45 replies to this topic

[Ced Riggs]

Hey there,

What can I do to increase the survival rate of my Kodiak(-1)?



As front loading armor and maxing out the survival tree isn't the solution, giving me a paltry +11 / +7 armor and some minor structure, isn't the way, I was wondering what else I am supposed to do with an assault that cannot twist away fast enough, cannot poke fast enough, and has hitboxes the size of barn doors. Investing in mobility does nothing, either, as it's percentage-based.

Any hints are welcome. Including by developers.

[ScrapIron Prime]

It's not that the kodiak isn't tough, it's that it isn't nimble. Maxxing out mobility tree gets you more survivability in that particular mech than does the survival tree. IMO of course.

But of course the big thing is battlefield awareness. Step out at the wrong time or stand in the wrong place, and you'll get stripped quickly regardless of what mech you're piloting. This is particularly unforgiving for a cumbersome fellow such as the Kodiak.

[Ced Riggs]

Okay, so, investing in the mobility tree, I could get, say, +17.5% torso twist speed, or +24.5% accel/decel rate.
That translates to...

• Less than 15°/s turn rate.
• Less than 2.2kph/s acceleration.
• Less than 2.9 kph/s deceleration.

Whoop-de-doo. There's only one problem with these amazing, base-line dependant, improvements:



It's nothing. The Kodiak doesn't have the armor matching the massive hitboxes, gets center-cored if used as a push anchor, and has very limited options to mitigate that damage which is all drawn to the CT. Do you want to talk about the Spirit Bear and MASC, while we're at it?

[Ahh Screw it - WATCH THIS]

Sorry dude,

The Kodiak was hunted to extinction by people with nerf bats.

[PhoenixFire55]

I would start with upgrading the engine to 400XL ... The difference between 31 DHS and 27 DHS is negligible, and you don't need 80 leg armor on a giant non-jumping mech. Obviously if you aim for survival then the "agility" tree is your priority, although I'm more of a "when you kill baddies faster you live longer" kinda guy and would rather invest into weapons tree than structure/armor one. KDK is too big and too slow in all aspects to brawl effectively, you need to soften your opponents at range.

[Ced Riggs]

PhoenixFire55, on 27 June 2017 - 07:31 AM, said:

Obviously if you aim for survival then the "agility" tree is your priority

While I agree with the general sentiment, again, the mobility tree does nothing. Ironically enough, it's just like the survival tree in that regard.

You like to point out that people have agendas when they post topics. My agenda is the pitiful state of the Kodiak.

[PhoenixFire55]

Ced Riggs, on 27 June 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

While I agree with the general sentiment, again, the mobility tree does nothing. Ironically enough, it's just like the survival tree in that regard.

The slower your mech is the more of the impact the mobility tree has. Speed tweak, torso and anchor turning speeds are essential. You can totally ignore it on a light and still be fine, but that just doesn't work with assaults.

Ced Riggs, on 27 June 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

You like to point out that people have agendas when they post topics. My agenda is the pitiful state of the Kodiak.

You reap what you saw. And even tho it wasn't necessarily you in particular, but we as part of the community are enjoying the results of bads whining how big bad Kodiak they stared at for 10 seconds wrecked their faces. It is especially hilarious tho how non-KDK-3 variants got shafted the exact same way ...

But hey, PGI is gonna PGI. I guess if we whine louder now than they did back there ...

[Skanderborg]

All 100 ton mechs are in a very bad place.

[Ced Riggs]

PhoenixFire55, on 27 June 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

The slower your mech is the more of the impact the mobility tree has. Speed tweak, torso and anchor turning speeds are essential. You can totally ignore it on a light and still be fine, but that just doesn't work with assaults.

But that's the irony.

Armor/Structure is percentage based. Light mechs, with few armor, get better ratios out of those nodes. Mobility, though, is hard-capped. There is no adaptive increase. I don't get mobility out of a node when I am Assault, I get the same as a Light. Only the Light has over 20 times the base line mobility. So, for the exact same investment, that Light gets so much more pay out.

