Which would be fine, if there were MG-appropriate targets or this was the tabletop. But right now, MGs don't do anything; it's pointless to even have them in the game as-is, since a half-ton of extra armor and another laser/heatsink will serve you far better than the nonexistent damage from an MG. No choppers or infantry to fight, so why not turn them at least into a low-grade backup weapon?
And there really is no good reason to have MGs be completely useless. Even small lasers have a purpose; a pair of MGs should at least be useful enough to make a light want to go away just on damage alone and without even bringing the crit issue up.
Unless the crit system ends up being mana from heaven that delivers unto us bounties of buffs for things like MGs, then MGs will easily be one area where they'll have to break away from raw TT numbers to make them not totally useless. Though, at least they annoy pilots to no end, the flamers don't even do that.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2012
Flamers and MGs are both in basically the same spot in terms of effectiveness. They basically result in this situation: target enemy, start shooting, notice the target has 4 flamers or 3 MGs and a couple lasers, ignore target until everything else is dead.
But they just went WAY too far with the nerfing for the flamers; I didn't play them when they were really good, but apparently they had a while where they just toasted the ever-loving shit out of every target. Now they don't make a target heat up at all AND generate a lot of heat for the user AND don't do any noticeable damage. So yeah, not great at the moment.
MGs haven't even been good at all yet, but I'm thinking that if they stay not-great then that means PGI has plans for them in regards to hits on internals and crit attacks. Being able to hold MG fire from a Centurion over a freshly de-armored RT/LT of an Atlas K and blowing the engine without having to deal with destroying the entire section would be nice and rewarding, not to mention the possibility of setting off ammo magazines and having those destroy an entire mech.
There are still bugs related to the flamers kicking around (I should know, I found one) so they may just be super giga glitched out still.
MGs being crit machines would be really awesome. It'd give them a fantastic role as a secondary weapon since they're pretty easy to slot but since they do fuckall damage it'll make those high octane nightmare fuel inducing MG boats from the old Mechwarrior games a thing that does not exist in this dojo.
Ah, interesting. I always wondered why some of them looked like they came from Macross
They did, as already pointed out.
FASA...made a lot of bad decisions. Which to any rational, thinking person often appeared as bad as "Holy shit, did you see how awesome that Zentradi Officer Pod looked? Fuck, I want that in our game. Even if it makes no goddamn sense in our largely blind slow-stomping slugfest."
I mean, it wasn't too surprising. Battletech is also filled with references to MS Gundam among other things. Unfortunately, no one warned the executives that bad fanboy design decisions could potentially have legal ramifications down the line. So, for a few 'Mechs, rather than rely on their own creativity, which they did had, they simply picked and chose 'Mechs to rip off....err, license, sorry...and drop in instead.
Given how godawful some of the protomechs look, though, one can kind of see why they may have done so. And, as usual, I will literally never pass up a chance to post a picture of a protomech. Because somewhere, someone thinks it's not a bad idea. Probably someone who used to work at FASA at this point, but it's still true.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I haven't seen any variants that have enough hardpoints to even allow a threatening MG build anyway, even if MGs didn't do nothing for damage. The hardpoint system is still broken enough to allow stuff like dumb Gaussapults (I don't object to a mech with dual gauss, just a strongly-armored fire-support mech turning torso MG mounts into hugely protected gauss mounts; I can live with it until we get the Jagermech, though), but it already prevents something like an MG boat. Even if they goofed around with Jagermech when it comes out and gave it a variant with 6 ballistic hardpoints, that's hardly enough to make it a threat with MG boating. You really need something like... 10 ballistic mounts to make that MG damage start mounting up, and I really doubt we'll ever see a variant with that many hardpoints of one type.
Yea, I suppose. I guess my mild concern is partly born out of ignorance since I don't know shit about tabletop and thusly don't have off the top of my head knowledge of what's available from a ballistic boat sense.
Ah, interesting. I always wondered why some of them looked like they came from Macross
They did, as already pointed out.
FASA...made a lot of bad decisions. Which to any rational, thinking person often appeared as bad as "Holy shit, did you see how awesome that Zentradi Officer Pod looked? Fuck, I want that in our game. Even if it makes no goddamn sense in our largely blind slow-stomping slugfest."
I mean, it wasn't too surprising. Battletech is also filled with references to MS Gundam among other things. Unfortunately, no one warned the executives that bad fanboy design decisions could potentially have legal ramifications down the line. So, for a few 'Mechs, rather than rely on their own creativity, which they did had, they simply picked and chose 'Mechs to rip off....err, license, sorry...and drop in instead.
Given how godawful some of the protomechs look, though, one can kind of see why they may have done so. And, as usual, I will literally never pass up a chance to post a picture of a protomech. Because somewhere, someone thinks it's not a bad idea. Probably someone who used to work at FASA at this point, but it's still true.
