20517 replies to this topic

[Odanan]

Virlutris, on 10 May 2017 - 02:54 PM, said:

Some of the nastier Ferret builds will only get better. That 1E torso will make the 6 SPL "Ultimate Dogfighter" a reality. 5 SPL already does great work.

On a different ClanTech note:

I was just trawling Sarna today and thinking that lots of IIC mechs will now be available because of the tech update.

I'm looking forward to the Griffin IIC myself, because reasons.

There's a bunch that could be very capable performers for several reasons. That Shadow Hawk IIC might be an especially nasty fast splat mech, among other possibilities. The PXH IIC amuses me, and the lights make me want to dust off my villain's cackle. >:3

I was actually talking about the Fenris in the Battletech CCG. It's a cheap, fast and sort of resistance mech.

[Virlutris]

Odanan, on 10 May 2017 - 04:26 PM, said:

I was actually talking about the Fenris in the Battletech CCG. It's a cheap, fast and sort of resistance mech.

Oh.

Okay.

<awkward silence>

I'll uh ...

I've go to ... umm ... a thing ... to ...

Hang on, I think that's my phone, I'll take it outside.

Edit: Oh yeah, went back and saw the previous post. Non-sequitur or not, I'll stand by the content of
my post

Edited by Virlutris, 10 May 2017 - 05:10 PM.

[FLG 01]

Odanan, on 05 May 2017 - 02:52 PM, said:

Black Hawk-KU. Now that's a knockoff.

It is. But it is actually pretty good for what it is. I don't think there is anything wrong with adapting and using the concepts of your opponents. And the Black Hawk-KU does it well, providing the same movement profile and almost the same offensive capabilities, albeit at the price of 10 tons more (in TT, the -KU has better armour, which imo offsets the disadvantage of the IS-XL). Given that the -KU has a much lower BV, I consider it a good Mech.

I have no special joy praising the Mech of the greatest enemy of the Commonwealth, but this one is quite good in TT.
It probably would do reasonably well* in MWO; too. Hitboxes seem ok for XL-use, as far as one can extrapolate from the Clan Black Hawk, speed is alright, as is the podspace. It may not be the best Mech ever, but it is ok or even good. ...which is more than I can say about every other IS heavy Omni-Mech of the time.

Seriously, the Black Hawk-KU blows Avatar and Perseus out of the water. Easily.


* in the age of Annihilator and Uziel, "reasonably well" is an improvement.

Edited by FLG 01, 10 May 2017 - 06:56 PM.

[Metus regem]

FLG 01, on 10 May 2017 - 06:54 PM, said:

It is. But it is actually pretty good for what it is. I don't think there is anything wrong with adapting and using the concepts of your opponents. And the Black Hawk-KU does it well, providing the same movement profile and almost the same offensive capabilities, albeit at the price of 10 tons more (in TT, the -KU has better armour, which imo offsets the disadvantage of the IS-XL). Given that the -KU has a much lower BV, I consider it a good Mech.

I have no special joy praising the Mech of the greatest enemy of the Commonwealth, but this one is quite good in TT.
It probably would do reasonably well* in MWO; too. Hitboxes seem ok for XL-use, as far as one can extrapolate from the Clan Black Hawk, speed is alright, as is the podspace. It may not be the best Mech ever, but it is ok or even good. ...which is more than I can say about every other IS heavy Omni-Mech of the time.

Seriously, the Black Hawk-KU blows Avatar and Perseus out of the water. Easily.


* in the age of Annihilator and Uziel, "reasonably well" is an improvement.

Honestly, I think if they had held the Perseus back to second generation and fitted it with a LFE, Endo, DHS and LFF it would've been great with 37t of pod space 4/6 movemet and 24 free crits.... It's just like the Avatar and Sunder if they were second generation with LFE's they would've been much, much better units.

[Requiemking]

Metus regem, on 11 May 2017 - 06:53 AM, said:

Honestly, I think if they had held the Perseus back to second generation and fitted it with a LFE, Endo, DHS and LFF it would've been great with 37t of pod space 4/6 movemet and 24 free crits.... It's just like the Avatar and Sunder if they were second generation with LFE's they would've been much, much better units.

I'm actually thinking of concepting a second-gen Omni-Orion in REM.

[Metus regem]

Requiemking, on 11 May 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

I'm actually thinking of concepting a second-gen Omni-Orion in REM.

I've done it, I leave both STs as open as I can so I could cram a UAC/20 in there if I wanted... As it stands the Prime varaint that I've used, uses two isERML, 1 isERSL, 1 UAC/10 with 2t ammo, 1 ASRM/4 with 1t ammo 1 ALRM/15 with 1t ammo, CASE in both ST's. 12 DHS total, with a 300 series LFE and LFF. works rather solid and gives the same feel as a standard Orion 1K.

