306 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

Jet vs. Mech:

In a jet, agility is paramount, because once you get behind your opponent, if you're more agile you STAY behind. You have 100% firepower, they have 0%. They can't use speed to get away, because there's no cover and weapon ranges are HUGE. They just die.

In a mech, there's lots of close in cover, and except in the most extreme cases (Light vs. Slow Assault) even in live there are NO other mechs that can stay out of their opponents cone of fire. Even very limited mechs can twist near 90 degrees, with arms often reaching further, and that's *bad*. Many mechs can fire arm mounted weapons DIRECTLY BACKWARDS.

With a 50kph advantage in a mech, surrounded by cover, you can just be *gone* and outside of weapon range extremely rapidly.

[Mcgral18]

Widowmaker1981, on 02 March 2017 - 10:19 AM, said:

bugs aside, the values are pretty abysmal, everything big is losing a massive ton of agility, except the Dire which is staying in the same incredibly unfun position its in now. Even the things which lose the least, like Highlanders, are still losing agility.

I said this would happen. PGI wont relent, they think the best way to force medium popularity is to make bigger mechs horribly unfun to play

Banshee seemed adequate, I kept the 400XL


Haven't actually played a match with it yet, though.

[L3mming2]

1453 R, on 02 March 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

However, I have long maintained that groundspeed alone is not "maneuverability." You can put a giant engine into a jet fighter, give it all the straight-line speed in the world, but if the plane is big and fat and heavy and maneuvers poorly, then its ability to move faster in a straight line than a smaller, much lighter and nimbler jet means pretty much fugg-all because the nimbler jet will simply stay out of the fat jet's sights, inside its loops and pick it apart as it waddles its chubby tail around trying to be relevant.

... have you ever heard from boom and zoom?? do u know that a jet fighter has crappy agillity vs a prop fighter? still the jet is better... in aviation speed is everything, it lets you pick the engagements, run when you have to, ect...

[XX Sulla XX]

To OP --- I agree 100%. For min maxing or even or casual builds there is almost no rational way you would take a large engine. A Quickdraw with a 360xl is going to still be about as agile as one with say a 250Xl. The huge tonnage sacrifice to take a 360xl is not just never worth it.

But below average engine builds got a huge boost as they will have the same turn and twist etc. So you can now build for small engines and big weapon loadouts without much of a sacrifice.

[Wintersdark]

XX Sulla XX, on 02 March 2017 - 01:31 PM, said:

To OP --- I agree 100%. For min maxing or even or casual builds there is almost no rational way you would take a large engine. A Quickdraw with a 360xl is going to still be about as agile as one with say a 250Xl. The huge tonnage sacrifice to take a 360xl is not just never worth it.

But below average engine builds got a huge boost as they will have the same turn and twist etc. So you can now build for small engines and big weapon loadouts without much of a sacrifice.

Heat sink space is a thing.

Also, at any given speed in this system, a faster mech is STILL more agile at any given speed than the slower mech, because (as now) the closer to your max speed you are, the slower you turn.

Will you run >350 rated engines on mediums and light heavies? Not a lot, no. Likewise you won't run really small engines either baring edge cases, because at the extreme ends there are decidedly diminishing returns. For a 60t mech, a 360 is a huge investment. It gets you a LOT more speed, but it's still a huge investment.

In an assault? Sure. 360 is great, as is 375. 400 is still an edge case except the largest of Mechs.

[1453 R]

XX Sulla XX, on 02 March 2017 - 01:31 PM, said:

To OP --- I agree 100%. For min maxing or even or casual builds there is almost no rational way you would take a large engine. A Quickdraw with a 360xl is going to still be about as agile as one with say a 250Xl. The huge tonnage sacrifice to take a 360xl is not just never worth it.

But below average engine builds got a huge boost as they will have the same turn and twist etc. So you can now build for small engines and big weapon loadouts without much of a sacrifice.

This is pretty much exactly the issue. People can overload on weapons and ammo in many 'Mechs now - if not necessarily all of them - and no longer fear having any issue whatsoever keeping their guns on even the fastest targets. You don't have to pay for being a Night Gyr anymore and having twice the firepower of anything else your size - you can track anything that seeks to threaten you, bop it on the nose with forty tons of rolled-up newspaper, and just move on with your life.

It's total frickin' moose dung.

[Gas Guzzler]

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

Heat sink space is a thing.

Yeah, engine heat sink slots are going to be a big factor for heavies and assaults. They are already one of my primary engine deciding points for any build that requires lots of DHS.