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I see Protomechs and imagine a meeting where someone shows Heavy Gear and some other dude goes "That looks awesome, how can we insert it into our own IP and make it terrible?" then another guy says "Animals! ...and remove every thing that makes Heavy Gear cool.".
The hardpoint system is still broken enough to allow stuff like dumb Gaussapults...
This is starting to get on my nerves. Having a mechlab at all is what invites in things like the Gaussapult. Really, it was only a matter of time and getting all bent out of shape about it seems kinda silly. I'm not saying that you specifically are, but a lot of people on the official forums are. What did these people expect? If not for the hardpoint system people would be putting gauss rifles on everything because it's one of the best weapons in this time frame. PGI could waste a bunch of time revising the hardpoint system to nerf this particular variant, or simply remove this variant altogether. But I don't think the Gaussapult is strong enough to warrant that sort of heavy-handed correction. It's a fragile, super-specialized build that only does one thing well: coring big mechs. You aren't gonna be hitting anything smaller than a Catapult that isn't standing still because of how the game handles ballistics.
EDIT: Damn, if anything comes out of that Heavy Gear game I'll be ecstatic.
I have not yet successfully knocked an Atlas over yet. The day that happens I will declare myself the grand champion of Mechwarrior Online and retire to a life of luxury.
The hardpoint system is still broken enough to allow stuff like dumb Gaussapults...
This is starting to get on my nerves. Having a mechlab at all is what invites in things like the Gaussapult. Really, it was only a matter of time and getting all bent out of shape about it seems kinda silly. I'm not saying that you specifically are, but a lot of people on the official forums are. What did these people expect? If not for the hardpoint system people would be putting gauss rifles on everything because it's one of the best weapons in this time frame. PGI could waste a bunch of time revising the hardpoint system to nerf this particular variant, or simply remove this variant altogether. But I don't think the Gaussapult is strong enough to warrant that sort of heavy-handed correction. It's a fragile, super-specialized build that only does one thing well: coring big mechs. You aren't gonna be hitting anything smaller than a Catapult that isn't standing still because of how the game handles ballistics.
EDIT: Damn, if anything comes out of that Heavy Gear game I'll be ecstatic.
Which would be why I said the Gaussapult is fine for right now? I think that it's a silly abuse due to a partial system, but a dual-gauss Jagermech would be fine. That's a mech that's meant to have a direct-fire ballistic focus and is designed for it. The Gaussapult is simply exploiting a shortcoming of the current system to put gauss rifles where they were never supposed to go. And since we don't have the Jagermech yet, I don't have much of a problem with the Gaussapult; it's still an abuse of the system, but it's not usurping the role of any other mechs, so no big deal. Plus it can also definitely be countered adequately, so it's not really breaking the game, just the role. But the Gaussapult would definitely outclass a dual-gauss Jagermech, and hard, simply because a Cat can carry almost twice the armor and carries the rifles in heavily-armored torso sections instead of the arms and those big boxy ears provide additional protection for the RT/LT sections.
In the long-term, it's a pretty easy problem to solve by just adding type-specific crit slot limits to the different mech sections. It's not unreasonable to limit the ballistic slots on a Catapult K2 to only 4-5 slots; then people could still put in heavier ballistic weapons if they wanted, but the PPCs would still be the main damage dealer. 2 PPCs and 2 AC/5s would have the exact same weight and damage as dual gauss, but still be in keeping with the purpose of the variant. But I'm much less interested in seeing that fixed than I would be in seeing a fix to the issues of SRMs being dominant and some mechs going way to fast for what they can do; I can't recall ever getting cored by a Gaussapult in a fashion that made me want to shut the game off for the day in frustration.
Besides, the beta forums are filled with loads and loads of garbage anyway. The devs don't really seem to care at all when awful posters bitch and moan about about things that aren't that bad; I think I've seen 3 different times now where a dev has come out and said "this thing is pretty close to where we want it and we aren't changing it". PGI doesn't seem at all inclined to completely break things just to make the people who simply refuse to adapt happy. It seems like there's a new anti-base-cap thread every day, but I haven't heard a peep from the devs saying they have any intention of even looking at the "issue", much less getting rid of caps.
Do you have a bigger than normal engine or does the Atlas have to be standing perfectly stock still?
RE: Gaussapult
I'm confused by your argument Ninja. The K2 is a PPC sniper, but PPCs really suck at the moment so people use Gauss Rifles instead and are playing the mech how it was intended: A pinpoint sniper. So Gauss Rifles are bad but if it was two ER PPCs instead you'd be totally ok with it? Cats aren't exactly hard mechs to blow up, doubly so when they have an XL engine. Triply so once criticals get added and it'll be come hilariously easy to detonate the gauss rifle itself and shred the engine that way.
