26 replies to this topic

[Yeach]

It might be a forgone conclusion for the hardpoints but how should the critical slots for hardpoints work?

1. Up to 4-beam/ballistic/ missile slot critical slots (4-slots for LRM20, AC20)
2. Mechwarrior4 1-,2-,3- beam/ballistic/missile slots
3. BattleTech TT critical slot sizes
4. Something in between.

What has been shown so far are the swapping of one Large Laser for two Medium laser which both fit the BattleTech and Mechwarrior4 criteria.
ie Large Laser is 2-slots or 2-criticals, Medium Laser is 1-slot or 1-critical.



Whats more interesting is finding out how ballistic weapons fit in the hardpoint system.
Ballistic weapons such as the AC10 and AC20 tend to take up alot more space than comparable beam weapons such as the Large Laser and PPC.



Side note:
It doesn't seem fair that ballistic weapons take so much space (in terms of size) than beam weapons.
The main difference between beam weapons and ballistic weapons should be the heatsink / ammo size.
My opinion is ammunition for the ACs should take more space and the weapon itself should take less space. (and maybe less tonnage).

For illustration purposes in TT rules an AC10 is 12 tons and 7 crits; perhap reducing ammo by half would be more appropriate;
For a Centurion, an AC10 (with 20 shots/2tons of ammo) take up 14 tons and 9 criticals; (assume that ammunition per ton is now only 5 instead of 10)
Change it so the AC10 now would be 10 tons and 5 criticals and ammo uses 4 tons and 4 crits to match the existing TT tonnage/criticals.

Also how does an AC10 fit between the upper and lower actuator; ie on a human's forearm and upper arm?
Maybe autocannon should be able to split up like an AC20.

[LordDeathStrike]

ac's take up more crits and weight. energy weapons needs heat sinks, which take up more crits and weight. in the end a boat is a boat. mix your weapon types for best effect. in the end energy weapons need so many heat sinks to boat them that they take far more space then a couple tons of ammo for a gun. and guns run out of ammo or ammo blows up so having back up beam weapons is a good idea. and with a few heat sinks balancing things out, you can fire your weapons continuously for a while before running out of ammo or overheating. (the same goes for missiles as goes for acs)

Edited by LordDeathStrike, 15 April 2012 - 09:17 PM.

[Dirk Le Daring]

I voted TT crits, and at this point 100% same, cool.

[Infine]

Yeach, on 15 April 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

It doesn't seem fair that ballistic weapons take so much space (in terms of size) than beam weapons.

Energy weapons need more heatsinks. Heatsinks take space and weight too.

Anyway, TT crits are fine. The only thing that bothers me is locations. I mean, TT crit system is fine until it encounters a Marauder with its gun. Or a Timber Wolf with its ears. When you play TT, being simplistic and counting said things as parts of torso works. When you have a sim, it fails. I mean come on, coring a Marauder by repeatedly hitting its gun?

[Ramrod]

Perhaps that could be treated as simply disabling the weapon once destroyed, and any additional hits to that specific component do no additional damage to the section they were mounted in.

[Infine]

Ramrod, on 16 April 2012 - 03:51 AM, said:

Perhaps that could be treated as simply disabling the weapon once destroyed, and any additional hits to that specific component do no additional damage to the section they were mounted in.

And how much armour does that section have? And where all that armour comes from? So ok, let's assume that after Marauder's gun destruction, the mech does not recieve any damage through that location. But judging by the latest dev blog, there can be 2 options - either the section is unarmoured, and the gun is destroyed with ANY hit. OR section shares armour value with the appropriate torso, and then you can strip Marauder's RT of armour just by shooting it's gun. Of course, there's a 3rd option (assuming we want to leave crit allocation true to TT) - a location with ghost unaccountable armour.

Edited by Infine, 16 April 2012 - 05:02 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

TT would be OK. Given that ALL Mechs, despite weight, have the same amount of criticals on-board. It comes down to physical weapon weights that determine what can carry which weapons where.

