23 replies to this topic

[Texugo87]

Similar suggestions have been made over time, but I though I would add my own thoughts and (more importantly) keep this topic on the front page and getting noticed. The poll applies to the basic system of weapons slots, not my examples of number of slots for variants or other musings.

MechWarrior4 had a hardpoint/slot system that limited what weapons and in what combination could be mounted to a given chassis. This was one of the few mechanic changes made by MW4 that I really liked! I was slightly disappointing to see MWO move back away from it as far as it did. That said I vastly prefer the BT/MW2/MW3/MWO system of placing heatsinks, ammo, and other equipment. Also the hardpoint system prevents a AC20 from being swapped out for 10 machine gun lunacy, like you could in a more MW4 like system.

What I would like to see is a hybrid of the two systems, where slots are earmarked for a weapon type, combined with the hardpoint system we already have. GUI would be easy and intuitive, just shade certain slots red (energy), green (missile), and yellow (ballistic), in keeping with MW4 [or pick your own colours].

Equipment like heatsinks, ammo, dynamic structure slots, XL engines, BAP, etc would be neutral, and can be put in neutral slots, or in weapons lots. I would also make the extra slot artemis takes up be neutral.

To illustrate how this would work, and increase chassis variability I'll use the hunchback g vs hunchback H as examples.

G has 3 ballistic hardpoints in RT, 1 energy in each arm, one energy in head.
H has 1 ballistic hardpoint in RT, 3 energy in RT, 1 in each arm, 1 in head

There are very few workable builds that can only be made on the G, almost everything, including the stock layout can be built on the H.

If you earmarked 12 slots on the G for ballistic (ac20 + 1 slot each for the other hardpoints, 10 slots + 2 neutral would also be a possibility), and on the H earmarked 7 ballistic, 3 energy, 2 neutral, or something similar, it would give a reason for the G to exist.

Similar examples can be found in many different chassis, the stalker 3H suddenly makes sense if it is the only Stalker that CAN carry LRM20's. The 4N could be even made to make some sense if it had 6 energy slots in it's gimped arm, where the non-special Stalkers all had 4 slots each.

So lets lets say the Stalker has 2 energy hardpoints in each arm, with 4 energy slots, this could allow 2 large lasers, or 1 ppc and 1 medium laser, not 2 ppc's for example.

If the Awesome was now able to carry more PPC's that a stalker, it suddenly makes more sense. It was what it is designed to do...right?

Numbers of slots given above are obviously arbitrary, and would have to be determined for balance purposes.

I think this would increase chassis variability, and introduce some new dynamics into mech building, helping give purpose to some of the less useful chassis. It gives more pros and cons to chassis, hopefully increasing variability on the battle field, and maybe making burning through 3 variants less painful if it lets you experiment with different builds on each one.

Omni tech could work like it did in MW4, having generic weapons hardpoints and slots that could be filled with any weapons types. This system will also help prevent the multi UAC20 Direwolf horror.

PS

Urbanmech now more viable as being the only light that can pack a big gun, if the Raven 4x and the Spider-whatever get limited to 2 ballistic slots in the arm, or something similar. Give us the Urbanmech!

PPS
TAG could take up an energy slot, but not an energy hardpoint! (just my personal gripe with TAG)

Edited by cjmurphy87, 13 March 2013 - 12:04 PM.

[Eddrick]

I have nothing against the idea. All it would do to me is just limit the amount of PPCs (My favorite weapon) I could put on a Mech.

This could also give a reason to allow critical slot splitting for large weapons without it being abused (Thinking of the AC/20 in the BattleMech King Crab's arm and the Sniper Artillery Piece mounted on the Helepolis BattleMech).

