The Atlas, what is to be done?

[=KoS= Eldragon]

With the release of 0.5.4 we got two new Assault mechs. Two GOOD assault mechs. I cannot help but think: I will never use the Atlas again. I almost never took it before. But now I have no reason to. Fafnir and Blood Asp do any job the atlas could do, and does it better. Yes those mechs are more expensive, but I'd rather save my cash than waste it on an Atlas.

Atlas has a lot of knocks against it. It doesn't seem to fill a specific role or do anything "well". Its slow, its weapon load outs aren't anything to get excited about, and of course its HUGE. The weapons are mounted low so you need to expose your entire upper torso before you can hit a target. I can buy a Clan heavy for the same price and I will have more DPS and better speed. Yes the Atlas has more armor, but Speed > Armor most of the time.

So, as the topic implies, what should be done?

Decrease price of Atlas? This seems like the most straightforward option. I might buy one at 100k, but certainly not 120k. But due to the pricing system being a sum of it's parts, I think there needs to be some kind of justification for it. I know there is something called the "Base Chassis Price" should it be lowered? Perhaps to zero.

Increase price of Fafnir and Blood Asp? Doesn't really solve the problem of the Atlas under performing.

New Loadouts? I think there is definite room for improving the loadouts of the Atlas. But even then most of the the other mechs would be a better choice due to the hardpoint restrictions. By reverse engineering the loadouts, I believe the Atlas is using a Standard Engine instead of an XL. All other mechs in MWLL use an XL engine. Switching to XL gives it a lot more tonnage to work with. Of course, that extra tonnage would probably increase its cost by a great deal.

Game Mechanic change that favors the Atlas? Fafnir has its own unique weapon, the Improved Heavy Gauss. Perhaps the Atlas needs its own unique armor type: "Hardened Armor".  In game terms the Hardened armor would absorb much more damage than standard armor, thus making the Atlas do one thing well: Its damn hard to kill.

[KingLeerUK]

Increase price of Fafnir and Blood Asp

[=KoS= Saber15]

Give it some more goddamn weapon slots.
-The current slots on the Atlas forces it into a small amount of really big guns. You can't make any hard hitting mechs similar to the Mad Cat B.
-Add a small slot onto the top of the hands, a large on the sides, and bump up the bottom pods to Assault pods.

Make it cheaper.
-It's way too damn expensive for what you get - most of the Atlases barely have the effective firepower of a heavy. Making it the cheapest Assault would do wonders

It needs variants that aren't terrible
-The only Atlas variants that are really any good are the Prime and Mr. Bubbles. The Hgauss Atlas spends half the time melting itself to death, the ERPPC + MRM one is just mediocre, Master And Commander (It uses ERLBL now, correct?) does crap for damage and is too slow to really utilize its electronics - scouts and assault mechs don't work well together.

[Wraythe]

Increase price of Fafnir and Blood Asp

Does not suddenly make the other mechs worth the money. Instead you stay in your current mech until you have the extra 10-40k needed.

[=KoS= Saber15]

Increase price of Fafnir and Blood Asp

People will just use Mad Cats until they can afford those mechs, then. Not really a solution.

[Waffnuffly]

People will just use Mad Cats until they can afford those mechs, then. Not really a solution.

Yep, this ALREADY happens. If I sell an old mech and find I am down by about 10k for a Blood Asp or a Fafnir, I just grab a RAC2 Harasser and go plink away at people until I can sell and get what I wanted. None of the other assaults are anywhere near as good as the two new ones, not just the Atlas.

[=KoS= Eldragon]

Increase price of Fafnir and Blood Asp

Does not suddenly make the other mechs worth the money. Instead you stay in your current mech until you have the extra 10-40k needed.

Exactly. And by how much do you increase the price? Lets say the Fafnir Prime has a price increase to 200k. At that point I would rather give 80k to another player so we can have two Madcats.  While beastly, Faf/Basp are not immortal.  Madcat is still a deadly machine, and I don't see much reason to pick a more expensive mech if I can get a madcat B/E for ~140k.

It is going to take a while for the "new toy syndrome" to play out. Only then will we really know the value of the new mechs. But right now I don't feel like the Faf/Basp is under priced, but that the Atlas is underperforming/overpriced.

Give it some more goddamn weapon slots.
-The current slots on the Atlas forces it into a small amount of really big guns. You can't make any hard hitting mechs similar to the Mad Cat B.
-Add a small slot onto the top of the hands, a large on the sides, and bump up the bottom pods to Assault pods.

I like this idea too.

Even then, there is about 10 tons "missing" from the Atlas. e.g. You may have the slots, but you still need the tonnage to fill them.

None of the other assaults are anywhere near as good as the two new ones, not just the Atlas.

I think the Mauler/Awesome/Mk2 at least serve a distinct role on the battlefield, and are ~$40k less in price, that's a big difference.

[SquadronROE]

I'm a huge fan of the hardened armor idea. It seems to me that right now it doesn't do anything well, aside from looking menacing, and within canon it seems that the Atlas was renowned for its ability to take punishment.

If the Atlas is simply able to accept further amounts of punishment, it would be a great addition to a battle force. You could push it into large firefights to soak up some damage while other units play their part.

Then you'll see it being used more, by people (like me) who like to wander out into the thick of it, and it will play a more vital role tactically.

