437 replies to this topic

[LackofCertainty]

If a person builds a boat, then they typically have a few weaknesses The LRM boat is going to pound you at range, but if you can catch it or cripple it it's weak and it's super ammo dependent. The laser boat is a pain to deal with, but you can keep it at extreme range and plink it down, or you wade into close range with it, and trust your extra armor to keep you alive until it overheats itself into a coma, and finish it off then. SRM boats are mostly ignorable if you can keep them at range. A boat is going to be great at what it does, at the cost of versatility. That is how it should be.

I don't like the idea of having my options artificially limited to prevent people from (over)specializing their mechs.

One of the things I always liked doing was making a mech designed around constant alpha'ing. I would load less weapons overall, but compensate with a ton of heat sinks, so that my burst wasn't as high, but I could maintain it for a (relatively) long period. Limiting me to be able to alpha only 1 time every X seconds/minutes would just force me to use a mech design similar to what everyone else is using.



Edit:Apparently people are worried that this 2012 game is going to use the exact mechanics from a 199X game. Really? Do you people -really- think that the dev team is going to outright copy those mechanics without any thought on how multiplayer fps-type games have developed in the past 10/15 years? Calm down and let them show their work before you start drama-queening it up. >_>

Edited by LackofCertainty, 03 March 2012 - 06:14 AM.

[Wriddle]

LackofCertainty, on 03 March 2012 - 06:03 AM, said:

Edit:Apparently people are worried that this 2012 game is going to use the exact mechanics from a 199X game. Really? Do you people -really- think that the dev team is going to outright copy those mechanics without any thought on how multiplayer fps-type games have developed in the past 10/15 years? Calm down and let them show their work before you start drama-queening it up. >_>

"He who does not look to his past will continue to make the same mistakes in the future."

[Strum Wealh]

Wriddle, on 03 March 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

"He who does not look to his past will continue to make the same mistakes in the future."

"Those who fail to learn history
are doomed to repeat it;
those who fail to learn history correctly--
why, they are simply doomed."

AchemDro'Hm
"The Illusion of Historical Fact"
C.Y. 4971

(from "To Loose the Fateful Lightning", the third episode of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda)

[Sinitron]

The problem in past MechWarrior games was that 'mechs overspecialized in 'mech-hunting would always be superior as other 'mechs were the only targets. As there were no supporting units to worry about in the multiplayer, people could get away with the pure-gun Nova Cats, which in my opinion is the worst type of 'mech you could possibly include as it's just so much better than most other 'mechs at the laser sniper role. The Supernova for example is notoriously slow and can barely turn at all, while also having lower weapon ports forcing it to expose more of itself when attempting to snipe. This problem is not present with missileboats, as they have to lock, fire, and even then it's possible to dodge the incoming barrage or reduce damage with AMS, making them immediately inferior to laser-, ppc- or gauss-boats which hit instant or almost instantly at great ranges.

Personally, I think a lot of these problems are solved by avoiding most Clan tech and 'mechs altogether, and forcing IS 'mechs to have a slot system similar to MW4 so you can't just cram on 30 tons worth of lasers and run around looking like an ***** overheating at every turn. As much as I like the Hunchback IIC, it's an extremely lopsided fight for most other medium-weight brawlers due to the stupid high damage it can put out at point blank, and as I already explained the Nova Cat is a prime offender in this category.

[yngvef]

Alpha striking should still be possible in my opinion.

Heat-generating weapons: Should generate MORE heat than the sum of the individual weapons. An alpha strike with five lasers should generate the heat of for example seven. Firing weapons individually should make cooling much more effective.

Ballistic weapons: Recoil should knock you off balance. Alpha striking should be limited to certain torso angles (plus minus 15-20 degrees or something) because firing a bunch of autocannons 90 degrees to the side should cause the mech to fall over.

If you include some sort of "Alpha timer" that counts down like a japanese turn-based RPG... I'm outta here.

[WhenKatzComes]

I guess im not too clear on the debate at this point. It seems like if there is a weapon slot system in place (like MW4) and rigorous heat management, alpha strikes shouldn't really be that big of a deal if they come at the expense of heat generation and ammo expenditure. 'Boating' aside from a leisurely hobby seems to be a natural move in the right direction for a star which aims to contain close-med range mechs as well some walking artillery hanging out on the ridge above.

