Author Topic: MechWarrior Online  (Read 269260 times)

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Offline Al-Rik

  • 27
.... I had never considered this. What DO you do on those long 'mech missions? :nervous:
Depends on the design. Assault 'Mechs with roomy cockpits might actually have a small toilet at the back. (We know, for example, the Grand Titan does.

The IMP may even have a bath tube and a small kitchen ;) (there is room enough in this mech head)
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Imp
« Last Edit: June 29, 2012, 01:24:12 pm by Al-Rik »

 

Offline StarSlayer

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“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline headdie

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The thermal view looks cool, though i think they missed a trick by not having the heat sinks glow brighter.
Minister of Interstellar Affairs Sol Union - Retired
quote General Battuta - "FRED is canon!"
Contact me at [email protected]
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Offline StarSlayer

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“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Spoon

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My nipples are getting hard just looking at it.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 
 

Offline IronBeer

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"I have approximate knowledge of many things."

Ridiculous, the Director's Cut

Starlancer Head Animations - Converted

 
There's a poll on the MWO forums, asking who's willing to swap a standard engine for an XL engine.  Judging from the results, I'd recommend shooting at people's side torsos in public matches, just to see what happens.  After a couple of laser volleys or Gauss rounds to peel away the armor, it looks like your odds are better than a coin-toss that you can finish off the mech with just a bit of MG fire.

Also, intuition tells me that the kind of person who mounts an XL engine isn't the kind of person to "waste" tonnage ensuring that CASE accompanies all of his ammunition stores, so seek out those ammo bins!  (Either that or take some Flamers and watch the fireworks.)

 

Offline Scotty

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XL Engines can be used intelligently.  On fast things, they can free up absurd amounts of tonnage, or on slow things they can let you get moving 50% faster for no extra.  The Hunchback in particular can go from top speed ~64 kph to top speed ~97 kph without losing any tonnage.  Other things like the Grand Dragon suddenly get five or ten tons to play with they didn't have before, and an XL Engined Charger is just brutal compared to the SFE version.

 

Offline Spoon

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Free up tonnage for a more fragile engine
Add on more arrmor
???
Profit?
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline headdie

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Also, intuition tells me that the kind of person who mounts an XL engine isn't the kind of person to "waste" tonnage ensuring that CASE accompanies all of his ammunition stores, so seek out those ammo bins!  (Either that or take some Flamers and watch the fireworks.)

not so sure there, depends on how I tend to die I might swap for an XL engine so I can stick case in there without loosing weapon tonnage if internal explosions get me a lot, which with a good number of the more potent weapons being ammo based has its merits

Free up tonnage for a more fragile engine
Add on more arrmor
???
Profit?

depends if you are already at your armour limit
Minister of Interstellar Affairs Sol Union - Retired
quote General Battuta - "FRED is canon!"
Contact me at [email protected]
My Release Thread, Old Release Thread, Celestial Objects Thread, My rubbish attempts at art

 
Even with the possibility of extra armor (assuming it wasn't at or near maximum at the start, as many stock mechs are), you're making your mech into a glass cannon.  Critical hits on any part of the torso can chip away at your engine, and if you lose your armor on any part of the torso, it will only take a volley or two of MG/LBX/missile fire to finish you off.  By contrast, blowing out the side torso of a mech mounting a standard engine has no effect beyond destroying the equipment in that torso section.

While I'll concede that there are very rare instances where an XL engine can be a boon, such as on support mechs that intend to stay hidden and exclusively use indirect fire, there are generally much better ways to trade criticals for tons that don't involve hanging a sign on your mech that says, "I'm vulnerable in my everywhere!"  Based on my experience with MW3 (MW4 never really gave you the option to swap engines) and tabletop rules, the survivability that you lose isn't nearly worth the five to ten tons you recover.  That loss of survivability is actually something so huge that I find a standard engine is something worth spending tons on, when starting with a stock design that has an XL engine.

