423 replies to this topic

[Draco Harkins]

I logged in for a the first time in a long time to comment on this. While I have adored FD's work on the redesigns it's perhaps fate, that he would screw the pooch on my favorite one...

FD's redesign went with the MW4 version which is a obscenity. It is not a city fighter. Cockpit has very little 180º sight, the gun mounts are unrealistic, and the legs have very little bracing for the Thor's hammers. It would flip on the very first shot.


The older, FASA design had protruding cannon barrels, a much more vision compliant cockpit and an angled center torso with heavier legs and clamps. I was expecting something akin to this.

A damn shame Flying Debris. Was this a rush job or something?

[UrbanTarget]

I like the pic of the Hollander, looks like he's pumping his fist and sayin "Awww yeah!!!"



...a second later, i imagine him of his @$$ from the recoil...

[Ryoken]

Koniving, on 08 January 2018 - 12:37 AM, said:

And which manual is that?

Because if you mean this one...
Is it covering well into 3150, a hundred years from now?
https://store.cataly...ttlemech-manual
Because as even covered in the footnotes, mechs start to reach 16 meters tall, which they didn't surpass 14.4 meters in until after 3080.

In much the same, AC calibers can expand, but until the Dark Ages, there's no AC/2 that goes above 90mm, no AC/5 that goes above 120mm, no AC/10 that goes above 120mm, and no AC/20 that goes above 185mm in the IS and no UAC/20 that goes above 203mm in the Clans, and 150mm is explicitly 2 damage per shot, and 120mm is explicitly 1.67 damage per shot. (1) (2).

TechManual which covers into the darkages...

Page 207, though the index says it should be on page 206.

A "single shot" autocannon is known as a Rifle.
By the very definition of the word autocannon, it cannot be a single shot weapon.
Here's an autocannon at work.


Now this isn't to say that autocannons can't fire single shots. But it isn't single shots to get full damage. A specific example is the nearly extinct Tomodzuru AC/20, at 180mm this was the largest IS AC/20 mounted on a mech prior to 3100, and the deadliest AC/20 the IS ever had until 2823, the advent of the Demolisher with its 185mm cannon. It held 5 shells per cassette/reload and 5 reloads per ton in a drum of the left torso that held two tons of ammunition. It fired in single shots for accuracy, with a single shot per trigger pull, however it still took a total of 4 shots to net 20 damage and had a maximum firing rate of 1 shot per second. A single shot is described as pretty devastating, able to tear a hole through a mech in with one such example in TRO 3025 original. A thing to remember though is unlike MWO and BT Basic tabletop where you have to get through all armor to do structure damage, in lore and advanced TT you only need to land a strong enough hit to make the damage and can split-fire your AC/20 on multiple targets (which is exactly what the Hunchback 4G does in TRO 3025 original's short story for the HBK-4G).

The Tomodzuru gradually became extinct except for in the galleries of some avid collectors and museums as the projectiles were unruly and largely impractical. (There's also the fact that only the Komiyaba Type VII chassis HBK could handle them, which eventually every remaining 4G had been converted into something else. The newly designed 'Classic' 4 series using the Crucis Type V chassis HBKs were deliberately redesigned to not be able to handle anything used on the original Komiyaba Type VII, so that Kali-Yama could basically put a tourniquet on the refit kits out there and sell their own "classic" copies of refitted old 4Gs. The refit kits of old were incompatible with all Crucis Type V chassis HBKs, really screwing with the Marian Hegemony, whom turned around with a big Eff Yoo by making refit kits for the new chassis to again build profits from refit kits and stick a finger to Kali-Yama Weapons Industries for their undesired 'reimagining' of a cult classic machine.)

