Pariah Devalis, on 14 April 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:
All in balance. Too large an engine for a mech means it can't bring adequate firepower to exploit being able to move to great positions. Too small an engine and the mech cannot easily position itself to use the firepower it has. Ideally, even mechs like the TBR would be packing a slightly smaller engine - at around a 350 vs a 375 which would open up 4.5 tons of pod space - but they are still near enough to the Goldilocks zone of fast enough and armed enough to work.
I would argue in the Timber Wolf’s case that the 4.5 tons of podspace are not critical, while the advantages of twist, accel, decel, and raw velocity the 375 offers can be exploited as well as the 4.5 tons of additional weaponry could by many pilots. Indeed, the Timber Wolf has long held a definite fear factor with many players simply because of its reputation as being inescapable; nobody but light ‘Mechs can get away from a Timber Wolf, or so people say. The Timber Wolf has conclusively proven that it can bring perfectly sufficient firepower to the field. In point of fact, a lot of theoretical Timber Wolf fits end up running into critslot issues as it is. Why strip away engine weight to free up four and a half tons the ‘Mech would oftentimes be hard-pressed to use?
Pariah Devalis, on 14 April 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:
Before the Clans came, heavies typically moved around 65-70. Everything beyond was considered over-engined. Assaults were expected to be between 54 and 65 KPH. Again, anything more was over-engined. Hell, mediums outside of the Cicada could be moving in the 90-100 range and that was good enough. The only mechs that were truly fast by current standards were lights, at around 150 kph.
Even now, many of those old speed limits are present in IS mechs. It persists because it does strike that balance between fast enough and armed enough to get where it needs to be at a reasonable rate to get into position to deploy the firepower of which it has enough of to matter. It's all in balance.
There were, and are, always outliers. The Victor’s been pointed out already, and I further posit that any Dragon going slower than 85 at the bottom end is a Dragon that will soon be Slain. For that matter, a sixty-ton Linebacker would be a
far more interesting proposition than a 65-ton one. Even in Ye Olden Dayes when 65-kph Centurions were generally acceptable, there were also 100+kph fast cruiser Centurions and the like which ran around shoving SRMs up poop chutes. Some people act like the Clans are the sole reason things dared to get fast. While the Invasion certainly raised the bar, ‘fast’ existed before the Clans, too. There are pilots who want to slim down on firepower a bit in order to get that firepower where it needs to be faster and more effectively; shouldn’t they get options, too?
Pariah Devalis, on 14 April 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:
Yet now, just because of mechs like the Stormcrow, suddenly the old speed limits that were perfectly survivable before for mediums and some lighter heavies is suddenly considered suicidal. It isn't. 10 KPH up or down doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference for survivability, unless you're already so slow that you're suffering to move. It makes even less of a difference when your size is that of a large enough target that you'll still be easily hit, moving at the speeds you do. In which case that engine becomes a larger and larger liability the more you deviate from the Goldilocks zone - both up AND down.
Which is mostly why the Linebacker would not be a fantastic ‘Mech. ~100kph in a bracket with several reasonable options that hit ~85kph isn’t a big enough mobility advantage to make up for the loss of between eight to fourteen tons of podspace, depending on how you judge it.
In the case of the Black Lanner, which hits ~125kph before its M.A.S.C. in a bracket that still tends to average out at roughly 90kph (the Stormcrow is still above-average speed in the bracket, considering most of its Spheroid competition and the other non-Ferret Clan mediums all end up with smaller to significantly smaller engines), getting 30+ extra klicks in the tank quite possibly
is enough of a speed advantage over other machines. It doesn’t carry any less firepower than the more reasonably* engine Viper or Ferret (for a given definition of reasonable in the Ferret’s case), but it
does carry more armor and thicker structure, as well as enough energy hardpoints for an effective, if vanilla, spread of Clanbeamz. Depending on its final shape/implementation, the Black Lanner might well be an intriguing choice in the regular queue moshpit.
Will it be a phenomenal CW choice? No, of course not, nothing is. CW would rather have the Grendel anyways, and frankly so would most of the rest of us, methinks. But while 10kph is not a big boost to survivability, I would argue that 20 or 30 kph, and their attendant agility boosts, can be. On top of being, y’know…a
mobility advantage.
Pariah Devalis, on 14 April 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:
Unfortunately, due to the way the game works, it is less of a sin in MWO to be slightly slow but pack heavy firepower than it is to be overly fast at the expense of firepower. That's because we don't have to hit modifiers based on speed and because games are won and lost on enemy mechs dying, and if you can't kill them as fast as they can kill you then you lose.
As I’ve said earlier in the thread, I believe, there’s comparative gun-to-‘Mech ratios to consider, but there’s also absolute weight of weaponry to consider as well. A lot of folks hate the Viper and wanted the Pouncer for the 40-ton slot because the Viper was overengine’d/undergunned and the Pouncer was not…but the Pouncer still only carries 14.5 tons of weaponry. 14.5 tons of weaponry may be a hefty selection for a 40-ton ‘Mech, but for even just a 50-ton ‘Mech (the Nova or Hunchback-IIC), it’s generally considered anemic, and for anything 60 tons or better it’d be considered disastrous.
The Timber Wolf carries 27.5 tons of gear in most fits, which some people say is light for a 75-ton ‘Mech.
However, that same 27.5 tons of gear would be considered pretty good for a 70-tonner, pretty dang awesome for a 65-tonner, and absolutely excellent for anything smaller, even though most of those ‘Mechs only match, rather than exceed, the Timber Wolf’s mobility. The question is not “is 27.5 tons of gun too little on the TBR?”, it’s “can I kill my foes most righteously dead with 27.5 tons of gear clad in twelve tons of armor that moves like a big medium ‘Mech?”
Most folks would say yes.
0
These are just generalities per weight class.