[R Valentine]

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

Heat sink space is a thing. Also, at any given speed in this system, a faster mech is STILL more agile at any given speed than the slower mech, because (as now) the closer to your max speed you are, the slower you turn. Will you run >350 rated engines on mediums and light heavies? Not a lot, no. Likewise you won't run really small engines either baring edge cases, because at the extreme ends there are decidedly diminishing returns. For a 60t mech, a 360 is a huge investment. It gets you a LOT more speed, but it's still a huge investment. In an assault? Sure. 360 is great, as is 375. 400 is still an edge case except the largest of Mechs.

It is on some mechs. On the Rifleman, you maximum internal heat sinks is 11, while most options have 10. Well, that's not a huge difference. Not enough to justify a 6 ton engine upgrade.

[Koniks]

The current combination of baseline mobility and skill node values miss the mark. There isn't enough separation among mechs to properly offset removing the engine modifiers.

If the engine modifiers are going to stay out, then every mech needs its values revised and an opportunity to playtest with those changes.

[Gas Guzzler]

1453 R, on 02 March 2017 - 02:32 PM, said:

You don't have to pay for being a Night Gyr anymore and having twice the firepower of anything else your size

Actually it sounds like they gave the Night Gyr pretty ****** baseline agility stats.

[PJohann]

Copying my post from reddit topic about locust agility changes:

That thing terrorized the **** out of pugs since rescale. Besides that, old acceleration/decereration rates were full anime.

Initial acceleration force of almost 20G would instantly kill pilot inside. New values are much more believeable. Speaking of deceleration, old locust moves like 20kg and not 20tonn.

Let's do some school level physics.

F(inertia) = Mass * Deceleration

According to the graph of deceleration, at speeds of 110-165km/h we have inertia force of:

20000kg * 120 m/s2 = 2.4 MN Before (yes, 2.4 MEGA ******* NEWTONS. It's like landing jet fighter being hooked on aircraft carrier)

20000kg * 18.75m/s2 = 375 kN After

Here's Atlas for comparison:

100000kg*12.5m/s2 = 1.25 MN In live version

100000kg*5m/s2 = 500 kN With PTS values

So in PTS we have actually logical changes and 100 tonn war machine has more inertia than 20 tonn "light" mech.

In short: PGI makes stompy robots closer to what they are supposed to be.

[1453 R]

PJohann, on 02 March 2017 - 02:53 PM, said:

...
In short: PGI makes stompy robots closer to what they are supposed to be.

Goody for them.

Is the game more fun this way? Is it better to play? Or are Locusts hot garbage because you can pop them for free and there's nothing they can do about it anymore?

[Cabusha3]

Good. Fast Heavies have obsoleted mediums for too long. They could afford the big engines and gain equivalent mobility. It's been fundamentally broken since implementation.

Edited by Cabusha3, 02 March 2017 - 03:26 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 02 March 2017 - 02:34 PM, said:

Yeah, engine heat sink slots are going to be a big factor for heavies and assaults. They are already one of my primary engine deciding points for any build that requires lots of DHS.

Indeed. A 350 vs. 250 on an IS mech is effectively 4 DHS=12 CRIT slots = almost enough to add Es or FF to recoup tonnage. It's a big deal.

Kiran Yagami, on 02 March 2017 - 02:44 PM, said:

It is on some mechs. On the Rifleman, you maximum internal heat sinks is 11, while most options have 10. Well, that's not a huge difference. Not enough to justify a 6 ton engine upgrade.

if you're talking about a 25 pt engines upgrade (1dhs worth) then theres no real agility difference either. You're buying a bit of ground speed, the mobility difference at such close ratings in live is trivial.

[Chound]

XX Sulla XX, on 02 March 2017 - 01:31 PM, said:

To OP --- I agree 100%. For min maxing or even or casual builds there is almost no rational way you would take a large engine. A Quickdraw with a 360xl is going to still be about as agile as one with say a 250Xl. The huge tonnage sacrifice to take a 360xl is not just never worth it.

But below average engine builds got a huge boost as they will have the same turn and twist etc. So you can now build for small engines and big weapon loadouts without much of a sacrifice.

The big problem is speed. If you're going under 5 KPH there is a good chance the enemy will get you. In most matches by the time you get to the drop zone the battle will be over.

[Baulven]

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

Heat sink space is a thing.

Also, at any given speed in this system, a faster mech is STILL more agile at any given speed than the slower mech, because (as now) the closer to your max speed you are, the slower you turn.

Will you run >350 rated engines on mediums and light heavies? Not a lot, no. Likewise you won't run really small engines either baring edge cases, because at the extreme ends there are decidedly diminishing returns. For a 60t mech, a 360 is a huge investment. It gets you a LOT more speed, but it's still a huge investment.

In an assault? Sure. 360 is great, as is 375. 400 is still an edge case except the largest of Mechs.

