36 replies to this topic

[TheArisen]

How about it?

Maybe not more weight savings to avoid breaking lore builds but maybe more durability or something. Something to make it a choice between endo & FF and LFF might need a little help to.

[SirNotlag]

Oh how i wished ferro could get a buff but alas i don't think it will every happen due to the Lore purists and PGI not wanting to do additional work and recode it in anyway.

[Khobai]

buffing standard structure is what we really need

because if you encourage people to use standard structure instead of endo structure theres automatically a reason to use ferro since you cant use endo

[El Bandito]

Khobai, on 01 July 2017 - 04:37 PM, said:

buffing standard structure is what we really need

because if you encourage people to use standard structure instead of endo structure theres automatically a reason to use ferro since you cant use endo

Never gonna happen. PGI needs its C-Bill taxes. Just make it so that Clan ferro saves 20% armor weight and gives 10% armor across sections, while IS ferro saves 12% armor weight and gives 24% armor across sections. Now there is a reason to choose Ferro over Endo, and IS ferro is no longer strictly inferior than Clan ferro, with its stupid 14 slots.

[Spheroid]

Id rather not. FF is cheap lost tech and if this game or its successor ever implements logistics or supply chains I would rather keep its tabletop stats as it factors into a functioning CW.

Why not just ask for hardened armor?

[Mcgral18]

Spheroid, on 01 July 2017 - 04:49 PM, said:

Why not just ask for hardened armor?

Because that doesn't make isFF a reasonable choice

[MischiefSC]

Light FF on an Atlas -

7 slots to save.... 1 ton.

LOL.

It's about worthless. A fraction of a ton for 7 slots. Clan tech is a couple of tons for 7 slots. It's silly to even have it there.

[Alcom Isst]

Armor typing is a mechanic that allows for trading between slots and tonnage to widen the possibility of mech builds. For a build, there will be an optimal choice of armor type, and all three will see use, unlike standard heatsinks.

It's working perfectly. I don't understand what a buff is all about.

Edited by Alcom Isst, 01 July 2017 - 06:22 PM.

[FupDup]

Alcom Isst, on 01 July 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

Armor typing is a mechanic that allows for trading between slots and tonnage to widen the possibility of mech builds. For a build, there will be an optimal choice of armor type, and all three will see use, unlike standard heatsinks.

It's working perfectly. I don't understand what a buff is all about.

It's mostly because Ferro-Fibrous and Endo-Steel perform the exact same function of giving you additional free tonnage, but Endo gives you more tons for the same slot cost.

[Alcom Isst]

FupDup, on 01 July 2017 - 06:23 PM, said:

It's mostly because Ferro-Fibrous and Endo-Steel perform the exact same function of giving you additional free tonnage, but Endo gives you more tons for the same slot cost.

In MechWarrior Online it's an addition to Endo-Steel but with diminishing returns, and sees and will continue to see use in most light builds and some medium builds. It's great.

It just so happens that some stock builds have but no Endo... which is a bit of a c-bill sink but not as much as them standard heat sinks.

Edited by Alcom Isst, 01 July 2017 - 06:36 PM.

[TheArisen]

Alcom Isst, on 01 July 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

Armor typing is a mechanic that allows for trading between slots and tonnage to widen the possibility of mech builds. For a build, there will be an optimal choice of armor type, and all three will see use, unlike standard heatsinks.

It's working perfectly. I don't understand what a buff is all about.

There's also the tidbit where clan ferro saves more weight and takes less slots.

The only reason lights take it is because they're that desperate for tonnage

[Brain Cancer]

It's supposed to be diminishing returns for trading out critspace- Endo, then FFA, They are explicitly designed to be unequal.

[TheArisen]

Brain Cancer, on 01 July 2017 - 07:06 PM, said:

It's supposed to be diminishing returns for trading out critspace- Endo, then FFA, They are explicitly designed to be unequal.

Well if we think outside the box there's an opportunity to increase the number of build options because when something is straight up inferior it gets sidelined except for the desperate.

[Brain Cancer]

TheArisen, on 01 July 2017 - 07:48 PM, said:

Well if we think outside the box there's an opportunity to increase the number of build options because when something is straight up inferior it gets sidelined except for the desperate.

No, it's made that way for a reason, so you -don't- get to stack them for maximum benefit.

You get endosteel. You get the most out of 14 crits that way, and that can include upping your armor.

If you get FFA, you're taking a less flexible option that's designed to go on top of ES (or, as in TT, it's an option that vehicles can take but they can't take endosteel). It's a pyramid of upgrades, with Endo being the base and ferro being stacked on top of it. If they're equivalent, it'd have to be a massive boost to FFA, and in the process you'd have things like Clan FF or heavy FFA becoming actually superior choices, leaving you right back where you started only with FFA being the first choice and Endo being the second.

There is no "outside the box" here.

[Alexander of Macedon]

The problem is that IS FF is garbage. If you take it on anything that isn't a low-hardpoint light you're gimping your 'mech for effectively no return. Stealth Armor is going to see use primarily because IS FF is so useless that basically nothing will be worse for not using it. LFF is in the exact same boat: you're saving an IS MG worth of tonnage in exchange for a Gauss Rifle worth of crit slots. The only reason IS FF ever gets used is because there are a decent helping of lighter IS 'mechs which can only feasibly fit 4-8 crit slots worth of weapons and equipment to begin with.

