84 replies to this topic

[MechMaster059]

Lord Sevenous, on 10 June 2022 - 09:33 AM, said:

There are no "anti jam skills" just "shorter jam skills"

Thank you captain nit-pick.

Lord Sevenous, on 10 June 2022 - 09:33 AM, said:

Every Mech can use Artemis (IF you have SRM/LRM installed)

I see the store lists my SHD-5M as having Artemis: STANDARD, yet why can't I buy Artemis Missiles in the loadout screen?
(There are no LRM/SRM Artemis choices)

Lord Sevenous, on 10 June 2022 - 09:33 AM, said:

So you obviously don`t understand the game mechanics BUT you want to change things...
(maybe you should learn first....)

Nah, don't need to play 1,000 hours in order to figure out an 8 ton TC makes no sense.

Nightbird, on 10 June 2022 - 09:36 AM, said:

Oof coming the forums talking up a storm and then sharing that build is not a good way to start MWO my friend...

Oof, you're the guy who was worried a TC rework would benefit sniper builds even though I specifically stated the intent of a rework was to broaden the use of TC's to brawler builds and mixed builds. Oof squared bro.

caravann, on 10 June 2022 - 09:57 AM, said:

If you going for a single laser go for a large pulse laser. ER Large Laser work when you got two of them.

You can get out higher amount of tonnage by reducing armor where it won't matter.

The RAC is overvalued, UAC5 is a better gun in term of how much damage you get for each shot.

Ok, I'll try replacing the RAC5 with an U/AC5 so that frees up 1 ton. (I miss a lot of RAC shots anyway though the RAC5 is nice when someone is in your face)
I'll try reducing armor as well. I notice I get cored much faster than any other part (still learning how to twist) so I can probably find another 1/2 ton in armor around the core and 1/2 ton of ammo to fit the large pulse laser. (I'm mediocre at sniping with the ER LARGE LASER)

pattonesque, on 10 June 2022 - 10:04 AM, said:

1. what mech are you running this on?

2. ... Just in general it's best to commit to a single range -- if you're gonna brawl, go all in on brawling, etc.

1. Shadow Hawk SHD-5M

2. That makes sense. The large pulse laser that caravann suggests has much more DSP in a range matching the MRM.

YueFei, on 10 June 2022 - 10:30 AM, said:

Your loadout is not focused and doesn't synergize...

Indeed. I'll be changing it up. Thanks for your helpful advice.

YueFei, on 10 June 2022 - 10:30 AM, said:

The choice of chassis also makes a big difference. Which mech chassis and variant are you using?

Shadow Hawk SHD-5M

Edited by MechMaster059, 10 June 2022 - 10:48 AM.

[Nightbird]

Ok I concede, you clearly know better

[pattonesque]

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 10:40 AM, said:

1. Shadow Hawk SHD-5M

2. That makes sense. The large pulse laser that caravann suggests has much more DSP in a range matching the MRM.

OK, let's look at the -5M. We've got this for quirks:

COOLDOWN -10%
HEAT -10%
BALLISTIC COOLDOWN -10%
UAC JAM CHANCE -20%
LASER DURATION -10%
BASE ARMOR (LT) +12
BASE STRUCTURE (CT) +18
BASE STRUCTURE (RT) +14
BASE STRUCTURE (LT) +14
BASE STRUCTURE (RA) +12
BASE STRUCTURE (LA) +12
BASE STRUCTURE (RL) +18
BASE STRUCTURE (LL) +18

I'm gonna do some quick and dirty potential builds here off those quirks. The ballistic quirks you're dealing with here are pretty good, so you can do something like this for a skirmisher:

https://mwo.nav-alph...0b4ac337_SHD-5M
You can use this as a left-side or hill peeker because your two ballistic mounts are right near the cockpit. Stay about 500/600m away from things, pop up in unexpected places and keep clicking until you jam or take too much return fire.

You could also do something like this:
https://mwo.nav-alph...9c084c9f_SHD-5M
More of a shorter-range peeker and semi-poptart, better for burst damage in short exposures

Or if you wanted to be more brawly, one of these could work:
https://mwo.nav-alph...a1acd4de_SHD-5M
https://mwo.nav-alph...43c88426_SHD-5M
Very effective on the Yen-lo-Wang. This mech has slightly worse quirks but adds JJs

Now these are ones I just came up with on the fly. But in general I think you can look to these for directional advice.