Which would be why I said the Gaussapult is fine for right now? I think that it's a silly abuse due to a partial system, but a dual-gauss Jagermech would be fine. That's a mech that's meant to have a direct-fire ballistic focus and is designed for it. The Gaussapult is simply exploiting a shortcoming of the current system to put gauss rifles where they were never supposed to go. And since we don't have the Jagermech yet, I don't have much of a problem with the Gaussapult; it's still an abuse of the system, but it's not usurping the role of any other mechs, so no big deal. Plus it can also definitely be countered adequately, so it's not really breaking the game, just the role. But the Gaussapult would definitely outclass a dual-gauss Jagermech, and hard, simply because a Cat can carry almost twice the armor and carries the rifles in heavily-armored torso sections instead of the arms and those big boxy ears provide additional protection for the RT/LT sections.
In the long-term, it's a pretty easy problem to solve by just adding type-specific crit slot limits to the different mech sections. It's not unreasonable to limit the ballistic slots on a Catapult K2 to only 4-5 slots; then people could still put in heavier ballistic weapons if they wanted, but the PPCs would still be the main damage dealer. 2 PPCs and 2 AC/5s would have the exact same weight and damage as dual gauss, but still be in keeping with the purpose of the variant. But I'm much less interested in seeing that fixed than I would be in seeing a fix to the issues of SRMs being dominant and some mechs going way to fast for what they can do; I can't recall ever getting cored by a Gaussapult in a fashion that made me want to shut the game off for the day in frustration.
I don't see it as a problem or exploit at all, and I'm confused as to how anyone could.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't see it as a problem or exploit at all, and I'm confused as to how anyone could.
The only meaningful problem I'm having is "dual-gauss setup that will be flat better than on the mech actually built to use ballistic weapons as its main arsenal". And even then, that requires the Jagermech actually being in the game. Until that's in, the Gaussapult is the only mech that can even do what it's doing, so it's not even an immediate issue. But if the options are: mech with 10 tons of armor and 2xgauss safely in the torso sections or 6 tons of armor and 2xgauss in the weak arms, nobody is going to ever choose the Jagermech. Which would be dumb, since the Jagermech is built for a long-range ballistic role; what would even be the point of adding the Jagermech at all if it's already beaten out of its own role by a mech that swaps MGs for gauss rifles? But with the change I suggested, you could still have the equivalent of a Gaussapult without making a 2xgauss Jagermech pointless and outclassed and with keeping that Cat variant in the role it was meant for. Basically, my gripe is "it will eventually leave the Jagermech largely pointless", not "why are people trying to break the game?"
I definitely don't think it's an exploit in the sense of it being a cheat/glitch, just something that takes advantage of an oversight/shortcoming in the design system. So yeah, I think people are "exploiting" the system, but in the same way I would "exploit" the system to get a PPC on a Jenner or 2xUAC/5s on a Centurion.
And in terms of internal consistency (though this is simply a matter of personal preference), it's also more than a little bonkers to have enormous 15-ton weapons built into the same hardpoints intended for miniscule half-ton weapons. If you could fit 30 tons of gauss rifle in the side torsos, then why in the world do they even bother to put much smaller, lighter LRM-15s in the giant, exposed arms? Clearly the side sections have the space, so why not jam all that missile firepower in the nice, protected torso sections instead of the horribly exposed and vulnerable arms? It makes even less sense than most of the more senseless things in Battletech. It's like taking a .50 cal machine gun off a tank and then replacing it with an entire extra main cannon; mechanically, things just wouldn't work like that.
It makes even less sense than most of the more senseless things in Battletech. It's like taking a .50 cal machine gun off a tank and then replacing it with an entire extra main cannon; mechanically, things just wouldn't work like that.
I don't know.
The main conceit of the Battletech universe is the entire "Bipedal tanks are infinitely better than a real tank of the same mass", which is just utterly idiotic.
You can't really start looking at things in Battletech through the lens of "Is this mechanically sound" because it just entirely falls apart. However, in the interest of actually seeing a Jagermech on the field some kind of limiter on the ability to put Gauss guns in the CPLT-K2 would be very welcome.
The only meaningful problem I'm having is "dual-gauss setup that will be flat better than on the mech actually built to use ballistic weapons as its main arsenal". And even then, that requires the Jagermech actually being in the game. Until that's in, the Gaussapult is the only mech that can even do what it's doing, so it's not even an immediate issue. But if the options are: mech with 10 tons of armor and 2xgauss safely in the torso sections or 6 tons of armor and 2xgauss in the weak arms, nobody is going to ever choose the Jagermech. Which would be dumb, since the Jagermech is built for a long-range ballistic role; what would even be the point of adding the Jagermech at all if it's already beaten out of its own role by a mech that swaps MGs for gauss rifles? But with the change I suggested, you could still have the equivalent of a Gaussapult without making a 2xgauss Jagermech pointless and outclassed and with keeping that Cat variant in the role it was meant for. Basically, my gripe is "it will eventually leave the Jagermech largely pointless", not "why are people trying to break the game?"
