675 replies to this topic

[Allen Ward]

Steel Claws, on 15 January 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:

I rather think that lasers are far better in most instances for applying damage precisely where you want it. Therefore it takes you less damage by far to kill the mech in question than with weapons with travel time. They are still the only weapons with pin point accuracy and require no lead therefore making them better on most smaller targets. If someone can't hold an aiming point is that the problem of the weapon or the aimer?

Personally I see a lot more lasers in use than anything else. Autocannons are good for damage on large slow mechs but much harder to use on small fast ones. If one were to look at the data I think they'd be surprised how even things really are.

Disagree. There are quite many laser beams flashing through a match, yes. But there are at least as many AC shells flying around and combined they kill more and faster. Laser has so many drawbacks that you can't totally make up for with skill, that they are inferior to ballistics. We don't judge the pilot here, only the weapon systems. If you account for the shooter - there are many players that can't hit anything with an AC, but in total it is harder to fail with ballistics than with lasers.

Skill can't make up for heat. If your laser mech has to back down due to overheat, the ballistic mech will simply keep firing. Ammo limit and immense weapon weight are drawbacks, but this game has one goal only: fast kill. So any weapon system that helps you to put out much damage on one location insanely fast is superior to any other weapon that requires time and skill to deliver the same amount of damage.

That's why people load ballistics and fill in with lasers, not the other way round. Some vets play special builds like LL Stalkers and similar, they work pretty well under certain circumstances and totally go down the drain in other situations. They are not good examples to proove that a certain weapon system is/isn't UP/OP. Laser packed lights are another example. They make use of their small size and their speed (and lag). So lasers fit them well and they can use them pretty efficiently. It's not the lasers, it's the fact that they can hit you in the back constantly.

I am not against making skill the characteristic factor for certain weapon systems at all. But PGI should think about the consequences. It drastically limits what new and medium players have at hand and it makes games pretty one sided very soon, as you can see now. LRM Missiles were thought to be a beginners choice, not so any more as LRM players never get any targeting support. Often LRM boats are a complete waist in matches where nobody cares to even hit R. Even if they do, they go back into hiding the next second, sending your missiles into limbo.

The game should be a healthy mixture of all weapons and playing styles. Jump sniping included. But not excessively. People tend to choose what makes them successfull, and currently that is running the well known ballistic builds. If I can get a mech that allows me to pack two of the deadliest pinpoint guns in game, that can core a medium mech with one mouse click....what do you expect me to do? Take 8 med lasers or 4 LL instead and watch myself cook off (even without Ghost Heat)?

Steel Claws, on 15 January 2014 - 08:27 PM, said:

I did read them but I also see lots of people trying to shoot lasers of all flavors well beyond optimal range - hense reducing their damage. think about it - how many times you see people with mediums taking 400+ meter shots or larges at 700+. Yes the beam duration also spreads damage causes some reduction but that is as it should be. I repeat - there is no better weapon for p[in point damage.

Sorry - no.

[Varent]

Cimarb, on 16 January 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

It may just be my limited experience with jump sniping, but it always seemed to me that my multiple weapons would fire at different locations during a jump?


I agree that I don't really mind if a lucky shot still got off, but I think it may help the issue Varent is worried about, at least.

Varent, did you mean "posters"? I don't deny being a poser, but I am just curious if it was a typo or if you meant to type that...

typing on my phone sucks. yes I meant posters. That said...

regarding jump sniping the weapons in the arms, and head should probly fire in a different direction then the torso. However the weapons in the torso should probly all fire as one. My only fear would be they could still land 2 ppc accuratly just firing the torso mounted ones. Obivously still less of an alpha. Either way would love to see it happn.

[Void Angel]

Gaan Cathal, on 16 January 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

That is crosshair judder. You could extend the duration of that, certainly, since it's entirely unrelated to convergence. The issue I see happening is that people will expect, if it lasts a certain amount of time, it to 'phase out' rather than just be happening, or not. As far as I can tell, it's not deterministic in any way, a random pixel is just picked as the current aimpoint. So without changing that, it wouldn't be feasible to have it 'tone down' from "unaimable" to "normal".

Actually, you could solve it by reducing the range of possible random aimpoints over time as the shake "wore off." I don't know how it would affect server load, but from a technical standpoint, it should be doable. The problem is that everything to do with aiming needs to be server-authoritative to help prevent cheating.

As I said before, a smaller amount of judder than we currently have, but present at all times the 'mech is airborne, would be my preferred solution to the jump sniping mechanic.

