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The game currently has 3 rather big problems.
1- Pinpoint convergence & alpha damage build.
2- Mech armor hardpoints & mechs-die-too-fast problem.
3- Being able to fit giant sized weapons into mechs/locations that could not possibly fit such a weapon... and the fact that this exacerbates #1 and #2.
Let's begin with the two problems that can be fixed with one solution. #2 and #3.
Problem: If I shoot a mech in the side torso...let's say, an awesome.... with an Ac10 the awesome's entire side torso loses 10 points of armor protection. This makes no sense because if it hits in the lower side torso then why does the upper side torso lose armor protection? This is literally what makes the mechs rather unsurvivable because all that matters is armor points.
Problem: A PPC is a weapon that when loaded into assault mechs...is the size of a light mech's entire torso. How then, can light mechs equip one or more such weapons? Particularly in flimsy arms that are half the size of said weapon? it makes no sense.
Solution:
1. Re-arrange crit slot/internal skeleton components.
2. Split armor sections (ct/rt/lt/arms) into multiple hit boxes. Each hit box will have the same armor points as those assigned to the armor section.
3. Assign crit slots/weapon hardpoints to armor sections.
What does this do?
First, it introduces weapon size limitations. A spider's arms for example, could be split into two hitboxes. Upper hitbox and lower hitbox. Inside these hitboxes are the internal skeleton components.These are the ones that determine the weapon size limitation.
Using Smurphy's website for easy of visualization, here is the end result of the spider:
As you can see, the internal skeleton components have split the arm into having 2 crit slots for one energy weapon and 1 crit slot for the 2nd energy weapon in the lower arm hitbox.
This effectively removes the ability of the spider to mount a PPC and limit it to laser weapons/TAG.
The upper and lower arm EACH have 20 armor points. Thus, if the lower arm is hit, the upper arm will remain 20 armor points. This prevents the arm from being blown off because it got hit in the thumb. Likewise, a hit in the upper arm will not roll 'critical hit' chance on the lower arm weapons to knock them out.
As a side bonus, this re-arrangement also allows future improvements like a hit to the actuator lowering the performance of the component in question.
Hip location was changed to the side torso since that is where they are in any living organism ... the center torso would contain the spine and the coccyx/central hip 'bowl' of an organism...which in a mech = the gyro. The Gyro is relocated to the bottom section of the mech torso.
The center torso and side torsos are split into three hitboxes.. Again, each hitbox has the same armor as what has been assigned to the section yet damage is independently reduced from each. Again, each hitbox is given crit slots/internal components and it makes aiming at those locations be the only way to 'reach' those components. Hitting the upper hitbox of the side torso is not going to cause an XL engine death but it will damage anything in that hitbox.
What happens when you hit the upper hitbox of a mech, strip its armor and strip its internal damage value to 0? Aka, where it should explode off?
Simple! In the case of the upper side torso it does explode and the arm attached to it falls off. Explosion damage is transferred to the lower torso and upper CT hitboxes (engine! ouch!).
Granted, the devs may choose to put the XL engine location in upper side torso or middle side torso hitbox.. its up to them. I'm just illustrating the concept.
What if lower torso hitbox is blown off (and there was no XL engine there)? Welp, since the HIP is there the leg attached to it is blown off and damage is transferred to the lower CT, upper torso and lower arm (its right next to it when it pops).
The beauty of this system is that it enables even further mech-type and variant uniqueness.... some mechs the engine may be in upper torso in others in lower.. the XL engine spot may shift. Engine locations further re-distribute weapon hardpoint locations.
Mechs wanting to knock out a target's weapons can actually focus their fire ON the visible weapon hardpoint (which would match the hitbox it is in).
... and incidentally, this system also increases the survivability of mechs in combat. Battles will last longer.
...as an extra bonus, missiles become slightly less effective in killing enemy mechs because armor hitboxes literally double or triple the armor locations to wear down per mech...but it also means missiles now become an excellent support weapon since they would be the most effective long range armor-strippers. It solves the missile splash damage over-effectiveness towards the CT as the damage now has more hitboxesit is spread onto (aka adjacent hitboxes only.. if missiles hit the side torso central armor the splash only spreads to upper and lower side torso and central CT armor...if the engine is in upper CT the engine takes no damage).
Two problems solved with one solution. (ok three since it solves the missile splash over-effectiveness issue too! YAY!)
Convergence:
The above changes significantly changes the meta of heavy caliber 'boated' non-laser weapons since it will prevent most frames (except those that in canon, did..aka 3 ppc awesome) from being able to load them. To address the final part of it, the boating of multiple lasers or combination of lasers and non laser weapons to hit one armor section at once, the convergence of the game's weapons needs to change.
To change convergence without much complicated coding, simple boresight the non-actuator weapons and use the current convergence system only on arm-actuator arm weapon.
Boresighting can be illustrated by:
Draw a dot. That is where the CT weapons converge @1km*
Draw a circle 1cm** radius around the dot. To the left/right edges of the circle is where the RT/LT weapons will hit @1km*.
Draw another circle, 2cm radius from the dot. This is where non-arm actuator weapons will converge @1km* range.
* = if it is not too difficult boresighting each weapon to its max full-damage range is preferable.
** = its up to devs to determine radius.
What this does:
- Removes pinpoint damage from LT/RT weapons and gives it only to arm actuator mechs and CT weapons.
- Spreads damage across multiple armor sections & armor hitboxes per section making combat last longer and at the same time, making aiming, maneuvering and tactics (focus fire for example) take over the current meta of 'boat the heaviest pinpoint non-laser weapon and spam it till it dies'.
Edited by Skyfaller, 14 July 2013 - 08:46 AM.