Break away a couple medium, fast mechs to handle the artillery and the star's utility is diminished substantially. Laser boats heat up like crazy, and hopefully won't be able to cram beam weapons in a missle pod etc.

Has there been any talk of this by the dev team? I would also cringe if it went towards the wind up timer poptart zap fest end of things.

[Christopher Dayson]

I think an 'alpha' strike should be a rapid fire sequence of shots. Since weapons have a cooldown phase I assume to either A) Recharge the energy capacitor or Feed another ammo set (As we are pre-Rotary AC's I believe). One of the key components of TT BattleTech was that damage splashed all over. While you might fire both ppc's and medium lasers, they'd hit in different areas. This stopped the problem we saw rampantly in MW3 for example, Shadowcats running around with a ton of mediums or small lasers and legging with alpha strikes.

So I'd like to see where yes, we can group but they don't fire simultaneously, rapid fire burst would be ideal. You might be able to get them all into a single location on an unmoving mech, but on a moving mech, you're better off aiming for center mass and you'll get splash all over. Or if someone is running straight away from you you could still core them with an alpha. It makes mobility important for more than circles as well.

Sorry for multipost but: It also depends on how 'heavy' the mech's feel, if there is movement of the camera and weapons with every step than we'll get more splash that way to, especially with rapid fire alpha strikes over 'all shoot at exactly the same time' strikes.

Recoil would also be awesome for the bigger guns and AC's. The last thing I want to see in this is rampant legging.

[Vtack]

Smurf-O-Pax, on 03 March 2012 - 01:48 AM, said:

I think best implementation of MechWarrior backround would be something like the Targeting Circle in WoT. And to keep up with the crappy targeting computers they use in Mechs the Circle gets Bigger the more Weapons you add to your Weapon Group. Let's make a few examples.

Every Weapon has other features of the Circle (bigger/smaller, gets smaller faster/slower) so that a Large Laser has a circle that is relativly small and gets small fast compared to a big circle that gets small slowly on a LRM 20.
So now you group 2 Large Lasers and receive a circle that's a little bigger then with a single one but got the same speed in getting smaller. Naturally it takes now longer to receive highest accuracy because of the bigger circle but with enough time you hit as good as with a single Large Laser.
Now you group 1 Large Laser and a LRM 20 in one group. You will reveive a even bigger circle that takes more time to get highest accuracy and will end with a bigger circle then you will get with 2 Large Lasers.

That implementation wouldn't prevent Alphastrikes but actually would support usage of Big Guns (Gauss) if you want to hit single modules on the other mech. And you have a easy way to get different Weapon Range into the Game. For a small Laser the Circle is so big that aren't able to Hit a Mech at 150m with accuracy. Sure you can shoot on 200m with the small Laser but you need to be very very lucky to hit something with it on this distance. (don't know the range of a small laser has been a long time)
Alphastrikes would also be very deadly but you need to get really close if you want to hit with all grouped Weapons. And you need to Hug the other mech if you want to Hit a single Module with it.

This is a pretty creative solution and one that when combined with an extra heat penalty could make alot of sense. First off laser boats for long range sniping are right out allowing for more tactical long range play based on the targeting issue. With the addition of excess heat build up due to an alpha strike we could add the wrinkle that even in a knife fight you have to measure the amount of potential damage you can do with an alpha v. the inability to effectively utilize your weapons after the alpha strike. We turn alpha strikes essentially into a well calculated killing blow. Get right and you've taken down your enemy as efficiently as possible. Use it too early in an engagement and you may be ceding an advantage to your opponent.

Essentially the make long range boats virtually useless unless its based on LRMs. which brings up a good point I wonder how they're going to implement LRMs?