The Catapult and Jagermech have the same tonnage limits, so their respective gauss rifle builds will look pretty similar. Same engine, same armor, etc. The only difference is that on the Jager the weapons will be on the arms. So it'll come down to personal preference which one you take, with the Catapult being only slight better in a general sense.
And in terms of internal consistency (though this is simply a matter of personal preference), it's also more than a little bonkers to have enormous 15-ton weapons built into the same hardpoints intended for miniscule half-ton weapons. If you could fit 30 tons of gauss rifle in the side torsos, then why in the world do they even bother to put much smaller, lighter LRM-15s in the giant, exposed arms? Clearly the side sections have the space, so why not jam all that missile firepower in the nice, protected torso sections instead of the horribly exposed and vulnerable arms? It makes even less sense than most of the more senseless things in Battletech. It's like taking a .50 cal machine gun off a tank and then replacing it with an entire extra main cannon; mechanically, things just wouldn't work like that.
Why not have the missiles in the torso? That's a great question; the answer is pretty much "Like all battlemech designs, the default loadout and weapon placement is sub-optimal." Normally in CBT you do want your good weapons in your arms, despite the fact that arms have less armor than the torso, because the added flexibility of the arms lets you aim at targets that your torso locations can't; this makes it harder for enemy flankers to get past you (this is somewhat true in MWO too, but it's really hard to aim the arms to that degree sometimes). But this doesn't really apply to LRMs because anything trying to flank you would be too close to shoot LRMs at, generally speaking. And in MWO this doesn't apply to any mech that lacks a lower arm actuator (Catapult, Jenner, etc) since those arms are pretty much locked to the CT, except for vertical inclination/declination. So the Catapult is pretty flawed by design, and I don't see anything wrong with people trying to fix those inherent problems.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2012
Yeah, that's why that last bit was purely a matter of opinion. You start pulling one thread for BT, then end up with a big mass of string instead of woven mural depicting heroic battles between giant, impossible robots.
The only bit that really matters is that, with Gaussapults around, there would be little point to the Jagermech. And even that's a down-the-road issue, not a right-now issue.
Personally, I don't see Gaussapults and go "what a bastard, he's ruining the game". I do go "get out of my way, I need cover", but that's fine, 2xgauss is scary and should be so. Gaussapaults are scary right up until they get jumped by 2-3 enemies and mauled because they move at roughly the speed of fruit cake with half as much back armor.
The Catapult and Jagermech have the same tonnage limits, so their respective gauss rifle builds will look pretty similar. Same engine, same armor, etc. The only difference is that on the Jager the weapons will be on the arms. So it'll come down to personal preference which one you take, with the Catapult being only slight better in a general sense.
Except that the Jagermech is limited to much lower armor, and its gauss rifles would end up in the arms. Arms go away a LOT faster than LT/RT sections and the Catapult has HUGE swivel range, so you end up with something with less armor than a Cat, loses essentially its entire armament to only minimal fighting, and has no edge in terms of arms providing a better firing angle. You'd end up with some adherents, I'm sure, but almost nobody would want a Jagermech over a K2 Cat.
And why would it at all be bad to have the Jagermech be the dual-gauss mech and the K2 Cat have 2xPPC plus 2xAC/5? Both would deal the same damage per salvo for the same weight, they would just do it via their respective roles. My modified K2 build would still be a fantastically solid and powerful mech, it just would be in line with what it's supposed to do instead of taking the role away from the Jagermech. As-is, the Gaussapult would beat the crap out of the Jagermech as a direct-fire ballistic mech, which is plain silly. I want the game to end up with more variety, not less, and letting Gaussapults stay as they are would see Jagermechs used for basically nothing. Why would you take a dual-guass Jagermech when a Gaussapult would shred it? At least if Jagermechs have the dual-gauss role, then they fight each other instead of getting knocked flat by Gaussapults.
And in terms of internal consistency (though this is simply a matter of personal preference), it's also more than a little bonkers to have enormous 15-ton weapons built into the same hardpoints intended for miniscule half-ton weapons. If you could fit 30 tons of gauss rifle in the side torsos, then why in the world do they even bother to put much smaller, lighter LRM-15s in the giant, exposed arms?
Easy there Ninja, you're starting to try and apply logic to Battletech and that path leads to insanity.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
And in terms of internal consistency (though this is simply a matter of personal preference), it's also more than a little bonkers to have enormous 15-ton weapons built into the same hardpoints intended for miniscule half-ton weapons. If you could fit 30 tons of gauss rifle in the side torsos, then why in the world do they even bother to put much smaller, lighter LRM-15s in the giant, exposed arms?
