593 replies to this topic

[Yeach]

Yeach, on 16 April 2012 - 05:56 PM, said:

Stock mechs variants SHOULD have enough ammunition that they do not need to reload during a single battle (not campaign).
Agree/Disagree?

Ghosth, on 17 April 2012 - 05:02 AM, said:

Disagree, comes down to player skill and how you use what you have.
If your a 14yr old and walk out shooting everything in sight you NEED to run out of ammo and die, quickly. Period.
If you want to mount that AC you need to figure ammo into that.
However, I do have an issue with AC ammo, as they seem to think it takes a ton of ammo for 20 shots.
People, your not shooting huge howitzer shells here!
20 40mm rounds no matter how powerful are not going to weight a ton. In order for them to do so, each individual shell would have to weigh 100 lbs.
So IMO this might be one of those places where canon gets "bent" slightly for gameplay considerations.
Taking for example, a 5 inch naval gun, the Projectile weighs 54 pounds, the powder charge for it another 15lbs. So even these do not weigh 100lbs each.

I think you are agreeing; or going off at a tangent and not answering the question.

I suppose I should ask this to everyone who has played TT and ask if they have ever ran out of ammunition in a single engagement type of battle. (typical 4vs4 or 8 vs8 battles)

I am guessing if you had a ****-poor gunnery mechwarrior you might run out but on average your mech or the opponents mech is destroyed well before ammunition is of concerned.

Stock mechs are stock mechs and SHOULD have sufficient ammunition for a single engagement.

Edited by Yeach, 19 April 2012 - 05:05 PM.

[Steel Talon]

With ability to withdraw from battle ressuply may not be so vital.

What will be more abused?

[Ghosth]

"Yeach" Stock mechs variants SHOULD have enough ammunition that they do not need to reload during a single battle (not campaign).
Agree/Disagree?

Neither

If you plan poorly, if you don't watch how much AC ammo you use, you should run out. This is a must for good balanced gameplay.

If you plan well, watch your AC use, yes you should have enough for the average battle.

However let me throw one more idea out there. Assuming mech's spawn in on opposite sides of the map, someplace central, there is a rearm point, first side to take and hold it gets to use it. What does that do for gameplay? It opens up options. It forces the conflict.

It encourges teamwork as you probably need more than 1 guy to hold it. Especially if during a rearm you have a 30 second power down. So then you need teammates to defend you while you rearm, then you guard them while they do.

Its a TOOL that lets the dev's adjust how maps will play out.

The other option, goes back to salvage. It sounds like we won't be salvaging weapons on the battlefield, but what if we could salvage ammo?

[Dragorath]

Yeach, on 19 April 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

I suppose I should ask this to everyone who has played TT and ask if they have ever ran out of ammunition in a single engagement type of battle. (typical 4vs4 or 8 vs8 battles)

Yes I were running occasionally out of ammo. Some Mechs don't have so much ammo with them and to skip the fun playing with these Mechs only to have running ammo bunkers was not acceptable :-)
It depends on the style of game you play, because sometimes it is more important to end your opponent very fast and you will risk a shot even if you have to roll a 10 (we played 8vs8 with round limit before reinforcments arrived), otherwise it wasn't so often, but it could happen. Furthermore, we played 12vs12 we ran out of ammo very often in this matches.

Edited by Dragorath, 20 April 2012 - 05:30 AM.

[Thor77]

I'm ok with either of the first two options, and maybe some combination of both. Certain missions you have access to re-supply. It takes you out of battle and is inconvenient, but for protracted engagements it could be realistic. Other scenarios you'd have to make due with what you have until the issue is settled. Integrating it with commander abilities is an interesting idea, but no matter what, if you want to reload it should take time and force you to get away from the battle-line or suffer extreme danger.

I didn't vote for the commander ability because wasn't sure if that was just a magic wand he could wave or what. But it seems like you could do it in a fun way, something like this:

Commander uses 'call ammo truck' and tags a location. Then tells the lance 'ammo truck at x location (probably shows up on your map/radar thingy). The HBK-5M goes over there, shuts down, is a sitting duck for a minute or so (hopefully out of sight/range of enemy fire if the commander is not stupid) and comes back to the battle. Call the ammo truck too close to the battle and it can be easily blown up. Call the ammo truck too far away from the battle and the fight could be over by the time the Hunchie gets back.

