Mechwarrior: Online, Calling all Mechwarriors! (I know theres at least a few of us here Options

[Stahlseele]

wanna be a horrible ass troll in CBT?
tanks. with PPCs. Schreks to be exact.
3xPPC for 935 points each, if i remember correctly.
and that's the base variant, the old one to boot.
in a game of about 10k BV (which will happen, if you have 2 lances) you have 10 of these standing on some hill.
3x3 square formation and one in the beack. so you can have volley fire of PPCs. and even if some mech does manage do close the entire distance, there is at least one schrek in each direction that does not have minimum range penalties!

[Starmage21]

wanna be a horrible ass troll in CBT?
tanks. with PPCs. Schreks to be exact.
3xPPC for 935 points each, if i remember correctly.
and that's the base variant, the old one to boot.
in a game of about 10k BV (which will happen, if you have 2 lances) you have 10 of these standing on some hill.
3x3 square formation and one in the beack. so you can have volley fire of PPCs. and even if some mech does manage do close the entire distance, there is at least one schrek in each direction that does not have minimum range penalties!

That is some serious troll value

[Stahlseele]

*nods*
it's 30 PPCs.
a damage potential of 300 points.

[_Pax._]

These mechs are there in canon too, more or less . .
There are Mechs with 12 Clan ER Medium Lasers or something silly like that.

Draconis Combine ... Komodo, or something like that. Meant for hunting and killing Clan Battle Armor, and wiping entire Points off the map in one salvo. TEN Medium Lasers, five in each arm.

And that's an Inner Sphere design (albeit, shortly post-3055, IIRC), so it doesn't even rely on Clantech cheese.

[almost normal]

Force Size Modifier. Pretty much prevents tactics like that, or the ubiq infantry swarms.

[Stahlseele]

Draconis Combine ... Komodo, or something like that. Meant for hunting and killing Clan Battle Armor, and wiping entire Points off the map in one salvo. TEN Medium Lasers, five in each arm.

And that's an Inner Sphere design (albeit, shortly post-3055, IIRC), so it doesn't even rely on Clantech cheese.

right, i forgot about that one . .
and that's not so much worse than the Hunchback 4P, which has and always had, 8 medium lasers . . 8x5pts of damage means 40 points of damage right there. which just doubles the damage the AC20 could do.

But the Clan ER Medium lasers are 1t 1crit IS Large Lasers basically. Damage and Range . .

[_Pax._]

3x3 square formation and one in the beack.

Nice against Clanners who don't use artillery perhaps, but, just asking for an arty strike in the middle of your nice, close-packed formation.

Also, if played on printed maps, "3x3" doesn't work so well on a hex grid. It's possible, but, not as "neat".

However, with seven vehicles, you can get a "dispersed ring" formation going. One vehicle in the center, and the other six two hexes away, in all six directions; there's never more than 2 or 3 vehicles endangered by a single artillery shell, even area-denial shells, at any one moment. Terrain permitting, of course; sometimes you just don't have the legroom to spread out like that. Those are the times that bring big, goofy grins to artillery commanders ... ^_^

Probably more useful would be a "gun line" formation: two rows of 4-5 vehicles, with a complete empty row between each. No matter where they come from, you're guaranteed to have 4+ PPCs with no minimum range penalties even if they come right up to you. Yes, even if some smarty-pants jumps right into the middle of your 5x3 footprint - worst case, the two ends of each line will JUST avoid that min range point.

[_Pax._]

right, i forgot about that one . .
and that's not so much worse than the Hunchback 4P, which has and always had, 8 medium lasers . . 8x5pts of damage means 40 points of damage right there. which just doubles the damage the AC20 could do.

I'm not sure, but the Komodo may have mounted Medium Pulse Lasers. I'm about 70/30 on my confidence there. Very short-ranged, basically "I gots me two laser shotties - C'MERE you battle-armored pansies!"

Great against armor, not so good against other mechs. Until they get to the urban fighting part - where short-ranged weapons stop being a worry, because you're never going to be more than 4-5 hexes away and still have a clean line of fire, anyway.

[_Pax._]

Force Size Modifier. Pretty much prevents tactics like that, or the ubiq infantry swarms.

Two lances is eight units.

Ten Shrek PPC carriers is ... ten units.

