41 replies to this topic

[RickySpanish]

My hat off to the fella for at least thinking the problem part way to its conclusion. That's worth 1 mark in a Mathematics test afterall. It's just a shame that he didn't complete the equation.

[NRP]

LOL I did this once. Was anxious to get my new Charger hero into battle and forgot to adjust the CT armor, so I had about 22 rear CT armor. In game I notice something shooting me in the back, but it's not really doing much damage so I ignore it for priority targets. Turns out a stealth bomber Commando was SRMing me for quite a while. He must have been perplexed and probably cursed PGI a few times, LOL.

[Maddermax]

The interesting thing about this is that if he had allocated armour away from his back, he would have survived only two shots, as his rear torso would have been taken out. So in a way - winning.

That said, math doesn’t add up. Even with nearly no armour on the front, JAG-A has structure quirks, and if you can only bring the armour down to orange in one hit, it would be hard to destroy him outright, unless he had an ammo explosion or had already taken a bit of damage.

Edited by Maddermax, 18 January 2019 - 06:10 PM.

[Kubernetes]

Maddermax, on 18 January 2019 - 06:09 PM, said:

That said, math doesn’t add up. Even with nearly no armour on the front, JAG-A has structure quirks, and if you can only bring the armour down to orange in one hit, it would be hard to destroy him outright, unless he had an ammo explosion or had already taken a bit of damage.

LB20X

[LordNothing]

i might run as high as 12 points on a slow assault and as little as 4 on 20 tonners. how much armor you install there should be inversely proportional to your reaction time when something starts probing your posterior. this guy must have the reaction time of a 3 toed sloth that just attended a bob marley concert.

[ShiverMeRivets]

Kubernetes, on 18 January 2019 - 12:37 PM, said:

Last night I crept up on a Jager (-A) boating LRMs. Alpha in his rear CT with 4cMPL and LB20. Turned his back armor orange.

Me: wtf

By now targeting comes up and I figure it's worth an XL check. Alpha his rear LT. Armor turns orange.

Me: what is going on? did I desync? is hit reg borked?

He finally turns around, I alpha his LT from the front. Boom, insta-dead.

This dude literally put 90% of his torso armor on the back. Is this a new LRMer meta? Hands up, how many of you run with huge back armor values? I've seen some crazy builds in this game, but I was honestly stunned after seeing this.

According to this story, the dude made the right choice when allocating his armor. If he had front loaded it, he would have died instantly - with his setup he survived 3 alphas, incl. the time it took the OP to circle and position in front of him.

When your threat is mostly from light mechs, then back loading your armor makes sense - let the light mech face you if he wants soft armor, but then you can hit back at his even softer armor.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

The problem seems more to be that someone who backloads their armor to a point where they have more armor in back than in front is going to be playing in a way that's detrimental to the team, no matter what their intentions are for the build. Whether or not it's better for that player's personal survival is irrelevant; they're hanging out in the backline (they'd have to in order to safely fire their weapons without taking hits on their weaker aspect) and not sharing armor, which decreases everyone's odds of victory. Plus, y'know, if they're running that much back armor, it's a near guarantee that they'll not even be attempting to fight any enemies that come to attack them directly, instead running away- or worse, just sitting like a bag of rocks and letting the enemy keep shooting them.

It's an armor allocation that favors a playstyle where other players do all of the work for you- they get your targets for you, they take the frontal hits for you, they fight off enemies that get behind you (because you've specced yourself for back-tanking hits, you won't be returning fire). That's not specialization. That's laziness.

[FatBabyYoshi]

welp im just gonna backload all the armor for my lrm boats from now own as this is just funny

[LordNothing]

i can understand backloading on something like an urbanmech where you can fight while running away. even if you spin around your booty is still hanging out.

[InspectorG]

Khobai, on 18 January 2019 - 01:30 PM, said:

there is a warped sense of logic there. if the guy is relying entirely on IDF and his teammates spotting for him then why does he need front armor? the only things that will attack him are either lights that try to sneak up from behind or mechs that have broken through his team's front line, in which case he wouldve lost regardless of whether his armor was front or back. the guy fully committed to a bad plan then tried to think of ways to make it less bad.

"team"?

"front line"?

We talking about Solo?

[Koniving]

Kubernetes, on 18 January 2019 - 12:37 PM, said:

Last night I crept up on a Jager (-A) boating LRMs. Alpha in his rear CT with 4cMPL and LB20. Turned his back armor orange.

Me: wtf

By now targeting comes up and I figure it's worth an XL check. Alpha his rear LT. Armor turns orange.

Me: what is going on? did I desync? is hit reg borked?

He finally turns around, I alpha his LT from the front. Boom, insta-dead.

This dude literally put 90% of his torso armor on the back. Is this a new LRMer meta? Hands up, how many of you run with huge back armor values? I've seen some crazy builds in this game, but I was honestly stunned after seeing this.

Question 1: What did you alpha strike with?

Question 2: Do you think he could have been a turtleback?
Turtlebacks are both a fluff-theme in Battletech... and a real thing that happened in 2012 and early 2013 MWO...

A Turtleback is someone whom pumps most of the armor to the back, and keeps a highly lethal alpha strike on the front, with the idea being Shoot and run, twist to shoot and run. For slower mechs, this was actually done as an anti-light counter, but was also done as an anti-assault counter. The idea being that if it takes 4 or more seconds between each enemy shot, you can tank his shot into your back (omg easy to kill back armor shoot it!) and then twist to launch in your heavy hit and twist back to give him your back again.

This... kinda phased out when the introduction of "HSR" led to faster firing rates.

