213 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

I really would love to have the same taste on any Mech like the long dead - may he rest in peace Centurion AH - or his successor the YenLo.
You can mount any weapon...but you simple do not run that thing without AC 20 or dual Ultra 5s. Because with every smaller gun the 9D can perform better.

So the unique AC 20 carriers have to be the AS7-D, the AS7-D-DC and the HBK-4G , the HGN-433C - oh YenLo of course.
So first restriction have to be size.

However toying arround with Hardpoint sizes, Hardpoint weights, Hardpoint numbers etc. alone - could hardly work...maybe some quirks and perks should underline a Mech Uniquess, too.

The A1 could become the fastest and most mobile catapult...but limited to primary LRM...it will be hard to abuse it.

[Kivin]

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2013 - 01:01 AM, said:

I really would love to have the same taste on any Mech like the long dead - may he rest in peace Centurion AH - or his successor the YenLo.
You can mount any weapon...but you simple do not run that thing without AC 20 or dual Ultra 5s. Because with every smaller gun the 9D can perform better.

So the unique AC 20 carriers have to be the AS7-D, the AS7-D-DC and the HBK-4G , the HGN-433C - oh YenLo of course.
So first restriction have to be size.

However toying arround with Hardpoint sizes, Hardpoint weights, Hardpoint numbers etc. alone - could hardly work...maybe some quirks and perks should underline a Mech Uniquess, too.

The A1 could become the fastest and most mobile catapult...but limited to primary LRM...it will be hard to abuse it.

I'm not opposed to giving Mechs certain traits. In fact, Piranha has said something to that effect in the past. I just don't know if they'd separate the chassis and variants convincingly enough.

Eve Online is an interesting example of this in use. Each space ship "chassis" gets (typically) two bonuses which tend to shape the metagame of how that ship is used in combat. A particular ship might get "+5% maximum velocity, +5% rate of fire" per ship skill level. Another might get "+10% weapon falloff" as a bonus, making it better at shooting at range. I'm not sure how or if this sort of pattern could be applied to MW/BT.

Regarding your sentence "However toying arround with Hardpoint sizes, Hardpoint weights, Hardpoint numbers etc. alone - could hardly work", I don't really understand your argument very well. Would you like to elaborate on it?

[Karl Streiger]

Kivin, on 02 May 2013 - 02:32 AM, said:

Regarding your sentence "However toying arround with Hardpoint sizes, Hardpoint weights, Hardpoint numbers etc. alone - could hardly work", I don't really understand your argument very well. Would you like to elaborate on it?

Hm... i will make a try.
Example is Catapract 3D

First: as it is actual - those guns are not mount at the same time
4 Energy Hardpoints = 4 PPCs
2 Ballistic Hardpoints = 2 Gaussrifle (or at leas 1 AC 20)

With a size and max mass restriction:
Only thing you can change is the swaping of the LBX for the Ultra 5.

What if you only go for weapon size?
the Medium Lasers could be replaced by MPLAS
but the LBX stay LBX or a smaller AC
same with the UAC 5.

There is no way you can mount a PPC or a GaussRifle...
Looks good if you like it.
But I really think that the Right Arm should have the choice to have a PPC or a Medium Ballistic

The problem with "max" hardpoint size and/or "max" hardpoint weight together with a fixed number of hardpoints will always means that the medium laser .... is a bane...when mount some where...best you can do is to boat the medium laser...if you have some.

So MWO trend ... with this could only become a Medium Laser Online because most players use only 2 or 3 weapon groups.
If you remove the # of Hardpoints... could be a alternative.

Means the Hunchback 6P has a single 6 critical size energy slot...but with weight limitation...the only thing possible is to mount a single large laser and 2 small laser.

The best way...is to create complete new "omni" hardpoint layouts... but as the name said...there will be no difference to OmniMechs. Only restriction could be, that changing a mechs loadout will cost c-bills. The bigger the change the more money it will cost.

What is a "omni" hardpoint layout.