[Big Giant Head]

Big Giant Head, on 10 March 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

Whats the difference between:

• 0/3 energy hardpoints

and

• 0/2 energy hardpoints
  
• 0/1 energy hardpoint

or

• 0/1 energy hardpoint
  
• 0/1 energy hardpoint
  
• 0/1 energy hardpoint

You can deduce it yourself. But what to add in order to control boating and other weird setups? Answer lies in number of combined hardpoints:









Simply increase heat build up, if you are using more than one weapon in expected hardpoint system, e.g.:

• in 0/3 energy hardpint section putting PPC/ERPPC would be expected
  
• but if decide to put 3 ML in it your gonna have heat cons from it - increased heat generation or reduced heat dissipation from base heat of the weapon
  
• same goes to 1 LL and 1 ML, but numbers heat pushback arent the same

• in 0/2 + 0/1 energy hardpoint you can put PPC/ERPPC
  
• you wont gonna have any heat cons from putting 1 LL and 1 ML
  
• less heat pushbacks if your putting 3 ML than from the 0/3 one

• in 3x0/1 energy hardpoints you cant out PPC/ERPPC
  
• neither 1 LL an 1 ML
  
• most beneficial boating build would be with this hardpoit setup allowing you to putt 3 ML and recevie no heat dissipation pushback

*EDIT: either heat pushback or cooldown pushback, maybe both if tweaked properly







So at the end how to avoid those ugly cookie-cutter splat-cat build (CATAPULT-CPLT A1)
Simply put 0/2 + 0/1 missile hardpoint in each arm...

Arrow IV takes 3 missile hardpoint slots

Totally agreed.

Hey you better switch to this http://mwomercs.com/...60#entry2054866
thread its more popular and it ill be on front page more often

[DeadlyNerd]

Big Giant Head, on 13 March 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Totally agreed.

Hey you better switch to this http://mwomercs.com/...60#entry2054866
thread its more popular and it ill be on front page more often

OP's suggestion is much clearer and simpler.
It's also a lot more efficient.
This would definitely stop the cheese builds like 60 LRM stalkers, PPC stalkers, LRM D-DCs(rather a dumbass build than cheese) poptart 3Ds etc.

The only problem is that certain mechs, like the dragon, would become obsolete as current builds have overall bigger guns than the default loadouts.

Edited by DeadlyNerd, 13 March 2013 - 03:26 PM.

[Texugo87]

For bumps sake,

DeadlyNerd,

No need to limit designated slots by the stock weapons loadout, it could be done more flexibly than that to maintain balance/viability. So just because something comes with an AC5 doesn't mean it defacto can't fit an AC10 for example. I don't want this system to kill customization, just put some limits on it to maintain variability in builds and reduce the min/max mentality a bit. The dragon could have 7 ballistic slots, even though they aren't all used stock (just like how many mechs have unused hardpoints stock). However, especially with mediums and lights, big bore weapons should be rare, I mean the whole point of things like the Urbanmech, Hollander, Hunchback 4G, etc is that they are built around big guns not usually seen on mechs that size. You make tradeoffs at the design level to fit them. Same with the Awesome, it is built from the ground up to carry a whack ton of PPCs. Why suffer the giant hunch of the 4G if it isn't required to fit the AC20?

[DeadlyNerd]

Modify your suggestion then, write down points as cues and definitely include what you just wrote so people don't get the wrong idea.

[Big Giant Head]

Your suggestion has flaw and that is that you can still make effective boats with it. (smaller weapons)
I didn't perfectly explained how I imagine new hardpoint system, but it would punish you for boating small weapons - actually putting them in hardpoint slots that are merged (0/4 energy hardpoint) where you receive heat or cooldown pushback. If you, simply, put only one smaller weapon (0/1, 0/2, 0/3), you wont have any pushback.
For example if I put 4 ML (4 x 0/1) in 1 x 0/4 hardpoint I will receive pushback that is larger than if put 2 LL (2 x 0/2)

Effective boat from my perspective perpetuum mobile (term that is used in physics) has to have hardpoint slots that are seperated (4 x 0/1 energy hardpoints), so you are not receiving any heat or cooldown pushback.