So if that is what you mean, then yes. But that does not mean that a single shot delivers full damage. That would be a Mech Rifle, which is based on 21st/22nd century TANK CANNONS... and not an Autocannon, which is based on Anti-Air style auto-firing weaponry. The entire reason the military stopped using Mech Rifles is frankly, a single hard hitting shot like the 190mm Heavy Rifle (which has the range of an AC/5, does 6 damage against BAR of 10, but 9 damage against structure and a BAR [Barrier Armor Rating] of 7) had numerous problems. A gas propelled projectile of that size (even saboted) lacked the penetrating power necessary to be fully effective against "modern" standard armor. With the piercing power stunted and at the right angle, outright bouncing off mechs with virtually no damage (see "The First Mech" short story, can find a copy on the Mech Factory App for Rifles in action against a Mackie), they quickly learned that large projectiles were NOT the way to go. Instead they began to focus on smaller, faster projectiles that can be fired and land in rapid succession with just enough power to wedge and stick into the armor without the intention of actually piercing it (the "AP" part of AC "HEAP" rounds) where it then goes boom (the HE part of AC HEAP rounds).

Big shells generally can't pierce and ACs are expressly bullets (and as such cannot fire sabots and you will note that is not an alternative ammo type). There is Armor Piercing but that still fails to meet the sabot mark and something about them requires twice the space and only be able to bring half the ammo.

The Chemjet Gun manages to get around this by being chemically powered by a fluid propellant, allowing it to stick in before it went boom though just as common was lobbing it over walls and obstacles and having it land from above where mechs have minimal ability to brace against it.

How the Tomodzuru managed is actually kinda beyond me, but a combination of brute force and firing rate is probably how it got by since lets be honest... Mech Rifles could only fire once every 4 to 5 seconds... but as mentioned earlier the Tomodzuru, while only managing 4 damage per shot, had a maximum firing rate of one per second and a cassette reload delay of 2 seconds, meaning it could churn two cassettes out in 10 seconds matching the firepower of a UAC/20 (actually most ACs can match UACs; issues with barrel melting, explosive jams, etc. are why you don't push them under the rapid fire autocannon rule of TacOps). The 203mm UAC/20 as mentioned in a previous post lobs 4 shells to get 40 damage from its twin barrels at a painstakingly slow rate and yes it does do 10 damage per shell, but considering it is exclusive to the Ebon Jaguar, a mech that had to be squat low to the ground and as wide as a barge to be stable enough to handle this weapon should tell you a lot. From what I understand it doesn't even fire this weapon while walking, as similar to a Gauss totting Crucis Type V chassis Hunchback 4G from TRO 3039, it needs to brace against the risk of knocking itself over when firing in Ultra mode.

What they do in 3150+...doesn't matter so much to me. Wrong time period, I mean by then there's shields and Gauss rotary cannons (HAG) and battle armor sporting autocannons. Not to mention if we do count Dark Ages as true canon, 25 meter tall 100 ton Atlases sporting a Kitchen with 3 cooks just to keep the tub of lard of a pilot happily eating KFC during combat.

Even then, name one AC caliber going anywhere above 203mm, or at the very least a single example of an AC/5 of the 185mm caliber, and I'll take your single shot AC/5 schtick.... and then point out that they don't exist in 3030 to 3052 which are the years MW5: Mercs will take place in, so in the end... the Shadowhawk's 80mm AC/5 still should not produce 5 damage per shot with a single shot AC.

Full ack on this. Autocannons by lore and rule fire bursts of shots!

It is hilarious that some people cling to this mysterious super rare Ebon Jaguar autocannon that is always used as an exception to prove the rule and instead try to tell people it is the standard. And as pointed out in the text by Koniving, even this AC/20 still fires two 10 dmg shells when triggered in non-ultra mode.

So hopefully some day PGI can rectify this in some of the old IS Autocannons that wrongly fire one single shot.

And yes some of the post TRO3052 Mech art hilariously exaggerated barrel sizes to unfunctional levels that more looked like railroad tunnels than anything that could actually propell a projectile... The Fafnir is one of the poor victims... luckyly Alex again did a very nice job and was able to mitigate the damage a bit.

Edited by Ryoken, 08 January 2018 - 08:04 AM.

[The Boneshaman]

My understanding I thought it was it's what you imagined it to be. Some books depicted the hunchback and hetzer AC 20 firing a stream of 120 mm depleted uranium rounds.

