164 replies to this topic

[Bud Crue]

nehebkau, on 11 May 2017 - 06:55 AM, said:

@OP

The important thing, and the thing that will get you pissed off with PGI, is that PGI knows all of those issues and refuse to just come out an acknowledge that they f-ed up and are unwilling to make any meaningful changes to actually fix it so with every new mech or balancing-band-aid (quirks, skill-tree) the game-balance goes out the window. So, its not stupidity on PGI's part but willful suppression of critical evaluation, dissenting opinions and isolating their decision making from any outside influences that constantly puts us in this sea-sawing quagmire.

Amen. Testify. Etc.

[Vxheous]

Zergling, on 11 May 2017 - 05:15 AM, said:

You're thinking of the Grasshopper 5H with its -15% energy heat generation quirk, not the Grasshopper 5P, which doesn't have any heat gen quirks.

5x IS ER Large Laser causes 64 heat with ghost heat penalties; 10 engine + 8 external heat sinks is a maximum heat capacity of 68, so firing all five ER Larges at once is 94.17% heat, and will likely lead to a shutdown if the Grasshopper is moving (or on a hot map).

With the Grasshopper 5H, the heat is reduced to 54.4, which brings it to 80% of maximum heat. It would dissipate 16.56 heat in the next 4.5 seconds, and it could then fire another salvo of 3x ER Large, which would bring it to 95.35% heat, which makes a shutdown likely.


The Hellbringer can fire an alpha of all four of its Clan ER Large Lasers, and only generate 59.20 heat, which is 80% of its maximum heat (with 22 double heat sinks, 78.41% with 23 doubles).
In the next 4.75 seconds it dissipates 21.58 heat, and then fire another 2x ER Large bringing it back to 76.32% heat.
Alternatively, the Hellbringer could fire 3x ER Large instead of 2x, which will bring it to 99.10% heat (and a shutdown is very likely).


If a Grasshopper 5P and Hellbringer are both alpha striking each other, the Grasshopper is going to shut down far sooner than the Hellbringer, and the Grasshopper will be shut down for longer too.

I gaurantee that it goes to about 79%, I only drop my the grasshopper 5P on long range cold maps like Alpine and Polar. As to your comment about Hellbringers, I also alpha all 4 off the start as well, and its about 60% of the heat bar. Definitely ambient temp at work.

[justcallme A S H]

I actually one-shotted a MLX on Polar about 10mins ago with a full ERL alpha... He stared when he should not have.

[Coolant]

IS is balanced with quirks. However, imbalance occurs when Clan mechs also get quirks, so remove the Clan quirks and keep the IS quirks when Skill Tree is released.

[Zergling]

justcallme A S H, on 11 May 2017 - 07:02 AM, said:

Ambient temp. Long range maps = cold maps, usually.

On Polar I get to to ~74% firing 5ERL and 1SML in the alpha if I'm lazy and don't fire the groups. I forget that 5 ERL alpha but Vxh's numbers are about right give or take 2-3%?

I wouldn't bring ERL to Terra for example and most neutral maps are not ERL worthwhile.

Well I don't have a Grasshopper to test, but a Hellbringer with 4x ER Large and 23 doubles will hit 66% after a single alpha on Polar (instead of the predicted 78.41% for a heat neutral map), 57% after one alpha + half an alpha, and I'm estimating around 105-110% after two alphas.


If they are trading alphas, the damage vs durability equations are in the Hellbringer's favor, as it will be delivering 44 damage per alpha while only needing to do 102 damage to score a kill, while the Grasshopper is delivering 45 damage per alpha while needing to do 124 damage to score a kill.

If however, the Grasshopper 5P is effectively twisting after firing an alpha (with 1.0625 beam duration), it can mitigate enough damage to the side torso the Hellbringer is targeting to win in the damage vs durability contest.


