99 replies to this topic

[Bloodweaver]

I think he was talking about LRMs themselves - i.e. amount of ammunition.

[Kanatta Jing]

Raalic, on 26 June 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

As for Stock Variants You Should Always Use: See HBK-4P

Pft, check out the HBK-4SP. It's pretty...

[trycksh0t]

Okay, I'll give you the stock Dragon is a little off, but it is quite good at keeping enemies locked down until the big boys show up.

The Cicada, on the other hand, can be outright terrifying. Speed matters, and that thing has speed in abundance. Being that fast, it'll find you, provide targeting data for indirect fire, and probably be out of range before anyone gets a chance to fire on it. THAT is how a Cicada is supposed to work, it carries a light weapons payload specifically so pilots DON'T try to take it into combat. That being said, a Cicada drive-by can still take most of the armor off your backside if you're distracted by something else. It may not look like much, but never underestimate these things.

[KageRyuu]

Bloodweaver, on 26 June 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Hey, I'll take a Griffin, Wolverine, Quickdraw, or Crusader over the Dragon any day... All but the Griffin are among my favorite designs, and I'd prefer not to have to rely on a snake Mech for my upper-end medium/low-end heavy Mech fix! But the idea the Dragon is under-gunned is only possible if you completely ignore its tactical applications. It's a good design for what it's meant to do - operate in groups to deliver firepower from a variety of ranges with great mobility and survivability. Like all other Mechs released so far, it is NOT meant to operate on its own.

Yes but you also completely ignore the tactical applications of all the other mechs as well when making your grandiose statements about the power and "independence" of a Dragon.

Dragons don't do well in cities or dense terrain period, you want to know why? Hunchbacks. They're absolute terrors in cities, mountains, and dense forests where LRMs and other long ranged weapons are mostly useless or out classed due to lack of LOS and intervening terrain (weapons which the Dragon relies a lot on) which nullify their range advantage.

In a city 9 times out of 10 you're forced to close on the enemy with minimal information, and with a Dragon 1N if you have to close on the enemy all you have is an AC 5 and a 2 Medium Lasers, while a Huncback 4G has an AC20, 2 Medium Lasers, and even a Small Laser. You can argue your speed will allow you to run circles around a Catapult or Atlas on an open field all you want, but a Huchback isn't going to be circle strafed anywhere especially not in a city, and given that they both have the same amount of armor but the Hunchback has double the Dragon's short range firepower, a Dragon isn't going to like brawling with him one bit or even being in the same city as an enemy Huncback if he can help it.

Now yes, a Dragon can outgun anything it can't out run, but it's reliance on range is a detriment in anything but wide open spaces, and given city fighting is all about short ranged burst damage, aka brawling. A Skirmisher like the Dragon just can't compete.

Also, given the vids on the Catapult to date I don't think you'll want to try to snipe someone who can indirect fire 30 LRMs, and without experimentation I would argue that a Dragon 1N probably wouldn't want to brawl with one either seeing as a CPLT-C1 has the same armor as a Dragon but has 4 Medium Lasers to the previously mentioned 1N's armament, if the Dragon can't keep behind the Cat, he'll regret it.

In fact, a 1N Dragon just can't brawl, his focus is just too much on long ranged low damage over time that the sight or even thought of a Dragon pilot attempting to do so with anything it can't outrun just reeks of desperation.

Bloodweaver, on 26 June 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

I think he was talking about LRMs themselves - i.e. amount of ammunition.

Possibly, but regardless they all have the same number of missiles per ton of ammo, 120.

LRM 5 x 24 = 120
LRM 10 x 12 = 120
LRM 15 x 8 = 120
LRM 20 x 6 = 120

Edited by KageRyuu, 26 June 2012 - 04:09 PM.

[Foxmoan]

trycksh0t, on 26 June 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:

Okay, I'll give you the stock Dragon is a little off, but it is quite good at keeping enemies locked down until the big boys show up.

The Cicada, on the other hand, can be outright terrifying. Speed matters, and that thing has speed in abundance. Being that fast, it'll find you, provide targeting data for indirect fire, and probably be out of range before anyone gets a chance to fire on it. THAT is how a Cicada is supposed to work, it carries a light weapons payload specifically so pilots DON'T try to take it into combat. That being said, a Cicada drive-by can still take most of the armor off your backside if you're distracted by something else. It may not look like much, but never underestimate these things.

Eh... Yeah speed is a factor, but having THAT much speed can hinder in a real time game. the cicada is great in TT, where you can stop on a dime and just keep moving around to there backs without issue, but in any real time MW game your gonna need to decelerate first to keep in that rear arc and that can least to a few issues. You will either slow too early and make an easy target, slow too late and miss, or just need to resort to the circle of death. Ive never really understood why that was feared either. when i happen to play a bigger mech id just stand and wait til they come around and just alpha, usually ruining a torso, or just plain killing them. Also, in a city map as the devs have been saying there will be a lot of, doing a COD will also just lead you to smacking agenst a wall, lol. Damaging you and leaving you a target at the same time.