Easy there Ninja, you're starting to try and apply logic to Battletech and that path leads to insanity.
But... giant targets? And... sloped armor... large-bore cannons... KABOOOOM... no more robots...
I don't have a friend who's played, but wouldn't the advantage of a guass jaegermech be the ability to aim with the arms?
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2012
The torso-twist range on the Catapult is HUGE, far, far more than the standard 180 degrees on most mechs (probably closer to 270 degrees). The Cat can easily turn and fire at mechs towards its rear without any need for arms, so it gets the protection of heavy torso armor for its gauss rifles, a torso movement range that's directly comparable to the firing range of anything with arms, and the added protection of empty arms that end up just being there to take damage.
So basically, the Jagermech would have no advantage at all for having those rifles in the arms and the Catapult gets a slew of advantages.
EDIT: And the whole thing is more complicated than simply "gauss Jagermech vs gauss Cat", but for me, most of it boils down to the fact that there is absolutely no need, in a gameplay sense, for there to be a Gaussapult once we have the Jagermech. We can have PPC/AC-equipped Cats doing the same damage as the Gaussapult, Jaegermechs doing direct-fire ballistics support like they're supposed to, and the battlefield ends up with more types of mechs running around instead of less.
Arms go away a LOT faster than LT/RT sections and the Catapult has HUGE swivel range, so you end up with something with less armor than a Cat, loses essentially its entire armament to only minimal fighting, and has no edge in terms of arms providing a better firing angle.
While arms are more fragile, you absolutely do get better firing angles with them. Mechs can't vertically incline their torsos very much, and with many of the maps we've seen so far being so bumpy that can be a huge concern when enemies start to get too close. Being able to aim way lower or higher with your arms is a pretty great advantage, just not one that is always applicable.
And why would it at all be bad to have the Jagermech be the dual-gauss mech and the K2 Cat have 2xPPC plus 2xAC/5? Both would deal the same damage per salvo for the same weight, they would just do it via their respective roles. My modified K2 build would still be a fantastically solid and powerful mech, it just would be in line with what it's supposed to do instead of taking the role away from the Jagermech. As-is, the Gaussapult would beat the crap out of the Jagermech as a direct-fire ballistic mech, which is plain silly. I want the game to end up with more variety, not less, and letting Gaussapults stay as they are would see Jagermechs used for basically nothing. Why would you take a dual-guass Jagermech when a Gaussapult would shred it? At least if Jagermechs have the dual-gauss role, then they fight each other instead of getting knocked flat by Gaussapults.
There's nothing wrong with that build, use it all you want. There's just also no reason to artificially limit the hardpoint system just to spite the Gaussapult.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2012
Neither is there any good reason to rob the Jagermech of the importance of its role just to keep the Gaussapult in play.
I'm not concerned with "spiting" the Gaussapult, I'm concerned with a loophole in the system making one mech variant designed for a given role better than another entire mech in its own different role. If the choices are "Gaussapults and very rarely Jagermechs" or "K2s using one kind of direct fire and Jagermechs frequently taken for a different direct-fire setup", the second option makes for a simply more interesting battlefield. The Catapult already has a place and already has things it's supposed to be good for; why take variety out of the game for the sake of one single variant that could still present a similar threat even with limits in place? And my suggestion specifically mentioned the K2, true, but I meant it as applied across ALL mechs, not just the K2, in order to possibly combat boating that could damage the gameplay. I wouldn't want JUST the K2 to be the only mech with a limitation like that.
And I did forget about the advantage of pitch for arm aiming, but that also doesn't come until play nearly as much as rotation. It does happen, and it does provide an advantage in many cases (and I enjoy it when it does), but at long range the arms-vs-torso fight is essentially meaningless because of the angles involved.
You want a very specific build to be nerfed to make up for what you perceive to be a weakness of the Jager, namely that its primary weapons are on its arms. I don't agree that this is necessarily a weakness.
You want a very specific build to be nerfed to make up for what you perceive to be a weakness in the Jager; namely that it's primary weapons are in it's arms. I don't see that as a weakness necessarily.
Ripping off intellectual property has always been par for the course.
Jetfire (Transformers)
When I was a kid I found that Transformer in some of my stepbrother's old stuff. I was able to kind of half-transform it to look like a Veritech in 'Guardian' (half-jet half-robot) mode
Jetfire was probably a result of them having access to the Robotech toys that didn't sell so well in the US.
DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
So can I ask a question about Mechwarrior 4, which is currently free?
For those of you who have downloaded and played it recently, how do you get it to not run like ass? I figured a game that old on modern hardware it wouldn't be an issue but wow does it not perform well. Thoughts?
Except that the Jagermech is limited to much lower armor
It's not limited to shit. It has less armor by default, but that doesn't mean much. They are the same weight, so they have the same max armor limit.