[1N4001]

Yup. Just keep in mind that hardened armor weighs exactly twice as much as standard armor. That'll be 38 tons to fully protect that Atlas.

[Waffnuffly]

I think the Mauler/Awesome/Mk2 at least serve a distinct role on the battlefield, and are ~$40k less in price, that's a big difference.

True, and while maybe I'm just excited about the ~new toys~, I definitely don't see myself buying any other assaults again. If I don't have enough and I need serious firepower RIGHT NOW, I will usually go with a Demo or a Novacat or Madcat or something instead.



Another idea floated around last time this issue came up was making the Atlas near-impervious to screen shake. It's a huge heavy piece of metal, so why should piddly little SRMs and PPCs manage to throw off its aim? Even if it had the same amount of armor it has now but couldn't have its RAC5s/MRMs thrown off (as an example in Mr. Bubbles' case), or its LRM lock reticule for the LRM variants, it would be a beast.

[=CJW=YalK]

I'm a huge fan of the hardened armor idea. It seems to me that right now it doesn't do anything well, aside from looking menacing, and within canon it seems that the Atlas was renowned for its ability to take punishment.

If the Atlas is simply able to accept further amounts of punishment, it would be a great addition to a battle force. You could push it into large firefights to soak up some damage while other units play their part.

Then you'll see it being used more, by people (like me) who like to wander out into the thick of it, and it will play a more vital role tactically.

In all my fights/campaigns as a Jade Falcon in CBT with all my advanced expensive OP toys I've never much worried about the pain the Atlas could bring (unless kitted out with salvaged "my" Clan tech) what I was always concerned about was how long it would take to bring down....

....and how much expensive stuff I'd waste removing it, while if it survived to be repaired it would be relatively cheap to fix....

[Werewolf486}12thVR{]

I think a little more rework of the Atlas is in order at this point and even a few patches ago. It's weak by Assault standards and I hope that someone will consider that each class needs to have every mech in it worth buying, no matter which tech or what tonnage. It would be a waste to have an asset nobody wants to use that many people would have then wasted time to create. Keeping in mind that each chassis has it's job and they should stick to that job other wise why create anything different. You'd only need one chassis per class if they didn't have specific roles right? Where is the fun in that? I've enjoyed the new toys don't get me wrong, but I find it more fun trying to best a Faf or Asp in Maulers or Atlas's.

[=KoS= Tripod]

Adding a shit-ton of armor sounds really good actually

It would make it the go-to damage sponge, just like the mauler is great for getting a ton of weapons for pretty cheap and the Awesome gives you good ranged firepower and longevity (no ammo FTW). After all, not many Assault mechs feel really durable right now, so making the atlas pack a ton of armor would give it a unique edge

[Vlaad]

Ah the faith of atlas...

Here are the technichalaties for atlas to give you guys base for debate :
Everything is hard mounted on the atlas ergo he cant have additional pods. Advantage of that that hard slots cannot be destroyed permanently, disadvantage be that they can hold only one weapon, by rule one category smaller then maximum size of the slot. Example Large slot holds one large weapon OR one medium weapon. But not assault and not small weapon. Atlas uses different engine type.

potential loadouts:

2 medium or 2 mall
2 Large or 2 medium
1 assault or 1 large.
2 missile mounts.

Atlas is built around standard fusion engine. Advantage is that it takes LESS damage through the side torsos and it is cheap. Disadvantage being in its massive weight.
One advantage that atlas IS actually harder to kill then fafi (same tonnage). One of the changes that is pushed through is that atlas takes significantly more damage to take em' out through the torsos. Considering new toys balerina and bull I bet no one actually tested how hard atlas is difficult to kill right now. In few tests ive delivered amount of firepower that would long down a fafnir. It is scary how resilient it is.

My stand on that one is that atlas needs price reduction... considering that he uses cheaper engine the a mauler and is in similar price range is the only problem that I see...

Imagine the terror when you bring out that zombie... Except that, I had a discussion with a person who would very much had to see xl in atlas. I disagree with that cause it very elegantly differentiates mechs although admittedly system needs refinement. I hope that one day well be able to see cheaper clan witch are resilient in similar way that atlas is. Id pilot it any day for less prices!

[=KoS= Eldragon]

...Atlas is built around standard fusion engine. Advantage is that it takes LESS damage through the side torsos and it is cheap. Disadvantage being in its massive weight.
One advantage that atlas IS actually harder to kill then fafi (same tonnage). One of the changes that is pushed through is that atlas takes significantly more damage to take em' out through the torsos. ..

Just so we are clear. In 0.5.4 a change has been introduced so that the Atlas has less (or zero) multiplier when the side torso is destroyed? That's an excellent start. I'm going to give it a try myself ASAP.

Still, The Fafnir has more armor than the Atlas (By ~8000 points).

In that case, I advocate giving the Atlas slightly more armor than the Fafnir to make up for the Fafnir's superior weapon hardpoints. Then retool most of the variants to make Atlas not try to be the poor-mans Fafnir. Instead it can be high armor with a good mix of short and long range weapons.

e.g. replace the 3xRAC Atlas with something like this:
2xERPPC (2 Large)
Gauss Rifle (1 Assault)
2x Machine Guns (2 small)
2xDualSSRM4 (2 Missile)
GECM
BAP
2xLAMs
1 Free ton
4 Heatsinks

That monster is going to be damned hard to kill, and isn't trying to be the Fafnir or the Blood Asp.