[Void Angel]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 January 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

I only remember 1 pilot who fired in mid jump. Name me two more please.

Will game rules work instead? =)

[Joseph Mallan]

Void Angel, on 16 January 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

Will game rules work instead? =)

You mean the rules that say to calculate the distance and other modifiers from the hex landed in? Mechs don't fire from the jump they fire from the landing point. Those game rules?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 17 January 2014 - 05:37 AM.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 17 January 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

You mean the rules that say to calculate the distance and other modifiers from the hex landed in? Mechs don't fire from the jump they fire from the landing point. Those game rules?

Using the same logic, mechs cannot fire while moving, nor can they move while firing, nor can they turn while firing, nor can they fire more than once per weapon every 10 seconds, nor can they move more than a single time in ten seconds (even if it isn't their max movement distance), etc etc etc etc etc..... If it all happens within the same ten second round, it is all considered to be happening "at the same time".

[Joseph Mallan]

Cimarb, on 17 January 2014 - 06:30 AM, said:

Using the same logic, mechs cannot fire while moving, nor can they move while firing, nor can they turn while firing, nor can they fire more than once per weapon every 10 seconds, nor can they move more than a single time in ten seconds (even if it isn't their max movement distance), etc etc etc etc etc..... If it all happens within the same ten second round, it is all considered to be happening "at the same time".

10 second turns were fine for TT. As to Pop tarting... On TT you would have a +3 to hit while jumping(G force I would guess) for the jumper and a mere +1 to hit for those targeting the Jumper(If he didn't jump fr distance). So it is easier to hit a Pop Tart than it should be to Pop Tart.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 17 January 2014 - 06:37 AM, said:

10 second turns were fine for TT. As to Pop tarting... On TT you would have a +3 to hit while jumping(G force I would guess) for the jumper and a mere +1 to hit for those targeting the Jumper(If he didn't jump fr distance). So it is easier to hit a Pop Tart than it should be to Pop Tart.

I would say it IS easier to hit a pop tarter than for them to hit you. The difference is whether you see them first or not...

[Varent]

Cimarb, on 17 January 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:

I would say it IS easier to hit a pop tarter than for them to hit you. The difference is whether you see them first or not...

its not easy to hit the good ones.

[Joseph Mallan]

Varent, on 17 January 2014 - 07:23 AM, said:

its not easy to hit the good ones.

And that is how it should be.

As I have said a few times, my argument against Pop Tarts is strictly Canon. That being said, I don't have a problem fighting Pop Tarts myself, it just doesn't feel like the CBT universe to me.

[Cimarb]

So, while I was going to start a new thread about this, I thought that would be going against the very thing that irritates me about these forums - duplicate threads - so instead, I am resurrecting this great thread from its two week nap!

Here goes, and let me know your thoughts on it:

Autocannons as a whole need to be realigned. Currently, we have four versions of the AC20, since every one of them does roughly 20 damage in the same time period. Here are the stats:

AC2
Damage: 2
Cooldown: 0.52
DPS: 3.85
Damage per 5 seconds: 19.23

AC5
Damage: 5
Cooldown: 1.50
DPS: 3.33
Damage per 5 seconds: 16.65

UAC5
Damage: 5
Cooldown: 1.50 (if only fired at normal rate)
DPS: 3.33 (varies)
Damage per 5 seconds: 16.65 (varies)

AC10
Damage: 10
Cooldown: 2.50
DPS: 4.00
Damage per 5 seconds: 20.00

AC20
Damage: 20
Cooldown: 4.00
DPS: 5.00
Damage per 5 seconds: 25.00

So, in a "normalized" turn of five seconds (since all weapons in MWO can fire at least once in that time), the range of damage between all autocannons is 16.65-25.00. According to the definition of an autocannon in Sarna:

"Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor. The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors. Autocannon are grouped into the following loose damage classes: (ac2-ac20)... Caliber is fluff for the size of the barrel that the shell or shells are fired from and no standard caliber has been set for any of the classes of Autocannon. Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each 'round' or burst of fire. Probable exceptions are (185mm Demolisher cannon and 203mm Cauldron Born cannon, which is actually a clan mech, btw)"

According to this definition, every autocannon currently in the game would be considered an AC20, as their DPS are all closer to 20 than any other classification.

Side note: Oddly, the AC5/UAC5 are the most common autocannons, yet they are also the lowest DPS of all of them... This means they happen to fit in the sweet spot of weight/space versus firepower that people like most. Anyways...

