440 replies to this topic

[Sifright]

Cybermech, on 08 February 2013 - 01:07 AM, said:

dear god guys, think about what your complaining about...
is it your situational awareness???

no its the OP srm6 A1, with its 180m and less range, 50-80m to get a good shot.
I can see how this is way too much range.
There is no way you could strip off its arms before it got close.


is the problem you have to think while your hiding in your assaults??

oh goody another dude with no idea,

There are rafts of A1 pilots telling you this mech is disgustingly imbalanced.

Me,MustrumRidcully ,Quantom Builder, Connor, Vassago etc etc.

In 4.1 seconds an A1 Can output exactly 180 damage. This is enough against almost all enemies to ensure that you rip a side torso off or get a kill.

Bare in mind you can aim for cockpits with this as well with the tremendous amount of damage and the not so tight focus at short range actually being a benefit for this. Its quite easy on awesomes for instance to instantly kill from the front due to that.

Edited by Sifright, 08 February 2013 - 02:55 AM.

[Sifright]

Apoc1138, on 08 February 2013 - 02:49 AM, said:

quite often... I tend to position myself at the back of clear terrain covering choke points... it's quite rare that I find myself at less than 300m with one before I've spotted and identified one

the the pilots you are playing against are absolutely terrible.

I guess you think A1's running through the water on river city up the middle is normal?

I guess you also think a1s running up the water on Forest colony is normal?

How about on frozen city, do you think its normal for an A1 to crest the ridge and just walk straight at you?

Every good A1 pilot uses all the routes that are littered with cover so you can't possibly do that.

So basically you keep fighting complete jebs.

Not to mention not every A1 pilot to my consternation is taking SRM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

guys poll's done with majority say catas are cool you may go home now.

[Sifright]

GalaxyBluestar, on 08 February 2013 - 02:56 AM, said:

guys poll's done with majority say catas are cool you may go home now.

Hahaha, No.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Ive been seeing craploads of AC20 cats today

[Apoc1138]

Sifright, on 08 February 2013 - 02:55 AM, said:

the the pilots you are playing against are absolutely terrible.

I guess you think A1's running through the water on river city up the middle is normal?

I guess you also think a1s running up the water on Forest colony is normal?

How about on frozen city, do you think its normal for an A1 to crest the ridge and just walk straight at you?

Every good A1 pilot uses all the routes that are littered with cover so you can't possibly do that.

So basically you keep fighting complete jebs.

Not to mention not every A1 pilot to my consternation is taking SRM.

No, I think it's normal for A1 pilots to use the tunnel on Forest colony and come down through D4/D5, and on Frozen city they come out of the side tunnel quite often... when they do they find themselves facing me from about 300-400m under a hail of UAC5 fire and when they get close enough to use their SRM6's I've got half as many as they have as well (or as many as they have by the time they get close enough to use them)

I'm not saying I never get taken out by an SRM6-cat, I'm just saying that when I do it's because they've been played VERY well and not just averagely well

[Sifright]

Apoc1138, on 08 February 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

No, I think it's normal for A1 pilots to use the tunnel on Forest colony and come down through D4/D5, and on Frozen city they come out of the side tunnel quite often... when they do they find themselves facing me from about 300-400m under a hail of UAC5 fire and when they get close enough to use their SRM6's I've got half as many as they have as well (or as many as they have by the time they get close enough to use them)

I'm not saying I never get taken out by an SRM6-cat, I'm just saying that when I do it's because they've been played VERY well and not just averagely well

I'd argue bad pilots go through the arch-way there but i've been guilty of that myself. That area is a pretty good funnel and killing ground to take out the enemy team in general. Although with JJ fixed now most A1s are capable of launching onto the arch instead of walking through it or just letting a team mate with more range in general take attention first.

[Apoc1138]

Sifright, on 08 February 2013 - 03:15 AM, said:

I'd argue bad pilots go through the arch-way there but i've been guilty of that myself. That area is a pretty good funnel and killing ground to take out the enemy team in general. Although with JJ fixed now most A1s are capable of launching onto the arch instead of walking through it or just letting a team mate with more range in general take attention first.

either end of the tunnel is pretty easy to set up a crossfire on, we tend to not go near either area, but have someone spotting on defending "our" end so that we can quickly get guns in place in case someone comes that way

[Onmyoudo]

I don't think the catapult should be nerfed. AC20 cats are a massive pain, sure, but they're also slow and relatively short range and often with no back-up weapons. The issue with A1 cats I find is the massive amount of terrain cover that means they are guaranteed to be able to get close to you and stay close to you unless you can run 80kph.

