78 replies to this topic

[Ragz]

Enig, on 06 August 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

I'd play Clan's if the technology roles were reversed, in a heartbeat.

It's not about the technology, I come to this board a lot as anyone can see, my passion for the Clan comes from a childhood playing Mechwarrior 2 and both xpacks. The Clan's are who I think of when I think 'Mechwarrior' they're the good guys in my head. I've read books about the IS and the Clans, and still see them as the protagonists.

Absolutely.

[Bugdung]

The answer to this would have to be no. I also question how playable this would make the entire game for me also.

I am an avid IS player because i have always enjoyed the struggle v's a clanner opponent not because i prefer a higher powered mech.

I think a lot of the lore of the clans was how unstoppable and fiercely scary their tech was when when they arrived against totally unprepared IS pilots.

I've seen many games lose their 'flavour' and lose their roots in favour of trying to balance a game and end in disappointment.

The original game gave each mech/item a Battle Value (BV) and this was used to ballance fights rather then drop weight, and i think this would be a much better idea to keep matches balanced with clan introduction.

e.g
60 Tons = (IS) Dragon BV: 1,125 (Clan) Mad Dog 'Vulture' BV: 2,351

75 Tons = (IS) ATLAS BV: 1,897 (Clan) Dire Wolf (Daishi) BV: 2,712

I think i'd also like to see something new then just choosing your mech when the clans are introduced too such as opposing tech being able to be salvaged not just outright bought or completely unavailable to opposing factions.

Edited by Bugdung, 07 August 2012 - 10:29 AM.

[Sidney]

Bugdung, on 07 August 2012 - 10:21 AM, said:

I am an avid IS player because i have always enjoyed the struggle v's a clanner opponent not because i prefer a higher powered mech.

The Clans haven't been 'higher powered' or scary for the past 20 years. By the time I entered the game in '97, the Clans were a joke.

BV heavily favors the Inner Sphere- due to its underestimation of armour and overestimation of mobility.

In your example, you are forgetting the 25% BV penalty Clan 'mechs receive for having better pilots.

It should be:

Clan Force: 60 Tons 2,939 BV
-Mad Dog Prime (3/4 Pilot): 2 x Large Pulse Lasers; 2 x LRM20s; 2 x Medium Pulse Lasers

Inner Sphere Force: 160 Tons 3,184
-Atlas AS8-D (4/5 Pilot): 2 x Light PPCs; 2 x MML 9s; 1 x Rotary AC5; 1 x Snub-Nosed PPC; 2 x Small Lasers; 2 x ER Small Lasers
-Dragon DRG-1N (4/5 Pilot): 1 x LRM10; 1 AC5; 2 x Medium Lasers

Now, under typical rules, that force would play on a single 1 x 1 mapsheet- putting the I.S 'mechs about 14 hexes (Medium range) from the Mad Dog.

In a couple of turns, the Atlas can close to short range for it's Snub PPC, giving it effectively the same pulse bonus as the Large Pulse lasers of the Mad Dog. Assuming it stays in woods, the gunnery advantage of the Mad Dog is negated, and 5/8 MP *may* be able to pull out a +1.

2 x Large Pulse Lasers and 1 x LRM 20 will generate excess heat, and it still can't compete with a Snub PPC, RAC 5, 2 x MML 9s, a LRM10 and 2 x Medium Lasers.

Don't forget that the Dragon matches it in speed and the I.S forces have nearly three times the armour of the Mad Dog...

This is, by the way, under BV2.0.

Under BV1.0, which as I said is even worse, I'd take a couple of Stalker 7Ds- 2 ER PPCs, 2 SSRM4s, 2 Medium Pulse Lasers and a targeting computer each- for a mere 1,500BV a piece.


...now add in Honour Rules / Zellbrigen and give the Inner Sphere artillery, mine fields, mech traps, Swarm LRMs and NARC.

The Clans are a paper tiger

Edited by Sidney, 07 August 2012 - 11:00 AM.

[Bugdung]

Aye you have me there Sydney been a while since i played tabletop so was just using a few quick examples i wiki'd

Main point though was i'd like both sides to keep their integrity and a balance to be found to deal with that

[Regina Redshift]

Depends on how they'd do it. I play the Clans for the fluff.

[Triggerhippy]

Bring it on, The true metal of the clans is in superior genetics to the IS (free birth scum). The technology just augments a naturally superior warrior with appropriate equipment.

(thats a yes I would still play as a clanner - you gotta love the nobility in the bidding and honor system)

[Frantic Pryde]

Absolutely, I don't play the clans for the tech...it is a nice bonus though

[Enig]

Triggerhippy, on 07 August 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

Bring it on, The true metal of the clans is in superior genetics to the IS (free birth scum). The technology just augments a naturally superior warrior with appropriate equipment.

