53 replies to this topic

[Heavy Money]

Okay, help me out if i'm missing something here.
Inner Sphere LRMs weigh twice as much as Clan LRMs (base, not counting Artemis). In return, they fire an insignificant amount faster, and all the missiles arrive at the same time, making them more likely to hit the same area and slightly better against AMS, but their deadzone at short range is much worse.

Why are they this much worse? Is there some mitigating factor I'm missing? Are there IS mechs with enough quirks to make up for this difference?

I've had good success running some clan LRM builds and had wanted to try some IS missile mechs, like a classic catapult, but its just soooo much weaker in what it can run due to the tonnage difference.

[Bud Crue]

Honest answer: I think the general weight differences between IS and Clan equivalent weapon weights is derived from the original table top values, with everything regarding their respective MWO in game performance characteristics being imposed by PGI to give them distinctive flavor.

Sarcastic answer: The IS LRMs weigh so much more, so as to incentivize the player to not be foolish enough to run Lrms on anything other than a Nova Cat.

[Brauer]

Heavy Money, on 23 November 2020 - 11:27 AM, said:

Okay, help me out if i'm missing something here.
Inner Sphere LRMs weigh twice as much as Clan LRMs (base, not counting Artemis). In return, they fire an insignificant amount faster, and all the missiles arrive at the same time, making them more likely to hit the same area and slightly better against AMS, but their deadzone at short range is much worse.

Why are they this much worse? Is there some mitigating factor I'm missing? Are there IS mechs with enough quirks to make up for this difference?

I've had good success running some clan LRM builds and had wanted to try some IS missile mechs, like a classic catapult, but its just soooo much weaker in what it can run due to the tonnage difference.

IS lrms are far better than Clan lrms. The ability to fire all at once significantly speeds up the fire rate and increases the chance that you're going to slap a mech with a bunch of damage before it gets to cover. Firing all at once is also a HUGE advantage against ams. The best LRM boats in the game are generally IS mechs like the TBT-7M, AWS-8R, FNR-5H, STK-3H, Mean Baby, etc. If possible you want to find an IS mech with missile quirks, slap some tubes on there, and go to town. IS mechs can be viable lrm boats with like lrm 30 or 45, whereas clan mechs pretty much need lrm 80 to be viable (although I may be missing a lighter clan lrm boat idk).

Bud Crue, on 23 November 2020 - 11:45 AM, said:

Sarcastic answer: The IS LRMs weigh so much more, so as to incentivize the player to not be foolish enough to run Lrms on anything other than a Nova Cat.

Let's be honest here, there are far better lrm boats than the NCT.

[VonBruinwald]

Brauer, on 23 November 2020 - 11:48 AM, said:

IS lrms are far better than Clan lrms. The ability to fire all at once significantly speeds up the fire rate and increases the chance that you're going to slap a mech with a bunch of damage before it gets to cover. Firing all at once is also a HUGE advantage against ams. The best LRM boats in the game are generally IS mechs like the TBT-7M, AWS-8R, FNR-5H, STK-3H, Mean Baby, etc. If possible you want to find an IS mech with missile quirks, slap some tubes on there, and go to town. IS mechs can be viable lrm boats with like lrm 30 or 45, whereas clan mechs pretty much need lrm 80 to be viable (although I may be missing a lighter clan lrm boat idk).

cLRM40 is perfectly viable, Slap 'em on a MDD-Prime and you can wreck face all day.

[Johny Rocket]

VonBruinwald, on 23 November 2020 - 12:10 PM, said:

cLRM40 is perfectly viable, Slap 'em on a MDD-Prime and you can wreck face all day.

I have an lrm45 on an Arcticwolf. The Mad Dog packs an lrm70.

