145 replies to this topic

[Tikkamasala]

Protection, on 12 February 2013 - 03:41 PM, said:

But you are missing the point. The point is that you are not saving tonnage with a smaller engine. You are in fact, saving more tonnage with large engines, because they allow you to install more heatsinks, fit endo steel and ferro fibrous, as well as having a higher top speed and better turning.

There is no reason for an Atlas Build to run a 275 STD, for example, because every single build with a 275STD engine can be made to have a 325 STD engine with no drawbacks whatsoever. It is a 100% upgrade in every category. The smaller engine actually has less free tonnage than the larger engine. This is the issue.

Maybe i got the wrong numbers but that doesn't seem right:
The standard 275 weighs 21.5t while the 325 weighs nine tons more and offers two additional heatsink slots, i.e. six extra crit. slots. Installing endo costs 14 slots and only frees up five tons on the atlas. With FF you'll get about two tons for 14 slots. I don't see how that is always a possible upgrade and how you'll always save tonnage with the larger engine.

Edit: If i take the unusable (for dhs) feet, etc slots into account the comparison is much more favorable, the larger engine still costs an extra slot and four tons (and you'll lose the "unusable" slots for extra ammo).

Edited by Tikkamasala, 14 February 2013 - 09:21 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

One Medic Army, on 11 February 2013 - 07:47 PM, said:

Or in other words, a stock hunchback's speed is silly when you have the opportunity to go the same speed in a Cataphract while packing more firepower.

Although that is true what is your point?

It seems only logical that a 70T chassis could use its extra weight, to be able to go as fast (engine upgrade) and still have some weight left over for more "extra's", when being compared to a 50T chassis?

Either everyone can upgrade, even with the "limitations" as it is now, or everyone gets 1 Stock Engine.

[One Medic Army]

MaddMaxx, on 14 February 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

Although that is true what is your point?

It seems only logical that a 70T chassis could use its extra weight, to be able to go as fast (engine upgrade) and still have some weight left over for more "extra's", when being compared to a 50T chassis?

Either everyone can upgrade, even with the "limitations" as it is now, or everyone gets 1 Stock Engine.

My point was that the engine cap/stock engine size on hunchbacks and centurions is a bit low, and pretty much anyone who plays one bumps the engine to 250ish due to how completely inferior a slow medium is to everything else on the field.

Edited by One Medic Army, 14 February 2013 - 10:04 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

Protection, on 11 February 2013 - 07:49 PM, said:

If you would share your build, I am just about convinced I can make it a total improvement with a larger engine.
Use: http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

OK. I'll bite. Here is one. Link back your fix.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...bb7daba7b1fd1de

[ICEFANG13]

MaddMaxx, on 14 February 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

OK. I'll bite. Here is one. Link back your fix.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...bb7daba7b1fd1de

You'd have to take off a couple double heatsinks to slightly increase speed, but this is already a large engine, the problem is with small engines.

[Trauglodyte]

One Medic Army, on 11 February 2013 - 08:49 PM, said:

Really, this makes no sense.
If you're going to pilot a stock speed hunchback, pilot a cataphract instead and get all the speed plus more tonnage and armor. Being PUG or Premade has nothing to do with it. A Cataphract with a 280 engine and full armor leaves 27.44 tons free, a Hunchback with a 200 engine (and the 2 requisite heatsinks) leaves you with 20.94 free tons.
If you play slow in a hunchback instead of a cataphract in this case you've just given up 96points of armor, space in your engine for 3 heatsinks, and 6.5tons of free space. It's just a bad idea unless you can't find the hardpoints to do your build of choice on a heavy mech.

Same deal with slow heavies vs assaults, in most cases if you want to down-engine you'd be better off up-engining a heavier chassis instead.

The point isn't that you can take something heavier with more armor and weapons at the same speed. To that point, why take a Hunchback when you can take a fast Atlas or Awesome?

