43 replies to this topic

[Zyllos]

WardenWolf, on 29 November 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

No, no there doesn't. It is the *next step* to take after ES, if you have more space to burn and want more tonnage back. It does not need to equal ES in effectiveness or you are just helping light mechs (with lots of space to use) even more! I don't mind boosting it a little, as long as it stays under ES in effectiveness.

Also, remember that whatever you do now will be even more common on Clan mechs. They only need 7 crits for ES / FF, so most of them (even big mechs) have BOTH.

This absolutely makes no sense, in terms of the "FF is ONLY for after ES". Then why in the hell is there canon builds with it? This is because FF was an improvement over STD armor if you have extra critical slots. But that is the problem, FF = ES in terms of critical slot usage so there is NEVER a point to take FF unless you already had ES.

Now, if they make ES only available on specific variants and then allowed FF on all mechs, this would mostly follow canon, which might have been the whole point of mechs with FF only, because every mech can use it (due to simplicity of replacing the armor). But as it stands, in MWO and in TT, there is no reason for FF unless you have another 14 critical slots and already ES.

Regarding your statement with Clan mechs, if you read my original post, I mentioned this. Clan mechs will most likely have ES and FF, so having the 20% boost in armor and weight along with ES would be pretty strong. And might be the completely deciding factor in why not to do this. But it still doesn't make the original problem disappear, FF is useless to ES unless it is already chosen, which was never ment to be UNLESS ES is limited in some way.

[Brandeis]

The reason Endosteel was limited in 'canon' was because there were only a few production facilities able to fabricate it in the star league. Really the Endosteel should cost much much more than fero-fiber armor, because it was harder to obtain and in short supply.

I personally am against making changes to the fero-fiber armor, because those same changes will need to be made to clan armor. That's going to end up with clan mechs having 20% more damage resistance, AND being able to carry even more weapons, which will make them even more OP than they already are.

Edited by Brandeis, 29 November 2012 - 11:37 AM.

[WardenWolf]

Brandeis, on 29 November 2012 - 11:27 AM, said:

The reason Endosteel was limited in 'canon' was because there were only a few production facilities able to fabricate it in the star league. Really the Endosteel should cost much much more than fero-fiber armor, because it was harder to obtain and in short supply.

I personally am against making changes to the fero-fiber armor, because those same changes will need to be made to clan armor. That's going to end up with clan mechs having 20% more damage resistance, AND being able to carry even more weapons, which will make them even more OP than they already are.

This seems very reasonable - Endosteel could maybe cost 2 - 3 million instead (it is at 1.5 now?) or simply reduce the cost (up front and repair) of FF a bit.

[Lanessar]

MaddMaxx, on 29 November 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

I believe your thinking of Reflective/Reactive Armor. As to the OP, any increase in total allowed armor would make FF a must have. Given even weapons load outs and similarly competent pilots, he/she who has the most armor, will more often than not win a equal engagement.

Forcing players to use FF is not a good idea. A reduction of Crit slots taken might be doable though.
(yes, adding more allowable armor via FF will force everyone to use it)

A 10% increase or 12% increase in armor total is not going to make FF a must-have. On a Jenner, that's 14 crit slots for 24 armor points. On an atlas, that's 72 armor points, give or take. Where you can't spare the crit slots for Endo and FF, and DHS. So, you will have to give up heat efficiency or tonnage for more armor. Basically, a "tank-specced" mech.

Honestly, people are looking at one number and not the rest. 72 points of armor spread out over 11 locations? This is not OP for the trade-offs. It will not be a "must-have".

Edited by Lanessar, 29 November 2012 - 11:53 AM.

[WardenWolf]

Lanessar, on 29 November 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

A 10% increase or 12% increase in armor total is not going to make FF a must-have. On a Jenner, that's 14 crit slots for 24 armor points. On an atlas, that's 72 armor points, give or take. Where you can't spare the crit slots for Endo and FF, and DHS. So, you will have to give up heat efficiency or tonnage for more armor. Basically, a "tank-specced" mech.

