11 replies to this topic

[Hans Davion]

This is long and should only be read by people who love the Awesome, this is a complete history of a 9M pilot starting with the Highlander 733C days up until the present

I learned to play this game with the Awesome 9M. I currently have 2.5 MILLION XP on it, I remember the 733C days with horror because I was terrible. I told people who used them they were terrible players to hide my own failing at MWO and because they wrecked my Awesome 9M so bad I wanted to throw my laptop at their stupid 733Cs. I later realised, not only was I bad at the game but should 2 equal players - one with an AC5/PPC Highlander 733C and one with my favourite setup an XL 365 2 large pulse 2PPC Awesome 9M go up against each other, the Awesome would die horribly every time. Ok, poptarts you made my life hell but at least you had 10 tons on me that I could explain away.

Phase 2 of life as a dire-hard Awesome 9M pilot:
Dragon Slayer days. PGI nerfed the HGN jumpjets and suddenly I was up against a Victor DS 2AC5/2PPC (also 80 tons) and dying more horribly than ever. Why? Because around that time PGI increased the Side Torsos of the Awesome 9M because it had a CT like Jared before he went to subway. Great for all those STD engine Awesome 8Q players, but my XL got poptarted like crazy. (PS anyone wanting to learn torso twisting really fast, use an XL awesome)
But you know what, my best memory of my Awesome comes from this period (this horrible painful period) 4 frest Victor Dragon Slayers came at my fresh and very out of position Awesome (in the good old days of 4 group in the only pug que) jumping and popping and pissing me off, put an alpha into the side torso of a victor and torso twisted, losing my arm instantly, twisted back and put a 2nd alpha into the same ST of the same victor taking it out. This put my awesome at about 90% heat, all hail override, their return shots pretty much smashed my Mech completely as I was running about 10 back armour at that time, one of the guys overheated 80m away from me, I smashed the reverse and the override and put the large pulse into his face stripping the armour off t, and just as he came back online I hit my 90m and put the pair of PPCs into his cockpit outright killing the *******. after about 3 minutes of telling the DS pilots how try hard they were and how much they had to suck to lose 2 - 1 vs an Awesome I was feeling pretty perky.
This was one of the only highs in long and painful period of MWO losing to other 80ton mechs constantly.

Phase 3.
PGI took those Dragon Slayers and said SIT. And they sat, and no one used them again.
The Awesome wasn't the best Mech in the game, but I had fun like never before, I was on equal footing with plenty of Mechs.

Phase 4.
Oh the pain, reduction on PPC speed - these were the dark ages of the Awesome 9M. even I found it hard to use, switching it out to 4 large pulse...and finally...shelving it (the tears were real)

Phase 5.
QUIRKS, My Awesome 9M WAS BACK. The joy was incredible I could trade alllllllll day with my PPCs, ok it wasn't even close to the new Clan Mechs, but against the IS it was actually a 800-1k damage Mech now, OH THE FUN!

Phase 6.
NEW quirks, now I had to switch out my PPCs for ERPPC. Ok my DPS went down but.....holy Jesus, it had 1024m range WITH NO MODULES. And with a speed boost of 25% it almost felt like a PPC again. Almost.

Phase 7.
PPC/ERPPC speed boost! I was back out having fun like the old days after the Slayers were sat down, has been like this ever since - I even break out my 9M on boreal for some fun matches, its not amazing - I don't want it to be amazing, I just want to be able to love it. and I LOVE IT the way it is now. 2 large pulse 2ERPPC = AWESOME. killing ERLL raven 3Ls with 2 ST hits at 1k. Priceless.

Phase 8 (in testing)
You take away the only reason my Awesome is only considered meh, not horror-bad. My Heatgen and ERPPC quirks. Please PGI don't do this to me and Old Faithful (its her name). She will never be able to stand up to a 75 ton timber or any other assault class Mech one on one..she cant do it even with her quirks. But by god she can play 2nd line like a boss, find yourself a sweet little noob meatshield and put that 42-almost-pinpoint-alpha into components with ease. With the Heatgen quirks she can put out a suprising amount of pinpoint damage before she needs to take a coolshot bath. And after all her best kills she shutsdown so she can survey the enemy Mech in all its glorious pieces.

I beg you PGI, shes too pretty to be on the shelf, that barn-door/brick wall look she has going just begs for cuddles. Give her the love she needs, and make an old-school 9M pilot keep his mistress happy.

[Wildstreak]

Look will be fixed whenever they get to re-scaling.