Eg, if both mechs are firing at the same time, and the Grasshopper stops taking damage to the side torso exactly on the 1.0625 second mark, then the Grasshopper will only suffer 31.17 damage to the side torso per exchange, while delivering 45 damage to the Hellbringer's CT.

That is 42.1% more damage being done to the Hellbringer per exchange, more than enough to overcome the Hellbringer requiring 21.57% more damage to kill.


One caveat however; it isn't exactly realistic for the Grasshopper to stop taking damage to its side torso the instant it starts twisting.
It is probably going to be at least 1 or 2 tenths of a second longer before the Hellbringer's beams are off target.

Eg, if the Hellbringer gets 1.2625 seconds of beam duration on the Grasshopper's side torso, it is doing 37 damage, so the Grasshopper is only doing 21.62% more damage than the Hellbringer per exchange.
At that point, they are equal and will kill each other at about the same moment. If the Hellbringer can keep its beams on target for longer, it wins the fight, but if it doesn't, it loses.

Vxheous Kerensky, on 11 May 2017 - 07:07 AM, said:

I gaurantee that it goes to about 79%, I only drop my the grasshopper 5P on long range cold maps like Alpine and Polar. As to your comment about Hellbringers, I also alpha all 4 off the start as well, and its about 60% of the heat bar. Definitely ambient temp at work.

Fair enough.

Edited by Zergling, 11 May 2017 - 07:30 AM.

[Vxheous]

Zergling, on 11 May 2017 - 07:28 AM, said:

Well I don't have a Grasshopper to test, but a Hellbringer with 4x ER Large and 23 doubles will hit 66% after a single alpha on Polar (instead of the predicted 78.41% for a heat neutral map), 57% after one alpha + half an alpha, and I'm estimating around 105-110% after two alphas.


If they are trading alphas, the damage vs durability equations are in the Hellbringer's favor, as it will be delivering 44 damage per alpha while only needing to do 102 damage to score a kill, while the Grasshopper is delivering 45 damage per alpha while needing to do 124 damage to score a kill.

If however, the Grasshopper 5P is effectively twisting after firing an alpha (with 1.0625 beam duration), it can mitigate enough damage to the side torso the Hellbringer is targeting to win in the damage vs durability contest.


Eg, if both mechs are firing at the same time, and the Grasshopper stops taking damage to the side torso exactly on the 1.0625 second mark, then the Grasshopper will only suffer 31.17 damage to the side torso per exchange, while delivering 45 damage to the Hellbringer's CT.

That is 42.1% more damage being done to the Hellbringer per exchange, more than enough to overcome the Hellbringer requiring 21.57% more damage to kill.


One caveat however; it isn't exactly realistic for the Grasshopper to stop taking damage to its side torso the instant it starts twisting.
It is probably going to be at least 1 or 2 tenths of a second longer before the Hellbringer's beams are off target.

Eg, if the Hellbringer gets 1.2625 seconds of beam duration on the Grasshopper's side torso, it is doing 37 damage, so the Grasshopper is only doing 21.62% more damage than the Hellbringer per exchange.
At that point, they are equal and will kill each other at about the same moment. If the Hellbringer can keep its beams on target for longer, it wins the fight, but if it doesn't, it loses.







Fair enough.

Pretty much why it's pretty agreed upon by mercs that the extreme long range game is pretty even between clans and IS

[Zergling]

Vxheous Kerensky, on 11 May 2017 - 07:31 AM, said:

Pretty much why it's pretty agreed upon by mercs that the extreme long range game is pretty even between clans and IS

Yeah, the Hellbringer is running cooler, but at that kind of range it really doesn't matter.

It comes down to skill in focusing outgoing damage and spreading incoming damage.

[justcallme A S H]

Vxheous Kerensky, on 11 May 2017 - 07:31 AM, said:

Pretty much why it's pretty agreed upon by mercs that the extreme long range game is pretty even between clans and IS

But...

But...

Clans out range IS massively...

Derp.