Honestly, people are looking at one number and not the rest. 72 points of armor spread out over 11 locations? This is not OP for the trade-offs. It will not be a "must-have".

It will be on *every* Clan mech though, or very nearly - and they are already going to be a PITA to balance because their weapons should all be better than IS. It is also completely non-canon. It doesn't need to be there, plain and simple. Even if FF stays the same as it is now it doesn't hurt anybody - just ignore it if you don't like it!

[Lanessar]

WardenWolf, on 29 November 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

It will be on *every* Clan mech though, or very nearly - and they are already going to be a PITA to balance because their weapons should all be better than IS. It is also completely non-canon. It doesn't need to be there, plain and simple. Even if FF stays the same as it is now it doesn't hurt anybody - just ignore it if you don't like it!

Possibly. But we'll also run across plenty of clantech which will break the game. So, this idealized implementation of FF is probably the least of our concerns when clans hit. SSRM6, and a number of other devices, will trivialize armor in a hurry.

I do ignore FF. Don't worry, I will never take it. Doesn't mean I can't make a suggestion as to how to make it actually useful for the trade-off in an online game.

My point in bringing up the numbers is so that people can see that the OP's suggestion is about 10 points of armor additional to the front CT of an Atlas (or, perhaps 3-5 points to the front CT of a Jenner). It boggles the mind that no one thinks of the crit space usage as the penalty. The posts here are primarily "every mech will use it then!".

Doesn't make sense, it's a "chicken little" response, rather than "looking your idea over I find it flawed because...".

And, if this is just a "that's the way it was in TT, don't change it" response, I have some news for you about heat dissipation (and most of the core mechanics in this game....

Edited by Lanessar, 29 November 2012 - 12:50 PM.

[Gavin McStine]

The problem is that FF is bulky compaired to regualr armor. So adding more armor would make it even more buiky, thats why it takes slots to use. Thats runs the same for ES.

They way you want it to give you an increased max wouldn't make sense since its already builky to begin with, then since the max is increased its even bulker?

[Brandeis]

Lanessar, on 29 November 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

My point in bringing up the numbers is so that people can see that the OP's suggestion is about 10 points of armor additional to the front CT of an Atlas (or, perhaps 3-5 points to the front CT of a Jenner). It boggles the mind that no one thinks of the crit space usage as the penalty. The posts here are primarily "every mech will use it then!".

10 points to the CT front or back of an Atlass is a full round of 2 medium lasers focusing all damage on that spot. It's 4 SRMS all striking it at once. It equates to an extra round of attack that gives that Atlass another opportunity to hit you with an AC20 round, or put a more armored spot in your cross hairs. Same with a Jenner. An extra few points of armor is the difference between getting cored in 2 hits or 3. It may not seem like a lot, but to someone who thinks tactically, it can be the difference between winning a match and not. I firmly believe that the OP's suggestion is a bad idea.

Edited by Brandeis, 29 November 2012 - 01:11 PM.

[WardenWolf]

Lanessar, on 29 November 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

Possibly. But we'll also run across plenty of clantech which will break the game. So, this idealized implementation of FF is probably the least of our concerns when clans hit. SSRM6, and a number of other devices, will trivialize armor in a hurry.

That is true - I worry for the day when a 50 ton mech can dish out 80 damage in less than a second (dual ultra AC20s on a Hunchback IIC). The larger Ultra ACs and streak SRMs will be very interesting... but just because there is going to be one (major) problem with balance doesn't mean we need to introduce a second. I can see balancing the cost or maybe weight savings of FF, but giving it a whole new effect will throw things off balance far more than it will help - IMHO anyways

[Zyllos]

Adding cost to ES does not balance ES to FF. It just makes ES take longer to reach. There needs to be some advantage to FF compared with ES or FF is never taken except to further boost after ES.

