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I love how the game stops for a second to figure out just what got beat to gently caress by this LBX2. It's not the most impressive thing but it's cool having the equivalent of shotguns.
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Nov 26, 2019 20:29
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McGavin posted:The game doesn't track fractional heat (it rounds down to the closest integer value), so the break-even point for each exchanger is slightly different. For the 20% exchanger it's 56 heat. 56*.2 rounded down is 11 20% Exchanger is 4 tons so needs to dissipate eliminate 12 heat to get even with heatsinks. That means generating at least 60. Holds true for all others. And no, heat generation and dissipation occurs in the same step. You don't have to worry about taking overheat damage from large gross heat values so long as your delta is manageable.
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Nov 26, 2019 20:39
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I do like that ability (even or especially with the moon crab scenario) of being able to keep the pressure on in those critical first few rounds of firing. Four rounds of big hole punchers vs. two rounds of big holepunchers is a big deal when targeting a medium that can't really sustain that kind of pressure. Ekeing out an extra round or two of alpha strikes... I know I really depend on being able to quickly put down one or two mechs early on, and the rng means you really gotta keep firing because you're going to miss. I have learned recently the value of sacrificing some internal structure to heat damage to get an extra few shots. How do exchangers work out when you measure against time-to-kill for a given mech, light, medium, heavy, assault? In light of the above comments, I wrote this before I came back to the thread, but I'll leave it untweaked. I'll eyeball some presumptions from the moon crab scenario for discussions sake. I'll also preface that I don't mean to gainsay your analysis without reason, I'm feeling around to find their niche because they might be fun to use sometimes. And because it's pre-holiday weekend at work and it's slow. Let's think about a quickdraw, because those are common as dirt and show up all over the drat place, vs. Moon crab. Exchanger crab, dumps out 250 damage per round, heatsink crab 300. To core out the quickdraw takes 300 damage to the center torso. Point to heatsink crab, it could do it in one go by raw numbers. But damage distributes around, especially with SRMs, and you also miss sometimes which is a pretty big deal with AC20s. Heatsink crab sends out 4 AC20 shots and some SRMs before having to cool down for a round. That's 4 chances to hit, and there's a 1/7-ish (I think? God that's a really rough approximation) chance to hit the same spot twice. Someone more versed in combinatorics'll probably correct that. If it doesn't kill the Quickdraw in the first two rounds, it'll live until the 4th and do damage in the third. Exchanger crab has 8 chances with the AC20 before stopping, plus missiles. That's twice as many chances before stopping, or two more chances over 4 rounds (didn't want to too badly neglect heatsink crab's 4th round of firing) but it is important to note that the exchanger crab has the opportunity to kill the mech in round 3 where heatsink crab won't. I guess the point I'm aiming for is that the exchangers look like they're bad in general, but good in a niche. I think that niche is, when you have enough to put roughly the same amount of firepower out for an extra round or two, or squeezing in that extra bit to a massive alpha. That'll kill a mech sooner because you can sustain fire longer on one spot since the game does let you position, use precision shot, etc. AND given that a mech that isn't dead and/or missing chunks is as functional as a fresh mech, being able to put one down a round sooner because you can sustain fire in the short term seems worth building for. As far as turning off weapons to manage heat, well... if you're not firing everything you're not firing anything. 
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Nov 26, 2019 20:44
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Conspiratiorist posted:56*.2 rounded down is 11 It's 11.2, which you subtract from 56 to get 44.8, which rounds down to 44, which is 12 less than 56 (i.e. the 12 heat needed to get even with heatsinks). Conspiratiorist posted:And no, heat generation and dissipation occurs in the same step. You don't have to worry about taking overheat damage from large gross heat values so long as your delta is manageable. No they don't occur in the same step. You generate heat during the turn and then it gets dissipated after the turn ends. Think about it. If you shoot a weapon, you still generate heat even though you're automatically sinking 30 heat plus whatever heat sinks you have. The heat sinking doesn't occur until the end of the turn. You can literally watch when it gets sunk.
