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So Someone Asked The Chieftain A Mech Question...


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#61 MischiefSC

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Posted 02 January 2020 - 11:11 PM

View PostNightbird, on 02 January 2020 - 08:51 PM, said:

Moot points. First of all, mobility, tanks can't fight in 0 G, in forests, in cities (against JJ units), on volcanos, and many other places that threaded vehicles cannot get from A to B on. If you have 300 tons of space in a dropship and you want units that can fight anywhere with maximum efficiency, you never consider tanks.

Second, BT armor works by ablation, so massing armor at the front of the tank only reduces the about of guns that can be mounted. If a lean profile can take as much damage as a barn door, but the barn door can mount 3 times more weapons, guess who wins. IRL the opposite is true, but in BT is false.

As far as speed, mylemar + fusion is lighter than threads + ICE + transmission so mechs have a lot better HP to weight ratio to tanks. Again, expensive toy compared to antique sort of comparison.


Tanks could be 1shot by most crits and were, in the end, terribly fragile. It was rare to see anything but little hovers and vtols go down due to actually blowing through armor. You got a TAC vs vehicles on both 2 and 12 hit locations. If you were on a side arc you got a crit on a 2, 8 or 12. On a crit you threw 2d6 and a 6-12 meant the vehicle was either outright destroyed or lost something critical, which often destroyed it.

A hit location from any direction on a 3,4,5 or 9 generally damaged or destroyed the vehicles movement system regardless of armor.

Mechs are vastly superior because the space inside is full of buffers, redundancies, crumple zones and volume mechanics for redirecting the force of impacts, explosions and such. They work in any terrain and thanks to neurohelmets almost like 40ft tall powdered armor. So if you could take an infantry man, give him more weapons than a tank carries, make him 40 ft tall, etc. that's why he's better than a tank. A tank still has exposed tracks and the drawbacks of a compressed design.

At least that's part of the handwavium magic used to justify why big stompy robbits are better than tanks using the same tech. In tabletop though vehicles are incredibly squishy. However if you've either got a strong defensive position or narrow urban environment vehicles can suddenly become stupidly dangerous. I can get an SRM carrier with 2 gunnery and 5 piloting (so the ability to park it somewhere short range and flat out erase whatever steps around the corner With 10xSRM6 and 20% accuracy boost) for the same BV as a 3025 Quickdraw with 4/4. You can do the same thing with a 3055 tech LRM carrier - 3xLRM20s with Artemis and a C3 slave unit so you park him in Kansas and buy a crap ton of super cheap C3+BAP VTOLS like the sprint for 70-80 BV each and rain stupid accurate, very concentrated LRM fire.

Which is why vehicle mobs are considered a cheese tactic, suitable only vs people who only played Clan mechs vs Inner Sphere (MUH LPL WARHAWK C is only 2500 BV!) and nights when everyone was so drunk you knew the game wasn't going to last the X hours it takes to play moves for 30 vehicles.

#62 Dee Eight

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Posted 02 January 2020 - 11:42 PM

There's also composite armors and spaced armors to consider with modern tanks.. although sometimes the "composite" isn't the same as people think from one tank to another. Now the concept of using mixtures of steels and ceramics (like boron carbide) together in layers is well understood among tank enthusiasts and done to disrupt the effects of chemical energy warheads (such as HEAT rounds) and also dulling the tip of kinetic energy armor piercing shells. But then you have the long rod dart type warheads of APFSDS rounds that are often made of tungsten or depleted uranium... very dense / hard materials...they tend to do quite well still against composite armor. The Arrowhead armor package on Leopard 2A5s and newer for example is spaced armor, the big wedges added to the existing turret are actually hollow inside. As a long dart round penetrates the outer steel plate, it starts to yaw when it hits the empty air space inside and then smacks against the turret armor proper sideways.



