Some pieces of Battletech equipment are better than others. Sure, you've got good all-rounders and solid niche equipment, but some stuff just doesn't cut the mustard.
Sure, it's subjective, but I trust the wisdom of the masses on shit like this. I'm always of the opinion that everyone with less [FANDOM] knowledge than I have is a scrub and everyone with more [FANDOM] knowledge is just waaay too into it, but I know I'm full of shit.
So I've prepared a series of polls which ask you, your friends, and anyone else who has a subjective opinion--"In your subjective opinion, which one piece of equipment out of two is better?" I set up a Swiss-Style Tournament and have randomly generated pairings. I considered seeding, but I'm not familiar with a lot of newer equipment. Randomness would be better than a poor seeding.
A few notes:
- All equipment is Inner Sphere, except for Clan-only equipment which is listed as [Clan].
- Groups of equipment are listed as plural while individual equipment is singular. For example, "standard autocannons" includes AC/2's, AC/5's, AC/10's, and AC/20's, while "Heavy Gauss Rifle" includes just the Heavy Gauss Rifle and not the Improved Heavy Gauss Rifle, which is listed separately. There are some exceptions for equipment like Spikes.
- I've included some standard equipment (standard fusion engines, standard heat sinks). On reflection, I think that was a bad idea, but I expect them to land somewhere at the top. There are enough pieces of equipment (about 200) that I don't feel they will either sully the responses or require the addition of other standard equipment (cockpits, gyros).
- Initial polls were 10 questions long and shared via Reddit. Response was negative so I cut them back to fewer polls of 20 questions to mollify folks who felt negatively about it. That seems to have worked and subsequent posts have been met with more positivity.
Polls are below.
Poll I: This poll was done via Survey Monkey and is no longer available for votes.
Poll II: RISC Hyperlaser vs Snub-Nosed PPC: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjeTdEfPYLtAKpEsPMQVZ9bswkqDtZxkpHFhbqqpayqCzZvw/viewform?usp=sf_link
Poll III: MRMs vs iNARC: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScV9tbz6EKoromqOfvaxV5Rsk8f51M8PGNomurByN06b3ej1g/viewform?usp=sf_link
Poll IV: Heavy PPCs vs Superchargers: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIpjhMe06e8zOm3jPqvDH6Ixr-QdU107eFoXT0hl56Ok02Lg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Poll V: Laser Heat Sinks vs Talons: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdp5cTvfEX74lyuj0PGslH2be7VFrKGiiDtnaDaTcP5F-BJoQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
Poll VI: MMLs vs AES: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYJbVo8j1lF7EFU284lb18TpQ88CxZ9nCiIZ5hMGDwDpp3xw/viewform?usp=sf_link
On Friday, all polls will be closed and I'll turn the votes into a win-loss-tie record for each match up. Then I'll feed it into my automated Swiss Tournament Excel spreadsheet and generate the next round. Winners will be closer to other winners, and victims of bad match-ups will get a chance to return to their correct places.
I'll prepare for another two weeks of MWF 20-question polls on Reddit for Round II.
Why? Why do all of this? I could reply with Yahtzee Croshaw's plea that "history needs to know which is best," but honestly I already have some ideas about what I'm going to do with this data. Hopefully it amuses more than me, but rest assured; if it amuses just me, I'll be fine with that.
7 comments:
Back when I did my "Ten Least Liked Pieces of BattleTech Technology" survey, I wish I had paired it with a "Ten MOST Liked" survey, to get a better picture.
Will be curious how your results compare, and how "controversial" items and unfamiliar items show up on your ladder.
The formulas have leeways for ties, which gives a bit of a neutral answer for unfamiliar equipment. I've read up on some equipment but still don't feel qualified to say if it's better than something else.
All matches are best of three, but there are quite a few pairs of gear that sit at 1-1-1 across the board. Ultimately, rarer equipment is at a disadvantage. I wonder if there's a way to incentivize playing it.
The beauty of a swiss tournament is that there's no elimination and points/tiebreakers are based just on your wins and losses but your past opponents; losing to Double Heat Sinks stands a piece of gear in a better place than losing to a Mace.
I've not tried that. Ignoring actual vote totals to keep the sheet manageable, or to keep from scope-creeping into python?
"I wonder if there's a way to incentivize playing it." - Mech stuff probably, strategic or space stuff probably not. These days I'd be asking how much play actually happens and what the consumer's engagement cycle is.
Mostly I wanted to test the swiss tournament macro I wrote. Turning percents into win/loss records seemed rough, but consistent. There's very few results where the w/l didn't intuitively match up with the pie charts.
The whole exercise is based on Battlemechs. My interest in doing strategic shit is inversely proportional to my interest in doing aero shit, but the two seem to go hand-in hand.
After a breeze through the books, I'm kinda curious why a fierce aerospace/conventional air defense is not the default to repel raids and assaults.
"curious why a fierce aerospace/conventional air defense is not the default to repel raids and assaults."
It is the default, though publishers may have forgotten to mention it this millenium.
Reasonably, it should be. But then we're playing a game of naval combat with an overgrown auxiliary ground combat system. It's weird they built a universe around BattleMechs, then kept building it so space combat was pivotal while telling stories focused on ground combat.
That's a bit like saying it's weird to have a squad tactics game in a universe with LSTs and battleships, or troop planes and interceptors.
Post a Comment