The thing is, you're able to get too much with a bigger engine when that isn't what the mech was designed around in the original game. That imbalance makes it incredibly hard to actually balance mechs. How can we move to 12v12 maps with ELO and eventual "e sports" when everyone can take an engine that is far and away bigger than it should be. This is why tying in torso twist to engine size is such a HORRID idea. Speed and turning speed is fine but there comes a time when the overall intent of the mech is distorted and bastardized because it is now operating at a level beyond what is should. It is why the Awesome 9M is what it is compared to the 8 series. It is why the Trebuchet, Cent D, and Dragon are as fast as they are. They're designed as flankers and harrassers. Why is it that the Commando and Raven go +60% faster in game then they were designed to thus taking away the speed advantage of the Spider, Jenner, and Cicada.

Sadly, all of this talk will fall on deaf ears because everyone is so used to is that to take it away would cause floods of tears. BUT, it needs to be fixed. I personally would suggest the following:

- Allow TT engine size +3 to all mechs.
- Boost Speed Tweak to +12.5%.

Doing that would achieve the following, as an example:

Commando - 97kph TT speed with a 150 engine; 165 max engine would boost speed to 106.9kph before speed tweak (109.4 TT w/ new Speed Tweak and 120.3 w/ max engine and new Speed Tweak).

The turn benefits are still intact but it keeps the speed boost to a minimum without making the damned thing into a blazing inferno. It also means that you can add in MASC without making the entire game absurd.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 14 February 2013 - 10:47 AM.

[One Medic Army]

Trauglodyte, on 14 February 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

The point isn't that you can take something heavier with more armor and weapons at the same speed. To that point, why take a Hunchback when you can take a fast Atlas or Awesome?

The thing is, you're able to get too much with a bigger engine when that isn't what the mech was designed around in the original game. That imbalance makes it incredibly hard to actually balance mechs. How can we move to 12v12 maps with ELO and eventual "e sports" when everyone can take an engine that is far and away bigger than it should be. This is why tying in torso twist to engine size is such a HORRID idea. Speed and turning speed is fine but there comes a time when the overall intent of the mech is distorted and bastardized because it is now operating at a level beyond what is should. It is why the Awesome 9M is what it is compared to the 8 series. It is why the Trebuchet, Cent D, and Dragon are as fast as they are. They're designed as flankers and harrassers. Why is it that the Commando and Raven go +60% faster in game then they were designed to thus taking away the speed advantage of the Spider, Jenner, and Cicada.

Sadly, all of this talk will fall on deaf ears because everyone is so used to is that to take it away would cause floods of tears. BUT, it needs to be fixed. I personally would suggest the following:

- Allow TT engine size +3 to all mechs.
- Additional engine sizes are available but speed gained would be reduced by -75% per size gain.

Doing that would achieve the following, as an example:

Commando - 97kph TT speed with a 150 engine; 115 max engine would boost speed to 107.8kph before speed tweak

The turn benefits are still intact but it keeps the speed boost to a minimum without making the damned thing into a blazing inferno. It also means that you can add in MASC without making the entire game absurd.

In the base game Hunchbacks/Centurions were used in place of the more effective heavier mechs due to BV and CBill costs.
Meaning that a Cataphract or Atlas wiped the floor with a hunchback, but you could have more hunchbacks.

So don't bring up TT unless you want Assaults to be the kings of battle, each one able to single-handedly destroy multiple lighter mechs. Don't bring up TT unless you want heavier mechs buffed to the point where they really are worth multiple lighter mechs.

[Vasces Diablo]

This is right about the time I start in with my rant about mech customization and how some things should be locked, like engine size. I really wish PGI would have held customization to a min and had us play specific variants, but that ship has sailed.

So now we live in a world of "generic fast boat - 35 ton version", " generic fast boat - 40 ton version" and so on...