[Requiemking]

Metus regem, on 11 May 2017 - 11:04 AM, said:

I've done it, I leave both STs as open as I can so I could cram a UAC/20 in there if I wanted... As it stands the Prime varaint that I've used, uses two isERML, 1 isERSL, 1 UAC/10 with 2t ammo, 1 ASRM/4 with 1t ammo 1 ALRM/15 with 1t ammo, CASE in both ST's. 12 DHS total, with a 300 series LFE and LFF. works rather solid and gives the same feel as a standard Orion 1K.

The route I went was a little different from yours. I went with a VOX 280 LFE, 14.5 tons of Standard armor, 12 double heatsinks, a RAC 5 with two tons of ammo, an MRM 30 with three tons of ammo, four MLS, a CT mount ECM unit, and four JJs, oddly enough. Called mine the Achilles. Kinda gives a similar feel to the Champion ON1-K, but way more mobile.

[Metus regem]

Requiemking, on 11 May 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

The route I went was a little different from yours. I went with a VOX 280 LFE, 14.5 tons of Standard armor, 12 double heatsinks, a RAC 5 with two tons of ammo, an MRM 30 with three tons of ammo, four MLS, a CT mount ECM unit, and four JJs, oddly enough. Called mine the Achilles. Kinda gives a similar feel to the Champion ON1-K, but way more mobile.

How do you get a 280 to work with a 75t mech in TT rules? as a 4/6 on 75t is a 300 series engine... 280 works for 70t, but since the Orion is 75t, it makes sense that the Omni version of it would be the same tonnage.

[Requiemking]

Metus regem, on 11 May 2017 - 11:43 AM, said:

How do you get a 280 to work with a 75t mech in TT rules? as a 4/6 on 75t is a 300 series engine... 280 works for 70t, but since the Orion is 75t, it makes sense that the Omni version of it would be the same tonnage.

I don't know. The Record sheet kept saying it was a VOX 280 while REM itself said Vlar 300.

[Metus regem]

Requiemking, on 11 May 2017 - 11:46 AM, said:

I don't know. The Record sheet kept saying it was a VOX 280 while REM itself said Vlar 300.

I'd go with the 300 series as it's more inline with the rules... generally speaking I trust using SSW more than REM for mech building. Lost my copy of HMP a while ago, and I don't feel like paying for another copy of it.... That was the best one I've used how ever.

[Requiemking]

Metus regem, on 11 May 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

I'd go with the 300 series as it's more inline with the rules... generally speaking I trust using SSW more than REM for mech building. Lost my copy of HMP a while ago, and I don't feel like paying for another copy of it.... That was the best one I've used how ever.

Still, the armament I went for on mine was more of a close-in brawler. As for the Lore, well, lets just say you should never brag about your mech design skills while drunk.

[Metus regem]

Requiemking, on 11 May 2017 - 11:49 AM, said:

Still, the armament I went for on mine was more of a close-in brawler. As for the Lore, well, lets just say you should never brag about your mech design skills while drunk.

When I go about taking an older lore design and making an Omni version of it, I try to make the prime variant mimic the most common variant of the chassis that I am updating. The Alpha variant I do is usually more meta for TT with all others being flavorful.

[Bishop Steiner]

Metus regem, on 11 May 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

I'd go with the 300 series as it's more inline with the rules... generally speaking I trust using SSW more than REM for mech building. Lost my copy of HMP a while ago, and I don't feel like paying for another copy of it.... That was the best one I've used how ever.

Both work, mostly, but both, IMO have their issues, too. REM is useless for vehicles, and there is plenty of tech not loaded either.

But a 280 would be illegal for a 75 tonner using TT rules. Walking MP x Tonnage.

[Odanan]

I think PGI is just waiting for the Tuk 3 to end before announcing the next mech pack. So... any day next week?

PS: I'm really curious about what they will bring next (if it's a 4 mech pack, Nova Cat is certain).

BTW, how nobody posted this yet?



And this:

[Virlutris]

Odanan, on 12 May 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

I think PGI is just waiting for the Tuk 3 to end before announcing the next mech pack. So... any day next week?

PS: I'm really curious about what they will bring next (if it's a 4 mech pack, Nova Cat is certain).

BTW, how nobody posted this yet?



And this:

I have the feeling they're going to wait until June for the next announcement. They've got the current would-be Civil War packs, plus the workload to complete for the heroes for 19 mech chassis.

Plus skill hedge release related stuff.

I'd totes geek out for some ClanTech IICs, or the Horned Owl, or even some (dare I hope ... no ...) light invasion omnis. Or Charger/Hatamoto, Thug, whatever, because lolz. I'm just looking at what the project board might look like, and thinking "yeah no, gov it another few weeks."

Skill hedge is going to be enough crazy for the near term, but I don't think that would keep PGI from announcing a pack on its own. The hero work though, that I think they'd like the finish time for.

