37 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

UPDATE 05-22
Sry....don't want to change the first post again:
please take a look:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2372241

Aim:

As you know in TT all weapons have range brackets that affect their to - hit probability.
Simple speaken a weapon with 10dmg and only a 16% Chance to hit deals on the long run on average only 1.6 dmg.
Or in an extreme example the MLAS vs ER-LLAS. 1t vs 5t, 3heat vs 12heat and 5dmg vs 12dmg.
If you consider MWO stats even with the increase of damage for the ER-Large Laser and the reduced heat plus the additional heat for the MLAS ....the small gun is the better one:
Because dmg ratio is 1 : 1.6
But lets take a look on TT values.
The MLAS may need a 10 on 210m while the ERLLAS need at same range only a 6.
So on average we have 0.85 vs 5,75 dmg. That is a ratio of 1 : 6.7. Means at given range you need 7 MLAS to make the same damage as the ER-Large Laser..

This is a basic feature of BattleTech that MWO is completely missing.
However the conversion is really tricky...i have spend several hours at several days with this task...I'm pretty hrs are beyond 200 now. And my Excel file for the first caluclations have 20 or more spread sheets...not to mention several smaller programms i have writen to help me with this task (Interpolation, average hit rolls, hit rolls vs armor etc)

Update 05-21

Complete recalculating of all values.
1st Problem calculate damage on to hit probabilitys in TT.... works - but the curve you get looks like a polynomic graph degree 3...with a strong decrease of damage in the middle part and low reduction in the beginning and the end.
Doesn't looked good - so i tried to smooth the probability steps of 2d6.... after that i had 20 steps. Each step is 1/20 of the weapons maximum range. Got really cute looking curves...i think they can work:



Here is the first set:
I have used the Large Laser, Medium Laser, ER-Large Laser

• TT Values -> you see the strong decrease in the last part...
  
• MWO Values -> you can hardly compare TT and MWO
  
• Smooth New Curve -> crosses TT valuse with a smooth damage drecrease in the last part

Please have a look at the lower right graphs.








I have compared the MWO LLAS and ERLLAS and 2 x MLAS
at each other and same with my smooth ones.

I think its prety clear that MWO Lasers differ only because of "total" range. YOu can clearly say...2MLAS up too 300m...and beyond that ER-Large Laser. Or you want to go the middle way, take Large Laser....

With smoother curves...the short range weapons have to used much earlier...to work better as the big counter part - although the Large Lasers deal only 8 dmg.
I think most interesting is the ER-Large vs Large Laser. Actual you choose the ER-Large Laser only for engagements beyond 450m.
With these curves the additional heat burden of the ER-Large means a damage increase over the standard one at every single Meter of your engagement.

However - same will go for other ER-Sniper weapons...But based on these curves you can play arround a little bit:
for example increase the damage for the Large Laser while increasing the decrease of damage per m.
Or the other way decrease the damage but make the weapon capable of hitting targets with more damage at range:

here is another example how things could work:
the ER-Large Laser got a buff on range at the cost of damage, while the Large Lasers damage was highly increased but beyond 300m it isn't worth the heat and money:

Spoiler

UPDATE 04-16
Still not finished...got several other ideas...including different weapon qualitys.
To balance (now 93) different weapons isn't that easy

UPDATE 04-09

Working on an Update. (with table for better reading)

For better understanding...all following stats are "Basic" Damage...means 32dmg don'T have to be a single hit with 32 dmg...could be 2 shots with 16 dmg or 4 shots with 8 dmg too.

AWorking on an Update. (with table for better reading)

For better understanding...all following stats are "Basic" Damage...means 32dmg don'T have to be a single hit with 32 dmg...could be 2 shots with 16 dmg or 4 shots with 8 dmg too.

Actual one problem – maybe some will not call it a problem – is that the advantage of the Large Laser over the Medium Laser is simple the “max“ range.

That is also hampering some ballistics in comparison with energy weapons. The AC 20 is a little bit lack lustering in comparison with 4 medium Laser (lower cycle, ammunition, and only 60% heat in comparison to the laser… not to mention the difference in weight and critical space)

One Reason is the NO-Convergence Issue of Torso Weapons.

So what if every direct fire weapon deals less damage from the barrel to the target. Because fighting in atmosphere means that air molecules will reflect some of the laser energy, and gravitation and air friction will reduce speed of the ballistic weapons.

I know we have stats for them…but what if that are only “theoretical” stats. Means the power of the Laser is the theoretical output directly at the lense, while the damage of the AC was calculated on the damage they deal at effective range etc.