(thats a yes I would still play as a clanner - you gotta love the nobility in the bidding and honor system)

*lip quiver* I'm a freebirth clanner :<

[redplauge]

i would not play clans. ever.

my issues with them are this;
first their tech is not "superior" it is more advanced than the IS t1 or t2 is. but only because NK was smart enough to put up some fall back storage depots. ALL of their second tier caste (technicians and scientists) are WARRIORS who FAILED the tests to be warriors. yes even the freeborn. also go look at the t3 and advanced tech stuff. IS stuff starts gaining the upper hand.

second they are warriors, a group of well trained SOLDERS can beat an equal or superior number of warriors. this has been proven a long time ago. (greeks, persians, romans, even the chinese kindoms)

finally their eugenics program also fails when you note the fact that they all come from the SAME group of 800 solders who joined Kerensky when the old SLDF forces rebelled.oh yeah a "few" freeborn where added, and some specific gene clusters where made for pilot and elemental lines. but theres so little variation that theres no way a good "super-warrior" would ever come out of it without major artificial DNA cooking. and again the scientists who could do something... are failed warriors. it takes a long time to be a good scientists (longer than the clans, who think someone is "over the hill" at 35, want to "waste" resources on)

[Sidney]

Bugdung, on 07 August 2012 - 11:26 AM, said:

Aye you have me there Sydney been a while since i played tabletop so was just using a few quick examples i wiki'd

Well it doesn't help that the Mad Dog runs very hot, and is more of a 'support' configuration.

The Clans can certainly compete, don't get me wrong, but you need large maps for one- and typically stick to much faster designs when matching BV.

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

i would not play clans. ever.

Because they don't have an advantage?

Not the strapping children and having them kill eachother during training? The decompassion ingrained into the warrior caste? The hypocrisy? That they're furries?

You're okay with all that, but the fact they don't have a clear play advantage is the issue?

Erm, okay

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

first their tech is not "superior" it is more advanced than the IS t1 or t2 is. but only because NK was smart enough to put up some fall back storage depots.

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

also go look at the t3 and advanced tech stuff. IS stuff starts gaining the upper hand.

Ton for ton, the Clans hold such a clearly significant tech advantage at both Tournament (formally Level 2), Advanced and Experimental (Both were formally Level 3) it's not even funny.

A Clan ER PPC is not only lighter and smaller than an Inner Sphere version, but it deals 50% more damage. Pulse Lasers are not only lighter, deal more damage, but they also more than double the range of the I.S counterparts. Missle weapons are automatically 50% lighter- Streak SRMs, while the same weight as normal SRMs, gain a 33% increase in range as well as dealing significantly more damage, produce less heat and don't waste ammo.

Endo-Steel and Ferro Fibrous armour consume half the amount of critical space that the Inner Sphere flavours do. Where an Inner Sphere Assault struggles to fit Endo-Steel on, a Clan Assault packs both without even blinking due to the space saving between an XL engine, Double Heatsinks and equipment.

The Manei Domini of the Word of the Blake approachthe Clans at the height of the Jihad, but assuming equal tonnage, Clan 3050 'mechs will still rip the Word of Blake apart, and no amount of Level 3 tech will prevent that.

There's a reason that BV roughly doubles the tonnage when matching the I.S up against the Clans.

As far as civilian and medical lives go, the Clans are also leap and bounds ahead of the I.S- cloning replacement limbs and memory alloys are two off the top of my head.

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

ALL of their second tier caste (technicians and scientists) are WARRIORS who FAILED the tests to be warriors. yes even the freeborn.

The Warrior caste is approx. 0.01% of the Clan population- see Warriors of Kerensky.

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

finally their eugenics program also fails when you note the fact that they all come from the SAME group of 800 solders who joined Kerensky when the old SLDF forces rebelled.

You seem to be mistaken on how that actually works. "Freeborn" warriors are used in the eugenics program as stock and for diversity.

Yes, 800 warriors followed Nicholas to Strana Mechty and were divided into 20 Clans of 40 Warriors each. You fail to acknowledge the civilians that followed him as well.

As stated, for every warrior in the Clans, there are 999 civilians. 80% of the SLDF followed Aleksandr- the Pentagon worlds were populated in the millions.

While some sibkos will have test downs that are relegated to the civilian population, they are by far the minority.

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

oh yeah a "few" freeborn where added, and some specific gene clusters where made for pilot and elemental lines. but theres so little variation that theres no way a good "super-warrior" would ever come out of it without major artificial DNA cooking

Battle Armour requires a person to be of a certain size to operate. The Inner Sphere manages this through their sheer population (in the trillions)- if you think a 400lb 8' tall slab of muscle is of little variation from someone that is 4' tall with enhanced reflexes and aversion to G-Forces, you're sorely mistaken.

