23 replies to this topic

[TexAce]

Most people know that you can't use your fridge, your toaster, your wafflemaker, your mixer and your vacuum cleaner at the same time using one electric circuit.

The max voltage for european standard circuits is 3500W. If you plug-in and use too many stuff at the same time your fuse will go POP.

Cars have batteries, too. If you pimp up your car with a dish washer and 17 LED monitors you will soon realise that it won't go anywhere because your battery will quit the job.

So why not implement this in our Mechs, instead of ghost heat?

Imagine a meter next to the heat meter which represents the max voltage (it can be 100.000 Watt or whatever but lets use 100kW for now).

A PPC would use 40kW.
An ER PPC 50kW

Gauss rifle:
A guass rifle would use up all of your available voltage, but release it very quickly again (talking about 0.1 or 0.05 seconds here), meaning if you alpha TWO gauss rifles, both get fired, you won't shut down, but both shots will only do half damage and travel half as long.
If you fire your PPC with your gauss rifle, the PPC will use 40kW -> 40% of your voltage meter, so the gauss will always take whats left -> 60% damage and range of original gauss values.
If you fire 2 PPCs and one Gauss together, your gauss only has 20% left of the voltage meter and so on.

Missiles would only require 2000W per missile
AC20 = 50kW
AC10 = 35kW
AC5 = 30kW
Lasers would not use up much
LL = 20kW, ML = 15kW, SL = 10kW
ERLL = 30kW
and so on...
BUT lasers would need to use it during their whole burning time.
ECM, BAP, CC and TC would use up power too.

This way you could 'visualise' ghost heat and give it an easy understandable purpose.

If you go above your 100kW mark, you instantly shut down (no ghost heat, so no extra heat applied).
If you go above 150kW, you will blow your fuse and deal extra damage to CT.

This can be expanded further. Battery size can be adjusted by weight class. 70kW for lights, 80kW for mediums, 90kW for heavies, 100kW for assaults for example. Or even by chassis if you wanna go real-pro.

Opinions?

Edited by TexAss, 02 July 2014 - 03:33 AM.

[-Natural Selection-]

I had wondered why they didn't go a route something like this. Though heat is generated from increased draw. I enjoy complicated mechanics, I think it would be fun to add it on top of heat lol.

Edited by Dozier, 02 July 2014 - 01:46 AM.

[Thorn Hallis]

Instead of shutting down or exploding when exceeding the W-mark one could also make the weapons lose power, and therefor a percentage of damage.

[Sylvian Le Fabre]

THIS Idea should really be implemented. So much better than Ghostheat.
Also it reducing boating weapons. Why boat a big alpha, if you cant fire it?

[stjobe]

'Mechs are powered by a fusion reactor; they have basically unlimited energy (for reference, the ITER fusion reactor is designed to generate 500 MW, and the NIF reactor has produced 500 TW).

If PGI only added proper BT-style heat penalties none of these convoluted solutions would be necessary.

[Thunder Child]

This was actually a mechanic in the old BT Teslapod simulators. Your mech had generators (four, I think?) and you had to actively balance all of your mechs requirements off of them. Lose a generator, and you had to re-balance the load to get things working. And if you didn't have enough capacity, some things just wouldn't work.

Admittedly, this sort of thing would be too complicated for the average Joe PuG, who just wants to play CoD: Mech Edition.
But, from a long time BT fan point of view, I fully endorse this concept, with tweaks, of course.

[POWR]

If you ever played the Earthsiege games, those had a system where your mech (HERC in that terminology) carried a reactor of some size and you'd have a pool of energy to use. Shields and weapons would draw from that when they needed recharging and you could run into situations where you would be out of the fight untill you had generated enough energy to restore your shields and laser batteries. However, they did not use a heat system.

[Thorn Hallis]

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 01:55 AM, said:

'Mechs are powered by a fusion reactor; they have basically unlimited energy (for reference, the ITER fusion reactor is designed to generate 500 MW, and the NIF reactor has produced 500 TW).

Well, instead of power one could use limited bandwith for the targeting computer instead. Fluff texts for 'Mechs from the TROs are full of references for this kind of limitation.

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 01:55 AM, said:

If PGI only added proper BT-style heat penalties none of these convoluted solutions would be necessary.

So true.

[kapusta11]

Idea: Replace Paul with someone competent.

[stjobe]

Thorn Hallis, on 02 July 2014 - 02:02 AM, said:

Well, instead of power one could use limited bandwith for the targeting computer instead. Fluff texts for 'Mechs from the TROs are full of references for this kind of limitation.

