189 replies to this topic

[Mercules]

Pjwned, on 22 December 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

The irony is that the sum of your argument is literally "those builds are bad because I don't like it."

No the TBT build is bad because the TBT is not a great mech, and I own them. Then you put a long range hot weapon to support your LRMs. Well, you don't have the armor to stand in the open and launch LRMs but you have a long range direct fire weapon and Artemis meaning you intend to be in the open launching LRMs. You put a single JJ on it which means you intend to maybe hover an inch off the ground. It's bad. You would be better off with the LRMs and 3 Medium Lasers as backup and for closer ranged weapons which will do more damage for less heat in close where your LRMs won't help you.

Pjwned, on 22 December 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

No, what it shows is that I made a simple mistake in the illustration but the concept was still sound, you on the other hand keep going on and on about it (despite the point of the picture being clear) because you get hung up on details.

The concept wasn't even sound. What you were looking for was a veng diagram with a large circle encompassing two smaller circles. Those two smaller circles overlap by a large degree. The large circle would be titled, "Battletech" with the two overlapping smaller ones being MWO and TT.

[KraftySOT]

Pjwned, on 21 December 2014 - 11:54 PM, said:

1. This isn't tabletop

:facepalm:

Secondly, you do know the engine weights are lowered before the lack of those HS?

You shouldnt even have that ton to put the HS in, because it should be included in the engine weight. PGI split that paradigm for great flexibility in customization.

[Joseph Mallan]

3rdworld, on 22 December 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

You mean 5 non-required heatsinks than punish small mechs. Cool.

No 5 required sinks due to the universe the game is in. and yes you will be cool with 10 doubles if you only require 5 to avoid immediate shutdown.

[Pjwned]

I'm going to address your points about why the build is "bad" despite almost none of them having anything to do with the topic at hand, but I'm also going to remind you that there are other potential builds to take advantage of <10 heatsinks.

Mercules, on 22 December 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

No the TBT build is bad because the TBT is not a great mech, and I own them.

Yep, those LRM15 quirks are so bad.

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Then you put a long range hot weapon to support your LRMs.

The idea is to have more firepower (on top of the missiles) that can actually reach the target, and if its a direct fire hitscan weapon that can be useful for hitting something when the LRMs cannot for whatever reason.

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Well, you don't have the armor to stand in the open and launch LRMs but you have a long range direct fire weapon and Artemis meaning you intend to be in the open launching LRMs.

It has enough speed to make a retreat at a decent pace if needed, and easily having 40+ points of armor on the torsos means it can take a few hits. Beyond that, if you find yourself taking tons of damage just for trying to get line of sight then that probably means you're in a bad position.

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You put a single JJ on it which means you intend to maybe hover an inch off the ground. It's bad.

It doesn't need to fly around like a spider, it only needs very basic jumpjet capabilities; perhaps it doesn't even need a jumpjet and the TBT-3C with its energy quirk would be better, but that was something I was aware of anyways without some dweeb nitpicking every detail.

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You would be better off with the LRMs and 3 Medium Lasers as backup and for closer ranged weapons which will do more damage for less heat in close where your LRMs won't help you.

Opinions, maybe I want more long range direct fire in exchange for being more vulnerable if something closes in on me, which if it does happen is usually bad play (with 80+ KPH speed anyways) from the LRM mech anyways. Additionally, it only takes 2 medium lasers to generate as much heat as 1 ERLL, and the ERLL is still functional as a backup weapon in those ranges even if it's not optimal.

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The concept wasn't even sound. What you were looking for was a veng diagram with a large circle encompassing two smaller circles. Those two smaller circles overlap by a large degree. The large circle would be titled, "Battletech" with the two overlapping smaller ones being MWO and TT.

Same concept, different illustration, I'm done responding to this so save your breath.

[Brody319]

simple. make all engines carry 10 heat sinks.