Yeah, I don't understand Ninja's thought process here. The armor limit is the same for any 'mech of a given weight class. The Catapult and JagerMech are both 65 tons, ergo they have the same maximum armor.
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Edit: Or not? Page 73 appears to have appeared?
It seems to be working fine now. We just needed Skull Leader to swoop in and save us apparently.
And there really is no good reason to have MGs be completely useless. Even small lasers have a purpose; a pair of MGs should at least be useful enough to make a light want to go away just on damage alone and without even bringing the crit issue up.
But they just went WAY too far with the nerfing for the flamers; I didn't play them when they were really good, but apparently they had a while where they just toasted the ever-loving shit out of every target. Now they don't make a target heat up at all AND generate a lot of heat for the user AND don't do any noticeable damage. So yeah, not great at the moment.
MGs haven't even been good at all yet, but I'm thinking that if they stay not-great then that means PGI has plans for them in regards to hits on internals and crit attacks. Being able to hold MG fire from a Centurion over a freshly de-armored RT/LT of an Atlas K and blowing the engine without having to deal with destroying the entire section would be nice and rewarding, not to mention the possibility of setting off ammo magazines and having those destroy an entire mech.
MGs being crit machines would be really awesome. It'd give them a fantastic role as a secondary weapon since they're pretty easy to slot but since they do fuckall damage it'll make those high octane nightmare fuel inducing MG boats from the old Mechwarrior games a thing that does not exist in this dojo.
They did, as already pointed out.
FASA...made a lot of bad decisions. Which to any rational, thinking person often appeared as bad as "Holy shit, did you see how awesome that Zentradi Officer Pod looked? Fuck, I want that in our game. Even if it makes no goddamn sense in our largely blind slow-stomping slugfest."
I mean, it wasn't too surprising. Battletech is also filled with references to MS Gundam among other things. Unfortunately, no one warned the executives that bad fanboy design decisions could potentially have legal ramifications down the line. So, for a few 'Mechs, rather than rely on their own creativity, which they did had, they simply picked and chose 'Mechs to rip off....err, license, sorry...and drop in instead.
Given how godawful some of the protomechs look, though, one can kind of see why they may have done so. And, as usual, I will literally never pass up a chance to post a picture of a protomech. Because somewhere, someone thinks it's not a bad idea. Probably someone who used to work at FASA at this point, but it's still true.
I see Protomechs and imagine a meeting where someone shows Heavy Gear and some other dude goes "That looks awesome, how can we insert it into our own IP and make it terrible?" then another guy says "Animals! ...and remove every thing that makes Heavy Gear cool.".
and speaking of Heavy Gear... this is a thing. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stompy-bot-productions-to-produce-new-heavy-gear-video-game-164654816.html
Planetside 2, Mechwarrior Online, Mechwarrior Tactics, and now the return of Heavy Gear.
Man, the world can fucking end now. I'll never be this happy again.
This is starting to get on my nerves. Having a mechlab at all is what invites in things like the Gaussapult. Really, it was only a matter of time and getting all bent out of shape about it seems kinda silly. I'm not saying that you specifically are, but a lot of people on the official forums are. What did these people expect? If not for the hardpoint system people would be putting gauss rifles on everything because it's one of the best weapons in this time frame. PGI could waste a bunch of time revising the hardpoint system to nerf this particular variant, or simply remove this variant altogether. But I don't think the Gaussapult is strong enough to warrant that sort of heavy-handed correction. It's a fragile, super-specialized build that only does one thing well: coring big mechs. You aren't gonna be hitting anything smaller than a Catapult that isn't standing still because of how the game handles ballistics.
EDIT: Damn, if anything comes out of that Heavy Gear game I'll be ecstatic.
Get a dragon
Run the catapult over
Laugh
Not sure if that would happen since the spin-off Tribes is more popular at this point.
I have not yet successfully knocked an Atlas over yet. The day that happens I will declare myself the grand champion of Mechwarrior Online and retire to a life of luxury.
Which would be why I said the Gaussapult is fine for right now? I think that it's a silly abuse due to a partial system, but a dual-gauss Jagermech would be fine. That's a mech that's meant to have a direct-fire ballistic focus and is designed for it. The Gaussapult is simply exploiting a shortcoming of the current system to put gauss rifles where they were never supposed to go. And since we don't have the Jagermech yet, I don't have much of a problem with the Gaussapult; it's still an abuse of the system, but it's not usurping the role of any other mechs, so no big deal. Plus it can also definitely be countered adequately, so it's not really breaking the game, just the role. But the Gaussapult would definitely outclass a dual-gauss Jagermech, and hard, simply because a Cat can carry almost twice the armor and carries the rifles in heavily-armored torso sections instead of the arms and those big boxy ears provide additional protection for the RT/LT sections.