[Mystere]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 19 January 2019 - 12:05 PM, said:

The problem seems more to be that someone who backloads their armor to a point where they have more armor in back than in front is going to be playing in a way that's detrimental to the team, no matter what their intentions are for the build. Whether or not it's better for that player's personal survival is irrelevant; they're hanging out in the backline (they'd have to in order to safely fire their weapons without taking hits on their weaker aspect) and not sharing armor, which decreases everyone's odds of victory. Plus, y'know, if they're running that much back armor, it's a near guarantee that they'll not even be attempting to fight any enemies that come to attack them directly, instead running away- or worse, just sitting like a bag of rocks and letting the enemy keep shooting them.

It's an armor allocation that favors a playstyle where other players do all of the work for you- they get your targets for you, they take the frontal hits for you, they fight off enemies that get behind you (because you've specced yourself for back-tanking hits, you won't be returning fire). That's not specialization. That's laziness.

Ahem! Think of a light mech doing hit-and-runs with lots of back armor.

LordNothing, on 19 January 2019 - 01:44 PM, said:

i can understand backloading on something like an urbanmech where you can fight while running away. even if you spin around your booty is still hanging out.

Bingo!

Edited by Mystere, 19 January 2019 - 04:05 PM.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Eh, most of the playerbase isn't bright enough to shoot for the Urbie's crotch anyways. Or any other light's. Might as well keep the armor up front, so you can facetank while mooning.

[LordNothing]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 19 January 2019 - 04:14 PM, said:

Eh, most of the playerbase isn't bright enough to shoot for the Urbie's crotch anyways. Or any other light's. Might as well keep the armor up front, so you can facetank while mooning.

i usually aim hip level. unless its like a jenner or a raven where the st is kind of weak. most raven kills i get from the side.

Edited by LordNothing, 19 January 2019 - 06:29 PM.

[50 50]

I remember getting overrun on Emerald Taiga once where the enemy team amidst the confusion just ran past me and I ended up running with them.
It was at that point I wondered about the possibility of stacking the rear armour and reversing through enemy lines shooting them in the back as they went past.....

[Gristle Missile]

I am both disappointed he depends on indirect fire at long range, but yet sort of impressed he changed his armor to suit that play...

[Vellron2005]

Kubernetes, on 18 January 2019 - 12:37 PM, said:

Last night I crept up on a Jager (-A) boating LRMs. Alpha in his rear CT with 4cMPL and LB20. Turned his back armor orange.

Me: wtf

By now targeting comes up and I figure it's worth an XL check. Alpha his rear LT. Armor turns orange.

Me: what is going on? did I desync? is hit reg borked?

He finally turns around, I alpha his LT from the front. Boom, insta-dead.

This dude literally put 90% of his torso armor on the back. Is this a new LRMer meta? Hands up, how many of you run with huge back armor values? I've seen some crazy builds in this game, but I was honestly stunned after seeing this.

Back-loaded armor on a LRM assault?

Hmmmmm... maybe.. not a bad idea...



I should try that

Edited by Vellron2005, 21 January 2019 - 02:45 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

That is why you shoot off their leg and watch them explode all over.

[Wolf Steel]

I dunno about other piranha pilots but on my PIR-2 I split the armor 50/50 on front and back. I usually find I'm twisting and turning around enough that by the time I'm finally dead I either lost a leg first or all my armor is gone everywhere. After boosting my rear armor I find I survive a lot more often when I dive bomb through since a laser shot that starts on the front ends up being spread along the rear armor in the same burn duration.

Of course that also means an AC/20 can one shot a side torso but in reality if an AC/20 lands on a PIR of any variant that's a dead component anyways imho.

[Insignus]

Let me offer an alternative perspective, with some storytimes.

I personally run 4 to 1 back armor, yielding 42F and 13R on the CT, the rationale being that I'm often running away from a target as I strike and fade.

This is because I run a Cicada 3M, using 4MPLs, an MG, ECM and Stealth.

As a result, I have a very direct experience with the current armor meta, as it often works to my advantage. And to be fair, the current frontload meta works. Against other frontloading mechs who have agreed to play by that ruleset, and in 90% of cases, frontloading will get you through.

I haunt the other 10% of those cases, which, in T3 QP, usually means 4 kills per a match, with good performance considered 5-6, and the record being 7.

But, in truth, it isn't about the armor.

The armor helps. But I've taken down those with 2 to 3 front to back ratios sight unseen for a very simple reason.

Not speaking for above T3, the majority of players I've found have precious little close situational awareness. If their sensors haven't given them a dorito or they aren't hearing/feeling an impact, then it doesn't exist in their minds.

So I just pop the MPLs in their back (Which I run for precisely how hard they are to detect), step into cover, and assess, then unload as necessary.

I've run into similar situations with players that I know know better in FP.

It gets better. Lets swap to the front side.

I occasionally get caught out by an Assault. A teammate without ECM follows me and tries to do my deal with MLs or ACs, and they get spotted, or I'm on a crunch and have to unload from a bad position.

Assault turns, looks back, sweeps left, sweeps right, scans for 5-6 seconds, looks dead at me.

Then turns around.

Part of it is the camo scheme (I engage at distances where camo renders). But most of it is the fact that players in this game crutch heavily on sensor readouts.


So just to bring it back home to the OP - The reason the guy was running all that armor wasn't necessarily a pre-occupation with Piranhas, or a concern about being shot in the back because of where he was.

But because he wanted a passive playstyle of point-lock-shoot, and needed a thick, warm comfy blanket on his backside because he couldn't take the time or skill to be actually aware of his surroundings or positions.

Hence why he went LRMS in the first place.

Edited by Insignus, 21 January 2019 - 09:31 AM.