It's also chock-full of references of having to fight the heat of the 'mech almost more than you fight the enemy.

MWO has a single heat penalty: Shutdown, at 100% heat. That is not nearly enough to curb massed alpha strikes, and it's the only reason Ghost Heat even exists.

A BattleTech game (which MWO purports to be; check the logo) should have proper heat penalties, and it's not like it'd take ages and ages to implement either; all the needed bits and pieces are already in the game: Speed penalties, accuracy penalties, ammo explosions, and shutdowns.

They just need to apply a hell of a lot earlier (adjusting the TT scale, heat penalties would start somewhere between 37.5% heat and 60% heat, depending on how many heat sinks you have) and get progressively worse until you shut down.

Implement that and you can scrap Ghost Heat.

Edited by stjobe, 02 July 2014 - 02:09 AM.

[kapusta11]

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 02:08 AM, said:

It's also chock-full of references of having to fight the heat of the 'mech almost more than you fight the enemy.

MWO has a single heat penalty: Shutdown, at 100% heat. That is not nearly enough to curb massed alpha strikes, and it's the only reason Ghost Heat even exists.

A BattleTech game (which MWO purports to be; check the logo) should have proper heat penalties, and it's not like it'd take ages and ages to implement either; all the needed bits and pieces are already in the game: Speed penalties, accuracy penalties, ammo explosions, and shutdowns.

They just need to apply a hell of a lot earlier (adjusting the TT scale, heat penalties would start somewhere between 37.5% heat and 60% heat, depending on how many heat sinks you have) and get progressively worse until you shut down.

Implement that and you can scrap Ghost Heat.

You can talk about heat penalties once dissipation is increased at least 2 times. Otherwise it will punnish energy mechs even more.

[Vassago Rain]

Fusion engines, OP.

[TexAce]

Vassago Rain, on 02 July 2014 - 02:29 AM, said:

Fusion engines, OP.

No but, pinpoint alphas are, and there is no way around them, except perhaps convergence, which won't come for a long time.
And since GH is a pile of **** which is not visually understandable at all, especially for new players, this is my attempt to make it more understandable and user-friendly.

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 01:55 AM, said:

'Mechs are powered by a fusion reactor; they have basically unlimited energy (for reference, the ITER fusion reactor is designed to generate 500 MW, and the NIF reactor has produced 500 TW).

If PGI only added proper BT-style heat penalties none of these convoluted solutions would be necessary.

and no heat penalties in the world will stop you from shooting 1 PPC together with 3 Gauss rifles for a 50+ pinpoint alpha. Just sayin'.

Edited by TexAss, 02 July 2014 - 02:34 AM.

[peve]

I have given this type of idea some though, too. While it is not Battletech, it is way more interesting than ghost heat. Maybe I will some day create a stompy robot game with this stuff.

However I would implement it with capasitors.

The larger the reactor (engine), the more you have Watts per second that are used to power everything in your mech.

Energy weapons and gauss would have a capasitor that is being charged when not full (recycle). Weapons could fire while not fully charged, but to do full damage you would have to fully charge the capasitor first. Moving consumes energy, so recharging while on the go would be slower, if your engine is not large enough.

You should be able to overload your reactor to produce more power, but that would damage it slowly.

Also bap, ecm and other electronic systems would consume energy.

This would create a lot of possibilities to customize your mech. You could install additional capasitors to your weapons that would allow you to fire multiple times in a shorter perioid. You could rewire stuff so that some weapons would use a shared capasitor (erppc for sniping, pulse laser for close combat).

This way energy weapons would be more interesting and there would be more choises.

For ballistics one could implement mags with different capasities. A mag would hold 1-20 salvos, after which it would have to be changed and that would take some time and some additional gear in your mech. Also you should be able to install active armor against ballistics and missiles that would prevent some damage.

But alas this thing is Battletech, so no cigar.

What can be done then to improve current game?

At least this: mechs without targeting computer should have manual convergence distance that can be adjusted with mouse wheel. Targeting computer would adjust convergence automatically based on distance of the selected enemy.

Also I support gradual heat penalties. They would be great.

[Tombstoner]

This system has been suggested before. A similar and very popular idea involving computer load was put forth by homeless bill and PGI never responded directly. The computer load limited the number of weapon that could be combined before loosing perfect accuracy. It would have given the clan targeting computer something to do: stronger alphas.

The use of logic and physics is not gonna happen when ghost heat is considered a good fix and working as intended.

