68 replies to this topic

[Damocles]

Kaeb Odellas, on 05 February 2016 - 11:50 PM, said:

Nonsense. Why would a hundred pound AC20 shell hit like a freight train at 270m but harmlessly bounce off at 270.01?

Well by highly engineered armor that can defeat a 'hundred pound AC20 shell' when it looses that critical damaging velocity at 270.01m of course.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Kaeb Odellas, on 05 February 2016 - 11:50 PM, said:

Nonsense. Why would a hundred pound AC20 shell hit like a freight train at 270m but harmlessly bounce off at 270.01?

Because wind resistance has sufficiently slowed the shell to a point where its damage is almost nill. Its not unlike normal tank shells. Obviously they have alot longer ranges, but there comes a point where their speed is over come by the wind resistance and they no longer have hte power to penetrate, and therefore, harmlessly bounce off....

[Gas Guzzler]

Well ACs have explosive shells from what I remember. Also, 270 meters is pretty short for a weapon like that. It wouldn't make sense for a weapon to slow down THAT much by 270 meters, especially one that is that heavy, unless it was an extremely poor design with a garbage ballistic coefficient. (Like fat and short instead of skinny and long).

I don't know, why are we reducing ranges? What is the purpose?

[ZeroKelvin]

focus on the topic, it isn't about if any range multiplayer makes sense, it is about reducing the max range of lasers

[Hatachi]

Kaeb Odellas, on 06 February 2016 - 12:00 AM, said:

*snip to just talk about PPC*

That's actually part of the PPC lore. Something about the PPC's impact generates feedback that can damage its electronics, so PPCs have a field inhibitor that reduces its power at less than 90m. Though again, I'd prefer they just reduced damage below 90m instead of removing it altogether.

I'm glad someone else remembers the field inhibitor stuff. I would love a button to remove inhibitors to cause max damage up close but with a decent shot at critting the weapon within 90m increasing as you get closer.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Gas Guzzler, on 06 February 2016 - 07:47 AM, said:

Well ACs have explosive shells from what I remember. Also, 270 meters is pretty short for a weapon like that. It wouldn't make sense for a weapon to slow down THAT much by 270 meters, especially one that is that heavy, unless it was an extremely poor design with a garbage ballistic coefficient. (Like fat and short instead of skinny and long).

I don't know, why are we reducing ranges? What is the purpose?

We are fitting 5 shots of 203mm cannon shells inside a battlemech that shares space with internals, heatsinks, armor and other various mechanics to make the mech operate, wiring and the whole gambit, alongside many other weapon systems. Im just going to go out on a limb here and say AC shells go with the short, fat method, since the long and skinny probably doesnt apply, given the space inside a mech.....Also lets not forget mechs are not the size of the Pacific Rim robots, battlemechs are only like 30-50feet tall, that is the height of a big rig trailer stood on its nose.

Im not going to say the range makes any sense, cuz really, it wouldnt. If anything, the ranges are for playability I think. Just so people have a reason to take smaller weapons and not just loadup on Gauss Rifles and stuff, since AC20s doing 20 damage at all ranges, why would you take anything else?

[Y E O N N E]

AC shells are contained within cassettes which, I'm going to assume, are all of the same dimensions which is why you get the same number of shots per ton even if the number of actual rounds is different.

The range limits on larger cannons is actually supposed to be an abstraction of recoil causing fewer of the rounds in the burst to land. In TT, it has a to-hit penalty, I believe. In MWO, it's damage fall-off...which is silly when we could have actual recoil and actual missing.

[oldradagast]

Bukkakechans flying futapantsu, on 05 February 2016 - 11:52 PM, said:

Tell that to SRMs or LRMs maybe?
OR... PPC, which has safe zone UP CLOSE?

Eh... using bad design decisions to justify adding more bad design decisions doesn't work. I think most people find the missile hard maximums a bit odd - though they can be justified with saying "each missile has a built-in self destruct system if it exceeds its range." That doesn't work for ballistics, lasers, etc. The PPC min range is also a poor example to use since it's illogical, a poor translation from tabletop, a great burden on an already gimpy weapon, and something most players would like to see removed.

Long story short - the game does NOT need more goofy and impossible to explain hard range limits on weapons, where shells just magically vanish or stop dealing damage a hair outside their optimum range.

As for the original proposal, anything that curbs laser vomit without making individual lasers useless is worth exploring, IMHO.

Edited by oldradagast, 06 February 2016 - 10:38 AM.

[Mystere]

LordKnightFandragon, on 06 February 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

Because wind resistance has sufficiently slowed the shell to a point where its damage is almost nill. Its not unlike normal tank shells. Obviously they have alot longer ranges, but there comes a point where their speed is over come by the wind resistance and they no longer have hte power to penetrate, and therefore, harmlessly bounce off....

