163 replies to this topic

[TheArisen]

FLG 01, on 23 January 2019 - 07:54 PM, said:

If it has this kind of torso, it will be a master in rolling damage (unless you are caught unware and from the side but then you have made a mistake anyway...).
Also, do I see a bit of a Vulcan cockpit section?

Haha yeah it's like the Vulcan's dad or something. But it married a humanoid mech so that's why the Vulcan is a humanoid mech lol

Alex Morgaine, on 21 January 2019 - 08:46 PM, said:

A -P varient could be an easy lrm20x2/mrm30x2 plus ammo instead of the ballistics, inflate as needed the m hard points.

Hmm 4 arm mounted missiles plus torso lasers could be cool.

[TheArisen]

Personally an idea I think would still feel like a DFire but would be an excellent PGI variant would be to take the Falconer & make it a DFire. That would be a gauss in the arm, erppc in the other with 4 torso medium lasers. It rocks an XL375 with JJs. This would give the DFire a fast variant as well as a JJ variant, could be considered a high mobility variant really.

They could keep the 300xl but give it MASC & JJs which would acomplish the same thing of it being a high mobility variant. The mostly energy build gives it the tonnage it needs to actually be a high mobility variant.

[Karl Streiger]

DFire Falconer? Well sweet idea and this will kill two Jadefalcons with one nerve agent...

The survivalist Falconer 300 (Light) engine and MASC however is not the same quality as the original Falconer this mech is almost at the absolute maximum what is possible.
Same idea different Mech would be the vomiting Maelstrom

Edited by Karl Streiger, 25 January 2019 - 12:17 PM.

[TheArisen]

Karl Streiger, on 25 January 2019 - 12:16 PM, said:

DFire Falconer? Well sweet idea and this will kill two Jadefalcons with one nerve agent...

The survivalist Falconer 300 (Light) engine and MASC however is not the same quality as the original Falconer this mech is almost at the absolute maximum what is possible.
Same idea different Mech would be the vomiting Maelstrom

Yeah I agree. I just was thinking of a way to get more MASC mechs haha.

[TheArisen]

Thanks to FupDup for the variant breakdown!


I'd also throw in the 3FC that dumps ECM for a C3i comp as that's not too difficult to replace.

[jjm1]

A source here: https://mykepantera....gon%20Fire.html has another free energy hardpoint in the CT. But I don't know where to go for an official source on variant hardpoints - if there even is one.

Finding Dragon Fire info has been a job and a half before the drawing.

The official build sheet had hands - apparently retconned but I cant even be sure of that.

And the miniature and the TRO art has its laser on its right torso when every other source for its weapon loadout has it on the left.

It was also very confusing on whether it should have those Marauder influences or not. I imagine it's logical to think that the Marauder design -that survived for centuries didn't need any radical rethinks when they engineered the Dragon Fires legs a few years later. But what is confusing is they all appear to be different chassis, connected only by tidbits of scattered lore that never definitively spells out what its connection to the Marauder is. The Nightstar's Marauder heritage was certainly made a lot clearer.


Anyway... spoilerific hero preview. It's nearly finished, but I'm working on the second and weirdest one for now.

Edited by jjm1, 26 January 2019 - 02:55 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Your work could not serve a better cause.
Blessed be the saviours of human kind.

[TheArisen]

jjm1, on 26 January 2019 - 02:30 AM, said:

A source here: https://mykepantera....gon%20Fire.html has another free energy hardpoint in the CT. But I don't know where to go for an official source on variant hardpoints - if there even is one.

Finding Dragon Fire info has been a job and a half before the drawing.

The official build sheet had hands - apparently retconned but I cant even be sure of that.

And the miniature and the TRO art has its laser on its right torso when every other source for its weapon loadout has it on the left.

It was also very confusing on whether it should have those Marauder influences or not. I imagine it's logical to think that the Marauder design -that survived for centuries didn't need any radical rethinks when they engineered the Dragon Fires legs a few years later. But what is confusing is they all appear to be different chassis, connected only by tidbits of scattered lore that never definitively spells out what its connection to the Marauder is. The Nightstar's Marauder heritage was certainly made a lot clearer.


