15 replies to this topic

[MattPaul]

How much would be a good firepower for each mech class?

I mount mechs on mechlab and see their firepower, but in matches I see mechs with less firepower doing pretty well. I guess this does not matter so much, but I would like some reference...

[Malcolm Vordermark]

It takes a bit of trial and error. Also depends on the mech, style of play, etc.

Here are two resources you should check out: metamechs and smurfy.

Metamechs will show you some of the best builds on the best mechs. You don't have to run your mechs like that but it may give you some ideas.

Smurfy will let you look at different aspects of your mech in greater detail than the in game mechlab.

Anyways, like i said earlier, it depends on a lot of different factors. If you're sniping, range and firepower are more important. If you're brawling, firepower and heat efficiency are more important.

If you have a specific mech or build you're interested in we can give you more detailed advice.

Edited by Rouken, 08 February 2015 - 02:15 PM.

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Firepower is irrelevant,its the sustained damage per second that matters.

8-10 months ago mechs with jumpjets that had 30 damage alphastrikes were absolutely dominating the battlefield and caused massive forum and game butthurt,all is relative said Einstein and i think he was right.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Depending on the mech in question you need to strike a balance between the weapons you will fire and the heat they generate, so that you can sustain fire to maximize damage output.

If your build is a bit too hot, you are then left needing to hold off shots to prevent shutting down, so sometimes swapping a weapon for a heat sink can be a good trade.

For example taking the Jenner-F mounting 5 MLs and an extra DHS can sustain fire a little better than one using 6 MLs.

[DelphiAuriga]

Firepower is the sum of all ur weapons damage potential.

While a low firepower its not good, the full point is the DmgPerSecond (DPS). This means: a 15 firepower build firing 3 times the fast as one with 30 firepower will outgun the first one with a dmg on target of 90 vs 60 in the same time.

High firepower builds are normally fire-and-hide, hiding to reset cooldowns and freeze the mech, and High rate of fire are stay-on-target, like close quarter light mechs (a firestarter with SmallPulseLasers, in example).

A good balance is best unless that u rock completely in some specific niche of playstyle.


Example: This BlackJack have a brutal firepower of 44 for its size using a STD engine, but the Heat mitigation is 0.9, so its best used as fire-and-hide cause it can take a time to being able to fire again its main weapons

Spoiler

Edited by DelphiAuriga, 08 February 2015 - 02:24 PM.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Firepower on its own is a useless number unless all your weapons have the same range profile.

The firepower number is the total of all the damage you will deal if you fire all your weapons, at the same time, within their intended range profile, and every single tick of laser, individual projectile, and separate missile deals full damage.

This number does not take into account that weapons have varying ranges (so it will add full damage for an IS small laser and an IS LRM rack, despite that there's basically no range overlap on the two weapons- at LRM ranges, the small laser will deal less damage, and at small laser ranges, the Inner Sphere LRMs will deal no damage at all), nor does it take into account damage spreading (so if anything is moving damage can spread across multiple components, thus reducing the value of the Firepower number), nor does it take into account if you can or should fire all your weapons simultaneously (so it won't estimate the damage of a sustainable rate of fire or even one that will be sure not to cause your 'mech to shut down- or melt down- from overheating), nor does it take into account weapon spreads (such as the fact that a 20-missile cluster will result in many missiles hitting adjacent components on larger 'mechs or the ground around the target for smaller 'mechs, or that an LB10-X pellet spread is a spread and not a single point of full damage on your crosshairs), nor does it take into account fire rates (so an AC/20 with its long reload will rate at 20 points, as will five SRM-2 racks, which reload in a much shorter time frame and therefore have more damage output total).

This means that Firepower is only fully applicable if you are creating a 'mech that

1) only fires all its weapons simultaneously, at the reload speed of the slowest-readying weapon,AND

2) only fires at almost-point-blank range to ensure all damage hits the same point OR only has weapons that deal all their damage in a single projectile with no spreading or splitting (which removes all missiles, Clan autocannon, Clan ERPPCs, Machine Guns, LB-X autocannon, Flamers, and any form of beam weapon) AND

3) has only either copies of the same weapon or has only weapons that all deal full damage at the exact same range as each other.

The majority of 'mechs that fit this profile reasonably well are either hilarious boats with highly exploitable weaknesses (8-ERPPC Dire Wolf), Dual-AC/20 'mechs (This is typically done with a Jagermech), and sniper 'mechs that are very highly specialized.

For everything else, you're better off using Smurfy's and considering the Weapons Lab info on sustained fire rate and heat, which can be found in a button near the top after you finish assembling the 'mech mockup.

The vast majority of 'mechs never deal their Firepower damage in a fashion similar to this

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 08 February 2015 - 02:34 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Firepower is a useless stat. All that does is sum up the weapon damage of each of your weapons, but you would almost never fire everything at once. It also give no indication of what your damage output over time is. Different weapons for different situations.