[MechMaster059]

pattonesque, on 10 June 2022 - 10:55 AM, said:

https://mwo.nav-alph...0b4ac337_SHD-5M

https://mwo.nav-alph...9c084c9f_SHD-5M

https://mwo.nav-alph...a1acd4de_SHD-5M
https://mwo.nav-alph...43c88426_SHD-5M

So I'm getting the vibe the MRM isn't so good... lol. In the back of my mind I've been wondering about it. Is this a common thing to totally ignore a weapon slot? I know the U/AC20 is a very nasty weapon because I've see people wreck with it when I'm spectating.

Is this 3 armor on the rear a common thing? I've watched over 40+ YouTube videos of Baradul (I assume he's famous here) and he does the same thing having paper thin armor on the rear. (I suppose he's a good enough pilot that he's not too worried about being surprised) I realize the front is hit MUCH more than the back but this seems so dangerous. I don't think I'm good enough to risk having so little armor in the rear. I'm worried about a light mech appearing out of nowhere and tearing up my back side. I have 13 rear armor on my LT/RT and 15 rear armor on my CT. Perhaps that's too much but I'm very hesitant to drop below like 8 armor on the rear facings.

[pattonesque]

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 11:55 AM, said:

So I'm getting the vibe the MRM isn't so good... lol. In the back of my mind I've been wondering about it. Is this a common thing to totally ignore a weapon slot? I know the U/AC20 is a very nasty weapon because I've see people wreck with it when I'm spectating.

Is this 3 armor on the rear a common thing? I've watched over 40+ YouTube videos of Baradul (I assume he's famous here) and he does the same thing having paper thin armor on the rear. (I suppose he's a good enough pilot that he's not too worried about being surprised) I realize the front is hit MUCH more than the back but this seems so dangerous. I don't think I'm good enough to risk having so little armor in the rear. I'm worried about a light mech appearing out of nowhere and tearing up my back side. I have 13 rear armor on my LT/RT and 15 rear armor on my CT. Perhaps that's too much but I'm very hesitant to drop below like 8 armor on the rear facings.

Yeah I would say it's not necessary to fill up every slot. MRMs are decent on mechs with limited missile slots and good missile quirks, like say the DVR-6MR or the QKD-IV4. If you fill up every weapon slot you also generally run the risk of having too many weapon groups to manage. All these builds require you to have two groups at the most, which makes it easier to keep up your DPS.

For back armor, generally better players run very little. With proper positioning and awareness you won't get surprised from behind too terribly often. And consider: you're diverting armor from the front, where you get shot all of the time, to the back, where you'll probably only get shot some of the time. You build in this case for the more common scenario. I usually run like six back armor maximum on most of my robots, fewer if they're snipey types who are meant to stay away from the fray and so run less of a risk of getting surrounded. Eight is probably a fine number. A thing people will do is move armor from back to front every time they get killed from the front and front to back every time they get killed from the back. They generally find that getting killed specifically due to a lack of rear armor is fairly rare.

[Lord Sevenous]

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 10:40 AM, said:

I see the store lists my SHD-5M as having Artemis: STANDARD, yet why can't I buy Artemis Missiles in the loadout screen?
(There are no LRM/SRM Artemis choices)

In The Store/Mechlab is says:
Missile Guidance: STANDARD
You must change it to:
Missile Guidance: ARTEMIS
(It is a dropdown menu)

Then you can purchase Artemis LRM/SRM and install them.....

As to back armor:
Consider doing this: Start with 5 points and every game where you died by being shot in the back you add 1 point of armor and every 2nd game you died by frontal damage you substract 1 point....(just like Patton said)

Edited by Lord Sevenous, 10 June 2022 - 12:18 PM.

[MechMaster059]

Lord Sevenous, on 10 June 2022 - 12:11 PM, said:

Then you can purchase Artemis LRM/SRM and install them.....

Thanks.