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Nov 26, 2019 21:15
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El Spamo posted:I do like that ability (even or especially with the moon crab scenario) of being able to keep the pressure on in those critical first few rounds of firing. Four rounds of big hole punchers vs. two rounds of big holepunchers is a big deal when targeting a medium that can't really sustain that kind of pressure. Ekeing out an extra round or two of alpha strikes... I know I really depend on being able to quickly put down one or two mechs early on, and the rng means you really gotta keep firing because you're going to miss. Forget about the moon crab case; it's a nonsense analysis because it's replacing a SRM6 with an exchanger, and it's suggesting a heatbank which is a display of sheer ignorance. Yes, frontloading damage is important, but how important? The way the game works you're getting around 10~15 rounds of combat broken up in 2~3 chunks (unless you get a triple lance activation), so a good rule of thumb is building towards delivering the maximum firepower you can without hitting the red line within 4 rounds. Thus what matters most for optimization purposes is that you're dealing damage efficiently within that timeframe. That means taking good guns. In most good chassis, this often means filling every single hardpoint with MLas and SRM6s and sometimes upping the MLs to LLs if you have wiggle room*, and enough heat dissipation that you won't go over the 60/75/90 threshold. And what happens when you're about to hit the red line? Just abstain from firing a medium laser or two (a 'dead' ton or two doesn't matter at this stage) and keep on riding that line - your loadout should be pretty darned efficient so just keep on shooting. Maybe turn off a SRM6 if you can't take a good shot and ammo conservation might matter, or look for the opportunity to cool off with a melee attack or redeploying, but keeping on dealing damage is in general better than not dealing damage. And what does it all mean for Heat Exchangers? loving NOTHING. Exchangers don't give a flying gently caress what your mech building strategies are, all they care is how much heat you're generating. They are a heatsink alternative. You swap heatsinks for exchangers if it'd be favorable. The math is simple: are my weapons generating more than 60 heat gross on an Alpha Strike? Yes? Then they're even - but there are probably going to be turns where I don't fire (all my guns) due to one reason or another, so it should be better than even, and in practice that means a gross heat of over 80. Is my gross heat over 80? Yes? Swap out X heatsinks for the appropriate heat exchanger. Does this give me wiggle room to mount more gun within my rules? Yes? Then mount more gun. That's it. It's so simple. *Yes, there are new good weapons now, and Breaching Shot mechs work differently, I'm not going to complicate things by talking about them. McGavin posted:No they don't occur in the same step. You generate heat during the turn and then it gets dissipated after the turn ends. I don't have to think about it because I can load up a HBK-4P with 6 medium lasers, shoot once for 72-30 heat, and watch it not take any overheat damage.
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Nov 26, 2019 21:38
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Shouldn't size also be a consideration here? Even if 4 heat sinks do beat the exchanger, they also take up 4 times the space. Running out of room before weight can actually be a thing with Assaults (especially once gyros and DHS are available).
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Nov 26, 2019 21:39
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fezball posted:Shouldn't size also be a consideration here? Even if 4 heat sinks do beat the exchanger, they also take up 4 times the space. Running out of room before weight can actually be a thing with Assaults (especially once gyros and DHS are available). It can be yes, but that's on very specific case by case basis.
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Nov 26, 2019 21:41
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sean10mm posted:The good thing about bad RNG luck is that when you catch a break it feels like winning the lottery. Are these bad mechs? They seem... kind of not good, but I don't think I've ever played them in anything else. I'm currently running a dual AC10 Jaegermech, a Dragon, and two Hunchbacks or a Wolverine and a Shadowhawk depending on the mission type. Klyith posted:I'm gonna say this wouldn't be a bad tactic in a vacuum, but in random missions it has a big downside. A whole lot of missions will put you in 4v8 fights, and some of those times there are 2 lances of enemies on the map at the start. In those cases, as soon as one lance is alerted to your presence the other lance will start coming for you as well. If you're up against the same weight class, you probably don't want to fight both of them at once. That's a really good tip, thanks. I'd been assuming "reinforcements" weren't even spawned until some hidden switch is flipped. And yeah, I was doing the sensor range games on a base assault mission with no timer. I nearly got pincered in another mission, but was able to use terrain to engage no more than one or two mechs at a time and had another successful run.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:01
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with mechs built for big alpha. Tagging guys with long range guns is slow and likely to let the second group pincher you.