[Metafox]

You've got pinpoint damage and spread damage. Pinpoint damage lets you aim for a specific component while spread damage will pepper the whole target, causing minor damage to multiple components. Pinpoint damage is better (lasers, gauss, etc), but weapons with spread damage usually give you more damage for their weight (SRMs, LRMs).

There's also DPS vs. burst damage and both have their merits. High DPS weapons can put out a lot of damage, but it's difficult to land all of your shots on one component and you have to stay in the open and face your target while you fire, making yourself vulnerable.

[SuomiWarder]

Personally I would not get too worried about damage per second. That really only matters when (a) you have the heat capacity to sustain more than 15 seconds of constant fire and ( b ) you are in a brawl situation with both mechs facing each other exposed chest to chest and slugging it out.

When you are fighting at range you shoot, hide behind cover and maybe move to a different spot, then shot again. DPS is irrelevant.

Remember that firepower numbers with LRMs or SRMs are not what you will actually get. Not all missiles hit.

Edited by SuomiWarder, 08 February 2015 - 03:51 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

just to illistrate a point, below is a Dire Wolf build with over 100 firepower
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...72ed0221cfbb3ed
alpha strike (fire everything simultainously) and you will overheat and shutdown, because you overheat you will be unable to keep the lasers on target so instead of that 102 damage you will likely only do about 40 (the 2 gauss + partial burn time for the lasers) to the enemy and take damage yourself due to overheating. if you cycle through the weapons you can fire everything once then you can sustain 4 DPS without overheating

now look at this build:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...54022cb84779122
this is much more heat effiscent, it only has 50 firepower but can put out that 50 point alpha strike every 5 seconds until you run out of ammo (about 2 minutes), or you can fire everything as fast as it cycles for about 30 seconds at about 15 DPS, when you hit the heat limit just reduce rate of fire, you would still be able to do 8DPS without ever overheating.
this build should never overheat because you literaly have enough damage potential to put down 4 Mechs before you overheat.

for a real fight the second option would be beter than the first but you only realy need 15-20 seconds before overheating, if you are good at heat management, or use multiple diferant weapon ranges you may be able to get away with a lot less than that.
this build has about the right mix of heat effiscency alpha strike and DPS for the average player
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...5d02c7324cda9ec

[Insects]

TheCaptainJZ, on 08 February 2015 - 03:04 PM, said:

Firepower is a useless stat. All that does is sum up the weapon damage of each of your weapons, but you would almost never fire everything at once. It also give no indication of what your damage output over time is. Different weapons for different situations.

Depends, on a light you often will be firing everything at once then running away.
Few light loadouts can carry enough to trigger ghostheat (in some cases a single gun only), so boat and alpha away.

You dont stand there going pew-pew-pew while the big thing turns around to splatter you, you cant afford to take a hit, fire everything once then hide as quickly as possible.

Exceptions of course with some builds.
But in a lot of cases a light which can unload max damage in one hit then escape is very desirable.

The heavies and assaults can be more DPS based because they will stand there exposed having a sponge battle, whoever saturates the other sponge first will win.
Face time still important though, damage delivery which requires you to stay focused on the enemy means they can maintain fire on CT which will kill you quicker than "boom - torso twist for 4 sec - boom".

In the end DPS vs alpha damage depends on playstyle and mech type.
A different balance of each will suit different styles, no one size fits all approach.

Understand your playstyle and mech and work out what works best.

Edited by joelmuzz, 09 February 2015 - 02:56 AM.

[Kmieciu]

The slower you are, the more DPS you'll need.

That's why Direwolf works best with UAC5s, and light mechs can get away with silly builds like 8xML.

[Demoncard]

Clairvoyant, on 08 February 2015 - 01:59 PM, said:

How much would be a good firepower for each mech class?

I mount mechs on mechlab and see their firepower, but in matches I see mechs with less firepower doing pretty well. I guess this does not matter so much, but I would like some reference...

Disregard it, it's a bullshit statistic.

Someone mounting an LRM 20, and two PPCs has something like 40 firepower. Someone mounting two UAC5s, and six medium lasers has about the same, but will probably do more damage at a distance pf twenty meters. Firepower is only representative of a perfect shot of all your weapons at the same time, not taking into account the fact you're not going to alpha strike and go to sleep for the rest of the match. It also doesn't take into account cycle times or anything else.

You only pay attention to it if you are going to be firing all your weapons at the same time, as with a number of builds. Even then, with those builds, it doesn't give you an accurate picture of how much damage you're actually going to be doing because of all the reasons we mentioned in this thread.

Edited by Demoncard, 09 February 2015 - 04:34 AM.

[Hammer 13]

Speed will get you more points (and save your armor) than a high firepower number. I used to flip thru the cockpits after I would die and see mechs with way less firepower still poking and running. Check the scores at the end and they usually more than doubled my damage score.

Shoot, move and then shoot again. And if your in a smaller mech 'peeking' don't do it from the same spot more than twice. You shouldn't do it more than once, but you can get away with twice in PUG games usually.

And don't ever over heat. Not only are you a defenseless target, you cannot shoot back. Less bang, more speed, more moving. You'll do much better.