I dropped my XL in my MAD IIC down, took off endo and wound up putting in enough additional heat sinks to make it run cooler [even without the true dubs]. This will be more apparent on IS mechs with the 14 slot savings.

[Wintersdark]

Baulven, on 02 March 2017 - 05:01 PM, said:

I dropped my XL in my MAD IIC down, took off endo and wound up putting in enough additional heat sinks to make it run cooler [even without the true dubs]. This will be more apparent on IS mechs with the 14 slot savings.

Post builds before an after. I'd like to see how much speed you lost, and specifically what the cooling levels are.

Because if you're running a mad iic with a 200, well... What did you gain?

Also: for IS this doesn't really work as well. 3 slot DHS don't fit by engines, feet, etc; that's space Endo can use while DHS can't. Even without Endo, IS has very little space that can be devoted to DHS without a large engine.

Edited by Wintersdark, 02 March 2017 - 05:36 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

PJohann, on 02 March 2017 - 02:53 PM, said:

Copying my post from reddit topic about locust agility changes:

That thing terrorized the **** out of pugs since rescale. Besides that, old acceleration/decereration rates were full anime.

Initial acceleration force of almost 20G would instantly kill pilot inside. New values are much more believeable. Speaking of deceleration, old locust moves like 20kg and not 20tonn.

Let's do some school level physics.

F(inertia) = Mass * Deceleration

According to the graph of deceleration, at speeds of 110-165km/h we have inertia force of:

20000kg * 120 m/s2 = 2.4 MN Before (yes, 2.4 MEGA ******* NEWTONS. It's like landing jet fighter being hooked on aircraft carrier)

20000kg * 18.75m/s2 = 375 kN After

Here's Atlas for comparison:

100000kg*12.5m/s2 = 1.25 MN In live version

100000kg*5m/s2 = 500 kN With PTS values

So in PTS we have actually logical changes and 100 tonn war machine has more inertia than 20 tonn "light" mech.

In short: PGI makes stompy robots closer to what they are supposed to be.

Problem is its a goofy robot game not a sim. Battletech 5 will have the feel you are wanting. No reason to crush this game to get it.

Cabusha3, on 02 March 2017 - 03:25 PM, said:

Good. Fast Heavies have obsoleted mediums for too long. They could afford the big engines and gain equivalent mobility. It's been fundamentally broken since implementation.

Fast mediums get hit just like heavies. Mediums are not better unless they drastically change how they are doing things.

Chound, on 02 March 2017 - 04:42 PM, said:

The big problem is speed. If you're going under 5 KPH there is a good chance the enemy will get you. In most matches by the time you get to the drop zone the battle will be over.

Thing to remember is speed will drop across the board on average. Also as long as you get around 60 it will be fine with new agility changes.

[Master Maniac]

Cabusha3, on 02 March 2017 - 03:25 PM, said:

Good. Fast Heavies have obsoleted mediums for too long. They could afford the big engines and gain equivalent mobility. It's been fundamentally broken since implementation.

Tell that to my 45 ton blackjack which could kill practically anything I ever wanted it to until I literally got bored of it.
Back on point, there's not a single positive change in any of this.
Any of it.
And that's really, really, really sad this late in the game.

Edited by Master Maniac, 02 March 2017 - 09:02 PM.

[Wintersdark]

XX Sulla XX, on 02 March 2017 - 05:53 PM, said:

Fast mediums get hit just like heavies. Mediums are not better unless they drastically change how they are doing things.

It's not a binary equation. Mediums ought to be more agile than heavies simply because they don't have anything else. Heavies are literally better or equal at every other metric. Simply improving that helpseven if it doesn't make everything magically better. More nimble mediums can get guns on targets faster, and change direction quicker. Gives them something at least.

With that said, in the pts mediums and heavies seem to be in a decent spot really. It's lights (broken decel) and assaults (just too clumsy) that are the problem.

Quote

Thing to remember is speed will drop across the board on average. Also as long as you get around 60 it will be fine with new agility changes.

It WILL drop on average, no doubt.

However, how far you go down has important effects. Move slow, and you cede positioning to faster Mechs. And the slower the average speed, the more value a fast striker/flanker has. Right now, that role only barely exists at all because teams are so damned fast the only people with a significant edge are lights.

60 kph is slow. It's OK for an assault, but pretty slow for a heavy and very slow for a medium. When you'll be facing teams with 100kph mediums an 90kph heavies that still pack substantial firepower, that 60kph is going to hurt.

Still, going slower will be a viable choice, and that's a good thing. It's not right now, not at all. As such, there's less choice right now. EVERYONE chooses to go fast, and as a result nobody really is, but we can't reasonably get any faster without significant sacrifices. Once speeds are lower overall, you can choose to be faster than the average at a reasonable price.