39 replies to this topic

[Nikohki]

Broceratops, on 06 July 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

you can put the ammo in your arms and the case in your arms, so that an explosion of ammo will not get to your XL L/R torso

me, i say screw case. i'm a man.

Or legs. But that's assuming we're keeping shots above the waist. Otherwise, no bueno...

Edited by Nikohki, 06 July 2012 - 07:26 AM.

[DeeSaster]

I am impressed by the understanding of TT rules, lore and timeline that is found in this forum in so many threads. Pretty kool community IMO.

[Comguard]

CASE + IS XL Engine was just a mistake the developers made.

3 critical hits = engine destroyed. If you play with the appropriate rules: boom.

After Technical Readout 3055 they realized their mistake and stopped putting CASE in IS-Mechs with an XL-engine.

[Solarisjock]

in TT it is really nice if you are playing a series of linked scenarios. i am fairly certain one of the few things that can truly make a mech not salvageable is if the CT gets gutted by an ammo explosion. so if your mech goes boom and is out, the chassis is still recoverable.

[Arctic Fox]

Comguard, on 06 July 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

After Technical Readout 3055 they realized their mistake and stopped putting CASE in IS-Mechs with an XL-engine.

Ehm, no they didn't. Take a look at the Enfield, Bushwacker, Bloodhound, Tessen, Patriot and Osprey, to name just a few post TRO:3055 IS 'Mechs with XL Engines and CASE. CASE might not help with IS XL Engines in standard gameplay, but in a campaign it's most certainly useful if you can stick around to recover the 'Mech.

Edited by Arctic Fox, 06 July 2012 - 08:19 AM.

[wanderer]

Kaelin, on 06 July 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

ooh, semi-valid point. however
the extra crits of the XL engines aren't considered a separate entity, the whole engine is split across 3 locations. and critical engine damage is a 'shroom event regardless.

Well, except that engine damage doesn't actually make 'Mechs explode. "Stackpoling" is pretty much a myth in-canon.

What'll happen with CASE is that instead of your ammo explosion utterly destroying the 'Mech, it'll disable it as the engine gets 3 crits, but the center torso isn't reduced to zero by an explosion (which in canon = no more 'Mech, unrepairable).

Half a ton to save millions in C-bills or whatever we use to buy 'Mechs? I'll take it.

[Jakob Knight]

Comguard, on 06 July 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

CASE + IS XL Engine was just a mistake the developers made.

3 critical hits = engine destroyed. If you play with the appropriate rules: boom.

After Technical Readout 3055 they realized their mistake and stopped putting CASE in IS-Mechs with an XL-engine.

Actually, no. The reason they did it was for realistic considerations, and later designs were made during a time when the tradeoff was seen as worth it for better combat performance.

That consideration is simple. If you have an ammo explosion without CASE, the entire force of the stored ammo is applied to the vehicle and literally blows it apart. This has the inconvenient side effect of killing the mechwarrior if their automatic ejection systems weren't fast enough, or were disabled. CASE systems were installed on some XL mechs to save the life of the pilot in a world where you -didn't- get to respawn after dying.

Not all 'mech designers only looked at how to maximize their designs to game rules.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 06 July 2012 - 08:38 AM.

[Marauder3D]

wanderer, on 06 July 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

Half a ton to save millions in C-bills or whatever we use to buy 'Mechs? I'll take it.

This is a super cool concept that we've never really had to consider in any previous Mechwarrior game.

We are accustomed to putting every last shred of firepower and armor on mechs in order to Min/Max them in whatever way pleases us most. For me, that was always a Gauss/PPC split with some lasers for backup.

With MWO, we have the chance for a persistent character with Money as an actual issue. Do you want one extra Medium Laser? Or do you want to spend that ton on two case systems that will help you minimize your economic damages in the long run?

For example: your mech has an XL engine with no case. You complete a few missions, but on mission 4 your mech suffers a catastrophic ammo explosion and is completely gutted, at a total loss to you. All of your profit from the last 3 missions is gone. Any hope of upgrading your mech or systems will have to wait until your bankroll comes back.

Compare this scenario with a mech with an XL engine but instead of getting one last Medium Laser you invested that 1 ton of weight into Case systems for both left and right torsos. Now, on your fourth mission that ammo explosion is vented out by your case system, and your entire mech is intact, but for the right torso and it's internal structure. Instead of being set back 15 Million C-bills, because you had case installed you simply repair the internal structure and engine shielding for a measly 500,000 C Bills, proceed to upgrade your mech to the shiny mech of doom you have always wanted, drink some warlock blood, and BAM, you win the game.

That would be a cool wrinkle to throw into the game, and I hope PGI does just that.

[Jakob Knight]

It's important to remember that you won't lose your mech when you die (or all those Founder's Mechs would be lemons), and that repair costs can't be too extreme.

The reason for this is that there will be alot of new players coming into the game. Since scenerios will probably not end until one side is destroyed, that means that in every battle, 12 people will suffer kills (at least). Let's say you have a new player who is giving MWO a try to see what all the hype is about. He/she is defeated in every one of the first 10 battles they fight because they are up against players who know what they are doing, or have had time to get superior weapons, or just bad luck. If the costs of repairing a mech from scrap are equal to the cost of the mech itself (or even close), then that new player could easily find themselve broke and unable to have a 'mech to run at all...end of game for you, so sorry. Would you like to erase your character and start over?

Likely, there will be costs, but not on the scale where it would break people's wallets on losses. Otherwise, people would simply avoid fighting at all, rather than putting their best effort forward.