[Nighthound]

I have a Question :

Why not stick with canon rules? In Standard TT there is no grouping but that would be rather silly if you think of it. BUT if you look at the novels even in 3025 there was grouping of weapons even on the fly in mid combat.
As for it would be dangerous .... You can see my House is Davion und many Davion Mechs/Variants have so few weapons/much heat sinks that alpha striking the whole fight is no problem at all. The drawback is i can't overpower my foe because i can't fire more weapons then I have.
There was a post with an Awsome firing 5 PPCs on the first page ... so what?
1. That specific Awesome has now 10 (or was it 15) seconds till he can fire again making him a nice big slow easy target.
2. That specific Awesome drains nearly all its heat in that timeframe, so no problem there ether.

Another (quite different) example : The ClanMech Nova-Prime (Black-Hawk) with its 12 ER-Medium Lasers and Jump capability.
1. He can only fire 6 of those lasers safely (without Jumping) everytime, thus limiting its firepower compared to other Mechs its Class.
2. If it fires all its weapons at once it shuts down guaranteed. Making its alpha-stike a win-it-all-lose-it-all type of attack. (Oh look that big bad Atlas with its back to me .... time to roll the dice!)

Now if you have a boat capable of firing everithing all the time then its weaponload out is comparativly small or he will overheat resulting in shutdows and/or ammo explosions. And don't forget this game has writen urban warzones all over it making sniping difficult, LRM boats pretty much useless (unless your opponent is sleeping or very slow) and AC boats .... hum well never saw an effective version of those considering ammo.

Bottom Line : This is not worth any discussion imho. Stick with the rules and it will balance it self out.

PS: Well as we are still playing in the 3025 Tech timeline AND we are playing IS .... There are no custom modifications! .... All you have are Variants ... period. (I know there will be modules but those seem to be non-weapon only)

[ToWcH]

My suggestion would be using the alpha strike as a last ditch effort (No I done mean Last Stand). Last ditch effort as in are you willing to face the circumstances of using it?. I suggest that if an alpha strike is use the should be: 1. 10% loss of all weapon effectiveness (20% after a second alpha strike and so on), 2. 10% increasing in heat generating. 3. slower heat dissipation.

Edited by ToWcH, 03 March 2012 - 12:17 PM.

[ObsidianDeath]

[color="#000000"]My feelings on using an Alpha Strike is that it’s well within limits for a Mech to use on an Enemy unit, however you give up speed and heat sinks! An the person always has to be cognizant of the heat level and doing a fast coolant flush or taking a dip and how many times you can do this before your bone dry on coolant an before you do over heat! [/color]
[color="#000000"]Another thing to remember is Missile Boats need to stay out of your range and fire and come in fast for a lock depending on missile types; they heavily rely on speed or jump jets. Keep in mind this Mech set up is good for Fire Suppression or softening your targets in a team game. An yes I hate it as much as anyone, getting multiple missile hits as you’re trying to skirt away or secure your AO (Area of Operations). Laser Boats being the more pain in the arse are the contenders you need to deal with in haste. Since they can opperate as Heavy Support by Fire or Infantry Assault variants! However keep in mind they have to sacrifice speed and heat sinks for a massive punch. [/color]
[color="#000000"]If I remember right my Dashi was loaded with 5 gauss rifles and LRM10’s for a finishing Alpha Strike. Needless to say if I had the lock and a clear shot you could be pushing up daisies in one shot or two max however, I had to keep in mind the reload times and the shot and splash time between the shooting phases. What this means is I’m aiming Center Mass but the time I pull the trigger and the time it hits I might get a Right Arm or a Right Center hit. Either way despite these variants you can get past them and they do add one crucial aspect to the game like Fire Support or Heavy Weapons. [/color]


[color="#000000"]Obsidian_Death[/color]
[color="#000000"]Clan: Timber Wolf[/color]
[color="#000000"]Rank: Black Widow/ Kashiek[/color]

[Saren21]

Nighthound, on 03 March 2012 - 11:59 AM, said:

PS: Well as we are still playing in the 3025 Tech timeline AND we are playing IS .... There are no custom modifications! .... All you have are Variants ... period. (I know there will be modules but those seem to be non-weapon only)

you do have a valid point the clan invade was not in till 3049 so Omni Tech would not be part of the IS. On more of a side note I thought this game was takeing place at the end of the 4th succession war. just before the clan invashion.