With a system like that, game balance is just a matter of making sure it takes the 'right' amount of time to reload ammo. Maybe it would enable a team to deal more damage in a 20 min span than a team that went with energy weapons or carried enough ammo for the whole match, but with the degree of teamwork and coordination required, as well as the use of a commander ability that could otherwise be doing something else useful, one could say that the players have 'earned' it.

If all the game scenarios such that reloading is not an option, then so be it and configure accordingly. Certainly in the fiction there are times when no support crews are around and you have to run what ya brung.

[A11eycat]

I think Thor77 hit the head on the nail, with a commander unit able to call in the J-27 ammunition trucks to a specific location or mech. With the commander having a time reload or the mech reloading receiving an increased rate for the ammunition he needs.
It also depends on the scenario, an all-out battle with12-20 mechs should have ammunition recharge abbilities, but a 2-10 match should be "you ran out of ammo? tough luck go act as bait."

[RSF Angel]

Just add an option to buy combat reloads in the store. That will keep everyone happy
trololololol


Its actually a delicate issue as you dont want to reward a player who has rushed to the front and just held down the fire button.
You also don't want to punish a player who has carefully contributed to combat and has simply died less than the other players.

In Battlefield, there were players who could resupply you in combat, but for those who didn't like teamwork, the way to resupply was the respawn screen.


My 2c is that in a limited respawn game, no repair or resupply. Players can plan ahead by bringing enough ammo to kill 2 enemy mechs and then working with teammates. If they run out after the 2nd or 3rd mech, they have already punched above their weight and their team should be winning.

In an unlimited respawn game it makes no sense to punish the guy who has been cautious and avoided taking damage. Some way to stock up that takes you out of combat for a while would be good. Alternatively, if you can hobble your broken mech over to the drop zone and eject there (as opposed to the front lines) you get a new mech without the penalties for suicide.
Here is an opportunity for lurking scouts to pick off the damaged ones as they try to escape.

[Lomack]

While I feel as though running out of ammo is the price you pay for picking a balistic weapon. I also think the games should be tuned so that the average player probably will not run out of ammo in a standard game.

Unless the Mechwarrior is firing constantly even when no target presents itself. It should be very unlikely that you run out of ammo on a balistic weapon.

So should weapons have increased ammo capacity compared to tabletop. Possibly... But, the danger of running out should be a real factor, its part of the bonus you get for not needing to worry about heat. So I say, tune the game, tune the weapons, tune the ammo capacity.

[Nerdbot]

It could mean for some interesting tactics once your mech is low or out of ammo. Hit and run tactics with those puny lasers or even a close-quarters ram fest.

[MrDoggss]

I voted 'Out of ammo, too bad' only because the MFB isn't an answer. Resupply of a mech is time consuming. I can't see this being a viable option when your on a combat mission. Your gonna walk out of battle to go resupply? Don't think so. Longer missions that have 'rest points' you might have the option to suspend operations to allow resupply. MW4 Mercs and the repair bays on the field were over the top. Fast, full repair and reload in about 20 sec? HAHA Gameplay wise I don't see this working. If I saw a mech heading for the hills, I'm not one to just let them waltz away to go get more ammo. Basically what it comes down to is if there is enough time (theoretically realistic time) to do it, and the type of mission/ combat you are enganged in. As someone stated before, since the MFB isn't around in this time period, kind of a moot point.

[Xaks]

I wouldn't mind resupply in the field *if* and ONLY *if* there was danger and downtime involved.

Not that 20 second heal and full ammo crap from the video game.

So, power down, two minutes to pump them in, a minute to power back up and then you're moving? Or *arbitrary time amount here* of some flavor.
And I do also think that it should be a rare occasion that you can do it. Not every mission. Maybe one time a month.

If you don't wanna run out of ammo, plan accordingly.

[verybad]

Just makes me wonder how fast a Tank can reload in real life. One would suspect that with the clips mentioned for some mechs ammunition using weapons, the reload could be done very quickly.