Headdie, I was painting with a pretty broad brush with the statement you highlighted, but there's a long history of MechWarrior players who follow a design philosophy of up-gun, up-gun, up-gun.  Too many times, I've seen designs that strip off anything that's not armor, ammo, or a gun, with no heed paid to the importance of those components being removed.  You can argue about the necessity of a BAP or ECM package in any given design, but CASE, while being an equally cryptic acronym that just seems to take up a crit and half a ton, is kind of a big deal on a mech toting around a lot of ammunition.  It's that MOAR GUN mentality, though, that leads to a lot of mechs with XL engines and CASE-less ammo bins littering the battlefield (and not with their victims).

 

Offline Scotty

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XL engines are very effective on Light 'Mechs that aren't going to survive big hits anyway, and you're overblowing the stripped armor = dead engine thing.  That can happen, certainly, but first they have to hit that section again, then they have to confirm a critical hit on that section, and then they have to actually hit the component three whole times.  Unless you get an 11 or 12 on the roll (5% chance), and all three criticals hit the engine (if your torso is critpacked, roughly half a percent chance), you're not going to die at the tip of a hat.

 

Offline redsniper

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mmmm Beta
OMG, dat glowing armor from laser damage. :O

Those ads all over the main menu or whatever it is. "BUY TEH FOUNDER PACK KTHX"  :|
"Think about nice things not unhappy things.
The future makes happy, if you make it yourself.
No war; think about happy things."   -WouterSmitssm

Hard Light Productions:
"...this conversation is pointlessly confrontational."

 
Knocking out the side torso section's internal structure also results in engine destruction, with an XL engine, so you don't necessarily have to get three lucky criticals (though you can do that pretty quickly with LBX ACs, MGs, and missiles, as they either score multiple hits at once or fire very rapidly).  You can focus on taking out any of the torso sections, rather than being limited to blowing out the center torso or head for a kill.

You've also got to remember that in the MechWarrior video games, this is a bigger deal, since pilots can deliberately aim for certain sections of a mech.  It's not like the tabletop game, where you've got to make your hit roll, and then roll on a table to see which part of the mech you hit, and so on.  It's reticle-over-target-pull-trigger (plus or minus some lead angle for non-laser weapons).  If I suspect you're toting around an XL engine, then I'm going to pile fire onto the weakest side torso section, and it's only going to take a couple volleys to end the encounter.  If you've got a standard engine, by contrast, then shots to your side torso sections don't necessarily do a lot to bringing me closer to victory.

Even setting aside total engine destruction, though, a single critical hit to the engine has pretty nasty consequences.  You're slowed, albeit slightly, and build up gobs of heat whenever you make make any kind of movement.  With an XL engine, you've nearly tripled the likelihood of taking such a hit, versus a standard engine.  In the most contentious, knock-down-drag-out fights, that kind of vulnerability puts you at a huge disadvantage.  In a fight that should otherwise be an easy victory, a lucky through-armor critical hit on any part of your torso can quickly even the odds for your opponent.

I stand by my position that the vulnerability of an XL engine isn't worth the tonnage it saves you.  Mounting a standard engine is like having that many more tons of armor keeping you alive.

Those ads all over the main menu or whatever it is. "BUY TEH FOUNDER PACK KTHX"  :|

It's a free-to-play game.  Of course they're going to advertise what you can buy in the game.  Piranha needs people to know what they can buy, so that people can buy it, and Piranha can pay the bills to keep the game going.  As long as it doesn't impede your ability to actually play the game, then is it really that off-putting?

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Just announced the JagerMech as number 14.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline Scotty

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Always liked the Jagermech, no matter how bad it is.

 

Offline redsniper

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Need a Rolling Stones mercenary company....
"Think about nice things not unhappy things.
The future makes happy, if you make it yourself.
No war; think about happy things."   -WouterSmitssm

Hard Light Productions:
"...this conversation is pointlessly confrontational."

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Always liked the Jagermech, no matter how bad it is.

Well, we're in 3025 tech or nearly so, so it'll probably suck significantly less than might be expected.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline Scotty

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It really depends on the rate of fire they give those things.  AC/2s and AC/5s, with the proper rate of fire, can and probably will shred the **** out of lighter machines in seconds.