[Zergling]

Lily from animove, on 11 May 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

yes against flamers and MG any other wepaons deals more damage unless you fire at unsuited ranges.
And now you limit the scenario to the last 3 H which is invalid as you need to take this scenario into account from the previous 100% health since then the "survival" difference is negliable. All you try is to bending scenarios to your arguments favour but they stopped beeing objectively.

I'm actually trying to create scenarios (that can be mathed out) that are as objectively equal as possible, by eliminating things like skill.

It isn't easy to do, especially since there are non-skill factors that can't be easily measured, like hitboxes.

Khobai, on 11 May 2017 - 03:47 AM, said:

and mechs dont start at 1/1/1 health so your example is ridiculous.

And in order to get the grasshopper down to 1/1/1 it wouldve had to have tanked way more damage than a hellbringer anyway.

You missed my point; the amount of health remaining doesn't matter, just that each mech is in a similarly damaged and near death state.

It doesn't have to be 1 structure remaining per location, it could be 15 or 20, against a Gauss or AC20 hit.

When both mechs are in such a state, the Clan XL is superior.

Edited by Zergling, 11 May 2017 - 07:41 AM.

[Templar Dane]

Zergling, on 11 May 2017 - 07:28 AM, said:

Well I don't have a Grasshopper to test, but a Hellbringer with 4x ER Large and 23 doubles will hit 66% after a single alpha on Polar (instead of the predicted 78.41% for a heat neutral map), 57% after one alpha + half an alpha, and I'm estimating around 105-110% after two alphas.


If they are trading alphas, the damage vs durability equations are in the Hellbringer's favor, as it will be delivering 44 damage per alpha while only needing to do 102 damage to score a kill, while the Grasshopper is delivering 45 damage per alpha while needing to do 124 damage to score a kill.

If however, the Grasshopper 5P is effectively twisting after firing an alpha (with 1.0625 beam duration), it can mitigate enough damage to the side torso the Hellbringer is targeting to win in the damage vs durability contest.


Eg, if both mechs are firing at the same time, and the Grasshopper stops taking damage to the side torso exactly on the 1.0625 second mark, then the Grasshopper will only suffer 31.17 damage to the side torso per exchange, while delivering 45 damage to the Hellbringer's CT.

That is 42.1% more damage being done to the Hellbringer per exchange, more than enough to overcome the Hellbringer requiring 21.57% more damage to kill.


One caveat however; it isn't exactly realistic for the Grasshopper to stop taking damage to its side torso the instant it starts twisting.
It is probably going to be at least 1 or 2 tenths of a second longer before the Hellbringer's beams are off target.

Eg, if the Hellbringer gets 1.2625 seconds of beam duration on the Grasshopper's side torso, it is doing 37 damage, so the Grasshopper is only doing 21.62% more damage than the Hellbringer per exchange.
At that point, they are equal and will kill each other at about the same moment. If the Hellbringer can keep its beams on target for longer, it wins the fight, but if it doesn't, it loses.





Fair enough.

So grasshopper fires it's ISERLLs, then stands there an additional half second to give the hellbringers 1.5s duration a chance to damage him.

Oh, so he lets the hellbringer have a complete 2 seconds of fire on him that he doesn't need to be exposed for. That's the nicest grasshopper ever, letting that hellbringer shoot him with 4x CERLL.

[Zergling]

Templar Dane, on 11 May 2017 - 07:44 AM, said:

So grasshopper fires it's ISERLLs, then stands there an additional half second to give the hellbringers 1.5s duration a chance to damage him.

Oh, so he lets the hellbringer have a complete 2 seconds of fire on him that he doesn't need to be exposed for. That's the nicest grasshopper ever, letting that hellbringer shoot him with 4x CERLL.

I was comparing each mech firing staggered salvos to avoid ghost heat.