So to re-make CTPL-A1 hardpoint slots it should go like this (for each arm):

• 0/2 missile hardpoint
  
• 0/1 missile hardpoint

Edited by Big Giant Head, 14 March 2013 - 04:13 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Lots of ideas in the forum....
this one.
the classification of size - very light to very heavy (idea i would support)
and Big Giant Heads one....
i believe there was on with causing interference

we need a topic were we could discuss all of them.

This idea looks the way i have had expected the Mechlab to work:
http://mwomercs.com/...-blog-6-mechlab

It looks the way that it was not possible to mount the PPC in place of the large laser. This reduction would cripple some builds even some of my own. But it is a price i'm ready to pay.
No PPC in the arms of my 4 Atlas... when it has to be this way...so be it. I have a endless repartoire of mechbuilds.

[Big Giant Head]

Karl Streiger, on 14 March 2013 - 05:00 AM, said:

It looks the way that it was not possible to mount the PPC in place of the large laser. This reduction would cripple some builds even some of my own. But it is a price i'm ready to pay.
No PPC in the arms of my 4 Atlas... when it has to be this way...so be it. I have a endless repartoire of mechbuilds.

When changing to new system some numbers may change: e.g. Awesomes right arm have 0/1 energy hardpoint (which means that with new system i can only mount 1 ML which is very wrong), but when translated to the new hardpoint system its more likely going to be a 0/3 one so that putting PPC/ERPPC would be ideal - no additional heat suffering, but putting 1 LL and 1 ML willl add heat and/or weapon cooldown penalty.

Slots: 0/1 hardpoint slot, 0/2 hs, 0/3 hs, 0/4 hs, ...
Putting 1 weapon per 1 hardpoint slot wont add any penalty, but putting 2 or more weapons in 1 hardpoint slot will give you penalty
And note that unused hardpoint slot is not going to stay empty like it did in MW4. Free space is covered up with critical slots.

So, Karl, you may see Atlas hardpoint build that has 0/3 energy hardpoint in both arms or 0/2 + 0/1 in both arms or 0/3 in right arm, but 0/2 + 0/1 in left,....

Edited by Big Giant Head, 14 March 2013 - 06:06 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Quote

So, Karl, you may see Atlas hardpoint build that has 0/3 energy hardpoint in both arms or 0/2 + 0/1 in both arms or 0/3 in right arm, but 0/2 + 0/1 in left,....

i got the idea behind your system. although i think there are still logical problems.
How would the layout of a Laserhunch /look like?
6x0/1
so you could mount 3 large laser right?
what about the hm 4X? ballistic weapons have generally speaking not that big heat issues?

same for the 2X... 2x 0/1 missiles? so you cant mount anything bigger as a single lrm10. or two SRM4.

however all systems have same concern. create more variation. Hm at least i don't think that to bully a build that uses a large and a medium pulse laser instead of a single ppc. (same weight and crits) 3 medium pulselaser can cause 16% more heat or reduced rof.
3 med laser for a ppc should use factor 57% and that hurts.

[Big Giant Head]

Karl Streiger, on 14 March 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

i got the idea behind your system. although i think there are still logical problems.
How would the layout of a Laserhunch /look like?
6x0/1
so you could mount 3 large laser right?

No, if you are putting 6 x 0/1 energy hardpoints then you can only mount 6 ML, SL, SPL
But great example for me to explain my idea.
Build that would work for your 3 LLs is simple :

3 x 0/2 energy hardpoints, putting 1 LL in each would be the most beneficial, receiving heat penalty when putting 2 or more weapons in 1 x 0/2 slot ( 2 MLs can fit in 1 x 0/2 hp with heat penalty, if you put 1 ML in it then you wont receive any penalty )

The way I would like it personally :

0/2 energy hardpoint, 1 LL or 2 MLs

4 x 0/1 energy hardpoint , 1 ML for every 0/1 hardpoint

Or perhaps:

2 x 0/2 energy hardpoints

2 x 0/1 energy hardpoints

If you decide to put many smaller weapons, you will have extra tonnage, so you can use some that free tonnage to get yourself more heatsinks to negate penalty ( i need calculations,..)

