126 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

So, imagine a situation where an Atlas becomes overheated and shuts down, and then a sole scout Mech with a Flamer tries to keep the Atlas in a shut-down state perpetually until some other Mechs come along and stir things up.

How do you think should this scenario should pan out?

(EDIT 12-3-2012*) I was trying to specifically refer to the situation when a shutdown has already initiated, and an attempt is made to keet the shutdown perpetual by a sneaky scout with a Flame-oriented loadout. It seems like many people so far want this to work, but also many say that a single Mech shouldn't be able to maintain a shutdown of a hostile Assault Mech. It was mentioned that it would depend on the enemy Mech in question - I chose an Atlas because we know it'll be in-game and is well-known. But I think the AS7-D might have something like 20 single heatsinks...

Maybe a scout couldn't carry enough equipment to maintain a shutdown in something like a stock Atlas. I imagine maybe a heavy or Assault Mech might be able to, or a couple mediums or several lights, but any Mech designed to step-in and ruch a shutdown Mech before it wakes up will probably have to be fast.

I don't know the exact rules for heatsinks and flamers - could someone please explain how many Flamers it would take to deliver more heat per second than a shutdown AS7-D with 20 external and 12 Internal sinks could dissipate?


*Canadaland Date Format

Edited by Prosperity Park, 12 March 2012 - 09:45 AM.

[ScrewCityChris]

Yes ... *snicker*

It is the perfect answer

[Setzz]

Absolutely.. Fair strategy if n when the opportunity arises. CC the ******* n let your mates hit him with everything they got.

[HUEY350]

IF I remember correctly if you overheat REALLY bad your munitions can explode destroying your Mech. So if that does happen you will end up exploding anyway.

Edited by HUEY350, 10 March 2012 - 11:18 PM.

[frostfly]

No, and here's why. Flamers in game have the option of increasing the opposing mechs heat by 2 points. How many flamers can you fit on a light mech...and just to make it fun,each one increased the heat of the firing mech by 3. Odds are the atlas has more Heatsinks then a light mech...so light mech will overheat and shut down...and the atlas will stand up and blast him with the AC.

Bad hypothetical is bad.

[Alaskan Viking]

I do not see how this would be unrealistic or unfair, if you are shut down and an enemy mech is close enough to flame you, you are dead anyways. It would make shuting down mean more and make fighting in groups, to cover your mate while he is shut down, mean more also. It would actually be a good game play mechanic.

Edited by Alaskan Viking, 10 March 2012 - 11:24 PM.

[LordDeathStrike]

flamers are dangerous with just 1 or 2 unless some noob builds his mech as a laser boat, then ya hes gonna run hot and your flamers will cause him to go nuclear, at which point oyu are too close and get your face melted when he goes up.

ps theyve said only lasers and ppcs are infinite shots in mwo, that means flamers will have an ammo count.

pps youll need a flamer boat to mess with anyone other then a laser ***** boat.

ppps yould be better off with an ac 10 or ppc snipeing at their head from beyond their max range unless youre in an urban map, then get a trash can with an ac 20 and shoot them in the back instead =p

[Thrasymachus]

frostfly, on 10 March 2012 - 11:17 PM, said:

No, and here's why. Flamers in game have the option of increasing the opposing mechs heat by 2 points. How many flamers can you fit on a light mech...and just to make it fun,each one increased the heat of the firing mech by 3. Odds are the atlas has more Heatsinks then a light mech...so light mech will overheat and shut down...and the atlas will stand up and blast him with the AC.

Bad hypothetical is bad.

Consider this: an Atlas becomes overheated in battle and shuts down. Should a sole hostile scout Mech armed with a Flamer weapon be able to keep the Atlas assault Mech in a perpetual Shut-Down?


the key word is Should, implying that the current flamer mechanics could be improved, also this occurs during the course of a fight, not a legger variant loaded with flamers harassing a mech solo.

i personally like the idea of people of being able to take advantage of a foes mis-managment of his cooling system.

[Scrawny Cowboy]

A neat scenario, though I think a single flamer weapon wouldn't (and shouldn't) keep an atlas overheated. And like LordDeathStrike said, if a mech with enough flamers can cause an overheated mech's reactor to go boom, then he's toast as well because of range that mech had to close in to use those flamers.

[Siilk]

If the light has enough flamers to properly heat the Atlas *and* if the light has enough heatsinks to keep firing flamers long enough, he should be able to keep Atlas in shutdown or even make explode from overheating. But! Fitting all that into light would probably cost light a lot, in terms of internals, armour and weapons, as it would need hardpoints to mount flamers and lots of heatsinks to make the heat manageable. Besides, Flamer is very short-ranged, so light flamerboat would be helpless in the open. As a side note, the better tactic would be to ambush an assault with 3-4 flamer-equipped lights(1-2 flamers per mech would be enough). That way there is no need to build mech loadout around flamers, just fit one or two. BTW, 3-4 lights should be able to bring down an assault regardless of what type of weapons, flamers or otherwise, they use.