First i have to think what weapon loadouts should be allowed... could be made similar to the "Heavy Trial" Competition.

For example the 4P Hunchback
Will have three 2crit-size energy hard points or - with regards to the comming tech:
has a single 4 size crit and 2x 1 size energy hardpoint Maximum weight is 13t.

That will allow you to mount in the first example:

• 2 LLAS, 1 MPLAS, 1 MLAS
  
• 6 MLAS
  
• 6 MPLAS
  
• 1 LLAS, 1LPLAS, 2 LLAS
  
• 3 Light PPCs (not yet)

In the second example

• 1 HPPC, 1 MPLAS, 1 MLAS
  
• 1 Binary Laser; 2 MPLAS
  
• 1 PPC, 3 MPLAS

Only the 3 LPPCs will not be possible


now the 3D

• RA: 1 5 size and 10t Energy/Ballistic Slot + 1 Size 2t Energy Slot
  
• RT: 1 8 size 15t Ballistic Slot + 1 Size 2t Energy Slot

First give you the Option for RA

• 1 MLAS or Ultra 5
  
• HPPC and MPLAS
  
• ER-PPC and 2 MPLAS

Option for RT

• Any ballistic weapon but the AC 20
  
• Dual AC 5
  
• 8 AC 2....that is the problem

As you can see in the last case you also have to link it to the number of maxium weapons in that location.


But althoug I'm able to handle all the different options in an instant. I'm pretty sure most new players will be overwhelmed by the fealing: WHY Can't I mount those PPC into that location..for most if you keep the current 12 crtical per location plus the free allocation of items like ammunition and DHS.

A more intelligent aspect would be better.
You place the weapons...and the tool is calculating that you can place X heat sinks and Endo or Ferro

Edited by Karl Streiger, 02 May 2013 - 03:07 AM.

[tenderloving]

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

But althoug I'm able to handle all the different options in an instant. I'm pretty sure most new players will be overwhelmed by the fealing: WHY Can't I mount those PPC into that location..for most if you keep the current 12 crtical per location plus the free allocation of items like ammunition and DHS.

A more intelligent aspect would be better.
You place the weapons...and the tool is calculating that you can place X heat sinks and Endo or Ferro

The weapons already have certain sizes when you drag them around. Only the dumbest of people would be unable to figure out that a weapon that is 5 slots high won't fit in a box that's 3 slots high. The MW4 system was very intuitive, but it allowed the boating of small weapons.

Edited by tenderloving, 02 May 2013 - 06:04 AM.

[Kivin]

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

Only thing you can change is the swaping of the LBX for the Ultra 5.

Make one of the energy slots (RA?) a 3-slotter and allow the fitting of a PPC. Leave all the others 2-slotters so the biggest thing you can shoehorn in there is an ER LL. Make the RT Ballistic a 10 slot

How about this:

- Right Arm (Energy) = 3 Slots (PPC / LL / LPL / ML / MPL)
- Right Arm (Ballistic) = 7 Slots (AC10 / Gauss / LB10 / UAC5 / AC5 / AC2)*

- Right Torso (Energy) = 2 Slots (LL / LPL / ML / MPL)
- Right Torso (Ballistic) = 10 Slots (AC20 / ...)

- Left Torso (Energy) = 2 Slots
- Left Arm (Energy) = 2 Slots

* note: Right arm has 9 slots (canon): A 7 slot ballistic and 3 slot energy wont fit at the same time.

This allows the maximum sharpshooting potential to be 2 PPC, 1 Gauss, 2 ER LL which is a lot poorer for pop tarting than the current setup. It also gives lots of flexibility for long/short weapon choices. 2 slot energy points are kind of nice because the LLs you can put in them are a lot less prone to abuse than instant-damage weapons like PPCs and Gauss. I guess what I'm saying is, it's easier to balance the LL if it gets abused for "sniping."

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

The problem with "max" hardpoint size and/or "max" hardpoint weight together with a fixed number of hardpoints will always means that the medium laser .... is a bane...when mount some where...best you can do is to boat the medium laser...if you have some.

