226 replies to this topic

[Kell Pryde]

Personally I believe any mech (especially the earlier designs) which only had 1 critical spot in a location with ammunition in it was a horrible design. The worst offender in my opinion was the Zeus. If your opponent rolled a floating crit in the left torso (if I remember correctly) BOOM. Ammo mechs are awful just awful.

[Suskis]

I made a 40 machine guns version of Charger. It was EFFECTIVE cause rolling 40 times (with no heat!) resulted in a couple of head hits or CT critical hits!

[SquareSphere]

ALL PROTOMECHS!

[SideSt3p]

I'm not a fan of the Mad Cat either. Reason being, I feel it's over hyped. I don't like the way it looks that much, I don't care for it's load outs either.

Same goes for the Marauder...or Rifleman...

Give me a Highlander!

[LackofCertainty]

Yes, the urbanmech is probably the worst mech there is. Everything in the fluff of it and even the actual design of it is designed to make it a junkers. (11th heatsink anyone?) However, people love it because it's an example of how even a bad mech can be useful in the right hands. I'm not one of the crazies that wants to name my firstborn after it, but if they put it into the game I would tinker with the trashcan and see if I could get something viable out of it. (which is one of the most fun parts of Mechwarrior to me)

Edit: Also, people do have legitimate points (for TT at least) that one of the draws of the urbie is that it has a good amount of firepower for it's BV and especially for it's cost. You can field an entire lance of urbies for the cost of some mechs, and end up with a good bit more firepower.

If BV is calculated for matches in MWO, then the default urbie would still have a place.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 15 May 2012 - 10:01 AM.

[Melissia]

Bah, poor ol' urbie is still better than the flea.

[Garth Erlam]

Any of the Unseen - heyoooo!

[Melissia]

LackofCertainty, on 15 May 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

If BV is calculated for matches in MWO, then the default urbie would still have a place.

I like the idea of fitting my urbie with a ppc and extra heat sinks, making it basically just a (kinda) mobile PPC turret.

[AdamBaines]

There are so many bad ones beyond the Charger and Urbanmech I dont know where to start.

Also, is it just that they are useless mechs, or do we take into account their look?

By Look alone I detest the new ones like the Blue Flame and Solitare and all of the IIc ones. Wyvern is ugly too.

If its just their function, then id say somthing like the Hellspawn (Although I like the look).

If its combo......Id say the Buccaneer.

All of the TRO 3025 are Holy to me.....including the unseen. :-)

[Karl Streiger]

Garth Erlam, on 15 May 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

Any of the Unseen - heyoooo!

The drop has been made....now defend it

[LackofCertainty]

Melissia, on 15 May 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

I like the idea of fitting my urbie with a ppc and extra heat sinks, making it basically just a (kinda) mobile PPC turret.

I don't like the idea of PPCs in an urbie, because the enemy will catch you, and that minimum range will ruin your plans. If we start from the 3050 TRO urbie we have:
LB-10X AC
1 small pulse laser
1 small laser

6 tons of armor
11 heatsinks (>_>)

My first steps would be:
Pull off the 11th heatsink, swap the small laser and the small pulse laser for 2 mediums, and plop on another .5 tons of armor.

Even with just that tweak, the urbie looks a lot more valuable as a (fairly) stationary turret. It doesn't have the pure firepower of a Jenner, but it has almost 2x the armor, and a decent slugging weapon for range. But I've always thought that if you're going with the urbie spirit (a semi-mobile turret mech for urban environments) then you might as well go the AC 20 route.

AC 20
2x medium lasers
10 heatsinks
3.5 tons of armor.

This version gives you enough armor to survive another light trying to poke at you, while still giving you enough firepower to be scary to any light and most mediums. With the advantages of jump jets and (presumably) much faster torso twist on a light, you could be a pain in the *** to heavier mechs too.

The -biggest- advantage the urbie has is that it mounts it's AC 20 in the arm. A hunchback or an atlas are scary in urban environments, but we've seen that the torso reticule is pretty durn slow compared to the arm reticules. I could easily see an urbie that jumps to the roofs of buildings and hops back down and waddles around corners being a nightmare to fight with an atlas, and a pain even for a hunchback. (which is remarkable, since the hunchback is -the- urban combat medium)

Edit: if you doubt the power of arm-mounted weapons, remember that the devs have said that fights between hunchbacks and atlases tend to be fairly close, because they both have similar amounts of arm mounted weapons. Consider that the ac20 urbie has 25 damage/round in arm mounted weapons compared to the atlas's/hunchback's 10.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 15 May 2012 - 11:14 AM.

[neodym]

Garth Erlam, on 15 May 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

Any of the Unseen - heyoooo!