However in that case I mostly just put it down to poor positioning on my part i.e. I should have been cowering behind a meat shield somewhere.

[HiplyRustic]

MustrumRidcully, on 07 February 2013 - 11:53 PM, said:

Just kill the ears....

Internal Structure on Arms: 20
Internal Structure on Center Torso: 42
Max Armour on Arms: 40
Max Armour on Center Torso: 84 (realistically split into something like 64/20 maybe? Vassago may use even less)

Total Damage needed to kill one Arm: 62
Total Damage needed to kill CT: 104

If you deal x damage per second on average, you need 62/x seconds to kill one arm, 124/x seconds to kill both arms, 104/x to CT.
The 6 SRM6 Cat deals about 22.5 damage per second. If you "disarm" it on one side, it's down to 11.25 damage per second.
So if you go for the arms, you will take 62/x * 22.5 + 62/x * 11.25 damage. = 2092/x damage.
If you go for the center torso, you will take 104/x * 22.5 = 2.340 damage.
Let's say you have a mech with 8 Medium Lasers. That gives you a theoretical max DPS of 10. That would mean you'd take 209 damage if you go for the arms, or 234 damage if you go for the center torso. *

Let's say you're a perfect shot, but the SRM6s miss 50 % of the time (or spread their damage in an unfortunate manner). That would mean you'd take 104 or 117 damage. (Both damage values incidentally would be high enough to kill a mech armored like the Splatapult)

2 Observations:
1) If you're alone against the Splatapult, you probably need to be really good to take it out before it takes out you.
2) If you're in a group, how good do you think your team is at coordinating its fire on the ear? If you can do it perfectly, going for the ears sounds best. But if only about 15 % of your team's damage is initially directed at the wrong ear - e.g 85 % shoot left, 15 % shoot right, you may have been better off if all agreed to shoot the center torso - there is only one of those.


*) Actually, it's all even more complicated.
The damage per second over a 10 second time frame is not the same as the theoretical DPS over an infinite time interval.
For example, a Gauss Rifle can fire 3 times in a 10 second time interval. Once at 0 seconds, a second time at 4 seconds, and a third at 8 seconds. That gives it a damage output of 45 over 10 seconds, which would suggest an average damage per second of 4.5. The "infinite time span" damage of the Gauss is only 3.75. The longer the time interval we discuss, the closer we get to that theoretical DPS.
So my above math might not work out quite like that. And you can also imagin that it will make a signiicant difference whether you kill the Catapults ear shortly before another salvo, or shortly after a salvo, so that even a small rise in damage output might affect the outcome considerably. But I don't feel like describing all that in detail right now. A slightly better approximation could be that we set a time limit and calculat ehow much damage both sides can deal in that time..

Assuming, of course, that you are in, and stay in, srm range and are one v one dueling. If that's the game you play, you deserve to spend a fair amount of time spectating.

[MustrumRidcully]

HiplyRustic, on 08 February 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

Assuming, of course, that you are in, and stay in, srm range and are one v one dueling. If that's the game you play, you deserve to spend a fair amount of time spectating.

The trick with using the A1 is - don't run around in the open where everyone can shoot you with range and your SRMs are useless. Once you avoided that mistake, you can get close to your enemy, and with 80 kp/h speed, very few enemies (and even fewer that can safely take your first salvo in the face) can escape you before you can fire a second or third salvo. If at all.

THink about what you need to guarantee that an A1 never gets close to you. You must be in a place where no one can get close to you without walking through the open. One of the best ways to do this in theory would be to stand in the middile of a wide plane - but that turns you into a target for LRMs, Snipers. And it doesn'T stop anyone from moving around you, still behind cover, and just ignoring you.

You have no choice but to get into a position where there is cover available, and that cover can also cover an attacker's approach (and sometimes it's just cover against direct-fire attacks and spotters, it's not cover against a Jump Jetting Mech

[EvilCow]

At this point it would be better for everybody that the devs just explain their position about this issue.

Currently I am abstaining from using the A1 because it feels so lame but if it is stated as working as intended then lets jump on the bandwagon and welcome to SRM Online.

[valkyrie]

EvilCow, on 08 February 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

At this point it would be better for everybody that the devs just explain their position about this issue.

Currently I am abstaining from using the A1 because it feels so lame but if it is stated as working as intended then lets jump on the bandwagon and welcome to SRM Online.

This is pretty much the crux of the issue. For pilots with the C-bills or the MC to buy and use an "optimized" Cat build, it's all fine and dandy (well, as long as you don't mind seeing almost nothing but Cats on the field after a while).