With 20% being too much for the Clans if it adds the armor to the totals, why not reduce the Clan FF back to 12%, so the bonus is the 7 Critical slots, which makes is extremely good compared to IS FF due to being able to easily fit it on almost any mech loadout?

The only other way I can see ES being the only choice for upgrades is making ES unique to specific variants only (can not remove/add ES from the mech variant).

Edited by Zyllos, 29 November 2012 - 02:20 PM.

[WardenWolf]

Zyllos, on 29 November 2012 - 02:19 PM, said:

Adding cost to ES does not balance ES to FF. It just makes ES take longer to reach. There needs to be some advantage to FF compared with ES or FF is never taken except to further boost after ES.

But that is its only purpose! If it was as good as ES, or better in some way, you would just be giving light mechs (with spare crits) an even bigger advantage. It is supposed to be about reduced return on investment: you get a good amount of tonnage saved with ES, and a lesser amount with FF if you want to continue trading crits for tons.

[StalaggtIKE]

Zyllos, on 21 November 2012 - 03:27 PM, said:

As we all know, Ferro-Fibrous is nothing more than an extra way to boost more savings in weight for criticals once you have already chosen Endo-Steel. This has always been an issue in the TT, and which in turn also in MWO, that Ferro-Fibrous is made useless by itself. This could be PGI's time to take the reigns from the original creators of CBT and re-envision Ferro-Fibrous to be more of a useful upgrade to take in of itself instead of a step upgrade beyond Endo-Steel. Here is a great proposal I heard:

Ferro-Fibrous increases the points of armor per ton by 12% and total tonnage of armor allowed by 12%.

Standard Armor: 32/t
Ferro-Fibrous: 35.84/t

Atlas CT Standard Armor: 128 points
Atlas CT Ferro-Fibrous Armor: 143.36

What this does is instead of just making the maximum armor allotment be 12% lighter, it allows for 12% more, up to the maximum tonnage allowed of Standard Armor.

What this interestingly does, is that it allows mechs a choice of either adding more armor from Ferro-Fibrous only for critical slots, or reduce tonnage from Endo-Steel for critical slots. Those mechs that normally take both now, will be hard pressed to pack on the extra weight for extra armor in the current system, so should be a good trade off. It also gives mechs an option decidedly take either extra armor or extra tonnage by themselves. This gives more options to each player in the game while breathing more life into the Ferro-Fibrous upgrade. It also does not break the canon chassises/variants due to no difference in weight/critical slots.

One major issue with implementing this, is that once Clans come along, this means they will also receive the 20% lighter armor, 20% more armor points, but only at half the critical slots, which might be too much.

Figured I would throw this out there as a suggestion for Ferro-Fibrous as I think it needs a bit of work right now.

I was under the impression this is how it worked. It SHOULD work as you have suggested. I would like to see this implamented.

[Zyllos]

StalaggtIKE, on 29 November 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

I was under the impression this is how it worked. It SHOULD work as you have suggested. I would like to see this implamented.

I am putting this question up to the Devs in the "Ask the Devs #28" so it might be asked.

[Odanan]

Maybe not 12% more armor, but half (6%). That wouldn't be too much and would make some people to choose FF over ES, depending on the mech build.

[Goreshade]

Instead they need to increase the armor per ton on FF, its only 36 points per ton, only getting back 2.1 tons with an atlas fully armored at 614. They should up it to 42 points per ton, that way it doesn't beat out ES, but still a good option for any mech. So with 42 points per ton you would receive 4.5 tons back with an atlas at 614 armor points.

Just wait 1 year when clan invasion happens, we will have hardened armor.

[Elizander]

Ferro has always been just a supplementary option to Endo Steel in terms of weight-saving. Drastically reducing the cost of Ferro armor (and subsequent repairs) will make it good. Like someone said, it can work as a stop-gap Endo upgrade if it is significantly cheaper and tack it on after Endo if you need that extra... err... half ton or something.

[Zyllos]

I know this thread is a bit old, but I would like to post an update to it.