[Johny Rocket]

Brauer, on 23 November 2020 - 11:48 AM, said:

IS lrms are far better than Clan lrms. The ability to fire all at once significantly speeds up the fire rate and increases the chance that you're going to slap a mech with a bunch of damage before it gets to cover. Firing all at once is also a HUGE advantage against ams. The best LRM boats in the game are generally IS mechs like the TBT-7M, AWS-8R, FNR-5H, STK-3H, Mean Baby, etc. If possible you want to find an IS mech with missile quirks, slap some tubes on there, and go to town. IS mechs can be viable lrm boats with like lrm 30 or 45, whereas clan mechs pretty much need lrm 80 to be viable (although I may be missing a lighter clan lrm boat idk).



Let's be honest here, there are far better lrm boats than the NCT.

Kintaro 18 lrm5 x5 and laser to your liking. Constant spam at 95kph.

[VonBruinwald]

Johny Rocket, on 23 November 2020 - 12:13 PM, said:

I have an lrm45 on an Arcticwolf. The Mad Dog packs an lrm70.

Problem I found with taking 70 is if you have to stop firing to cool off it's great as a support build and those cool down periods are a great opportunity to reposition. Problem is I'm an aggressive front-line lurmer, can't afford to run out of heat when you're pushing the front. With 40 I get a much longer fire-time before I have to think about finding cover. I still have the option of using lasers when I've got heat to spare.

[Johny Rocket]

VonBruinwald, on 23 November 2020 - 12:25 PM, said:

Problem I found with taking 70 is if you have to stop firing to cool off it's great as a support build and those cool down periods are a great opportunity to reposition. Problem is I'm an aggressive front-line lurmer, can't afford to run out of heat when you're pushing the front. With 40 I get a much longer fire-time before I have to think about finding cover. I still have the option of using lasers when I've got heat to spare.

True but man when its on its on. I prefer lrms on mediums. Lately been seeing a lot of these bigger Clan lrm mechs and got curious so started playing with the Mad A and Sun Spider D. On the Sun Spider its a pair of 20s and a UAC10. The Mad A has produced the highest damage match I have ever had though at 1409.

Fun for the buck its still got to be the KTO 18 lrm5 x5 with an erll, or Artic Wolf 1 with srm6 x4 and lrm5 x5.

Edited by Johny Rocket, 23 November 2020 - 12:46 PM.

[Heavy Money]

Okay, so the simultaneous fire matters more than I realized. But i still can't get a decent equivalent loadout going.
One of the playstyles i like is mixing Artemis LRMs and some lasers and doing direct fire (I realize this may not be the most meta thing, but i'm just going to use it as a comparison point.)

Let's look at the Mad Dog Prime running this. Its got missile CD, spread, and velocity quirks, so that's pretty nice. Then I can fit 2x LRM 20 Artemis, 3x ER med lasers, Tag, 6 tons of ammo, and 2 double heat sinks. That gives me:

>1.5 heat management
>402 armor
>81 speed

and still 2 tons left over for more ammo, AMS, sensors, whatever. If I dump some armor off head and legs, i could upgrade a laser to a large. So this fits very nicely at 60tons.

Now let's try an equivalent build on the Catapult C1, which is equivalent in hardpoints and about equivalent in quirks, but 5 tons heavier. It ends up with:

>1.43 heat management
>422 armor (higher in the legs and C torso, lower in side torsos)
>61.1 speed (running Light Engine 245)

And there's only .3 tons left over. If I run an XL engine instead I can get to 69.8 speed, or stay the same and have 3.3 tons spare, which i'll need to spend on a 3rd heatsink to have 1.49 heat management, and now i'm out of slots while running Endo Steel, or out of tons if not. And of course, IS XL engine is a good way to die fast (but does it even matter once I lose my arms?)

On top of this, the catapult has its missiles in its arms, which is not made up for by the weapon doors. And the Mad Dog has built in CASE. And then there's the differences between Clan and IS ER Medium lasers.