UPDATE Version 0.2

First step was to create a damage curve that reduce the damage that looks more like a parabola for the trajectory of a projectile.

As said it could be explained even for lasers because of different atmospheric factors that will decrease the damage of a laser beam.



Here are some parabolas of my actual working set. However there is still a missing layer... (as you see the MPLAS has a basic value of 7 while the SPLAS has a basic value of 10) both is based on their better to hit probability (they should have and what is the reason for they increased weight and reduced range)

In an attemp to squeeze TT values into this caluclations I used the expected to hit probability multiplicated with the damage of this weapon.

However a curve looks more like a logarithmic function f(x)=1/x.

As you see there is lots of mathematics - so i stoped working with spreadsheets and start to create a program that should allow me to change values with less work.

If you like the formula for the damage of the Medium Laser is:

The actual version after Lagrange Interpolation must be similar to this one:
5.90*10^-13x⁵- 7.64*10^-10x⁴ + 2.56*10^-7x³ - 2.54*10^-5x² +1.24*10^-4x +5.0
While my actual Medium Laser uses this formula...also after Lagrange Interpolation
-2.16*10^-12x⁵ + 2.85*10^-9x⁴ - 1.35*10^-6x³ +2.53*10^-4x² - 0.02x +5.0

Some one said - Balance is made with figures and mathematic.
And I need a lot more mathematic knowlege...its a little while when i used Interpolation and bezir curves for the last time.

OLD Version 0.1:
My first approach was linear - but that caused serious issues that will result in much more brawling - what is not the intension.

Spoiler

So is started to take a look – I want to make it as easy as possible so it should be linear…while not realistic – more easy to implement.


I assert that a AC deals 100% of its listed damage at effective range

I assert that a Beam Laser deals 50% of its listed damage at effective range

I assert that a Pulse Laser deals 75% of its listed damage at effective range

I assert that PPCs, Gauss deals between 60 or 80% of their listed damage at effective range.

I made some calculation tables…what I found out was interesting:

Considering the AC 2 round loses for every meter it travels 0.0014 damage potential. I have increased the damage potential at the muzzle to 3.

The AC 5 loses 0.00364 dmg per meter, with 7 at the muzzle
The AC 10 loses 0.011 dmg per meter, with much improved 15 at the muzzle
The AC 20 loses 0.036 dmg per meter with devastating 29 at the muzzle

NOW THE GAUSS – it should be completely different in handling in comparison with the AC – that are driven by propellant.

Gauss Rife loses 0.006 dmg per meter muzzle damage is 16.

It deals now – “only” 12 dmg at its effective range

As you can see the AC 10 is more effective for short to medium range combat. The AC 20 will now always outmatch the Gauss at short range.

But what makes the Gauss still a viable weapon is the extreme long range of: now…….2670m. It impact with more force as an AC2 above 2000m.

That will have an impact on Mech designs. No Gauss on Brawler or Juggernauts…even when the AC40 Jaeger becomes a super badass AC58 Jager.

What about the Ultra 5 and the LBX….

UAC5 lose 0.0016 dmg per meter. muzzle damage is 6.

Well Ultra 5 has a better range profile over the AC 5… without double shot – it should be more powerful at range. (You have to take into account that the UAC 5 has double shot) – that means with linear dmg drop that the range is greatly increased.

The LBX is a really special weapon…while you can only “calculate” damage over spread – it should be able to fire even slug shells. Those have a better range profile as the standard AC 10 – when it will be possible to fire slug…rounds those should have less muzzle damage over the AC 10 but more damage at range.

LBX 10 looses 0.0056 dmg per meter with muzzle damage of 13

Let’s take a look to energy weapons.

Its all about the better efficiency of lighter energy weapons in aspects of weight, crits, heat and damage over the larger energy weapons. Only advantage of the larger ones is the more range argument.

With linear drop you can create much more diversity.

Large Laser loses 0.0096dmgper meter
Large ER-Lase loses 0.0066 dmg per meter
MLAS loses 0.0092 per meter
SLAS loses 0.016dmg per meter.

Are 4 medium laser more effective as the large ER-Laser?

At short ranges for sure.

Till 200m 2 MLAS deal more damage as the ERLLAS and until 220m more as the LLAS.

But at 450m you will need 5 or even 6 medium Laser to deal the same damage as the Large Laser. Not to consider the ER-Large Laser

Same goes for the SLAS even at ranges of 50m it is better to have a single medium laser over 2 small lasers.

