171 replies to this topic

[Braggart]

Vasces Diablo, on 21 March 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

No actually. Armor values were doubled (increased 100%) while LRM damage was only increased 80%, so MWO LRMs actually do less damage than the TT version. Factoring in the "lock on" issue makes them more accurate than TT version, so in the end, it's prob about the same.

And an AC 20 still deals 20 damage, and lets look at all the other weapons factors. What i Said still stands.

[Radko]

Taemien, on 21 March 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

Ok I don't understand where the argument of realism came from, but in BattleTech missiles are shaped charges (unless they are fragmentation ammo, which do no damage to mechs, only double dmg to infantry). And shaped charges don't do splash like what is happening in game.

Thank you for clearing that up.

So from a tabletop perspective, there definitely shouldn't be splash damage.

Quote

There.. realism argument is done. Lets get back to the game itself.

Personally, I didn't even know splash damage was part of the game until a dev post mentioned it. I don't understand what the point is.

[Tice Daurus]

Because it's an explosive kinetic FORCE. There should be splash damage in the game because of this. The shockwave of a close explosion can damage metal, causing bolts to become loose or if the explosion is great enough, cause metal to buckle, rip, tear, or break completely off. Plus the explosive force can take shrapnel and propel it to massive speeds, causing it to become a weapon.

Watch Mythbusters regarding explosive forces. A strong enough explosion can still damage or kill from 30-50 yards away or more depending on the amount of explosive in it. Now...again, the LRM missiles might not have a lot of explosive force, but then again it might. Thus the splash damage is relevant. Now, it doesn't have to be more than say 10 meters away. But if you get two mechs close enough to each other like 5 meters to each other and you fire at their legs, the explosive splash damage should do SOMETHING, even if it's small, it should still do something.

[Zoom2136]

Missile and ballistic = no splash damages

[CutterWolf]

They need to remove it until the can "fix it" correctly. The problem is that it has been broken all along and that his last patch only made it even worse because they made the splash damage radius bigger so legs would start taking splash.

For those that do not know what is broken with splash, here it is. A missile doing a total of 2.5 damage is really doing 5.5 damage, this is do to the fact that "splash damage" is in addition to the missile damage instead of it being split from it. i.e. (a 2.5 total damage missile should do 1.5 damage to the panel hit and .5 damage to the adjoining panels until the full 2.5 total damage is done.

[Commander Kobold]

Braggart, on 21 March 2013 - 10:37 AM, said:

And an AC 20 still deals 20 damage, and lets look at all the other weapons factors. What i Said still stands.

if it did 40 damage it would defeat the perpous of doubling the armor on the mechs in the first place.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Tice Daurus, kindly review the previously posted picture and movie of the effects of a shaped charge explosive.

[Commander Kobold]

CutterWolf, on 21 March 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

They need to remove it until the can "fix it" correctly. The problem is that it has been broken all along and that his last patch only made it even worse because they made the splash damage radius bigger so legs would start taking splash.

For those that do not know what is broken with splash, here it is. A missile doing a total of 2.5 damage is really doing 5.5 damage, this is do to the fact that "splash damage" is in addition to the missile damage instead of it being split from it. i.e. (a 2.5 total damage missile should do 1.5 damage to the panel hit and .5 damage to the adjoining panels until the full 2.5 total damage is done.

which is why a lot of the LRM support players are upset, our(near useless unless boated) missiles are going to be made even less viable. (if previous patches are any sign of how it works)

[Radko]

Tice Daurus, on 21 March 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

Because it's an explosive kinetic FORCE. There should be splash damage in the game because of this....

As Taemien said, in tabletop, loading missiles with regular explosives instead of shaped charges makes them do zero damage to mechs.

This should settle the issue from a TT/lore perspective.

Omni 13, on 21 March 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

if it did 40 damage it would defeat the perpous of doubling the armor on the mechs in the first place.

It stands to reason that an LRM10 doing 18-30 damage also defeats the purpose of doubling armor.

