A balance feature that could give meaning back to light mechs.

[Aidan McRae]

My intention is to always be running my PC in a light (Jenner / Panther / Firestarter) in every mission providing LoS and Sensor Locking while flanking and attacking exposed rear areas -- angled threats.

The only reason this could possibly work is because he's unkillable. With Coring being a lethal event, that'd be recipe for disaster using any other pilots after only a little RNG.

 

[Jamey]

Yeah lol @ people that were arguing that lights and mediums are fine even though it was obvious from the streams that they become obsolete as soon as you get heavies and assaults.
Tbh they are even more usless than i thought because AI doesn't know how use initiative and heavies & assaults can get 6 evasion pips on sprint or 5 evasion pips on jump with high enough piloting skill.

The biggest problem that lights have right now is that too often you are in an 8 on 4 fight because reinforcements are spawning right on top of you. That causes two big problems:

1) The need to DPS ASAP to help even the odds
2) The ability to burn a lot of evasion pips off of scouts with attacks, leaving them vulnerable to heavy hitters


The other big problem I have with using lights is that too often your drop ship pilot puts you in the worst possible terrain. The only time I've reloaded to change the results of a battle was when my drop ship pilot put me in a canyon with the edge of the zone blocking one end of it. My light mech couldn't jump high enough to get on top of the canyon to break LOS and 8 enemy Heavy and Assault mechs charged into the open end of the canyon. The battle was a good challenge with a heavier mech for my main character, but it was a completely crappy situation artificially imposed upon me by game mechanics (my pilot dropping me in a bone headed spot and the edge of the zone blocking me from maneuvering in any meaningful way).


In short, I still have a Jenner and a Firestarter in my hanger and both are useful (and fun!) in easier missions, but I use a Griffin, Kintaro, or Grasshopper when doing 4+ skull missions.

 

[Spartakus]

So how are your lights/mediums going mid - late game : D

Well, I just did my first 4.5 skull mission. Bringing a lance of Firestarter, Hunchback, Thunderbolt, Awesome

And I'm really glad I had that Firestarter with me.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I kicked the difficulty to Target mechs up a notch. Lights 3, Mediums 2, Heavies 1 and Assaults 0. Then I dropped base targeting floor from 75% to 65%. That gave more meaning to lights. They annoyed the crap out of me most of my campaign run as the game use to send in swarms of them. With high evasion they were hell on wheels until I hit gunnery 10. I still can't always precision core out the CT of one even now with an assault mech.

Thus, I believe they're about as good as they should be in this fashion.

Biggest problem I continuously have is with the RNG generating between 3-12 head shots per match even with the difficulty to hit the head dialed down to 1%. Not sure where this is getting it's weighting from, however, over 60 hours of playtime the AI has me beat in head shots by a factor of 3-4 to one.

 

[Spartakus]

I just tried this mission just for fun:

The enemy light mechs (a Jenner and a Panther) were giving me trouble, so I had to eject Hacker out of Portia (forgot to rename after I put her back into service), would those have not been there the mission would have been a cakewalk.
I got the main objective and killed a Hunchback, Trebuchet and SRM-Carrier while doing it.

Tell me again, why light mechs need more incentives to use them.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I just tried this mission just for fun:

The enemy light mechs (a Jenner and a Panther) were giving me trouble, so I had to eject Hacker out of Portia (forgot to rename after I put her back into service), would those have not been there the mission would have been a cakewalk.
I got the main objective and killed a Hunchback, Trebuchet and SRM-Carrier while doing it.

Tell me again, why light mechs need more incentives to use them.

Honestly, I never had an issue with lights. I guess I inadvertantly made them more of a threat due to the tweaks I made to the core game. A base difficulty of 3 + their evasion made them a real bastard to kill fast when my gunnery was sitting around 4-6. They're harder to melee and DFA as well.

I'm pretty happy with where I have things dialed in now.

 

[Camicon Dachass]

I keep two Firestarters ready at all times. One boating Small Lasers, for cool maps, and one boating Machineguns, for hot maps. Riding those, Dekker can reliably down at least two 'Mechs with some properly timed backstabs, and he's a bloody terror for any vehicles that get too close to him. The only reason I don't take him on every mission with me is because it causes me to lose out on salvage, and I'd also like to finish the campaign without losing any more of my original crew. R.I.P. Glitch :'(

 

[Jamey]

I would recommend if you have a mech being targeted, because the AI likes to focus fire, run him out of site if possible and/or use the Vigilance a lot as well. Also I don't usually sprint after the first round as you can run into the enemy with them having the advantage.