[Gyric]

hm - if you think of what would happen to a hangar or resupply units (ie non-invulnerable npcs) you'd get an important target on the battlefield that better be attacked first. so it'd be a target that would be camped by defs and perhaps also the lance- or company commanders. taking "balancing" as a keyword, that'd make a big change/difference throughout the gameplay...

assuming a real battle-situation, you are ordered to take your mech/lance/company, pilot/lead it to navpoint 123 or whatever to defeat the enemy... would you desert your team because you're out of ammo? perhaps it would make sense to withdraw for a while to resupply (we're not talking of any repairs, though) an get back into action, if you're merging with some teammates to do so, but sacrificing any other teammates could be crucial.

IMO the only result will be heavy basecamping and that is not a good thing...

Edited by Gyric, 20 April 2012 - 12:33 PM.

[A11eycat]

verybad, on 20 April 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Just makes me wonder how fast a Tank can reload in real life. One would suspect that with the clips mentioned for some mechs ammunition using weapons, the reload could be done very quickly.

Hypothetically, an American tank crew can reload the gun in six seconds, by the book, but without safety considerations, a second per shot maximum. And the entire tank, the fifty caliber machine gun, the 7.62 turret gun, the 5.56 M-16, and 32 105mm shells in 6-7 min. IF everything runs like a pit stop. But it also depends on the tank model, i.e. an M1 takes longer than the M1A1 because of extra plating. Another consideration is the crew, an American crew, for example, will load much faster than an Iraqi tank crew simply because of their discipline and practice.

Edited by A11eycat, 20 April 2012 - 03:38 PM.

[Grendel408]

Ran out of ammo... hope you packed some lasers in that variant

Come on folks... do you think soldiers in a combat zone don't run out of ammo? That's what fire bases and field bases are for... replenishment of expended ammunition. If the Devs don't incorporate mobile field bases or repair/ammo stations... I won't lose sleep over it... spend your ammo wisely and make each shot count.

[Ralleigh]

I think you should be able to reload for 2 very different reasons:
1) fun: It would really decrease the amount of fun had in the game if every other match you spent the last half hiding in some corner while your teamates finished off the enemey.
2) Realism: I'm not a fan of games that are "realistic". But as this game is trying to go for the simulator feel, then it comes up. Played these games since mechwarrior 2. I'm also a U.S. Marine (amtracker actually). The whole mfb doesn't even come into the argument of reloading. Just consider how easy it is to reload a tactical weapon system. Real life battle tanks, and field guns are reloaded by hand. Mechs may be taller than real life vehicles, but they don't carry weapons that are of a larger size (not comparing their destructive capabilitys, just the volume). How large ARE the projectiles? Is the ammunition fired by a gaus rifle really any heavier or larger than a 155 artty round, or a tank guns round? Should be easier to reload, because the Gaus rifle projectile doesn't come in a cartridge (so you don't have propellant or a casing or percussion cap to lift along with the projectile). Other projectile weapons we have in real life. Whole belts of autocannon ammunition can be carried by a vehicle crewman, and machine guns are just obvious. I haven't seen a mech with missles so large that it would require mechanical assistance to load.
Even if you were to bring up the "Oh, but how will dismounted humans be able to reload the mech quickly?", I'd just respond with "truck". Have you seen how large a modern tactical truck is these days? A 7 ton pulled up next to our 14 ft tall amtrack and actually had a higher profile. There are already 10-ton trucks too! And the crewman can easily climb on them. It's just a matter of parking your mech next to the supply truck, and having some one load ammunition from that same truck into your mech. Barring that, engineers have bulldozers, and frequently dig "fox holes" (we call em fighting holes) for vehicles. One time we had 16 fighting holes dug for amtracks in only an hour. It's not unreasonable to assume there might be a fighting hole for a mech lying around, and you could just park your meck there for crewmen outside of the fighting hole to reach at the top of your mech (no truck, no mfb, you could even say the hole was dug before the match and then you don't even have to have the bulldozer apear in the game).
Lastly on the realism issue: I thought that's why mechs with hands actually had hands, since I haven't seen a mech that held a weapon with it's hand (other than the axeman of course). You have a robotic lifter that can feed ammo into your weapons built right in. No one climbing around the outside of the mech. No one exposed to enemy fire. This could even be a game feature, where only mechs with hands have the option of reloading ammunition (unaided), and could reload teamates.

