20 replies to this topic

[Mcchuggernaut]

Somewhere along the line since the days of open beta I got so fed up with my team NASCARing away from me in my slow mech and getting thrown to the wolves that I started refusing to pilot anything that couldn't move at least 70kph. I put big XL engines in my assault mechs and have found that the increase in fragility is greatly out-weighed by the fact that I'm just getting shot less because of the increased mobility. I also spend a lot less idle time just trying to get to where the fight is because I'm fast enough to get up front and help the team. Speed helps me get out of bad situations and use cover more effectively. Learning to protect the XL has also made me a lot better at torso-twisting, trading well, and spreading damage. Because of this I am completely happy with dropping a bit of assault firepower for all the advantages speed gives me.


So why do some mechs have such pathetic engine caps? There seems to be no reasoning behind it except what PGI arbitrarily decides it should be for each mech. It definitely doesn't follow the lore (I checked that). It has nothing to do with tonnage. The 100 ton Kodiak skips along at 69.7kph with speed tweak and an XL400 while the 90 ton Mauler can only creep along at 62.9kph with a maximum engine cap of 325 and speed tweak. You would think bigger mechs would be slower? That's generally true but there is a lot of fluctuation. Besides, isn't part of the whole mechwarrior series built around customizing your mechs? Who came up with the hair-brained idea that I can't put a 400XL in my Mauler just because? It's not like you couldn't fit one in a 90 ton mech when you can cram one in an 80 ton Pretty Baby.

So what's with all these weird engine caps, what twisted logic is behind it, and where did they come from?

[FLG 01]

The engine is cap is usually determined by stock engine rating x 1.2.
The Mauler e.g. has a stock engine rating of 270. 270 x 1.2 is 324, hence the 325 max engine rating. The Kodiak has a 400 engine stock and that is the maximum engine rating.

The 1.2 is arbitrarily set by PGI but I totally support the fact that canon stock engine rating matters. Mechs which are fast in canon should be fast in game, too.
And yes, some heavier Mechs are easily faster than some lighter Mechs. The 80ton Spartan for example runs 86kph while most 45ton Blackjack variants are limited to 65kph.

PS: yes, PGI did break the 1.2-rule already after massive community protests concerning the MAD-BH2.

Edited by FLG 01, 04 July 2016 - 02:20 PM.

[The Basilisk]

Well ... at the start of MWO engine caps weren't given arbitarily but as factor related to the chassis standart version reactor. Factor differed according to weight class.
The heavier you got the smaler the difference to max engine. L=1.4; M=1.3; H=1.25; A=1.2
Now there are a lot of exceptions.

[Mcchuggernaut]

FLG 01, on 04 July 2016 - 02:18 PM, said:

The engine is cap is usually determined by stock engine rating x 1.2.
The Mauler e.g. has a stock engine rating of 270. 270 x 1.2 is 324, hence the 325 max engine rating. The Kodiak has a 400 engine stock and that is the maximum engine rating.

The 1.2 is arbitrarily set by PGI but I totally support the fact that canon stock engine rating matters. Mechs which are fast in canon should be fast in game, too.
And yes, some heavier Mechs are easily faster than some lighter Mechs. The 80ton Spartan for example runs 86kph while most 45ton Blackjack variants are limited to 65kph.

PS: yes, PGI did break the 1.2-rule already after massive community protests concerning the MAD-BH2.

Thanks for the explanation! Although if they are bothering with cannon then why have a mechlab where you can swap engines at all and break their 1.2 rule all the damn time? Sure, have the mech come with the cannon engine when you buy it. That makes a lot more sense than an engine cap, imo.

[FLG 01]

The rule allows you to customize your Mech without totally disregarding its canon speed. A Mech which is fast in canon will be comparatively fast in game, and a Mech which is slow in canon will be comparatively slow in game. And I think that is how it should be, even if the rule itself may not be perfect.

[Y E O N N E]

FLG 01, on 04 July 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

The rule allows you to customize your Mech without totally disregarding its canon speed. A Mech which is fast in canon will be comparatively fast in game, and a Mech which is slow in canon will be comparatively slow in game. And I think that is how it should be, even if the rule itself may not be perfect.

Generally I agree, but a few 'Mechs are egregiously slow, i.e. Mist Lynx, Cataphract 4X.

[Deathlike]

The logic is simply... because "reasons" and PGI.

Normally it would be a balancing mechanism to use the simple rules in BT, but for the purposes for an actual game... they are closer to worthless when not analyzed and applied properly. There's enough variants and mechs to get the shaft as a consequence of this design and it's a thing that our balance overlord does not usually consider.

The Jagermech vs the Cataphract-4X comes to mind. There's no reason to cripple the Cataphract to assault-mech speeds.