[pattonesque]

I should elaborate -- there are SOME situations where having bracket-ish builds isn't a bad idea. This executioner for example:

https://mwo.nav-alph...81e93_EXE-PRIME

You could add a fourth ERPPC to it but given the Executioner's speed and JJs three is enough, you'd have to sacrifice a bunch of heatsinks just to fit it, and 10 ULs mean that any light diving it is going to have a bad time.

Someting like this is in a similar boat, although less extreme -- the cost of adding more lasers isn't quite worth the DPS/crit buff you get from those LMGs https://mwo.nav-alph...=e0564132_INC-3

[Horseman]

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 07:25 AM, said:

It's getting boring going and back and forth with you. You obviously haven't read my new Targeting Computer Rework Proposal thread in which I specified TC's for Energy, Ballistic, and AMS as well.

I have, and I find that your entire proposal is entitlement writ large. TCs are a niche component, and they're not the only one.TCs could certainly be tweaked, but your position is not conducive to discuss that constructively when your entire argument is that you want a TC to be mandatory for every mech because in your personal headcanon you imagine it should be.

Quote

The consensus here is that the only direct fire weapons meaningfully now helped by TC's are the longest range sniper builds. My new proposal provides buffs to brawler builds as well. Why would I propose an AMS TC that boosts AMS range and Laser AMS heat reduction if I was biased in favor of missiles?

An "AMS TC" never existed in the setting canon, and neither did a "Missile TC".
Here, read: https://www.sarna.ne...ting%20Computer
That doesn't preclude TC variants that are specialized towards only one aspects of weapon functionality while dropping others, but your idea that "every mech should be required to equip a TC" just isn't supported.

Quote

The only mech I own has an ER LARGE LASER, MRM 20, RAC5, and an AMS. I consider the RAC5 the main armament of my mech. I don't run LRMs because my mech can only hold 1x LRM 20 which fires 2 salvos of 10. I found too often the missiles just got shot down so I switched to an MRM. Artemis is not available on my mech. You have no idea how I play the game. None.

I do: badly.
You're trying to put a little of everything on your mech and end up with a frankensteinian monstrosity that does multiple things poorly and exactly NONE well.
That is only reinforced by your performance: you're quite literally in the bottom 10% of the playerbase, die three times more often than you kill anything and whichever side you get put on is statistically 14% more likely to lose. Given enough matches, there remains only one statistically significant source of your performance and WLR: you.

You've been playing this game for four months, so not knowing better is excusable.
However, the arrogance with which you claim that you know better than people who have been playing this game for better part of a decade? Is not.

You have yet to learn the game and its' mechanics, so your rebalance proposals are made with little to no understanding of how the changes will affect gameplay for anyone beyond the peanut gallery.
Sorry, but it's been tried in this game before and almost sunk it. One simply cannot achieve a healthy game balance by catering to the lowest common denominator.

Quote

Artemis is not universally available.

It actually is. Any mech can switch between Artemis and non-Artemis in the mechlab.

Quote

I can see by your 4,243 post that you are known as what I call a "status quo defender". You accept 8 ton TC's because they've always "been that way".

No, I have enough respect for the source material to not toss it away just because I want my personal failures catered to.

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 10:40 AM, said:

I see the store lists my SHD-5M as having Artemis: STANDARD, yet why can't I buy Artemis Missiles in the loadout screen?
(There are no LRM/SRM Artemis choices)

PGI UX - not for the first time. "Standard" is actually to missile guidance type... which can be either "Standard" or "Artemis". In the store, it should be saying "Artemis: No"

You need to enable Artemis for your whole mech first:

Then you'll be able to equip Artemis-enabled LRM and SRM launchers - it's not just ammo type, you actually need to mount special (1 slot bigger, 1 ton heavier) launchers for it

Quote

I'll try reducing armor as well. I notice I get cored much faster than any other part (still learning how to twist) so I can probably find another 1/2 ton in armor around the core and 1/2 ton of ammo to fit the large pulse laser. (I'm mediocre at sniping with the ER LARGE LASER)

Never strip torso armor, and always frontload it (no more than 5 pts in the back on anything that isn't a 90-100 tonner)

Quote

1. Shadow Hawk SHD-5M

Which is substantially quirked for UACs, and not so much for RACs (they do not benefit from the UAC jam chance or any cooldown quirks). You could do 2xUAC5, or you could do UAC10 with MRM 30-40

Try this on for size:

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 11:55 AM, said:

So I'm getting the vibe the MRM isn't so good... lol.