The Grasshopper would fire 3x ER Large, then half a second later fire the other 2x ER Large, which is a total firing time of 1.5625 seconds.
The Hellbringer would fire 2x ER Large, then half a second later fire the other 2x ER Large, which is a total firing time of 2.00 seconds.

And I calculated the damage the Hellbringer would be doing to a single location in 1.5625 seconds, generously assuming that the Grasshopper would be able to instantly shield that location the moment it starts twisting (which it realistically would not be able to do).


The Grasshopper isn't just 'standing there' for an extra half a second; that half a second is required to avoid ghost heat.
The same goes for the Hellbringer takng an extra half a second to fire its quad ER Large.

Edited by Zergling, 11 May 2017 - 07:55 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

El Bandito, on 10 May 2017 - 07:09 PM, said:

Clan lasers also do more damage per burn. Sure ISML has less duration, but that wouldn't matter since CERML will still do more damage during 0.9 second, compared to ISML.

Thats a little bit disingenuous, since you are putting out 50% extra heat for that equalish damage. The duration does matter.

El Bandito, on 10 May 2017 - 07:09 PM, said:

Also this. IS needs a meta ECM totting Heavy mech.

Yes. Yes it does. Shame people vote for terribad mechs in polls about what they would like.

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

I don't really get why people are bringing up specific IS variants as evidence of balance. It's really out of touch.

99% of actual real players aren't running variants at the tippy top of the meta. They don't read through patch notes line by line and theorycraft out the meta and they probably just pick mechs for subjective reasons. They're not optimizing their play, they're running bad to mediocre builds that are done far better on Clan mechs. They certainly aren't capable of taking advantage of the entire optimal range of ERLLs.

A casual player that buys any variant of Timberwolf because its his favewit wittle mech can adapt that mech as they grow as a player. Even if you want to pretend omnimechs are a net disadvantage because of locked equipment/engine, that player can easily adapt to both blanket and targeted nerfs by just switching out omnipods and refining their build based upon their own personal experience. Someone that buys an Orion or Archer or Victor is essentially buying a dud chassis that'll only ever have good variants by the will of the quirk gods.

While people are fixating on the XL imbalance, which does exist, I think the bigger quality of life improvement for average IS players would be to rebuild some of the underperforming chassis to just have more hardpoints, rather than building around perks. That way at least once a new player begins to see the error of their ways they can build their mech into something not-completely-terrible rather than simply be saddled with a deadweight mech.

Edited by vnlk65n, 11 May 2017 - 08:10 AM.

[Andi Nagasia]

personally i dont think OmniMechs are a source of imbalance,
as battlemechs have many more advantages then OmniMechs,

Example
make any Stock OmniMech a BattleMech Add +1 / +2 hard points as per hard point inflation,
and you will find that your new battle mech will be better than your old OmniMech,


personally i feel the only real imbalance with IS / Clan is the XL engine,
i would like to see IS-XLs survive ST loss, but become Immobile to start,
Test and see what happens, id love to see the results,

[Widowmaker1981]

Andi Nagasia, on 11 May 2017 - 08:08 AM, said:

personally i feel the only real imbalance with IS / Clan is the XL engine,
i would like to see IS-XLs survive ST loss, but become Immobile to start,
Test and see what happens, id love to see the results,

I think the twice as good endo and 3.5 times as good ferro is a bigger factor than the XL, personally. It allows stronger initial builds, which matter more than being able to survive an ST loss a lot of the time.

The XL is a big factor though, especially psychologically, and yes the IS XL should be changed to survive ST loss. Immobility is too harsh as well, might as well be dead. I think identical penalties to the C-XL would be fine, especially since it is bigger anyway, and the cooling loss would hurt IS mechs more (due to bigger DHS they rely more heavily on engine mounted sinks)

[Zergling]

Widowmaker1981, on 11 May 2017 - 07:58 AM, said:

Yes. Yes it does. Shame people vote for terribad mechs in polls about what they would like.