Note: you dont have to use all of your hardpoints they are just out there available for use, empty hardpoint slot that isnt used is turning into crit slot for putting heatsinks, ammo, other equip

Ballistics, however, are perfectly balanced because of their critical slot size and tonnage (AC/20 - 10 crit slots)
Take Hunchback 4G as an example: he could go with either 3 x 0/1 ballistic, 0/2 and 0/1 or one big 0/3 so he can fit AC/20.
Hunchback goes with 0/3, you could try to put 3 AC/5 ( AC/5 - 0/1 ballistic), but because of their size and tonnage, ballistics are balanced in most cases if not always.

Gaussapult needs to have 0/1 ballistic in each of his side torsos in order to put 2 AC/5 or 2 AC/2 or 2 MGs

Edited by Big Giant Head, 14 March 2013 - 06:59 AM.

[Attalward]

I like OPs idea it is trully very clean and intuitive to understand. I vote yes

[Karl Streiger]

Big Giant Head, on 14 March 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

No, if you are putting 6 x 0/1 energy hardpoints then you can only mount 6 ML, SL, SPL
But great example for me to explain my idea.
Build that would work for your 3 LLs is simple :

3 x 0/2 energy hardpoints, putting 1 LL in each would be the most beneficial, receiving heat penalty when putting 2 or more weapons in 1 x 0/2 slot ( 2 MLs can fit in 1 x 0/2 hp with heat penalty, if you put 1 ML in it then you wont receive any penalty )

hm got it but the 4P has 6 MLAS in stock. so to mount the more flexible loadout you will get a penalty right from the beginning.

don't get me wrong every idea has its own flaws. ops idea would work for some designs, your idea will work for most mechs but will have problems to match some stock mechs.

we have to combine our all our ideas merge them and destille the valuable things

[Texugo87]

Sorry, I don't have time to respond to everyone's comments at the moment. Thank you though! I'll try to respond later tonight.

Instead of combining and distilling ideas, I think it might be more valuable to go in a more general direction at this time. With that we can establish how much of the community wants a more complex mech building system with regard to weapon placement beyond what we currently have. If the gets the dev's attention we can then start making suggestions for a refined idea.

Everyone has a variety of ideas on this subject, and a variety of reasons for wanting it. If one suggestion stresses anti-boating ideas, that might alienate those who don't think boating is a big problem, a different system that is more flexible would likewise alienate those who's main attraction to a different system is to primary reduce boating. Working in other game dynamics like heat penalties based on weapons distribution likewise complicates the issue, obscuring any consensus we have over that we want a different system.

If no one else does in the next little while I'll create a new meta-suggestion-poll, asking whether, generally put, people would prefer an expanded hardpoint/slot system over what we currently have. I'll try to find as many of the discussion threads, and other polls to link them as examples of possible systems. Once we establish that people want something different, we can go from there.

The game is PGI's baby, they are unlikely to pull one of suggested systems off the forums and stick it in game completely whole, they would probably be more open to generalized suggestions, communicating that we want a change, and then gathering ideas an responses on elements we would like in whatever system they come up with.

[DeadlyNerd]

Stop complicating... Allowing for 3 LL instead of 6 ML is actually a pretty reasonable restriction.
Yes awesomes could then boat MLs instead of 1 PPC per body part but then they would be sacrificing range for a bit higher damage vs heat ratio and there isn't enough critical slots for extra heatsinks you'd be able to put with the extra tonnage.

There is no combining, HPs have to go.(yes, I may have agreed with OP's suggestion completely at first but I never read that part)

There is, however the problem of mechs with generally light armaments. This could always be adjusted by increasing the already reserved slots by 1 or 2.