Edited by Deathlike, 04 July 2016 - 03:19 PM.

[Khobai]

logic is that different mechs are different

[Trauglodyte]

FLG 01, on 04 July 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

The rule allows you to customize your Mech without totally disregarding its canon speed. A Mech which is fast in canon will be comparatively fast in game, and a Mech which is slow in canon will be comparatively slow in game. And I think that is how it should be, even if the rule itself may not be perfect.

The problem, though, was that there are mechs that have matching speeds but where one was way faster than the other in TT. This is part of the problem of the formula that they've come up with for MW:O. The Cicada was a Hell of a lot faster than the Jenner while being under gunned and less agile (no JJs). Yet, here we are in MW:O and the Jenner actually is faster than the Cicada with max engines. The formula, for what good it was supposed to do, didn't actually do anything good.

Now, you could argue that it doesn't matter in game and especially less so now with the rescale. But, you could also argue that the issues above still stand which continues to make people question, as they did 4+ years ago, why you'd ever take the bug over the Jenner.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 04 July 2016 - 05:40 PM.

[Nathan Foxbane]

The logic behind engine caps? Well having been around long enough to remember when we didn't have them it was pretty simple: curtail the abuse of lag shields on certain chassis. Things like super fast small laser boating Hunchbacks (called Partybacks) were viable. Engine caps were supposed to curtail some of the more ridiculous builds, while mins were supposed to keep them somewhat close to their original intent. Really engine caps are the result of MWO's early problems with net code. An issue which has been more or less addressed (though not completely since speed caps are still a thing).
Problem was it seems like PGI never used any 5 Why problem solving methodology and missed the root causes, or used it and did not go back to remove their stop-gap measures after they had solved the root causes. New problems stemmed from this. What many newer players do not realize is that engine size does not just impact speed, but also agility.
Example. Two CN9-A's have differing engines, one carries the stock 200 engine, while the other carries a 250. At a speed both can attain the version with the larger engine will turn and torso twist faster than the version with the stock engine in addition to being able to go faster if need be.
Suddenly a 'Mech didn't just need good hardpoints, it needed higher engine caps to be competitive. Ironically it was less of an issue when there were fewer 'Mechs.
PGI has an unfortunate problem of trying to fix visible issues, instead of digging down and finding root causes. And it has caused them more than a bit of grief. Not that is easy by any stretch of the imagination with something like MWO, there are many factors to be considered so root cause(s) can be difficult to find.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Nathan Foxbane, on 04 July 2016 - 07:34 PM, said:

PGI has an unfortunate problem of trying to fix visible issues, instead of digging down and finding root causes. And it has caused them more than a bit of grief. Not that is easy by any stretch of the imagination with something like MWO, there are many factors to be considered so root cause(s) can be difficult to find.

This exactly. I was just talking about how terrible IS ERPPCs are right now the other day. They got nerfed into oblivion when the ghost heat mechanic was introduced, and have been that way ever since. I hardly ever see anyone using them in-game at all. Then a ton of IS mechs got quirks that made other energy weapons more attractive (shorter beam duration, longer range, heat gen buffs, etc...), but I can probably count on one hand the mechs that have IS ERPPC buffs. Sadly, they still aren't any good even on the mechs quirked specifically for them.

I believe this comes from the time the nerf bat came down on gauss/ppc poptarters, and now that the poptart meta is dead it's time to give better ERPPC quirks out to make their ONLY real advantage: pinpoint damage (Cause let's face it: you can't hit jack shite with them at distances longer than ERLL range because of the projectile speed, so their longer range counts for nothing.), actually worth the additional weight, space, projectile travel time, and horrendous heat. So yeah, this weapon system being so damn bad is a symptom of another problem. IS ERPPCs need either a ghost heat penalty reduction, or several IS chassis need some heavy heat gen quirks for PPCs. They could also do with a decent velocity increase. Now that you can reliably hit fast-moving mechs it's probably likewise time to release some of the worst engine cap restrictions for a few of the more hamstrung chassis. You know, with the original reason for the caps gone and all.

Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 04 July 2016 - 08:44 PM.

[Pjwned]

I made a thread about this quite a while ago, but I can't seem to find it so I'll just re-write the idea here.

I still think there should be an additional rule added to determine engine caps so that we don't have mechs with excruciatingly low engine caps, and whichever rule gave the higher value would be used for that mech.