As we have seen so far, as long as you cannot swap Hard-point types (Beam for Ballistic) then things should work out.

Silly question perhaps but, don't Weapons have their own criticals, separate/independant of the armored sections they are mounted in/on? Engines do right? So remove armor, then crit weapons.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 16 April 2012 - 05:32 AM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

I too voted for TT crits. Honestly, like in MW2/3, those large caliber weapons should take a large amount of crits on the 'mech. So when you see a 'mech that can hold an AC20, it would be assumed that there are also a large amount of the special "Ballistic Harpoint" criticals on the 'mech['s specific location] that would allow you to hold just a weapon. Prime example is the Hunback's right torso, compared to else where on the same 'mech where it only has a limited number of "Beam Hardpoint" criticals on its arms and left torso.

[syngyne]

We really could use a dev to confirm, but from reading the Mechlab blog I gathered that hardpoints are separate from critical slots-- the crits determine how much space you have, but the hardpoints determine what you can fill that space with. Sort of like having a room in a house... you might be able to physically fit a fridge, washer, and dryer in it, but if it only has an outlet for a fridge and no hookups for the washer and dryer, you're only getting a fridge in there.

Edit: or two small lamps.

Edited by syngyne, 16 April 2012 - 07:45 AM.

[Kenyon Burguess]

K.I.S.S

stick to TT so that everyone who already knows it, knows it

[GargoyleKDR]

While I'd like to see the TT rules maintained for Mech construction, I think it would lead to unbalancing min/max boating.

[UncleKulikov]

From the demonstration, it's going to be Tabletop. And there are different hardpoints for each weapon type, so different hard point types can be of different sizes.

[Vtack]

GargoyleKDR, on 16 April 2012 - 11:49 AM, said:

While I'd like to see the TT rules maintained for Mech construction, I think it would lead to unbalancing min/max boating.

I agree. Talka bout the TT rules all you want, the issue here is that a simulator does not play the same way turn based combat does. Whatever they can do to minimize boating is a much appreciated step in the right direction.

I think everyone recognizes that when there was a full modification system very simlar to the TT rules in MW2 and its expansions the online aspect of the game suffered because of people putting 12 streak SRM 4's on there mech and mowing down anything that got close. The problem I see with the system there proposing is that it's very close to MW4's system and we still had serious problems with certain mechs being far more common than they have any right to be because they were setup so that laser or guass boating was far easier.

There's no perfect system but it seems these devs can figure out that walking up to a ridge, firing, and then backing up was not engaging game play.

[UncleKulikov]

Vtack, on 16 April 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

I agree. Talka bout the TT rules all you want, the issue here is that a simulator does not play the same way turn based combat does. Whatever they can do to minimize boating is a much appreciated step in the right direction.

I think everyone recognizes that when there was a full modification system very simlar to the TT rules in MW2 and its expansions the online aspect of the game suffered because of people putting 12 streak SRM 4's on there mech and mowing down anything that got close. The problem I see with the system there proposing is that it's very close to MW4's system and we still had serious problems with certain mechs being far more common than they have any right to be because they were setup so that laser or guass boating was far easier.

There's no perfect system but it seems these devs can figure out that walking up to a ridge, firing, and then backing up was not engaging game play.

That's why they put in the hardpoint system shown last wednesday. Each mech has a set number of weapon type specific hard points per location, to prevent that exact setup. Even if you have the critical space for all those SRMs, unless that chassis is built to hold all of those Missile weapons, it won't make it onto the field.

So for tabletop, there was just critical slot space, which lead to boating.
Other games used hard points, which was really limiting.

Now, this system combines both (critical slot flexibility and hardpoint balance) and should be able to be fine tuned based on performance and player stats.

[verybad]

They already told us. Hardponts define the amount of that type of weapon that can be held in the location, while critical slots define the size of weapons that ca nbe there.

