23 replies to this topic

[Erik Hollister]

I recently decided to try out the ferro-fibrous armor upgrade on an RS Atlas. As per usual, I didn't attempt to weed through the forums to figure out the mechanics because quite frankly, I rarely find any current information about the games mechanics here.

My thought was to make this brute into a brawler, and the added protection (per ton of armor) is just what a brawler needs.If I could turn that stock 608 into 680pts of armor, it would be well worth the 14 slots lost (which is a big loss on a 'mech this size). Imagine my amazement when I found that I hadn't gained any additional armor, it was just lighter. Apparantly, the manufacturers of said armor can't figure out that the 'mechs structure can handle the weight on the mounting points, lets just make it thicker and give them more protection, rather than just make it easier on the cranes that lift the plates into place.

The REALLY cool thing is that on a 'mech that goes 608 points of armor, those 14 slots saved me a whopping 2.08 tons. 2 freaking tons.

Another observation might be that if you gain no armor benefit from going ferro-fibrous, it must be that the plates are the same size, just lighter. Therefore, why is it taking up space inside my mech?

Suggestion: either get rid of the 14 slot penalty, or increase the max on the mechs armor. The way it is now makes absolutely no sense.

(To be fair, it actually ONLY cost about .8 million c-bills)
(1.1 million just sounds better.... lol )

Edited by Erik Hollister, 09 December 2012 - 08:27 AM.

[Jadel Blade]

Lol wth are you talking about.

[ICEFANG13]

Endo structure is always better, because, while I wish it was unique too, both are just for saving weight, and no mech benefits more from ferro over endo. I know its a waste of money, but you should remove the ferro and get endo, then double heatsinks, and then ferro if you can fit it (although probably not).

[Elder Thorn]

what icefang13 said.
I usually prefer Double Heat sinks over endo though.
Think i have only one mech using Ferro: The Jenner, it has ferro, endo and DHS

[ICEFANG13]

Yes generally the light mechs and Cicadas can use all three, but anything larger can't, and shouldn't use ferro because of its inferiority. Larger mechs are usually restricted by slots (so they can't use all three, you may not be able to use two, not sure), and smaller mechs by tonnage.

[Erik Hollister]

ICEFANG13, on 09 December 2012 - 08:39 AM, said:

I know its a waste of money, but you should remove the ferro and get endo, then double heatsinks, and then ferro if you can fit it (although probably not).

Oh, I did get rid of it. Cost me 500k to buy it, use it for a few hours with different weapon loadouts, then paid the roughly 300k to give it the axe. 14 slots for 2 tons of savings is a "I got this bridge I'd like to sell ya" kind of deal. Completely worthless. I have to assume that on a smaller mech with half the armor tonnage, you'd get a ton? Pffft....please.

[ICEFANG13]

Yeah I think I saved almost a ton on my Jenner and Raven, but when I remove just a few points, I get a whole ton. That's a lot for light mechs, but Endo still saves a ton and a half.

[Erik Hollister]

ICEFANG13, on 09 December 2012 - 08:59 AM, said:

Yes generally the light mechs and Cicadas can use all three, but anything larger can't, and shouldn't use ferro because of its inferiority. Larger mechs are usually restricted by slots (so they can't use all three, you may not be able to use two, not sure), and smaller mechs by tonnage.

Yeah, giving up 14 slots on an Atlas is a real trial. They can fit so many big weapons in the structure that losing 14 slots is almost evicerating. Really no reason to give up the space for weight savings on those big brutes. I'd have to do some calcs to see if DHS is even worth it on one. It probably is, but there is something about walking around with my ammo in my feet that doesn't seem quite right .

ICEFANG13, on 09 December 2012 - 09:04 AM, said:

Yeah I think I saved almost a ton on my Jenner and Raven, but when I remove just a few points, I get a whole ton. That's a lot for light mechs, but Endo still saves a ton and a half.

Well, I can definately see it on a small mech that can't use the space anyway, but it still doesn't make any physical sense to me to have it both take up space and weigh less. I'd like to see ferro fibrous be very expensive to fit and repair, and give up the 14 slots or increase its max benefit.

[ICEFANG13]

I also wish it did something, like you can put 12% more armor on your mech instead of it being lighter.

[DivineEvil]

Actually, I start to think the same way about the "double" heat sinks upgrade. You are paying a 1,5mil CBills for upgrade that gives you 3x bigger heatsinks, which easier to knock out, worth more and gives lower than half the benefit of original DHS. So it works only as an upgrade for Engine's heatsinks when you are stuffed with Ballistics, and not really worth the money you spend on it. So I simply ignore that upgrade and suddenly have tons of CBills for trying all and any weapon layouts, XL engines of any power rating and all new mechs I would ever want. Using PPC's on SHS, or on DHS - there's very little change.

Edited by DivineEvil, 09 December 2012 - 09:16 AM.

[Redshift2k5]

FF armor is doing exactly as intended- for a mech with full armor, FF is purely a weight saving feature at the cost of 14 crits.


It also always gives you less tons than Endo.

If you have 28 free crits(such as certain light mech build) FF + ES is ok Otherwise, always Endo.

I would have been happy to tell you this .8 million CB ago.

[ICEFANG13]

Yes it is working as intended, I'm just saying, that the way its intended sucks.