I'm sorry, but at 0.01m (i.e. 1cm), that's not air/wind. That's a solid object.

[FupDup]

There are only a few lasers that can even qualify for being a tad OP (e.g. Clam LPL) so lolno to any nerfs beyond the few outliers.

On the Inner Sphere side of things there is not a single overpowered weapon. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The most you can ask for there is for certain mechs to have their quirks reduced. But making the unquirked base weapons themselves crappier? Nope.

Later this month, there are as many as 72 Inner Sphere chassis getting the energy range cut down, so how about we see how that goes before we summon the Nerfinator?

Edited by FupDup, 06 February 2016 - 10:59 AM.

[BigBenn]

I like the idea, but I think lasers are better dealt with by penalizing their massed use. Lower the # of lasers allowed before the penalty kicks in. AND... Reduce the quirks for lasers on laser only or laser majority means. The ability to boat lasers is a major quirk in itself.

[BigFatGator]

Kaeb Odellas, on 06 February 2016 - 12:13 AM, said:

The way SRMs are handled is just dumb though. Explode in mid-air after 270m? Dumb as hell. Just have them travel in a ballistic trajectory until they hit something and explode.

About as dumb as a 100T war machine in 3051 without a rear view camera, and 'long range' missiles that only go as far as some people can hit targets with a rifle.

[Gyrok]

FupDup, on 06 February 2016 - 10:58 AM, said:

There are only a few lasers that can even qualify for being a tad OP (e.g. Clam LPL) so lolno to any nerfs beyond the few outliers.

On the Inner Sphere side of things there is not a single overpowered weapon. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The most you can ask for there is for certain mechs to have their quirks reduced. But making the unquirked base weapons themselves crappier? Nope.

Later this month, there are as many as 72 Inner Sphere chassis getting the energy range cut down, so how about we see how that goes before we summon the Nerfinator?

The IS LPL says hello.

[FupDup]

Gyrok, on 06 February 2016 - 12:56 PM, said:

The IS LPL says hello.

That gun only sticks out on mechs that have big enough range quirks to push the weapon into or beyond the range profile of the regular LL. Since range quirks are getting slashed on 72 different mechs later this month, that case won't really apply as much.

[Y E O N N E]

A stock IS LPL is a 7 ton gun limited to 365 meters. It is hardly overpowered in its vanilla state.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Gyrok, on 06 February 2016 - 12:56 PM, said:

The IS LPL on overquirked chassis says hello.

fixed

[Davegt27]

I think we should take all weapons off except SL and SPL

mybe we could cut down on all the crying

[Kaeb Odellas]

LordKnightFandragon, on 06 February 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

Because wind resistance has sufficiently slowed the shell to a point where its damage is almost nill. Its not unlike normal tank shells. Obviously they have alot longer ranges, but there comes a point where their speed is over come by the wind resistance and they no longer have hte power to penetrate, and therefore, harmlessly bounce off....

That only holds true for kinetic energy penetrators and solid slugs. Autocannons use explosive shells, so this shouldn't be the case, though I suppose if the shell is slowed enough that the impact doesn't set off the impact fuze, it probably would bounce right off.

Still, a 100+ pound shell flying at 650 m/s isn't going to be slowed appreciably after 270m for wind resistance to even be a factor here. It's all space magic nonsense.

Also, Battlemech armor is ablative, so it's not really comparable to tank armors of today.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Yeonne Greene, on 06 February 2016 - 10:16 AM, said:

AC shells are contained within cassettes which, I'm going to assume, are all of the same dimensions which is why you get the same number of shots per ton even if the number of actual rounds is different.

The range limits on larger cannons is actually supposed to be an abstraction of recoil causing fewer of the rounds in the burst to land. In TT, it has a to-hit penalty, I believe. In MWO, it's damage fall-off...which is silly when we could have actual recoil and actual missing.

Oh god no, dont add any mechanic that takes away people's PPFLD 90 point alphas....

Some sort of CoF mechanic, recoil, having to take time to readjust after each shot, no, we cant have anything like that. I mean, it would remove skill from the game entirely if we cant put every shot we fire right in the very spot we want it.....

Aim time, signifying the targeting computer adjusting the guns to get on target, no, no, we must be able to mash the fire button with all our lasers!

[FupDup]

LordKnightFandragon, on 06 February 2016 - 08:04 PM, said:

Oh god no, dont add any mechanic that takes away people's PPFLD 90 point alphas....

The funny thing about recoil is that it actually has zero effect on alpha strikes. Recoil happens AFTER a weapon has been fired, which means that recoil only affects rapid-fire dakka/suppression builds. Large, single-shot alpha strikes don't feel it at all.

And of course, lasers don't even have recoil (because physics) and they're the largest culprit of high-damage alphas...