468 replies to this topic

[Tombstoner]

http://www.sarna.net...28Black_Hawk%29

This guy is why (imo) we have 1.4 hs vs. 2.0 hs
The very definition of a pop tart boat.

Edited by Tombstoner, 20 March 2013 - 01:53 PM.

[M4rtyr]

Tombstoner, on 20 March 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net...28Black_Hawk%29

This guy is why (imo) we have 1.4 hs vs. 2.0 hs
The very definition of a pop tart boat.

Hmm, musta missed it in the mechlab... oh wait... yeah.

[Pht]

Syllogy, on 20 March 2013 - 07:02 AM, said:

PGI's internal testing found that with true Double Heat Sinks, that a 9ML Hunchback could repeatedly alpha-strike for up to 3 minutes without overheating.

I'll add a +1 for ... citation... link?

Besides which, i highly doubt they did it with a ML statted as it is in the TT nor with HS statted as they are in the TT.

I also wonder how many DHS they had mounted in the hunchie, and if they had any restrictions in their mechlab besides a 50 ton chassis; Inner sphere DHS are three crits a piece, so it's darn near impossible to use a lot of them.

[CloaknDagger]

Tice Daurus, on 20 March 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

One thing the OP forgot is that the Inner Sphere version of the Ultra AC/5 had notorious problems with jamming issues due to high ROF. However, once the Clans came in with their version of the Ultra AC's in the game, none of them jammed. That's because they had worked out the jamming issues decades ago. Once the IS was able to get their hands on the Clan Ultra AC/5 and other Ultra AC's they were able to reverse engineer them, fix the problems, and then they sent out field repair kits to solve the problems, and the IS caught up to the Clans.

Ahem...in the year 3053. It took them 3 years to clear the jamming problems in the Inner Sphere and the Ultra AC/5 problems were not cleared until mid-3055 as it took them 18 months to put the field kits into full production to clear the problem so the repair techs could be taught how to fix the problem and then make the effective repairs.

The DEV's have it correct. OP has it wrong.

What in gods name are you talking about?

This post is representative of pretty much all the anti-TT people. They pretty much just completely make things up. It's rediculous.

U/ACs always have a 1/6 chance of jamming. Otherwise why not always spend the extra ton for another shot?

[Davers]

Pht, on 20 March 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

I'll add a +1 for ... citation... link?

Besides which, i highly doubt they did it with a ML statted as it is in the TT nor with HS statted as they are in the TT.

I also wonder how many DHS they had mounted in the hunchie, and if they had any restrictions in their mechlab besides a 50 ton chassis; Inner sphere DHS are three crits a piece, so it's darn near impossible to use a lot of them.

I think I have 16-17 DHS in my 4P. If they were all 'true' DHS, plus the elite bonus on the heat skills that would give me 40.8 cooling per 10 seconds with a heat cap of 102? (Not sure if my math is right...)

[CloaknDagger]

Davers, on 20 March 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

I think I have 16-17 DHS in my 4P. If they were all 'true' DHS, plus the elite bonus on the heat skills that would give me 40.8 cooling per 10 seconds with a heat cap of 102? (Not sure if my math is right...)

If it was cannon, every 10 seconds you could do up to 2 heat per DHS. Anything much over it gets you a bunch of penalties like slowing down, being less accurate, exploding, ect...

[Hauser]

CloaknDagger, on 20 March 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

If it was cannon, every 10 seconds you could do up to 2 heat per DHS. Anything much over it gets you a bunch of penalties like slowing down, being less accurate, exploding, ect...

Solaris rule set. It's often cited as having a faster rate and being the base on which MWO was build.

Edited by Hauser, 20 March 2013 - 06:01 PM.

[M4rtyr]

Hauser, on 20 March 2013 - 05:58 PM, said:

Solaris rule set. It's often cited as having a faster rate and being the base on which MWO was build.

Uhh, MWO is no where near Solaris. But even so, never really liked Solaris as much as base rules. Was fun seeing how many MG's you could fit on mechs though.

[MustrumRidcully]

Hauser, on 20 March 2013 - 05:58 PM, said:

Solaris rule set. It's often cited as having a faster rate and being the base on which MWO was build.

