52 replies to this topic

[AlanEsh]

Here's what I want to see...

3 engine crits kills your mech.
Each engine crit causes added heat, and/or removes one or two of your in-engine heatsinks.

There, now your XL engines have pretty big disadvantages but they don't auto-destroy your mech just because your CASE blew or you got RT/LT critted hard.

/EDIT

I forgot to mention, make XL engines use only 2 crit spaces in side torsos.

Ummmm, did I just reinvent Clan XL engines?

Edited by Angelicon, 12 April 2012 - 10:22 AM.

[zorak ramone]

Voted yes, and agree with others in the thread that there must be downsides to the XL engine to offset the massive weight gains (especially in Assault/Heavy mechs).

That said, I would keep an open mind to maybe reducing the penalty for side torso destruction from outright mech death to some kind of movement or heat penalty. For example, maybe you don't count XL side torso hits toward engine destruction, but still give a +5 heat penalty for each hit. So if you loose a side torso, you gain 15 per turn. You loose both, and if you aren't dead already, you'll be gaining 30 per turn and will be dead soon.

I say this because I remember in MW4 how easy it was to side-torso certain mechs (Thanatos, Zeus, etc.). Given that the side torsos have less armor than the CT, and if XL engines will have the additional downside of costing almost 2x the price of the standard engine, mech death on side torso destruction may be too severe in a real-time MW game where players can aim their shots better.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Well... the game Developers can bend the rules a little...

An eXtra Light engine requires 3 critical hits to destroy, but occupies 12 critical slots - 3 in LT, 6 in CT, and 3 in RT...
A normal engine requires 3 critical hits to destroy, but only occupies 6 slots - all in the CT... is that right so far?

They could make it so engines require 6 critical hits to go offline. That way a center torso core would be fatal to anyone; a Mech with a standard engine would survive havig both side torsos shot out, however a Mech with an XL engine would succumb to the total destruction of both side torsos. Additionally, a Mech with an XL engine should experience severe debuffs from the loss of a single side torso and it's internal components.

That would make the XL-equipped Mechs feel a bit less like nitrous-injected Ford Pintos.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

@ Prosperity - if not already being considered by the devs that would be a good suggestion to make to them if beta shows XL engined mechs are too "glass". I'm also thinking for further down the line when the Clan's arrive who can survive the loss of a side torso.

[Strum Wealh]

Prosperity Park, on 12 April 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

Well... the game Developers can bend the rules a little...

An eXtra Light engine requires 3 critical hits to destroy, but occupies 12 critical slots - 3 in LT, 6 in CT, and 3 in RT...
A normal engine requires 3 critical hits to destroy, but only occupies 6 slots - all in the CT... is that right so far?

They could make it so engines require 6 critical hits to go offline. That way a center torso core would be fatal to anyone; a Mech with a standard engine would survive havig both side torsos shot out, however a Mech with an XL engine would succumb to the total destruction of both side torsos. Additionally, a Mech with an XL engine should experience severe debuffs from the loss of a single side torso and it's internal components.

That would make the XL-equipped Mechs feel a bit less like nitrous-injected Ford Pintos.

One issue I could see with this is when/if Clan 'Mechs/tech becomes available.

IS-built XL engines (canonically) have three criticals in each side-torso, while Clan-built XL engines (canonically) have only two criticals in each side-torso.
As such, an IS 'Mech with an XL engine could be disabled by destroying either 1.) one side-torso section or 2.) the center-torso section, while a Clan 'Mech with an XL engine could be disabled by destroying either 1.) both side-torso sections or 2.) the center-torso section.
IS and Clan 'Mechs with standard engines, by contrast, could only have their engine disabled by destroying the center-torso section.

By increasing the number of criticals needed to disable the engine from three to six, disabling an IS 'Mech with an XL engine would require destroying either 1.) both side-torso sections or 2.) the center-torso section, while Clan 'Mechs could no longer be disabled without having to destroy the center-torso section (as the side-torsos, together, have only four criticals).

