XL versus less armour...

Need some thoughts about the differences on the mechs below.
Question is: How to compare higher armour vesus XL engine then it comes to suvrability...

Uses XL engine, armour maxed and added flamer and BAP on the tonnage wasted.


Standard engine, little cooler, no armour on an arm with heatsinks and weaker legs (taken from Cthulu Jr.).

 

Putting an XL on any mech should really depend on a couple things:

1) The purpose of the mech. Are you a super fast scout, a long range LRM boat? These things can run an XL. Not normally a brawler...
2) The Chassis. Some mechs can brawl with an XL due to the difficulty in hitting the XL. Catapult, Dragon... I'm looking at you...
3) Speed. Will putting the XL on you make you so much faster that you can spread and or avoid damage easier?


Armor plays very little into it as everyone I know of maximizes the torso's no matter what. Armor is shaved from arms and legs, so extra armor on your arms or legs won't help you from getting cored quicker with your XL.

 

assuming that you didn't leave the left arm of the STD without armor (I could be wrong but I thought that shooting into the smouldering wreck where your arm used to be bypasses the armor and does internal damage to the side torso ).
Also the builds aren't equal, the second one has no flamer and 2 more heatsinks, Dropping those heatsinks you could have your armor at 448 ( not suggesting you should, just pointing it out )

A Large amount of the additional armor on the XL mech is in its legs, when was the last time you got legged as opposed to getting your side torso blown out?

As a light mech pilot there is nothing I like better than seeing a big juicy gaping hole in the side torso of a big mech.

I'm no Awesome pilot, but I suspect you'll live longer in the second loadout.

 

XL + Assault = Two killspots (torsos) extra on the mechclass that is designed to wade in?

That gives the enemy a far easier way to kill you. A XL build is a glass build, it's fine as long as the armor lasts. Then you are dead. Without the XL you can live on with the other torso intact and fight. There are very few assault builds that warrant a XL, this is not one of them if all you are getting is a flamer, BAP and some extra armor.

But then again, some players do manage to use XL engines despite the odds. Larger engines do allow you to twist and shield yourself with the arms easier.

 

Thanks for the input, I will go with the standard engine but upp the armour somewhat with 1 or 2 fewer heatsinks.

Otherwise I normaly use XL engine since it normaly allows me to get out of bad situations (my brawler atlas are an exception). But in this case XL wont give me more speed.

 

I'm generally against XL engines in assaults. Especially ones so heavily loaded to one side. The Awesome needs to use its left side as a shield. By putting an XL engine in there, you're removing some of that shielding capacity.

Also. Put at least 1 point of armor on every component. Otherwise, you've basically put a flag on that component labeled "Free XP."

 

Anyway, I think the right answer is shave off some armor, downgrade the engine a tad.


280 STD chosen since it is a common size.

Edit: To clarify. If you build a 'mech and you find that the XL engine makes you too fragile, consider downgrading the engine rating in order to put in a standard engine. If you can do so and only sacrifice about 5kph, then that should work for you. This is especially true when the XL engine in question is the biggest that will fit into a 'mech. Very few heavy--and even fewer assault--run with the maxxed out engine. But, hey, I'm an armor and STD engine evangelist.

 

I find that side torsos are rarely focused unless they are damaged. People aim CT, because if you miss CT you still hit a side torso. LRMs and SSRMs (currently, anyway) tend to track a lot of damage to CT. Even if people torso twist, missiles are tracking CT and snipers will wait until they have a shot. The end result is that even on assault mechs who know how to torso twist, you have 80% of people getting cored CT when they're still yellow everywhere else. I personally prefer the extra speed and power from the XL.

I'll also point out you have endo-steel on your non-XL build, which makes a lot of difference. Even with XL, I never max armor - I round down to the nearest half-ton/ton so I'm not wasting tonnage.

 

Indeed. The burden is on the defender--and the defender alone--to minimize and spread the damage done his 'mech.

 

Even still, it's very hard to do for two reasons: 1) it is rediculously easy to hit CT, and 2) you need to do damage as well.

If you and the enemy are firing at the same time, then you will probably not want to pull away from using your lasers, especially if you're in an energy-heavy mech (i.e. Awesome), unless you're using primarily PPCs or if you use your other weapons (i.e. SRMs/ballistics). Lighter ballistics are easy to twist away from.

The problem is, the most effective builds (i.e. PPC/gauss/AC20 boats) are the least deterred by torso twisting, and their support (lights with SSRMs and heavies with LRMs) are just as difficultly deterred. You can twist around all you want, but eventually you have to turn around to shoot, and that's when a good pilot is going to stop dissipating heat and punish you for trying to shoot him. Torso twisting works great against bad pilots and bad builds, but is actually pretty easy to ignore as an attacker if you know what you're doing and you have a high alpha with slow weapons.

 

That's pretty ...
(wait for it)
Awesome.

 

I have never been legged in an awesome or even taken into leg structure. Everyone shoots for your barn door torso and as suicidal as it sounds I would feel totally confident running around with 30 leg armour. I've heard they get hit more w/ the hitbox change tho.

 

Awesome has HUGE side torso, so generally it is not XL-friendly, consider getting STD instead.

Unless you are running a victor or something like that assaults are usually better with STD engine. Hack even heavies are good with STD half the time, the ones with super smll side torso not withstanding (like catapults). Even some mediums can go STD engine if you are on a brawler or fire support role, though there is more trade off to firepower. Lights are just XL though, Speed is life.

Obviously there are limits to downgrading engine. Too slow and you are dead anyways since you are left out of nowhere. Anything lower than 250 is not worth it. you lose the engine DHS special bonus.

Oh and the above build is not going to work with ghost heat. It is a walking toaster oven.

 

I always use std 300 on my awesome, since with double heatsinks, the chasis is already limited to how many heatsinks it can carry.

I also never give XL to an assault chasis, heavy maybe, but not on a big lumbering barn that are the assault chasis