Are Engine Upgrades Worth It?

[CarloNord]

I've been gone a long time, recently started playing again. Are engine upgrades even worth doing? It feels like the sacrifices I have to make in the armour and weapons department completely invalidate the tonnage I put into supping up the speed. Oh, joy, for an extra ton you can go 2kmh faster.

I'm probably missing something, but making my crab go from 82.6kmh to over 100 doesn't feel worth it, or even just making it go to 86kmh

[JC]

Most of the time you are going to swap engines. only a few mechs are using STD's these days. A large amount uses the LFE's, and some still will use XL's

It all depends on the mech really.. perhaps if you add which mech you are thinking about people can help a bit more.

But the short answer is, Yes, you will most likely swap engines.

[CarloNord]

I've currently gotten my hands on a Marauder 3R and a Crab 27. Kinda regretting buying them but my friend recommended me the marauder and I love the crab in Battletech so here I am. He keeps telling me to not touch the engine, use standard, upgrades aren't worth it.

[Kappatalism]

There's basically 2 and a half reasons to ever run a standard engine.

1- You have decent CT hitboxes AND CT/head firepower (like crabs) allowing you to still be useful with both STs removed. It is worthless to take a STD engine for survivability if your mech doesn't have Head/CT hardpoints.
2- You are trying to mount heavy gauss or double LB10 in a side torso and simply don't have the slots to run a more efficient engine.

And finally, standard engines save you from the BS heat spikes that occur on IS light and clan XL builds. The loss of a side torso while not deadly on its own still comes with a penalty to cooling and speed. When a mech near its heat threshold loses its side torso, the loss of heat capacity can instantly shut you down or kill you if overridden. I don't see the logic of having the shoulder of a mech transfer all of it's heat back into the chest the millisecond it gets blown off, but that's what PGI went with.

For the MAD 3R, you definitely don't meet reason number one, and you probably don't meet number two, so treat that thing to a light engine.

[spartanspud]

Originally posted by CarloNord:

I've currently gotten my hands on a Marauder 3R and a Crab 27. Kinda regretting buying them but my friend recommended me the marauder and I love the crab in Battletech so here I am. He keeps telling me to not touch the engine, use standard, upgrades aren't worth it.

I am going to turn my PC back on so I can edit the builds into this comment.

Anyway, your friend is largely wrong. Light and XL engines give you huge weight savings allowing you to do more with your mechs without having a weak engine.

The crab 27B (I don't have the normal Crab 27 but they are near identical aside from some harpoint placement) is in fairness one of the few mechs I run with a standard engine so it can zombie. But honestly a light engine is pretty good on it so you can make it really zoom. Here is a build with and without a standard engine:

With Light: A<5:20k0|c?|Sg|i^p[0|i^|i^|i^q[0|i^|i^|i^rP0|c?|c?sP0|c?|c?t`0u`0vB0|c?w505050

Without: A<5:20k0|`b|c?p[0|i^|i^|i^|f?|AOq[0|i^|i^|i^rP0|c?|c?sP0|c?|c?t\0u\0v:0|c?w505050

The standard engine is 81kph which is respectable. But a light engine allows you to push it to 95.6 kph or 92.3 if you want to add an engine heat sink and add in the few extra points of armour that were unused. You do forgo the AMS though due to critical slot usage.

The Marauder 3R can do a few things. But the build I like best is the triple RAC2 build. Here is the build: AI5:20D1|Vg|i^|i^ph0|R@|R@|R@qh0|i^|i^r`0|F@|F@s`0|F@|F@to0|?P|?Puo0|?P|?Pv?0|?Pw808080

With a standard engine you go 5kph slower (putting you below 60 which is a very dangerous speed) and it removes an engine heat sink slot which can be a problem. Is it absolutely critical? Probably not. But 5kph is very noticeable. Especially when you consider that 5kph is about 8.5% extra speed Vs the standard engine.

[spartanspud]

Originally posted by Kappatalism:

There's basically 2 and a half reasons to ever run a standard engine.

1- You have decent CT hitboxes AND CT/head firepower (like crabs) allowing you to still be useful with both STs removed. It is worthless to take a STD engine for survivability if your mech doesn't have Head/CT hardpoints.
2- You are trying to mount heavy gauss or double LB10 in a side torso and simply don't have the slots to run a more efficient engine.

*snip*

For the MAD 3R, you definitely don't meet reason number one, and you probably don't meet number two, so treat that thing to a light engine.