So for example, a 12 critical location with one ballistic hardpoint would hold one single ballistic weapon up to 12 criticals in size.

Hardpoints define type and number of weapons, criticals define size.

[Major Tom]

There are a number of issues with any customization options.
Does an SRM6 take up twice as much space as an SRM4?
Why do 4 LRM5's take up less space and weight than an LRM20?
Is it possible to uprade an AC/5 to an AC/10?

I think on flaw with the TT battletech design rules is it assumes every mech has the same amount of critical space available, when mechs cearly are not the same size or shape. Are we supposed to assume that mechs are essentially hollow since most of the critical space is unused? (and don't get me started on ferro fiberous armor, and how 1 ton of FF armor takes up more space that 19 tons of standard armor).

I really like the TT game, but I think it was over-simplified, and that a mechwarrior simulation needs its own mechanics to represent battlemech construction and combat.

[verybad]

Not really issues. That's where the Hardpoints come in. Good luck finding a mech with 4 missile hardpoints to replace that LRM-20 with 4 LRM-5s...I'm sure there might be a few, but probably not much missile firepower left after that. So it wouldn't be taking best advantage.

The Hardpoints provide a bit of oversight to the critical system, making some of the system gamed boats like SRM-4 freaks with 15 SRM-4s less viable.

[MaddMaxx]

verybad, on 16 April 2012 - 12:04 PM, said:

They already told us. Hardponts define the amount of that type of weapon that can be held in the location, while critical slots define the size of weapons that ca nbe there.

So for example, a 12 critical location with one ballistic hardpoint would hold one single ballistic weapon up to 12 criticals in size.

Hardpoints define type and number of weapons, criticals define size.

And Variants define what has what, with the ability to "adjust" a load out but not strip and get a full "redo". Seems a good compromise.

[Yeach]

Geist Null, on 16 April 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

K.I.S.S
stick to TT so that everyone who already knows it, knows it

Actually if you want Keep It Simple Stupid, the mechwarrior 4 model would work.
Its the simplest to understand. You are only working with 3-critical slots maximum and don't have to worry about ammunition and heatsink allocations.

The TT model is good if you want more in-depth value.

syngyne, on 16 April 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

We really could use a dev to confirm, but from reading the Mechlab blog I gathered that hardpoints are separate from critical slots-- the crits determine how much space you have, but the hardpoints determine what you can fill that space with. Sort of like having a room in a house... you might be able to physically fit a fridge, washer, and dryer in it, but if it only has an outlet for a fridge and no hookups for the washer and dryer, you're only getting a fridge in there.

Edit: or two small lamps.

I like the idea of only have 2 (or what have you) number of outlets for a specific location.
That would limit boating weapons in one area of the mech.

[Yeach]

verybad, on 16 April 2012 - 12:04 PM, said:

They already told us. Hardponts define the amount of that type of weapon that can be held in the location, while critical slots define the size of weapons that ca nbe there.

So for example, a 12 critical location with one ballistic hardpoint would hold one single ballistic weapon up to 12 criticals in size.

Hardpoints define type and number of weapons, criticals define size.

I'm talking about modifying the critical size from the TT values so that mechs and their variants can be made from the same model.
Take the Centurion right arm for example:
If you say there are 10 free criticals for the right arm and you allow it to mount the AC20; then ONLY the ballistic types (AC10, AC5, RAC5) variants can be created from that model.
If you were to say reduce the AC20 model to 9 critical slots;
And have the Centurion have 9 available Ballistic hardpoint critical slots and 3 Beam hardpoint critical slots then you can also include the CN9-AL variant which replaces the AC10 with a Large Laser and small laser.
of course if you make the hardpoints omni then the point is moot.

Another things that makes me curious is the placement of weapons; in the trailer with the Hunchback 8 medium laser "Swayback" and it has 6 medium lasers instead of the AC20;why are the 6 medium lasers "clustered" in the upper portion of the mech rather than spread across (from bottom to top) on the right torso?