[Joseph Mallan]

Pjwned, on 22 December 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

The idea is to have more firepower (on top of the missiles) that can actually reach the target, and if its a direct fire hitscan weapon that can be useful for hitting something when the LRMs cannot for whatever reason.

The Naginata supports your thinking, BUT used an ER PPC so it could hit at close range.

I will disagree where I disagree and agree where I agree. In this case a weapon that can be used to do both rolls is n ot out of the question Pjwned.

[Khobai]

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First, tabletop required 10 heatsinks to be a valid build.

bad rule is bad. besides mwo has deviated from tabletop in other ways. so its time to ditch the 10 heatsink minimum rule.

1) 200-220 engines should weigh 2 tons more and have 10 internal heatsinks instead of 8
2) 225-245 engines should weigh 1 ton more and have 10 internal heatsinks instead of 9

this would help locusts and commandos... and they need all the help they can get.

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simple. make all engines carry 10 heat sinks.

you still have to account for the tonnage of the extra heatsinks though. all engines should have 10 internal heatsinks but 200-220 should weigh 2 extra tons while 225-245 should weigh 1 extra ton.

the primary advantage the locust/commando would get is the better heat dissipation of internal heatsinks as well as significantly more crit slots and better options with regard to taking ferro fibrous armor. right now its tough to fit in both ES and ferro fibrous when you have to unfairly place so many DHS externally.

Edited by Khobai, 22 December 2014 - 10:22 AM.

[KraftySOT]

Brody319, on 22 December 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

simple. make all engines carry 10 heat sinks.

Then the weight increases and you have the exact same situation as now. Just more critical space. Which is meaningless since with the same weight, youre making the same choice then. Strip something or go without.

[Khobai]

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Then the weight increases and you have the exact same situation as now. Just more critical space. Which is meaningless since with the same weight, youre making the same choice then. Strip something or go without.

youre completely wrong. the extra crits let you take ferrofibrous when you otherwise wouldnt be able to. even if its only an extra half ton, its a half ton you wouldnt otherwise have, and a half ton is a lot on mechs that small. a commando has 2 hand actuators plus it has to take two external DHS... thats 8 whole crit slots youre losing compared to a jenner, enough of a crit slot loss to remove FF as an option.

not to mention internal heatsinks dissipate better than external ones. so not having 10 internal heatsinks means you lose potential heat dissipation.

internal = 2.0 dissipation
external = 1.4 dissipation

so a commando that has to put 2 external DHS is losing 0.6 x 2 or 1.2 heatsinks.

there simply is no good reason why locusts/commandos need to be punished extra. just let them have 10 internal heatsinks like every other mech in the game.

Edited by Khobai, 22 December 2014 - 10:29 AM.

[GorlockTheDestroyer]

BT TT players, nerds to nerdy for even those Dungeons and Dragons nerds.

[Brody319]

KraftySOT, on 22 December 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Then the weight increases and you have the exact same situation as now. Just more critical space. Which is meaningless since with the same weight, youre making the same choice then. Strip something or go without.

Would anyone really honestly care if those tiny engines got a few extra heat sinks for no tonnage disadvantage? I mean chances are only the lightest of the lights will be using them anyway, you know the lights that die from one alpha most of the time anyway?

[Joseph Mallan]

UncleTouchy, on 22 December 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

BT TT players, nerds to nerdy for even those Dungeons and Dragons nerds.

I beg your pardon? I am both a CBT and AD&D nerd! And the PC term is Gamer Geek!

[Mercules]

Brody319, on 22 December 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

Would anyone really honestly care if those tiny engines got a few extra heat sinks for no tonnage disadvantage? I mean chances are only the lightest of the lights will be using them anyway, you know the lights that die from one alpha most of the time anyway?

YES.... and not only the lightest mechs would be using them. There are a few "ambush" mechs that people use that use a 100 ton engine. The things are basically walking turrets but it is typically something like a dual AC/20 Cicada which hides near an import point and simply drops 40 PP damage on a mech from surprise. Imagine if it could take a bit more ammo/armor with the same amount of heat dissipation.