In the long-term, it's a pretty easy problem to solve by just adding type-specific crit slot limits to the different mech sections. It's not unreasonable to limit the ballistic slots on a Catapult K2 to only 4-5 slots; then people could still put in heavier ballistic weapons if they wanted, but the PPCs would still be the main damage dealer. 2 PPCs and 2 AC/5s would have the exact same weight and damage as dual gauss, but still be in keeping with the purpose of the variant. But I'm much less interested in seeing that fixed than I would be in seeing a fix to the issues of SRMs being dominant and some mechs going way to fast for what they can do; I can't recall ever getting cored by a Gaussapult in a fashion that made me want to shut the game off for the day in frustration.
Besides, the beta forums are filled with loads and loads of garbage anyway. The devs don't really seem to care at all when awful posters bitch and moan about about things that aren't that bad; I think I've seen 3 different times now where a dev has come out and said "this thing is pretty close to where we want it and we aren't changing it". PGI doesn't seem at all inclined to completely break things just to make the people who simply refuse to adapt happy. It seems like there's a new anti-base-cap thread every day, but I haven't heard a peep from the devs saying they have any intention of even looking at the "issue", much less getting rid of caps.
Do you have a bigger than normal engine or does the Atlas have to be standing perfectly stock still?
RE: Gaussapult
I'm confused by your argument Ninja. The K2 is a PPC sniper, but PPCs really suck at the moment so people use Gauss Rifles instead and are playing the mech how it was intended: A pinpoint sniper. So Gauss Rifles are bad but if it was two ER PPCs instead you'd be totally ok with it? Cats aren't exactly hard mechs to blow up, doubly so when they have an XL engine. Triply so once criticals get added and it'll be come hilariously easy to detonate the gauss rifle itself and shred the engine that way.
I don't see it as a problem or exploit at all, and I'm confused as to how anyone could.
The only meaningful problem I'm having is "dual-gauss setup that will be flat better than on the mech actually built to use ballistic weapons as its main arsenal". And even then, that requires the Jagermech actually being in the game. Until that's in, the Gaussapult is the only mech that can even do what it's doing, so it's not even an immediate issue. But if the options are: mech with 10 tons of armor and 2xgauss safely in the torso sections or 6 tons of armor and 2xgauss in the weak arms, nobody is going to ever choose the Jagermech. Which would be dumb, since the Jagermech is built for a long-range ballistic role; what would even be the point of adding the Jagermech at all if it's already beaten out of its own role by a mech that swaps MGs for gauss rifles? But with the change I suggested, you could still have the equivalent of a Gaussapult without making a 2xgauss Jagermech pointless and outclassed and with keeping that Cat variant in the role it was meant for. Basically, my gripe is "it will eventually leave the Jagermech largely pointless", not "why are people trying to break the game?"
I definitely don't think it's an exploit in the sense of it being a cheat/glitch, just something that takes advantage of an oversight/shortcoming in the design system. So yeah, I think people are "exploiting" the system, but in the same way I would "exploit" the system to get a PPC on a Jenner or 2xUAC/5s on a Centurion.
And in terms of internal consistency (though this is simply a matter of personal preference), it's also more than a little bonkers to have enormous 15-ton weapons built into the same hardpoints intended for miniscule half-ton weapons. If you could fit 30 tons of gauss rifle in the side torsos, then why in the world do they even bother to put much smaller, lighter LRM-15s in the giant, exposed arms? Clearly the side sections have the space, so why not jam all that missile firepower in the nice, protected torso sections instead of the horribly exposed and vulnerable arms? It makes even less sense than most of the more senseless things in Battletech. It's like taking a .50 cal machine gun off a tank and then replacing it with an entire extra main cannon; mechanically, things just wouldn't work like that.
I don't know.
The main conceit of the Battletech universe is the entire "Bipedal tanks are infinitely better than a real tank of the same mass", which is just utterly idiotic.
You can't really start looking at things in Battletech through the lens of "Is this mechanically sound" because it just entirely falls apart. However, in the interest of actually seeing a Jagermech on the field some kind of limiter on the ability to put Gauss guns in the CPLT-K2 would be very welcome.
The Catapult and Jagermech have the same tonnage limits, so their respective gauss rifle builds will look pretty similar. Same engine, same armor, etc. The only difference is that on the Jager the weapons will be on the arms. So it'll come down to personal preference which one you take, with the Catapult being only slight better in a general sense.
Why not have the missiles in the torso? That's a great question; the answer is pretty much "Like all battlemech designs, the default loadout and weapon placement is sub-optimal." Normally in CBT you do want your good weapons in your arms, despite the fact that arms have less armor than the torso, because the added flexibility of the arms lets you aim at targets that your torso locations can't; this makes it harder for enemy flankers to get past you (this is somewhat true in MWO too, but it's really hard to aim the arms to that degree sometimes). But this doesn't really apply to LRMs because anything trying to flank you would be too close to shoot LRMs at, generally speaking. And in MWO this doesn't apply to any mech that lacks a lower arm actuator (Catapult, Jenner, etc) since those arms are pretty much locked to the CT, except for vertical inclination/declination. So the Catapult is pretty flawed by design, and I don't see anything wrong with people trying to fix those inherent problems.