The Solaris rules were also pretty broken, but the fire rates in MW:O and Solaris are vastly different. A Solaris PPC still only fired every 10 seconds for 10 damag eand the Solaris equivalent of 10 heat, not every 3 seconds. A Solaris MG fired every 2.5 seconds, meaning it dealt 8 damage in 10 seconds rather than 2. Obviously something is off if a .2 DPSdamage weapon in your system turns into an .8 DPS weapon, but a 1.0 damage weapon stays a 1.0 damage weapon.

[FiveDigits]

Sorry, I'm a little late to the party.
But I just wanted to throw my comparison of a 6MLAS Cicada under true (2.0) DHS vs. a Hunchback 4SP under current (2.0/1.4) DHS into the ring.
The two relevant posts from a previous thread: #67, #118

TL;DR: The Cicada loses in total damage done before overheat and in sustained DPS.

[Hauser]

MustrumRidcully, on 20 March 2013 - 11:26 PM, said:

The Solaris rules were also pretty broken, but the fire rates in MW:O and Solaris are vastly different. A Solaris PPC still only fired every 10 seconds for 10 damag eand the Solaris equivalent of 10 heat, not every 3 seconds. A Solaris MG fired every 2.5 seconds, meaning it dealt 8 damage in 10 seconds rather than 2. Obviously something is off if a .2 DPSdamage weapon in your system turns into an .8 DPS weapon, but a 1.0 damage weapon stays a 1.0 damage weapon.

M4rtyr, on 20 March 2013 - 06:03 PM, said:

Uhh, MWO is no where near Solaris. But even so, never really liked Solaris as much as base rules. Was fun seeing how many MG's you could fit on mechs though.

I'll concede those points happily. Just wanted to dislodge the idea that canon rules are a good basis to develop the gameplay of a first person mech-shooter.

Now I don't disagree with many of the ideas that have been argued here, rather I do think they're being argued on a wrong basis.

Edited by Hauser, 21 March 2013 - 05:59 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Hauser, on 21 March 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

I'll concede those points happily. Just wanted to dislodge the idea that canon rules are a good basis to develop the gameplay of a first person mech-shooter.

Oh TT rules is just another abstraction... the right way should have been this one:

For example:
You have weapon that is called LRM in TT...that weapon deals 20dmg in 5dmg groups.
So the cheap way is just to convert it.

The better way would have been: I have a missile weapon that deal damage in clusters. There is a spread. It could be fired indirect...minimal range...of 180m
Now you has to choose some questions:
Why 180m? What is the reason for this figure? - will it work in real time?
Have it to be 20 missiles. Could 12 missiles work too? - 12 is the average damage of a single salvo of a lrm 20.
How have it looked when Alex Charley charged with his Archer (2 LRM 20 main armament and just 3 salvos left) into short range fight with 4!!! Free Skye Mechs.

With this questions you start to abstract them into a real time shooter.

So a LRM 20 could have looked like this too:
12 missiles per volley...each missile deals 2 dmg.
they are fired in volleys of 2 missiles per time...resulting in a stream of 6 x 2 missiles.
When fired indirectly they spread to hit a target areal of 30m with good coverage.
Minimum range - because of the missile path even if the target is just 100m away a internal gyroscope of the missile fires them into the sky - when they reach a specific height the warhead is enabled and search its target.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 21 March 2013 - 06:19 AM.

[CloaknDagger]

Hauser, on 21 March 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

I'll concede those points happily. Just wanted to dislodge the idea that canon rules are a good basis to develop the gameplay of a first person mech-shooter.

Now I don't disagree with many of the ideas that have been argued here, rather I do think they're being argued on a wrong basis.

They are. The problems with MWO are because they COMPLETELY IGNORED parts of canon, not because they stuck too close.

[Tombstoner]

I cant entirely agree with you. i think they have stuck too close to some TT systems and lore when it would be much better to
make a clean break from TT cause we all know this isn't TT. Weapons are a good example.

i have always seen TT weapons as whats left over from the succession wars. meaning things like the PPC-2,5,15,20 are lost tech. only the ppc-10 survived.