Let's do some math here.

Commando-1D, max engine rating, 240. Top speed: 155.5kph. Full speed tweak (7.5%): 167.xx kph. Gain: ~12kph.
Kodiak-1, max engine rating 400, Top speed: 64.8kph. Full speed tweak (7.5%): 69.9kph. Gain: ~5kph.

Eh, whatever - 12kph, 5kph, not much of an issue, right? Surely this value is an outlier, Speed Tweak was never all that great on Assaults after all. Let's look at another stat. Maybe torso speed. Assaults could really use some boosts there, so what if you went ham on twist speeds?

Commando-1D, base turning: 110.58 °/s. 5 Torso nodes (17,5%): 129,9°/s. Gain: ~19°/s.
Kodiak, base turning: 58.5 °/s. 5 Torso nodes (17,5%): 68,7°/s. Gain: ~10.2°/s.

Reminder that a circle has 360°. 10°/s is nothing. Seems like the Kodiak is getting half of what the Commando is gaining. And the Commando doesn't need it, too. The Kodiak does, though. But what about Accel/Decel? Would help poking and/or getting into cover if the ponderous Assaults could at least get in cover quicker with Skilltree investments.

Commando-1D, base accel: 80kph/s. Some nodes (24.5%): 10,6kph/s. 99.6kph/s. Gain: 19.6 kph/s.
Kodiak, base accel: 8.5kph/s. Some nodes (24.5%): 10,6kph/s. Gain: 2.1kph/s. That's a joke.

Well crap. The class that needs mobility increases the most gets the least, while the class that needs armor increase the most (lights) gets the most out of their nodes. So, how are lights not OP? Bcause they are still squishy lights. Does that mean Assaults are fine? Far from it. They are just double and triple shafted. Especially the 100t ones. Engine desync made them too pondersome to mitigate their large hitboxes, and the skill tree gives them neither survivability, nor agility. You can butter 60 points into those trees and your payout will remain negliable.

And that sucks a fat one.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Ced Riggs, on 27 June 2017 - 07:10 AM, said:

Okay, so, investing in the mobility tree, I could get, say, +17.5% torso twist speed, or +24.5% accel/decel rate.
That translates to...

• Less than 15°/s turn rate.
  
• Less than 2.2kph/s acceleration.
  
• Less than 2.9 kph/s deceleration.

Whoop-de-doo. There's only one problem with these amazing, base-line dependant, improvements:




It's nothing. The Kodiak doesn't have the armor matching the massive hitboxes, gets center-cored if used as a push anchor, and has very limited options to mitigate that damage which is all drawn to the CT. Do you want to talk about the Spirit Bear and MASC, while we're at it?

Yeah the Kodiak is, well I wouldn't call it DOA but I would call it Average at best now if your using the KDK-3 and a Dakka Heavy build. Any other build or variant and you just have another below average 100 ton Assault mech. This is of course because they balanced the entire line around the KDK-3 with a full Dakka Build and as long as that build is average, who cares about the rest right?

The honest truth is that it never had good hit boxes, ever however it used to be able to compensate for the poor hit boxes by being fast and nimble enough to use cover and terrain effectively for peak and poke or to relocate easily if needed. The other non-KDK-3 builds were pretty balanced pre-enging desync because of this, now though they are worthless. In fact I am thinking about selling all my KDKs because I can honestly say, I will never play them again with their current mobility stats.

Of course this goes for all my 100 tonner to be honest. Already sold off some of my Direwolve variants in fact.

[PhoenixFire55]

Ced Riggs, on 27 June 2017 - 08:16 AM, said:

Armor/Structure is percentage based. Light mechs, with few armor, get better ratios out of those nodes. Mobility, though, is hard-capped. There is no adaptive increase. I don't get mobility out of a node when I am Assault, I get the same as a Light. Only the Light has over 20 times the base line mobility. So, for the exact same investment, that Light gets so much more pay out.