But for the new player? The guy who is halfway through his Cadet Bonus and screaming at his monitor "WHAT THE ****" because he just got vaporized by a Splatcat when it takes him a full minute of work in his Hunchback -4SP to kill another Medium? He's going to do one of two things:

• Go "I need to get one of those" and contribute to the homogenization of the "viable" 'Mech pool, or, far more likely,
  
• Say "**** this" and go play something else.

I'm sure some people are going to say "well, we don't need people like him!" but you have to understand that people like that are going to be the lifeblood of this game. We Founders might be the foundation upon which it's built, but without new blood, the game will stagnate and eventually die a premature death. ANYTHING that contributes to that - be it unbalanced Catapults, repair and rearm, a broken economy, ECM, or something we haven't even seen yet - needs to be dealt with swiftly and effectively before it hurts PGI's bottom line enough that we're ALL going to have to find something else to play.

[Kobold]

Again, if an OP mech is only OP when using a lot of one specific weapon, the problem is the weapon, not the mech.


My vote: Lower the damage, tighten the spread on SRMs. They will retain usefulness, but not be insta-body-part-removers.

[Codejack]

Kobold, on 09 February 2013 - 10:53 PM, said:

Again, if an OP mech is only OP when using a lot of one specific weapon, the problem is the weapon, not the mech.

But....but....but....what about Summon Bigger Fish?

Edited by Codejack, 09 February 2013 - 10:58 PM.

[valkyrie]

Kobold, on 09 February 2013 - 10:53 PM, said:

Again, if an OP mech is only OP when using a lot of one specific weapon, the problem is the weapon, not the mech.


My vote: Lower the damage, tighten the spread on SRMs. They will retain usefulness, but not be insta-body-part-removers.

And again, I point out the fact that the vast, vast majority of the "OP" builds have been done on the Catapult, because it not only has the hardpoints to boat the most efficient weapons possible regardless of type, but also a glaring lack of weaknesses thanks to its torso shape, max engine size, and twist range.

Remember, this scenario played out already with the Gausscat. Gauss got nerfed...and now we have AC/20cats. Meanwhile, every -other- 'Mech that only used one of them was now further gimped, whereas the Gausscat didn't even get the nerf bat that bad since it's so difficult to hit the side torsos. It was only after Gauss rifles started exploding at the slightest provocation did the XL-engined Gausscat become an endangered species - it suddenly had an Achilles' Heel. Not a giant one, but one nonetheless.

[Skadi]

Hah you think its bad now... wait for clans...

[Kobold]

valkyrie, on 09 February 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

Remember, this scenario played out already with the Gausscat. Gauss got nerfed...

The only real "nerf" to the gausscat is the addition of other, better mechs than were around at the time.

With Stalkers and Cataphracts, along with improved alternative weapons to the gauss (AC/2UAC5 buffs, LL/PPC buffs) carrying two gauss isn't nearly as impressive. The Dakka-Dakka CTFs can do more DPS, and the LL/PPC stalkers can do more alpha.

[valkyrie]

Kobold, on 09 February 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

The only real "nerf" to the gausscat is the addition of other, better mechs than were around at the time.

With Stalkers and Cataphracts, along with improved alternative weapons to the gauss (AC/2UAC5 buffs, LL/PPC buffs) carrying two gauss isn't nearly as impressive. The Dakka-Dakka CTFs can do more DPS, and the LL/PPC stalkers can do more alpha.

Yes, but people tend not to complain about those as much because they're not as maneuverable as the Catapult (Stalker) and have much larger side torsos to hit for a disarm (Cataphract). Cataphracts also have the added bonus of having arm convergence to deal with - sure, it gets them better range of motion, but I've lost count of how many time I thought I lined up a great shot with my Gaussamets only for the slugs to go "nope" and zip off at a 45 degree angle. Dakkaphracts also make a hell of a lot of noise that gets EVERYONE'S attention, and you've got a jamming mechanic that sometimes comes into play even when you're chain firing three UACs. There is in fact more to the issue than raw DPS and alpha damage, which needs to be taken into consideration should PGI see fit to modify the specs on the Catapult as a whole.

You are right about the addition of other, better 'Mechs though. They're called the Splatcat and AC/20cat.

[Infernus1986]

Kobold, on 09 February 2013 - 10:53 PM, said:

Again, if an OP mech is only OP when using a lot of one specific weapon, the problem is the weapon, not the mech.

And what if one mech is always OP using a lot of one specific weapon
ssrms
gauss
ac20
all nerfed mostly because of catapult boating

Edited by Infernus1986, 09 February 2013 - 11:11 PM.