[Buckminster]

Radko, on 21 March 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

I'm not sure if you're appreciating how small an LRM is. 180 rounds per ton, minus overhead like storage and ammo feed, means the missile weighs perhaps ten pounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_70

This is probably closer to what an LRM is supposed to be. Granted, the 180/ton is based on PGI increasing the amount of ammo per ton to account for the fact that they increased armor, but that's neither here nor there.

Radko, on 21 March 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

This is untrue, unless the explosive is extremely large.

This is what happens when a rocket hits a tank:



As you can see, the shaped charge produces pinpount damage which can harm and even penetrate the armor.

The omnidirectional part of the explosive merely leaves a scuff mark.

But this is the result of a shaped charge against non-ablative armor. If this is your model for LRMs, than they should be racking up crits as they penetrate the mech's armor and cause havoc on the systems behind it.

I like splash damage, but it should be less potent than it currently is.

Edited by Buckminster, 21 March 2013 - 10:50 AM.

[Vasces Diablo]

Braggart, on 21 March 2013 - 10:37 AM, said:

And an AC 20 still deals 20 damage, and lets look at all the other weapons factors. What i Said still stands.

And it's a good thing that The damage of all the direct fire weapons has been effectively halved.

30 minutes of TT time is effective what, 30 sec of MWO time? You fire and weapon 5-10 times in TT and easily 15-20+ in WMO, even more if we're talking lasers. Further more, all weapon groups converge on a single point and are the random missing of TT is removed. AC 20s and Gauss rifles can easily 1 shot lights and some mediums in TT.

If weapons that did all their damage at a single point scaled to do the same equivalent damage in MWO, the matches would be brutally short and very not fun. LRMs and SRMs spread their damage, so they need to be a little stronger, otherwise they would be useless by comparison.

[Radko]

Buckminster, on 21 March 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

This is probably closer to what an LRM is supposed to be. Granted, the 180/ton is based on PGI increasing the amount of ammo per ton to account for the fact that they increased armor, but that's neither here nor there.

Ballistics received no such ammo buff.

Nor did AMS, for that matter. Six AMS bullets weigh more than a Long Range Missile.

Quote

But this is the result of a shaped charge against non-ablative armor. If this is your model for LRMs, than they should be racking up crits as they penetrate the mech's armor and cause havoc on the systems behind it.

As Taemien said, in tabletop, all missiles are shaped charge, and loading missiles with regular explosives instead of shaped charge warheads makes them do zero damage to mechs.

This should settle the issue from a TT/lore perspective.

[Azantia]

Tice Daurus, on 21 March 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

Because it's an explosive kinetic FORCE. There should be splash damage in the game because of this. The shockwave of a close explosion can damage metal, causing bolts to become loose or if the explosion is great enough, cause metal to buckle, rip, tear, or break completely off. Plus the explosive force can take shrapnel and propel it to massive speeds, causing it to become a weapon.

Watch Mythbusters regarding explosive forces. A strong enough explosion can still damage or kill from 30-50 yards away or more depending on the amount of explosive in it. Now...again, the LRM missiles might not have a lot of explosive force, but then again it might. Thus the splash damage is relevant. Now, it doesn't have to be more than say 10 meters away. But if you get two mechs close enough to each other like 5 meters to each other and you fire at their legs, the explosive splash damage should do SOMETHING, even if it's small, it should still do something.

/facepalm

go read up on shaped charge warheads...seriously, you are making yourself look foolish. (or you could look at the picture of the M1 Abrams tank that was hit with a shaped charge warhead and see how much the "kinetic force" damaged the surrounding areas of the tank...here is a hint, its the number between -1 and 1.)

Edited by Azantia, 21 March 2013 - 10:55 AM.

[Kraven Kor]

Radko, on 21 March 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

Why?

OK...

Explosions. Missiles cause them. Explosions have an "area of effect."

Shaped explosives are designed to penetrate armor. Less splash, but still, splash damage.

So, I am OK with, and even like the idea of, making LRM's less "shotgun" and more "anti-armor missile" in regards to altering MWO missiles away from the core TT mechanics.