MRMs aren't bad weapons, but they're better on mechs that can boat them and are quirked for the purpose like some of the Wolverines or Trebuchet 7M.

Quote

Is this a common thing to totally ignore a weapon slot?

It's not only common but considered normal and expected. Focusing on one weapon class lets you minmax your loadout and skill tree around making the most out of it.

Quote

I know the U/AC20 is a very nasty weapon because I've see people wreck with it when I'm spectating.

There are mechs on which it works good. On this one, you'd end up with pretty much just the UAC20. The closest thing you can do is UAC10 + MRM40.
If you want UAC20, you could get a Hunckback IIC, which has 2xUAC20 and can fire them at the same time without a heat penalty. Alternatively, after next patch get a KFX-PRIME and slap a KFX-P left arm on it - they'll be coming out for C-Bills then. This will give you something gigaquirked for UACs and with just enough space for one and some ammo: https://mwomercs.com...-p-the-boomfox/

Quote

I realize the front is hit MUCH more than the back but this seems so dangerous.

Pay attention to your surroundings and don't unnecessarily give the enemy your back, that's pretty much it.

Quote

I'm worried about a light mech appearing out of nowhere and tearing up my back side.

Which will happen far less often than your front armor vanishing in a puff of magic smoke after getting focused on. Win some, lose some and lights can be somewhat mitigated by staying close enough for your teammates to support you.

Edited by Horseman, 11 June 2022 - 03:56 PM.

[Meep Meep]

pattonesque, on 10 June 2022 - 12:03 PM, said:

For back armor, generally better players run very little.....Eight is probably a fine number.

Since I use max armor nodes on every mech now I increase back armor till you get the 'free' 1 point additional armor on an uptick. This tends to either end up as 6 or 7 armor depending on the mech. Using the structure nodes is good too if the mech has enough structure to matter especially if it has structure quirks and you can spare the points. That can certainly stretch out your survival time.

[Nightbird]

Meep Meep, on 10 June 2022 - 12:55 PM, said:

Since I use max armor nodes on every mech now I increase back armor till you get the 'free' 1 point additional armor on an uptick. This tends to either end up as 6 or 7 armor depending on the mech. Using the structure nodes is good too if the mech has enough structure to matter especially if it has structure quirks and you can spare the points. That can certainly stretch out your survival time.

There is no free point, if you don't get a full point you get a decimal that isn't displayed in the lab.

[Meep Meep]

Nightbird, on 10 June 2022 - 12:59 PM, said:

There is no free point, if you don't get a full point you get a decimal that isn't displayed in the lab.

Which is why I put it in a 'quote'?

[MechMaster059]

pattonesque, on 10 June 2022 - 12:34 PM, said:

https://mwo.nav-alph...81e93_EXE-PRIME

I switched to a Large Pulse Laser and a U/AC10. DRAMATIC INCREASE IN DAMAGE.

I just finished a match where I did 769 damage, by far the most I've ever done. 445 the match before. Feels weird because I'm firing less weapons... lol.

The downside? Man it sucks when someone's in your face and that thing jams... it takes soooooo long to unjam. Been killed a couple of times because of that.

Horseman, on 10 June 2022 - 12:55 PM, said:

I have, and I find that your entire proposal is entitlement writ large.

LOL... oh boy, here we go again...

So I'm entitled, arrogant, disrespectful, the bottom 10% of the player base, anything else?

None of this ad hominem name calling addresses the TC argument.

Horseman, on 10 June 2022 - 12:55 PM, said:

TCs are a niche component

No.

Horseman, on 10 June 2022 - 12:55 PM, said:

you claim that you know better

Nope. I listened to what others had to say. Several posters said TCs were niche components that were only really viable for sniper builds. It was acknowledged that they're barely usable on Light Mechs, an entire class of mech practically excluded from using them. You're fine with this, i.e. you're a status-quo defender. The only thing people like you will ever be good for is getting in the way of progress.