[Renthrak]

This sounds interesting, but it seems more like reinventing the wheel. Weapons already have tonnage, critical slots, and hardpoints to limit where they can be used. The 'slot' system would just add a fourth limitation that functions like a hybrid of critical slots and hardpoints.

I don't think it's necessary.

[Ph30nix]

so in other words you want to limit possible mech loadouts even more?

[Karl Streiger]

Ph30nix, on 14 March 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

so in other words you want to limit possible mech loadouts even more?

some may see it as limitation. and for some mechs it will be the end. for example the stupid a1 will extinct if you got no other benefits. others with more flexibility will rise.

actually the only limitation is. You dreamed of a design. now you have to choose the chassis
wisely.

[focuspark]

No. IMO it offers little over the current system and therefore isn't worth the time for the devs to spend redesigning everything.

Perhaps the hardpoints were limited to specific weapon types and sizes, then it could make sense. With this limitation, it wouldn't be possible to put SSRM2 on a CPLT-A1 or ML in the arms of a CPLT-K2.

[Karl Streiger]

Please vote:
http://mwomercs.com/...st-discussions/

I have spend another hour with this topic.... to be fair... it is hardly possible to balance any restriction. For example let me guess the LRM 20 of the C4 could be splited into a 0/2 and a 0/3 slot or a 5 slot size with a maximum of 2 missile weapons. The C4 can carry 4 SRM6...still powerfull while not as powerfull at short range as the A1.
This A1 could be crippled...lets say only 3 missiles slots with 0/1....but to make a differnece increae the engine rating...lets say 390 and 6 JumpJets.... can anybody remember the Streakcat in ClosedBeta - or Helmult we named it in our Corps.
So i have guessed the LRM 20 has to be splitted into a 0/2 and a 0/3 slot...same for the Stalker 4H with its LRM 20?
Well now you would have 6 missile slots.

So let say ... we have general missile slots, and specific missile slots.

For example the C4 has now 2 general missile slot and 3 LRM missile slots...able to mount a LRM 20 but not able to mount two SRM. Sounds good so far... but now i do the same with the 4H...well 2 LRM 15 supported by 4 SRM and 4 Medium Laser... last thing is really powerful should it be nerfed - or is that a well mixed loadout?
So let me guess we reduce the engine rating for the 4H to 255.

So we have a slow Mech with heavy long range weapons and a killer blow at short range. Still the problem that the SRM in the arms have to open the flaps...but this is another story.

Ok let me guess that is a solution for fixing the missile boating... dividing missile hardpoints into general, LRM only, SRM only.
What about ballistics and energy.

K2...for example...a single slot 3 size energy weapon in the arm...1 slot ballistic 1 slot energy in the torso... that give you hardly any oportunity to create something different.

So the ammount of weapon you can mount is free? What will happen...8 MediumLaser K2. Maybe supported by dual AC2. Would be lack luster but still a strong violation of the concept behind that K2. So what about dividing the 3" energy slot in the arm into a 2" and a 1". So you are capable of mounting a large and a medium laser if you like.(it would imporve the ammount of energy hardpoints for the K2 .... This can work for nearly every mech in the game. Simple because energy weapons are so compact....Awesomes effictivness isn't compromised.
Atlas would be interesting - because the main armament on the Atlas was always the ballistic and the missile weapon. Maybe not for the K and the RS...so those shoud have a 3" energy slot.


Now ballistic
So the K2s ballistic slot was addressed a hundred times. As long as there were no other options it was acceptable...but now with the Catapract and the JaegerMech it is not necessary to keep the K2 as a ballistic weapon carrier.
1 1" for each side torso. If you like you can make 3 1" too. Wouldn't change anything...but maybe some will try their luck with MachineGuns.

The Atlas main armament the AC 20...is often used as dual LBX. or Dual Ultra 5..... i don't think that is a big balancing issue.

However thesse concepts are far away from beeing finished. I did not have considered the energy layout for mechs like raven or jenner...nor did i have adressed the Centurions tripple missile hardpoints.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 15 March 2013 - 05:08 AM.