[Gas Guzzler]

Arkhangel, on 07 January 2018 - 01:51 PM, said:

true, it's just the Blood Asp really is the mech better known for originally fielding them (not to mention being incredibly popular as one of the biggest powerhouse Clan Assaults, which makes it the perfect counterpoint to the Fafnir here).

Yeah wouldn't be surprised if the Blood Asp is the next Clan release. We might see an IS light before that though.

[xVLFBERHxT]

Koniving, on 08 January 2018 - 12:37 AM, said:

And which manual is that?

What they do in 3150+...doesn't matter so much to me. Wrong time period, I mean by then there's shields and Gauss rotary cannons (HAG) and battle armor sporting autocannons. Not to mention if we do count Dark Ages as true canon, 25 meter tall 100 ton Atlases sporting a Kitchen with 3 cooks just to keep the tub of lard of a pilot happily eating KFC during combat.

Do not be that hard with the Dark Age period . I enjoyed the setting and the books a lot (but tbh the mech minis were often strange) .

[Grayson Sortek]

Hey Matt and PGI, I have only one request of you:

Please start posting the quirks and in-game models before the timer runs out on the pre-order bonuses. There is nothing wrong with an informed consumer base, and knowing that information could push us from a "meh, I don't want to risk it" to "hell yea, that is awesome I'm pre-ordering".

[Anunknownlurker]

@Grayson Sortek - as quirks are subject to change I am pretty sure what you ask would be neither desirable or really helpful.

To be honest, if you are buying a mech only because of its quirks you probably shouldn't be buying the mech in the first place!

[Koniving]

Alvar Von Kenesthor, on 08 January 2018 - 01:12 AM, said:

If I recall correctly, it was mentioned in both the quickstart ruleset and the manuals for both classic and alpha strike battetech.
Also there is an extensive text about that in Sarna, where it says that ACs are classified by their dmg potential over "x" time, wheter they deal a single shot or a burst, which depended by who fabricated it, since each manufacturer gave ACs their own signature.

But anyways, Clan AC10s shoot two pellets instead of the single one IS AC10s do. So it's not like PGI did not take a little bit of Lore into account

It expressly says they fire either "Singly or in bursts" on Sarna, which I covered in the Tomodzuru example. Just like an M16 either fires single shot or burst fire, but if a rating is damage over time and tied to a cassette (in the M16's case, this is a cassette).

This is one damage rating per Battletech's definition. The accumulated damage by firing this magazine into a target is what the M16 is rated at..... is the analogy that Battletech makes with its autocannons.

Ryoken, on 08 January 2018 - 06:12 AM, said:

So hopefully some day PGI can rectify this in some of the old IS Autocannons that wrongly fire one single shot.

And yes some of the post TRO3052 Mech art hilariously exaggerated barrel sizes to unfunctional levels that more looked like railroad tunnels than anything that could actually propell a projectile... The Fafnir is one of the poor victims... luckyly Alex again did a very nice job and was able to mitigate the damage a bit.

(Indeed on the 203mm cannon, I mean doesn't it strike anyone as weird that 185mm is 5 damage, 190mm Heavy Rifle, a single shot weapon, does 6 damage against mech armor... and yet people claim 203mm magically does 20 damage per shot despite the only mech to carry it in ALL canonical art of the build with the right shoulder UAC/20 being shown to have two independent barrels despite a single weapon in the right torso? What kind of two barrel gun only manages 2 shots maximum in 10 seconds and jams? Just some common sense even if you don't read into its use in the game. Even 10 damage per shell seems like a stretch at first considering the 185mm only does 5 damage, but against structure and weaker armor the longer-shelled sabot firing 190mm Heavy Rifle does 9 damage without the backing of high explosives... so it isn't as far fetched as it seems for 10 damage.)

I wouldn't call them pellets though. That UAC/20 fires shells of a shorter length but of the same diameter as this howitzer.


Some day maybe PGI will change their mind but for now "Big guns are cool" was what was said when MWO started... even if they keep shrinking the barrels to the point where few if any barrels are big enough for the bullets that come out of them in MWO. At this point MWO can't possibly support it well without gimping ACs compared to lasers... but that's the beauty of Battletech's weapon ratings... even lasers weren't single shot.