Yeah, that is another thing, there is basically no point in using a standard engine if you can't still do something after losing both sides. Plus generally speaking if that happens you are about to die anyway.

[JC]

A crab with ERML's can stuff a big STD engine in it.. i forget which one, but yea a big STD in a crab gets you to 90+ KPH its a great flanker mech even today.

Also losing a torso means you don't have as much moblity in an LFE. there are also dead side mechs, aka a mech with all weapons on one side. Those are prime candidate for STD engines.

[Feezou]

Depends on the build/mech. Most IS mechs are either using LFE or XL. Only the heaviest IS mechs regularly use STD engines, usually for the slot restrictions you'll run into at that weight.

In the case of the Crab, the best builds for it are MPL boats. Since boating MPLs isn't particularly heavy and the DHS takes up plenty of space for the tonnage it uses, you end up with a lot of leftover tonnage. This ends up going into the STD engine, which is especially useful since an LFE destruction heat spike can spell death if you're already hot. The STD engine also pairs very well with the Crab's great hitboxes, so you'll be able to soak up a lot of damage.

In the case of the Marauder 3R, it's build dependent. Two of the most common builds on the 3R are triple RAC2s and 2 LB10s. Triple RAC2s only take up 9 slots, so you can fit an LFE to save weight. Unfortunately, the 3R stacks all of its ballistic hardpoints on the right torso. This means that dual AC10s isn't possible, and the closest you can get is 2 LB10s. 2 LB10s take up the full 12 slots, so the only engine you can fit is a STD. In the end it depends on what you're going to run on it.

[spartanspud]

Oh, and for light mechs you almost always want to run XL for tonnage reasons.

I say almost because of my 20 light mechs I think one urbie has a light engine on a build.

[CarloNord]

The heat thing when you lose a part of your engine I was not aware of. This whole thread has been a great trove of help though, so thank you all. I've beefed up my marauder with a better engine, not light yet, but I'm considering it. I'm trying a bit of an odd build with it and I need the slots.

[JC]

Originally posted by Atomic Friendo:

Depends on the build/mech. Most IS mechs are either using LFE or XL. Only the heaviest IS mechs regularly use STD engines, usually for the slot restrictions you'll run into at that weight.

In general.. But there are always exceptions. though mechs on the lighter end of the weight class tend to take the LFE's and some of the heavier are better with STDs.

For instance there is a dead side bushwacker, Dragon, Griffin, HBK,, ect Or just tanky assaults like the atlas are prime STD mechs, The medium crab is another for all the reasons you stated. (i like the 5 MPL, 6 ERML and 3 ERLL builds myself, I gotta check my 3 LPL build since the changes) But they all work good.. There are even lights that are taking LFE's over XL's for a bit more survivalist.

As for a marauder i think i run mine with an STD, but i also have a ac20 in mine, I think the 2UAC10 builds run an LFE.


Also one last thing, if your looking for a certain engine let us know what engine you want, it's often better to buy a mech for the engine you need. It typically won't use the engine you want but you now get an engine and a new mech to play with :)

[NamelessOne]

Some builds need to run XL because their weakness is weight. Like most IS lights and more than a few mediums. To fit the 4th large laser on the ENF-4R you need xl. Even on some assault build the xl and le is required to be able to fit everything (thinking of the Zeus meme build, with a 400 rated xl engine and mask it runs as fast as the 40 tonners).

Others like the Stalker should never have an xl and should probably not have a le due to the penalties for losing a side. That one in particular has a low engine cap and almost too much available hard points. You run out of crit space before anything else just about.

[Jimmy]

Yes engine upgrades are worth it, but DO NOT sell the replaced engine.

[NamelessOne]

Originally posted by Jimmy:

Yes engine upgrades are worth it, but DO NOT sell the replaced engine.

If it's a std engine it probably doesn't matter, unless it's a big one. The ones smaller than 200 are almost never used.

[Casual Sun]

Yes, especially with LFE existing now. There used to be more of an emphasis on speed, but now people can get away with assaults and heavies going in the mid 50s or low 60s.

[Jimmy]

Originally posted by NamelessOne:

Originally posted by Jimmy:

Yes engine upgrades are worth it, but DO NOT sell the replaced engine.

If it's a std engine it probably doesn't matter, unless it's a big one. The ones smaller than 200 are almost never used.

No idea how many mechs this guy has. If he needs to refit something for an event... sometimes a standard engine may be useful. It's just best not to sell anything in this game.