39 replies to this topic

[BL00D RAVEN]

i have it on my raven
if i get shot i die
if i die i lose money
lose money anyways if i use xl engine

[CocoaJin]

Wait until we get into CW, where a match or two decides if your merc corps or factions is able to retain some high value holding. For those matches, people will pull out all the stops...including FF.

There will likely be times where the potential high cost of repairing a mech with FF is out-weighed by the significance of your merc corps or faction holding onto a high value holding for another day or so.

[401]

if you ignore the huge cost of upgrade and the repair bills, it's only effective on light mechs if you have slots to burn.

[QuantumButler]

FF is a noob trap, avoid it like the plague.

[Belorion]

The only time it ever makes sense is if you are going to use endo and ff. Otherwise you can add more armor by using endo.

[a rabid chihuahua]

effective for the lighter mechs that throw endo steal on also .it's what i do on my lights. don't waiste it on my heavies personally.

[Vassago Rain]

I mathed it out on all my commandos. If I had jenners, I might consider it there for maximum min-max, too, but I'm not sure it'd be worth it.

Damage reduction, please.

[Jaynestown]

"In TT Endo Steel is manufactured in space." LOL Battletech. That is the greatest explanation for "why is this so expensive/rare??" that I have ever heard.

I have FF on my Commando 2D. I added it after installing Endo Steel and my XL 195. Previous posts are correct, for light mechs without many heat sinks or weapons to add, it makes sense. For heavy mechs, I don't think you'll ever be able to afford Endo + Ferro + Heat Sinks, so it doesn't matter. But I guess I could imagine a couple builds where it would make sense. Anything that side steps the heat scale such that the only sinks you're using are the ones in your engine, but where you don't want to mount an XL engine because of the durability issue. You could buy a couple tons maybe for 8 more slots than the engine would have been... sort of halfway between going XL in terms of crits added vs tons saved, but without the bigger core. Does that make sense?

[Kraven Kor]

I actually had a good Centurion build that used both FF and ES; an AL doesn't need much crit space to fill up weapons and ammo. I think it was 2x Large Laser, 2x Med Laser, 2x SSRM-2 with 1 ton ammo, and the biggest non-XL engine I could stick in it.

But repairs were too high so I took off the FF armor.

[Thorqemada]

My CN9-A uses DHS, ES and FF but no XL...i have repairs around 65k and make money every match.

[TruePoindexter]

The high repair is the issue - it is total viable otherwise on almost all scouts. All of my Ravens, Jenners, and Cicadas feature it. Just pushes the repair costs up on par with my Cataphracts... which is odd for mechs that are on average half its weight.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Light Mechs put Ferro to good use because they simply don't have enough weight to use all their slots, even while already having DHS+Endo. Simply put, get all 3.

But if you aren't Light... you'll most likely just use DHS+Endo and forget Ferro. DHS is the best upgrade here and Endo steel is second. Ferro has no purpose unless you can use all 3.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

Endo Steel provides a lot more protection... and that's noticeable on the light 'mechs especially the big ones too.. tho I haven't seen it in use on a ton of heavy/assault 'mechs mainly because they want to fill their hardpoints with hard hitting weapon systems.

If you had an atlas with very few crit spaces (meaning ssrm2 // ML // AC2) then you could justify putting the extra armor on it for the brawler situations HOWEVER:

It's going to cost you a boat load of c-bills in anything past the medium 'mech ESPECIALLY if you get your armor stripped to the internals in several places.

That's the thing that I think is funny is that PGI said the armor and endo steel would be particularly helpfull for the bigger 'mechs and so far it seems quite the other way around.

[Zakie Chan]

Yen lo wang

ac20
2 mlas
4 tons ammo
Std 250
Endo
DHS
FF

[Coralld]

I don't use FF on any of my mechs currently. However I can see it being helpful to lights. But I believe they may have to re-think the FF. perhaps make it so you free up that .5 ton or what ever it is, but make it so it ups all the amount of armor slots on your mech by 5. For example: A Hunchback's center torso maxes out at 54, left and right torso max out at 40... ect... ect. But if you equip FF, not only do you free up .5 tons of weight, it also up the max amount of armor by 5 point. So the center torso on my Hunchback can now max out at 59, and the left and right torso max out at 45... ect...ect. I understand that may not appear like a big deal, at least not on the front. But on the rear, where the armor is very thin, my Hunchy max center torso armor now goes from 10 to 15, and the rear left and right torso goes from 8 to 13.

Its just an idea but it could be far better then what we have now as I have not done the math to compare.

[Jaynestown]

M4NTiC0R3X, on 10 December 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

Endo Steel provides a lot more protection...

I don't understand this statement. Endo Steel would provide more protection by saving you more weight... which would allow you to fill more armor slots. Ferro Fibrous decreases weight per point of armor, not max armor points, and not protection per armor point.

[Stormur Herra]

Both my ECM mechs use it. (Raven and Commando because I don't have the tonnage for more DHS and I have the space left over.)

[Kommisar]

Ferros Fiber had advantages in the table top game; though mostly for the Clan FF. Inner-Sphere FF was sometimes usable in a custom mech build as you didn't have to worry about hard point restrictions. With hard point restrictions, you can't just throw on FF for an extra ton or two of medium lasers or what-not. Plus, for most of us, in Table Top, we didn't have to worry about upkeep costs.

In MWO, I'm affraid that it is a "noob trap"; as someone so colourfully put it. Sure, a Jenner or Cicada could see some benefit in certain builds. The cost in repairs, however, far exceeds the combat benefits of the armor. A half ton of anything is not going to net you the wins, kills, and salvage needed to cover the repair costs. In fact, your enemies may be profiting off of it more than you do if FF is calculated into the Salvage costs at the end of the round!!!

Ferros Fiber = bad deal
Modules = bad deal

Avoid these.

[Dukarriope]

Only my Jenner D-F and my Raven 3L have Ferrofibrous, but I ought to outfit my K and F Jenners I guess. Make them more viable instead of just for MXP.

[Lanessar]

Dukarriope, on 10 December 2012 - 02:37 PM, said:

Only my Jenner D-F and my Raven 3L have Ferrofibrous, but I ought to outfit my K and F Jenners I guess. Make them more viable instead of just for MXP.

I think the FF comes standard on the Jenner K.

Honestly, the space freed up on a Jenner with maxxed armor is about 0.57 tons. That's enough for AMS, or a small laser, possibly TAG, but most jenners are running with a full loadout of weapons. So, it's not really that attractive for them.

It might look a bit more attractive when you must use more than one JJ. Unknown at this time how much 1 vs. 5 will change jump patterns (most good jenner pilots don't use it to clear obstacles, but change directions suddenly).

Honestly, there isn't a really viable reason to use it to free up weight. That can be done with better planning, cutting down side-torso armor, etc.

The repair costs are going to end up costing you more than it's worth to run it. People may defend their use of it, but honestly? Either they have zero cash flow problems, or they simply aren't considering that using 14 crit slots and 300K Cbills isn't really a good trade off for "12% lighter".

I personally feel this is where the devs should have certainly moved away from canon and made it actually useful.