I would never run any Awesome with an XL, even my PB doesn't do it.

[RuneCaster]

I run 3 ERPPC, XL engine, and SSRM's. I threw Advanced Zoom on her... holy crap the 30 damage snipe, or 3x10 chain fire. She was the best second line assault I ran.
This machine is completely non-competition viable, and that's a damned shame. It needs love, not nerfs.

[shameless]

Amen.

[Hans Davion]

Heh yeah the 3ERPPC variant is fun, that you can run with a STD engine too, just cant help loving running around at 81 with all those Heatsinks and weapons. If I go for PPCs purely though I prefer the STD engine 4PPC 8Q, has much better cooling even though it has an extra PPC - and if anyone has never fired them in chainfire with the cooldown module...you are missing out of one of MWOs most rofl moments (there is a half second-ish cooldown between the last of the chainfired PPCs and the first of the 2nd batch of PPCs) plus you can get out about 13 PPCs without overheating lol

Necessary quirks for fun with Awesome 9M = PPC/ERPPC speed quirks, (at the very least) its almost impossible to hit a moving firestarter at 600m without them. too much time for him to change speeds/direction and mess up your perfectly lined up shot.

A note to XL Awesomes. Ive tried STD engine Awesome 9Ms, ive tried every setup under the moon. On average I do better with an XL because
1. I can quickly get to a flanking position to put my ERPPCs on target
2. I can get out of situations where my 66kph Awesome would have to put up a last stand.
3. I can torso twist more quickly with the larger engine, meaning after ive put out my insta alpha (with no ghost heat) I can torso twist. with an xl365 that is pretty fast, the meta these days is lasers - this means againt a clan mech I can spread the incoming damage across my whole front and arms depending which way I twist. in return as long as I don't miss my alpha goes into one component alone.
4. A 66kph mech often forces you to cover your ass in nascar, often resulting in death, with my XL awesome im the one harassing their left behind mechs.

So I may be more fragile but because of the reasons above I get more kills/damage with an XL (this is extensively tested by me, went through a phase of XLs are stupid like most people do)

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

My 9M was the 1st and only mech I had that got me 9 kills in a game and that was on Terra Therma of all places. 3PPCs, 2SSRMs, with an XL380 (If I remember correctly). They were good days. I haven't used it much and I dread the quirk changes. They are really EXCESSIVE and I fear lots of non-competitive chassis will suffer even more.

[Koniving]

If only they took Carrion Crow's intelligent hitboxes.

Arms that protect the torso, that after their removal will continue to protect the up-high end of the torso, while keeping the rest of the side torsos down to ~Almost~ yet still Bigger than the side torsos of every other 80 ton mech in the game.

<.< For more on intelligent hitboxes.

[Hans Davion]

Yeah those are the old arm hitboxes, with the new side torsos. I have to say I agree with this design!

[Omi_]

I completely agree with the OP that the Awesome needs it's heat generation quirks back, at the least. Even when it was the first mech to get 10% additional heat dissipation, the flavour brought to the mech was great.

If only a single mech in the game could be quirked to pour out mass PPC shots, it should be the awesome.

[RuneCaster]

the other thing about the Awesome they need to remember was it was designed to do one thing: Provide an endless stream of PPC fire.

[Merit Lef]

Outside of the Warhawk the Awesome should be superior with PPC/ERPPC.

[Mazzyplz]

i agree that the awesome should be about firepower glass cannon

and making it be able to boat its STOCK LOADOUT; without ghost heat.

come on.. PGI let the thunderbolt shoot erppc like mad but never the awesome shoot them decently, without overheating.
if you use the stock loadout on 9m you explode

right now the 9m in the game is solid. very solid.

it can do 2erppc and lasers, it can do lasers... it is good - maybe bring back some of these quirks for next iteration;
please dont make it into a punching bag, good at getting hit and facetanking with only 80 tons; buff the firepower, buff the movement somehow; 9m is in a good place in the main server now

ps. i identify 100% with the OP and share his exact experience; but he forgot to mention the buff to engine cap the awesome got to 300; which is now CRUCIAL to the aws survival; remember when it was only 280?
the mech as it was conceived originally was a joke.

i hope it is still a good glass cannon 3ppc in the final game as it is what it is supposed to do - a gun battery.

do not go overboard with the structure quirks or resizes, do the minimum viable for that and make the stock loadout and the laser and missile builds work on all variant

Edited by Mazzyplz, 14 September 2015 - 11:23 PM.