The way PGI implemented lasers i really like. it turned them into damage over time slashing weapons as opposed to the ppc that is direct all or nothing damage. all direct fire weapons can be broken down into 4 catagories by 2 factors. ammo type and damage type. or energy vs. ammo and DD(ppc) DOT(lasers). Auto cannons would work like MG's with pulses of projectiles and function like a dot laser. each round being equal to one point of damage. gause becomes the ammo based version of the ppc. thus the MG gets turned into the ac-2 and the current ac-2 is really a gause 2. the same can be said about the ac-5, ac-10, ac-20 they are just alternate forms of gause.

This type of break from TT/cannon can be explained simply by accepting that MWO is a MW TT reboot for a much larger modern audience and calling the changes lost tech. a second layer of weapons can be called star league era and they could have stats half way to clan levels. thus once clan tech hits the impact is not so severe.

Another TT element that needs changing is the number of internal slots available. A commando has the same as the atlas, but the atlas is so much easier to hit because of it model size. definitely not balanced. all mechs internal space should be relative to the size of the model. I cant see FF armor or ES internals needing 14 internal spaces. that worked for TT and i think its kinda clunky for MWO.

So yea i think the devs are holding on to too much TT game systems.

[Karl Streiger]

Tombstoner, on 22 March 2013 - 03:38 AM, said:

I cant entirely agree with you. i think they have stuck too close to some TT systems and lore when it would be much better to
make a clean break from TT cause we all know this isn't TT. Weapons are a good example.

You don't disagree... they stuck close to some values...and screwed others. That doesn't sound like a good recipe. You can stay true or you wander off. There is no way to do both things.
I agree that they should have transfered the TT values into another state: how should things should work outside a 10sec, 30m turn. They had also the "balancing" knowlege from solaris when splitting up.

A AC2 didn't have to be a AC2 - it could have been a AC 3. Resulting in the AC 20 to become a AC 24.
The armor value - is another example - the armor value is based on to hit probability.
Look in TT you are screwed when you leg gone missing while with "original" rules (without XL) you can take the lose of a side torso much easier.
In MWO you still stand tall with a Leg gone missing. In MWO you can easily target a side torso with XL and put that guy down.
XL fusion and armor value of side torso does not even work well in TT - they need too a movment of armor points.

So the best way would have been to create a complete other armor system. The next thing...is hit location. In TT you have those location because of 2d6...no reason to keep them.
In TT you have ablative armor - every weapon does the same damage.
In MWO you could have used semi ablative armor. a Medium Laser deal 5 damage towards light mechs and 1 point towards an Atlas.

Tombstoner, on 22 March 2013 - 03:38 AM, said:

Another TT element that needs changing is the number of internal slots available. A commando has the same as the atlas, but the atlas is so much easier to hit because of it model size. definitely not balanced. all mechs internal space should be relative to the size of the model. I cant see FF armor or ES internals needing 14 internal spaces. that worked for TT and i think its kinda clunky for MWO.

So yea i think the devs are holding on to too much TT game systems.

Its pure irony that there are allready rules for that in TT...light mechs had viewer slots.
Same here...you don't have to use it at all. you can say... for example a 25 commando has 16 slots in the left torso and 5 slots in the arms. A Jenner has 6 Slots in the Arms and 40 in the torso.
A light laser is one slot
a medium is 2
a large is 4...
you could have doubled that and based on the chassis create different ammount of critical spaces.

As you see you could have thrown nearly every value from TT asside to get a real BattleTech experience. Just my thoughts...and the reason for my actually state of mind

[CloaknDagger]

Tombstoner, on 22 March 2013 - 03:38 AM, said:

I cant entirely agree with you. i think they have stuck too close to some TT systems and lore when it would be much better to
make a clean break from TT cause we all know this isn't TT. Weapons are a good example.

Weapons are completely borked and so is heat. It's why alpha boats are all the rage.

[MasterErrant]

a point LRMs and SRM are only barely guided in BT they have a very limited guidance in the terminal attack phase. they "ARE" rockets not missiles in the modern sense that's why a ton of them costs less than an actual guided misile. streaks are about as close to Cannon as you can get in an RTS format.

I generally agree with you post. just not the details. I do agree that it appears that this game has become an MC milking con.

Alpha boats are all the rage because it's the only thing that works.