You should take a look at the Phenotypes in the RPG sometime.

redplauge, on 07 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

. and again the scientists who could do something... are failed warriors. it takes a long time to be a good scientists (longer than the clans, who think someone is "over the hill" at 35, want to "waste" resources on)

The 35 is 'over the hill' is only true for the warrior caste, and even then it's for warriors that were unable to prove themselves. I point to the Nova Cat Khans who were in their 90s, Natasha Kerensky, and Kael Pershaw.

The Scientist caste, by the way, has an average life expectancy twice that of the warriors.

Edited by Sidney, 08 August 2012 - 10:54 AM.

[Bugdung]

Sydney

The Clans haven't been 'higher powered' or scary for the past 20 years. By the time I entered the game in '97, the Clans were a joke.



Yea but when the clans arrive in MWO it should be 3050 not 3068 once that 20yr gap in tech has been greatly reduced. check 3050 Clan tech v's IS 3050 the clan tech is very much superior.




also think i got misquoted as saying a lot of reds stuff back there dear chap x

[Sidney]

Bugdung, on 08 August 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

Yea but when the clans arrive in MWO it should be 3050 not 3068 once that 20yr gap in tech has been greatly reduced. check 3050 Clan tech v's IS 3050 the clan tech is very much superior.

Most of the Star League technology was recovered in the mid 3030s- Gauss Rifle, Pulse Lasers, Streaks, XL Engines, Double Heatsinks etc.

Yes, between 3025 (Formerly 'Level 1') rules and the Clans, there's a wide discrepency. The tech of 3050 (Formerly 'Level 2') while still wide, is much less so. Magshot Gauss Rifles, Stealth Armour, C3 and MMLs didn't suddenly change the playing field.

XL Engines, ER PPCs, Gauss Rifles, Double Heatsinks did. And they were all available by 3050. In fact, their prototypes were being used in the War of 3039.

As for MWO: I'll simply point you to one of the Dev's comments from the NVidia tournament on IGN

http://ca.ign.com/vi...city-commentary

At around 4:45 Bryan clearly states that the Atlas that explodes is using an XL Engine.

And this is, assuming, that the Devs are even sticking to the TT values for weapons. A Clan ER PPC may deal 50% more damage than the Inner Sphere counterpart in MWO.

Then again, it may not.

Bugdung, on 08 August 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

also think i got misquoted as saying a lot of reds stuff back there dear chap x

Sorry about that, it's been fixed.

[Cyber Carns]

I would play as a Wolf Clanner no matter what the tech was. Clanner till the end.

[Sirius]

Yeah, I'd do it. Once I have a team picked, I tend to stick with it win or lose.

Sidney, on 07 August 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

Clan Force: 60 Tons 2,939 BV
-Mad Dog Prime (3/4 Pilot): 2 x Large Pulse Lasers; 2 x LRM20s; 2 x Medium Pulse Lasers

Inner Sphere Force: 160 Tons 3,184
-Atlas AS8-D (4/5 Pilot): 2 x Light PPCs; 2 x MML 9s; 1 x Rotary AC5; 1 x Snub-Nosed PPC; 2 x Small Lasers; 2 x ER Small Lasers
-Dragon DRG-1N (4/5 Pilot): 1 x LRM10; 1 AC5; 2 x Medium Lasers

Actually the MDP is one of the better mechs to run in BV-balanced matches, but you're definitely going to need more than one map sheet to make use of it (but that applies to any BV-balanced Clan vs IS game). You have to exploit its range, speed and the -2 mod on the pulse lasers to get anywhere - stack the to-hit numbers as far against the IS mechs as you can. If you just reduce it to a firepower contest, the IS will win every time.

Basically what it comes down to is - pulse cheese will work nicely as long as you give it enough space to work, long-range guns (ERLLs, clan LRMs, ATMs, CERPPCs) can still get it done otherwise if you're careful enough, but if you just approach it like a typical slugfest, yeah, you're going to lose. In a heavily wooded area things just get worse - the only simple way to win is to take jumping pulse spammers, and playing that game tends to **** off your opponent pretty badly.

So I can't disagree with your central premise; clan units are underpowered in BV terms against IS units. Especially with the 3/4 pilots.

[Alaric Wolf Kerensky]

I would stay Clan. Not even better tech would bribe me away from Clan Wolf.

[RJMadCat]

I am a Clanner in the Battle tech universe, like i am a South African in the Real world, Nothing can change it.