[Khobai]

Quote

No, it's made that way for a reason, so you -don't- get to stack them for maximum benefit.

which is why buffing standard structure makes so much sense

because if you take standard structure, you cant take endo, which means ferro is now your goto option for saving weight

so buffing standard structure is what PGI needs to do.

Quote

The problem is that IS FF is garbage.

no the problem is standard structure is garbage.

if standard structure was worth using instead of endo, then ferro would get used. because when endo cant be used ferro becomes your only other option to save weight.

Edited by Khobai, 01 July 2017 - 08:21 PM.

[FupDup]

Brain Cancer, on 01 July 2017 - 08:01 PM, said:

No, it's made that way for a reason, so you -don't- get to stack them for maximum benefit.

This argument is pretty backwards from the current situation...Using Ferro stacked with Endo is literally the ONLY way to get benefits from Ferro. That's the situation required for FF to actually be a benefit.

Brain Cancer, on 01 July 2017 - 08:01 PM, said:

It's a pyramid of upgrades, with Endo being the base and ferro being stacked on top of it.

Bro, up above you just said that we're not supposed to stack them for maximum benefit...

Brain Cancer, on 01 July 2017 - 08:01 PM, said:

If they're equivalent, it'd have to be a massive boost to FFA, and in the process you'd have things like Clan FF or heavy FFA becoming actually superior choices, leaving you right back where you started only with FFA being the first choice and Endo being the second.

Clan FF can either be ignored or given a much, much tinier buff because it's both lighter and smaller than IS FF.

Or, go with the other idea some people have of just buffing STD Structure which kinda sorta indirectly buffs FF without having to worry about this stuff. I'd favor this approach over a direct FF buff.

Edited by FupDup, 01 July 2017 - 08:28 PM.

[Pjwned]

Spheroid, on 01 July 2017 - 04:49 PM, said:

Id rather not. FF is cheap lost tech and if this game or its successor ever implements logistics or supply chains I would rather keep its tabletop stats as it factors into a functioning CW.

Some mythical possibility like that is not a valid excuse.

[Brain Cancer]

FupDup, on 01 July 2017 - 08:27 PM, said:

This argument is pretty backwards from the current situation...Using Ferro stacked with Endo is literally the ONLY way to get benefits from Ferro. That's the situation required for FF to actually be a benefit.


Bro, up above you just said that we're not supposed to stack them for maximum benefit...

Right. You want to trade crit spaces for tonnage, you get Endo first and lose 14 crit spaces. Then, if you get FFA, you get the benefit of endo+ferro in terms of saved tonnage, but you get less for the second 14 spaces than you did for the first 14- but you can still get some savings for the extra space spent. What you can't do is get the same benefit doubled for blowing 28 spaces that you did for 14.

Consider that if you wanted to make FFA equal to endosteel, it'd have to give you extra points of armor on an Atlas (that's 19 tons of standard armor, and FFA would have to save 5 tons vs. standard to match up with endosteel). Right now, IS FFA (1.12) saves you about two tons at this point. Clan FFA (1.2) saves about 3. You'd have to bump FFA to about a 1.375 multiplier to match Endo's weight savings.

Plus, of course the extra weight savings means that it'd go straight into making your robot more offensively potent (since we tend to maximize armor anyway), meaning being able to stack the two as equals would end up reducing TTK in the process.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 02 July 2017 - 12:33 AM.

[AncientRaig]

Brain Cancer, on 01 July 2017 - 08:49 PM, said:

Right. You want to trade crit spaces for tonnage, you get Endo first and lose 14 crit spaces. Then, if you get FFA, you get the benefit of endo+ferro in terms of saved tonnage, but you get less for the second 14 spaces than you did for the first 14- but you can still get some savings for the extra space spent. What you can't do is get the same benefit doubled for blowing 28 spaces that you did for 14.

Consider that if you wanted to make FFA equal to endosteel, it'd have to give you an extra 80 points of armor on an Atlas (that's 19 tons of standard armor, and FFA would have to save 5 tons vs. standard to match up with endosteel). Right now, IS FFA (1.12) saves you about two tons at this point. Clan FFA (1.2) saves about 3. You'd have to bump FFA to about a 1.375 multiplier to match Endo's weight savings.

Plus, of course the extra weight savings means that it'd go straight into making your robot more offensively potent (since we tend to maximize armor anyway), meaning being able to stack the two as equals would end up reducing TTK in the process.

But there's literally no reason to take Ferro on ~90% of the IS mechs. I think I have maybe, MAYBE, 5 IS mechs out of a stable of 100 or so that run Ferro, and they're all low hardpoint count mechs like the Hunchback 4G. Most mechs can fit one or the other without gimping themselves, and equipping Ferro to save, what a ton if you're lucky? maybe a ton and a half? just isn't worth it. Meanwhile, Clanners can run both for the same price as the IS can run one, and combined with all of their equipment being smaller there's literally no reason for them NOT to run both if they can. Every single one of my Clan Battlemechs runs ferro and endo, because 14 slots total is hardly a loss. Combine THAT with survivable XLs that allow you to even further lighten your mech, and it's insane how much weight you can save. LFFA and LFEs are nice, but they're not even close to being Clan tech levels of nice.