Best chance for that is probably the Anvil, Dragon Fire and Thanatos.

Alternatively, they could add some of the TT variants of existing IS heavies that have ECM; the Thunderbolt has a heap, like the TDR-9NAIS

Quote

TDR-9NAIS Using some of the newest technology available in the Federated Suns, the 9NAIS was built in 3067 by NAIS on an Endo Steel structure and utilizes an XL Engine for power, giving it a ground speed of 86.4 kph. The 'Mech is armored with twelve tons of armor for protection and has an entirely updated weapons payload. The primary weapon is a Rotary Autocannon/5 which can fire at six times the normal rate of fire. Supporting it are three ER medium lasers and a Streak SRM-6. The lasers and rotary autocannon are linked to an advanced Targeting Computer. Finally, for added protection against enemy electronics, the 'Mech has a Guardian ECM suite. BV (1.0) = 1,637. BV (2.0) = 1,864^[21]

The Marauder has a few too... and the Grasshopper has one:

Quote

GHR-7K An upgrade of the 6K introduced in 3068, the 7K replaces the weapons with an eye toward making the Grasshopper independent of supply concerns common during the Jihad. Two arm-mounted Light PPCs provide long-range firepower, while short-range firepower is provided by twin torso-mounted Snub-Nose PPCs. A head-mounted ER Medium Laser takes the place of one of the 6K's heat sinks, while the addition of a Guardian ECM Suite and C3 slave unit makes this Grasshopper a difficult-to-detect guerrilla fighter.^[8] BV (1.0) = ??, BV (2.0) = 1,806^[13]

Rifleman:

Quote

RFL-7M A "Project Phoenix" model built by Vicore Industries and introduced in 3066, the 7M was intended to act as a long-range sniper unit. It was armed with two Light Gauss Rifles, six ER Medium Lasers, a Small Laser, and a Guardian ECM Suite. Both the Blakists and the Free Worlds League used this Rifleman to provide protection to their command units.^[10][29] BV (1.0) = 1,166,^[30] BV (2.0) = 1,521^[31]

Sadly, the Black Knight only has ECM variants in the Dark Age era, the only Jagermechs with ECM are one the weird 70 tonner variants and the Warhammer doesn't have any.

Edited by Zergling, 11 May 2017 - 08:19 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Zergling, on 11 May 2017 - 08:15 AM, said:

Best chance for that is probably the Anvil, Dragon Fire and Thanatos.

Alternatively, they could add some of the TT variants of existing IS heavies that have ECM; the Thunderbolt has a heap, like the TDR-9NAIS


The Marauder has a few too... and the Grasshopper has one:

Anvil and Dragonfire both look like good shouts.. but my favourite option is the http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Dragoon - i dont care that its supposedly extinct, make up something about a factory being found on a deserted moon.

[Zergling]

Widowmaker1981, on 11 May 2017 - 08:19 AM, said:

Anvil and Dragonfire both look like good shouts.. but my favourite option is the http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Dragoon - i dont care that its supposedly extinct, make up something about a factory being found on a deserted moon.

Yeah, the Dragoon looks great. Hell, PGI could just make a 'historical event' about the Amaris War to introduce it if they wanted.

[Kin3ticX]

Clans also make it easier to build dropdecks for CW.

Often if you have 3 IS variants of the same mech only 1 of them is considered any good if that. (so you need dupes, and no everyone is willing to get dupes)

[Mechi Messer]

I'am one of those players who think that clans have a little edge on IS. I'm with Ash on this topic (XL is a problem). Nevertheless most Clan=OP chatter during this FW event pees me off. Nobody with a LRM- or mixed ISbuild has the right to complain. Play these if you like but don't cry when you are eaten alive by the clans. Against twelve lpl-battlemasters the clans would break more than one sweat. Against the ragtag bunch of scrapmetal I'm stuck with while pugging they don't. A trained monkey can shoot some of my IS-comrades in their poo-builds.