62 replies to this topic

[HIemfire]

The no minimum range on the ER PPC falls with in the ER portion of the name. While it does have the longer range capability assumed from the name, part of extending the range also ment finding a way to mitigate the feedback of the standard PPC thus opening it up to point blank use without the annoying necessity of overiding the safeties and risking damage to yourself.

[Kudzu]

William Petersen, on 31 May 2012 - 06:32 AM, said:

Yeah no.

For the same BV as 57 Clan ERPPCs, you get exactly 103 IS ERPPCs. That's not twice as many; you need to score twice as many hits with IS ERPPCs to head-cap, ergo, for the odds to equalize "in the long run", you need 114 IS ERPPCs. Odds favor the Clan ERPPCs "in the long run" (albeit slightly). And let's not even bring up the fact that you have to pay 721 tons and 206 crits for those PPCs, where the Clan ones come at 342 tons and 114 crits.

Ah, but you forgot the most important rule of Battletech-- he who rolls the most dice wins! Assuming TN's of 8 you'd have 15.86 (rounded to 16) cERPPC hits and 28.64 (rounded to 29) IS ERPPC hits resulting in an average of 4.4 clan decapitations and 8.03 IS head hits (minimum 4 decapitations without including crits-- I'd try to do the math for that too but I've only had one cup of coffee).

Also, your example immediately made me think of a battalion of Awesomes vs a trinary of Warhawk's.

[Beazle]

Kittygrinder, on 31 May 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

Just to make my argument.


Panther 10k - 4/6/4 - ERPPC, SRM4 with artemis. 838 Battlevalue

Ocelot 2 - 6/9/6 - ERPPC, 2x ER Medium Lasers. 2,393 Battlevalue....

Both are 35 ton mechs. Both have similar armor. For the price of the Ocelot i can field almost 3 Panthers. There, my point. Clan mechs get less for more.

How, exactly, does the fact that the clan version has a higher BV prove that it wasn't a jump up in power? I would think that it proves the opposite.

Your trying to say that since there exists a method of balancing the new and old tech via a tournament approved formula that there is no difference. I say that since such a formula is needed, it kinda proves that there was a jump up in power.

You sir, are arguing the merits of BV balancing.

I am stating the the implementation of Clan tech is a massive jump up in power per mech/ton.

[SweetJackal]

Kittygrinder, on 31 May 2012 - 04:51 AM, said:

There is no power creep in Battletech. Everything is balanced in its own way.

ERPPC's have more range and no minimum, but heat like crazy(15).

Standard PPC's dont heat a whole lot(10) (especially with the advent of double heat sinks) and have the same damage(10) with less range and a Minimum.

Heavy PPC's Are the same range increments of a standard PPC, but with the heat of an ER(15) and the damage of a Clan ERPPC(15).

In battletech, weapons have advantages and disadvantages. I tend to like standard PPC's and Heavy PPC's (when do i go for PPC's, im more of an A/C kind of guy). And thats because the ranges for those weapons are better for the way i tend to play.

What? Really? No power creep in BT because everything is balanced?

No, BT is so fricken broken in terms of balance that BV is a desperate attempt at judging the effectiveness of a mech to ensure that they face similar strength opponents. But that works as much as the Challenge Rating system for Dungeons and Dragons. If you allow customization and optimization of mechs then the system becomes broken and imbalanced to an extreme. Clan Tech is flat out better than IS, the Gauss Rifle renders earlier ACs obsolete and the years after the clan invasion are a whole can of worms on their own.

BT grew into nothing but power creeping, or power leaping.

[Maverick2k9]

ER PPC's are ok but keeping in mind the heat/damage ratio.

My wepon if choice is the Clan Gauss Rifles..they really pack a punch close up!!

Edited by Maverick2k9, 31 May 2012 - 07:22 AM.

[tband]

William Petersen, on 31 May 2012 - 06:32 AM, said:

[...]
I'm not sure where you got the idea that the Ocelot 2 is 2393 BV, but you're wrong.

[...]

The 2393 BV from MegaMek is because he's got a 3/4 pilot in the machine. The value on Sarna uses the pilot-less BV. It's still BV 2.0 in both cases.

[UncleKulikov]

AikiGhost, on 31 May 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

Agreed. The clans in general were just power creeping mary sues anyway. Also its hard to simulate a "-2 to hit per hex" in a FPS style videogame.

Make the projectile very small (like the beam rifle from Halo, it fires a pinprick diameter projectile), and add a feedback shock if your mech is too close.

These fancier weapons need to be balanced in a way so that tier 1 weapons still have utility, even in late game when money is no issue. Especially considering the advantage Energy Weapons gain against ballistics with double heat sinks available.

[Klelith]

Karl Streiger, on 31 May 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

to be fair i duno how to implement a useful minimal range for ppcs. LRMs is clear and can be seen in the vid...but PPCs?

Sharp damage falloff?

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

the way i'd put it

the refinement to the technologies, particularly the bits that form the lightning bolt were built to do a better job at it thus creating the better range. it is plausible that these technology refinements to the projection array and in particular the inhibitor means that the weapon while naturally more powerful than its other counterparts, can still fall within effective and acceptable power levels within close range.

[Solis Obscuri]

From what I've read, IS PPCs are going to have a damage fall-off inside minimum range. Light autocannons are being buffed slightly by having their minimum range penalties removed. No word yet on how ERPPCs and Gauss Rifles will function in close, and obviously, we've heard nothing about the Clans so far.