[Murku]

Early (read cheap to field and repair) Jagermech upgrade?:

65 Nissan (non XL!) Engine for ability to get (limp) to a (close) staging point, with Gyro, Cockpit and Internal Structure takes us to 12.5 tons
Quad AC5Ultras take us to 48.5 tons.
CASE in 1 side torso (hope they pick the other), with 5 tons of ammo (54 tons so far)
11 tons of Ferro-Fib Armor

Accepting the often quoted principle that 'good pilots can hit your mech however small/fast it is'

Min/Maxing? Not me! meet the new Urbie...

Edited by Murku, 06 July 2012 - 10:40 AM.

[Jakob Knight]

Murku, on 06 July 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

Early (read cheap to field and repair) Jagermech upgrade?:

65 Nissan (non XL!) Engine for ability to get (limp) to a (close) staging point, with Gyro, Cockpit and Internal Structure takes us to 12.5 tons
Quad AC5Ultras take us to 48.5 tons.
CASE in 1 side torso (hope they pick the other), with 5 tons of ammo (54 tons so far)
11 tons of Ferro-Fib Armor

Accepting the often quoted principle that 'good pilots can hit your mech however small/fast it is'

Min/Maxing? Not me! meet the new Urbie...

Okaaaay. 1) How does this advance the discussion of XL and CASE within MWO? 2) Why would anyone want this on their team when the battle will be over before this mech reaches the objective? 3) Wouldn't this be better in the 'Jagermechs' thread somewhere?

Edited by Jakob Knight, 06 July 2012 - 10:50 AM.

[Murku]

/withdraw irony

/sigh

Least it wouldn't die from an ammo explosion....

/leave room

Edited by Murku, 06 July 2012 - 10:56 AM.

[IronGoat]

i intend to store my ammo WW2 style
WET ammo racks
water is free and easier to replace

J/K
i cant wait to see how all this plays out in actual MWO warfare
i doubt the devs will allow your mech to be an easily destroyable walking bomb. so while i do think it would destroy your mech for the match i doubt youll see many catastrophic engine failures

ammo rigs already have enough downsides with weight, ammo storage, space, ETC. which are barely balanced by the lack of heat generated. i dont think the devs intend to add "your now a walking bomb cause you have an xl engine onboard" to the list of downsides.
( i could be wrong)
not unless there is more balancing added to energy rigs ( like maybe everytime you overheat you risk damaging and therefore making ineffective one or more of your energy weapon systems. melted componants dont function well...)

[grimzod]

Kaelin, on 06 July 2012 - 06:11 AM, said:

CASE systems prevent damage from and ammo explosion in the side torso locations effecting the center torso, they limit the damage to that one location. (no sense saying the arm, because you lose all side torso STR, the arm is gone anyway)

if you have an IS XL engine it has 3 criticals in each of the side torso sections CASE would blow them out, and your engine with it. no exceptions.

CASE is a good idea on mechs packing lots of ammo, unless they have XL engines.

if you have an XL engine CASE is redundant.

<EDIT> Due to being corrected, this apparently isn't quite as fatal as I thought it was, you'll still be out the match but it'll cost less in repairs. still, not a big fan of XL engines.

It IS important to IS mechs for the following reason: Salvaging a heap of scrap metal vs salvaging a mech with one side torso blown out. Which takes longer and costs more? Even when you lose your XL engine shielding, the engine is intact and the mech can be rebuilt. If its a smoking crater and a ton of metal debris it cannot.

[Fiest]

when does IS CASE II become available?

[Bogart Vaperson]

You youngins probably don't remember the BTech MUD days, but there were several reasons for wanting CASE on an XL chassis. 1) You could salvage an XL-equipped mech with missing left/right torsos (assuming you held the field), but not a mech missing its center torso . The "cored" mech was only useful as scrap, meaning you could pull weapons, ammo, sensors, whatever from the mech and then sell the hulk for C-Bills. 2) A catastrophic explosion (the "Stackpole") was very possible when your ammo went, and the pilot could be insta-killed. You would respawn... in 2 hours.

Variations on these rules would make it less attractive to "min/max"

[Jakob Knight]

Fiest, on 06 July 2012 - 02:09 PM, said:

when does IS CASE II become available?

CASE II was experimental technology in 3058-3060, and I don't believe it was ever made to work reliably (it was never used on any production units). Generally, unless the battlemech was a prototype test vehicle from one of the technical research facilities, CASE II was not available at all.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 06 July 2012 - 04:08 PM.

[wanderer]

Jakob Knight, on 06 July 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

CASE II was experimental technology in 3058-3060, and I don't believe it was ever made to work reliably (it was never used on any production units). Generally, unless the battlemech was a prototype test vehicle from one of the technical research facilities, CASE II was not available at all.

CASE II actually ends up going past prototype stages in the 3080's, so it's a long, long way away. CASE will be the best we get for a while, but as I noted- it's a lot cheaper to repair one side of a 'Mech vs. having repair 100% of one that's blown itself to kingdom come in a chain-gang of ammo explosions.

[PewPew]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa wait up. Hold the phone.

Why does gauss ammo explode when they're just metal slugs?

[Fiest]

@pewpew: It doesn't.

quoted from sarna's gauss rifle page:

''However, if the weapon itself is struck by enemy fire, the capacitors that power the electromagnets will release their stored energy, with an effect similar to an ammo explosion. (In game terms, a critical hit on a Gauss Rifle is equivalent to a 20-point ammo explosion.)''