18 replies to this topic

[Enig]

Bad things first:

• Light mechs are now far too prevalent and having a poor connection is incentivized for faster mechs rubberbanding is still a problem.
  
• SSRM boating power imbalance is an issue that hasn't been solved with the very minor SSRM missile dispersion.
  
• Hit detection isn't client-side, and when firing at anything faster than 80kph you must fire lasers many meters in front of the mech/component. Server side hit detection has this nasty side effect and a solution needs to be engineered.

Onto the good things:

• Premades are no longer a problem. You can tell when a team has a 2-4 man squad working together and it's powerful, but certainly adds a sense of 'boss level' challenge. Feels good man.
  
• DHS despite its unintended 2.0 effectiveness engine heatsinks, it feels like a happy medium that the development staff could not have forseen rather than the typical kneejerk reaction balancing. I have plenty of reasons to use SHS over DHS on many of my builds.
  
• Build variation appears to be increasing which is amazing, it makes paying attention to enemy builds so much more important than it was weeks ago, previously if you saw a K2 you'd know right away that it was a guass cat, now there are multiple legitimate and threatening builds.

Onto the perplexing things:

• I'm not alone when I ask "What the hell is the purpose of Ferro Fibrous in MWO?", any time you'd consider FF armor you'd instead as any pilot take EndoSteel structure.
  
• Same weight class, why can't Raven's pack a 300 engine like Jenner's? I thought that engine limitations were based on chassis weight? (Question answered, thank you everyone, this explains my confusion)

Other comments:

• Still waiting on a new player experience, my buddies who are not founders are having issues being welcomed to the game. I'd GIVE them money if I could. The video tutorial is wholly inadequate, if I weren't here to help them into the game they would have already quit.

EDIT: Perplexing 2 answered.

Edited by Enig, 12 November 2012 - 03:34 PM.

[Squigles]

Enig, on 12 November 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

Same weight class, why can't Raven's pack a 300 engine like Jenner's? I thought that engine limitations were based on chassis weight?

Engine limitations are based on the chassis weight AND the stock engine.

Lights are +40% over the stock engine rating.
Mediums are +30% over the stock engine rating.
Heavies and Assaults are +20% over the stock rating.

All are rounded up to the next 5 rating interval.

Edit: It also maxes out at 8.5x the chassis tonnage rounded up to the next 5. Hence the 300 limit on the jenner instead of 345.

Enig, on 12 November 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

I'm not alone when I ask "What the hell is the purpose of Ferro Fibrous in MWO?", any time you'd consider FF armor you'd instead as any pilot take EndoSteel structure.

There are a few instances where you can fit both endo AND ferro on a chassis...but those opportunities are few and far between.

Edited by Squigles, 12 November 2012 - 02:41 PM.

[Bagheera]

Enig, on 12 November 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

• DHS despite its unintended 2.0 effectiveness engine heatsinks, it feels like a happy medium that the development staff could not have forseen rather than the typical kneejerk reaction balancing. I have plenty of reasons to use SHS over DHS on many of my builds.

Agreed. I was just building out a hunchie, and determined that for the weight spent DHS/SHS with the current numbers were not that different. Plenty of situations where you can quite cram the DHS in (if you are using ES for example) to get enough of them to warrant going over Singles which you can put in 7 crit slots inaccessible to doubles. (head/CT/legs)

-----

Engine limitations are based on stock engine rating. Lights use a 1.4 multiplier, meds and heavies use a 1.3 multipler, and assaults use 1.2. So, for example, HBKs all currently have a 200 rated engine stock. So their max engine size is 260. The cn9-D has a stock 300 rated engine, so its max engine capacity is a 390. And so on.

Also, the netcode speed limit for all mechs means that some (iirc the commando and the cicada, maybe the jenner) get cheated out of their true top speeds.

Edited by Bagheera, 12 November 2012 - 02:35 PM.

