ton mech @ 62.4kph and less critical space, not counting the engine slots for heat sinks.

Your Atlas-D doesn't have to run at 62KPH. You need to adjust your engine to fit your weapon choice, not the other way around. A D-DC can do well with a STD350 engine since it can carry 3xASRM6 (which have a high damage-to-weight ratio) and ECM. A Boar's Head can also run with STD350 since its 6xMPL also have a very high damage-to-weight ratio. Your Atlas-D could run a STD325 and look like this: AS7-D. If you build a Misery that runs at this speed you'll see that it's indeed out-armored, out-structured and out-gunned (both in Alpha Strike and DPS) by the Atlas. Not by a huge margin, but still looks better than you oranges and apples question.

[Decoy3]

POOTYTANGASAUR, on 02 December 2014 - 02:56 PM, said:

Stop being a bad atlas pilot. If you can't 1v1 a d wolf at 270 meters and win ur trash.

Sadly, getting to 270m with an Atlas is the hard part.

The Atlas isn't a good ranged platform, and I don't see much point in trying to overcome that weakness. Yes, playing a slow brawler in the pug queue is basically a crapshoot, but it's still going to be more effective than putting (ER)LLas/PPCs into the knuckle-dragging gorilla arms. A Gauss in the RT is just begging for an ammo explosion. Load up on those AC20s/SRMs and smash the faces of anyone that comes within 300m of you.

Tim East, on 01 December 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

Food for though; Misery vs AS7 "apples to oranges" ?

Did you pick bad builds on purpose? Because it doesn't really demonstrate anything relevant.

[Sarlic]

happy mech, on 01 December 2014 - 11:46 AM, said:

many of the comments were more on playstyle, i did try to address those

atlas is 100 tons, engine usually 300-350, around 7 hardpoints, 1 or 2 ballistic but in 12 slots, 2 or 4 energy, some of which are in ct, and 1 or 3 missile slots
it has hand actuators, which is great
arms are quite far from each other though, so you usually do not want to expose your whole mech
regarding damage, it is not like a banshee, stalker, jagermech, or other mechs, but you have those hand actuators, and big arms, so you can shield yourself, and aim at specific locations while still shielding yourself, while constantly moving
atlas is very resilient and can put a pressure on your team, but it is a different playstyle (still) than a dps cannon (like a direwolf)

now, is it underpowered? dps wise, yes, mobility wise, you have decent torso twisting and arms maneuverable like commando, if you combine this with some lrm or ssrm you can hit things even on retreat, gotta make use of that
so before asking for a 50% armor bonus or something like that, i think people should try a more mid-range build that can stay with the team and still be useful regardless of map (like alpine peaks)

to the twisting quirk, it makes sense, though a 100 ton mech should feel a little hulky (if it is focused on close range though, maybe it was designed to twist fast?)

Again. It might be regarding playstyle. But everyone have his or her own playstyle. It's off-topic.
Bottomline is: the Atlas does not feel complete.

It needs to be hardened. Either way as Koniving says: Pintpoint damage is a thing we're getting see alot more coming next months.

There something still wrong when the main cannon is easily to disable with a few single hits. It just takes a very few hits. Just to name a example.

The torso twisting needs to be encouraged. Perhaps with a quirk.

Neput Z34, on 02 December 2014 - 06:01 PM, said:

To clarify and expand upon my previous post:

AS7-K needs much bigger buffs or more weapon hard points to be even considered on par with other IS assaults. 1 more ballistic hard point in the right torso?

AS7-RS has Large Laser Range and Rate Of Fire / Cycle Time boost and could really use a Heat Reduction,

AS7-DDC only has a miserly 10% to AC20 velocity and 5% to the rest of the of auto cannons.
+11 HP to side torso is nice but it will not save your AC20 from a 4 MG :censored: once your armor is gone. At the very least relocate the ECM hard point to the CT?

AS-7D & 7S seem to be alright in terms of quirks / bonuses, but it is still an 100 ton mech with only 3 more tons of weapon payload and armor then an 85 ton mech @ 62.4kph and less critical space, not counting the engine slots for heat sinks.

I still would like to see +20 to +32 points of armor on RT, CT, LT of all AS7s or raise the max armor allocation cap by that amount on those locations.

The K definatly needs more attention.

Edited by Sarlic, 03 December 2014 - 07:56 AM.