Discussion of Ice Ferret Preview

Ugly as hell, fast as fuck. Jesus christ it is a running refrigerator. And as I thought, this is THE clan "light". IS lights are finally obsolete.

(just kidding with the last sentence, of course)

 

I really wish the videos had shown cockpit a little better.

I'm still pretty skeptical of scouts without Jump Jets, but this ugly little beastie's speed might make up for it.

 

Hel called, she would like you to know she doesn't appreciate your slander

Also, while I agree this guy is very fast for any weight, it suffers from likely fielding comparable armament with an IS light from having only nine tons of usable space...on a 45 ton chassis. That's...hard to do, man. It also eats up a medium spot on the team, not a light one. It's hard for me to think of the Ice Ferret as more than a heavily armored light with much-too-large hitboxes. That makes it interesting and it certainly fills a role, but with weight limits in effect (never-mind weight class matching), no jets, and no ECM mountings, it hardly makes IS lights obsolete.

 

ECM Cicada does it better... 2x ER PPC and lots of pain.
I can see the C variant replacing some of the commandos, as SRM carriers. (cSRM18 in a small package like that..or smoothing similar) The A variant isn't bad, with the ballistic arm. The real win for the mech is that it runs very cool in all configurations.

 

Ugly, awful... and arriving at the same time as the IS quirks.

Just chant after me... DOA, DOA, DOA!

Be nice and don't slaughter me tomorrow as I try to survive leveling in them.

 

insanely ugly. Stock loadout is worthless but there are very few mechs I don't mix and match omnipods so we'll see, but as Karl said - 9 tons for weapons/ammo/dhs? Sound's impossibly bad to me unless it's just a laser scout (with no ecm or JJ).

Also, an srm18 ferret? My srm24 adder will completely destroy it 10 out of 10 times and will save a Medium spot for another SCR.

 

Aha, now I know who to hunt down!

...in my own Ice Ferret, that I'm also leveling.

On second thought, scratch that plan.

 

Tomorrow's mech is the Ferret? I thought the Mist Lynx would have been released first.

Anyway: ugly as fuck indeed.

 

not impressed.... then again I buy my mechs at Discount Dan's

 

Well, not surprised about the ugliness... because well, the classic artwork is not really prettier:

 

Definitely ugly, but I don't play it for the looks That said, the armament is definitely one of the least impressive ones. It's like Stormcrow Light, similar ideas in builds with far less impact and usefulness. Can mount LRMs or SRMs, but not with the tonnage to make them fearsome. Can mount PPCs, but not with an ECM, making it less than scary. Can mount a ballistic, but not with the tonnage to make it a serious threat like the dual gauss/ac20 builds. If anything, I see the Ferret being something more like a laser boat with a single missile pod attached (LRM10? 15? 20?) just for some indirect fire potential. No JJs means most light mechs will tear it apart, and even if it uses SRM/SSRM builds, it is dead meat the first time it comes up to a SMN/SCR/ADR/IS splatboat with an SRM build that has more punch. I'll probably outfit mine more as snipers than infighters like my Stormcrows, and rely on laser-based builds to get the most from the chassis.

Edit: BTW, here's the release schedule from the FAQ:

So in a month, it will be all Hellbringer, all the time

 

Well... let's put it like this.
The aesthetic part of me says: What have they done to the Fenris? It's not the prettiest, but still has a distinctive look. High shoulders low cockpit profile... and the roof thingie is missing as well. I liek what they've done so far design-wise, specially with the Awesome, but this is shit (sorry PGI).

The player side of me is, since the data has been released: I don't give a fuck. I only see the cockpit anyway.. and this loks great with great visibilty radius....45t with 140kph? Weeeeeee! Lighhunter.....

 

Anyone have the hardpoints on each location across teh avriants as I can't access video at work?

Trying to see what on earth I can level these in.

 

Prime
LA: 2 Energy
RA: 1 Missile

IFR-A
CT: 1 Energy
LA: 1 Ballistic
RA: 1 Energy, 1 AMS

IFR-C
CT: 1 Energy
LT: 1 Missile
LA: 1 Missile
RA: 1 Missile

Top speed, 129.6 KPH, no JJs, 45 tons, XL360 engine

 

Wow the prime doesn't even have the good CT????

 

I still think Gargoyle could be a surprise hit But we'll see

 

The Clan equivalent of a Cicada... without ECM... not sure about this. I predict it will feel like piloting a Dragon in the Heavy weight class: agile, but underpowered for its weight class. It will be a Light without a lot of the benefits of a light mech besides it's speed. Looking forward to testing a few builds, but I doubt that will happen today. Too many quirks to test!