Edit: CASE was invented in 2476 my mistake.

Edited by Saren21, 03 March 2012 - 12:42 PM.

[Christopher Dayson]

When dealing with reload speeds that is an artifical thing created by video games as compared to table top. In table top each weapon can be fired the same amount of time (Once per turn). In Table Top you could alpha all you wanted if you could handle the heat. The problem is that in Table Top, you /cannot/ cluster your shots into the same armor patch.

It's this key point that makes alpha strikes so abuseable and made legging such an easy prospect. It's this that needs to go. Focus fire will be bad enough (And every good team should be focus firing if at all possible) without making one shot insta-gib leg hunters out of 45 ton mechs with 10 medium lasers. 30 heat (With single heat sinks that'd be insanely a lot yes) but /50/ damage into a single location? That's absurd. Worse than an ultra AC 20.

[Alaskan Viking]

MagnusEffect, on 14 November 2011 - 09:21 PM, said:

WARNING: Below is a somewhat biased editorial of mine explaining the topic. Please take with a grain of salt.

Alpha Strikes in their previous forms have always seemed to benefit "boats" the most. For those not in the know: a "boat" is a mech fitted only with multiples of the same weapon (laser boats & missile boats being the biggest offenders). A player simply had to fit as many of the same weapon, with the same range, move to that optimal range, sit, and fire. In reality (in canon) this seldom was a good idea; mechs were usually fitted with a mix of different weapons to handle different enemies & situations (big guns for mechs, smaller stuff for lighter targets, machine guns for infantry, flamers for burning stuff, etc.)

Isn't the reverse true in real life?

Isn't it the natural progression of weapons systems to start out with multiple different weapons, to prepare for unforseen events, enemies, and cituations, and then to narrow down to the more efficent, optimal weapon profile?

Look at tanks. They started out briming with multiple different sizes of cannons and machineguns sticking out all over, and now they have a single large turret housing a single primary weapon.

Same with Battleships, the early Dreadnaughts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had all shapes and sizes of cannon and artillery, but then it was found from experience that the bigger guns were being used from a safe distance and the smaller ones were just sitting there taking up space and weighing the ship down. Such that at the end of the Battleship's life span as a class of weapon system, in the ultimate final expression of the Battleship, the Iowa class fast battleship, there were no secondary and tertiary rows of cannon down it's hull, save for small Anti aircraft stations, there wwere just 9 very large, very effective 16inch naval artillery guns.

tl;dr

YOU CAN PRY MY PPC's OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!

Edited by Alaskan Viking, 03 March 2012 - 01:04 PM.

[Christopher Dayson]

I'd also like to point out that a boat is /still/ going to get caught with it's pants down at different ranges. The only time boating becomes a real issue (imho) is when you're dealing with a high end light or low end medium mech. It has speed to negate the disadvantage of all those medium lasers by both being able to close and escape quickly.

This is fine really, they're supposed to be like that. All those medium lasers /aren't/ supposed to hit the same armor location however except on the craziest luck ever.

[Alaskan Viking]

Christopher Dayson, on 03 March 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

I'd also like to point out that a boat is /still/ going to get caught with it's pants down at different ranges. The only time boating becomes a real issue (imho) is when you're dealing with a high end light or low end medium mech. It has speed to negate the disadvantage of all those medium lasers by both being able to close and escape quickly.

This is fine really, they're supposed to be like that. All those medium lasers /aren't/ supposed to hit the same armor location however except on the craziest luck ever.

My first thought was "why would LASERS be inaccurate?! Then I got an idea. What if each individual weapon had a targeting computer bandwith cost? So firing one weapon at a time would have 100% of it's potencial accuracy, but adding more into group/alpha fire would suffer from diminishing returns as the weapons get less and less accurate. With larger weapons like PPC's having more bandwith requirements than say a group of small lasers or Machineguns.

You could also have different mech's with different amounts of targeting computer bandwith, or a targeting computer upgrade module.

Edited by Alaskan Viking, 03 March 2012 - 01:34 PM.