Math stuff.

Ugh ... it is not about how much relative % improvement you get from the nodes, it is about whether you actually need those improvements. Lights have enough mobility as is, so purchasing most of those mobility nodes are a waste. Assaults won't have enough mobility even with a maxed out mobility tree, but it means exactly that they need the nodes from that tree the most.

Same goes for nearly all things, take ERPPC for example, it has the longest range, thus the relative increase in max range is also the biggest for ERPPC compared to other weapons. But tell me honestly, do you really need more than that 810m/1620m range to begin with? ... How often do you get to shoot stuff at >~1km compared to how often you shoot stuff at ~500m?

[Ced Riggs]

PhoenixFire55, on 27 June 2017 - 08:26 AM, said:

Ugh ... it is not about how much relative % improvement you get from the nodes, it is about whether you actually need those improvements.

But that's my point. Assaults would need higher percentages, and lights less. Just like Lights get more armor/structure, and Assaults get less. If the fatties would get more out of those nodes, the entire engien desync clusterfraggle would be less severe.

[PhoenixFire55]

Ced Riggs, on 27 June 2017 - 08:32 AM, said:

But that's my point. Assaults would need higher percentages, and lights less. Just like Lights get more armor/structure, and Assaults get less. If the fatties would get more out of those nodes, the entire engien desync clusterfraggle would be less severe.

They don't need higher %. They don't need any % to begin with, since all this skill sh!t system is here just to generate revenues and not actually balance anything. Arbitrary measures only serve one purpose ... the purpose of benefiting the arbiter. And since all those %'s are arbitrary, they are nothing but an abomination that should be gone. Exact same with engine desync.

[Magnus Santini]

It is the balance-intended difficulty of playing the big battleship. But 100-tonners don't need it more. How fast does a glacier need to turn to keep a mountain range it is passing on the left targeted? Now how about a dive bomber flying past the battleship at full speed?

[UnofficialOperator]

Just abandon the assaults and play the other tonnages. There really is no need/role left for assaults.

[Ced Riggs]

Magnus Santini, on 27 June 2017 - 08:56 AM, said:

It is the balance-intended difficulty of playing the big battleship.

If the battleship had the firepower to sink a cruiser at knife range, you would have a point.
If the battleship could not be pen'ed and citadel'ed by destroyers main batteries, you had a point.
If the battleship could withstand the fire of several other, lighter ships, you had a point.

It doesn't, it can't and it can't.

UnofficialOperator, on 27 June 2017 - 09:00 AM, said:

Just abandon the assaults and play the other tonnages. There really is no need/role left for assaults.

That cannot be, should not be in PGI's interest. I barely play the teddy anymore, just like I abandoned several other mechs that are plain too sluggish to enjoy. But when I pointed out the loss of fun in a different topic, I was quickly reminded that "fun" is subjective, and being able to control my mech and actually interact with the game is a luxury I don't deserve, nor should enjoy. :^)

[ScrapIron Prime]

You've identified the issue as agility. There are skill tree points to address agility. But you're saying that the numbers look small-to-insignificant to you so you don't want to try them.

They help, they really do. Does it bring back the mech's former glory? No. The Kodiak has been surpassed by the Marauder IIc and the Night Gyr. The Kodiak is the new Victor.

So either sell it or put points on the mobility tree.

[Ced Riggs]

ScrapIron Prime, on 27 June 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

But you're saying that the numbers look small-to-insignificant to you so you don't want to try them.

Assumption. I tried them. I tried them on many assaults. A german idom come to mind: "A drop of water on a hot stone." - the effect is next to nothing, even at extreme investment, and the result is negliable. Insisting that's different and a huge difference is simply dishonest.

[Grus]

My kdk-3 lasts a long time on the battlefield. When they get hit with quad gauss, people tend to not want to get hit with them again.

[LORD ORION]

Your biggest problem is
You are not in a KDK3

Good luck.