Spoiler

Stated laser power isn't even strong enough to burn through steel in a single shot, but as it turns out if you fire multiple shots at the power stated in these, you can actually cut through enough real life tank armor to do reasonable damage to it without damaging a modern laser weapon such as the US Navy LaWS in about 10 seconds. I should note the LaWS is actually more powerful than these stated lasers, but for something written in 1987 long before we had one, the amount of power a laser would have at these stated levels, when fired multiple times even with several seconds of cooling in between firings can still do reasonably impressive damage, and the shorter the 'cool down' time, the more they deliver. 2 second beams can actually be weaker in power and do comparative damage, too.

Now plug these values into your favorite laser calculator and you'll see they can't do crap against current steel armor, unless you fire at this multiple shots at these energy levels and beam times... you'll notice then it can do some serious damage to steel armor.

Note the correction from the above is to fix miswording in this article.

The same documentation states that the maximum range of ACs is 2000 meters, while Rifles have ranges of 3 to 5,000 meters per shell (note at the time Rifles were big guns and ACs in created BT lore did not exceed 120mm). Also fun fact: Rifles follow the real life mantra that bigger shells go farther, with Light Rifles having the shortest range and Heavy Rifles having the longest range. Just like lasers having more range for more powerful shots. Know what doesn't? Autocannons, because bigger ACs were always from day one to fire more rather than fire bigger.

Now start plugging values into here.


When pulse lasers did get introduced, as in TRO 2750 original...

Note the pulse lasers are considered to be laser machine guns, which explains their higher "accuracy", since you can just hold down the button and fire. Now compare to MW3 and fire. Note that Pulse lasers fire longer and damage and heat for a short burst from the laser machine gun is low damage, low heat, but if you keep it going it will accumulate superior damage over a normal laser weapon and higher heat.... which is what pulse lasers do in BT tabletop. Worth noting the pulse laser fire from the side perspective actually looks like energy machine guns, even if it looks like a flashy beam from your firing angle. The same is true in MW4's trailer at least (I haven't played the game itself).

So if you ever wondered about the "bullet lasers"... that's supposed to be a canonical representation of Battletech's pulse lasers, not an artistic license. I know that isn't how lasers actually work, but remember that's creating art from source material written 15 years after Star Wars and 4 years before a more scientific and less space cowboy Star Trek.
(Side note: The amount of damage those missiles did make me think they're Arrow IV... or that was an artistic license. Similar to how Wanzers die super quickly when they are unimportant in this cinematic from Front Mission 4.)

So, incredible. FASA-made laser power information can, in fact, do damage to steel armor.... if you fire it numerous times across at least 5 seconds. Lasers done up to 2 seconds can be weaker in power output per millisecond, and yet still manage comparable damage with one to two shots. The heat that generates though seems like it would hurt the weapon system according to Ophir Photonics, a place with many laser calculators and products for drilling. www.ophiropt.com

But on the Fafnir.
There's a bit of a caveat to the last part with the Fafnir. The Fafnir's big barrels are for the Heavy Gauss... which is comically large on purpose, the barrel of a Heavy Gauss is supposed to be similar to the size of the barrels of capital ship class autocannons, which can do several hundred damage per shot. So the Fafnir's accurate when it comes to the Heavy Gauss. Not so much if you changed the weapons, however, as those huge barrels would be missing and the mech would look...really weird.


(Back to PGI and misconceptions).
The Long Tom artillery cannon has 5 shots per ton, the AC/20 has 5 damage ratings per ton.
Yet PGI thinks 20 damage for AC/20... and 1360 damage max PER MECH caught in the kill zone of this tactical nuke.


But.. the Long Tom does 270 damage maximum, spread in 5 damage allotments from the explosive and concussive force of impact, with 30 damage max for whomever is within 30 meters of the impact point in Battletech. Like many things it would not have been so game breaking if PGI actually lookred at the source material or didn't change it to suit their own version of the "rule of cool."