So, is the catapult just bad? It seems like it would be worth the performance difference if the Catapult could also be running all 4 of its Jump Jets or something, but it can't hope to fit them like this on either tonnage or slots. It has less space despite being 5 tons heavier. If IS LRM 20 Arts weighed the same as Clan, it'd have another 10 tons and 2 slots to work with, which would close the gap by letting it run some combo of bigger engine, Jump Jets, or bigger lasers.

I haven't looked through it in as much detail, but it looks like the Archer and Sunspider will have similar discrepancies if compared like this. I can't image that the simultaneous firing of IS LRMs can make up for this?

[The pessimistic optimist]

Heavy Money, on 23 November 2020 - 11:27 AM, said:

Okay, help me out if i'm missing something here.
Inner Sphere LRMs weigh twice as much as Clan LRMs (base, not counting Artemis). In return, they fire an insignificant amount faster, and all the missiles arrive at the same time, making them more likely to hit the same area and slightly better against AMS, but their deadzone at short range is much worse.

Why are they this much worse? Is there some mitigating factor I'm missing? Are there IS mechs with enough quirks to make up for this difference?

I've had good success running some clan LRM builds and had wanted to try some IS missile mechs, like a classic catapult, but its just soooo much weaker in what it can run due to the tonnage difference.

They are heavy as F but tube for tube better then clan LRMs. This is pretty much scariest LRM boat you can build in the game https://mech.nav-alp...7bd1327_MAD-4HP put them on two groups in chain fire and watch peoples armor melt

Edited by SirSmokes, 23 November 2020 - 01:35 PM.

[Gagis]

Historical artefact from how the Clans are a pants on head dumb addition to the board game and the fictional universe.

PGI has managed to balance this out by making clan lurms shoot their potential damage in alllll the places.

PGI managing to make a balanced PVP game that includes clans is honestly really impressive consideeing how dumb power creep thei represent in other iterations of the same franchise.

[TheCaptainJZ]

I can't remember, but IS LRMs might have a higher velocity.

[The pessimistic optimist]

Gagis, on 23 November 2020 - 01:43 PM, said:

Historical artefact from how the Clans are a pants on head dumb addition to the board game and the fictional universe.

PGI has managed to balance this out by making clan lurms shoot their potential damage in alllll the places.

PGI managing to make a balanced PVP game that includes clans is honestly really impressive consideeing how dumb power creep thei represent in other iterations of the same franchise.

Well it makes sense really if you found away to reduce the weight on something that drastically it only makes sense they are very different mechanically

[Johny Rocket]

Something I see being said is that ams effect IS missiles less because of the spread along the flight path being so different, just not true. We tested this when they reworked the LOS on lrms and buffed ams. Its percentage and an RNG roll just like everything else.

[East Indy]

I glanced and didn't see a direct answer to Why.

In BattleTech, the tabletop game from Mechwarrior is derived, Clans are centuries ahead in technology and the gaming experience of first contact was intended to pit vastly disparate units against each other with a larger universe (campaigns) in mind.

A Protoss vs. Terran/Zerg matchup wasn't how PGI wanted to do it, so weapon effects were moderated* but building rules -- since changing them introduces so many knock-on problems it effectively breaks the game -- remain the same as tabletop.

* Quirks originated out of Clan superiority. Playing Inner Sphere 2014-2015 was for aficionados only. At one point Russ remarked that team balance was accomplished by assuming Clan 'Mech were evenly distributed. Oof.

Edited by East Indy, 23 November 2020 - 03:31 PM.

[Brauer]

SirSmokes, on 23 November 2020 - 01:26 PM, said:

They are heavy as F but tube for tube better then clan LRMs. This is pretty much scariest LRM boat you can build in the game https://mech.nav-alp...7bd1327_MAD-4HP put them on two groups in chain fire and watch peoples armor melt

Meme Baby, 5E, STK-3H, and AWS-8R say hello.

The first two carry nearly as many tubes with big time quirks and far outclass that mech. The other two carry fewer tubes but have giga quirks. The MAD isn't even the scariest IS lrm assault.