Anyway... spoilerific hero preview. It's nearly finished, but I'm working on the second and weirdest one for now.

Hmmm yeah it seems the lore has gotten quite jumbled over the years. I'd bet they just said things were related to the Marauder as a way to increase popularity or something.

The good side of this is it's an excuse for PGI to have HPs in different locations on the mech.

But that teaser... So sexy already

[FupDup]

TheArisen, on 25 January 2019 - 11:32 PM, said:

Thanks to FupDup for the variant breakdown!


I'd also throw in the 3FC that dumps ECM for a C3i comp as that's not too difficult to replace.

For some reason my SSW doesn't have any record sheets for the 3FC (hence how I missed it so easily), but I'll add it in a little later.

[Y E O N N E]

I dunno about those hardpoints, screams "Nightstar" to me in terms of how difficult it will be to fit something good.

[TheArisen]

FupDup, on 26 January 2019 - 10:18 AM, said:

For some reason my SSW doesn't have any record sheets for the 3FC (hence how I missed it so easily), but I'll add it in a little later.

Yeah looking at what jjm1 was saying it seems the whole thing is a bit messy.

Y E O N N E, on 26 January 2019 - 10:24 AM, said:

I dunno about those hardpoints, screams "Nightstar" to me in terms of how difficult it will be to fit something good.

The Nightstar's problems aren't it's HPs but rather the mile wide arms and butchered geometry.

[FupDup]

Anyways, here the slightly updated version is:

[TheArisen]

FupDup, on 26 January 2019 - 10:27 AM, said:

Anyways, here the slightly updated version is:

It's still weird how the minis and tro art show the RT with weapons

[FupDup]

Y E O N N E, on 26 January 2019 - 10:24 AM, said:

I dunno about those hardpoints, screams "Nightstar" to me in terms of how difficult it will be to fit something good.

My proposed versions of the 4F and 3FC would probably be the easiest and best to build with of the bunch, carrying two heavy ballistics and 5 medium lasers of choice.

[TheArisen]

FupDup, on 26 January 2019 - 10:30 AM, said:

My proposed versions of the 4F and 3FC would probably be the easiest and best to build with of the bunch, carrying two heavy ballistics and 5 medium lasers of choice.

Yeah light inflation will be needed like on pretty much any mech. Maybe it's just me but I don't see what would be so difficult about building it.

[Y E O N N E]

FupDup, on 26 January 2019 - 10:30 AM, said:

My proposed versions of the 4F and 3FC would probably be the easiest and best to build with of the bunch, carrying two heavy ballistics and 5 medium lasers of choice.

Great, so you can build a 2x AC/LB/UAC+lasers build; I can do that just as well on a WHM-6R. What else?

It's only 75 tons and requires arms; dual Gauss with lasers isn't going to be great, clumsier to fit than on a Warhammer, and there aren't enough E hardpoints for single Gauss and lasers to be great, either (certainly no BH2 competitor). Dual UAC/5 and lasers is not at all new or interesting. Triple AC/5 and lasers might be neat, but is in the same boat as dual AC/10 and lasers stellar. Triple AC/5 builds, also not stellar and also only about as good as the twin-10 builds. Quad-5 builds will evaporate all of your tonnage and be no better than on a Warhammer. We could to quad-2 spam but, again, that's no better than on a Warhammer.

The one reason we said this 'Mech would be good way back when TheArisen, Gas Guzzler, Quicksilver, and myself were talking about 'Mechs to advocate over PMs almost two years ago now is the Gauss+PPC combo and having the Gauss in the arm rather than torso, just like the Nightstar. With that combination locked out of viability due to the ghost-heat link and IS not having enough tonnage to brute-force it with DHS like the Clans can on the Night Gyr, this 'Mech is little else than an also-ran Marauder. All I'm really seeing here is the option for ECM; we can just as easily get that for less work from PGI and similar offensive capacity with a MAD reinforcement package featuring your choice of MAD-5L, 5R, 7D, 9M, or 9S.

[TheArisen]

Y E O N N E, on 26 January 2019 - 11:16 AM, said:

Great, so you can build a 2x AC/LB/UAC+lasers build; I can do that just as well on a WHM-6R. What else?

