55 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

Inner Sphere Light Fusion Engines take the same number of slots as clan XL engines, they move just as fast, they contain just as many heatsinks, and they suffer the same side-torso-loss penalties.

HOWEVER

The Inner Sphere Light Fusion Engines weigh more than Clan XL engines.

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Inner Sphere XL Engines weigh the same as Clan XL engines, they move just as fast, they contain just as many heatsinks.


HOWEVER

The Inner Sphere XL engine takes up more slots and you die instantly with the loss of a side torso.

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This is why we have big ol' IS Armor/Structure Quirks.

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Who wants quirks like this? Who would rather have Inner Sphere XL engines suffer the same Side Torso loss penalty as Clan XL engines, and have Inner SPhere LFE's suffer no side torso loss penalty in exchange for reduced quirks?

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What do you want more? Balanced Tech, or Quirks?

[Tarl Cabot]

/peeks around the corner...

[Nightbird]

Quirks, since the only choices on the table are 1) quirks or 2) no quirks.

[Khobai]

I want engine critical hits.

CXL, LFE, and ISXL would all be able to survive 3 critical hits so even ISXL could survive a side torso blowout. however the ISXL would be slightly worse than CXL and LFE because it has 3 crits per side torso instead of only 2.

So basically the ISXL could survive a side torso destruction +1 additional crit slot destruction while the CXL and LFE could both survive a side torso destruction and +2 addition crit slot destructions.

Also the CXL should have less health per crit slot compared to the LFE, because the LFE weighs more, and should be more durable.

each crit slot destruction would have a cumulative -10% speed and -20% heat penalty which could stack upto 3 times because on the 4th time youd be dead.

And STD engines would be immune to crits. Which would be a pretty huge advantage.

Pretty simple engine crit system... but it balances all the engines where they need to be.

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 09:04 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Khobai, on 15 July 2017 - 08:52 PM, said:

I want engine critical hits.

CXL, LFE, and ISXL would all be able to survive 4 critical hits

So, Clan XL engines surviving the loss of both side torsos?

*insert reply here*

[Khobai]

Quote

So, Clan XL engines surviving the loss of both side torsos?

no because they have 2 crit slots in each side torso

2+2 = 4 so it would be destroyed

so the CXL could be destroyed by destroying both side torsos, destroying one side torso and destroying two crit slots in either the CT or other side torso, or by destroying the whole CT. Any of those would get you the required 4 destroyed crit slots required to destroy the engine.

LFE would be identical to the CXL except it would get more health per crit slot because it weighs more than the CXL and as such should have more durability.

And the ISXL would also be the same, except it has 3 crit slots per side torso instead of 2, so it would immediately take 3 crit slot destructions as soon as it lost a side torso. Making it less durable than the ISXL or LFE but still able to survive a single side torso destruction *barely*. one more crit anywhere would destroy the ISXL though.

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 09:01 PM.

[Mcgral18]

I'd like baseline equipment balance


Quirks will be required, but quirks shouldn't be needed to keep a handful of mechs from the entire faction viable
That should be done with equipment, and quirks helping the forever Terribad robots.


Not Quirks being REQUIRED for comp viability.

[Kaptain]

Khobai, on 15 July 2017 - 08:56 PM, said:

no because they have 2 crit slots in each side torso
2+2 = 4 so it would be destroyed

You just said

Khobai, on 15 July 2017 - 08:52 PM, said:

I want engine critical hits.
CXL, LFE, and ISXL would all be able to survive 4 critical hits

PP even quoted you when he/she asked for clarification.

Edited by Kaptain, 15 July 2017 - 09:02 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I want engine critical hits.
CXL, LFE, and ISXL would all be able to survive 4 critical hits

yeah I meant survive upto 3 critical hits, the 4th critical hit would be engine destruction

I clarified exactly what I meant in the following post.


ISXL would barely survive a side torso destruction (-3 crits) with 1 crit left

CXL/LFE would survive a side torso destruction (-2 crits) with 2 crits left

STD wouldnt suffer engine crits at all, so it would be totally immune to degraded performance penalties


But if the engine crit thing worked out they could also add critical hits for other systems like arm actuators and leg actuators, gyro, sensors, life support, etc...

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 09:08 PM.

[Pur]

I don't understand why people think every mech should be viable.

We're talking about a fundamentally imbalanced IP that explicitly states some of these mechs are **** based on lore reasons.

[Fleeb the Mad]

I choose...quirks.

If you're going to go through the effort of making the things so similar that they're the same, I'd rather we just pushed one tech base off a cliff and party like it's 3039.

But since we're not going to do that, I'd rather personally that the IS and clans had a meaningfully different dynamic, strengths and weaknesses. The only one that makes sense is that everything the Inner Sphere builds is ragnarok-proof. Battlemechs, modest domestic buildings and automobiles that will survive to the heat death of the universe.

Just make the IS gear much more durable in light of its bulkiness and extra tonnage. Let the IS side be the relentless, grinding attrition machine that it was always meant to be. The Clans can keep their high speed low drag philosophy and everybody wins.

[Zergling]

I'd only go for an engine crits system if it were non-random.

[El Bandito]

Prosperity Park, on 15 July 2017 - 08:44 PM, said:

What do you want more? Balanced Tech, or Quirks?