[Victor Morson]

In previous games a shutdown 'mech will cool fast enough to power up and get a few seconds to react before shutting down again. That's fine with me. Just shutting down with no ability to reactivate is pretty messed up, however, I think the best way to balance this is just making it impossible to run enough flamers to keep an enemy shut down because of your own heat limitations - how it generally is in Table Top. Flamers just aren't very good there; they're better for damage than heat.

[EDMW CSN]

Flamers = 3 hex range. The a flamer boat has the same range of a tiny small laser and MG. If the light actually penetrated deep into your lines enough to flame up your assaults and heavies, you guys deserve it.

Besides aren't all assaults and heavies the so called "skilled pilots" ?
Also a flamer mech will run extremely hot on his own as well.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 10 March 2012 - 11:55 PM.

[trycksh0t]

Yes...*snicker*. If an Atlas pilot wanders off without support and gets into a situation where he overheats and shuts down, he should suffer the consequences. Assault 'Mechs may be the biggest bad ***** 'Mechs available, but they're still not intended to operate alone.

[Talonvor]

Not a chance this would work for more than a few dozen seconds. Given the effectiveness of the heatsinks used during the time period of the game there is no way a scout with flamer can keep an atlas in shutdown. You might extend the shutdown by a handful of seconds, but there is no way to keep that Atlas in shutdown. Plus, not only can you not keep the Atlas in shutdown, but the scout will eventually overheat and shutdown because of the constant flamer use.

[S3dition]

A) Why would the Atlas be alone?

That's not really what flamers were meant for. They're anti infantry and light vehicle weapons like machine guns. They aren't very effective vs mechs.

[Scav]

Hell, no. That what killed my interest in mw4. After NBT start messing w/ flamers and ppl were abusing the $#@# out of 'em, the game became senseless. We were trying to counter w/ only taking ballistic wpns w/ high amount of coolers and still we were getting shutdown and killed w/ in seconds

[Caballo]

frostfly, on 10 March 2012 - 11:17 PM, said:

No, and here's why. Flamers in game have the option of increasing the opposing mechs heat by 2 points. How many flamers can you fit on a light mech...and just to make it fun,each one increased the heat of the firing mech by 3. Odds are the atlas has more Heatsinks then a light mech...so light mech will overheat and shut down...and the atlas will stand up and blast him with the AC.

Bad hypothetical is bad.

I think you're wrong, and here's why:

You didn't take in account the fact that the atlas was ALREADY overheated and ALREADY shut down and the attacker don't.

This means the atlas have to dissipate some of it's heat before restarting up. If the flamer heats up the atlas any number of Cº, it will need the time to dissipate that heat, plus the one that comes from it's original overheat. Unless it's got a big bunch of sinks (and in that case it shouldn't overheated itself, but that's just an assumption, the pilot would've made a mistake or just needed to perform an alpha... who knows), the odds are on an ammo explosion.

AAAAAAAAnyway, not as hard core as Scav went, but a little lighter, my idea of the flamers is the following: They should be a persistent mosquito, but not a bullet to the brain, as they become in MW4.

Edited by Caballo, 11 March 2012 - 01:35 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

It should be possible, yet generally impractical.

Flamers should, IMO, impart around 0.2 units of heat and 0.2 units of damage per second to a target 'Mech, and impart 0.3 units of heat per second to the firing 'Mech.

While groups of a few (say, 3-4) flamers should be useful (making 'Mechs like the Firestarter actually viable), a 'Mech able to keep another in "perpetual shutdown" with flamers should have to be so over-specialized for the role (at least 7 to 12 flamers and a sufficient number of heat sinks to deal with its own heat production) as to be not worth too much with regard to other tasks...

Your thoughts?

[VegetaL]

I think a single flamer weapon wouldn't be able to keep a mech shut down, 4 flamers yes but just 1 no

[Caballo]

Strum Wealh, on 11 March 2012 - 01:34 AM, said:

While groups of a few (say, 3-4) flamers should be useful (making 'Mechs like the Firestarter actually viable), a 'Mech able to keep another in "perpetual shutdown" with flamers should have to be so over-specialized for the role (at least 7 to 12 flamers and a sufficient number of heat sinks to deal with its own heat production) as to be not worth too much with regard to other tasks...

Your thoughts?

Agree. plus the practical range of the flamers should be minimum

gotta say that, during that fad of the flamers, someone made a rule that said "If you identify an NME with a flamer loadout, yell it. It will become primary target" at my squad...

Edited by Caballo, 11 March 2012 - 01:42 AM.