Edited by Virlutris, 12 May 2017 - 12:11 PM.

[Sereglach]

Source: https://mwomercs.com...d-chris-lowrey/

Of particular interest to this thread is the answer to the last question:

Quote

Q: If the skill tree system is not meant to address Clan and IS balance, what is your plan for balance going forward?

Chris: Base level balance is what we are working towards. And to this end, we are continuing to work on improving this. To give you guys a sneak peek as to what is coming, these are some of the things currently being worked on to better balance the game:

•June will see an extensive balance pass performed on Energy weapons, which will touch nearly every weapon currently in the energy lineup. This balance pass will focus on two major points:

•Better weapon role definition between different weapon types.

•A heavy focus on better baseline balance between IS and Clan Energy weapons.


•Beyond this, Quirks are being extensively re-evaluated as we get data from Skill Tree release. We will be immediately focused toward those IS chassis’ receiving new Hero variants in June. We’ll possibly also see new Quirk passes on existing standard variants along with those Hero releases. In addition to this, we are looking at introducing new non-weapon Quirk types to add more variety to the way we currently Quirk mechs, though at this time, there is no ETA on the new Quirk types.

•The Skill tree will be monitored heavily after release. We will have new nodes introduced with the new tech in July, and we will continue to refine the overall Skill Tree balance as we move towards introducing the nodes for that new tech.

•The final balance point we can briefly highlight now involves Engine types. Better balance across the Standard, XL, and Clan XL Engine types is a major change that I am heavily pushing for. It's currently in the very early stages of evaluation, with gameplay and technical considerations to be made. At this time, there is no solid ETA or info I can provide, but it will definitely be something we look at addressing after the introduction of new tech.

Although these are the only things that we are able to address now, many more things are being looked into behind the scenes.

So . . . energy weapons are getting a huge balance pass/overhaul in June (I can only pray that includes the Flamer), mech de-quirking is still coming, new non-weapon quirks are going to be made, the first mechs to get attention for quirk overhauls will be the IS mechs getting heroes in June, and they're finally taking a serious and hard look at engine balance in the game.

Fascinating, if nothing else. Predictions for potential changes and gameplay impacts? . . . What mechs would need the most help and how they'll be helped (some obvious, some maybe not), if it's not weapon quirks? Weapon changes and how they'll effect builds (could they finally go full tilt differentiation and actually make the pulse lasers energy machinegun DPS weapons)?

Edited by Sereglach, 12 May 2017 - 09:44 PM.

[Sereglach]

Almost 10 hours later I figured someone would have taken a stab at something. Well, then, here's one thing I think . . . at least when it comes to reassessing engine balance.

PGI wants to do IS Omnis, but they know 1st generation IS Omnis mostly suck. Therefore, they need to reassess engine balance to actually help make them work. Here's what I think they're going to do:

- Standard Engine will probably get some serious structure buff to the mech (CT at least) for equipping it.

- Clan XL penalty will be reduced to 40% loss of efficiency (20% per crit) in part because one of the biggest reasons for the massive penalty was the lack of engine decoupling.

- IS XL won't instantly kill the target on ST loss, and instead impart the 60% penalty to efficiency. Again, the engine decoupling and need for IS Omni usability basically mandate this.

- IS LFE will function like a Clan XL, but of course doesn't provide quite the weight savings.

While that'll make IS Omnis (1st Gen, at least) not suffer so many handicaps, that'll also have a HUGE impact on IS Light mechs as well as any semi-to-not-so-XL-friendly chassis currently in the game. It also might make Clans consider putting a Standard engine on super-select builds OR not be so upset about having some of the earlier Clan Omnis that use STD engines.

Thoughts?

[Odanan]

Sereglach, on 13 May 2017 - 07:15 AM, said:

- Clan XL penalty will be reduced to 40% loss of efficiency (20% per crit) in part because one of the biggest reasons for the massive penalty was the lack of engine decoupling.

- IS XL won't instantly kill the target on ST loss, and instead impart the 60% penalty to efficiency. Again, the engine decoupling and need for IS Omni usability basically mandate this.

- IS LFE will function like a Clan XL, but of course doesn't provide quite the weight savings.

Are these values confirmed?

[Sereglach]

Odanan, on 13 May 2017 - 07:45 AM, said:

Are these values confirmed?

No . . . and I even prefaced it with "here's what I think they're going to do." To me, the decoupling provides a gateway to implement the changes I predict that they'll possibly do. The only thing confirmed is that they are actively reassessing STD, IS XL, and Clan XL balance in the game, as it stands. I think the LFE also is contributing to the factor of why this is happening . . . otherwise the LFE is slated to basically obsolete the IS XL engine.

[Odanan]

New week, new possibilities!

What's coming next?