That's not an imbalanced Force Size difference at all.

[Stahlseele]

Nice against Clanners who don't use artillery perhaps, but, just asking for an arty strike in the middle of your nice, close-packed formation.

Also, if played on printed maps, "3x3" doesn't work so well on a hex grid. It's possible, but, not as "neat".

However, with seven vehicles, you can get a "dispersed ring" formation going. One vehicle in the center, and the other six two hexes away, in all six directions; there's never more than 2 or 3 vehicles endangered by a single artillery shell, even area-denial shells, at any one moment. Terrain permitting, of course; sometimes you just don't have the legroom to spread out like that. Those are the times that bring big, goofy grins to artillery commanders ... ^_^

Probably more useful would be a "gun line" formation: two rows of 4-5 vehicles, with a complete empty row between each. No matter where they come from, you're guaranteed to have 4+ PPCs with no minimum range penalties even if they come right up to you. Yes, even if some smarty-pants jumps right into the middle of your 5x3 footprint - worst case, the two ends of each line will JUST avoid that min range point.

Nice tips, thank you.
Usually won't have much to do with artillery, most players simply forget that you can use anything without legs at all . . which is why simply pulling out 10 schreks works so horribly well quite often ^^
The only way it could be better were if you would replace the PPCs with ER Versions. Because Vehicles don't track heat like Mechs so they don't care about going from 30 heat to 45 heat per volley ^^

I'm not sure, but the Komodo may have mounted Medium Pulse Lasers. I'm about 70/30 on my confidence there. Very short-ranged, basically "I gots me two laser shotties - C'MERE you battle-armored pansies!"

Great against armor, not so good against other mechs. Until they get to the urban fighting part - where short-ranged weapons stop being a worry, because you're never going to be more than 4-5 hexes away and still have a clean line of fire, anyway.

yes they do, because you are basically an LB-X10 AC that does 5 points of damage per hitting pellet instead of a measly one point. And you get a -2, with target computer -3 instead of just a -1 to your to hit TN. And if just 4 of these hit, or maybe 5, you make them wobble enough to force a piloting test to see wether or not they simply fall over.

Two lances is eight units.

Ten Shrek PPC carriers is ... ten units.

That's not an imbalanced Force Size difference at all.

*nods* there's a reason why this sort of behaviour is very much frowned upon ^^

[almost normal]

Two lances is eight units.

Ten Shrek PPC carriers is ... ten units.

That's not an imbalanced Force Size difference at all.

You'd have to agree to it though, and therein lies the problem. If team A takes a clan heavy star, the pack of shreks is sporting a very heavy penalty for taking double the forces.

The clan counter to the shrek firing line is likely air dropped Elementals. They'd make mince-meat of the tanks for a fraction of the cost.

Codeine is kicking in again. Ill stop commenting for the day.

[_Pax._]

You'd have to agree to it though, and therein lies the problem. If team A takes a clan heavy star, the pack of shreks is sporting a very heavy penalty for taking double the forces.

Bah, that's nonsense, really. It amounts to the clanner gaming the system in the OTHER direction, which is JUST as much an abuse. Especially when one side is Clan, where their units almost ALWAYS win, 1:1, ton for ton.

If the basic premise is "two lances", which is appropriate for the BPV stated ... then player A shouldn't be penalised because player B chose to put his eggs in fewer baskets than allowed. You should pick A force level - penalties for going significantly above it, or, tough luck for you if you go under it instead.

The clan counter to the shrek firing line is likely air dropped Elementals. They'd make mince-meat of the tanks for a fraction of the cost.

Okay. But if facing a clanner, and if the Batchall isn't being played out? First off, the Clanner won't know to bring elementals to the table to begin with. Second, I'd go with two 4-truck lances of Shreks, and whatever anti-elemental unit I could fit in. A Komodo, if the BPV limit allowed it.

[Stahlseele]

Well, cBt games are usually:"You get this ammount of points, go nuts, the other guy has the same ammount, keep that in mind"
And then the units get put on the table. and the force size modifier gets calculated afterwards, if at all, because nobody has to tell anybody else what and how many whats he is going to use.
because point for point, they are balanced. if you decide to go with the expensive stuff, you are probably going to have to leave away one or two units anyway . . putting yourself at a disadvantage.
possibly/probably at least. it could turn out the other guy went even more nuts and used less units than you. and at that point it becomes a fight between quantity and quality.
the point where this breaks is with the critical hit system usually.