Current rules for engine caps:

Maximum-Engine power rating cannot exceed 400 or ~8.5x the 'Mech's tonnage, whichever is lower.
Maximum-Engine power rating with (round up to nearest 5 or 0):
Light 'Mech = 1.4 x Stock-Engine
Medium 'Mech = 1.3 x Stock-Engine
Heavy 'Mech = 1.2 x Stock-Engine
Assault 'Mech = 1.2 x Stock-Engine

Additional rules for engine caps:

Light mech = 7 x (or even 8x) mech tonnage; 7x mech tonnage wouldn't have much of an effect on most lights so depending on the desired effect it might be increased to 8x mech tonnage, which even then wouldn't affect many lights either

Medium mech = 6 x mech tonnage; this would have a notable effect on mechs like non-1X Blackjacks and non-1AA Vindicators, and some other mechs would be affected a bit as well like Hunchbacks and Centurions

Heavy mech = 5 x mech tonnage; this would have a fairly small effect (10 higher engine rating in most if not all cases) but it would also affect a number of mechs like the Rifleman and all 65 & 70 ton IS mechs

Assault mech = 4 x mech tonnage; this would have a significant effect on several mechs like the Awesome, Stalker, Highlander, and all King Crabs as well as all Atlas variants except Boar's Head

Use these 2 rules, apply them consistently and quit making arbitrary exceptions just because a mech has a low stock engine rating, and we have a reasonable & fair system that sets a bare minimum for all mechs instead of having a really sluggish & slow chassis that gets kneecapped by its crappy default engine.

Edited by Pjwned, 04 July 2016 - 10:05 PM.

[Davers]

Hunchback 4P doing 130kph and out Jennering the Jenners, and 200kph Commandos tearing holes in the fabric of space and time forced PGI to slow everyone down,

[Mazzyplz]

when mwo was in beta the engine cap for awesome was 280... LOL!!!!

it couldnt even have 2 engine heatsink slots

iirc aws was the first chassis they raised the engine cap for... awesome has been buffed like 20 times and it's still not where they want it... figure that one out

[Gladius Vittoris]

Mcchuggernaut, on 04 July 2016 - 02:02 PM, said:

So what's with all these weird engine caps, what twisted logic is behind it, and where did they come from?

What about lowering the engine caps even more for any mechs, dude?

So, less CS fps for everybody and more "thinking shooter".

[Pjwned]

Gladius Vittoris, on 04 July 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

What about lowering the engine caps even more for any mechs, dude?

So, less CS fps for everybody and more "thinking shooter".

No, if that's the goal then remove the damn mech skill tree.

[Gladius Vittoris]

Pjwned, on 04 July 2016 - 10:34 PM, said:

No, if that's the goal then remove the damn mech skill tree.

Remove that, and also all the consumables.

[Pjwned]

Gladius Vittoris, on 04 July 2016 - 10:39 PM, said:

Remove that, and also all the consumables.

I used to feel more strongly against consumables, but honestly I don't think they're that bad, especially now that strikes won't instagib a mech with a random cockpit shot in 1 hit from full HP now, which is something was LONG overdue.

I don't think consumables should be removed really, but they could use more work too; a bigger variety of consumables and removing cool shot 9(x9) would help a lot I think.

Edited by Pjwned, 05 July 2016 - 03:30 AM.

[jss78]

Interesting conversation overall. As noted the engine cap is to place some limits to how far you can take the 'mech from stock speeds. It's a very good question whether such limits should be placed. Removing the limit would allow people to run some slower mechs like all other similar-weight 'mechs. This might make some 'mechs more "viable" but it'd also take away some of their essential character.

Two oft-mentioned cases: Vindicator and Panther. In table-top these are "poor man's heavies", fire-support 'mechs for cash-strapped Capellan and Kuritan units which cannot afford their Catapults and Archers anyway. In TT setting they're damn good 'mechs -- for their PRICE, i.e. they're cost-effective -- but in MWO this doesn't come into play because we're all, in effect, infinitely rich. Why play a 35-tonner fire-support build when you have 100M c-bills and can bring whatever assault mech you wish for the same job?

So you could alternatively remove their engine caps, and allow people to run the Panther and Vindicator as cookie-cutter lights and speedy mediums. You might've made them viable but you also would've made them something other than a Panther and a Vindicator.

Pjwned, on 04 July 2016 - 10:34 PM, said:

No, if that's the goal then remove the damn mech skill tree.

I'd posit that removing at least speed tweak would be a very good thing. It literally does nothing for the game other than weaken the differentiation from twitch FPS's (which should be the selling point of MWO).

Edited by jss78, 05 July 2016 - 03:56 AM.

[Roadkill]

FLG 01, on 04 July 2016 - 02:18 PM, said:

PS: yes, PGI did break the 1.2-rule already after massive community protests concerning the MAD-BH2.

The BH2's engine is itself a downgrade of the standard Marauder's engine. It makes no sense to say that it cannot be re-configured back to its original engine, yet that's exactly what PGI tried to do originally.

PGI was breaking the 1.2 rule long before the BH2 came around.