PGI is looking into modifying FF to be more inline with ES:

Garth Erlam, on 02 January 2013 - 12:42 PM, said:

Q: Has there been any thoughts by you guys to help boost FF, to make it an upgrade, instead of a next step upgrade to ES? [Zyllos]
A: Yes we have, and they are ongoing. We have a few ideas, though a nice first step was removing the repair cost fromt he game [Garth]

[Mister Zeus]

I agree with the OP. Something needs to be done to make the choice between Ferro-Fibrous and Endo Steel a difficult one.

The choice between them should never be "easy", if it was, then one or the other would be obviously superior. Instead the choice should be about "what do I want to get out of this".

Endo Steel gives you more raw tonnage to play with, thus opening up more options for weapons, equipment, engines, etc.

Ferro-Fibrous should give you the option to boost protection on the mech.

Either option can save you weight, but to utilize Ferro-Fibrous to the max, one would sink the weight savings back into the armor and go for the additional 12% protection. Of course, I know plenty of people who run mechs with less than maximum armor, and so one doesn't have to "max" the armor out to take advantage of the increased maximum allowable armor suggested by the OP.

In regards to clan mechs being overpowered with this suggested max increase, I say; hardly.

Not many clan mechs actually have maximum armor, and those that do are often so streamlined in their loadouts that to sacrifice another 20% of their armor's weight toward taking full advantage of a potential 20% increase would result in them losing a crucial double heat sink, targeting computer, or downgrade of one of their weapon systems.

Take the Madcat, for example. This beast has 12 tons of ferro-fibrous armor, giving it the equivalent of 14.4 tons of armor (like on the Orion). So it saves a whole 2.4 tons. Now, with the OPs suggestion, the Madcat could theoretically mount 20% more maximum armor, but that would take the 2.4 tons it saves with ferro-fibrous in the first place. The Madcat, thus, would have to drop 2.4 tons of equipment to do this.

First, it drops the machine guns and ammo, 0.25 tons per MG for a total of 0.5 tons, and 1 ton for the ammuntion for a total of 1.5 tons liberated. Now, of the remaining 2 ER Large Lasers, 2 ER Medium Lasers, 1 Medium Pulse Laser, 2 LRM-20s, 2 tons of ammunition, and 2 additional double heat sinks, what will the mech drop to liberate that final ton? A double heat sink? Exchange the Medium Pulse Laser for an ER Medium Laser? Drop a ton of LRM ammo? Downgrade the LRMs to LRM-15s and increase ammo?

Either way, the canon Madcat (and any other mech built with the OPs suggested FF armor changes) doesn't change a bit, only its potential in the hands of the players would enable them to make maximum use of this technology.

And, for those who say that FF armor's armor increase means the difference between a kill or not on a mech. Good, that should be the trade off. Remember, by taking FF armor and using the saved weight to maximize the armor in a location, you aren't saving any weight yourself and are eating up space, so your offensive firepower is likely to be worse than the guy with Endo Steel who used his weight savings to pack on an AC/20 instead of an AC/10, or an extra pair of medium lasers, or to upgrade his SRM-4s to SRM-6s.

I know I for one would actually consider the choice between the two if FF allowed me to increase maximum armor over standard.

[Zyllos]

Mister Zeus, on 02 January 2013 - 05:36 PM, said:

I agree with the OP. Something needs to be done to make the choice between Ferro-Fibrous and Endo Steel a difficult one.

The choice between them should never be "easy", if it was, then one or the other would be obviously superior. Instead the choice should be about "what do I want to get out of this".

Endo Steel gives you more raw tonnage to play with, thus opening up more options for weapons, equipment, engines, etc.

Ferro-Fibrous should give you the option to boost protection on the mech.

Either option can save you weight, but to utilize Ferro-Fibrous to the max, one would sink the weight savings back into the armor and go for the additional 12% protection. Of course, I know plenty of people who run mechs with less than maximum armor, and so one doesn't have to "max" the armor out to take advantage of the increased maximum allowable armor suggested by the OP.