[_Pax._]

Yeah, see, the thing is this: the guy who gets only a few, but VERY POWERFUL, units? Should not then get an even greater advantage over the guy that went for the "expected" force-level (~2 lances, give or take a couple, in this example).

So, as I said ... if you play with Force Levels, you should decide on that level along with the BPV budget, up front. If, for example, you say "four or five IS lances of mechs - sixteen to twenty units" ... the guy that fields the full twenty units should NOT be penalised just because the other guy says "I have one binary of Clan Assault Mechs, and nothing else". Yeah, sure, it's 10 against 20, then. Too bad, the clanner knew he was going in with half as many units as the expected Force Level.

[almost normal]

Bah, that's nonsense, really. It amounts to the clanner gaming the system in the OTHER direction, which is JUST as much an abuse. Especially when one side is Clan, where their units almost ALWAYS win, 1:1, ton for ton.

Agreed. I blame Herb/Ben Rome. Those two idiots have had nearly a decade to make a decent tournament ruleset, and have constantly failed.

If the basic premise is "two lances", which is appropriate for the BPV stated ... then player A shouldn't be penalised because player B chose to put his eggs in fewer baskets than allowed. You should pick A force level - penalties for going significantly above it, or, tough luck for you if you go under it instead.

You've got to state unit-size ahead of time. Not by the books or rules, but just by how force size modifiers work. The only thing you can really change after revealing forces is piloting skills. Again, failure of the Herb to address that problem.

Okay. But if facing a clanner, and if the Batchall isn't being played out? First off, the Clanner won't know to bring elementals to the table to begin with. Second, I'd go with two 4-truck lances of Shreks, and whatever anti-elemental unit I could fit in. A Komodo, if the BPV limit allowed it.

Clanners don't respect vehicles or treat them as honorable. Sending in the elementals to handle them would be a matter of course. Batchall was also always a bit fuzzy when it came to large forces. Bidding a cluster can lead to giant derivations in force size depending on strength.

[_Pax._]

Clanners don't respect vehicles or treat them as honorable. Sending in the elementals to handle them would be a matter of course.

IF you had them.

If you only brought that Heavy Star? Then you don't have the Elementals, now, do you? And if you did bring Elementals along with your heavy star, well, the force levels aren't so disparate after all ... are they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(Also, Hell's Horses clan would disagree about the honor of vehicles, haha!)

My reference to the Batchall was meant to convey: "the clan player wouldn't know, when building their force, that the IS player planned a Combined Arms or All-vehicle force. Thus, the clanner wouldn't necessarily know to bring those Elementals in the first place."

[almost normal]

IF you had them.

If you only brought that Heavy Star? Then you don't have the Elementals, now, do you? And if you did bring Elementals along with your heavy star, well, the force levels aren't so disparate after all ... are they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Except that a Star can either include Battle Armor, be entirely composed of Battle Armor, or be called a Nova, which is 5 omnimechs and 5 elementals. Worse yet, sometimes Novas can be considered stars. At other times, a Star can consist of support units that wouldn't otherwise go mentioned, like aerospace support to drop in the elementals. It's something neat that's usually handled pretty well in fiction, and an entire pain in the ass in person. After all, you're not really outwitting your opponent in this case, you're just being an asshole. (Royal you. Not you, Pax.)

Side note, the Hell's Horses view mixed units as honorable. (Or at least, more honorable then the rest of the Clans.) The person who wrote that in was writing their first battletech canon. That person? Herb. Fuckin a.

[_Pax._]

Except that a Star can [...]

Rules-lawyer-y gobbledegook.

If the player did not declare the Elementals (and account for their BPV cost) before the game starts, then they're simply not there. There's no "oh I could have ... so now, after the fact, I'll declare that I actually did" nonsense allowed, or they're cheating.

And, again: the person putting their Clan force together, may not know they have a perfect situation in which to employ Elementals. Just like the IS player might not know that he should really, really bring along something like a Komodo or two. Maybe such a specialist unit will be the perfect tool this time, maybe it'll be dead weight, maybe (probably) it'll fall somewhere in the middle.