Between the (Let me say it again) STUPID hardpoint system and the variants the devs chose it's the only real option

I'd like to point out that they had a perfectly workable template to start from MechWarrior 4 it wasn't perfect. (No game is ever going to be "Perfect" for everyone.) but it worked. and they pretty much completely trashcanned it. they could have refined and updated MW$ and had a finished product by now.

It honestly look like they are just blowing time and squeezing as much cash out of the game whie they can...that IS the MMO model afterall.

Edited by MasterErrant, 22 March 2013 - 03:52 PM.

[MasterErrant]

I don't know what version of TT you're playing but all mechs have the exact same number of critical spaces. lights lose some because they have to use more spaces for theur HS (Smaller engines) the only limiter is weight and the optional rules presented in the color text of the game saying that taking a mech out of it's design pattern makes it unreliable and hard to pilot.


Gotta be that clickbase cash com stuff.

Edited by MasterErrant, 22 March 2013 - 03:42 PM.

[CloaknDagger]

MasterErrant, on 22 March 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

I don't know what version of TT you're playing but all mechs have the exact same number of critical spaces. lights lose some because they have to use more spaces for theur HS (Smaller engines) the only limiter is weight and the optional rules presented in the color text of the game saying that taking a mech out of it's design pattern makes it unreliable and hard to pilot.


Gotta be that clickbase cash com stuff.

There was an old rule that did do what he said. But it's out of date.

[Maurdakar]

OP your belief that table top rules translate even semi well into a video game is utterly false.

Firstly every decision made to balance the weapons should be done too further diversify the viable weapon selection. Introducing things that are plain better is just pointless. Since everyone will switch to the Clan counterpart. And no, clan tech wont be introduced as exclusive equipment for people who click a button to 'join clan faction'. Clanners who are deluding themselves about this are setting themselves up for disappointment that isn't how you run and develop and deliver a video game. Instead of Clan weps being better why not just different with clear advantages and disadvantages versus a standard I.S. counterpart.

Secondly game mechanics should make this game more unique than other shooters. Keeping the combat nice and slow further separates us from twitchy shooters and speeding it up only makes us more generic and CoD like. Having weapons fire faster but do less damage gives us more to do and makes for a far more engaging and interesting video game.

Thirdly you seem to be implying the TT is at all balanced, isn't run on completely different mechanics and doesn't have a completely different meta game which tries to balance it out.

Fourthly you seem to think the original material is somehow sacred. It was all made up. I suggest we make up new stuff again now if it's a good idea which is fun. How about some snazzy information electronic gear for our mechs. Like one device could force you and the enemy to target one another for a few seconds, another could let you long range scan a square on the battle-map briefly every once in a while. How about a device that shuts down enemy HUDs for a second and you can fire it in a pulse every now and then for light mech run bys. The games get shafted to non-canon anyways, treated by the worshipers of an obscure TT like it is garbage. Speaking of which as a player of 40k Battlemech is very obscure and not super popular, so maybe it should change.

Lastly I would like to direct you to a game called Mech Warrior Tactics. It is more your speed and what you are looking for I hope you enjoy it. You seem to misunderstand what this game is and expect it to conform to a 1:1 TT inner sphere MMO. This is sadly not what the game is or will ever be.

MY FRIENDS IT IS TAHME FOR YOUNGA IDEAS! IT IS TAHME FOR A SERIES WHICH WE LOVE TO BE MANIFESTED WITH THE ADVANCEMENTS IN LOGIC AND DESIGN THAT GAMERS AND GAME DEVS HAVE CLIMBED A STEEP MOUNTAN TO LERN. IT IS TAHME TO CAST OFF THE OUTDATED AND OBSCURE 'CANON' OF OLD IN FAVOR OF SOMETHING FRESHER OR AT LEAST FUNCTIONAL. IT IS TAHME FOR BIG STOMPY-SHOOTY ROBOTS TO RETAKE THEIR THRONE. AND I SAY TO YOU NOW THAT, THE OLD GUARD OF BATTLETECH CAN NOT LEAD US TO THE FUTCHA, FOR THEY ARE STUCK IN THE PAST! WE MUST TAKE OUR OWHN DESTAHNEES IN HAND. By starting a counter thread to this one. In the morning.

Edited by Maurdakar, 23 March 2013 - 12:12 AM.