Frankly, I always think its cute whwn scouts say there just as powerful as bigger guys on the feild. There not. Just as useful, yes, but not as powerful. Scouts need to stick to there job and relay information, letting the big guys dish out the pain. A good scout will never need to fire a weapon anyway, as in most TRO's its mentioned that adding weapons at all is more to act as a deterrent then to actually be used. Thats why im glad that scouts can get there XP in this game by actually scouting, instead of a flat K/D ratio. So scouts, please. Stop arguing that your weapons are under/overpowered and for for the love of god stop running into the fray to try getting kills. If a lance looses its scout then the rest of the team flying blind. So spot your targets and run the heck away so the fire support can run in and soften up the enemy while the brawlers trudge in and finish them off. The only time a scout should stick around is if, and only if, its weapon happens to be something with an extreme range like LRM's or AC/2's so that they can back up the fire support. Keeps the mech in charge of getting information for the rest of the team safe. If your team looses you its only a matter of time before the other team uses there own scout to mark your guys for death via rain of missles.

Long story short, do your lance a favor by marking your targets and just running away under passive/inactive radar and all that shizz and let the big boys do the damage. You will get your XP, and even save tons of c-bills not needing to repair your mech nearly as much.

[Prussian Havoc]

Steel Prophet, on 26 June 2012 - 12:58 PM, said:

It's not always just about firepower...

Excellent point... let's hope MW:O allows... ney, encourages speed / scouting / #Calling4Fire!

Edited by Prussian Havoc, 26 June 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[Corbon Zackery]

Any mech with just one weapon. So examples:

Hussar yes its fast but how often are you going to hit with that Large Laser.
Long range+run+Mech movement = The one miss wonder

Hollander 1 Gauss Rifle yes its 15 points to hit.
Long range + walk + Mech movement = One miss wonder.

Thanks

[Targetloc]

The Dragon's main advantage against other mechs in the same weight class from TT doesn't translate well to the Mechwarrior series.

It's speed usually means it can get an extra +1 defense modifier against 4/6 speed mechs, and the AC/5 has a MUCH higher chance of hitting than an AC20 and medium lasers if you can keep 6-10 spaces away (180-200 meters in MWO terms, which is doable even in a city). With a little luck you can keep it so you have a constant 70-80% chance to hit, which they have a 16-20% chance to hit...

Unfortunately for the Dragon in the computer sims all the weapons have pin-point accuracy inside their max range, and the average player won't have a much harder time hitting something going 86kph vs 64kph.


This could probably be rectified by following what most modern FPS do and giving different weapons slightly different 'relative spreads' when you're not standing still... but without seeing the game I'd think the first thing a consummate Dragon pilot would want to do is swap out that AC5 for weapons with more punch.

[Fgump]

So you all do realize that they are taking these mechs straight out of the Source books right? Like these variants are standard in battletech. You can tell where they will mount things by looking them up and probably be pretty much spot on since the Dev's mention taking stuff straight from the table top specs.

Edited by Fgump, 26 June 2012 - 05:04 PM.

[ragnarawk]

honestly the worst mech i can think of is the charger. i know some people love it but 5 small lasers on a 80 ton mech is retarted. atleast the banshee can core a light mech in one round of shooting. its also along with the mackie one of the oldest mechs there is. the charger.... well its just sad.

[Kanatta Jing]

AC's are different from lasers because they don't slash, dealing focused damage. And that AC is mounted on an arm, and arms get to swing super fast.

Apparently the DRG-1N is for legging Jenners and torturing Atlases.

But yeah you can probably trade out the Medium Lasers and LRM 10 for a PPC in the other arm and do the same job better.

[KageRyuu]

Corbon Zackery, on 26 June 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

Any mech with just one weapon. So examples:

Hussar yes its fast but how often are you going to hit with that Large Laser.
Long range+run+Mech movement = The one miss wonder

Hollander 1 Gauss Rifle yes its 15 points to hit.
Long range + walk + Mech movement = One miss wonder.

Thanks

There's this magical ability called "leading" that allows a good practitioner of the dark arts to land a shot even on a moving target.

As for Lasers, they move at the speed of light so no need to practice the dark arts of "leading", and so long as you can aim at the enemy you have a decent chance of hitting them for some damage.

Fgump, on 26 June 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

So you all do realize that they are taking these mechs straight out of the Source books right? Like these variants are standard in battletech. You can tell where they will mount things by looking them up and probably be pretty much spot on since the Dev's mention taking stuff straight from the table top specs.

Yeah, that's kinda the point of stock mechs, because they are easily identifiable, also most are customized at some point.

ragnarawk, on 26 June 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

honestly the worst mech i can think of is the charger. i know some people love it but 5 small lasers on a 80 ton mech is retarted. atleast the banshee can core a light mech in one round of shooting. its also along with the mackie one of the oldest mechs there is. the charger.... well its just sad.