[Norris J Packard]

Engine limitations are based on base Engine rating.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

I hate that they removed fumbles/knockdowns. This was one of the main counterweights to piloting speedy variants. It had a risk vs reward table to it. Now however, you can just zoom all over the place at full speed and you will NEVER fall down regardless of what you're doing or what you run into. It's pretty stupid. If you run right into a wall or Atlas at 100k you SHOULD fall down! I think they did this as a "poor man's solution" to avoiding the collision issues associated with tumbles. Why fix it when we can just yank it out entirely? *wipes hands* Problem solved.

So now there is no falling down on top of lower repair bills. Why exactly should anyone pilot bigger Mechs?

Edited by Bluten, 12 November 2012 - 02:39 PM.

[Dakkath]

FF was just a weight savings of armor at the expense of crit slots. More protection for the ton of armor.

For a unit which already has maximum armor protection, it is therefore considered a weight-saving measure, at the cost of critical space. 14 crits for IS, 7 for Clan.

[MagicHamsta]

Enig, on 12 November 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

Bad things first:

• Light mechs are now far too prevalent and having a poor connection is incentivized for faster mechs rubberbanding is still a problem.
  
• SSRM boating power imbalance is an issue that hasn't been solved with the very minor SSRM missile dispersion.
  
• Hit detection still isn't client-side, and when firing at anything faster than 80kph you must fire lasers many meters in front of the mech/component.

Onto the good things:

• Premades are no longer a problem. You can tell when a team has a 2-4 man squad working together and it's powerful, but certainly adds a sense of 'boss level' challenge. Feels good man.
  
• DHS despite its unintended 2.0 effectiveness engine heatsinks, it feels like a happy medium that the development staff could not have forseen rather than the typical kneejerk reaction balancing. I have plenty of reasons to use SHS over DHS on many of my builds.
  
• Build variation appears to be increasing which is amazing, it makes paying attention to enemy builds so much more important than it was weeks ago, previously if you saw a K2 you'd know right away that it was a guass cat, now there are multiple legitimate and threatening builds.

Onto the perplexing things:

• I'm not alone when I ask "What the hell is the purpose of Ferro Fibrous in MWO?", any time you'd consider FF armor you'd instead as any pilot take EndoSteel structure.
  
• Same weight class, why can't Raven's pack a 300 engine like Jenner's? I thought that engine limitations were based on chassis weight?

Other comments:

• Still waiting on a new player experience, my buddies who are not founders are having issues being welcomed to the game. I'd GIVE them money if I could. The video tutorial is wholly inadequate, if I weren't here to help them into the game they would have already quit.

Bad thing:
1) True, darn netcode. My 100 ton Atlas should be able to DFA a light mech for an instant kill.
2) Streaks seem rather balanced now due & don't go for the CT 99% of the time.
3) Hit detection should never be client side or else people like me could start downloading junk while casually picking out targets on my own laggy screen.

Good things:
1) Haven't noticed much of a difference. Still winning consistently.
2) Aye.
3) Aye, tis nice when you see surprising builds be eerily effective when before you would dismiss them.

Perplexing things:
1) Ferro be for light mechs. They usually have enough room to place DHS, Endo, & FF all together.
2) It be based on +- range of the stock engine it comes with. Blame shoddy inner sphere engineering for that.
(.-.)

[Mech Merc]

I'm not alone when I ask "What the hell is the purpose of Ferro Fibrous in MWO?", any time you'd consider FF armor you'd instead as any pilot take EndoSteel structure.

Yeah I bought Ferro Fibrous for my Atlas and am asking myself the same question, Sure I have less weight but not enough slots to do anything with it.

They really need a mech creator feature when you can build your by trying different items (at no cost) then decide if you wan to buy the selection or not

Edited by Mech Merc, 12 November 2012 - 02:45 PM.

[hanitora]

Quote

1) Ferro be for light mechs. They usually have enough room to place DHS, Endo, & FF all together.

And only DHS out of those is more advantageous on a light mech than a heavy one. FF and Endo reduce weight based on how much that **** weighs to begin with, it's light in light mechs so it barely makes a difference compared to a heavy one like Atlas where endo alone can save several tons.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

MagicHamsta, on 12 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

Perplexing things:
1) Ferro be for light mechs. They usually have enough room to place DHS, Endo, & FF all together.
2) It be based on +- range of the stock engine it comes with. Blame shoddy inner sphere engineering for that.
(.-.)