[Ratzap]

FASA really lost the plot with the whole clan thing and 3050 onwards IMO. Clan vs clan fights are silliest, couple of minutes and it's all over due to the huge ranges and low rolls. 3015/18 tech and IS pilots makes for the most entertaining fights I think.

[UncleKulikov]

Battlecruiser, on 31 May 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

the way i'd put it

the refinement to the technologies, particularly the bits that form the lightning bolt were built to do a better job at it thus creating the better range. it is plausible that these technology refinements to the projection array and in particular the inhibitor means that the weapon while naturally more powerful than its other counterparts, can still fall within effective and acceptable power levels within close range.

That's a good fluff explanation but does nothing to prevent the balance issues.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

UncleKulikov, on 31 May 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

That's a good fluff explanation but does nothing to prevent the balance issues.

well there's two ways i'd go about it. either make them less powerful at close range but still powerful enough to make lights and some mediums miserable to try and encourage medium to long range engagements with heavier targets. possibly add a longer recharge too to further accentuate the range part of ER PPC

or have them do the same damage as other ppc's with a slightly longer recharge to accompany the range advantages but consider them an upgrade, while at the same time allowing you to toggle off the inhibitor on base models at personal risk of self damage including weapon failure, and then using this as the selling point of why you would go for er ppc's


but the way I actually see it happening is them causing more heat, requiring more cooldown in terms of this game. because that seems pretty easy

[Frostiken]

Ratzap, on 31 May 2012 - 01:19 PM, said:

FASA really lost the plot with the whole clan thing and 3050 onwards IMO. Clan vs clan fights are silliest, couple of minutes and it's all over due to the huge ranges and low rolls. 3015/18 tech and IS pilots makes for the most entertaining fights I think.

To be fair, I only really prefer Clan because their mech designs are lot better. Most IS mechs are god-awful. I continue to be surprised by the crap FASA managed to shovel into their TROs.

Black Lanner is my baby. If it is not a choice at some point in the future, I will weep.

[Steinar Bergstol]

Karl Streiger, on 31 May 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

But you can be sure that the 30% that remain are die hard IS warriors - hell will freeze before we will become clan

Darn straight! Gonna be a Drac until they put me in a 3025 mech made of wood and bury me six feet deep.

Quote

BT:
to be fair i duno how to implement a useful minimal range for ppcs. LRMs is clear and can be seen in the vid...but PPCs?

I can see programming a minimum range for an energy weapon in a computer game being difficult? Perhaps drastically diminishing damage the closer you get beyond the minimum range to simulate the beam not being fully coherent yet?

[Gromkey Blackwind]

I always thought that the ER PPC could not focus and would basicly just Illuminate the enemy cockpit with a bunch of light and close range and do no damage..that cant be that hard in a video game.. just change the point A to point B locations.. .. mb that is hard... but the point A from the start if the ERPPC is put into the game in the first place. dont know...

[TWolfWD]

Perhaps to balance out the clan overpower issue, Clan vs IS battles should have a 1 Star to 2 Lances Ratio? This is how I've played the tabletop, and it's worked out pretty well.

[Thorolf Kylesson]

I heard this from an old BT gamer. When they introduced the Clan and thier tech the ER PPC was missprinted in having no minimum range. The missprint went into so many manuals and record sheets that they realy could not retract it to it became canon.
Makes sense since its farr easier today to get errata out with PDFs and such.

[Sassori]

If it was a mistake, they could have corrected it easily enough by simply announcing it was a mistake and fixing it in further books.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Dragon Lady, on 31 May 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

Power Creep: A term used to describe when new content added to a game is overpowered compared to what came before. After several cycles of this, new content as become so powerful, the original stuff is so weak, it'll never be used again.

This is what happened in Battletech:

Original Battletech (Technical 3025) everything was well balanced against each other. There was no clearly better weapons systems, and every decision made in 'Mech design was a tradeoff.

Star League ubertech (Technical Readout 2750) introduced the most unbalancing components in the game: the Double Heatsink, the XL engines, and the Gauss Rifle. The DHS created the possibility of laser boating, and removed the heat penalties to ER-energy weapons. The XL engine eased the penalties for choosing a heavier 'Mech. And a Gauss Rifle was a ballistic weapon without the penalties inherant in a ballistic weapon.

Clan Tech (Technical Readout 3050) was Star League ubertech on steroids. The weapons were better, and the penalties fewer. Which would've never been needed if FASA hadn't introduced Star League tech to the game already.

While all this made great fiction, it also turned the Table Top Game from chess to checkers. At least in my opinion.

That is a very narrow and incorrect way of looking at it. Let us use your Chess analysis, modern Chess & 14th century Chess both qualify as the same game, quiaff? But they utilize very different tactics & strategies because of the difference in piece power level. The Rook, Bishop, & Queen could not move the full length of the board in the 14th century. Almost all chess had them restricted to 1 or 2 squares of movement (I think a Russian variant allowed 3 IIRC.) So if you tried to use the same piece power level or even the same strategy from 14th century chess today, you will lose!!! Either keep up with the times or declare every modern advancement as BLASPHEMY!!!!! But try to keep from ridiculing that which you do/will not understand. We do not fight with tree branches that fell to the ground anymore, quineg? Why, the advancement of technology precludes that from being anything less then the most desperate tactical option. Though if that is all you have it will still cave in someones head, quiaff?

Nathan