What should happen is all autocannon need to be normalized to each other. That means, in 5 seconds of time, an AC2 should do roughly 2 damage, an AC5 should do 5 damage, an AC10 should do 20 and an AC20 should do 20. While this would dramatically nerf the lower class ACs in damage potential compared to currently, this can be offset by making the optimum/max ranges actually matter again! An AC2 may not do nearly as much damage, but they are the longest range weapons of the bunch. As the class gets higher, the range gets significantly lower, so on the other end you have the devastating damage of the AC20, but it can only be used at very short ranges, similar to how SRMs are used.

Here would be my proposed adjustments:
AC2 - damage 0.2 - cooldown 0.52 - DP5S 2.0 - range 720 - max range 1440
AC5 - damage 1.5 - cooldown 1.50 - DP5S 5.0 - range 620 - max range 1240
AC10 - damage 5.0 - cooldown 2.50 - DP5S 10.0 - range 450 - max range 900
AC20 - damage 16 - cooldown 4.00 - DP5S 20.0 - range 270 - max range 540

These would be the "standard" versions. Once CW gets implemented, you could then adjust the "damage" and "cooldown" numbers all over the place to represent different manufacturers, as long as the "DP5S" value stays within a small range of that classification. Here are some examples for possible AC20 variants:

185mm ChemJet AC/20 - damage 20 - cooldown 5.00 - DP5S 20.0
Pontiac 100 AC/20 - damage 0.2 - cooldown 0.50 - DP5S 20.0
Imperator Zeta-A - damage 5 - cooldown 1.25 - DP5S 20.0

On top of this, to give some real variety, you could also have burst-fire versions, such as:

Kali Yama Big Bore AC/20 - damage 5.0/tick - 1.0 second burst with 4 ticks - cooldown 4.0 - DP5S 20.0
Armstrong Requiem AC/20 - damage 1.0/tick - 4.0 second burst with 20 ticks - cooldown 1.0 - DP5S 20.0

You now have balanced autocannons (both compared to other weapons and also compared to each other), enough variety for every person imaginable, and a reason to own certain manufactory plants, as you could limit ammo supplies/cost for certain weapons based upon the current ownership and faction difference.

Now, for all Ultra versions (including future releases), you can then have a toggle to double the rate of fire, but with an increasing chance to jam based upon how long you hold the trigger. The chance starts at 5%, then increases every second by another 5%, until it jams. Once the weapon jams, it is unusable for 5-10 seconds, but then the jam rate resets to 5%.

EDIT: just for clarification, when I mention a "tick" in terms of an autocannon, I'm not saying to make them hitscan like a laser. Each AC tick would be a separate projectile, but the ammo amounts would have to be adjusted to compensate for the rate of fire of that specific caliber. In the case of the burst-fire versions above, each pull of the trigger would let off the burst as described. For instance, a ChemJet AC/20 would have the current 7 rounds per ton, since it only fires one round per cooldown, while the Armstrong AC/20 would fire a burst of twenty projectiles per trigger pull and have 140 rounds per ton (7x20) and an Imperator AC/20 would have 80 rounds per ton (4x20). This is where supply and demand could be used to balance different manufacturers, such as the huge ChemJet rounds being extremely expensive to reload, countering the FLD advantage they provide.

Edited by Cimarb, 18 February 2014 - 06:48 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

You nailed it Cimbar! I have said this minus some of the math.

As long as I can have my Tomodzuru Autocannon Mount Type 20 that can remove 0.625 tons of armor in a single blow (not single BURST){adjusting the Canon text for MW:O double armor}, I will be happy.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 January 2014 - 09:30 AM.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 January 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

You nailed it Cimbar! I have said this minus some of the math.

As long as I can have my Tomodzuru Autocannon Mount Type 20 that can remove 0.625 tons of armor in a single blow (not single BURST){adjusting the Canon text for MW:O double armor}, I will be happy.

Honestly, as long as they made plenty of versions and there was a market affecting the supply of them, I don't think your Tomodzuru is a bad thing to have available. Make me NEED certain planets to get the "best" version for me, but have enough variety in them where I can get something similar if that one planet isn't available for some reason.

I really want some supply/demand involved in CW and some distinction between the autocannon classes...

[stjobe]

Cimarb, on 31 January 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Now, for all Ultra versions (including future releases), you can then have a toggle to double the rate of fire, but with an increasing chance to jam based upon how long you hold the trigger. The chance starts at 5%, then increases every second by another 5%, until it jams. Once the weapon jams, it is unusable for 5-10 seconds, but then the jam rate resets to 5%.

