14 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

...early in the mornin!

Or, y'know, whenever you play.

So we've got this Bloodname Pack now, and the obvious standout fact (other than the fact that Piranha is cloning the Warden pack outright and skipping the Sphere/Clan turn order, which is bound to ruffle some jimmies real hard) is that the new Summoner G not only has a CT energy hardpoint, but triple missile shoulders. With the Bravo arms, you can get ten total missile hardpoints on a machine with twenty-one tons of payload space and reasonable mobility. That's a new record for OmniMechs, so far as I know. How does one make use of that level of payload on a Summoner?

First thing that occurs to me is that this is the first Clan 'Mech with enough missile hardpoints to make effective use of boated cLRM-5s. The Fiver's the most efficient launcher by far in terms of weight, and it has the sturdiest missiles (because apparently LRMs have wildly different missile health values based on which launcher they came out of. BattleTech logic, amiryte?), which means best chance of actually harming an enemy. Fifty tubes of LRM-5 would be a hellaciously effective LRM skirmisher (by the standards of LRM skirmishers)...if Ghost Heat didn't screw everything sideways. You only get four LRM-5s before No Fun Heat kicks in, though you can fire five of them for roughly the heat of six-ish normal launches. A five-by-five, right half/left half launch could work with cope-withable No Fun Heat, but it'd defeat a lot of the benefit of using smaller launchers to cluster missiles more tightly together and bat through AMS. Chainfiring Fivers, while hilarious, mostly means even a single enemy AMS turns your damage off entirely. BLugh.

SRMs are in much the same boat - you only ever get four launchers at once, and their No Fun Heat is much more punishing. I anticipate the Cauldron will actually give the durned thing an SRM-4 HSL+2 quirk, since six fours is technically the same damage as four sixes and making one 'Mech in the whole game that can do that would both be neat and drive Bloodname pack sales (plus, c'mon - the damn Summoner needs at least one valid loadout beyond N!pple P0ptart), but that still leaves four hardpoints left out in the cold. And it's certainly far from guaranteed the SMN-G gets special missile bonuses, especially since the HSL+2 would certainly be tied to So8 if it exists. If one presumes that the ten-hardpoint loadout gets no quirks...is it even possible/reasonable/practical to use so many missiles at once?

I know the one MAD II with a gobsmack of hardpoints tends to mix SRM-6s, MRMs, and rockets to get the highest possible one-click BLYAT SPLAT it can, but that's not an option for Clan machines. Curious what folks would think of this model. Perhaps a mix of SRMs and Streaks? Yeah yeah, Streaks are a meme, but as an unfortunate Space Marine found out, enough meme can still bring down even the most heavily armored machines. You can cram six fours and four Streak fours onto a Summoner with a sufficiency of ammo, though the cooling is awful. Technically a seventy-five point BLYAT button, but it's gonna hit absolutely everywhere. Probably a bad build, mostly just the only way I can think of to crank warheads out of all ten launchers at once.

You could go with ATMs instead, but the bracketing on that is weird and the effective range band where you can punch all ten launchers is super narrow and hard to stay inside of. Probably even worse than the BLYAT build, though it does have some niche applications as a semi-ATM boat that can semi defend itself within its minimum range.

Beyond that and the obvious (yes yes, I know The Meta's answer is dispense with the arm hardpoints and use six Artemis-stacked sixes fired three by three instead), I'm hard pressed to figure out decent ways to get all the launchers going. Can go Sixes-and-Twos if I'm reading the Ghost Heat tables right, get most of the BLYAT model's splat damage but without Streaks and with fast cycle times on the 2s for brawling. Given the presence of extra heat sinks, seems the best model, but I'm not able to bring to mind right now whether sixes and twos ghost heat each other in the game. Bleghe, old brains suck.

Any other ideas, or ways to use the upcoming new pods to best effect? Plenty of options for mixing in something like the Prime left torso for some moderate cooldown and spread quirks, though frankly when this thing drops I anticipate a lot of those bonuses will be moved to So8. Allowing any pod-centric missile quirks to exist on a 'Mech that can add seven extra launchers to any given single hardpoint's quirks. If they don't though, figuring you can do a larger, more heavily armored Pakhet with eight sixes and...semi-reasonable ammo reserves. With bad cooling. Frankly, feel like sixes-and-twos is a better idea if that works. Better cooling, no risk of ghost heat, and a better single-click smacking even if the one-two punch on eight sixes is outrageous.

Dunno. Just kinda experimenting in public, stream-of-consciousness crap. Anybody else have any ideas more worth discussing?

[w0qj]

+1
Very excited about which missiles to boat in upcoming SMN-G!
SRM60 perhaps?

Wish there's a way to theory-craft this in MechDB before SMN-G is launched

[Battlemaster56]

Pretty much what going on my mind, it a 70ton Pakhet and gonna be a deadly srm brawler

[Klavo Hunter]

What do you suppose the difference will be between the new Kit Fox and the Purifier? They look similar with the high side torso energy weapon mounts...