I agree that medium laser online is not a desirable outcome. A 2 slot energy point is much more favourable than a 1 slot point, when possible.

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

Means the Hunchback 6P has a single 6 critical size energy slot...but with weight limitation...the only thing possible is to mount a single large laser and 2 small laser.

The 4P is interesting. One of the few cases that encourages what I call "healthy boating." You want to fear the 4P when he crests the ridge in front of you, because he's packing a lot of short-ranged hurt in that hump. Note: If heat is every brought back to 2012 levels, small lasers could see a come back, and the 4P would be very desirable as a heat efficient flanker.

My call? Make all six energy lenses 2 slots each. The hump has enough room for the hardware of a LL/ERLL, but not six of them. Working as intended, IMO. At most, you'll get 4 LL in there (six incl. arms), and the heat will devastate you.

Or, you could 2x 3-slots, 4x 2-slots. That gives you 2 PPC, 3 ML, or 2 PPC, 1 LL, and more.

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure most new players will be overwhelmed by the fealing: WHY Can't I mount those PPC into that location

New player confusion is always a valid concern and should be taken seriously. As such, it would be very important for the UI designers to show each hard point as an appropriately sized box. Players will understand that you can't put 3 of something in a 2-sized hole, just like they should understand why you can't put a Gauss and an ER PPC in the CTF-3Ds right arm (actuators get in the way).

Edited by Kivin, 02 May 2013 - 09:43 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

looks good.

although no body knows how and when clans will be playable. there will be some cheese mixed build chassis.
the hunch is not able to carry 6 large is weapons.
but what about clan tech?
what if and only if devs jumped to 3070 in not clan warfare. 3 ton light ppcs 4 ton mvspl.
both 2 slots same for the ppc .
weight should be a concern.

so what about
1x 4crit
1x2crit
4x1crit

14t overall but each hp could carry a single weapon only

[Big Giant Head]

MW4 system was brilliant but MW4 devs didnt use full potential of that system, why?
well:




Boating was allowed to most of the mechs just because devs werent playing with system enough to combine better hardpoint restrictions.

Each slot can have up to 4 particles (segments)
As you can clearly see in the Atlas picture, each of the "PPC slots" actually have 3 energy particles.

If we split those 3 particles for energy in R Arm into 2+1 particles we cant fit PPC because it requires 3 particles, but instead you can put LL with 2 particles and ML (SL) with 1





This picture of Catapult shows that we cant load PPC in Center Torso because CT contains 2 x 2 particles, but you need at least one slot with 3 particles (segments)

Now there is a problem, what if instead of putting PPC I put 3 ML?
There has to be some kind of pushback, heat or cooldown. But how? When?

If you decide to put 2 or more weapons within the slot you receive heat penalty (cooldown for ballistics and srms and for lrms and ssrms maybe lock-on, just a little bit) for each additional weapon that you load in slot


MWO system works like if there was 1 slot for whole component, but thats wrong.
For example you allow catapult A1 to boat 3 x 6 srms.
To translate that into MW4 system and repair it, it has to have "2+1 segment slot" instead of "3 segment slot"

That way you have pretty healthy combination - for srms you can only put one srm 6 and srm 4. If you, instead of loading srm 6, decide to load two weapon systems e.g. : 2 x srm 4 you receive heat pushback.

As for artemis (LRM/SRM) and capacitor (PPC), it would take up normal critical slot that is used to cover endo steel and heatsinks and other stuff.
Maybe increased number of critical slot for bigger component, torso is bigger than the arm.

Hunchbacks right torso would have much more critical slots so that it can protect that AC/20 or gauss rifle for example.

Edited by Big Giant Head, 03 May 2013 - 05:01 AM.

[Funky Bacon]

Sort of based on the above Atlas image from MW4.

What if we had something like this in terms of HP's and crit slots?

(base layout taken from mwo.smurfy-net.de)

[Big Giant Head]

Funky Bacon, on 03 May 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

Sort of based on the above Atlas image from MW4.