Multiple types of TC's isn't my idea. It's Meep Meep's idea and I gave him credit for it in my new proposal thread. When I read his proposal I thought to myself:

1. There's a lot of different weapons a TC could provide buffs for.
2. Meep Meep thinks this functionality should be split across different types of TC's.
3. Yes.

This entire process took less than 2 minutes in my head. I didn't need to check Meep Meep's profile. I didn't need to determine whether or not Meep Meep had the proper pedigree to have an opinion. I didn't check how many hours Meep Meep has played the game. If Meep Meep is the worst MWO player ever to walk the face of the earth it wouldn't matter one iota to what I think of his idea. That's the difference between you and me Horseman, I focus on the problem to be solved, not the people making the arguments.

Horseman, on 10 June 2022 - 12:55 PM, said:

Here, read: https://www.sarna.ne...ting%20Computer

That's really great that you think MWO should be constrained by lore that came out in 1989.

[pattonesque]

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 02:33 PM, said:

I switched to a Large Pulse Laser and a U/AC10. DRAMATIC INCREASE IN DAMAGE.

I just finished a match where I did 769 damage, by far the most I've ever done. 445 the match before. Feels weird because I'm firing less weapons... lol.

The downside? Man it sucks when someone's in your face and that thing jams... it takes soooooo long to unjam. Been killed a couple of times because of that.

Nice! and yeah, one of the things about very effective builds is that many of them have situations where you feel helpless. Like some people will do things like build a brawler Atlas but add two ERLL so they don't feel helpless at range. It ends up being a trap, though, because you're losing to every other purpose-built ranged mech in the game and making yourself way worse in a brawl.

With the UAC/10 you can do an LPL, or you can do two ML, two ERML, or two MPL, depending on how you play and what you value more.

[John McClintock]

Never payed attention to anything but the mk1, but after looking I can see how a sniper laser build that comes with an energy range boost quirk could work well with a high level computer. Stacking buffs could easily get you to 30% or even 35% range boost.

[MechMaster059]

John McClintock, on 13 June 2022 - 09:10 AM, said:

Stacking buffs could easily get you to 30% or even 35% range boost.

Ya, I bought a light mech over the weekend and as I was perusing mechs I noticed how rare targeting computers were. They're not on even 10% of the mechs. They're basically a lost and forgotten item, kind of like the lost city of Atlantis. There was one mech with a 30% ballistic range quirk and a Mark III computer. That's all they're good for, being very tightly coupled to specific quirk builds and basically an invisible non-factor for everything else. Quirks are all over the place in this game and to some degree that's sad because despite the flavor quirks can provide they're not a generalized or customizable solution. You're not really free to design your own mech, you have to buy a variant with the quirks you need to make the build you have in mind work.

I'm just grateful that the fact that targeting computers have basically been neglected and left for dead in this game is not a negative actively screwing the game up, it's a lack of a positive, a missed opportunity if you will, so at least them being abandoned like a Vietnam POW doesn't get in the way of anything.

[Curccu]

MechMaster059, on 10 June 2022 - 02:33 PM, said:

That's really great that you think MWO should be constrained by lore that came out in 1989.

Sadly we are, not that I think we should be..... but we are and will be.

[VeeOt Dragon]

and we should be. its the basic building blocks of the universe. hell as much as i find humans in any setting boring as hell adding Alien factions to Battletech (the universe in which MWO resides) wouldn't work. you have to work within the constraints of the established cannon and build from there (its why the Star Wars disney films minus Rogue One sucked royal ***, they tossed the established lore and cannon out the window.)

now i agree somewhat that TCs could use a Slight buff, nothing major but a bit of a buff wouldn't hurt. something to make them a little more attractive but a not requirement for every build.

also keep in mind that a few years back they nerfed the absolute hell out of Artemis, NARC, and TAG because the meta cry babies complained (there is still a very vocal part of the Forum community that want to remove LRM (and only LRM, they seem fine with other locking weapons like ATM and Streaks) from the game. again this weapon system is part of the Lore and should always be in the game and should always be an effective choice (mind you LRM take a completely different skill set and mindset to use effectively but thats another point for another time).

as far as TCs, Weapons, and all other Equipment goes you need to keep it placed in the time period that MWO is set, that being the Clan invasion. the timeline goes well beyond that and some truly interesting weapons like Plasma cannons get introduced (think PPC that also work a bit like a flamer and heat up the target mech.) we wont get started on The Word of Blake time period because that is a contentious time for most Battletech fans.