In regards to clan mechs being overpowered with this suggested max increase, I say; hardly.

Not many clan mechs actually have maximum armor, and those that do are often so streamlined in their loadouts that to sacrifice another 20% of their armor's weight toward taking full advantage of a potential 20% increase would result in them losing a crucial double heat sink, targeting computer, or downgrade of one of their weapon systems.

Take the Madcat, for example. This beast has 12 tons of ferro-fibrous armor, giving it the equivalent of 14.4 tons of armor (like on the Orion). So it saves a whole 2.4 tons. Now, with the OPs suggestion, the Madcat could theoretically mount 20% more maximum armor, but that would take the 2.4 tons it saves with ferro-fibrous in the first place. The Madcat, thus, would have to drop 2.4 tons of equipment to do this.

First, it drops the machine guns and ammo, 0.25 tons per MG for a total of 0.5 tons, and 1 ton for the ammuntion for a total of 1.5 tons liberated. Now, of the remaining 2 ER Large Lasers, 2 ER Medium Lasers, 1 Medium Pulse Laser, 2 LRM-20s, 2 tons of ammunition, and 2 additional double heat sinks, what will the mech drop to liberate that final ton? A double heat sink? Exchange the Medium Pulse Laser for an ER Medium Laser? Drop a ton of LRM ammo? Downgrade the LRMs to LRM-15s and increase ammo?

Either way, the canon Madcat (and any other mech built with the OPs suggested FF armor changes) doesn't change a bit, only its potential in the hands of the players would enable them to make maximum use of this technology.

And, for those who say that FF armor's armor increase means the difference between a kill or not on a mech. Good, that should be the trade off. Remember, by taking FF armor and using the saved weight to maximize the armor in a location, you aren't saving any weight yourself and are eating up space, so your offensive firepower is likely to be worse than the guy with Endo Steel who used his weight savings to pack on an AC/20 instead of an AC/10, or an extra pair of medium lasers, or to upgrade his SRM-4s to SRM-6s.

I know I for one would actually consider the choice between the two if FF allowed me to increase maximum armor over standard.

I was not so sure, myself, on the Clan Ferro-Fiberous. 20% more available armor, man that sounds like a lot.

Take your canon Timber Wolf, does it have enough critical slots left to tack on Endo-Steel along with Ferro-Fiberous? If it does, then what happens is that the mech will 100% guarantee to equip the extra 20% tonnage in armor.

Endo-Steel for 75t Clan mech = 3.75t
Ferro-Fiberous for 75t Clan mech = 3.0t extra needed

My issue that I was seeing is that if a Clan mech, that normally equipped FF or ES, then with all the other DHS and weaponry, still had 7 critical slots left, would be able to equip the other weight saving upgrade and get the full amount, no questions asked.

But this might not be the case. Maybe every Clan mech basically used every single, or almost every single critical slot on each mech. And if this is the case, then your absolutely right. They would have to sacrifice something else in the build. And, I think, is a very good balancing factor. More investigation work is needed.

Hopefully PGI will see this as a simple enough fix to Ferro-Fiberous to make it balanced to Endo-Steel.

Edited by Zyllos, 02 January 2013 - 09:57 PM.

[Mister Zeus]

Keep in mind, Zyllos, that that extra 20% armor on a Timber Wolf is costing it about 10% of its normally available Weapon Pod Space. 2.4 tons out of 27.5 tons on the Timber Wolf. So now it's only running around with ~ 25 tons of weapons, this is not an insignificant reduction in its offensive capabilities.

Furthermore, who is to say that Clan ferro-fibrous needs to provide both 20% more armor per ton and 20% more total armor per location? Maybe it's 20% more per ton and 12% more just like Inner Sphere mechs?

Either way, I would prefer something to be done with FF armor rather than just using the CBT values, because it was pretty much pointless to equip in CBT unless you had a fluff/campaign reason like you only had time and money to refit armor rather than reforge an entire skeleton for your mech.