What if we had something like this in terms of HP's and crit slots?

(base layout taken from mwo.smurfy-net.de)

(altho, picture presents different variant but thats ok anyway)

Yes.
1 weapon = 1 slot, if you decide to put additional weapon to the slot it will add heat pushback or cooldown (has to be disscused for each of the weapon)
Example: if you were to put 2 ML instead of a LL in CT, you ll have penalty of some kind, for that extra med las.

So if you really want to put those 2 ML in CT so bad, yor perfect hardpoint setting should have to have 2 slots that can mount only weapon with 1 particle, as you can see in the right/left arm there is 1 of those

Edited by Big Giant Head, 03 May 2013 - 02:29 PM.

[Pht]

I wonder how many times this is going to come up...








---------------------------------------------

"Blue" is mislabeled. It should be "equipment" which mostly means you can put heatsinks there, maybe ammo.

Should be pretty straight forwards.

Things that those familiar with the MW4 lab and the parent game won't see so obviously:

Don't allow internal structure type to be changed - don't allow engines to be changed (instead, look to the things in Tac Ops, like sprinting, for a wide 'Mech performance envelope). cockpit, gyro, and actuators (hip, arm joints) should not be allowed to be messed with (with the single exclusion of omnimechs with omni arms removing the hand and I think the lower actuators for using ppcs and gauss?).

Omnimechs can't modify their armor or otherwise do anything that would cross over from non-omni areas into omni-slots - otherwise, they're no longer modular, in addition to the above restrictions.

This gives a quick way to resolve penetrating hits and allows for the armor/damage behaviors to be ported with ease in a way that fits the fluidity of a VG with ease, and it stops (as much as the original mechs meant to!) munchkins from lunacy.

Omnimechs might have to be somehow restricted in number, because they'll be (as they should be and as the Lore blurbs them) scary, as far as loadouts are concerned.

One of the other things this would necessarily bring with it is that all the variant chassis of a base chassis (non-omnimech chassis, that is) would actually have to be in the game. There would be a large field to choose from - which would be even more fun if they managed to get the combat setup where they could handle the 'Mech quirks (marauder is supposed to be deadly in combat, that sort of thing).

This would stop the MW3 problem where all 'Mechs are rendered into nothing more than visually different bags full of guns - munchkin min/max Sheol misery, and still allow for a LOT of customization.

[Big Giant Head]

This preview of a dragon, sort of what I was explaining before, perfectly fits 1 LL and 1 ML. Boating 2 ML in first slot (for LL) will result in heat penalty. But you can still load 4 ML without penalty.





Same chassis, just a different energy slot distribution, for boating ML

Edited by Big Giant Head, 03 May 2013 - 04:07 PM.

[Kivin]

Quote

This is closest to my vision of a healthy system. I don't like "cram as many 1-slot weapons in to the hard point as you can til you can't fit any more" system, because then we need more rules to avoid SL/ML bloating. In the image, I would expect two crits to be "wasted" (as in, kept free for endo-steel or heat sinks) if a 3-slot isn't placed in those arm energies.

edit: Is that a real variant or did you shop it?

Edited by Kivin, 03 May 2013 - 06:00 PM.

[Funky Bacon]

Yes, that Atlas HP setup was mostly based on the one from MW4, so it is shopped so to speak.

(on an unrelated thing I noticed however is that in most images of atlases, they always have one missile launcher on each side, but here in MWO they are only in the left torso.... O_o )

Also I kinda like giving mechs one or two more weapon crit slots based on stock weapon size.
A small laser would keep 1 slot, mediums will have 2 crits and a stock large laser would have 3 crits to play around with. with some exceptions for variants and boated weapons.

Example of a Hunchback-4P


It would give some freedom to customize, but not allow too crazy setups.

[Big Giant Head]

Funky Bacon, on 08 May 2013 - 04:42 AM, said:

Yes, that Atlas HP setup was mostly based on the one from MW4, so it is shopped so to speak.

