I see the Thor Prime got an LBX20, discretion and primes.

[MerfMerf]

MWLL is progressing steadily towards balance, but it will not be the same balance as in CBT (And neither should it. Turn based board game is quite different from real time semi-sim). The trick seems to be to keep the overall feel of things but not the exact balance. I know many people seem to feel extra glad when they find a variant that is very close to a canon variant and that also works well in MWLL. That is worth quite a bit for both player and game as a whole I think. With that in mind slight modifications seems to be in order. One want to keep the familiarity but still have to keep it useful in its price range, or it will only see occasional use.

Perhaps price is the way to go?
I know there have been mention of a chassis base price, but perhaps there is also a possibility to assign a discount to a certain variant? This could be useful I am thinking on Primes that one fail to find a good small tweak in forms of weapons (since the necessary tweak would perhaps move it a bit too far from its canon appearance). I know there are arguments for price not working as a balancing factor, but I must disagree. The CBill system of balancing is a great advantage, and the effects of assets being in this or that price-bracket is readily visible in games by observing the frequency with which one encounter specific units. I generally dislike exceptions to a defined system of rules (nothing more beautiful then a system that can handle all cases without having built in exceptions), but perhaps this is what is required if one considers the Primes where really originally built in accordance with a difference system of rules? Would mean more manual work though which is always bad.

/Merf - Considers this a delicate and interesting problem!

[xInVicTuSx]

All I was saying is the Thor Prime wasn't tortured much. 1 DHS and 1 ton of ammo in exchange for a 2 tons heavier weapon. But it's not a free buff as you seem to imply; what would you sacrifice to upgrade the Thanny Prime's weaponry?

Thing that sucks balls about that is, clan weapons are so much lighter, but you dont really have to sacrifice any DHS to upgrade it because as you said we get a free ton of ammo with everything. But let us keep in mind that Omnimechs are cheating the system by being able to strip off various parts that were hardwired in CBT.

If the LBX10 is buffed to improve the Thor Prime, so will be the Beatstick. How can we improve primes without improving boats?

Boating fears should never be used as an excuse to have a weapon underperform alone (coughcough AC5); I think that is the crux of Frostiken's boat tax, the beatstick would be better, but it would also be then more expensive.

I'm glad you asked that question! Because the answer will be very easy.
5 DHS is what the Thanatos already has in 0.4.x. At least that's how it appears in the XML (<Elem idRef="idHeatTracking" name="hasDoubleHeatsinks" value="1"/>). So its 5 HS were turned into DHS, and there's no other change since 0.3.2 (aside from a generic change in armour distribution). The tooltips lie again?

Epic tooltip fail indeed then. Now, the Thanny runs very cool so one or two DHS stripped off would not be a problem and 2 tons of ammo for the MRM20 are hardly used. How far could we stretch it though? Would an MRM30 be enough? Or an addtional pulse laser?

Now why some primes got an upgrade and some didn't? XL engines for everyone seem to be a bigger factor than DHS, especially now that they're available to some IS chassis. And the fact that engines can only hold 10 single HS also artificially degrades many Clan Primes' performance. But it would be pretty hard to balance a fusion engine with 10 embedded HS against a XL fusion and 10 DHS.

As the devs had stated, it would be pretty fnckin retarded to have clan mechs get 10 free DHS. The reason for this is that they built the heat system off of 10 free HS, and would have to redo it completely to take that into account. Also, except for rare circumstances of dirt cheap or extremely coolrunning loadouts, nearly ALL IS mechs have Fusion XL and DHS by the time the clan invasion is over. This is definitely not the case in MWLL so there would be an extreme anachronism problem there, somehow the IS has RACs, but at the same time is stuck without Helm core technology?

The Thanny and Thor is a good example of the subjective call on which is considered powerful enough and when. They are after all extremely similar mechs and one was specifically built to be as answer to the other. (By the way the Thanny prime can't compete with the Thor prime at all now that it has LBX20, where as it was more even with LBX10, though the MRM bug isn't helping.)

[=KoS= Eldragon]

Because this is a multiplayer game, IS Mechs need Helm core tech to assist in game balance. Otherwise you would have to balance by number of players, it would have to be 2 IS players for every 1 clan player. And even if MWLL never did IS vs. CLAN asset restrictions, there would be no incentive to us IS mechs.

I would rather not see a "Boating Tax". I'm expecting the game balance gets to the point where you have a natural incentive to break up your loadout.  That may require new equipment like Reflective and Reactive Armor "Crap, This guy has reactive armor, and I'm only packing LBX20s!", changes to heat/coolant mechanics "Sure I can fit 4 ERPPCs on here, but I can't even chain fire them without overheating", or default ammo size "Yeah I can fit 4 Gauss rifles, but I only got 8 shots with them".

