32 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

the only time i go asymetrical is if i opt to strip an arm of armor to free up tonnage. like i had a firestarter with 5mpulse all on the left side, and the only way to pull that off with the engine i had on hand was to strip the right arm.

[Kuaron]

I vote for asymmetrical. ^^

[Y E O N N E]

Asymmetrical is defeated the instant you decide to hold your fire until the target turns to attack you. I find it rather useless in anything other than a dedicated brawl or an extreme range poke. In a dedicated brawl, legs are targets and there is so little time to actually pick a torso because you are snap-shooting and twisting furiously. At extreme range, the enemy generally can't return fire to a respectable degree. In between? Too much return, to easy to focus components down.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 13 October 2016 - 06:42 AM, said:

Depends on the build and the mech, lately symmetrical builds have been more dominant (or as symmetrical as you can make them).

High mounted mechs tend to favor symmetrical builds because you generally can't run asym and all high mounts (HBK-IIC-A is an exception) while others tend to favor asym builds to capitalize on corner poking (since hill poking is less effective without high mounts).

^nailed it! the mech determines the build.

Now for my opinionated answer:
I personally like big guns, so its hard to make the mechs I play Sym, so I guess I prefer Asym?

But if I had a choice, Ill take high points before I choose a side.

Like the 2x gauss 2x kdk-3. One of my sides is stacked, but one of my gauss needs to go i to the other side torso.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

I always run asymmetrical for a couple of reasons.

The first, biggest reason is that it effectively gives you a way to block damage. This gives you a buffer of upwards of 100-200 damage in even light mechs before they hit your CT if they try to burn through it (because of greatly reduced damage on hitting dead components). Let the enemy smash that useless side while they build up heat, then when they can't fire any more without overheating, go and bash their faces in. Even better; if your mech supports lower arm actuators and hands on both arms, you can bend one arm almost 90 degrees to one side and fire sideways. It's almost like firing a gun over a shield. Literally.

The second reason is much improved convergence. When trying to compensate for flight time using any weapon that's not hitscan (i.e. lasers, machine guns), you'll realise that the closer together your weapons are, the tighter the grouping is regardless of distance. The best way to improve convergence is to forcibly get your weapons together; shove them all onto the same limb, or when that's not possible, the same side. Your weapons will then only get a convergence error of at most the size of half your mech at a distance of infinity (i.e. shots don't converge - this is what happens if you fire at the sky). This is most noticeable in a mech like the 2 ERPPC, 2 Gauss DWF; your shots will almost always hit the same point.

[JediPanther]

I really dislike asymmetrical builds or even worse the asymmetrical mechs. Having the majority of your weapons or all of them gone when you lose that all important weapon side of your mech leaving you a 90% functional but completely useless mech such as a lot of the griffins sucks. I'm sure there are some who love that way of playing and those mechs. I'm just not one of them.

i'd rather loose half my mech and half my fire power than loose one part of my mech and all weapons.

[Tarl Cabot]

First, define which mechs? You will see asymmetric builds primarily with IS mechs due to their actual setup. Followed by the isXL engine not being setup like the cXL engine, thus the need to use a STD engine, even more so due to low engine caps. Then it does make sense when the hardpoints are build for one side (usually the right side) to follow the Sword/Shield setup.

Now with Clan mechs, the preferred are generally setup with weapons on both sides with only a few loading weapons on one side but that is primarily due to lack of omnipod hardpoints. And Clan mechs, both omni and battlemechs benefit from their cXL engines having the ability to SURVIVE the loss of one side torso, even with the 20% heat/movement penalties.

[Throbbinwood]

Sword and board baby, sword and board.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Depends on what I'm building a 'Mech for. I have oodles and oodles of symmetrical builds, but I have just as many asymmetrical builds- and not just on 'Mechs that naturally have a side bias, like Hunchbacks and Panthers. I have some asymmetrical builds on 'Mechs that have hardpoints on both sides because that was the best way to put those weapons on that 'Mech and make it reasonably viable (or because of other practical limitations, like only being able to fit one AC20 on a Raven, or one UAC20 on an Adder). I very rarely strip all the armor off my dead arm, though. Unless I'm really pressed for tonnage, I run at least half armor, and for some 'Mechs like the Centurion I always run full armor so I can use it for shielding. The only time I take all the armor off of a location is when I really, really need every spare kilogram and the part is useless as a shield anyway.

Then there are a few special cases... 'Mechs that I absolutely refuse to ever run with asymmetrical builds. Take the Rifleman. Can't bring myself to do it. Likewise the HBK-IIC. It'll never happen. If I can't bring a pair of each weapon, one for either side of the 'Mech, I won't even Smurfy it. Some lines just shouldn't be crossed. Every time I see an asymmetrical build on one of those I want to just declare Exterminatus and cleanse the whole damn planet of that foul heresy.

[Y E O N N E]

This asym build is pretty entertaining, though I do find it ridiculous that 20 DHS are required to comfortably run two ER PPC.

[Vellron2005]

Personally, I hate asymmetry in most things.. very few asymmetric things are good to me.. So I prefer a well balanced symetric mix of everything.

I like to backup my backups with backups, if you get me ;-)

I understand that "Sword and Board" fighting is efficient, and great for 1 on 1, but in most "standard" combat situations, I find that this play style mostly does not suit me.

[Sjorpha]

Some times a mech uses both sides but is still asymmetrically built to use each side for poking at different ranges, for example a Warhammer might have 3 LPL on one side and 4 MPL on the other.

Seems to me that completely deadsiding a mech is less competitive now, at least for IS mechs, because the arms race have made the XL engines dominant to a degree where very few mechs are better with a standard engine, and of them even fewer are mechs that want to deadside. Thunderbolt 9SE is the best of them I think.

[Clownwarlord]

The worst feeling is you have that asymmetric build and then not even 3 minutes into a match and you have been alpha'd maybe once or twice and you lost that side torso even though you torso twisted away from the shot(s). This is why I hate asymmetric builds. I also agree they do have their benefits but they can be so much a pain when this happens.

To me asymmetric builds are almost as bad as having all your weapons in your arms. Use the body!!!