While giving IS 'Mechs with XL engines the (canonically) typical survivability of their Clan-built brethren, it would give the Clan 'Mechs with XL engines the survivability of the 'Mechs with standard engines (which is canonically one of the primary balancing factors between standard and XL engines in both tech bases) while still enjoying the benefits of having an XL engine (higher speed for the same (or somewhat less) engine weight and/or more open tonnage for additional weapons/armor/equipment) - a significant boon, given the already-substantial advantages Clan tech tends to hold over IS tech.

How would your proposal account for that shift in the balance between standard and XL engines?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 12 April 2012 - 04:38 PM.

[Victor Morson]

I'm the first one to say they shouldn't adhere to Table Top rules on these things, but I see no reason to tweak XL to make it any more survivable than it is in canon. It's a good system with a high risk trade-off- the Clan 'mechs running XL should be better, so I think trying to balance around them is a huge mistake.

[EDMW CSN]

Victor Morson, on 12 April 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

I'm the first one to say they shouldn't adhere to Table Top rules on these things, but I see no reason to tweak XL to make it any more survivable than it is in canon. It's a good system with a high risk trade-off- the Clan 'mechs running XL should be better, so I think trying to balance around them is a huge mistake.

Keep everything as in Table top, otherwise how would Light Engine's factor in ?
It will become as durable as a Clan XL yet at a far far far cheaper cost compared to Clan XL engines.


It will turn the Light engine into the next must take mod and everyone will just ditch standard and IS XL and use the Light as a "new standard". Yes the light engine is a while off, but I think time skips are plausible.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 12 April 2012 - 10:55 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Well, maybe we can tiker with the definition of "Critical Hit"

An IS XL engine would have 2X points of health in the center torso, and X in each side.

If your engine takes a total of X points of damage (summed across the entire engine), then you shut down permenantly. That avoids the problem of defining critical hits - you can just assign the engine's structure so many points of health instead of counting "critical hits," and split the engine's health 25%-50%-25% (read: X - 2X - X) across the portions of the torso.

Clan XL engines can have those numbers skewed so you can't lose X points of your engine's health from a side-core alone (Clan engine health would be skewed 0.66X - 2X - 0.66X).

Edited by Prosperity Park, 17 April 2012 - 08:12 PM.

[trycksh0t]

Yeah, as many stated, the extra vulnerability is the balancing aspect for XL engines. Without that, there'd be absolutely no reason not to use them.

[djuice1701]

Oh another con, make sure the maintenance cost and actual cost of the Mech in question is increase several fold.

Due to the technicality of maintenance and construction of the XL type engines should be considerably higher then Standard type engines.

XL engines grants considerable increase in both offense and defense due to it's much smaller weight, as you can mount more armor, and/or weapons then those who use standard.

[Ramien]

Well, if someone wanted to give XL engines a weakness to replace side torso destruction as an instant kill, why not cause the integral heat sinks in the engine to be destroyed during an engine crit? Destroy one HS per engine crit and, by the time the third engine crit happens, the mech may not be completely dead, but the pilot's going to wish they were. After all, not only would they be takjing on 15 heat a round just from engine damage, but they'd also be dumping 3or 6 less heat a round, depending on the type of heat sink installed. It doesn't quite kill a mech automatically, but it definitely starts the countdown.

[IrrelevantFish]

Isn't PGI already planning something like this? Last I heard, they were thinking of adding penalties for engine and actuator crits.

Regardless, I'm not sure XL engines should be that much more "glassy" than they are now. Yeah, the tonnage bonus is absolutely awesome, but there are some nasty penalties, too. Not being able to survive the loss of a side torso is a massive disadvantage, at least at the level of play I'm at, and the potential loss of two DHS is nothing to sneeze at, either. A lot of the guys I play with only use XLs on lights and Catapults, so it seems like they're pretty well balanced to me.

[AntharPrime]

Dude, you resurrected a post that was more than a year old. This topic is dead and buried.