[Sidney]

Sirius, on 09 August 2012 - 01:31 AM, said:

Actually the MDP is one of the better mechs to run in BV-balanced matches, but you're definitely going to need more than one map sheet to make use of it (but that applies to any BV-balanced Clan vs IS game). You have to exploit its range, speed and the -2 mod on the pulse lasers to get anywhere - stack the to-hit numbers as far against the IS mechs as you can. If you just reduce it to a firepower contest, the IS will win every time.

The Mad Dog's LRM20s have no range advantage over an Inner Sphere's LRMs (Ignoring the missing minimum range of course).

The Large Pulse Lasers fall 1 hex shorter than the LRMs- which means to use the Large Pulse Laser, you're going to be in range of the Inner Sphere's ER PPCs, Gauss Rifles, and LRMs.

Don't get me wrong, the -2 to hit modifier is fantastic, especially out to 20 hexes. It's an amazing weapon- but you yourself said that a slugging match with a MDP will be a lose for the Mad Dog. For the BV, I find it hard to justify- especially in duels. You're going to want to keep moving- the difference in cost of a Mad Dog Prime and a Timber Wolf Prime is less than 400 points. Hell, even under BV 2.0, a Mad Dog Prime costs about *150* points less than a Timber Wolf S.

A Timber Wolf S gains 15 tons of internals and armour, and most importantly, 5 Jumpjets- letting you generated a consistent +3 modifier per turn. It's intended to fight in closer with the SRMs... but come on. 5 Jumpjets? 15 tons? Swap the LRMs for SRMs and Machine guns and still keep pulse lasers for a mere 150BV?

The Mad Dog Prime is overpriced, sorry.

To put it another way, that Wolf will shred the Dog apart if there's cover- and even if there isn't, it's likely to close the range and rip it apart anyway.

If the Mad Dog can serve it's intended purpose and finish off damaged 'mechs or operate without Zellbrigen in a larger force, I can see the value... but honestly, I'd just take a Timber Wolf Prime for that role as the extra 5 hexes, tonnage and armour makes up for the neglible increase in BV. The ER Large Lasers are much better when you're trying to outrange your enemies anyway, and you can often gain that same -2 bonus by being at 'short' range when your enemy is at 'medium' range (E.g, ER Large Lasers against ER PPCs at 7 hexes away)

Sirius, on 09 August 2012 - 01:31 AM, said:

Basically what it comes down to is - pulse cheese will work nicely as long as you give it enough space to work, long-range guns (ERLLs, clan LRMs, ATMs, CERPPCs) can still get it done otherwise if you're careful enough, but if you just approach it like a typical slugfest, yeah, you're going to lose. In a heavily wooded area things just get worse - the only simple way to win is to take jumping pulse spammers, and playing that game tends to **** off your opponent pretty badly.

Agreed, my point being though is that the Mad Dog Prime doesn't have the range advantage over Inner Sphere forces, nor the mobility to make the pulses work. It will inevitably wind up in a slug fest, and it doesn't have the armour for that at its cost in BV.

At least in my experience.

Sirius, on 09 August 2012 - 01:31 AM, said:

So I can't disagree with your central premise; clan units are underpowered in BV terms against IS units. Especially with the 3/4 pilots.

Agreed. The default '1 map per lance' rule takes away the range advantage of the Clans. Taking a Storm Crow against a couple of Assault 'mechs that both outweigh and outgun you isn't fun for the Clan player, while a game of 'chase the Pack Hunter' and getting shot at with an ER PPC turn after turn without being able to return fire isn't fun for the Inner Sphere player.

Depending on circumstances, one side has a clear advantage which makes it considerably less fun for the other side.

The 'Force Size Modifier' introduced under BV 1.0 attempts to correct this by giving the smaller size a boost in BV, but just like larger (or rolling maps) few players like to play with it.

Hopefully the BV replacement Herb has talked about will correct this.

[Black Kerinski]

i agree with Korso. stripping the Clans of their tech advantage stripps them of their way of life, thought prosses, and code of honor. Also with out the tech advantage to differentiat between CL and IS mechs and weapons, all you would have is another innersphere invading the innersphere.

And for the roleplaying aspect of things, if the Clans didnt have their tech superiority they wouldnt have invaded in the first place. Or would have brought a much larger force of men and show of arms.

In short, the Clans aren't Clans without the tech advantage.

[Sirius]

Oh, don't get me wrong, there are definitely better mechs than the Mad Dog if you want to face the IS (everyone loves Stormcrow Cs) - but I've managed to make it work. ...under BV 1.0 with a 4/5 pilot so I guess that's questionable.

I'd much rather take it than a Shadow Cat or Hellbringer though. I wouldn't expect to get much use out of the LRMs, but at least the enemy's LRMs can be forced down to a pretty low hit %.