Ferro is indeed the worst upgrade out of the 3 and not worth getting unless you can somehow cram all 3 together into a Mech. Lights can do this because they have as many crit slots as anyone else but no weight to use most of them. Anything bigger however won't have enough for Ferro to fit in. I know my Hunchback can't slot Ferro. Endo and DHS are better upgrades so he's got those with not enough remaining for Ferro. Fyi these upgrades, in value order, are DHS, Endo, then Ferro last. But you might skip to Endo first since DHS upgrade is ridiculously expensive.

[Sign]

Enig, on 12 November 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

• Hit detection still isn't client-side, and when firing at anything faster than 80kph you must fire lasers many meters in front of the mech/component.

I hope for the love of Kerensky that his never, EVER gets implemented. After trying client-side detection in BF3 i'd rather have a consistent system where I need to account for lag, than get PPCed/GAUSSed after taking cover behind some rocks.

[Enig]

Sign, on 12 November 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

I hope for the love of Kerensky that his never, EVER gets implemented. After trying client-side detection in BF3 i'd rather have a consistent system where I need to account for lag, than get PPCed/GAUSSed after taking cover behind some rocks.

I don't like it any more than you. But what I hate worse is being unable to hit a target going 120 kph that is rubberbanding around that I can clearly aim at with my laser and visually impact.

[Tuhalu]

In MWO, ferro-fibrous is bad. No two ways about it. It should never be used.

In the non-computer versions (mechwarrior RPG more than battletech boardgame), ferro-fibrous can be used to upgrade existing mechs where a complete factory refit is not practical.

In the TT, upgrading an engine to XL or upgrading the internal structure to endo-steel requires a mech engineer to design the upgrade and then a number of months in a factory to complete the refit. With some mechs, no such factory exists (it was destroyed in the succession wars or is being kept secret by ComStar).

Installing Ferro-Fibrous armor is merely a case of pulling off the old armor and plating on some new stuff. There are some minor adjustments that may need to be made due to the change in bulk, but almost any competent tech crew can handle that. In short, it's a hell of a lot easier and can be a worthwhile upgrade to an aging machine.

You'd think that Double Heat Sinks are in a similar situation, but actually you'd have to pull the mechs engine out and replace all the heat sinks in the engine and that would take a while too. Not quite as bad as redesigning the internal structure or putting in a different engine, but bad enough!

On top of all this was actually sourcing parts. Different Houses (and their mech factories) had and have differing accesses to parts and technology. Designs were created and new mechs were fielded without having access to every last upgrade.

The Mech Lab that we get in MWO is pretty much a dream-factory for Mechs compared to what exists in the TT game universe. And that really hurts the utility of a few technologies.

[Denin]

I may be wrong about this, but I believe that in TT ferrofibrous also increased max armor. As such it was not as much of a weight savings device as it was an increase your armor for the same weight device.

[StickEGreen]

Hit detection is never going to be client side, this is a multiplayer game.

[Enig]

StickEGreen, on 12 November 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

Hit detection is never going to be client side, this is a multiplayer game.

Despite me not taking an advocating stance on clientside hit detection, you must understand that many modern multiplayer games with shooting mechanics use clientside hit detection, so let's not muddy up the thread with misleading statements.

[StickEGreen]

Yes, and I'm sure they all have horrible problems with hacking beyond the normal aim bots.

[RAM]

Denin, on 12 November 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

I may be wrong about this, but I believe that in TT ferrofibrous also increased max armor.

Unfortunately you are. That is how Ferro SHOULD have worked to give it an actual non-fluff use…


RAM
ELH

[Enig]

RAM, on 12 November 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

Unfortunately you are. That is how Ferro SHOULD have worked to give it an actual non-fluff use…

I would absolutely love for it to increase my maximum armor by a percentage (thereby giving me more armor per ton and leaving me with the same 'tonnage' of armor)

StickEGreen, on 12 November 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

Yes, and I'm sure they all have horrible problems with hacking beyond the normal aim bots.

Let's not be contrary with no hard evidence :\