Back to the Original Topic. I really like how the MWLL Devs have included each Mech's prime variant. Some mechs got upgrades, but those upgrade kept with the spirit of the original design. I think those upgrades are practically required, they are different games with different rules. Even with upgrades I have noticed the prime variants are usually the least popular ones.

Take the Uziel Prime for example. It has a Beagle Active Probe. This piece of tech is worthless in CBT (unless you are playing double blind or other optional rules). Yet its included in MWLL. In MWLL the BAP is actually a useful piece of equipment, but it does not fill the same role as it does in CBT. So It's great the mech appears in MWLL in its canon configuration. Yet I question the reason that piece of equipment is included on a mech who's primary weapons only go out to 700 meters. Should the BAP get swapped with GECM or more tonnage? Maybe.  Again, I think its great that MWLL includes canon variants, but I don't think it should be strict adherence. Just keeping with the general spirit of the mech loadout.

[xInVicTuSx]

But there are large discrepancies. Owens Prime? LRM15 instead of LRM5. Osiris Prime? x3 MBL rather than x5MBL. One dumbed down why the other insanely buffed. Gameplay reasons for both I suppose, but not following the same set of rules it seems.

[Toth]

Same set of rules as CBT? No as has been stated a 100 times no. Does it follow our own internal rules to the T? Yes, abso-friggin-lutely. None of this is arbitrary.

[xInVicTuSx]

Then I'm not sure what is holding back the revamp of the LRM-5 to make it perhaps worth being on the Owens Prime.
Obviously as it is now an LRM-5 owens would be roflworthless. But it seems to be a give up on the weapon to just remake the variant with much heavier weapons.

But as an end user I can only speculate obviously. Really don't care how close it follows CBT, so long is every single weapon is unique and useful. That is a big criteria for which I will be basing my judgments in the future I guess. Its one of the reasons I am totally cool with the pace you guys want to take in adding stuff to the mod, but I'm sensitive about balancing changes when it comes to individual weapons. Smaller weapons should still be quite useful, but perhaps then need to be buffed in indirect ways because we don't use the system CBT uses and thus cannot boat the crap out of smaller weapons.

EDIT: to keep from being overly negative of the situation, sometimes curtailing larger weapons helps too. The Ac/20 changes were a BIG step in the right direction, particularly the ammo change. They still rape face, but they are also situational, rather than a big ball of "hurrdurr I win." 

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

Gosh I wonder if the devs are open to changes in their design philosophies.

[HAARP]

Gosh I wonder if the devs are open to changes in their design philosophies.

[IG142]

I think ammo is actually the problem with LRM5s. They store enough ammo for 48 salvos, the equivalent of an LRM20 with 3 tons spare; far in excess of what is needed. I've never come close to running out of LRM5 ammo. Split ammo feeds (1 ton of ammo supplies multiple launchers) would be most helpful, I believe. By itself, a LRM5 shouldn't be any better than a quarter of a LRM20.

(By the way the Thanny prime can't compete with the Thor prime at all now that it has LBX20, where as it was more even with LBX10, though the MRM bug isn't helping.)

Keep in mind the Thanatos has a touch of scout in its design, with C3 and GECM, compared to the Thor's complete lack of electronics. And the Thanatos has a 360 torso, too.
The MRM bug is the main reason I haven't used the Thanatos much in 0.4. I've been having trouble hitting even heavies.


As for the original topic, I do like the way Primes are handled in MWLL overall. I don't mind a few minor upgrades/changes, as long as they stick to the theme of the original.

(A classic Atlas AS7-D would be nice, though...)

[shyrkonflex]

The Thor is a hard thing anyways because it RAPES in the canon (especially amongst pretty much every major Jade Falcon character), but is actually a quite wierd mech if you look at it from an unbiased perspective.
Its pretty undergunned and although very mobile (mobility doesn't really count that much in sims/games) also not that well protected.
My guess is that in the novels weapons in general deal more damage (to keep the action fresh) and you can deal serious damage to any enemy with a full Thor alpha strike, using its mobility to evade fire (it also appears to be harder to hit cause you don't just point at your enemy with the mouse).
A "sim" mode with way more weapon damage and less accuracy in terms of reticule movement and having the speed count into it would balance out light mechs, keep mobility as an actually valuable thing and would (for me) be a little more fun.
I always like this "sim" way more than the arcade mindlessly-runnin-in style, but thats just my rant right here

I guess its good as we have it, I do think we should upgrade the weapons before we do major prime changes though.