...

Personally, for myself? I'm a fan of "Here's X BPV, do whatever you damned well please with it". You want an infantry swarm? Fine, knock yourself out. I, personally, always hedge my bets, and make sure I have some ability to deal with infantry, AND with vehicles, AND with 'mechs. If I leave something completely un-accounted-for, then it's solely my fault when I get assraped by it. If I maybe wanted to fight "just mechs", then I'd say as much during the pre-match metagame. If you ("Royal you", of course) agreed, huzzah. If you don't, now I can choose whether or not to play against you anyway.

Anything else is whingeing.

Side note, the Hell's Horses view mixed units as honorable. (Or at least, more honorable then the rest of the Clans.) The person who wrote that in was writing their first battletech canon. That person? Herb. Fuckin a.

The main reason the majority Clanners dislike vehicles, IMO, is that they're typically crew-served, whereas a 'mech is a single-pilot machine ... and the Clans have a love affair with individual honor.

Which is silly, because there's no reason a tank couldn't be every bit as automated and single-operator, as a 'mech. And clantech can make some scarily-effective tank designs ...





TOTAL side note, I probably enjoy designing 'mechs, mroe than I do commanding them. I like to pick a role, and a purpose, and fit the design to that end. Not just min/max it. For example, something I threw together for giggles:

[ Spoiler ]

CODE

PoliceMech SW-4T

Mass: 20 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Quad
Rules Level: Experimental Tech
Era: All Eras (non-canon)
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/X-X-F
Production Year: 2750
Cost: 2,590,900 C-Bills
Battle Value: 489

Chassis: Unknown Endo-Composite
Power Plant: Unknown 160 Fusion XL Engine
Walking Speed: 86.4 km/h
Maximum Speed: 129.6 km/h
Jump Jets: None
    Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Unknown Light Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
    1  Medium Laser
    1  SRM-2
    1  MG Array (2 HMG)
Manufacturer: Unknown
    Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown

================================================================================
Equipment           Type                         Rating                   Mass  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Endo-Composite                35 points                1.50
    Internal Locations: 1 HD, 2 LT, 1 FLL, 1 FRL, 1 RLL, 1 RRL
Engine:             XL Fusion Engine             160                       3.00
    Walking MP: 8
    Running MP: 12
    Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks:         Single Heat Sink             10                        0.00
    Heat Sink Locations: 1 FLL, 1 FRL, 1 RLL, 1 RRL
Gyro:               Standard                                               2.00
Cockpit:            Small                                                  2.00
    Actuators:      L: H+UL+LL+F    R: H+UL+LL+F
Armor:              Light Ferro-Fibrous          AV -  73                  4.50
    Armor Locations: 7 LT
    CASE II Locations: 1 RT                                                1.00

                                                      Internal       Armor      
                                                      Structure      Factor    
                                                Head     3            9        
                                        Center Torso     6            9        
                                 Center Torso (rear)                  3        
                                           L/R Torso     5            8        
                                    L/R Torso (rear)                  2        
                                       L/R Front Leg     4            8        
                                        L/R Rear Leg     4            8        

================================================================================
Equipment                                 Location    Heat    Critical    Mass  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MG Array (2 HMG)                             RT        -         1         0.50
    2 Heavy Machine Guns                     RT        0         2         2.00
SRM-2                                        RT        2         1         1.00
Medium Laser                                 RT        3         1         1.00
@HMG (1/2) (50)                              RT        -         1         0.50
@SRM-2 (Frag) (50)                           RT        -         1         1.00
Quad Mech Turret                             RT        -         1         0.00
                                            Free Critical Slots: 3

BattleForce Statistics
MV      S (+0)  M (+2)  L (+4)  E (+6)   Wt.   Ov   Armor:      2    Points: 5
8          1       1       0       0      1     0   Structure:  0
Special Abilities: CASEII, SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA

(Yayy, Solaris SkunkWerks.)

Concept is a S.W.A.T. affair, which can also double as light support against raiders or invaders (it's not much, but an ML and an SRM-2 aren't anything to turn your nose up at (especially if you load inferno rounds ...), and a pair of Heavy MGs can knock around a light mech reasonably well. Meanwhile, the max LightFF armor makes it surprisingly durable, for a 20-ton wee bairn. Quad makes it stable, size makes it able to maneuver well in a tight urban environment.