[pbiggz]

something like triple ASRM6 LBX 20 might be fun. An Ultra-AC20 would fit on a torso too, so you could drop both arms for tonnage.

I dont go for these packs often anymore, but the summoner is my favourite mech ever, and this one seems like it could be a little silly.

[Kanil]

Klavo Hunter, on 30 January 2022 - 08:34 PM, said:

What do you suppose the difference will be between the new Kit Fox and the Purifier? They look similar with the high side torso energy weapon mounts...

Purifier has 2E in each torso, this one just has 1E, 1B. So twice as many lasers, but no machine guns.

[Curccu]

Cases = fixed armor slots.

SMN-G 5xSPL + 5xSRM4 fatter alpha build (ghost heat of SRM4 is so small that can be ignored) build of HMN-PA, not sure if it's any better than that HMN.
SMN-G 6xASRM6 + 3xFlamer SO8 build that will kick enemy mechs heat up and it won't shoot back much without suffering.

Kinda depends on quirks/SO8 if this summoner is good or just dust collector in mechbay.

pbiggz, on 30 January 2022 - 08:51 PM, said:

something like triple ASRM6 LBX 20 might be fun. An Ultra-AC20 would fit on a torso too, so you could drop both arms for tonnage.

SMN-G LB20-X + 3xASRM6 Pretty tight on ammo.
SMN-G LB20-X + 4xSRM6 Prime left torso+arm for good quirks, ok amount of ammo (prime arm has also ammo quirk for LBX)
SMN-G UAC20 + 3xASRM6 Once again ammo issue, can't strip arms full because no slots for ammo in torso/leg/head sections.

[pbiggz]

Curccu, on 31 January 2022 - 02:58 AM, said:

Cases = fixed armor slots.

SMN-G 5xSPL + 5xSRM4 fatter alpha build (ghost heat of SRM4 is so small that can be ignored) build of HMN-PA, not sure if it's any better than that HMN.
SMN-G 6xASRM6 + 3xFlamer SO8 build that will kick enemy mechs heat up and it won't shoot back much without suffering.

Kinda depends on quirks/SO8 if this summoner is good or just dust collector in mechbay.


SMN-G LB20-X + 3xASRM6 Pretty tight on ammo.
SMN-G LB20-X + 4xSRM6 Prime left torso+arm for good quirks, ok amount of ammo (prime arm has also ammo quirk for LBX)
SMN-G UAC20 + 3xASRM6 Once again ammo issue, can't strip arms full because no slots for ammo in torso/leg/head sections.

will depend on quirks.

[FupDup]

Klavo Hunter, on 30 January 2022 - 08:34 PM, said:

What do you suppose the difference will be between the new Kit Fox and the Purifier? They look similar with the high side torso energy weapon mounts...

The new Fox basically exists as a poor man's Purifier in order to reduce the power gap between premium KFX users and freemium ones, without removing it entirely.

[Curccu]

FupDup, on 31 January 2022 - 08:53 AM, said:

The new Fox basically exists as a poor man's Purifier in order to reduce the power gap between premium KFX users and freemium ones, without removing it entirely.

goes between freemium and and premium being called mediocrium?

[Ronan]

Curccu, on 31 January 2022 - 09:24 AM, said:

goes between freemium and and premium being called mediocrium?

I logged in just to "like" this

[Valdarion Silarius]

I was thinking about making a thread about how strong almost all of the summoner variants are. Ever since the Cauldron buffed the chassis universally they are stupid strong now. My Summoner F now outperforms my Hellbringers and the trade off in tankiness is definitely better than the ECM bonuses imho.

[Curccu]

Valdarion Silarius, on 31 January 2022 - 10:10 AM, said:

I was thinking about making a thread about how strong almost all of the summoner variants are. Ever since the Cauldron buffed the chassis universally they are stupid strong now. My Summoner F now outperforms my Hellbringers and the trade off in tankiness is definitely better than the ECM bonuses imho.

Just interested what do you put in your summoner to out trade hbr-prime this? Something else than 2/3xERPPCs outside HBRs optimum range?
ECM is nice bonus but I think the best value in HBR is those super high torso/head mounts that exposure of specially hill peaking is very small and short.

[Gas Guzzler]

w0qj, on 30 January 2022 - 03:31 PM, said:

Wish there's a way to theory-craft this in MechDB before SMN-G is launched

There is just do a custom mech

[Valdarion Silarius]

Curccu, on 01 February 2022 - 01:12 AM, said:

Just interested what do you put in your summoner to out trade hbr-prime this? Something else than 2/3xERPPCs outside HBRs optimum range?
ECM is nice bonus but I think the best value in HBR is those super high torso/head mounts that exposure of specially hill peaking is very small and short.

It's similar to this: https://mwo.smurfy-n...20374410719c827

Im running 23 DHS, max survival in the skill tree, I think max cool run and the rest into firepower like burn time duration, etc. It's extremely tanky, mobile and can jump ridiculously good. I run a dual ERPPC small laser build on another variant but I enjoy the heavy laser vomit more for raw damage.