MWO is at its core a game based off of a Table Top war game with miniatures and dice. many things had to change to make it work as things that work in a Turn based game don't in a Real time FPS. TCs in Table Top increase your percent chance to hit a target with Direct fire weapons as they helped to calculate range, wind speed and other factors for the pilot to improve their accuracy. also most people played with fixed loadouts (think if you were stuck with just the stock build for each mech) and even though you could technically swap out weapons systems (slot based just like in MWO) there were things you couldn't change like Endo was part of the base skeleton of the mech so you either had it from the factory or you didn't. Ferro and light Ferro could be added but they were rare often being Lost tech (a term for technology in the universe that people had forgotten how to manufacture due to so many worlds quite literally being nuked back into the stone age). engines also were often stuck with the mech being extremely expensive and time consuming to put in a new engine if one was damaged let alone the expense and time required to modify a mech to fit a bigger or more advance one. also builds with diverse weapon systems worked fine in Table top but just don't function as well in MWO due to targeting being more player skill and less based on the fall of the Dice. by the time of the Clan Invasion (the time MWO is set) a data cashe had been found that was released to all factions relatively evenly by the mercs that found it. the Cache included schematics for mechs and technologies thought lost so that by the time the Clans arrived these technologies had started to get reintroduced. there are many other factors that needed changing for MWO to work such as balancing Clans and IS tech because in the universe any one Clan Mech could take out an entire Lance of IS mechs in the same weight class with little trouble (they were the bad guys after all and only lost due to some rather stupid tactics in how they waged war and the fact that the IS outnumbered them something like 10-1 once the IS learned of the invasion)

OP i highly recommend you watch the Tex Talks Battletech Vids as they are both entertaining and informative on the universe. there is some much to explain that i could fill pages and pages with it and still not cover everything. so before i take up any more forum space i will leave it here.

Edited by VeeOt Dragon, 14 June 2022 - 10:37 PM.

[cazeral]

John McClintock, on 13 June 2022 - 09:10 AM, said:

Never payed attention to anything but the mk1, but after looking I can see how a sniper laser build that comes with an energy range boost quirk could work well with a high level computer. Stacking buffs could easily get you to 30% or even 35% range boost.

Indeed it does, Catapult Jester can reach out to 1km effective and be troublesome to 1.4km with a mk8 and full range skill tree and with 3 er large, anyone ignoring it will be whittled down quite nicely.

[MechMaster059]

VeeOt Dragon, on 14 June 2022 - 10:33 PM, said:

and we should be. its the basic building blocks of the universe.

Existing differences between MWO and the tabletop/lore:
Double armor values.
Double structure values.

https://www.reddit.c...he_differences/

I guess these changes have achieved "normalcy" and thus no one feels inclined to claim the barbarians are at the gates threatening to pillage the lore. The fact is a computer game has requirements beyond the lore in order to be fun and balanced.

I appreciate your inclination to stay true to the source material but in this case that's a straw-man argument. Introducing an AMS computer is a relatively minor change lore-wise and could easily be explained way. (Some dude found a schematic somewhere)

I'm not proposing introducing a whole new faction to the lore, nor aliens. I'm not even proposing introducing any new weapons, though I think some of the more exotic weapons being discussed here from later time periods of the lore sound really cool and probably should be added to the game.

What I'm proposing is nowhere near like what Disney has done to Star Wars where they have gone out of their way to destroy previous beloved characters to make way for their new woke agenda. It's very unfair to use that as a comparison.

It's easy to point to lore in a reflexive manner and claim that something doesn't exist but the lore was written 30+ years ago and there's no way the writers could know that decades in the future their IP would be turned into a fast-paced, twitchy online game. Doing so gives the veneer of honoring the lore but it's really just an intellectually lazy excuse to do nothing.

VeeOt Dragon, on 14 June 2022 - 10:33 PM, said:

OP i highly recommend you watch the Tex Talks Battletech Vids as they are both entertaining and informative on the universe.

I'll look into this. I'm curious about the lore of the universe.