LOL!




can I sig your post?

Edited by neodym, 15 May 2012 - 11:12 AM.

[Sychodemus]

I submit to you that there are no awful canon 'Mechs, just awful commanders. But my perspective where they are concerned is that you don't always have a choice in what your TO&E consists of, so your tactics must change accordingly.

This is subjective, of course. I personally have never participated in a battle (tabletop) where a Hellbringer survived. I cannot say that it wasn't effective, just that its survivability is non-existent whenever I am around.

Visually, for me, the "just awful" 'Mech is a toss up between a Yeoman and the Artic Fox (aka "The War Commode")

[Shredhead]

Garth Erlam, on 15 May 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

Any of the Unseen - heyoooo!

Look, Paul hijacked Garth's account in his midday break.

[proktor]

firestarter, completely useless

[Deathz Jester]

proktor, on 15 May 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

firestarter, completely useless

Not completely

[Adridos]

Garth Erlam, on 15 May 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

Any of the Unseen - heyoooo!

And let's not forget the Dragon, such a piece of ugly junk. Or the Jenner, which can't stand a hit and looks like, well, ...
Basically every Kuritan mech.

P.S. Except SH.

[Arbhall Sommers]

I hate the urbie. Useless heap. On the other hand, it is a cheap mech. One I would expect to see far more often given its price point, despite its limited effectiveness.

[Solis Obscuri]

Christopher Dayson, on 14 May 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

Why would anyone fail a roll from taking 20 points of damage? That's not hard to make, it's extremely easy to make, and if you are stupid enough to let ANYTHING with an AC 20 get into your back at that short of range, then you deserve to die.

That really depends on whether the AC/20 crits the gyro or not.

Christopher Dayson, on 14 May 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

Betting on other people's stupidity is not the way to try and promote a mech. I'd say if the way the mech is good depends on the pilot being an *****, then the mech is not good.

Nice straw man. Does he scare a lot of crows?

Christopher Dayson, on 14 May 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

A 2/3 movement is just horrific, I never said anything about increasing the armor, you just can't get /good/ armor on a chassis that light, by compounding it by giving it limited range limited ammo firepower is just sheer idiocy. It moves so slow it can't even outrun infantry really.

Are you trying to argue that 3 is less than 1?

Christopher Dayson, on 14 May 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

There is nothing /good/ about the Urbanmech in any configuration due to it's light tonnage and low speed. That's a cold hard truth.

Then again judging by much of the forums I guess I shouldn't be surprised that /anyone/ would defend the Urbanmech like it's the second coming of kerensky.

Given that Kerensky's enduring legacy was decades of genocide on the Periphery, I don't see how defending the Urbanmech is nearly as hard.

Christopher Dayson, on 15 May 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

What, the variant that has even LESS armor so it is easily killed by infantry?

Even a Federated Long Rifle or a Blazer only hit armor for 0.35 damage. Thats 52 direct CT hits in order to core out a 30 ton 'mech with 4 tons of armor, using the heaviest infantry rifles available in the IS. Or are these the "special" infantry that run 3 hexes/turn and have super powers?

Christopher Dayson, on 15 May 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

The variant that has even less range so that it has even more issues closing in on the enemy?

Urbie =/= open field pursuit 'mech
Urbie = urban warfare ambusher

Christopher Dayson, on 15 May 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

The variant that has a wopping 5 shots?

Hey, with 4 tons of armor, how long do expect it to last? May as well not stuff it to the brim with explosives.

Christopher Dayson, on 15 May 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

Sorry how is that thing remotely good again?

"For the price." (Same cost as Flea or Locust).

Christopher Dayson, on 15 May 2012 - 08:39 AM, said:

An Atlas in a city just tromps right through buildings, it's got rear firing lasers (And yes, they do work in TT just fine) that do the same damage as an Urbanmech's AC-10 when combined.

It's pretty hilarious when assaults fail their rolls, fall into the rubble of a building, and the pilot loses consciousness. 9.3M C-Bills and 1557 BV prone and incapacitated because the pilot decided to plow into a house...

Iron Harlequin, on 15 May 2012 - 12:04 PM, said:

Not completely

That isn't its real purpose:

[Arbhall Sommers]

Firestarter isnt an awfull mech, its got some definite uses. It was actually the first mech i ever played, against a Kraken on a the Solaris Icefield map. I got trounced, but that was a given. The guy who got me into Battletech was a bit of an *******, but i stilll fellin love with the game.
I learned to use the firestarter after that, and I have taken out the Kraken, Behemoth and the Awesome in single combat. I dont love the firestarter, but its definitely a good mech.