[Tolkien]

Erik Hollister, on 09 December 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

I recently decided to try out the ferro-fibrous armor upgrade on an RS Atlas. As per usual, I didn't attempt to weed through the forums to figure out the mechanics because quite frankly, I rarely find any current information about the games mechanics here.

My thought was to make this brute into a brawler, and the added protection (per ton of armor) is just what a brawler needs.If I could turn that stock 608 into 680pts of armor, it would be well worth the 14 slots lost (which is a big loss on a 'mech this size). Imagine my amazement when I found that I hadn't gained any additional armor, it was just lighter. Apparantly, the manufacturers of said armor can't figure out that the 'mechs structure can handle the weight on the mounting points, lets just make it thicker and give them more protection, rather than just make it easier on the cranes that lift the plates into place.

The REALLY cool thing is that on a 'mech that goes 608 points of armor, those 14 slots saved me a whopping 2.08 tons. 2 freaking tons.

Another observation might be that if you gain no armor benefit from going ferro-fibrous, it must be that the plates are the same size, just lighter. Therefore, why is it taking up space inside my mech?

Suggestion: either get rid of the 14 slot penalty, or increase the max on the mechs armor. The way it is now makes absolutely no sense.

(To be fair, it actually ONLY cost about .8 million c-bills)
(1.1 million just sounds better.... lol )

I'm sorry to hear you lost so many Cbills to learn this hard lesson. FF sucks rocks (I think they have made it worse than it was in tabletop...), and costs a lot to repair!

It wouldn't be so bad if the mechlab was properly integrated so that you could sketch up upgrades and equipment together to see if it will all fit, but as it stands you are probably going to make a lot of mistakes that will cost a lot. This is because right now you have to pay every time you put an upgrade on a chassis, and again when you want to take it off. I really hope they at least make it an unlockable toggle so you can buy the option to use ES,FF or 1.4HS (formerly DHS) but don't have to pay to switch again...

Poll is in this topic http://mwomercs.com/...90#entry1565790

[DivineEvil]

By canon, FF is expected to give you more protection per ton of armor. The way how it is made in MWO does not follow that idea, since you're reducing the amount of tons you can install for the same protection, namely "saving weight". It is supposed to intease your maximum protection points on every section by about 1 unit per each 8 units allowed for standard armor, for example increasing Awesome's CT armor limit by 10 for 80 basic capacity.

So yeah, that upgrade is worthless and broken.

[Tolkien]

DivineEvil, on 09 December 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

By canon, FF is expected to give you more protection per ton of armor. The way how it is made in MWO does not follow that idea, since you're reducing the amount of tons you can install for the same protection, namely "saving weight". It is supposed to intease your maximum protection points on every section by about 1 unit per each 8 units allowed for standard armor, for example increasing Awesome's CT armor limit by 10 for 80 basic capacity.

So yeah, that upgrade is worthless and broken.

I hate to contradict, but if you install BMD10 (battlemech designer 10) and play around you'll see that mechs have per location armour limits based on their tonnage. Changing from regular to FF does *not* bump the maximum allowed amount up, it just makes each point of armour protection weigh less.

Frankly though it`s a pretty terrible upgrade right now since it barely saves any weight except on assault mechs, and there it is far inferior to ES and takes up too much space. To boot, it's also terribly expensive to repair.

TLDR> FF is likely not an upgrade you will want to use.

Edited by Tolkien, 09 December 2012 - 10:16 AM.

[Hotthedd]

It probably WAS closer to 1.1 million c-bills when you factor in the repair bills, lol.

[BigMooingCow]

IMHO, FF is worthless.

1) On heavy/assault mechs you gain a ton or two, but lose 14 slots. When was the last time you had 14 free slots but were out of weight on a heavy/assault mech? How would you even DO that? Lots of LPL's and SHS?

2) On light/medium mechs you have less armor to begin with, so you gain very little weight savings.

3) On all mechs your armor repair costs go up. Costs are already high, and you almost ALWAYS take armor damage, so you're shooting yourself in the foot to make your armor expensive.

4) Endo Steel saves more weight, always. And it takes the same 14 tons

If FF armor didn't cost any more (or very slightly more) than normal armor to repair it would be useful for light, medium, and the odd heavy mech. As it is now it's a giant money pit that is best avoided. Sorry to hear you fell into the pit.

[Willie Sauerland]

BigMooingCow, on 09 December 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

4) Endo Steel saves more weight, always. And it takes the same 14 slots

I fixed it for you.

[Erik Hollister]

I'm really not too worried about the C-Bills.... it just equates to playing time. We are all just spinning our wheels (hopefully) enjoying the experience and honing our skills at this point anyway. I just hope that the devs rethink FF armor. As an earlier gentleman pointed out, its coded properly and is working as intended. The logic behind it is flawed, however. Your armor mounting points are designed to handle x amount of tonnage of armor. If you have lighter armor material, you should be able to put on more (bulkier) armor. So....

Either its the same size, only lighter (get rid of the 14 slot requirement)

- or-

Its bulkier but gives you better protection (increase the mechs max armor accordingly).

As it is now, its just dumb. Plain and simple.

[Socket7]

FF is not only silly from a "how much armor do you get" perspective; it is also incredibly expensive to repair FF.

Want to lose money when you lose matches in MWO? Step one is equip FF armor.