4 replies to this topic

[Xoco]

The Flamer is, without a doubt, a sad, sad weapon. It generates more heat on the user than the target, has short range, deals almost no damage--and it LOOKS AWESOME!

Seriously, it looks absolutely amazing. I still dream of a day where I can boat Flamers on a Light and actually be able to contribute to my team. So in the meantime, here are some ideas that might work.



Flamer is a very low damage weapon. But low damage wouldn't be too bad if it at least hits multiple places at the same time. I suggest that:
1) Flamer hits everything in the visible cone. Heck, it could even go through a mech to hit its back.
1.1) Make Flamer capable of hitting cockpit. I was testing it on the Training Ground today only to discover that since the Flamer only hit point, it's actually damn near impossible to hit the cockpit. At least being able to roast the pilot in normally lightly armored cockpit would be nice.

2) Make Flamer spread the damage to nearby body parts. If you hit CT, make it so the Flamer picks a nearby component ever 0.1 second to deal damage to as well.

If you roast multiple parts at the same time, it should be possible for the spread damage to eventually add up to a decent amount.

So to sum it up, even 0.8dps (that's the Flamer's DPS, right?) could add up if it can hit 3 places at once. It's not as useful as 2.4 damage on a single component, but it's way the heck more fun.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

simply raise the heat damage x10, and it would be good for close combating.....

[Xoco]

Titannium, on 03 August 2015 - 12:58 AM, said:

simply raise the heat damage x10, and it would be good for close combating.....

It is too easy to use though. The target area is pretty large, and it doesn't have a cooldown, so amping up the damage too much would definitely make it too strong.

Since machineguns only have 1.0DPS, I figure the Flamer can't just outright beat it. The heat gen was an interesting niche, but the dev frowned upon that. I guess AoE (or as others suggest, DoT of some sort) could be interesting.

[Sereglach]

You're way off on a few of your concepts; and there's also a great deal more info that you need to take into consideration with your suggestion.

1. The Flamer is a hit-scan, tight beam weapon, just like a laser. If you put a TAG laser and a Flamer next to each other, the TAG point is where the Flamer is actually hitting. You can't just turn that into a cone. It doesn't really work.

2. The Flamer is already at least partway through being reengineered. The last update (in February) was that the visual effects were being completely redone to prevent "flamer blindness" from the huge gouts of fire before the rest of the reengineering happens. Unfortunately, they've been pulling a great deal of resources away from weapons engineering and design in order to facilitate the UI overhauls of the mech lab, mech select, and CW work. The Flamer is sadly low priority, but when it is done, the huge cone of flames will be going away.

3. The Flamer was meant to do heat damage more than physical damage. Although they've stated that the DPS of the weapon will possibly/probably increase when reengineered, the much bigger focus will be on heat damage. Heat damage isn't going to matter if you're hitting in a huge cone of flames, or a tight jet of flames.

4. One important facet that many suggestions focus on is an "easy to use, difficult to master" facet of the weapon. Just because something is easy to use doesn't mean it should be made too weak. Keeping a tight jet of continuous flame on target (again, the actual striking point is no different from a TAG laser) is easy to do, but difficult to maintain for long periods of consistency. Any reengineering of the weapon should focus on that rather than just giving a huge shotgun effect.

While your idea is unique and interesting, I honestly think there have been far better suggestions out there, and they're also far simpler and more effective.

[Top Leliel]

Make it deal more heat than it produces. Simple enough solution.