BALANCED TECH, no doubt. Quirks are fickle and much more easily changed than tech--and PGI can easily exploit that financially by juggling quirks. Quirks are also detrimental to real tech balance. I want top IS mechs to be able to compete against top Clan mechs, without any quirks. Give tons of quirks to the underperformers on both sides, instead. Miniscule quirks can also be used to differentiate between chassis, for both sides.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 July 2017 - 09:24 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I'd only go for an engine crits system if it were non-random.

Well even with the RNG its a straight up buff for the ISXL because it can survive losing a side torso.

And the STD engine would be unaffected by RNG because it would be immune to crits.

Only the CXL and LFE would be subjected to RNG. I think thats fine. Those engines should be the ones with the biggest elements of risk associated with them.

Im not sure how much health engine crit slots should have. 20 maybe? but it would be enough that getting your engine critted wouldnt be that common.

90%-95% of the time youre still going to die in the usual ways. Engine crits might kill you 5%-10% of the time.

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 09:25 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Zergling, on 15 July 2017 - 09:10 PM, said:

I'd only go for an engine crits system if it were non-random.

Crits are, by their nature random.

The real reason Clan XL are so good is because actual crits to most parts of a 'Mech have zero effect whatsoever. If I burn into your delicate internals, crits shouldn't be destroying structure faster, they should be actually having immediate Bad Times for the target.

Engine damage should gradually reduce movement and add heat, rather than being a penalty for side torso loss. Enough damage, regardless of destroying a section should kill- which would mean even a bit of luck could engine kill a target without coring out a single section, Clan or IS.

Ditto gyros, which should immobilize the target. Actuators should make it tougher to adjust the arm crosshair or reduce mobility if someone gimps your lower leg actuator.

When ripping open someone's torso has more kill conditions than coring them does now, the Clan XL becomes less of an advantage- especially since CT's will be more than "turn this robot into a donut to win". "Destroy both side torsos" is a lot rougher than "damage two side torsos". And get rid of extra structure damage for crits with it.

[Wintersdark]

Engine critical hits would be a nerf, even for IS, Khobai.

That isn't how our crit system works, but if it was?

Because if you let engines die on crits, then that guy who gets a through-armor triple crit on your CT (that only took 0.5 structure damage) puts you one engine crit anywhere away from death. Of course, this is MWO, and the crit system doesn't work like that. Instead, engines just have health.

All that can happen then is engine health 0 = death, and ST loss doing HP damage... But this too is fraught with massive TTK reducing peril. LBX autocannons would suddenly be awesome though, so there's that.

[Mechwarrior4670152]

As I have yet to see anyone provide a functional way to actually balance the base tech....
By which I mean that the closest I have seen is to make the IS XL engine a weaker CXL knockoff (same penalties, but the IS XL is still bulkier) or remove any and all differences between the tech.

Then your options as presented are actually

• Unbalanced Game
  
• Quirks

...You would have to be rather stupid or outright trolling to not take the second one.

[Khobai]

Quote

Crits are, by their nature random.

Well also crits in MWO tend to average out more than in tabletop due to items having crit health.

Becuase of crit health, crits in MWO are way less spiky then they are in tabletop. I personally think engine crits would be fine in MWO for that reason.

Quote

Engine critical hits would be a nerf, even for IS, Khobai.

Nope it would be a straight buff for ISXL, because surviving a side torso is way better than not surviving a side torso. The chance of an ISXL getting destroyed by crits before losing a side torso is probably pretty close to zero. Youd pretty much have to evenly sandblast all the torso sections open with LBX and machine guns and get some pretty lucky crits. But why shouldnt those weapons be good at killing exposed engines? they need to be good at something.

Quote

Because if you let engines die on crits, then that guy who gets a through-armor triple crit on your CT

There are no through armor crits in MWO.

And like I said crits arnt as spiky in MWO because of crit health. Crits tend to average out in far more predictable way. So its not like youre gonna get hit with a gauss rifle, have it roll a triple crit, and immediately die. Actually didnt they remove the ability for gauss to get triple crits anyway? So thats probably a bad example. But even an AC20 or another weapon that can get triple crits wouldnt be able to kill you in one shot.

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 09:41 PM.

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 15 July 2017 - 09:29 PM, said:

Engine critical hits would be a nerf, even for IS, Khobai.

That isn't how our crit system works, but if it was?

Because if you let engines die on crits, then that guy who gets a through-armor triple crit on your CT (that only took 0.5 structure damage) puts you one engine crit anywhere away from death. Of course, this is MWO, and the crit system doesn't work like that. Instead, engines just have health.

All that can happen then is engine health 0 = death, and ST loss doing HP damage... But this too is fraught with massive TTK reducing peril. LBX autocannons would suddenly be awesome though, so there's that.

Noone wants RNGesus accelerated death. By even the nature of the current system, pretty much every mech's TTK is immediately lowered... it's that all XL based mechs (Clan and IS) would die that much faster. STD engines would still die fast on random coring events, but would at least survive side torso damage (until damage transfer starts being factored in).

Edited by Deathlike, 15 July 2017 - 09:46 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Noone wants RNGesus accelerated death. By even the nature of the current system, pretty much every mech's TTK is immediately lowered... it's that all XL based mechs (Clan and IS) would die that much faster. STD engines would still die fast on random coring events, but would at least survive side torso damage (until damage transfer starts being factored in).

depends what you set the engine crit slot health at. it doesnt have to be that way.