This is important advice. One reason I like having several jump capable mechs is because you can both generate Evasion and Brace without using Vigilance. I'll also Vigilance and Sprint on my ground based mechs to get them out of trouble.

My feel of the three factors the AI uses to prioritize targeting:
1) How many of its units can focus fire on the target
2) How much firepower the target has
3) How much armor the target has (prioritizing lower)

That isn't a bad set of factors, but it seems to ignore Evasion more than I'd think it should. A Grasshopper with 5 Evasion pips and Guarded should not be the focus fire target, but it often is.

I kicked the difficulty to Target mechs up a notch. Lights 3, Mediums 2, Heavies 1 and Assaults 0. Then I dropped base targeting floor from 75% to 65%. That gave more meaning to lights. They annoyed the crap out of me most of my campaign run as the game use to send in swarms of them. With high evasion they were hell on wheels until I hit gunnery 10. I still can't always precision core out the CT of one even now with an assault mech.

That is an interesting change.

Out of curiosity, how does missile to-hit treat light mechs with that? I'd think that it should result in being able to two shot any light mech by firing a full load of LRMs at it to make it unsteady and then coring it out with a called shot.

Theorycrafting: My missile boat has 3 LRM15, each missile of which generates 5 STB damage. Filling the STB bar takes 20 hits, so it would require on average 45% to-hit to fully fill the STB bar (which guarantees unsteady). Filling it to 80% requires 16 hits, so it would take 35% to-hit to on average fill it to that point.

As this makes clear, even with low to-hit chances, LRMs are lethal to fast movers. Once they are unsteady, they crump to the alpha from a Heavy or Assault mech.

 

[Spartakus]

Honestly, I never had an issue with lights. I guess I inadvertantly made them more of a threat due to the tweaks I made to the core game. A base difficulty of 3 + their evasion made them a real bastard to kill fast when my gunnery was sitting around 4-6. They're harder to melee and DFA as well.

I'm pretty happy with where I have things dialed in now.

My apologies, my comment wasn't directed at your post. I don't have an issue with your modifications. I even agree that the AI sucks at keeping light mechs alive, so it could use that help.

 

[Setanta777]

My apologies, my comment wasn't directed at your post. I don't have an issue with your modifications. I even agree that the AI sucks at keeping light mechs alive, so it could use that help.

The AI doesn't care about keeping mechs alive. It cares about dealing damage. Remember: it gets to field an whole fresh unit every time a new mission starts, you're the one who has to deal with dead pilots or down time due to injuries or damages (not to mention losing good equipment permanently). Hence it likes to open up with DFAs from Spiders...

 

[Edmon]

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Hence it likes to open up with DFAs from Spiders...

Never seen that a single time and I met alot of Spiders.

 

[Setanta777]

Never seen that a single time and I met alot of Spiders.

Happened to me pretty frequently in the early-to-mid game. I think the AI just got annoyed that my Shadowhawk would just ignore the 2 ML and go about his business. "Hey! I'm shooting at you here! You! Yeah you! Quit ignoring me! I'll teach you..."

...and then there was today with this thing gimping toward my AC/20 equipped Battlemaster instead of trying to GTFO or eject. It was the last man standing in the OpFor.

 

[Akito272]

Lights became more useful when radar is a thing. If lights could be the only to sport better radars or masking, etc...that would make them more useful. Pips, beeps or evasion wont save them from a CS from a heavier mech.

 

[Whiskiz]

I kicked the difficulty to Target mechs up a notch. Lights 3, Mediums 2, Heavies 1 and Assaults 0. Then I dropped base targeting floor from 75% to 65%. That gave more meaning to lights. They annoyed the crap out of me most of my campaign run as the game use to send in swarms of them. With high evasion they were hell on wheels until I hit gunnery 10. I still can't always precision core out the CT of one even now with an assault mech.

Thus, I believe they're about as good as they should be in this fashion.

Biggest problem I continuously have is with the RNG generating between 3-12 head shots per match even with the difficulty to hit the head dialed down to 1%. Not sure where this is getting it's weighting from, however, over 60 hours of playtime the AI has me beat in head shots by a factor of 3-4 to one.