[Trauglodyte]

One Medic Army, on 14 February 2013 - 10:46 AM, said:

In the base game Hunchbacks/Centurions were used in place of the more effective heavier mechs due to BV and CBill costs.
Meaning that a Cataphract or Atlas wiped the floor with a hunchback, but you could have more hunchbacks.
So don't bring up TT unless you want Assaults to be the kings of battle, each one able to single-handedly destroy multiple lighter mechs. Don't bring up TT unless you want heavier mechs buffed to the point where they really are worth multiple lighter mechs.

So, I'm not supposed to bring up the fact that a 100 ton mech should crush a 50 ton mech?

The point of what I'm saying is that mechs designed around speed should be fast because that is their niche. Mechs designed around being slow and packing a ton of fire power should be just that. Right now, everything is blurred because maps are freaking small and mechs are too damned fast. So any basic niche design is tossed out the window and balance goes along with it.

The Centurion and the Hunchback fill two different tolls at the same weight. But, because of the maps and the fact that a Hunchy can go 90kph while the Cent only goes 105kph, their intended rolls are skewed and one comes out on top versus the other. It’s a horrible design.

[Rhent]

Adrian Steel, on 11 February 2013 - 10:18 PM, said:

Great topic.

Just to enumerate the extent of what we have here....the following advantages are achieved with a larger engine over a small one:

• Increased Speed.
  
• Increased Torso Twisting.
  
• Increased Heat efficiency via more heatsinks the higher the engine rating.
  
• Space efficiency via more heatsinks being moved from chassis to engine (especially double heatsinks).
  
• Space efficiency begets heat efficiency by allowing more heatsinks on the build overall.
  
• Space efficiency begets tonnage efficiency as it allows space for Endo Steel and/or Ferro Fibrous upgrades, saving tonnage.
  
• Tonnage efficiency allows for the installation of a bigger engine!

In case you didn't see the pattern: It's a recursive cycle of ever greater efficiencies:



bigger engine ==> more available space ==> more useable tonnage ==> bigger engine


I've rebuilt my favorite builds a few too many times as I realize that the next engine upgrade leads to ever greater efficiencies.

It might be necessary to de-couple the space efficiency that a bigger engine gives (it's not even intuitive!). Or perhaps another solution that breaks the cycle of recursive improvements.

Lets do some critical thinking exercises for you:
1st) Bigger engines require this thing called: Tonnage
2nd) Less tonnage = less available tonnage for weapons/heat sinks/armor
3rd) To go truly larger engine size and to have tonnage left over for incidentals like weapons, armor and heat sinks means you have to use XL Engines. XL Engines means that if you lose a torso you die or you have a 1 in 4 chance of a critical hitting your engine taking you out

The reason why you have extra heat sinks for larger engine builds is because those builds tend to have less tonnage available than other builds and due to that they have to rely on energy based weapons which are the worst heat for damage in the game by far.

If you are running a max size engine on build, it is highly likely you are running an XL Engine w/ the Torso vulnerability OR you are running a regular engine and have little to no available tonnage left over for armor and weapons.

The fail is strong in the entire thread.

[One Medic Army]

Trauglodyte, on 14 February 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

So, I'm not supposed to bring up the fact that a 100 ton mech should crush a 50 ton mech?

The point of what I'm saying is that mechs designed around speed should be fast because that is their niche. Mechs designed around being slow and packing a ton of fire power should be just that. Right now, everything is blurred because maps are freaking small and mechs are too damned fast. So any basic niche design is tossed out the window and balance goes along with it.

The Centurion and the Hunchback fill two different tolls at the same weight. But, because of the maps and the fact that a Hunchy can go 90kph while the Cent only goes 105kph, their intended rolls are skewed and one comes out on top versus the other. It’s a horrible design.

This game that you want to play? I don't.

What I am trying to convey is that even in TT, the Cent and Hunch are painfully slow, too slow to fill the medium "fast support" role. They are "cheap cannon-fodder escorts". In TT a Hunchback and a Cataphract and a catapult are all the same speed. In TT the Dragon is faster than a Hunchback.
Due to the differences in engine size maximums (1.3 for meds, 1.2 for assault/heavy) in MWO hunchbacks have the capacity to go faster than the Catapult/Cataphract.

