5 replies to this topic

[Crimson Fenris]

I'm good with illustrator, but not really with maths, so I'll let the experts find the correct formula(s) for what I'm proposing about Heat scale penalty.

The idea is to scale weapons heat penalties by nominal heat, providing the hotter ones are the more prone to overheating your mech (obviously enough ^^).
Then, horizontal scale is total generated heat by each weapon after the first, so the penalty occurs as soon as you fire two or more weapons.

Each weapon's penalty is calculated by giving their angular progression triple their base heat, since this value seems a good scale for any heat penalty system (at least to me).
Thus, you got a 12 degrees angle for the Medium Lasers (4 base heat x3°), a 24° for the PPC (8 bh x3°), and a 33° angle for the ERPPC (11 bh x3°).

In the following graphic, you can see the penalty for firing 2 ERPPC is about 4.5 heat, since firing 8 Medium Lasers is less than 4 heat penalty.
And an Alpha-strike of 3 ERPPC means 9 heat penalty, wich is like a fourth one more heat...




Ballistic scale calculation needs to be a bit different, since ballistics doesnt run very hot for each shot. I suggested multiply by 9° for angle (it's a 3x more than the energy weapons) to give some penalties to ballistics :



As you can see, multiple shot's heat generation is not very penalising, but sufficent enough to slightly lower the rate of fire of alpha-strikers.
-
You will ask : how to deal with different weapons firing at once ?
Simply add the total base heat, and make the median angle for all fired weapons :
3PPC + 1 AC/20 is 30 total heat, minus the first weapon (let's say one PPC), its 22 Heat.
Do the median angle for them :
((3x8 + 6)/4) * 3° = 22.5° (about the angle of a PPC)
That gives us about 6 Heat Penalty, more than 3 PPC, but less than 4 PPC firing at the same time.

It will favourize mixing of different weapons by using the lowest scaling factor (the energy scaling, x3° instead of the balistic scaling x9° ).
-

Of course, it's only a proposed scale, that can easily been tweaked. But a linear scale based on generated heat seems to me a fair solution to ensure a good balance between all builds, by not penalizing too much the alpha-striking of low-heat weapons, and giving a more serious penalties for High-heat weapons.

There is only some maths to do (as I said, I'm not very confident with it, but it seems pretty simple to calculate), but no arbitrary values like the Devs Team seems to prefer.


So, what do you think about that solution ?

Edited by Crimson Fenris, 12 June 2013 - 04:02 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

I like the idea behind it, but ultimately I feel like it's a bad idea when you need two different graphs and university level mathematics to calculate roughly how much heat you're generating and why. I mean, understanding ECM and how it intereacts with various weapons and equipment already requires a 50-page PDF covering all the eventualities.

I'd like to see a simpler solution. Although I do like to see PPC and AC20 spamming nerfed.

[Crimson Fenris]

Frankly, I got no idea about either coding some advanced formulas or giving some fixed numbers will be the easiest to do, both from required work and performance perspectives, but I'm only proposing some method that seems to me a good scale, without making a ton of exception related to what weapon is used.

They mentioned some arbitrary numbers for some weapon systems, I know it's placeholders for the time being, but I believe they couldn't simply introduce a new mechanic that will not apply for all systems, without a global and thinked calculation...

They couldn't say "the current maximum boatable weapon X may be mounted N times in Y mech, let's add a special rule for Z number of the same weapon", and so on...
They can't know nor anticipate what future loadouts may be possible, consequently they simply cannot set arbitrary and weapon-specific rules that are meant to apply to a global mechanic.
If they don't use a global and fair method, the same for all weapons, they are screwed in the long term : they will spend their time tweaking numbers and modifying rules case by case.
Given the size of their team, I couldn't imagine they will get the time to do that...

That's why they absolutely need a global and simple calculation mechanic. Then thanks to that, tweaking simple weapon characteristics (heat, reload, damage, etc.) will automatically adjust the heat penalty accordingly.

I'm not saying my method is the best, not even that needs complicated calculations, but it seems to give a simple method to find more accurate and balanced numbers than the ones they announced.


They only have to do a graphic like mine, then find the projected numbers, and apply them to ensure all weapons are in line, balance-wisely.

Edited by Crimson Fenris, 12 June 2013 - 01:43 PM.

[stjobe]

Thing is, none of this would be necessary if they did two things:
1. Halved the heat cap and doubled dissipation (and optionally removed heat sink addition to heat cap).
2. Reworked ballistics to fire in bursts of about 1 second and reworked the PPC as the beam weapon it should be.

This would both drastically lower the alpha capacity of all 'mechs, encourage chain-fire, mixed loadouts, and reward sustainable heat management AND remove pin-point damage completely. You'd have to use your aiming skill to be able to put all your damage on target with ballistics in the same way as you currently have to with energy weapons

You can read a more detailed description of those two steps here.

Edited by stjobe, 12 June 2013 - 02:04 PM.

[Crimson Fenris]

I found the maths, and it's not really "university level" at all ^^

You just have to find the value on the ordinate axis (Y), knowing the X-coordinate (the heat generated) and the given angle per weapon, using the Sine operation
In my example, the Y scale is less than the X, by a factor of about 0.7.

Lets take an example :
Calculation for the value for 2x ERPPC firing, in heat penalty
You find the Sine of the ERPPC angle (set as 3°x base heat = 11x3 = 33°)

• sin(33°) = 0.545 (rounded up)

You multiply by the radius equal to the amount of heat generated (minus the first weapon), in that case 11 heat :

• 0.545 x 11 = 5.99

Obtaining the related value on the ordinate axis (Y), if the X and Y axis were equal.
As they are not (X x 0.7 = Y) you have to multiply to obtain the final result :

• 5.99 x 0.7 = 4.19 heat penalty (rounded down)

The complete formula :

• Heat penalty = sin(weapon base heat x 3°) x (w. base heat x (n weapon fired - 1)) x (Y-scale factor).

You could adjust multipliers and Y-scale factor as will to balance the thing, for example in the case of ballistics.

Pretty simple, no ? Not even close to any university formula IMO, and I'm not a math user at all ^^

Edited by Crimson Fenris, 13 June 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Graphs - Math...like it