[Genesis23]

Arkhangel, on 07 January 2018 - 12:15 PM, said:

for the guys saying Huntsman are more durable than Bushwackers, they actually aren't. and the specific Bushwacker that's beating the crap out of them is the 6 missile hardpoint one. my brother plays clanner and clan pugs get ripped apart by them, and have to do twice the damage IS do to kill each other. I'm not arguing that a comp team guy from clan side can turn a Bushwacker into pate', but the vast majority of both sides is still pugs or casual units. with the Bushwacker in play now, IS really doesn't need the tonnage advantage in scouting anymore. we have our Stormcrow, the Clans should get their's back.

they have to do twice the dmg to kill a bushwacker? how did you even manage to get such an incorrect argument in the first place? they can mount much more firepower, while having the better tonnage on their engines, what more advantages do clanners need?

[Koniving]

xVLFBERHxT, on 08 January 2018 - 09:19 AM, said:

Do not be that hard with the Dark Age period . I enjoyed the setting and the books a lot (but tbh the mech minis were often strange) .

I agree, many good things came from it. But... that's the point where it lost all attempt at realistic comparisons to military counterparts. Its also around the time of, if not the source of, Battletech "Gigantism" where mechs of this size...



became mechs of this size.

I should note: 55 ton tank.

I watched a video where a youtuber was talking about Battletech tanks, and was stating that their 100 ton tanks were the size of buildings.
Seriously?
Here's a 100 ton tank. Sorry the site doesn't allow hotlinking. It is true that the Behemoth 100 ton tank takes 2 lanes but this thing is NOT the size of a building.


But that one tank can indeed take out seven 50 ton mechs and a 100 ton mech AFTER getting its track crippled.

Admittedly, this tank had a god-tier gunner, 4 LRM-5s and twin AC/10s... and as the armor variant, tanks can carry more armor than mechs can possibly have. (Which is why I have my gripe about how much of a pushover the tanks in MW5: Mercs are, when using the same tanks in Megamek in a 2 tanks versus one Shadow Hawk 2D was a heck of a life and death struggle requiring tactics to beat them despite their poor weapons as in one case my Shadowhawk was destroyed in just a single turn, due to a chest and cockpit hit during jump jetting which caused me to flip upside down in mid air and land on my cockpit, crushing my pilot.

Back to Dark Ages: Some of BT's best combat is only possible thanks to a few aspects introduced in the Dark Ages. The emphasis on Agricultural mechs adds much diversity and the fleshing out of genuine police mechs, money transport vehicles (by BRINKS of all things!), further fleshing out of police, etc... allows for BT to be played with enough depth to achieve a Star Citizen/Grand Theft Auto 5 quality.

I remember being amazed the first time I put Pat Labor inspired characters in some custom made Security Mechs and pit them against clones of themselves in a different set of custom made security mechs and gave them each their own AI player... and then I was seeing things like when one mech was shot down and the pilot was all alone, another pilot drives his mech in and picked her up and did the same to an enemy pilot to capture that pilot.. but then with no hands free, was unable to fight and so he sprinted into the forests to mitigate damage and stuffed the friendly into a building and the captured pilot into his cargo bay before picking up a dismembered arm and then returning to the fight. He was blatantly outclassed in melee by the enemy pilot whom had a Melee Master and Melee Specialist set of MaxTech skills, and seemingly upon realizing this, he got some distance and fired at range (where he was outgunned, plus another enemy kept shooting smoke-SRMs at him to blind him), before finally deciding to charge and tackle. He smashed the enemy melee specialist into a building via a skid, whom fell into a basement and lost consciousness, giving him the time to deal with the threat that kept blinding him, steal that mech's jettison-capable Heavy Rifle and then ACTIVELY USE this HEAVY RIFLE against the final target whom was still unconscious.

And that... was just AI playing Megamek against itself with full rules, using things introduced by Dark Ages.

So, Dark Ages isn't all bad but that's where I kinda stop progressing through BT...


