Armored Core 4 Part Discussion: S04-VIRTUE

[Exorcet]

Where does VIRTUE sit among the other main boosters?

 

I've always felt it to be one of the only three boosters that really mattered along with the leading POLARIS and niche JUDITH. VIRTUE is much faster than ALIYA thanks to its QB duration and although it's also drainier, I tend to notice the speed more than the drain.

 

VIRTUE is only impressive in the horizontal plane though as its vertical thrust is weakest except for POLARIS. The high flight drain makes the thrust issue even worse. VIRTUE is limited to short "jumps" in terms of airborn capability, it's a disadvantage, but the booster does not ground an AC.

 

What VIRTUE offers is the ability to close range and to exploit the limited look down of guns (missiles have no look down limit). This makes it great for hit and run tactics and cover play. Also, unlike AC's relying on side boosters for range control, VIRTUE AC's can change distance while being defensive or offensive. In terms of sheer speed, POLARIS can't match it. ALIYA/M's poor QB duration leaves it not much quicker than POLARIS if at all so I don't see it as an alternative to VIRTUE for hit and run/quick rush tactics. If you're trying to sustain CQC fighting with a MG or something, POLARIS's EN combined with decent speed trumps them both, and again ALIYA doesn't offer much speed advantage over POLARIS anyway.

[Mom]

For my personal tastes in order of preference and what I believe what AC4's most useful main boosters:

 

1. Polaris

2. Judith

3. Virtue

4. Aliya

 

 

I just feel polaris is a much quicker version of Judith on your typical defensive-style lightweight that runs rifle setups. You have the ability to close in much better using it than Judith when the time calls for.

 

I never had a problem with energy and being grounded on Virtue based ACs, but that's because I also design my ACs to have buttloads of energy to begin with, and that includes low drain parts with a high cap generator, and the limiting of weapons to create an AC as light as possible.

 

 

That leads to another thing. In general I found the high capacity generators in AC4 to be superior. I'd A/B generators during games to see which one ultimately gave me more energy. In AC4 it was always the higher capacity ones. In ACFA it was a different story though, I ran with some of the lighter ones, but I still had the capacity over output train of mind as I had a preference in judith over lahire. I found the higher capacity to give me the energy I needed to reset under tight situations. I ran with the same mentality in older AC games, choosing generators that focused on being the safest possible in regards to handling pressure (in nx-lr it was lotus/fudoh or G91 because of their low calorific output)

Edited May 2, 2011 by TMRaven

[Exorcet]

I just feel polaris is a much quicker version of Judith on your typical defensive-style lightweight that runs rifle setups. You have the ability to close in much better using it than Judith when the time calls for.

 

I never had a problem with energy and being grounded on Virtue based ACs, but that's because I also design my ACs to have buttloads of energy to begin with, and that includes low drain parts with a high cap generator, and the limiting of weapons to create an AC as light as possible.

 

Agreed for the most part, though even with careful designing, I don't feel that VIRTUE is really well suited for drawn out CQC. Do you use it in that role at all?

 

That leads to another thing. In general I found the high capacity generators in AC4 to be superior.

 

 

I'm assuming that you're comparing the GA gens to MAXWELL. I think high cap is a good thing for VIRTUE, since I don't really use it like other boosters where I might try to fight for a long while. The boost drain is also high enough relative to ENO that you don't get the same difference in energy performance from small changes in ENO (ie, going from 1.4 GL to 1.4 G won't give you the same % change in refresh rate when boosting as it would if you used POLARIS). So you basically use up the cap to make your move (cap as the short duration part of energy) and rely on ENO (long duration component) to just run afterwards if needed.

[Mom]

From what I remember of how I played my Virtue bot, no I never did extended CQC. In fact it isn't even a CQC design, it just uses a rifle and verts. Always ran out of ammo, but I coulda fixed that by using 51AANR or another weapon. Fastest bugger I've ever used though. Oddly enough I ran GL on Virtue bot and G on Polaris bot. Edited May 8, 2011 by TMRaven

[renketsu0]

Agreed for the most part, though even with careful designing, I don't feel that VIRTUE is really well suited for drawn out CQC. Do you use it in that role at all?

 

Even though I don't play this game much, when I do use VIRTUE boosters I do a period of rushing, and when my EN gets low I'll go cover whore while it recovers. I guess you could say I do the typical reload behind cover type of thing, except with EN instead of ammo.

[Densuo]

works fine for RJs. but with RJs I prefer powerful boosters for when I need boosting and then just hop and QB while I recover

[Exorcet]

From what I remember of how I played my Virtue bot, no I never did extended CQC. In fact it isn't even a CQC design, it just uses a rifle and verts.

 

 

This guy?

 

 

Yeah, I think it makes good use of VIRTUE, minimalist design to max speed and EN. Even without running G, it has a lot of EN.

 

Side note, yeah 051 would be nice on this AC. 51 has enough ammo to work on its own, I once made an AC with a similar concept. ALIYA/S pair with 051ANNR. Did fairly well in ranked, though ranked was dieing by that time.

 

Probably my favorite VIRTUE AC was my sniper quad

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSn5URUMkBU

 

Didn't really do much sniping or changing up the range in this match, but even with a quad I was able to do some CQC and flying.

 

ren, I'd say you should probably plan to be gone before your EN gets low, though maybe that's what you meant.

 

Den, yeah, RJ's have no problem running it, and the low booster weight helps since RJ's have lower load caps.

Edited May 9, 2011 by Exorcet

[Mom]

Well that, and I had two different dual rifler designs I used to run on ranked along with my dual high en mid/heavy. One was a blistering fast dual rifler that used Virtue, but ran GL. The other was more of a defensive dual rifler with Polaris, but ran G. At first you'd think it should be the other way around, but I guess I was comfortable with less energy on the Virtue bot just because it was so efficient at covering distance, that I didn't feel the need to have as much energy when under pressure-- primarily because I was the one doing the pressure.

 

And yeah Virtue is a good booster in general, but I'd say it has lots of potential on quads.

Edited May 13, 2011 by TMRaven