And honestly, mechs ALREADY reload themselves. Any one ever think of some of these querks in the game? The LRM20. Ok, you have a rail that holds 20 missles. No matter where you put spare ammo in the mech, it teleports over to your missile rail and feeds itself onto the rail. Takes a few crewman to do that feet in real life. Same goes for gaus rifles, they only invented robotic loaders for real life tank guns recently (and almost no ones gone to the expense of buying the system for their vehicles yet). Machine guns and autocannons? Heck, I don't even know why autocannons work the way they do in battletech. In real life we have a weapon that fires fully automatically like a machine gun, only it's chain operated and fires a 30mm cartridge instead of a .50. How that turned into a weapon that fires 20 projectiles INSTANTLY, and then has to reload is a strange transformation having to do with the concept of autocannons being translated into a turn-based game, and then back into a real time game.

There's just... just stop using reality to justify making the game less fun. Stop. I could keep going, so please, just don't use reality as an argument for this.

That's why I think you should be able to reload. not-reloading doesn't contribute to game play or realism. All it would add is a severe balance issue that would cause people to stray away from ammo-dependant weapons.

[rolling thunder]

I don't understand why people are obsessed with MFBs. A few J27s & crews are all that are needed.Even an ammo dump behind friendly lines a mech can fall back to & get new ammo. Just because there's the option to reload it doesn't mean that a player will have the chance to fall back to reload. Also,there wont be enough time to tack on armour plate so that option will be out probably. I'm not saying this because it's what i want,i'd like the option of reloading under certain conditions because it may be available on a real battlefield & i think it should be available to players.
If we are running games rather than campaigns then there wont be enough time to reload.I'm assuming that would be done after the battle were Mechs are rearmed & rearmoured{this would be done be teams of J27s & crews,i'm assuming so why not have the possibility in game?}.
Dropships have always played the part of Mechbays on unfriendly planets,that's what makes capturing enemy mechbays so important. However Dropships don't normally fly around enemy planets so they would have to send out J27s or similar to supply mechs in the field. Hopefully they would get a chance to catch up to the lance or company they are supporting & resupply them?
The whole idea of MFB is a nice idea for the future so lets not obsess over them.

[Dragorath]

verybad, on 20 April 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Just makes me wonder how fast a Tank can reload in real life. One would suspect that with the clips mentioned for some mechs ammunition using weapons, the reload could be done very quickly.

It's a big war Machine with tons of armor. It could also be possible that it is not possible to reload without cutting away some damaged armor plates. Furthermore, laser burns will be hot for quite a while and energy weapon lesnses as well and you don't want to set yourself on fire while loading in some ammo. It should take time to do so without danger. It's still ammo which shouldn't be thrown in carelessly.
On the other hand, maybe you wouldn't have to shut down the Mech. You can refill a car also while it is running. But if you react instantly on approaching Mechs and the refill isn't done, you could loose all refill or maybe you would be really vulnerable on the loading location, because your ammo load is still open.

Like it is said several times reload and ammo depending Mechs are kind of a tactical thing. You can do it, you don't have to. And therfore, it is your choice to sit around without ammo, if you choose Mechs with ballistic weapons. So quit whining, no benefit without risks!!!!!

Edited by Dragorath, 21 April 2012 - 04:01 AM.

[Dragorath]

Ralleigh, on 20 April 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Lastly on the realism issue: I thought that's why mechs with hands actually had hands, since I haven't seen a mech that held a weapon with it's hand (other than the axeman of course).

Battlemaster, Berserker, Phoenix Hawk......

Edited by Dragorath, 21 April 2012 - 06:15 AM.

[Ralleigh]

Dragorath, on 21 April 2012 - 04:01 AM, said:

It's a big war Machine with tons of armor. It could also be possible that it is not possible to reload without cutting away some damaged armor plates. Furthermore, laser burns will be hot for quite a while and energy weapon lesnses as well and you don't want to set yourself on fire while loading in some ammo. It should take time to do so without danger. It's still ammo which shouldn't be thrown in carelessly.
On the other hand, maybe you wouldn't have to shut down the Mech. You can refill a car also while it is running. But if you react instantly on approaching Mechs and the refill isn't done, you could loose all refill or maybe you would be really vulnerable on the loading location, because your ammo load is still open.