Edit: Above I said "MaxTech" skills. I remembered incorrectly as many skill sets come from MaxTech. The skills mentioned actually came from "A Time of War." (This is a screenshot from one of the many AI versus AI test runs of various custom made security mechs to ensure any design was not overpowered. This is also the method I used to test my Loader King [Roughneck predecessor Hauler Mech] concept against the Powerman. The police mechs in use here are not the ones from the fight I described.
(Last edit) Ota is the heroic fighter described. The AI settings I gave him to match his somewhat reckless abandon and tactics were very well reflected in how the game handled him and seeing him fight against himself in other matches was really fun. In the one above, the "other" Ota went toe to toe against Noa whose superior melee skills and more tactful mind in a mech more suited for close combat easily overcame the other Ota before Noa's mech was shot down.
-------------
Ota in action. Note: The Rifle versus Autocannon delimma I mentioned earlier is also addressed in this video, in Ota's own words: "In the time it takes me to line up one shot, they send a hundred right at me!"
That's exactly why single shot Rifles went out of favor, instead opting for machine gun-like autocannons.

Edited by Koniving, 08 January 2018 - 10:59 AM.

[Koniving]

Genesis23, on 08 January 2018 - 09:47 AM, said:

they have to do twice the dmg to kill a bushwacker? how did you even manage to get such an incorrect argument in the first place? they can mount much more firepower, while having the better tonnage on their engines, what more advantages do clanners need?

I confess I didn't read the other guy's argument... but on certain mechs like the Bushwacker, the Timber Wolf, the Ebon Jaguar, the Stalker, and similarly shaped mechs...
a large side torso after being destroyed allows the mech to easily reduce damage by 60%, making a single shot AC/20 do 8 damage instead when it transfers into the CT. If you hit the unlucky spot and manage to hit the shoulder node first you've done 3.2 damage with the AC/20.

That combined with quirks and skill tree is my only guess for how one might need to do twice the damage to kill a Bushwacker over a Huntsman..with it being a valid point.

Otherwise who knows?

That isn't an IS superiority issue though as mentioned many Clan mechs possess it too so I think that also crushes the person's argument. In the case of Bushwacker versus Huntsman, that would hold true under the right conditions.

[Koniving]

Ryoken, on 08 January 2018 - 06:12 AM, said:

And yes some of the post TRO3052 Mech art hilariously exaggerated barrel sizes to unfunctional levels that more looked like railroad tunnels than anything that could actually propell a projectile... The Fafnir is one of the poor victims... luckyly Alex again did a very nice job and was able to mitigate the damage a bit.

Almost forgot: Some hilariously oversized "barrels" are supposed to be protective armored sheaths covering what is usually a multi-barrel framework inside. The Victor's Pontiac 100, for example, isn't expressly stated in the TROs or Sarna, but it was either Heir to the Dragon or Sword and Dagger which gave the 100 shot count to the Pontiac 100 (not the one that claims 100mm as that gets redacted to being 30/40mm) describes it as a multi-barrel arrangement within a protective shell to keep enemy fire and collisions such as melee or falls from bending its otherwise fragile barrels.

[BTGbullseye]

Genesis23, on 08 January 2018 - 09:47 AM, said:

they have to do twice the dmg to kill a bushwacker? how did you even manage to get such an incorrect argument in the first place? they can mount much more firepower, while having the better tonnage on their engines, what more advantages do clanners need?

IS has WAY more armor... 50-200% more in those classes. The Urbie has as much armor as some Clan Heavies, (yes, seriously. As much as a Hunchback IIC, the tankiest of Clan Mediums) and can (if properly equipped and willing to run quite hot; otherwise, it's somewhere between the Clan Mediums and Lights) do as much damage as most Clan Mediums.

Clans have lighter everything to allow for the weapons needed to be able to punch through that massive amount of armor, just to have a similar TTK. (and it's becoming far less similar with the recent unnecessary nerfs to Clan lasers)

[Jay Leon Hart]

BTGbullseye, on 08 January 2018 - 10:32 AM, said:

IS has WAY more armor... 50-200% more in those classes. The Urbie has as much armor as some Clan Heavies, (yes, seriously. As much as a Hunchback IIC, the tankiest of Clan Mediums) and can (if properly equipped and willing to run quite hot; otherwise, it's somewhere between the Clan Mediums and Lights) do as much damage as most Clan Mediums.