It's only 75 tons and requires arms; dual Gauss with lasers isn't going to be great, clumsier to fit than on a Warhammer, and there aren't enough E hardpoints for single Gauss and lasers to be great, either (certainly no BH2 competitor). Dual UAC/5 and lasers is not at all new or interesting. Triple AC/5 and lasers might be neat, but is in the same boat as dual AC/10 and lasers stellar. Triple AC/5 builds, also not stellar and also only about as good as the twin-10 builds. Quad-5 builds will evaporate all of your tonnage and be no better than on a Warhammer. We could to quad-2 spam but, again, that's no better than on a Warhammer.

The one reason we said this 'Mech would be good way back when TheArisen, Gas Guzzler, Quicksilver, and myself were talking about 'Mechs to advocate over PMs almost two years ago now is the Gauss+PPC combo and having the Gauss in the arm rather than torso, just like the Nightstar. With that combination locked out of viability due to the ghost-heat link and IS not having enough tonnage to brute-force it with DHS like the Clans can on the Night Gyr, this 'Mech is little else than an also-ran Marauder. All I'm really seeing here is the option for ECM; we can just as easily get that for less work from PGI and similar offensive capacity with a MAD reinforcement package featuring your choice of MAD-5L, 5R, 7D, 9M, or 9S.

Well for starters the DFire offers high mounts that are all in-line with the cockpit, in addition to it's ECM. That means it'll be better at trading than a Warhammer could ever hope to be and it'll do it without needing substantial quirks so it's more resilient to balance passes. Same deal for the Marauder comparison. The Dfire will be better at bringing it's weapons to bear because of it's higher mounts.

I don't see why lasers and gauss would be clumsy. Rather I see the arms as an advantage to be better able to track targets. For me that with the extra 5 tons will make it notably better at running those similar builds. One build it can do is X3 Rac2 & LBX10 which is actually quite potent but due to slots the Marauder nor Warhammer can do it.

Also I think you're forgetting we also talked about it's weapon mounts, ecm, frontal profile, arms that cover the sides, etc, in addition to the gauss + ppc combo of yester-years. We also knew it wouldn't be a one trick pony so I'm surprised to see you be so negative about what we considered the strongest heavy option discussed.

[Jonathan8883]

The Dragon hero Flame is indeed pretty good.

[Y E O N N E]

TheArisen, on 26 January 2019 - 12:10 PM, said:

Well for starters the DFire offers high mounts that are all in-line with the cockpit, in addition to it's ECM. That means it'll be better at trading than a Warhammer could ever hope to be and it'll do it without needing substantial quirks so it's more resilient to balance passes. Same deal for the Marauder comparison. The Dfire will be better at bringing it's weapons to bear because of it's higher mounts.

No, it has high mounts OVER the cockpit, like the Marauder, going by the model. So, no, it's not better than the WHM could hope to be, it's about the same. The Warhammer also hardly has substantial quirks; it would be unphased if they all came off tomorrow.

Quote

I don't see why lasers and gauss would be clumsy. Rather I see the arms as an advantage to be better able to track targets. For me that with the extra 5 tons will make it notably better at running those similar builds. One build it can do is X3 Rac2 & LBX10 which is actually quite potent but due to slots the Marauder nor Warhammer can do it.

The fit is clumsy, not the usability. Go onto MechDB and try to mock one up, it's work to just get to the 2GR+4ERML that the WHM-6R uses, let alone find room for a 5th ERML. You have to pull way more from the legs on a 'Mech whose body type guides a lot of damage to those legs. Or you have to drop ammo. I can, or course, drop engine to smaller than 300, but are you really going to run a 60 kph Heavy to gain +5 damage over one that can do 50 at 64.8 kph with plenty of ammo? Hell no.

Quote

Also I think you're forgetting we also talked about it's weapon mounts, ecm, frontal profile, arms that cover the sides, etc, in addition to the gauss + ppc combo of yester-years. We also knew it wouldn't be a one trick pony so I'm surprised to see you be so negative about what we considered the strongest heavy option discussed.