[Koniving]

Clairvoyant, on 08 February 2015 - 01:59 PM, said:

How much would be a good firepower for each mech class?

I mount mechs on mechlab and see their firepower, but in matches I see mechs with less firepower doing pretty well. I guess this does not matter so much, but I would like some reference...

"Firepower" is simply the measure of how much damage can be dealt in a single pulling of the trigger for all weapons at the same time. It actually has absolutely no bearing in how effective your mech is, as in most cases weapons are usually incompatible with one another to be used in that way.

Here's an example: If you were to assume that all of this is fired at once.

Spoiler

Weapons fire for Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred)
ER Large Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 2 : misses


ER Large Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 3 : misses


Medium Pulse Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 3, rolls 8 : - Direct Blow - hits LA
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 8 damage to LA.
26 Armor remaining.


Medium Pulse Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 3, rolls 8 : - Direct Blow - hits CT
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 8 damage to CT.
38 Armor remaining.


Ultra AC/5 at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 7 :
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 5 damage to RA.
29 Armor remaining.
fires a second burst in ultra mode.
Ultra AC/5 at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 7 :
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 5 damage to LL.
36 Armor remaining.


ER Large Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 2 : misses


ER Large Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 3 : misses


Medium Pulse Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 3, rolls 11 : - Direct Blow - hits LT
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 9 damage to LT.
23 Armor remaining.


Medium Pulse Laser at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 3, rolls 4 : hits CT
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 7 damage to CT.
31 Armor remaining.


Ultra AC/5 at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 8 : - Direct Blow -
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 6 damage to RA.
23 Armor remaining.
fires a second burst in ultra mode.
Ultra AC/5 at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 5 : - Glancing Blow -
King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 2 damage to LA.
24 Armor remaining.


LRM 10 at King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving); needs 5, rolls 8 : - Direct Blow - 6 missile(s) hit (w/ +2 bonus).

King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 5 damage to LA.
19 Armor remaining.

King Crab KGC-010 (Koniving) takes 1 damage to CT.
30 Armor remaining.

That's 4 ER LL (40 damage) + 4 MPL (28 damage) + a single firing of each UAC/5 (10 damage) + an LRM 10 (10 damage) = 88 "firepower." (Disclaimer: Tabletop or Megamek simulation example, so tabletop damages displayed in an MWO style 'firepower' rating).

But then look at the results.

• The ER LLs all hit normally so they did do 40 damage.
  
• One MPL hit extra hard for 9 damage, two hit kinda hard doing 8 damage each (so 8 + 8 = 16), then one hit normally for 7 damage.
  
• Only 6 of the LRMs hit. (6 damage out of 10).
  
• Both UAC/5s fired two bursts. Of them, the first one hit normally both times for 5 damage per burst. The second hit slightly hard for 6 damage on the first burst but the second burst only glanced, resulting in a partial 2 damage.

The total damage dealt is 96. This is, when including the burst fire at normal damage ratings is out of a possible 88 + 10 = 98 total rated firepower in a 10 second cycle as tabletop revolves around 10 seconds.

As such, unless the weapons are linked and told to fire at the same time, all weapons fired are chain fired back to back (and linked weapons produce extra heat and depending on the ruleset, either hit randomly as normal or can converge on a single point on the enemy).

Here's the heat that Dire Wolf generated.

Spoiler

Heat Phase
-------------------
Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) gains 73 heat, sinks 44 heat and is now at 29 heat.
Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) needs a 5+ to avoid shutdown, rolls 9 : avoids successfully!
Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) needs a 8+ to avoid ammo explosion, rolls 5 : fails to avoid explosion.
*** LRM 10 Ammo EXPLODES! 110 DAMAGE! ***
Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) takes 110 damage to LT.
SECTION DESTROYED,
LIMB BLOWN OFF Left Arm blown off.
remaining 89 damage prevented by CASE.
Critical hit on LT. Roll is 6; no effect.

Pilot of Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) "Bryan Otsuka" takes 2 damage.
Pilot of Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) "Bryan Otsuka" needs a 3 to stay conscious. Rolls 6 : successful!

Pilot of Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime (Lordred) "Bryan Otsuka" needs a 5 to stay conscious. Rolls 7 : successful!

Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime needs a 6+ for coolant failure, rolls 8 : fails.
Daishi (Dire Wolf) Prime's coolant is now less effective.

That poor thing. Firing every weapon once (except the twin UAC/5s which were fired twice) back to back is too much for it! It melted heatsinks and lost its arm due to an ammo explosion!

In MWO, the firepower is rated around firing everything at once.
That exact mech, with all of MWO's settings and tweaks to base weapons, has a firepower rating of 96.

Here's what happens when you do that.

That first shot I do is your firepower rating. Notice almost none of the weapons are really all that compatible. Also notice that the game barely swats at our wrist for firing ridiculous amounts of heat at the same time, as even with ghost heat barely anything happened.

Edited by Koniving, 09 February 2015 - 05:49 AM.

[DjPush]

All of it! Just put everything you can buy on anything.