#63 Nightbird

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Posted 03 January 2020 - 06:45 AM

View PostDee Eight, on 02 January 2020 - 11:42 PM, said:

There's also composite armors and spaced armors to consider with modern tanks.. although sometimes the "composite" isn't the same as people think from one tank to another. Now the concept of using mixtures of steels and ceramics (like boron carbide) together in layers is well understood among tank enthusiasts and done to disrupt the effects of chemical energy warheads (such as HEAT rounds) and also dulling the tip of kinetic energy armor piercing shells. But then you have the long rod dart type warheads of APFSDS rounds that are often made of tungsten or depleted uranium... very dense / hard materials...they tend to do quite well still against composite armor. The Arrowhead armor package on Leopard 2A5s and newer for example is spaced armor, the big wedges added to the existing turret are actually hollow inside. As a long dart round penetrates the outer steel plate, it starts to yaw when it hits the empty air space inside and then smacks against the turret armor proper sideways.




'Modern' tanks would be destroyed by 1 hit from an AC5 or AC10. It's sci-fi, just accept magic armor and move on.

#64 WarHippy

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Posted 03 January 2020 - 08:00 AM

View PostMischiefSC, on 01 January 2020 - 11:28 AM, said:

Not trying to go all debbie downer here but it's worth bringing to light that the 'I don't care if I win' thing is a lie. It has always been a lie. It's a comforting lie and we as humans need comforting lies, it's part of how we protect ourselves. Some people just don't have the emotional energy to invest in the ego risk of trying to win and still losing or just working on GIT GUD. It's absolutely okay to be bad at stompy pretend robbits. Just be honest about it and realize that you're impacting the fun of up to 23 other people. It's okay to be selfish sometimes but if you're selfish all the time you're an *******.

I respectfully disagree. It isn't a lie to say you don't care if you win. Playing to win is one of the objectives, but the enjoyment a lot of people receive from playing is provided by the simple act of playing and often times the social interactions involved as well. I know when I play this or any other game that I am trying to win but I am not disappointed by a loss or feel any less enjoyment from playing even when I lose because I legitimately don't care if I win. Winning isn't the driving motivator for my enjoyment and that applies to a lot of others as well.

#65 MischiefSC

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Posted 03 January 2020 - 10:24 AM

View PostWarHippy, on 03 January 2020 - 08:00 AM, said:

I respectfully disagree. It isn't a lie to say you don't care if you win. Playing to win is one of the objectives, but the enjoyment a lot of people receive from playing is provided by the simple act of playing and often times the social interactions involved as well. I know when I play this or any other game that I am trying to win but I am not disappointed by a loss or feel any less enjoyment from playing even when I lose because I legitimately don't care if I win. Winning isn't the driving motivator for my enjoyment and that applies to a lot of others as well.


So you can have fun doing a lot of things. However you have more fun when you win than when you lose. If you played the exact same match and won you'd enjoy it more. You care if you win or lose. That doesn't mean winning is everything - if it was people would cheat constantly. However winning is the underlying core value of every match. There's 12 winners and 12 losers. The design of the game and purpose to it being 12 v 12 PvP is competition and the satisfaction and challenge that can give.

If you legitimately make 0 decisions in any match based on their impact on winning or losing you're wandering around aimlessly. If the success or failure of your decisions and the results of your decisions are 100% irrelevant to you then you may legitimately have some brain chemistry issues going on.

I don't think that's the case though. I think you do care, you've just devalued those results for yourself. At a personal level that's fine, you do you. However please do keep in mind that your choices directly impact 23 other people and it's terribly selfish to functionally sandbag a match for everyone else because you don't want to feel too invested in the outcome.



#66 VonBruinwald

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Posted 03 January 2020 - 10:56 AM

View PostMischiefSC, on 03 January 2020 - 10:24 AM, said:

However winning is the underlying core value of every match.




#67 WarHippy

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Posted 15 January 2020 - 08:04 AM

View PostMischiefSC, on 03 January 2020 - 10:24 AM, said:

So you can have fun doing a lot of things. However you have more fun when you win than when you lose. If you played the exact same match and won you'd enjoy it more. You care if you win or lose. That doesn't mean winning is everything - if it was people would cheat constantly. However winning is the underlying core value of every match. There's 12 winners and 12 losers. The design of the game and purpose to it being 12 v 12 PvP is competition and the satisfaction and challenge that can give.
The objective is to win but that isn't a core value. A core value would be having fun playing a game you enjoy, or doing anything for that matter. I think that is where you make your mistake and where our opinions part.