Just needs to be done correctly, is all.

[Jetfire]

As it is now? No. Take it offline, fix it and bring it back. It should be in once fixed.

[Hedonism Robot]

Missiles have splash damage so they can weaken surrounding components for hard hitting ballistics and energy weapons to punch through. Typically missiles are used to "soften" up the target, with splash damage they can deliver a nice punch without coring a mech. The super missiles this week are just flat out broken, they are not softening targets but melting them.

[Tice Daurus]

RiotGearEpsilon, on 21 March 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

Tice Daurus, kindly review the previously posted picture and movie of the effects of a shaped charge explosive.

Again, I read that. However, you cannot discount the force as well even if it's a shaped charge or just HE missiles being used. If the explosive has enough sheer force behind it, it will still do some damage due to the shockwave of the blast. YES I will agree partially if the explosive force is small it won't do anything. But again, the missiles in game could be a combo of the two. Who says they can't be? It's 31st century warfare. The missiles could be of a high tech quality with stronger metals, an inverted implosive to produce more explosive damage inside of the warhead that might not be nuclear yet strong enough to do something.

Again, I know there are real world physics behind weaponry and I may not know EVERYTHING about missiles, but who's to say what exactly they are and can do in the 31st century? Again it's a game.

Edited by Tice Daurus, 21 March 2013 - 10:57 AM.

[Kraven Kor]

Azantia, on 21 March 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

/facepalm

go read up on shaped charge warheads...seriously, you are making yourself look foolish. (or you could look at the picture of the M1 Abrams tank that was hit with a shaped charge warhead and see how much the kinetic force damaged the surrounding areas of the tank...here is a hint, its between -1 and 1.)

Watch a shaped-charge warhead hit a tank, and tell me you would want to be standing next to that tank when it happens.

I'm not demanding splash damage, but I'm OK with the concept in MWO.

Just not the current mechanics where the missile does more damage to the locations it does not hit than to the location where it does hit.

And if we really want to talk shaped charge warheads... have you seen what happens if a shaped charge fails to penetrate the wall of metal it strikes? "Splash damage" doesn't begin to describe. 6" chunks of shrapnel buried 2 inches into solid reinforced concrete 10 meters away is not adequately described by something so polite as "splash damage."

[Radko]

Kraven Kor, on 21 March 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Explosions. Missiles cause them. Explosions have an "area of effect."

Shaped explosives are designed to penetrate armor. Less splash, but still, splash damage.

In real life, splash damage from a small rocket is basically nothing to an AFV. In tabletop, splash damage from these weapons is literally nothing.

So the only remaining question is: How does splash damage improve MWO's gameplay?

Because I can think of ways it makes it worse...

Kraven Kor, on 21 March 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

Watch a shaped-charge warhead hit a tank, and tell me you would want to be standing next to that tank when it happens.
...

I'm not sure what game you're playing, but I'm playing the one where we're driving battlemechs.

To my knowledge, there are no plans to add infantry or light vehicles to the game.

Edited by Radko, 21 March 2013 - 11:01 AM.

[FireEater222]

Radko, on 21 March 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

Anti-tank warheads work by using a shaped charge to direct an explosive lance directly into the target, punching a hole through armor. While MWO obviously isn't real life, it seems absurd that a battlemech, some kind of armored future space robot comparable to a tank, would care about an eleven pound missile exploding several meters away.

Note: That's not eleven pounds of explosives. That is the entire missile, plus ammo feed. The actual explosive is probably less than a hand grenade.


Splash damage continues to prove computationally difficult, buggy, unstable, and perhaps impossible to balance.

Why not merely require missiles to hit the target to cause damage?

How often do you think the tank parked next to that tank, or more often the tank firing the missile while face to face, goes away without pressure and shrapnel damage in your perfect world of shaped charges? I agree partially, distance is safety, but any explosion of any type regardless of shaping the resultant plasma, has pressure, heat and destructive energy.