When I custom my mechs in the lab, I always set ferro fibrous armor to max, and then apply weapons. Only to find that my max armored cyclops or blood asp lose an entire torso location in one or two shoots... so the question is: do you focus on armor first or you add the weapons first and leave the rest tonnage to armor? Of course I am talking about HLA games, NHUA is easy to set...

I try to balance the two, but if I can, I will always mount armor first then heavy weapons.

Sometimes it is better to mount reactive or reflective armor instead.

I max out my armour first... but then I'm a crap pilot, so I try to maximise my longevity.

your armor is not the issue. Its just the throw weight of the opposing mechs alpha strike. Really the only solution to this is to not get shot.

Long story short, weapons first. Now to tell you the whole thing:

Weapons function as armor. Think of it like this, if you have enough weapons to nab someone in two shots instead of three, then that means you have to be under fire less since they are gone by the time your second shot is off. Otherwise you would have to wait for a reload and another chance to hit them again, which gives them another chance to hit you as well. If you had lots of armor you may be able to take that hit, but normally that's not a good idea, so you can see how weapons have greater value here. Also shooting your weapons gives your target knock, and when they're knocked they can not hit you for a second (or they will shoot and the knock will make them miss), increasing your survivability. If you have good aim and you are smart, (or stuck in the open) you can chain fire your shots as well, which will further increase the time that they can not hit you. Another important thing to bring up is that you should be behind some sort of cover until you want to hit someone. Using this strategy, you can actually bring no armor at all on your mech and just use the terrain to block shots, although taking it this far is a good idea only if you know what you are doing.

You say that your torso gets taken out in 2 shots or so yes? So what difference would .10 tons of armor make when people lob a 60-80 point alpha at you? You could probably remove .5 tons and it would make no noticeable difference. It depends on the server settings and map, but most of the time people shoot all their weapons at once, and have a 40-70 alpha, with the lower end of the range taking usually three hits to blow you up, and the higher taking two. This means that you typically only need to have enough total armor (the armor visible in the mech lab+the internal armor) to withstand around 110 points of damage. It's good to have extra of course, since people are sometimes not so predictable, but the point of this paragraph is that you may not always need as much as you think.

On the subject of special armor, it's only useful if you have a brawling mech and max it out with reactive. You could try reflective on space maps, but people usually use gauss rifles anyway. Even if someone did bring a laser mech, you would have to max out for it to be any good, and I find using the weight for other things is better.

Now to reiterate, weapons first, then armor.

EDIT: why does my name turn out so funny?

I agree with Sammy, though some guys take the lower armor thing to extremes and you can kill them from afar with a couple unexpected shots. Or, they don't armor their legs and they can be taken out easily that way. Just be aware of the whining that will ensue.

Thanks for the tips, ppl... and yeah, I´ve legged thousands of these paper legs in Vengeance...

It really depends for me on the mech, some mechs are much more likely to take most damage to the side torsos then the small ct and vice versa

Let's take a daishi for instance it really pays with this mech to armor up the side torso to +80% too protect the weapons stored there and most people will hit the side torsos instead of the ctr.

A mech like the gladiator on the other hand mostly gets away with 50% or lower on the sidetorso with the least weapons and 60% on the other because the ct is the main target, this will not weaken your mech by allot because a killing a mech through it's side torso requires killing the side torso + it's internal structure + shooting away the ct's remaining internal structure through the small sidetorso.

When you are taking on multiple mechs at a time the only way you are going to consistently win is through a good offensive. Take enough weapons to do the job, enough engine to allow you to dictate the engagement as much as possible, and enough armor to allow you to survive a few unlucky hits. Engine is something you didn't mention and maybe that is part of the problem. Choosing engine rating requires some tactical planning and commitment to use whatever speed you have allocated to it, otherwise you just wasted the weight. If I have max FF armor and still have space left over I will revaluate my config and possibly use reactive/reflective depending on the situation.

Looks like a fount is not loaded someplace. sm

All of this changes in MP4.

1) Section by section assignment of armor types.
2) Expanded armor types, FF, Reflective, Reactive, Standard, Hardened, Stealth.
3) Damage reduction (based on total armor present) making armor section behave more like real armor instead of just being damage sponges. Depleted heavy isotope ammunition type (AP) available on ACs and small missile types which bypass DR protection.

I see you were not just kidding when you said that the MP4 was going to be different... OMG my kingdom for a screenshot!!!

Here is a ML shot

C3 computers?
Huh, there´s a new world out there...

Can't wait to put my hands in the new toys!!!

Cool, but I noticed that JJ and enh optics were not displayed in the screen shot. I hope thats just because of a lack of space on the screen.

What's a blue shield?

Oh my, it seems this game has got at least another two years for me. Great stuff.

EDIT: good question Onyx, what is it lol

If it can't mount something, it is not displayed. There are a bunch of new subsystems than there used to be. They will not all fit on the screen if we did that.




It protects against subsystem disruptions (due to PPC hits).

Oh man... I hope all this is well documented! There will be a lot to digest and discern.....

Thanks for the screenies!

We will be putting out detailed documentation on how everything works when we release it. In the meantime we'll just tell you about stuff.

