Duvanor, on 13 January 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:
Well, they stick to the lore whereever they can, but this is a PvP game. As it is, there are just two ways of balancing.
1.: Make Clanmechs better and give a numerical/weight advantage to the IS.
2.: Make IS Mechs as good as Clanmechs.
1 is no option as long as we have mixed factions in public games. And I for one do not want them to change that.
There is a third way, but it requires redoing the game from scratch. That is having more elements to the game from which balance can be tweaked and working with them.
Clan weapons didn't have better range.
They had better accuracy over range as a combination between being honed in combat and partly the equipment and computer systems. Thus an IS pilot with a bit of skill and a bit of luck could match a Clan's range; it just wasn't 'as likely'. Here in MWO, Clans have better range and even if you hit at that range with IS weapons you do inferior damage; that's just ********.
Laser vomit is a product of mech threshold + heatsink threshold + heatsink dissipation. Tabletop has mech threshold + heatsink dissipation. Notice 1x, not 2x. So double heatsinks are 2x as opposed to what
could have been 4x if not for the decimal "1.4" nonsense and "skill tree." Certainly wouldn't have so much Clan laser vomit if your heatsink count didn't raise the thermal ceiling that your mech can handle.
Heatsink Taxing is a rule in which the heatsinks are given a threshold. Some might argue that MWO's dissipation + threshold per heatsink is emulating this. However the rule doesn't allow the Heatsink Threshold to apply to mech heat. Instead, it is a
separate scale which when breached, required a roll to determine the chance of the 'Mech having melted a heatsink or more. (Most I've melted at once was 3 Clan doubles using a Nova's 12 ER ML fire, with only 3 of them doing full power and the rest tuned down to 2 heat and 4 damage each. Did this to maximize chances of hits while trying to keep my heat low.) Rather than random chance, this could be established by something a little more concrete. If you're at this range for too long above the heat of your heatsinks (which can be less or more than your mech threshold of 30), you will melt heatsinks so long as it continues. Of course if you lose heatsinks from destruction or other causes, that ceiling will come down, making it harder and harder to maintain even if you originally could never touch your heatsink limit due to it being above the 30 mech limit.
Speaking of thermal ceilings, in Battletech lore once you have maintained 16 units out of your 30 heat ceiling... that is to say you linger at 53.33% heat for a little while, your weapons are disabled to prevent further heat climb and risk.
This is the canonical reasoning and timing for weapon overrides. In Battletech you do not override a shutdown; you override the weapon lockout. Once you hit the 30 threshold for a shutdown...you
shut. down. That's it. Finito. Off switch. It won't start back up until you've reached 14/30 heat, which is 46.67% heat. The fall that often happens when shutting down? This is because your mech's joints lock up in place when the mech shuts off. Quite literally the reactor says Redlight! and your mech froze. Not balanced? Welp, eeeyooown-crash! Balanced? You'll stay standing. So no "hunch over" or "erect to your feet" b.s. like we have now.
"Oh but you'll reach 30 heat far too easily! We can't Alpha!"
So... you won't be able to use a move that is "Rare, last ditch effort conducted by Mechwarriors with nothing left to lose?" Wait, so no mass pinpoint FLD from dozens of weapons? No more boating? Huh.
...Hm.
In all seriousness, though, BT's weapon ratings are a summary per unit of time. Technically rated for 10 seconds so lets look at that. Overall damage output and heat production is reduced for most weapons by 2/3rds. So an AC/20 produces 6 heat per 10 seconds instead of 18 heat. "But it sucks to fire one shot per 10 seconds." You're right. However again BT is a summary. They pinpoint-front load the damage to one body part because it is easier on a paper game to do it that way. In the books, Autocannons are churning up to "100" shots per 'rating'. That Victor Pontiac 100? Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat til one hundred shots (described as occurring within about a second), blam 20 damage for one "use." 120mm AC/20? Fires about 12 to 16 rounds to do 20 damage at a rate of 3 to 4 per second. AC/5 at 60mm? 8 to 10 shells per second. The Marauder's AC/5 wields a 120mm AC/5 fires at a "painfully slow 3 to 4 individual shells per second." Each time it delivers '5' potential damage, the 'Round' count goes down by 1. It consumes 1 unit of rated potential, 1 unit of ammunition when factoring it requires x amount of ammunition to deliver 1 rating. In other words it disposes of a "Cassette" or "magazine."
With things like this, it would give us a lot of play-room for balancing the IS and Clan factions without quirking the crap out of things. After all the only thing really out of whack with the Clans is that they can produce significantly higher heat ceilings than IS mechs due to double heatsinks being 2 slots. Fix that and then Clan range superiority to a Clan accuracy superiority... and things will get very different very quickly.