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Kesper North posted:Are these bad mechs? They seem... kind of not good, but I don't think I've ever played them in anything else. I'm currently running a dual AC10 Jaegermech, a Dragon, and two Hunchbacks or a Wolverine and a Shadowhawk depending on the mission type. Griffin is competitive with the Shadowhawk and better than the Wolverine in my experience. later on you get an extremely powerful Griffin that is basically a pocket heavy
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Nov 26, 2019 22:08
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Kesper North posted:Are these bad mechs? They seem... kind of not good, but I don't think I've ever played them in anything else. I'm currently running a dual AC10 Jaegermech, a Dragon, and two Hunchbacks or a Wolverine and a Shadowhawk depending on the mission type. You can safely ditch the Dragon for credits, it's a legitimately bad mech. You would do better to run the Jaeger, the Hunchbacks, and probably the Shadowhawk, although the Wolverine is fine. Try to get a Centurion or a Trebuchet or something that can mount a respectable number of LRMs, you don't currently have any and since you aren't running DLC the LRM game is pretty important.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:13
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I don't know if this is cause I beelined towards it as soon as I could but I'm doing the Raven mission with spawns set to Hard and these lovely NPC stock mechs are getting hosed up because they can't kill Lights that breach the stealth ECM field. What the heck.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:18
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GHOST_BUTT posted:You can safely ditch the Dragon for credits, it's a legitimately bad mech. You would do better to run the Jaeger, the Hunchbacks, and probably the Shadowhawk, although the Wolverine is fine. Try to get a Centurion or a Trebuchet or something that can mount a respectable number of LRMs, you don't currently have any and since you aren't running DLC the LRM game is pretty important. Okay, I was misremembering. I thought Griffins bad Dragon good. gently caress, down to only one heavy again  I feel triply dumb because I had two Griffins and sold one.I have a Centurion. Think I sold the trebuchet because it was so flimsy. FWIW, probably going to buy the season pass when I get paid soon. When doing called shots with LRMs, what's best? Always go for the head?
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Nov 26, 2019 22:19
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So, there are 0 ton arm mods that boost melee damage by 10 each. If you keep buying these up and shoving them into a Firestarter, which you then load up purely with light lasers, jumpjets, heatsinks and armour? You get a monster that zooms around the map and can punch for over a hundred damage before then shooting the poor victim six times, I think this light mech is actually more dangerous than my heavies.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:20
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The stock griffin is an incredible piece of poo poo
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Nov 26, 2019 22:20
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Kesper North posted:Okay, I was misremembering. I thought Griffins bad Dragon good. gently caress, down to only one heavy again In the early to mid game, LRMs are there for stability damage. Once you start seeing mixed heavy/assault lances you'll get less bang for your buck but until then they're there to help knock things down. In other words, because it doesn't matter where they hit as much as that they hit, unless your to-hit is really abysmal (and in that case maybe think about repositioning?) I probably wouldn't burn the morale on LRM precision strikes. Save it for your Hunchbacks blowing arms and legs off of things. e you might also be able to get your Jaeger into quad AC5s which might be better I dunno. I like the AC10 but I'm told I'm wrong, so. GHOST_BUTT fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 22:25
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Kesper North posted:Okay, I was misremembering. I thought Griffins bad Dragon good. gently caress, down to only one heavy again Nah, they aren't very good at head hitting (they only get 1 roll chance to inflict injuries) and due to clustering mechanics they're rather poor at called shots in general (for a given salvo weapon, every hit reduces the called shot bonus by half, until it's down to its normal location hit chance). On LRMs in Centurions, they can do it, but brawl fit is so much better: 
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Nov 26, 2019 22:26
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GHOST_BUTT posted:In the early to mid game, LRMs are there for stability damage. Once you start seeing mixed heavy/assault lances you'll get less bang for your buck but until then they're there to help knock things down. In other words, because it doesn't matter where they hit as much as that they hit, unless your to-hit is really abysmal (and in that case maybe think about repositioning?) I probably wouldn't burn the morale on LRM precision strikes. Save it for your Hunchbacks blowing arms and legs off of things. I'll give quad AC5s a try later just to see how it goes. I know I liked two AC10s better than three AC5s. Conspiratiorist posted:Nah, they aren't very good at head hitting (they only get 1 roll chance to inflict injuries) and due to clustering mechanics they're rather poor at called shots in general (for a given salvo weapon, every hit reduces the called shot bonus by half, until it's down to its normal location hit chance). That's helpful, thanks. My mechwarriors would beg to differ on the efficacy of LRMs and injury 
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Nov 26, 2019 22:36
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You notice it more when it happens to your guys.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:39