Mechs designed for speed ARE FASTER. Look at the Cicada and Dragon and tell me they're not faster than anything else in their weight class. The Cent 9D is faster that other centurions because it comes stock with a 6/9 speed instead of a 4/6.

That everyone is encouraged to grab the largest engine they can fit isn't true, Dragons, Cent 9Ds, Fast Awesomes, Stalkers, and Cataphracts all typically do not up-engine to the limits of the chassis. You mainly see it on the mediums because their stock speed is too slow.

For that matter even in Tabletop games mechs are typically upengined to reach the efficient point for their chassis. A L2 tech 70-75ton mech's efficient point is 5/8 movement, this is faster than almost every non-clan 70-75 ton mech, and as fast or faster than a lot of 50-65ton mechs.

TL:DR The reason people up-engine their mechs, is because we're following TableTop tonnage/speed conventions. It held true in TableTop and it holds true here.

Edited by One Medic Army, 14 February 2013 - 11:08 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

One Medic Army, on 14 February 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

This game that you want to play? I don't.

What I am trying to convey is that even in TT, the Cent and Hunch are painfully slow, too slow to fill the medium "fast support" role. They are "cheap cannon-fodder escorts". In TT a Hunchback and a Cataphract and a catapult are all the same speed. In TT the Dragon is faster than a Hunchback.
Due to the differences in engine size maximums (1.3 for meds, 1.2 for assault/heavy) in MWO hunchbacks have the capacity to go faster than the Catapult/Cataphract.

Mechs designed for speed ARE FASTER. Look at the Cicada and Dragon and tell me they're not faster than anything else in their weight class. The Cent 9D is faster that other centurions because it comes stock with a 6/9 speed instead of a 4/6.

That everyone is encouraged to grab the largest engine they can fit isn't true, Dragons, Cent 9Ds, Fast Awesomes, Stalkers, and Cataphracts all typically do not up-engine to the limits of the chassis. You mainly see it on the mediums because their stock speed is too slow.

Now we're getting somewhere and I completely agree with the bolded part. I mainly think that the Hunchback is fine with its speed, within limits (the 90kph Hunchy is just silly). But that is why I said that until you balance every mech against their inteded design, of which speed is a part, you can't balance anything else. The small maps just make this increasinly hard because you get into the fight before you can do anything, thereby eliminating the need for scouting or the benefit of speed.

Essentially, let's fix the overall engine size for all mechs to a stable point. And then you can look at tweaking mechs that need the help. Its why they buffed the Awesome 8 series in this last patch. I think TT+3 is a good start and then you can allow some mechs to go +5 or more.

This would, btw, allow for more tonnage to be spent on weapons which, in turn, would force people to focus more on heat management. Sounds a bit more like old school TT that way, doesn't it?

[Adrian Steel]

Rhent, on 14 February 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

If you are running a max size engine on build, it is highly likely you are running an XL Engine w/ the Torso vulnerability OR you are running a regular engine and have little to no available tonnage left over for armor and weapons.

We're not playing the same game.

[Rhent]

Adrian Steel, on 14 February 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

We're not playing the same game.

I wish more people played like you, it would be easier kills.

For example,

4 SRM 6 Cat 12 DHS w/ largest Std Engine:
<a href="http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=13&l=09874db5c882d43b0f895842c3fdad56f56baef9">undefined</a>

VS
6 SRM 6 Cat 14 DHS w/ largest Std Engine
<a href="http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=13&l=dd52bf7d2d80d3283d26ec8d6cab84b215a0c76e">undefined</a>

Sure, you can use a standard engine and cut your DPS by 33%, or you can use an XL. Both Cats have the same armor and JJ's and speed for survivability, all things standard, the XL Cat will destroy the Standard Engine Cat's CT before the Standard Cat can destroy a torso.

[Adrian Steel]

Rhent, on 14 February 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

I wish more people played like you, it would be easier kills.