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

In practice, IS LRM boats will have a much better time in the soup because of their ability to breakthrough AMS far more consistently than Clan LRMs. The tighter spread of IS LRMs (especially with direct LoS) makes them truly fearsome.

[JediPanther]

Heavy Money, on 23 November 2020 - 01:19 PM, said:

IS XL engine is a good way to die fast (but does it even matter once I lose my arms?)

On top of this, the catapult has its missiles in its arms, which is not made up for by the weapon doors. And the Mad Dog has built in CASE. And then there's the differences between Clan and IS ER Medium lasers.

So, is the catapult just bad? It seems like it would be worth the performance difference if the Catapult could also be running all 4 of its Jump Jets or something, but it can't hope to fit them like this on either tonnage or slots. It has less space despite being 5 tons heavier. If IS LRM 20 Arts weighed the same as Clan, it'd have another 10 tons and 2 slots to work with, which would close the gap by letting it run some combo of bigger engine, Jump Jets, or bigger lasers.

You'll never mirror any clan build to an is and get the same results. You'll have to compromise a lot to get the type of performance you want if you want to get as close to clan as possible. You need to rethink about the Cat and work to its strengths. Cats are one of the most xl friendly mechs. The missile doors also act as 40 ton side torso shields so don't be afraid of losing them. The C1 in particular,the last time I checked, had the best missile quirks second to the C4.

Running an xl it will not blow if/when either or both missile boxes get shot off. Only on the normal side torso loss will the xl blow. While you might be die hard on artimis lrms I find you can go without it just fine. Skill up the C1 focusing on sensors for targ retention and targ decay first. Second skill up fire power for laser duration, cool down and heat gen. IS mls won't have range of c-mls or c-er-mls but you need them primarily for defense against lights and fast movers so focus on their dps.

If you are really worried about st loss killing your mech use lfe or std.Never forget to equip the bap and you get one free uav. I set mine to auto-fill using the c-bill one. Ideally you'll be very close to your team mates so the Cats slower speed won't be a problem and when you max out range nodes you'll have around 1116m range. Drop a laser for tag if you want.

lfe build v1: CPLT-C1 lfev1

xl build v1:CPLT-C1 xlv1

[Heavy Money]

JediPanther, on 23 November 2020 - 05:28 PM, said:

You'll never mirror any clan build to an is and get the same results. You'll have to compromise a lot to get the type of performance you want if you want to get as close to clan as possible. You need to rethink about the Cat and work to its strengths. Cats are one of the most xl friendly mechs. The missile doors also act as 40 ton side torso shields so don't be afraid of losing them. The C1 in particular,the last time I checked, had the best missile quirks second to the C4.

Running an xl it will not blow if/when either or both missile boxes get shot off. Only on the normal side torso loss will the xl blow. While you might be die hard on artimis lrms I find you can go without it just fine. Skill up the C1 focusing on sensors for targ retention and targ decay first. Second skill up fire power for laser duration, cool down and heat gen. IS mls won't have range of c-mls or c-er-mls but you need them primarily for defense against lights and fast movers so focus on their dps.

If you are really worried about st loss killing your mech use lfe or std.Never forget to equip the bap and you get one free uav. I set mine to auto-fill using the c-bill one. Ideally you'll be very close to your team mates so the Cats slower speed won't be a problem and when you max out range nodes you'll have around 1116m range. Drop a laser for tag if you want.

lfe build v1: CPLT-C1 lfev1

xl build v1:CPLT-C1 xlv1

Those builds look reasonable, but will they compete with the mad dog? Or is it just going to be inferior?
Also, why the Beagle Probe if you have tag?

[LordNothing]

having your missiles arrive simultaneously is a good thing if you are trying to get through an ams screen. clan lerms are significantly weaker in that area. clan weapons are only better in theory, in practice they are effectively hard mode.