[Joseph Mallan]

Brody319, on 22 December 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

Would anyone really honestly care if those tiny engines got a few extra heat sinks for no tonnage disadvantage? I mean chances are only the lightest of the lights will be using them anyway, you know the lights that die from one alpha most of the time anyway?

You'd have hated my table. I used Crit limitation rules from MaxTech. So not only did I have to place sinks from smaller engines, I had to fit them in with fewer Available crit slots. And I got every conceivable design to work!

[Mercules]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 December 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

You'd have hated my table. I used Crit limitation rules from MaxTech. So not only did I have to place sinks from smaller engines, I had to fit them in with fewer Available crit slots. And I got every conceivable design to work!

See.. we didn't have to worry about it because we only ever used stock mechs and occasionally did field refits on them which pretty much eliminated this argument.

[Khobai]

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Would anyone really honestly care if those tiny engines got a few extra heat sinks for no tonnage disadvantage

because its a consistency issue. youd have some engines that pay tonnage for 10 internal DHS and other engines that dont pay tonnage for DHS. it would make no sense.

DHS weigh 1 ton each. period. locust/commando should not defy the laws of physics by having DHS that weigh nothing.

However they should benefit from 10 internal DHS like every other mech in the game. This would give them better heat dissipation and free up precious crit slots.

[Brody319]

Mercules, on 22 December 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

YES.... and not only the lightest mechs would be using them. There are a few "ambush" mechs that people use that use a 100 ton engine. The things are basically walking turrets but it is typically something like a dual AC/20 Cicada which hides near an import point and simply drops 40 PP damage on a mech from surprise. Imagine if it could take a bit more ammo/armor with the same amount of heat dissipation.

Ghost heat. also I don't think that build is even possible.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mercules, on 22 December 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

See.. we didn't have to worry about it because we only ever used stock mechs and occasionally did field refits on them which pretty much eliminated this argument.

There wasn't any argument. I was the GM. I rebuilt every Mech using the new mechanics, and the players then modified what they wanted on their Mechs within the rules.

Also IIRC only ONE light needed to have equipment moved or a Actuator removed to accommodate the new limit.

Khobai, on 22 December 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

because its a consistency issue. youd have some engines that pay tonnage for 10 internal DHS and other engines that dont pay tonnage for DHS. it would make no sense.

DHS weigh 1 ton each. period. locust/commando should not defy the laws of physics by having DHS that weigh nothing.

However they should benefit from 10 internal DHS like every other mech in the game. This would give them better heat dissipation and free up precious crit slots.

Oh I support this indeed! Those first 10 should be full strength Sinks.

I'd love to see the additional Sinks that can fit into larger Mech engines also benefit from this. But that is just my opinion.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 22 December 2014 - 10:37 AM.

[FupDup]

I didn't bother to read through most of the replies here so I'll just cut to my own idea that was probably already proposed earlier.


I'm okay with requiring 10 heatsinks on mechs. What I'm not fine with is that sub-250 engines need to allocate some of their sinks on the outside. All that does is nerf mechs with engine limits under 250, while most mechs of that type are already weak in some other way (i.e. low tonnage tiny lights).

So what I'd do is modify all engines to carry all 10 heatsinks on the inside without any needed on the outside. In order to represent the added tonnage of these sinks, the engine weights would be increased to reflect this.

For example, a Locust's current XL190 has an upfront tonnage of 6 tons and requires 3 external sinks, which brings the final cost up to 9 tons. So what I would do is simply make the XL190 come with all 10 sinks, and increase its weight to 9 tons.


In the end, the tonnage required would be the same as it is now, but you would save a lot of critical slots in the process. These critslots could be used on tech upgrades like FF armor and w/e to increase your spare tonnage. Also, you'd gain higher heat efficiency due to 2.0 Truedubs™.

[Mercules]

Brody319, on 22 December 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

Ghost heat. also I don't think that build is even possible.

CDA-3C