That sounds like a really low chance, especially for the bigger UACs. 10 seconds of fire until you have 50% chance of a jam? Auto-jam after 20 seconds?

I like your other ideas though, although with the current mechanics we'd see precious few Pontiac 100s and almost all AC/20s would be ChemJets. All damage to one location is just too good to trade away unless there's some other major benefit (which there doesn't seem to be in your system).

Which is why I want to remove it completely, much to Joe's chagrin

[Cimarb]

stjobe, on 31 January 2014 - 01:39 PM, said:

That sounds like a really low chance, especially for the bigger UACs. 10 seconds of fire until you have 50% chance of a jam? Auto-jam after 20 seconds?

I like your other ideas though, although with the current mechanics we'd see precious few Pontiac 100s and almost all AC/20s would be ChemJets. All damage to one location is just too good to trade away unless there's some other major benefit (which there doesn't seem to be in your system).

Which is why I want to remove it completely, much to Joe's chagrin

Well I do too, but I'm trying to do that ugly "compromise" thing I keep hearing bad things about...

Obviously, different manufacturers variants would be more popular or "better" than others, but that could be fixed through balance tweaks and supply/demand systems, as I was mentioning. Maybe Joe's Tomodzuru AC/20 has a quirk that causes it to jam sometimes, or just costs a ton of money to purchase as well as maintain. There are so many possibilities to make things like this "special", but a lot of it hinges on CW.

I just threw some numbers out for the jamming, though. It could easily vary depending on the class of AC and/or firing rate increase. Since a UAC20 would be a huge increase to the firing rate, it could start much higher and/or climb at a much higher rate, have a much longer jam time, etc.

[Black Arachne]

I've noticed this as well, fortunately I had to sell My Awesome. The devs need to fix this ghost heat thing along with the current heat system which seems to only punish energy builds or let us replace the weapon slots with ballistics.

[Cimarb]

Yeah, the heat system is a whole other level of horrible... At least ACs can be fixed without redoing a whole foundational system.

[Varent]

Cimarb, on 31 January 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

So, while I was going to start a new thread about this, I thought that would be going against the very thing that irritates me about these forums - duplicate threads - so instead, I am resurrecting this great thread from its two week nap!

Here goes, and let me know your thoughts on it:

Autocannons as a whole need to be realigned. Currently, we have four versions of the AC20, since every one of them does roughly 20 damage in the same time period. Here are the stats:

AC2
Damage: 2
Cooldown: 0.52
DPS: 3.85
Damage per 5 seconds: 19.23

AC5
Damage: 5
Cooldown: 1.50
DPS: 3.33
Damage per 5 seconds: 16.65

UAC5
Damage: 5
Cooldown: 1.50 (if only fired at normal rate)
DPS: 3.33 (varies)
Damage per 5 seconds: 16.65 (varies)

AC10
Damage: 10
Cooldown: 2.50
DPS: 4.00
Damage per 5 seconds: 20.00

AC20
Damage: 20
Cooldown: 4.00
DPS: 5.00
Damage per 5 seconds: 25.00

So, in a "normalized" turn of five seconds (since all weapons in MWO can fire at least once in that time), the range of damage between all autocannons is 16.65-25.00. According to the definition of an autocannon in Sarna:

"Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor. The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors. Autocannon are grouped into the following loose damage classes: (ac2-ac20)... Caliber is fluff for the size of the barrel that the shell or shells are fired from and no standard caliber has been set for any of the classes of Autocannon. Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each 'round' or burst of fire. Probable exceptions are (185mm Demolisher cannon and 203mm Cauldron Born cannon, which is actually a clan mech, btw)"

According to this definition, every autocannon currently in the game would be considered an AC20, as their DPS are all closer to 20 than any other classification.

Side note: Oddly, the AC5/UAC5 are the most common autocannons, yet they are also the lowest DPS of all of them... This means they happen to fit in the sweet spot of weight/space versus firepower that people like most. Anyways...

What should happen is all autocannon need to be normalized to each other. That means, in 5 seconds of time, an AC2 should do roughly 2 damage, an AC5 should do 5 damage, an AC10 should do 20 and an AC20 should do 20. While this would dramatically nerf the lower class ACs in damage potential compared to currently, this can be offset by making the optimum/max ranges actually matter again! An AC2 may not do nearly as much damage, but they are the longest range weapons of the bunch. As the class gets higher, the range gets significantly lower, so on the other end you have the devastating damage of the AC20, but it can only be used at very short ranges, similar to how SRMs are used.