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A SRM Carrier rolls to hit your head 60 times per turn.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:42
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Kesper North posted:I'll give quad AC5s a try later just to see how it goes. I know I liked two AC10s better than three AC5s. Realistically the dual AC10 Jaeger is actually pretty strong if you can get your hands on + or ++ versions (dealing 65 and 70 damage respectively) assuming that you've got a pilot with called shot mastery; if you can get that rolling you'll be popping heads for days. If you're struggling to find those, start working with Davion. Their faction stores have unlimited fancy ballistic weapons. If that's too much work, take convoy destructions or asset repossessions: vehicles seem to drop fancy weapons at a higher rate than stock mechs. GHOST_BUTT fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 23:13
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Conspiratiorist posted:A SRM Carrier rolls to hit your head 60 times per turn. I forgot how many srms one had and moved to shoot out an lrm carrier once instead I regretted it
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Nov 26, 2019 23:16
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But not for long! Lol
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Nov 26, 2019 23:27
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RBA Starblade posted:I forgot how many srms one had and moved to shoot out an lrm carrier once instead My first encounter with one in this new campaign runthrough it just sort of emerged over a hill then fired into the side of a Centurion, removing the side torso, the arm and the leg facing it. I do vaguely wonder why anyone fields military units that have anything other than SRM carriers given how lethal they are and that they barely cost more than an urbanmech.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:28
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El Spamo posted:I'll also preface that I don't mean to gainsay your analysis without reason, I'm feeling around to find their niche because they might be fun to use sometimes. Having more sustained damage is absolutely a possible positive, and that dropoff was a negative I pointed to. However, there are also scenarios where higher potential one-turn damage is better. That's what I really like about this game, it's very analog. I still think it's not enough of a difference to make exchangers worth using in any build that's isn't dedicated to exclusive moon & martian use. I do see Conspiratiorist's big alpha argument, and one thing that's very different from the year since I wrote that post is the bulwark change. Now that guard isn't a free action from bulwark, a turn not shooting equals more damage reduction. So on/off builds that occasionally take a turn completely off to cool down have more value. Exchangers make that on turn much better. (Also I find the Conspiratiorist srm/mlas only style incredibly boring. It's effective, but it reduces the game to a kid banging two toys together. So my reaction to hearing that exchangers are good if you want to do that thing is a solid 'meh'.) El Spamo posted:As far as turning off weapons to manage heat, well... if you're not firing everything you're not firing anything. Point. However, I don't think many people want to keep dedicated mech builds for various environments. And refitting before every mission seems awfully cheesy. So turning off weapons is just a thing you do in hot environments. Most of my mech builds aren't heat-neutral even in standard biomes, because I like having the extra damage in my pocket to pull out when needed. Overheat damage isn't the worst thing in the world. Also I have a soft spot for PPCs even though they're terrible by most every standard.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:33
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Klyith posted:I do see Conspiratiorist's big alpha argument, and one thing that's very different from the year since I wrote that post is the bulwark change. Now that guard isn't a free action from bulwark, a turn not shooting equals more damage reduction. So on/off builds that occasionally take a turn completely off to cool down have more value. Exchangers make that on turn much better. No, no - the less you shoot the worse Exchangers are, because they only work while you're generating weapons heat, whereas heatsinks are always dissipating.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:39
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I just use exchangers to get me below 170 total heat generated cuz its easier to get to only 100 delta heat per alpha that way. Works well so far
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Nov 26, 2019 23:43
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Patrat posted:My first encounter with one in this new campaign runthrough it just sort of emerged over a hill then fired into the side of a Centurion, removing the side torso, the arm and the leg facing it. I do vaguely wonder why anyone fields military units that have anything other than SRM carriers given how lethal they are and that they barely cost more than an urbanmech. Because they're hilariously vulnerable in anything other than low visibility areas. And more or less guaranteed death traps for the crew.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:45
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Conspiratiorist posted:Nah, they aren't very good at head hitting (they only get 1 roll chance to inflict injuries) and due to clustering mechanics they're rather poor at called shots in general (for a given salvo weapon, every hit reduces the called shot bonus by half, until it's down to its normal location hit chance). I still prefer turning one of my Cents into an LRM Boat, as they are the lightest 'Mech you have access to that can comfortably mount two LRM15s with 4 tons of ammo without sacrificing too much armor. By comparison, the Trebuchet is ironically too fast, which causes problems because all that weight is being wasted on a bigger engine when all the Treb is going to be doing is hanging back and raining missiles down on dudes, and thus either needs to give up armor and become really easy to take out if someone gets in their grill, or has to give up ammo or backup weapons. Once I get a decent heavy that can do LRM Boat duties (hello Archer), I convert my Cent back to a brawler. ... Of course, this all goes out the window if I start a game with a Cent and get an LBX-10 out of my Heavy Metal Crate, because LBX SO GOOOOOOOOOD. Or hell, an LBX-5 even. 2s get strapped to any Shadow Hawks or Blackjacks I net.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:53