In case teh statblock above doesn't make itclear, all three weapons are in the "turret" together, along with the ammunition. Really, it's a 4-legged mini-Tank more than a battlemech. It actually gets away with SHS, post-3050 (I didn't restrict my choices by era, locale, etc - just "inner sphere tech", that's all), as it only ever generates 7 heat, compared to the 10 it can dump (14 if it stand sin water - big fountain in Government Center, anyone?).

And the pricetag of roughly 2.6M C-bills isn't exhorbitantly steep, for a reasonably affluent world.

[Stahlseele]

Oh yes, Mech-Design can be quite fun . .
I generally try not to modify too much about a mech. . .
just to do away with glaring inconsisties and dumb stuff.

And from time to time when i play offline with a bunch of buddies, i get basically free reign over a mech that sometimes ends with somebody commenting:"i pity a daishi that has to go up against this"

[almost normal]

Rules-lawyer-y gobbledegook.

If the player did not declare the Elementals (and account for their BPV cost) before the game starts, then they're simply not there. There's no "oh I could have ... so now, after the fact, I'll declare that I actually did" nonsense allowed, or they're cheating.

Personally, for myself? I'm a fan of "Here's X BPV, do whatever you damned well please with it". You want an infantry swarm? Fine, knock yourself out. I, personally, always hedge my bets, and make sure I have some ability to deal with infantry, AND with vehicles, AND with 'mechs. If I leave something completely un-accounted-for, then it's solely my fault when I get assraped by it. If I maybe wanted to fight "just mechs", then I'd say as much during the pre-match metagame. If you ("Royal you", of course) agreed, huzzah. If you don't, now I can choose whether or not to play against you anyway.

My narcotic induced haze clearly prevented me from expressing myself clearly. Unfortunately, today is no better, so I'll just try again.

When you say '5k bv', that's usually good enough. But I think we've both acknowledged that having a force size bigger or smaller is another advantage, so that too needs to be clarified. So 5k, I get a star, you get a lance. The IS treats vehicles as a single unit, while the Clans view them as a half unit. So already I could be at a 10 to 4 advantage. The Clans may also view Aerospace assets as inclusive and elemental support as inclusive. So now I'm up 15 to 4. Which is bullshit and unfair. It's the system though.'

I still say we get a megamek game going sometime though.

[Tanegar]

Has anyone else noticed that night vision in MWO is worse than useless? It actually makes things darker. WTF?

[_Pax._]

You sure you're not using Thermal ...?

[taeksosin]

Night vision is useless at the moment since we have no dark maps. Thermal, on the other hand, is amazing for sniping with.

[Tanegar]

You sure you're not using Thermal ...?

Quite sure. Hit 'N' in a match sometime. Take a look for yourself. Thermographic makes hot 'Mechs light up like Christmas trees, as it should, but night vision just makes it so you can't see anything more than ten meters away, and throws a green filter over everything within that range. It's not "night vision" at all.

Night vision is useless at the moment since we have no dark maps. Thermal, on the other hand, is amazing for sniping with.

There's that tunnel on Forest Colony. Try it sometime. You can actually see more in there with regular vision than with the supposed night vision mode.

[Falconer]

Question... what did they change in the past week or two.

Logged on for the first time in a while... for 4 quick matches. No group... 2 wins and 2 loss (1death)... but i noticed the Jenner didn't overheat once (11DHS, 2ML, 4SL)... or maybe i just wasn't firing fast enough. Also what really shocked me was the last match my mere Jenner was 2nd or 3rd place in damage and kills in almost all the matches... which was rather shocking... (276 damage inflicted, 2 kills 4 assists).. none of the matches I inflicted less than 120 before going down, normally with a lot of assists but few kills.

I was just firing the ML and SL's together as a tight beam group with a lot of sniped back shots. Or acting as a hunter killer for other light mechs in our own lines. Sometimes just firing them as fast as they would cycle. It's just a lot more damage than I was inflicting previously....

Also, I find the FF armor isn't a real problem money wise... the FF is what gave me enough space to get 1.5 tons freed up for AMS + ammo. And that's going off almost constantly i notice...