Here would be my proposed adjustments:
AC2 - damage 0.2 - cooldown 0.52 - DP5S 2.0 - range 720 - max range 1440
AC5 - damage 1.5 - cooldown 1.50 - DP5S 5.0 - range 620 - max range 1240
AC10 - damage 5.0 - cooldown 2.50 - DP5S 10.0 - range 450 - max range 900
AC20 - damage 16 - cooldown 4.00 - DP5S 20.0 - range 270 - max range 540

These would be the "standard" versions. Once CW gets implemented, you could then adjust the "damage" and "cooldown" numbers all over the place to represent different manufacturers, as long as the "DP5S" value stays within a small range of that classification. Here are some examples for possible AC20 variants:

185mm ChemJet AC/20 - damage 20 - cooldown 5.00 - DP5S 20.0
Pontiac 100 AC/20 - damage 0.2 - cooldown 0.50 - DP5S 20.0
Imperator Zeta-A - damage 5 - cooldown 1.25 - DP5S 20.0

On top of this, to give some real variety, you could also have burst-fire versions, such as:

Kali Yama Big Bore AC/20 - damage 5.0/tick - 1.0 second burst with 4 ticks - cooldown 4.0 - DP5S 20.0
Armstrong Requiem AC/20 - damage 1.0/tick - 4.0 second burst with 20 ticks - cooldown 1.0 - DP5S 20.0

You now have balanced autocannons (both compared to other weapons and also compared to each other), enough variety for every person imaginable, and a reason to own certain manufactory plants, as you could limit ammo supplies/cost for certain weapons based upon the current ownership and faction difference.

Now, for all Ultra versions (including future releases), you can then have a toggle to double the rate of fire, but with an increasing chance to jam based upon how long you hold the trigger. The chance starts at 5%, then increases every second by another 5%, until it jams. Once the weapon jams, it is unusable for 5-10 seconds, but then the jam rate resets to 5%.

where as I like the idea of the different ac versions. And think this could be neat.... I think these changes favor the ac20 too much and the higher ac and generally discourage people form using the ac2 at all.

I feel the weapons should offer variety and options rather then simply be changed based off dps per weight.

They are currently all set to different niches with the somewhat ignored cousin being the ac10.

Just for an example. The ac2 right now is a great fire support weapon that offers great damage at long ranges but forces you to stay to those ranges since you need to hold on target.

The ac20 is a true crowd pleaser with great burst but at short ranges with a slow moving projectile. It weighs the most and produces the most heat per shot... but it also has the highest FLD.

the ac5 are set into long distance fighting and brawling respectively. The ac5 being more the distance fighter while the uac is the classy brawling weapon.

This does leave the ac10 out of place. The lbx is fine, ive found several uses for it myself but I usually fail to want to use the ac10 since it produces more heat, weights more and takes up an extra slot.

Now if you make the changes you propose....

You basically make the ac2 useless for... well... any type of true fire support roll... Im actually unsure where it will fit after that change whatsoever.... Where as the ac20 simply becomes king....

[MustrumRidcully]

I think Crimarbs idea is interesting, just a few caveats:

The AC/2 and the AC/5 were underpowered guns in the table top game. I would ignore the canon values here and upgrade the AC/2 to a 4 DP5S and the AC5 to a 6 DP5S weapon. When doing so, I would look to make their rate of fire slower and their damage per shot higher than now. The AC/2 particularly cannot really benefit from her range with a high rate of fire - you need more time to aim at long range, and lose rate of fire.


Out of a similar consideration: When you ever get to the part where each AC/xs come in different variants, I would give higher damage per shot ACs a slightly lower DPS or some other disadvantage (maybe raise the heat per shot further.)
There are so many possibilities...

For example, let's get "crass" and do the opposite of what we did so far - instead of lowering the ROF with increasing AC, we increase it:
AC/2 (as 4 DP5S weapon): 4 damage and 2 heat per 5 seconds
AC/5 (as 6 DP5S weapon): 4.8 damage and 0.96 heat per 4 seconds
AC/10 (as 10 DP5S weapon): 6 damage and 1.8 heat per 3 seconds
AC/20 (as 20 DP5S weapon): 8 damage and 5.6 heat per 2 seconds

This notably lowers the alpha potential of the heavy ballistics (but the still retain an advantage), and improves the alpha potential of the lighter ballistics. But it means a lot of Dakka with the heavier ones.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 02 February 2014 - 03:38 AM.

[Craig Steele]

You know, I have yet to meet an AC advocate who thinks AC's are better than lasers once the ammo runs out.

More than one boom Jag pilot has though "wish I had some lasers" when he hears the 'click click' noise