How do you kit out your Raven?

[MeiSooHaityu]

I took the Raven, and then they wanted to form an alliance afterwards. Those guys are on some serious drugs over in that corner of the galaxy.

Maybe they subscribe to the old saying..."If you can't beat them, join them".

 

[commuterzombie]

I went with 4 MLs, 4 JJs and an additional 2 tons of armour. I'm pretty late to the party in trying out the Raven and after one mission with it I see what everyone was complaining about. The AI just can't handle ECM + the player reserving.

I think I'm going to leave it in the hangar until the AI gets tweaked. Maybe I'll checkout @Amechwarrior 's Better AI mod and see if that means the Raven doesn't break the game.

 

[Monotremata]

I went with 4 MLs, 4 JJs and an additional 2 tons of armour. I'm pretty late to the party in trying out the Raven and after one mission with it I see what everyone was complaining about. The AI just can't handle ECM + the player reserving.

I think I'm going to leave it in the hangar until the AI gets tweaked. Maybe I'll checkout @Amechwarrior 's Better AI mod and see if that means the Raven doesn't break the game.

Ive only used it in the Flashpoint you get it in, but what's the deal with it breaking the game?? Everything went as it should in the FP?

 

[commuterzombie]

Ive only used it in the Flashpoint you get it in, but what's the deal with it breaking the game?? Everything went as it should in the FP?

The problem is that the AI can't handle you reserving units that are covered by ECM. Enemies with sensor lock don't use it on you and they just take small moves and brace, only rarely trying to run into the ECM bubble. Unless you're facing lots of initiative 1 enemies most mission types are trivial to complete without taking damage.

For an example of that behaviour, at 6 minutes into this video I start a 2.5 Skull recovery mission (my first mission with the Raven after the Prologue flashpoint). I'm massively outnumbered in terms of tonnage and mechs and I'm facing a load of tactician pilots who should be able to lock my mechs and counter the ECM but slowly backing away and firing makes the mission trivial (if over long).

The only issue I ran into was ammo expenditure...

 

[Amechwarrior]

I went with 4 MLs, 4 JJs and an additional 2 tons of armour. I'm pretty late to the party in trying out the Raven and after one mission with it I see what everyone was complaining about. The AI just can't handle ECM + the player reserving.

I think I'm going to leave it in the hangar until the AI gets tweaked. Maybe I'll checkout @Amechwarrior 's Better AI mod and see if that means the Raven doesn't break the game.

While my modded AI's preference to reserve down helps a lot, I can't change the fact that the AI can't SLock a unit that hasn't spent its turn yet. I also increased the weights for entering the ECM bubble, but this also pushed up against the fundamental self preservation adjustments that form the basis of what makes my AI make less dumb moves.

Really what I'd want is a dynamic Anti-ECM role that could be triggered to one unit per Lance. Let this one sprint forward or Jump/Brace in to the bubble or focus on SLock vs a ECM covered target. This role would also need to have the ability to move first in a phase so others in that phase can exploit the bubble pop or SLock.

 

[commuterzombie]

Ah I didn't realise that the AI's preference to not SL units that haven't activated yet was hidden from modders. That's a pity as I feel that that one change alone would improve the situation a fair bit (obviously that solution would need playtesting to see how it works in practice).

I don't want to derail this thread from talking about Raven loadouts so I'll stop there.

 

[Barristan]

Upped the armor a lot - even though its theoretically invisible, I've had enough enemy mechs pierce the bubble and beeline straight for it that I'm glad I did.
LL+++ - +3 acc +10 damage
ML++ - +10 damage

 

[Monotremata]

Ah I didn't realise that the AI's preference to not SL units that haven't activated yet was hidden from modders. That's a pity as I feel that that one change alone would improve the situation a fair bit (obviously that solution would need playtesting to see how it works in practice).

I don't want to derail this thread from talking about Raven loadouts so I'll stop there.

Glad I know that now.. The Marik Alliance FP is one of those irritatingly long ones.. Im gonna have to use this to speed things up so I can move on to finishing the other 3 Alliances now haha.