5 replies to this topic

[Draykin]

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this, but going off of the basic TT (OH NOES! NOT THE TT!), a single round, to my knowledge, lasted around around ten seconds, and this is the average time considered for MWO. I know the difference between a Real Time FPS and a Turn-Based TT game are significant, but I've begun to wonder for some time now if perhaps it might be time to consider tweaking weapon cooldowns.

Now, I know some people will be riled up and ready to do some angry posting right away. Let's not kid ourselves, this is a forum on the internet. But I am being serious. Based on the TT, again, to my knowledge, weapon refire times could be anywhere from <1 second to 10 seconds. So far, the highest weapon cooldown, I believe, is about 4 seconds. Again, I believe I am not the first to think of this, but I do believe this is something we might want PGI to consider.

I hope to get some decent opinions and input on this, so vote and post away!

[Strum Wealh]

I voted yes on all of the above, with the provision that I believe that PGI should use the recycle time categories from BattleTech's Solaris VII box set as a basis for weapon recycle times.

Category 1 ("Delay 0" - 0.0 to 2.5 seconds)

• MG
  
• AMS
  
• AC/2

Category 2 ("Delay 1" - 2.5 to 5.0 seconds)

• Flamer
  
• Small Laser
  
• Medium Laser
  
• Small Pulse Laser
  
• AC/5
  
• AC/10
  
• LB 10-X
  
• UAC/5
  
• SRM-2
  
• SRM-4
  
• SRM-6
  
• SSRM-2
  
• Narc

Category 3 ("Delay 2" - 5.0 to 7.5 seconds)

• Large Laser
  
• Medium Pulse Laser
  
• AC/20
  
• Gauss Rifle
  
• LRM-5
  
• LRM-10
  
• LRM-15
  
• LRM-20

Category 4 ("Delay 3" - 7.5 to 10.0 seconds)

• PPC
  
• ER PPC
  
• ER Large Laser
  
• Large Pulse Laser

Under the Solaris rules, PPCs and ER-PPCs (along with ERLLs and LPLs) would have had a cooldown between 7.5 and 10.0 seconds (versus 4.0 seconds for MWO).

Personally, I would have preferred if they had actually used the 'Mech Duel Rules as a general guide for cooldowns.
For example, just looking at the Category 4, we could have had something like this:

• LPL - ~7.5 second cooldown
  
• ERLL - ~8.0 second cooldown
  
• PPC - ~9.0 second cooldown
  
• ER-PPC - ~9.5 second cooldown

Likewise, we could have used variation within the above categories to do something like (for example):

• giving the AC/20 a second cooldown (for an average of 3.63 DPS and 1.27 HPS), and giving the Gauss Rifle a ~7.25-second cooldown (for an average of 2.07 DPS and 0.14 HPS), or
  
• giving the AC/5 (and UAC/5) a ~2.75-second cooldown (for an average of 1.82 DPS (or 3.63 DPS for a double-fire UAC/5) and 0.36 HPS (or 0.73 HPS for a double-fire UAC/5)) and giving the AC/10 (and LB 10-X) a ~3.75-second cooldown (for an average of 2.67 DPS (for both the AC/10 and the LB 10-X), and 0.80 HPS for the AC/10 & 0.53 HPS for the LB 10-X), or
  
• giving the AC/2 a ~1.25-second cooldown (for an average of 1.60 DPS and 0.80 HPS) and leave the MG where it is (firing ten 0.10-damage bullets per second, for an average of 1.0 DPS).

Thoughts?

[TuntematonSika]

Like what your thinking, but the main reason the weapon charts are not to TT standards is because of balancing. How they are right now are good.

The gauss rifle needs no nerfing.
Lasers, their allright.
ACs, eh? since when did they have heat problems?
PPCs, their heat is where they should be.

[Strum Wealh]

TuntematonSika, on 01 August 2014 - 04:36 AM, said:

Like what your thinking, but the main reason the weapon charts are not to TT standards is because of balancing. How they are right now are good.

The gauss rifle needs no nerfing.
Lasers, their allright.
ACs, eh? since when did they have heat problems?
PPCs, their heat is where they should be.

Heat - which really should be considered as two separate functions, per-salvo heat generation & heat generation over time, both of which tie into required HS load & sustainability of fire (which, in turn, directly affects damage output & 'Mech longevity/time-to-kill (TTK)) - is only one of several parts of weapon balance.

Damage - both per-salvo damage output & damage output over time , as well as the distinction & relationship between instantaneous & gradual damage (e.g. front-loaded damage (e.g. PPCs, Gauss weapons, current IS ACs) vs DOT (lasers, Clan (U)ACs)) and damage spread (e.g. missile launchers, LB-X cluster rounds) vs lack thereof (e.g. pinpoint damage (e.g. lasers, PPCs, Gauss Weapons)) - is another of several factors that must also be considered, as it ties directly into TTK.

There is also a question of weapon role. As noted above, BattleTech has several of the "meta weapons" - the long-range, front-loaded, pinpoint-damage weapons - at the higher end of the recycle time scale; they have high per-salvo damage, but low per-unit-time damage, which is offset by the traditional "brawling weapons" - things like Medium Lasers & (S)SRM launchers - having relatively-low per-salvo damage and/or being largely unable to concentrate all of the damage in one location, but having low recycle times (which allows a high volume of fire to offset the lack of precision & front-loading capability).

Several players, and even PGI itself, have acknowledged low TTK as an issue that adversely affects gameplay & player experience, and adjusting the weapons' recycle times is a method - really, a large part of a still-larger solution - to directly address that issue (among others).

[terrycloth]

MWO doubled everyone's armor and heat capacity, so you should be thinking of 5s rounds if you want to match TT behavior. Which is pretty close to what most weapons already do (with a few exceptions for otherwise trash weapons like the smaller ACs and lasers).

So this isn't needed.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I voted Yes for everything, except lasers, for which I did a qualified Yes. Here is why:

Pulse lasers. Standard lasers should have a slight to moderate bump in cooldown, and ER lasers should get a moderate to large bump. Pulse lasers, though, should remain at current cooldown levels, as well as receiving a slight heat reduction.