You do realize that most light mechs don't typically have more than 15 points of armor in their frontal center torso right? And that 5 SLs deal 15 points of damage, while a PPC, an AC 5 and a small laser only deal 3 more damage right? The only real difference there is range then. The Banshee can deal 15 damage at much greater range then the Charger, but conversely the Charger is faster than most mediums and has a respectable amount of armor to boot so can quickly close the gap on a Banshee and get into the minimum ranges of both the PPC and AC 5 effectively negating any ranged benefit the Banshee had..Then from there it's pretty much a kicking match to see who falls first. Though that's on the TT, it'll be interesting to see how the Devs implement the minimum ranges of direct fire weapons.

Edited by KageRyuu, 26 June 2012 - 06:09 PM.

[Ricama]

I'm of the opinion you should not use any mech bone stock. They were designed by someone else, for a style that is probably not yours. For example, if you're good with missiles, put as many on a mech as you can. If you're not good with missiles, rip them off and beef up something you're good with.

[Kanatta Jing]

Ricama, on 26 June 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

I'm of the opinion you should not use any mech bone stock. They were designed by someone else, for a style that is probably not yours. For example, if you're good with missiles, put as many on a mech as you can. If you're not good with missiles, rip them off and beef up something you're good with.

On that note, if you aren't good with missles you probably shouldn't buy a missle boat.

[trycksh0t]

Foxmoan, on 26 June 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

Eh... Yeah speed is a factor, but having THAT much speed can hinder in a real time game. the cicada is great in TT, where you can stop on a dime and just keep moving around to there backs without issue, but in any real time MW game your gonna need to decelerate first to keep in that rear arc and that can least to a few issues. You will either slow too early and make an easy target, slow too late and miss, or just need to resort to the circle of death. Ive never really understood why that was feared either. when i happen to play a bigger mech id just stand and wait til they come around and just alpha, usually ruining a torso, or just plain killing them. Also, in a city map as the devs have been saying there will be a lot of, doing a COD will also just lead you to smacking agenst a wall, lol. Damaging you and leaving you a target at the same time.

Frankly, I always think its cute whwn scouts say there just as powerful as bigger guys on the feild. There not. Just as useful, yes, but not as powerful. Scouts need to stick to there job and relay information, letting the big guys dish out the pain. A good scout will never need to fire a weapon anyway, as in most TRO's its mentioned that adding weapons at all is more to act as a deterrent then to actually be used. Thats why im glad that scouts can get there XP in this game by actually scouting, instead of a flat K/D ratio. So scouts, please. Stop arguing that your weapons are under/overpowered and for for the love of god stop running into the fray to try getting kills. If a lance looses its scout then the rest of the team flying blind. So spot your targets and run the heck away so the fire support can run in and soften up the enemy while the brawlers trudge in and finish them off. The only time a scout should stick around is if, and only if, its weapon happens to be something with an extreme range like LRM's or AC/2's so that they can back up the fire support. Keeps the mech in charge of getting information for the rest of the team safe. If your team looses you its only a matter of time before the other team uses there own scout to mark your guys for death via rain of missles.

Long story short, do your lance a favor by marking your targets and just running away under passive/inactive radar and all that shizz and let the big boys do the damage. You will get your XP, and even save tons of c-bills not needing to repair your mech nearly as much.

Where did I mention anything about staying in the rear arc for extended period or circle of death? I seem to recall saying that a "a Cicada drive-by can still take most of the armor off your backside if you're distracted by something else." Nowhere did I state a solitary Cicada is going to come running in out of nowhere and circle a Heavy 'Mech to death.

A Cicada Drive-by - Mech A is engaged with Mech B (Cicada's teammate). Cicada pilot sees this, comes in at full speed from outside Mech A's firing arcs, puts all 3 lasers into it's back, and keeps going. Never slowing down, never stopping, not circling. If Mech A tries to respond to the Cicada, Mech B is going to light him up. If he ignores the Cicada, he takes 15 damage to his rear armor. That is a Cicada Drive-by.

[StingerPryde]

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha

2x ER Medium Lasers 1x ER Small Laser

12x Machine Guns

[Noth]

StingerPryde, on 26 June 2012 - 06:47 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha

2x ER Medium Lasers 1x ER Small Laser

12x Machine Guns

Talk about running out of ammo fast and having so many chances for ammo to go boom.

[Joseph Mallan]

A star of Piranha won a Star on Star battle 2 or 3 years running. I didn't face them myself, but I could hear the carnage from my table!

[Surtr]

The DRG-1N was out of production circa 3040 in favor of the Grand Dragon. Your argument would have been great 9 years ago.

[Johnny Reb]

Kobold, on 26 June 2012 - 12:55 PM, said:

I like the CDA-3F upgrade. 8/12/8 with double heat sinks, and ER PPC, and two medium lasers. The CDA-2A needs to be compared to other fast runners. It is more lightly armed than the Jenner, but faster and has more armor.

This is the scout mech I want to pilot. The one with the ppc, I will also be a scout hunter in this mech as well as a scout.

Edited by Johnny Reb, 26 June 2012 - 07:13 PM.