Pretty much everything we want to release is coded and in place (a few things more need to be worked on but nothing major). We're also adding a bunch of new mechs as well (like around
10 of them or so). The focus on this is changes in game play to make the game more sim like, something we've been wanting to do all along but never got around to at the time.

We plan on also releasing updates for more stuff after the initial MP4 release to keep things fresh.

Sounds pretty cool. Electronics and armor should go a long way toward strategy.

OMG Jeho, I cant describe my feelings right now:

1 .- So many time waiting for something like this... Always wish to have more electronics, more types of armor ... was what I always wanted. Fuc_k, what have you done with the code?

2 .- This is going to give the game a turnaround, low graphics do not matter, this will give the game a tremendous life.

3 .- You've shown a lot of people what you are capable, OWNED.

4 .- It is a tremendous joy.

5.- Cant wait to check all the stuff.

6. - Thanks, a lot.

Bad baby. You not wrote more games. You patiently.

P.D: Cojones, que no seas impaciente. Que ya te vale de romper tanto juguete.

What the "save as" button does?
Is AMS more efective than LAMS? What if they are chosen together?

OMG I'm impatient

Save As allows you to copy your variant to a new name, the old one stays intact. So, say, you like one variant but want to save it as something else, you can do that now.



Well, AMS uses ammo, but it is more effective than LAMS. LAMS uses heat, AMS uses ammo, but AMS is better.



You can't. You choose one or the other.

AMS is 100 shots per ton.



So am I.

Ok, I see. So AMS is 1 shot= 1 missile less (except for arrows) and LAMs will work as usual. The "save as" feature will be handy to make slight mods in a variant. Thanks for this.

can't wait to immerse myself in the mechlab and have a tinker. looks sweet.

C3+slave? should be good fun, with co-operation. probably ideal for the leagues, where you use a commander. will enhance team strategy options. (command lances, anybody?)

the added electronics packages and armour configs will probably result in even more accusations of cheating, though...

anyway, i'll still look forward to getting cheesed* on a regular basis in more new and exciting ways.



*it's like getting creamed, only it takes longer.

too bad the crappy GUI renders/draws aren't fixed yet.
care to fix that jeho so they draw the last?

Are those mechs the ones at "Mp3.1 renders" post at MekTek Official Artwork subforum?

Yes

Are those all of them? I thought some of those got removed/replaced.

i thought all the stuff with armour, electronics, etc was hard coded into the game and you couldnt do anything?

Ah well this looks seriously cool.

i think it will be 5 pounds well spent.

More questions, there will be melee damage (for example: Hatamoto Chi sword)?

Will the acceleration / decelartion stats for various mech classes have more noticeable difference?

How does stealth armor work?

Just wonder...what if you could add some sort of equipment (like grey add-ons in MP3/artemis+lrms/recharger & capacitor)
to be attached to autocannons..like fast reloader?

I think that would be nice (think of ULTRAAC 2 being fired every 0.15 seconds, or gauss every 4 secs)

Can I get tonight's winning Ohio lottery numbers please?

Ugh, please no.

Agreed, that would be lame.

AC's are fine as they are for the most part.

If continuous knock becomes a big problem for some weapons that pilots are unable to shoot back, then an improved Advanced Gyros would be great.

And yah, I'd like to know more about stealth armor. Actually, I'd like to know how stealthy is a mech with ECM, ECCM, IFF and stealth armor ... that's a nice stealth combo.

I am a specialist in damage-rocking torsos... in the receiving end lol
The solution is not nerfing weapons, but: do not go out there alone! Working in teams will allow your teammates to get rid of the ac/rocket/missile pest... Trust me, being a devoted n00brusher I know what I´m talking about.

Has IFF Jammer improved? It would work a lot better if the reticle didn't change AT ALL if you sweep it over a mech with IFF equipped. I don't think IFF currently fools anyone.

I does that currently (ie. reticule doesn't change)? I use it in HC because it makes it harder for enemies to get missile lock on me, am not sure if slows down lock times too in MP3/MP4.

A suggestion, what if IIF makes OpFor mechs appear as blue dots in radar? Now that will create chaos in furbrawls.

No, the reticle does change. It displays the person's name. Its pretty easy to figure out when you have a mech under your reticle, and also easy to figure out from there whether it someone on your team or not. I'm talking about the reticle staying completely the same...as if you didn't have anything in your sites at all.

Oh ok. I'd like to see a feature that prevents pilot names from even displaying, just to make it more realistic. Although it might need an adjustment in the "score screen (ie. tab)" too, pilot names should only be displayed during the game summary.

Don't get me wrong... it would be nice to attach artemis to any type of missiles and imagine two rechargers on lppcs...
it might look lame but it would be nice:)

As far as i see it it has to be a decent balance. I had a number of mechs that were considered undergunned but were heavily armored. They couldn't pack a massive alpha, but one could go to work in them without wondering if they would be done in mere seconds under fire.

AHHHHHH, im freaking out! Can it get any better, costom armor, ammo types, new mechs, all new equipment!! but the armor, thats nice. Now my scout mech can really fill that role. instead of the random light mech that everyone kills.

Quads would be nice.





*shot*