[Christopher Dayson]

Main reason that lasers wouldn't be the most accurate is real simple. Smoke, debris, moving targets (Ballistic weapons are just as accurate as lasers depending on speed of the round after all, aka Gauss) but the simple reason is that electronics suck. Battletech is after centuries of ongoing warfare. Targeting Computers were limited at best I'd guess that we today have modern weapons with better targeting than Battletech weapons (See how LRM's and SRM's aren't truly guided in the stock timelines and were essentially rockets).

So by just staggering the weapon fire by a fraction of a second you increase the variability of impact point or hit rate. The Battle Tech game system isn't /designed/ for alpha's to all hit the same armor point. It's counter to the whole system. It breaks the system completely. That's why the Alpha Strike (while in itself not bad and completely thematic) is more dangerous in video games than they should be in Battle Tech, they shouldn't all hit the same armor area.

4 Medium Lasers should /not/ be an AC 20. Period.

[ObsidianDeath]

Alaskan Viking, on 03 March 2012 - 01:01 PM, said:

Isn't the reverse true in real life?

Isn't it the natural progression of weapons systems to start out with multiple different weapons, to prepare for unforseen events, enemies, and cituations, and then to narrow down to the more efficent, optimal weapon profile?

Look at tanks. They started out briming with multiple different sizes of cannons and machineguns sticking out all over, and now they have a single large turret housing a single primary weapon.

Same with Battleships, the early Dreadnaughts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had all shapes and sizes of cannon and artillery, but then it was found from experience that the bigger guns were being used from a safe distance and the smaller ones were just sitting there taking up space and weighing the ship down. Such that at the end of the Battleship's life span as a class of weapon system, in the ultimate final expression of the Battleship, the Iowa class fast battleship, there were no secondary and tertiary rows of cannon down it's hull, save for small Anti aircraft stations, there wwere just 9 very large, very effective 16inch naval artillery guns.

tl;dr

YOU CAN PRY MY PPC's OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!

[color="#000000"]I’m in the Army and I currently serve as an Infantryman with twelve years of service in a Stryker unit here, needless to say your Tank analogy is a bit off to say the least. A Tank will have a main weapons system platform (cannon 120mm, 105mm etc.) plus a Coax Machine Gun a 240G (7.62mm) or a 50.Cal mounted for use against Joes like me! An also depending on situations things can always be added to them like other weapon systems. Last but least of course then you have crew weapons and maybe someone put a LAW or an AT-4 onboard besides stowing the grill and ice chest with Rip-its and Monsters in the bezel rack for fun… [/color]
[color="#000000"]Obsidian_Death[/color]
[color="#000000"]Clan: Timber Wolf[/color]
[color="#000000"]Rank Black Widow/ Kashiek[/color]

[Nighthound]

OK I concede your Point .... pin point accuracy for alphastrikes is too big a gamebreaker in video games. (Damn just thinking about my Dire Wolf with 2 ER-PPCs and 2 Gauss Rifles always hitting the same location gives me the shivers)

But I like the the-more-weapons-per-group-the-bigger-the-target-circle idea .... That way you could get pin point accuracy for sniping with one weapon and have a spray-effect with groups. Circle reducing factors would/could be time (aiming), modules (targeting computer) and/or pilot (skill points).

Sounds good thinking about it .... but as I stated we should not get to modify our Mechs till we have Omnis and that will take a while jet.

Edited by Nighthound, 03 March 2012 - 02:38 PM.

[guardiandashi]

really this comes back to the fundimental disconnect from mechwarrior (computer game) in previous incarnations, vs battletech board game

the root issue is what some people are calling "pinpoint accuracy" where the guns fire and hit exactly on the point of the crosshairs as if they were fired from the crosshairs not from the various locations where they are mounted on the chassis.

if you allow that to occur it completely kills the ballance that was established in the battletech base game which all the mechwarrior games are supposed to be based on.

additionally no weapon in history has EVER been 100% accurate EVERY single shot.

#394 [color="#ffa504"]Christopher Dayson[/color] 's arguement that the delay/recycle times are something generated by the mechwarrior computer games is actually false. it actually has a long history in battletech coming from the "solaris VII boxed set" a resource which unfortunately has been discontinued