For example,

4 SRM 6 Cat 12 DHS w/ largest Std Engine:
<a href="http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=13&l=09874db5c882d43b0f895842c3fdad56f56baef9">undefined</a>

VS
6 SRM 6 Cat 14 DHS w/ largest Std Engine
<a href="http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=13&l=dd52bf7d2d80d3283d26ec8d6cab84b215a0c76e">undefined</a>

Sure, you can use a standard engine and cut your DPS by 33%, or you can use an XL. Both Cats have the same armor and JJ's and speed for survivability, all things standard, the XL Cat will destroy the Standard Engine Cat's CT before the Standard Cat can destroy a torso.

You can make this claim on certain heavy mech builds in game. But it's not a panacea. The majority of competitive medium and assault mechs are running big standards.

Edited by Adrian Steel, 14 February 2013 - 01:11 PM.

[nihilistic killer]

I've been playing a 55.5 kph Ilya armed with PPC, 2 LLAS, AC/20 (all time favorite weapon... yes, I am aiming for your Mech's cockpit ). The heat problems are worse on paper than in practice because I try to be judicious about using the PPC while in AC/20 range. The main point of having the PPC instead of another LL is that this build is too slow to dictate fighting distance, and the PPC seems like a much better choice if you're going to push the range - it feels to me like the PPC is still quite useful at ~750m, the LL not as much (more because of trouble aiming than the difference in stated range values)

This build works pretty well for me in pugs, although I get severely punished if I position my 'Mech poorly, overextend, get cut off from my team, etc. I'm not complaining though; I enjoy it a lot, and I'm quite familiar with the idea that you trade extra dakka dakka for the ability to get in / out of a fight faster, as well as maneuvering in battle.

But, after reading some of this thread and tinkering in the mech lab, I see that my build described above:

240std, endo, 12 DHS, AC/20(3), 2 LLAS, AC/20

could be optimized with ferro-fibrous armor, a 285std engine, 11DHS, and replacing the PPC with a LL. Yes, I know that the PPC generates a lot more heat, about ~1.62 more HPS according mwowiki. So I acknowledge that the PPC to LL is a significant change. But which is a bigger advantage, upgrading a LL to PPC, or upgrading the engine from 240 to 285?

So the drawbacks of the 285 would be: 22 fewer points of armor (legs), and somewhat more limited long range capacity (on this weapons build). Also one less point of firepower. The FF armor costs 589,940 CB, about as much as a Gauss or AC/20.

The advantages of this build would be: It's 3% more heat efficient and 10.5 kph faster (before speed tweak)... meaning noticeable increase in aim / torso twist speed and cornering, right? Also, I don't have 3 destructible DHS to position in side torsos / arms, just one in the engine that will be there until my mech gets cored.

(240std) -------- (285std)
55.5//61.1 -VS- 66.0//72.6 [KPH]

It looks to me like the speed increase of the 285 will be superior, although I could see myself rolling with the 240 + PPC just for fun...
I will try this out and see what I think.

[Lege]

And the answer is:

Remove turning and torso twist speed from the engine size.
Just give everyone the turning and torso twist speed of the max size engine.

[shintakie]

Lege, on 14 February 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

And the answer is: Remove turning and torso twist speed from the engine size. Just give everyone the turning and torso twist speed of the max size engine.

Ewww, no. Assaults are already too nimble as it is, they don't need to be even more nimble

[Khobai]

Assaults are hardly nimble lmao. Except for the Awesome-9M and Pretty Baby.

And the reason why everyone trends towards speed is because aiming and the triple rate of fire on weapons makes mechs die WAY faster than in tabletop. So speed is the only real way to stay alive.

[El Bandito]

In pugs, 63 kph is usually enough to get my STK-3F behind the enemy lines and splatter their backs with hot shower of SRMs.

But yeah, I am sad that Stalkers can't mount 325 engine. High engines are offering too much for their cost. As people suggested, engine should only affect speed, not torso twist. Then it will be more balance.

Edited by El Bandito, 14 February 2013 - 07:44 PM.