The only bit that really matters is that, with Gaussapults around, there would be little point to the Jagermech. And even that's a down-the-road issue, not a right-now issue.
Personally, I don't see Gaussapults and go "what a bastard, he's ruining the game". I do go "get out of my way, I need cover", but that's fine, 2xgauss is scary and should be so. Gaussapaults are scary right up until they get jumped by 2-3 enemies and mauled because they move at roughly the speed of fruit cake with half as much back armor.
Except that the Jagermech is limited to much lower armor, and its gauss rifles would end up in the arms. Arms go away a LOT faster than LT/RT sections and the Catapult has HUGE swivel range, so you end up with something with less armor than a Cat, loses essentially its entire armament to only minimal fighting, and has no edge in terms of arms providing a better firing angle. You'd end up with some adherents, I'm sure, but almost nobody would want a Jagermech over a K2 Cat.
And why would it at all be bad to have the Jagermech be the dual-gauss mech and the K2 Cat have 2xPPC plus 2xAC/5? Both would deal the same damage per salvo for the same weight, they would just do it via their respective roles. My modified K2 build would still be a fantastically solid and powerful mech, it just would be in line with what it's supposed to do instead of taking the role away from the Jagermech. As-is, the Gaussapult would beat the crap out of the Jagermech as a direct-fire ballistic mech, which is plain silly. I want the game to end up with more variety, not less, and letting Gaussapults stay as they are would see Jagermechs used for basically nothing. Why would you take a dual-guass Jagermech when a Gaussapult would shred it? At least if Jagermechs have the dual-gauss role, then they fight each other instead of getting knocked flat by Gaussapults.
But... giant targets? And... sloped armor... large-bore cannons... KABOOOOM... no more robots...
:rotate:
So basically, the Jagermech would have no advantage at all for having those rifles in the arms and the Catapult gets a slew of advantages.
EDIT: And the whole thing is more complicated than simply "gauss Jagermech vs gauss Cat", but for me, most of it boils down to the fact that there is absolutely no need, in a gameplay sense, for there to be a Gaussapult once we have the Jagermech. We can have PPC/AC-equipped Cats doing the same damage as the Gaussapult, Jaegermechs doing direct-fire ballistics support like they're supposed to, and the battlefield ends up with more types of mechs running around instead of less.
It's not limited to shit. It has less armor by default, but that doesn't mean much. They are the same weight, so they have the same max armor limit.
While arms are more fragile, you absolutely do get better firing angles with them. Mechs can't vertically incline their torsos very much, and with many of the maps we've seen so far being so bumpy that can be a huge concern when enemies start to get too close. Being able to aim way lower or higher with your arms is a pretty great advantage, just not one that is always applicable.
There's nothing wrong with that build, use it all you want. There's just also no reason to artificially limit the hardpoint system just to spite the Gaussapult.
I'm not concerned with "spiting" the Gaussapult, I'm concerned with a loophole in the system making one mech variant designed for a given role better than another entire mech in its own different role. If the choices are "Gaussapults and very rarely Jagermechs" or "K2s using one kind of direct fire and Jagermechs frequently taken for a different direct-fire setup", the second option makes for a simply more interesting battlefield. The Catapult already has a place and already has things it's supposed to be good for; why take variety out of the game for the sake of one single variant that could still present a similar threat even with limits in place? And my suggestion specifically mentioned the K2, true, but I meant it as applied across ALL mechs, not just the K2, in order to possibly combat boating that could damage the gameplay. I wouldn't want JUST the K2 to be the only mech with a limitation like that.
And I did forget about the advantage of pitch for arm aiming, but that also doesn't come until play nearly as much as rotation. It does happen, and it does provide an advantage in many cases (and I enjoy it when it does), but at long range the arms-vs-torso fight is essentially meaningless because of the angles involved.
Jetfire was probably a result of them having access to the Robotech toys that didn't sell so well in the US.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
For those of you who have downloaded and played it recently, how do you get it to not run like ass? I figured a game that old on modern hardware it wouldn't be an issue but wow does it not perform well. Thoughts?
For some people the Jagermech just looks cooler. (Not like a giant robot chicken) So even though it's tactically redundant, people will still run it.
Hell... just make the Jagermech cheaper to buy than a Gaussapult and problem solved
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Yeah, I don't understand Ninja's thought process here. The armor limit is the same for any 'mech of a given weight class. The Catapult and JagerMech are both 65 tons, ergo they have the same maximum armor.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433