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I run my Centurion with three LRM-10s instead of two LRM-15s, but I admit I am not sure if that is better or not? An Archer is definitely superior though and Weldry and nearby worlds sell the parts for them so you can buy an Archer very early on without having to murder a bunch of them. I run mine with two LRM-20 and two medium lasers, which allows for plenty of armour and enough heat sinks/ammo to just keep firing.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:59
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Patrat posted:I run my Centurion with three LRM-10s instead of two LRM-15s, but I admit I am not sure if that is better or not? 3 LRM-10s take 15 tons and generate 30 heat, 2 LRM-15s take 14 tons and generate 28 heat. LRM-10s are the worst LRM. (If you have 3 LRM-10++ available and only stock 15s that can change things. 10s are much more plentiful in salvage early in the game.) Edit: as a very simple mod, dropping LRM-10s to 9 heat generated makes all LRMs exactly balanced. 10+10 = 20 = 5+15+HS = 4x5+2HS Klyith fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 00:13
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Holy moly COIL-L is ridiculous on Assassin
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Nov 27, 2019 01:15
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Eej posted:Holy moly COIL-L is ridiculous on Assassin It's just amazing on light mechs in general. I'm curious to try the smaller coils massed on some of the over-engined mechs at the bottom of their weight class to see if they're actually salvageable now. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 01:21
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Ravenfood posted:It's just amazing on light mechs in general. I'm curious to try the smaller coils massed on some of the over-engined mechs at the bottom of their weight class to see if they're actually salvageable now. Yeah but the evasion ignore feature on the assassin is an amazing combo with it. But, Cicadas are... not completely terrible now.
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Nov 27, 2019 01:32
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Patrat posted:I run my Centurion with three LRM-10s instead of two LRM-15s, but I admit I am not sure if that is better or not? It's worse but primarily because of what makes LRMs good in the first place: their interaction with Breaching Shot.
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Nov 27, 2019 01:33
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TotalLossBrain posted:I like running 3 heavies or assaults and one light or medium mech with lots of JJs and the right pilot. The heavies keep the enemy busy while the little guy rushes around, relying on cover and evasion. drat if this didn't do the trick nicely despite the warning of not sending enough tons. Three mechs with missiles for days, one assassin packing a coil for extra fire power and things went very nicely.
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Nov 27, 2019 01:34
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Almost tempted to embrace the suicide sled nature of the Coil Assassin and skip Bulwark to get Sure Footing and Breaching Shot. Bulwark is a little bit worse than normal anyways since you are pressured to stay in open terrain to maximize the ground you're covering. This is almost certainly a dumb gimmick, but Coils do indeed own.
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Nov 27, 2019 01:53
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Voyager I posted:Almost tempted to embrace the suicide sled nature of the Coil Assassin and skip Bulwark to get Sure Footing and Breaching Shot. Bulwark is a little bit worse than normal anyways since you are pressured to stay in open terrain to maximize the ground you're covering. I only got a COIL-S in my current career. It's currently mounted on an Assassin with TAG ++ and it's completely loving nuts in the early missions I'm still on. The Assassin scoots in, zaps for 75 and TAGs the target. Then the BJ with the twin long range shotguns piles in for 120 or my Thunderbolt Laser Monster slaps down 200 more. If I had a COIL-L instead, the Assassin would be blowing Heavies in half with the first hit and have a chance to core Assaults on a second. They're crazy.
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Nov 27, 2019 02:15
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I put COIL-L on the Phoenix hawk before realizing it doesn't work on flying, but haven't found a better place for it yet. It's a lot of fun, regardless, but I should probably place it on something with less jump jets and more heat sinks.
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Nov 27, 2019 02:31
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Started a new game just to see what might come out of the starter box. I got an LB-20X
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Nov 27, 2019 03:13
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Patrat posted:My first encounter with one in this new campaign runthrough it just sort of emerged over a hill then fired into the side of a Centurion, removing the side torso, the arm and the leg facing it. I do vaguely wonder why anyone fields military units that have anything other than SRM carriers given how lethal they are and that they barely cost more than an urbanmech. Better question is why doesn't anyone field anything but demolishers
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Nov 27, 2019 03:18
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