(on an unrelated thing I noticed however is that in most images of atlases, they always have one missile launcher on each side, but here in MWO they are only in the left torso.... O_o )

Also I kinda like giving mechs one or two more weapon crit slots based on stock weapon size.
A small laser would keep 1 slot, mediums will have 2 crits and a stock large laser would have 3 crits to play around with. with some exceptions for variants and boated weapons.

Example of a Hunchback-4P


It would give some freedom to customize, but not allow too crazy setups.

There are many ways to combine it. (LL 2slot, ML 1slot)
Example: you can put 3 x 2slots instead of 1 x 6slot in right torso if you dont wanna allow any PPCs.
Or you could put 1x3slot + 1x2slot + 1x1slot in right torso ( if you want to allow 1 PPC)

[Aegic]

Keep the current hardpoint system and add restrictions on hardpoint size.

Add weapon sizes.

Hardpoints can use ONLY weapons their size and smaller.

Example:AS7-D has a 2 Ballistic hardpoints in the right torso. Make both of those 2 "Heavy" Ballistic hardpoints. It can equip the largest ballistics in the game, the already in place slot slot mechanic will ensure it cannot have 2x AC/20s but it can have one and a machine gun. You can also have 2x "Medium" Energy hardpoints in the torso and 2x "Heavy" Energy hardpoints in the arms.

A K2 might have 1 "Small" or "Medium" Ballistic hardpoint in each torso, which would limit them to machine guns and smaller sized autocannons say UAC/5-AC/2. While having "Heavy" Energy hardpoints in the arms would allow it to equip any energy weapons there.

TLDR:Add weapon classifications "Light-Medium-Heavy" to the existing hardpoint system and classify each weapon accordingly/fairly/realistically. The slots that each weapon take up will ensure balance.

This system will also PROMOTE hero mechs and their unique hardpoints and further diversify builds we see in the field.

Edited by Aegic, 12 May 2013 - 01:49 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Also, to reiterate again one of the big bugbears about this.

The size of the stock weapon would not ALWAYS determine the size of the slot.

The Swayback for instance looks like it should have a heap of smaller Hardpoints - but 1 in the gun torso or more could be LARGE hardpoints that in the stock varient just hold a smaller weapon.

This way the mechs are not totally static, but have a great deal of variance. The issue is in fact usually on mechs that have a bunch of smaller weapons on the stock config and so the developers are forced to add hardpoints for all of them leading to large weapon boating on some mechs. In turn this has led the developers to add MORE hardpoints to mechs that do not have many base weapons (Awesome) to compete with those that do (Stalker).

This shows a fundamental flaw in thier hardpoint system that a slight restriction in the mechlab can correct to give mechs more sense of role, and differentiate them from other mechs.

[ExtremeA79]

Asmudius Heng, on 20 May 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

Also, to reiterate again one of the big bugbears about this.

The size of the stock weapon would not ALWAYS determine the size of the slot.

The Swayback for instance looks like it should have a heap of smaller Hardpoints - but 1 in the gun torso or more could be LARGE hardpoints that in the stock varient just hold a smaller weapon.

This way the mechs are not totally static, but have a great deal of variance. The issue is in fact usually on mechs that have a bunch of smaller weapons on the stock config and so the developers are forced to add hardpoints for all of them leading to large weapon boating on some mechs. In turn this has led the developers to add MORE hardpoints to mechs that do not have many base weapons (Awesome) to compete with those that do (Stalker).

This shows a fundamental flaw in thier hardpoint system that a slight restriction in the mechlab can correct to give mechs more sense of role, and differentiate them from other mechs.

Uh different variants?

[Asmudius Heng]

Darren Tyler, on 04 June 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

Uh different variants?

Your point?

[ExtremeA79]

My point is different varients with different sizes to fufill different roles.

[Asmudius Heng]

Yes of course .... i dont disagree but still not quit getting you. The swayback example is a variant, but you want it to be quite different to another medium mech with a lot of energy hardpoints for instance.

IF you are agreeing we need sized hardpoints then we are on the same page lol - how they are done is certainly up for debate.