47 replies to this topic

[Black Sunder]

I want people to use DHS as much as possible so that they can load on more weapons and thus more heat. It balances itself out pretty well i nthe end. Either you end up with a bunch of heat over your DHSs can dissipate or you run out of crits to place the DHS you want to place in. Rarely will you end up just a little over or under what the sinks can take off.

[Uri Brauer]

zencynic, on 28 June 2012 - 09:31 AM, said:

Double Heat Sinks - Huge game-changers, skewing the mech design options in favor of energy weapons. (Imagine an upgrade that fired your missiles twice as fast or doubled your ammo per ton for AC 20)
I think the XL Engines are more powerful than this, but there is the concern that 2XHS have little inherent balance.

The cost increase is trivial. At lower numbers of use, they take up little to no extra space (a certain number of heat sinks fit in the mech engine). When using many, the fact that they eat up crit-slots is largely negated by the fact that energy weapons use very few crits.

Agreed.

WardenWolf, on 28 June 2012 - 10:36 AM, said:

Hence my recommendation above to remove the doubling of the in-engine heatsink efficiency, in order to restore balance

Solves the biggest problem for game balance. Snag is, it renders a bunch of canonical mechs (especially some of the Clan laser-boats) unusable. Fine by me, but fans of those designs will have serious sad-panda syndrome.

Voyager I, on 28 June 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

You can tell this game was designed before balance was a concept.

The original TT was well balanced. The problem was that FASA promptly went into money-making mode, and started to spew out supplements with ever-increasing tech... which promptly screwed things up.

That said, of course, you can always rebalance the TT by giving the higher-tech force a total weight disadvantage, say, or by using some other measure like BV. Can't tell yet if/how MWO will approach this...

Edited by Uri Brauer, 28 June 2012 - 02:31 PM.

[Phasics]

WardenWolf, on 28 June 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

I disagree - right at the top of the post he stated this is mostly related to the tabletop game, but that things from that do flow over into the various MechWarrior games over the years.

Bryan Ekman said:

I'm most definitely not interested in engaging in a war over BT vs MW, or people's personal interpretation of the TT rules. As it stands several comments on this page alone make me wonder if they have even played the TT game, as almost everything is simulated using random dice: missile, hit locations, etc etc.

Since this thread is degrading into a pointless carousel of personal opinions that have no bearing on the game itself, I'm electing to use my moderation abilities and locking this thread.

I have made a statement as to how MWO is being developed. You can like it or not, disagree or agree. That is absolutely your right. Arguing endlessly over it with no possible positive outcome is pointless.

[Glythe]

One thing I'm wondering... what even gave you guys the impression they were going to have clan mechs? I mean sure they might in a five years when this game is starting to decline but they (along with the tech they represent) would completely invalidate all the older stuff.

[Ubertron X]

XL Engine: 1/2 weight engine at the expense of survivability because of torso engine critical. Nonetheless viable for mechs who get seldomly hit anyway (lights, meds) or to stuff even more weapons into assault mechs. The IS version is fair imho because of instant knock-out once you lose a torso.

DHS: The usage of doubleheat sinks will allow to up-gun all mechs as it did when 3025 changed to 3050. So battles will most likely become faster once DHS are in play, because the amount of armor does not change (although speed and enemy miss rates may change, due to XL-engines). Dont know yet how this evens out in MWO.

LRMs: In TT the small launchers were balanced vs the big ones by the simple fact that in a dice game, a single huge hit is better then multiple small ones. An LRM20 can easily hit with 16 to 20 missiles. 4 times LRM5 are most unlikely to hit with 16 to 20 missiles (this would require 4 consecutive hit rolls, followed by 4 consecutive 9+ rolls). So even if you spare tonnage in lieu of heat you will have much smaller hits and in my opinion this evens out the big and small launchers (albeit you are more likely to hit anything with small launchers, as you will roll to hit 3 to 4 times). Dont know yet how this is handled in MWO though.

[WardenWolf]

Glythe, on 28 June 2012 - 02:31 PM, said:

One thing I'm wondering... what even gave you guys the impression they were going to have clan mechs? I mean sure they might in a five years when this game is starting to decline but they (along with the tech they represent) would completely invalidate all the older stuff.

The devs have indicated that once the game is launched, there will be a 'mad dash' (or something along those lines) to the clan invasion early next year. It is 3049 now (in the game) and progressing day for day, matching the 'real world'. That means that next Spring we should see the Clans reaching the edge of the IS houses, and all heck breaking loose

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Quote

The only error on the XL Engines is that it is not "P2W", because they will be purchased with C-Bills (maybe you will alternatively be able to buy them with MC, but they will not be MC-exclusive, and therefore do not qualify for "P2W", which implies a required transaction of real cash for in-game prowess).

Eh, given the cost of an XL engine, I wouldn't worry too much.
Even an SFE takes up most of a 'Mechs cost.
An XLE costs five times as much as an SFE.
Take a 120 rated engine as an example (Flea, Stringer, Thorn, Wasp).
A SFE version costs 160k C-Bills, although that is relatively low ratio compared to heavier 'Mechs.
An STG-3R Stringer costs 1.6 million C-Bills.
Upping the SFE to an XLE, however, raises the engine's cost to 640k -Bills (40k more than the Gyro).
Engine, Gyro and Cockpit usually take up most of a 'Mech's cost.
Now lets look at the DRG-1G Grand Dragon - it has a 300-rated engine.
The SFE version costs 1.2 million (out of 5.1 million), with the gyro costing another 900k and the cockpit yt another 370k, add to that the 'Mechs weight multiplier (×1,6 for a 60-tonner), and we're looking at... 3.952.000 C-Bills, leaving just 1.2 million for the internal structure, musculature, heat sinks, actuators, armour, weapons, etc.
For the DRG-5K's 360-rated XLE the cost of the engine alone is over 2/3rds of the 'Mech's total cost (9.216.000 C-Bills out of 13.258.880 C-Bills).

So yeah, it'll take a lot of time before someone can afford to upgrade his/her SFE to an XLE.
Although they might be able to sell the old engine for 1/4th the cost if they're lucky (in the dragon's case, that's still only 480k C-Bills).

[zencynic]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 29 June 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

So yeah, it'll take a lot of time before someone can afford to upgrade his/her SFE to an XLE.

Well, I can think of about 20,000 people who will be able to afford it Aug 7th...