So much for me wanting a "close-up slugfest" when i said the game was unfortunately designed with spamming heavies and assaults mid/late game, and you saying that you just needed to use medium and lights properly and kite them (and all the other basic common logic stuff, but which doesnt change much)

I don't know why you had to experience it firsthand, before you listened to what was being said, but at least now you know the problem that mediums/lights become completely suboptimal pretty fast and maybe now can contribute to good ways to be able to change that.

 

[Arasaka]

I kicked the difficulty to Target mechs up a notch. Lights 3, Mediums 2, Heavies 1 and Assaults 0. Then I dropped base targeting floor from 75% to 65%. That gave more meaning to lights. They annoyed the crap out of me most of my campaign run as the game use to send in swarms of them. With high evasion they were hell on wheels until I hit gunnery 10. I still can't always precision core out the CT of one even now with an assault mech.

Thus, I believe they're about as good as they should be in this fashion.

Biggest problem I continuously have is with the RNG generating between 3-12 head shots per match even with the difficulty to hit the head dialed down to 1%. Not sure where this is getting it's weighting from, however, over 60 hours of playtime the AI has me beat in head shots by a factor of 3-4 to one.

These are good changes. I had a similar idea of upping the targeting difficulty but did not consider also dropping the base targeting floor. The AI is currently hitting my 5 Evasion Dekker like he’s standing still so potentially these changes would make both light ‘Mechs and Evasion more viable later in the game (currently about to restart going Bulwark all the way because of this).

I’m also suffering 1 to 3 head hits per mission while dealing out 0 myself. Would be less of an issue if recovery times were not so long, and all my MechWarriors are Guts 7 minimum. I’d have benched this game if I hadn’t been waiting to play it since MechWarrior 1 (yeah I’m old...).

I’d be interested in playing with your changes too, hopefully more people make their JSON mods available.

 

[Squiggly1]

So how are your lights/mediums going mid - late game : D

Just dandy. I'm still using a Jenner to back my Atlas, Shadowhawk, and King Crab. With piloting skill at 10, it rarely takes a hit due to the two 100 ton assaults being the prime targets. Like I said before. The only people who have a problem with lights are those who don't know how to play them. It's a waste to have a big mech with loads of weapons when you want a sensor lock spammer. Once you sensor lock, you can't fire anything. So better to have a really fast mech that is guaranteed to build 6 evasion every move to get that sensor lock and then move out of harms way with full evasion at long range (or out of range).

 

[Knotz]

We are, of course, all aware of that old French adage: if you're not running an ace pilot in a Firestarter tricked out in ++slasers and a nice gyro you lack fudging flair fam.

 

[Whiskiz]

Just dandy. I'm still using a Jenner to back my Atlas, Shadowhawk, and King Crab. With piloting skill at 10, it rarely takes a hit due to the two 100 ton assaults being the prime targets. Like I said before. The only people who have a problem with lights are those who don't know how to play them. It's a waste to have a big mech with loads of weapons when you want a sensor lock spammer. Once you sensor lock, you can't fire anything. So better to have a really fast mech that is guaranteed to build 6 evasion every move to get that sensor lock and then move out of harms way with full evasion at long range (or out of range).

Sensor lock is well and great, until the majority of the actual fight when the enemy get in view range and it's no longer used. Lol.

"It's a waste to have a big mech with loads of weapons when you want a sensor lock spammer"

Who says? Hell i have 2 mechs capable of sensor locking at the start of the fight - one of my biggest, beefiest frontline - because it may as well at the start of the fight, behind cover, for my long range, when nothing happens until everything gets close enough for the fight to start. Once they do get in range and the fight starts proper - i have a big beefy badass mech and its weapons and armor to go along with it.

While you have what, some paper and a couple lasers that makes up 25% of your lance? Just to use sensor lock?

"The only people who have a problem with lights are those who don't know how to play them"

More like the only people who don't have a problem with lights, are those that don't know how to play the game as good as they could.

I get wanting to use lights because you like them, don't know any better and just want to make them work either way - my problem is it being completely suboptimal to do so.

 

[Cmdr Meltdown]

I am still using light mechs effectively, as skirmishers and spotters. I especially use the Firestarter is nimble enough to effectively stay out of harm's way of the assault mechs, provided your pilot is good enough, and shut down some of the hotheads so that I can either forcefully evict the mechwarrior or core/decap/amputate the beast.