Like it is said several times reload and ammo depending Mechs are kind of a tactical thing. You can do it, you don't have to. And therfore, it is your choice to sit around without ammo, if you choose Mechs with ballistic weapons. So quit whining, no benefit without risks!!!!!

damaged armor pannels in the way: You've probably got an unserviceable mech if you can't reload a weapon without stripping away burning metal.

weapons being too hot: That's when you'd change the barrel in real life. We wouldn't dump water on it though, that would cause it to explode. BUT if the weapon is still operable you can reload it. Heat can get to such a point that timing and headspace (these are things that have to be adjusted on the weapon for it to fire properly) can be off, or the sear is worn down too far and you get a run-away gun, or the barrel needs to be thrown away entirely. You might also have an issue with rounds cooking off, but that would involve a single round going off when you don't pull the trigger, and you charging the weapon back to load the next round in the chamber (but you'd want to wait for it to cool down or ready to fire because the new round would just cook off too). But in all of that, you'd still be able to reload. The weapon would simply be in-operable or unsafe before it couldn't be reloaded. If the weapon still works at all, reload it and keep fighting.

Lasers and other weapons making it too hot to get inside the mech: This is a case of "reality is unrealistic". Weapons and engines tend to sieze up before they become so hot that the entire mech can't even have people in and around it. I always assumed that the mechs heat reffered to water/coolant temprature, and that when you got it too hot the coolant would boil away and your reactor wouldn't be able to cool off and go into meltdown. I know in the books the pilot get's cooked alive in the cockpit just because they couldn't ease off the trigger, but the heat wouldn't transfer through air that efficiently, and the weapon would stop functioning and need to be replaced entirely before it heated up the skeleton that much. While we're on the subject of battletech querks, why do mechs have engines if they're nuclear powered? Shouldn't they have motors instead? Why carry around fuel for an engine if you already have a nuclear reactor?

You DEFINATELY wouldn't have to shut down the mech just to reload, but you wouldn't be able to move either. Standard Operating Procedures for most militaries in the world say that a tactical vehicle shouldn't move while being serviced by personel on the outside though. It's very dangerous to the personael operating it. On the other hand, the whole shutting down thing is also not as Simulationist as people would believe. A nuclear reactor has control rods... but none of the other systems would because they aren't radioactive and control rods would have no effect. Even if you inserted the control rods into the core and "shut down" the reactor, the water/coolant that is used on any other system would actually need power to cool the other systems down. The water pump and the cooling fan would have to keep going and you'd still have electrical power. This means that the mech would need batteries for the shut down sequence to actually work, and that would mean that, if it's just like games and the battletech novels, you're actually shutting down your sensor package and com systems down for no reason. Anyways, the whole shutdown sequence and heat management system would need to change a LOT for it to be modelled in the game realistically. And if you DID change it to be more "simulationist" it would actually be more favorable to reloading.

Taking vehicles out of the field to ressupply is a big tactical decision, and is a serious risk. Looking at the other posts in the thread, this actually opens up more tactical considerations and role based warfare. The "scout" mechs really shine here, as they can form wolf packs and pick off lone unsupported mechs trying to get to the rear to reload. Reloading only contributes to the "realism" or "simulationist" feel of the game, and is very useful for introducing complexity when the developers want to make the game more about tactical decisions instead of just lazerboats circle-strafing each other.

I told you I could keep going. Simulationism, realism, whatever. It's not a good argument against reloading unless you feel reality is unrealistic.

However, if I wanted to be more simulationist I'd introduce a number of other considerations to projectile weapons.
-tracking individual weapon barrel heats, and bringing a weapon out of the fight entirely if it get's too hot
-rounds cooking off, causing a delay as the weapon charges back again before it can fire the next round
-glowing barrels that indicate the weapon needs to cool down instead of a simple sliding scale in your hud
-glowing barrels that creat light effects that make them visible with the naked eye at night
-glowing barrels that make the mech EXTREMELY easy to spot, even when "shut down" on thermal sensors

But not being able to reload isn't simulationist or realistic. It's not fun either. But a minute or 2 of down time spent evading enemy light mechs has a possibility to add to the fun of the game that laying your mech down on the road for the bus to run over simply doesn't.

Edited by Ralleigh, 21 April 2012 - 07:38 AM.