View PostMischiefSC, on 03 January 2020 - 10:24 AM, said:

If you legitimately make 0 decisions in any match based on their impact on winning or losing you're wandering around aimlessly. If the success or failure of your decisions and the results of your decisions are 100% irrelevant to you then you may legitimately have some brain chemistry issues going on.
I make decisions on what I think will complete the objective which is winning, but I still enjoy the match just as much even if what I ultimately do fails. Winning isn't where everyone derives their enjoyment, but that doesn't mean they are not trying to win.

View PostMischiefSC, on 03 January 2020 - 10:24 AM, said:

I don't think that's the case though. I think you do care, you've just devalued those results for yourself. At a personal level that's fine, you do you. However please do keep in mind that your choices directly impact 23 other people and it's terribly selfish to functionally sandbag a match for everyone else because you don't want to feel too invested in the outcome.
Nobody ever said anything about sandbagging that was you. What is selfish is assuming that the only way to play and the only way to enjoy something is to think and play your way. You are wrong. Every person in a match makes choices that impact the others regardless of where you attain your own personal enjoyment.

Everyone should be trying to win, but that doesn't mean there are not multiple avenues to get there or that enjoyment can only be found when winning.

Edited by WarHippy, 15 January 2020 - 08:06 AM.


#68 MischiefSC

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Posted 15 January 2020 - 07:06 PM

View PostWarHippy, on 15 January 2020 - 08:04 AM, said:

The objective is to win but that isn't a core value. A core value would be having fun playing a game you enjoy, or doing anything for that matter. I think that is where you make your mistake and where our opinions part.
I make decisions on what I think will complete the objective which is winning, but I still enjoy the match just as much even if what I ultimately do fails. Winning isn't where everyone derives their enjoyment, but that doesn't mean they are not trying to win.
Nobody ever said anything about sandbagging that was you. What is selfish is assuming that the only way to play and the only way to enjoy something is to think and play your way. You are wrong. Every person in a match makes choices that impact the others regardless of where you attain your own personal enjoyment.

Everyone should be trying to win, but that doesn't mean there are not multiple avenues to get there or that enjoyment can only be found when winning.


Except there's no opinions involved here. The game is PvP. The match has a specific set of rules to define winning vs losing. In fact the T&Cs literally say that when you click launch you're doing so with the intent of trying to win the match.

There's games designed for collaboration instead of competition. There's a lot of collaborative things that people can do. MWO however is, absolutely, a competitive win/loss environment. Even beyond that your brain, being a human brain, will respond differently to wins than losses in anything, big or small. That's what dopamine does and what a part of your brain called the 'reward network' responds to. How someone moralizes the response to winning or losing is another matter but, to be absolutely 100% clear, your brain does not respond to winning and losing the same. You can lose and still be happy but give the exact same scenario but winning you'd have enjoyed it more.

If you're not actively trying to win then you're sandbagging. If you're actively trying to win then, great. You're doing what everyone else should be doing because that's both the T&C for the game and the social contract for playing social games, that you're playing by the same rules and for the same goals.

There is no 'play my way' or 'play your way'. There's good choices that help the team win and bad choices that don't. There's learning to make good choices and being unwilling to learn to make good choices.

It's also okay to be selfish. Self-care and such is healthy and normal, so long as it's done with an eye toward its total impact on others. MWO wouldn't be fun for anyone if everyone only ran a handful of builds all the time, you'd get burned out and bored. However that doesn't change any facts. The facts are that the objective of the game is winning, that winning is better than losing for everyone even if you can lose and still have fun, that some choices are clearly, demonstratively better, more successful and contribute more than others and playing in a community game where you're part of a team but either knowing and refusing to consistently make good decisions or being unwilling to learn what good decisions are is a selfish behavior.

I'm nobodies mom. People can be selfish. I'm just not obligated to pretend it's not or that there's some moral component to refusing to learn to and apply good choices consistently and then trying to minimize/deflect/deny the inevitable, demonstrative impact that has on everyone else in the community. I don't know you, not trying to judge but trying to win is a fair expectation to have of everyone in the game.





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