[zhajin]

this type of thing has been suggested before. though its far to simple to be a PGI fix. over engineering everything is the PGI way. especially when it comes to poorly thought out overly complex quirks for weapon balance.

Edited by zhajin, 02 July 2014 - 04:06 AM.

[Blacksoul1987]

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 01:55 AM, said:

'Mechs are powered by a fusion reactor; they have basically unlimited energy (for reference, the ITER fusion reactor is designed to generate 500 MW, and the NIF reactor has produced 500 TW).

If PGI only added proper BT-style heat penalties none of these convoluted solutions would be necessary.

proper BT style heat penalties stop gauss from being boated and uac's from being boated yup....wait no they don't.

[Tom Sawyer]

PGI Logic Circuit- Can we make money off it? Will we make more money if we fix it? Will the first person console kiddies leave and take their wallets if we do it?

Next!

[wanderer]

Proper heat penalties would keep PPC/AC or PPC/Gauss from being constantly destructive from 0->100% heat load.

PGI has hosed the heat system so badly in MWO it's facepalmingly bad.

More heat sinks = more overheat allowed before shutdown in MWO. In TT, everyone has the same 0-100% overheat range.

There are zero penalties for heat outside shutdown at 100% and damage at 101%+ in MWO. In TT, you'd have 27% overheat causing targeting problems, 17% overheat noticeably slowing the 'Mech, and small chances of shutdown starting at just under 50%. Damage to ammo would begin around 64%.

Lower-heat ammo-based 'Mechs in TT are far more vulnerable due to MWO also utterly reducing the odds of ammo explosions, a vulnerability MWO nerfed so badly most players don't bother with CASE even on standard-engine designs. Even if you reduced ammo destroyed results to a flat 40-50% or so to account for higher ammo tonnage in MWO, TTK on heavy ballistic/missile builds would drop considerably due to increased fragility- and in turn, likely increase the number of standard-engine designs with lower tonnage for brute-force alphas.

Fix heat, boost ammo explosion rates from near zero, and you've altered the game considerably.

[Zaptruder]

Vassago Rain, on 02 July 2014 - 02:29 AM, said:

Fusion engines, OP.

Fusion engines aren't sources of unlimited power.

And even if they were, that wouldn't necessarily mean that they are able to produce and provide all that power in any one moment. Generally, when that happens, it's called a nuclear bomb.

Given that, the engine either has to have a rate of power production, or recharge capacitators that the machine draws power from to operate.

The latter is generally what is described in the BT fiction - and indeed, there are several instances in the fiction where power draw is mentioned as a rate limiting factor in firing weapons.

Power draw is something that is implicit to the Battle Tech game mechanics - firing all your weapons at once is called an alpha strike. But BT turns are approximately 10 seconds - which means you're not actually firing all your weapons at once, but firing all your weapons within a 10 second window. To emphasize this point, you're still required to roll to-hit for all the weapons. There is no mechanic in BTech to roll one to-hit die and have all the weapons hit (or miss) and hit (or miss) one target location.

Additionally, alpha strikes are described as attacks of desperation in the Btech universe - which works well with a practical alpha strike with an energy rate limited system - where you have to wait for the system to recharge power (quickly, but still staggers fire) before the next set of weapons in the 'strike' can fire off.

I keep coming back to check on this game... but the simple reality is that, it'll never be fixed while they continue to insist on a design philosophy of pinpoint alpha strikes.

The game was and is best in a brawling melee. The rush of excitement of closely jousting or boxing mechs. I've experienced it before. It kept me going for months and hundreds of dollars. But nearly a year apart from the game and the forums (glad to see General discussion back though) are still commenting on variations of pop tarting as the primary meta of the game.


No one will listen, but here's my fixes to the game that'd make me come back.


1. Battle Value, using Elo as a modifier (like pilot skill is a modifier for BV on the TT game).
2. Allow multiple drops per match - reason been; you should get the option of playing one OP mech, or multiple crappy mechs. It would also allow the game to respect the asymmetrical dichotomy of clan mechs without glaring balancing issues caused by canon restrictions (i.e. Timberwolf > all).
3. Energy system for limiting pin point damage; makes sense within the context of the lore. Makes sense within the context of game balance. Makes sense within the context of the game system that MWO is derived from (i.e. numbers never balanced for pin point weapon strikes).

With those changes in place... you'd be able to do away with arbitrary and nonsensical systems like ghost heat, clan mech restrictions that leaves some mechs woeful and some mechs beasting. And it'd feel a lot more like Battle Tech... and less like COD-Mech Edition.