That's not how it went.

It started with me saying you need to be looking at the 75-ton range so you could have enough tonnage to bring a big XL and maximum armor for it and still have enough space left for weapons. I specifically said you needed either 8xE or 2xE+1xB, and the implication with the latter was very obviously PPC+Gauss. The Dragon Fire obviously doesn't have 8xE, so the recommendation was about being 75 tons and being able to fit PPC+Gauss.

To quote myself:

Spoiler

Yeonne Greene said:

Heavies:
Probably the easiest one to answer.You need either 8xE or 2xE+1xB for them to start being good, and they need to be split up in such a way that you can fit them with XL and strip at least one arm. And they need to be on the upper end of the tonnage range so you can get enough armor to run XL and have enough space for heavier equipment. Good answers are:

• Dragon Fire
  
• Toyama
  
• Dragoon
  
• Falconer (MWO geo requirements make this one pretty good)
  
• Flashman

There are also variants for existing 'Mechs that would work wonders. The Rifleman 8D has potential to be stupidly good given its hardpoints and the presence of JJs. Ditto the Warhammer 9D.

That was the extent of the discussion on the Dragon Fire. We moved on to Assaults and Lights after that for basically the remainder of the PM exchange. We didn't even discuss the Dragon Fire in the thread you posted as a product of the PMs.

[TheArisen]

Y E O N N E, on 26 January 2019 - 12:58 PM, said:

No, it has high mounts OVER the cockpit, like the Marauder, going by the model. So, no, it's not better than the WHM could hope to be, it's about the same. The Warhammer also hardly has substantial quirks; it would be unphased if they all came off tomorrow.



The fit is clumsy, not the usability. Go onto MechDB and try to mock one up, it's work to just get to the 2GR+4ERML that the WHM-6R uses, let alone find room for a 5th ERML. You have to pull way more from the legs on a 'Mech whose body type guides a lot of damage to those legs. Or you have to drop ammo. I can, or course, drop engine to smaller than 300, but are you really going to run a 60 kph Heavy to gain +5 damage over one that can do 50 at 64.8 kph with plenty of ammo? Hell no.



That's not how it went.

It started with me saying you need to be looking at the 75-ton range so you could have enough tonnage to bring a big XL and maximum armor for it and still have enough space left for weapons. I specifically said you needed either 8xE or 2xE+1xB, and the implication with the latter was very obviously PPC+Gauss. The Dragon Fire obviously doesn't have 8xE, so the recommendation was about being 75 tons and being able to fit PPC+Gauss.

To quote myself:

Spoiler

That was the extent of the discussion on the Dragon Fire. We moved on to Assaults and Lights after that for basically the remainder of the PM exchange. We didn't even discuss the Dragon Fire in the thread you posted as a product of the PMs.

Well perhaps you missed the part where profile and mounts came into the discussion as it was an important factor and there was more discussion on which mechs in general to go with in general as we knew that we couldn't just list every single mech ever. I wanted the DFire even before you suggested it so it's not like it was unknown before you mentioned it. I've also had discussions with FLG & others so that PM exchange isn't the only one of it's kind, nor is it the original reason to push for the DFire.

Yes at the time the Nightstar was the focus as we didn't anticipate it getting so butchered but the primary focus in general was on it so other mechs just didn't get the same attention.

Also there are some weapons above the cockpit but the majority of them are almost exactly in line with the cockpit, including the arms. It most certainly has the ability to shoot whatever it can see. The Warhammer on the other hand exclusively has weapons mounted below the cockpit and again the Warhammer 6R doesn't have ECM which affects the ability of an enemy to see you and react before you drop into cover after shooting.

I was able to fit X5 er meds and dual gauss with an XL300 on a Warhammer actually, albeit without enough ammo but since the DFire has the extra tonnage it can fit the extra ammo to make the extra laser work. It might be a snug fit but it would fit just fine.

But as an olive branch, I have put forward the idea of a Falconer inspired variant and I know that was a mech you liked. Sadly the Onslaught requires out of game tech so I don't think that's a realistic possibility.

Edited by TheArisen, 26 January 2019 - 02:25 PM.