What are you smoking? Have you been talking to those Nova Cats & Goliath Scorpions again? Drugs are bad.

What IS Mediums have the following total CT armour (300% of the same tonnage Clan 'mech, your claim of 200% more);
144 @ 40 tons
168 @ 45 tons
192 @ 50 tons
216 @ 55 tons

As for the Urbanmech damage potential? How many Urbanmech builds can you show me (with 338 armour, "as much as the HBK-IIC"), that can match the damage of;
Gauss + 6 ERML = 57 damage
UAC20 + 6 ERSL = 50+20 damage
6 SRM6 = 72 damage
8 SRM6 = 96 damage
2 HLL + 4 ERML = 64 damage
2 HLL + 6 ERML = 78 damage
12 ERML = 84 damage
12 ERSL = 60 damage
10 HSL = 65 damage

I'm guessing some of the MRM builds can come close.

[Rekkon]

So can we say bad pilots in these things are faffing about?

[UrbanTarget]

Jay Leon Hart, on 08 January 2018 - 12:35 PM, said:

What are you smoking? Have you been talking to those Nova Cats & Goliath Scorpions again? Drugs are bad.

What IS Mediums have the following total CT armour (300% of the same tonnage Clan 'mech, your claim of 200% more);
144 @ 40 tons
168 @ 45 tons
192 @ 50 tons
216 @ 55 tons

As for the Urbanmech damage potential? How many Urbanmech builds can you show me (with 338 armour, "as much as the HBK-IIC"), that can match the damage of;
Gauss + 6 ERML = 57 damage
UAC20 + 6 ERSL = 50+20 damage
6 SRM6 = 72 damage
8 SRM6 = 96 damage
2 HLL + 4 ERML = 64 damage
2 HLL + 6 ERML = 78 damage
12 ERML = 84 damage
12 ERSL = 60 damage
10 HSL = 65 damage

I'm guessing some of the MRM builds can come close.

The only Urbie build that gets in that realm is R68 with 2 RL20s + lazors

[Genesis23]

BTGbullseye, on 08 January 2018 - 10:32 AM, said:

IS has WAY more armor... 50-200% more in those classes. The Urbie has as much armor as some Clan Heavies, (yes, seriously. As much as a Hunchback IIC, the tankiest of Clan Mediums) and can (if properly equipped and willing to run quite hot; otherwise, it's somewhere between the Clan Mediums and Lights) do as much damage as most Clan Mediums.

Clans have lighter everything to allow for the weapons needed to be able to punch through that massive amount of armor, just to have a similar TTK. (and it's becoming far less similar with the recent unnecessary nerfs to Clan lasers)

apart from the utter nonsense you are mumbling about with the urbie which is not even worth responding to, you got the second part wrong as well:

clans do not have lighter everything to deal with the higher armor of the IS mechs, the IS mechs got those quirks to deal with the ridiculously powerfull advantages of the clan mechs in the first place. small, but siginificant difference there.

maybe you have never seen what the clan mechs did to the IS mechs when they first dropped, especially the timberwolf. these mechs litterally melted everything that came too close and it was so bad, that they not only nerfed the clan mechs, but also had to introduce more quirks on IS side. mechs like the atlas were no longer something to be afraid of, they were nothing more than a matter of seconds for a timber who could easily run circles around and kill pretty much everything far above his own tonnage.

and seeing the clan mechs still being the bulk of the mechs used in the championships, you have absolutely no right or reason to complain.

Edited by Genesis23, 08 January 2018 - 02:02 PM.

[Laser Kiwi]

Fear nothing, except lights, not the cougar though, that's slower than an urbie.

[MechaBattler]

A lot of the IS mechs that have big armor quirks. Tend to be under performers. Like the Vindicator, with it's low mounts, mixed loadout, and low engine. The Cataphract is a knuckle dragger with most of it's weapons falling below or at the centerline of the mech, with side torso energy points being the only exception.