I have said I want that the Pulse Laser deal more damage – so I have increased the Muzzle Energy of the Pulse laser. The example was here the comparison between LPLAS and ERLLAS. After passing its effective range (300m) the ERLargeLaser is the better choice of both Laser Types.

LPLAS have 12dmg at the muzzle and loses 0.016dmg per meter.
MPLAS have 7dmg at the muzzle and loses 0.016dmg per meter
SPLAS have 3.5dmg at the muzzle and loses 0.014dmg per meter

PPCs.

They should be similar to Gauss but without ammunition and more heat…maybe a “exploding” PPC could be a nice addition too.

While the PPC starts at 90m, the ERPPC starts effectively at 0m. The plasma projectile should have for both 11dmg when it is created.

That has the nice side effect that the Standard PPC is more effective in ranges between 90 and 240m. Not cannon i know - but considering maybe it gives you another advantage to take the PPC over the ER-PPC instead of only having the heat issue.

PPC loses 0.01 dmg per meter starting at 90m
ER-PPC loosing 0.006 dmg per meter

All this weapon calculation does not consider heat or the rate of fire. (So for example the medium laser should have a much better firing rate over the large laser instead of only 8%.)

Heat is a concern too. Now with the obvious improvement of the Large Laser over the Medium Laser – there is no reason – to keep the heat that low – maybe an increase to 8 or even 9 should be considered.

The same for minimum range… I really would implement a minimum range for every Mech and every weapon system...

When you start to discuss I please you to explain your statement. And if another approach like changing RoF or decreasing heat or simlar will change your mind.

For example:

No because I run a Hunchback 4P and any crippling the medium laser range will condemned my mech – so I will now have hardly any chance vs a PPC Stalker that can even push a 66 Alpha at 91m into my mech. Whit a increase of the ROF- towards 1.5 secs however i'm able to fire twice as fast - so that i may have a chance to fire twice or even tree times while the PPC Stalker can only fire once.
Or yes….i always liked the AC 10…and everything that make this weapon better is good…although the rate of fire is not so good…and a fight in meele vs a now AC58 Jaeger would be problematic.

Please people i don't want to see a NO without explanation

Edited by Karl Streiger, 15 July 2013 - 05:37 AM.

[Will HellFire]

Very well thought ideas and exposition. Kudos for you to take the time to think and express in an orderly way.

I like the idea and voted yes, but I have my reservations: It would be a difficult change to make now, and difficult to know the optimal range for your weapons, specially to new players. I like the idea of having "optimal ranges" as opposed to max ranges as we have now though. I think it would be good to have a visual guide with green, orange and red colors to visualize the optimal ranges and compare different weapons.

I also notice that in your analysis the Missiles were not covered, though probably they would not follow the same linearity of decreasing damage as they are self propelled "bombs" and the propulsion system (and thus distance covered) would not affect the damage inflicted.

Honestly, the chances of such a big change happenning now is lower than those of a Corellian Freighter surviving a full-speed navigation in an asteroid field, but if you can get the devs attention, maybe it will influence future decisions.

[Karl Streiger]

Will HellFire, on 05 April 2013 - 01:49 AM, said:

...
Honestly, the chances of such a big change happenning now is lower than those of a Corellian Freighter surviving a full-speed navigation in an asteroid field, but if you can get the devs attention, maybe it will influence future decisions.

Thanks for the kind words. Yes missiles are complete different, same as LBX...the only thing you can do is reduce damage and while increasing the hit change with more spread for the missile clusters.

While based on look, i must be Chewbacca...Who wants to be Han Solo?

[Tyren Dian]

I take the Han Solo Job. Maybe, for simplifying your Suggestion, we can scale the dmg decrease not per metres, but hexes. To get the TT feeling id like to see kinda scaling in short, medium and maxrange, maybe sth better to implement and tweak...i voted yes.

[Pinselborste]

the autocannons in battletech fire High Explosive Shells, range would not make those less effective, the gauss would loose the most damage since it relies on kinetic energy to damage a target.

@tyren, dropoff should be meter and not hexes, otherwhise you will deal for example 100% damage at 100 meter and only 80 at 101, doesnt make sense at all.

Edited by Pinselborste, 05 April 2013 - 04:24 AM.

[Tyren Dian]

Well, id like to see a scale decreasing the damage per metre. but not from the nozzle of the gun to max range...short range 100%, then decreasing damage to medium range (f.ex. 40-60%) and then max range to 0. Sry for implying a wrong pic of my suggestion.

P.S.: AC are firing HEAP shells, so their damage will decrease LESS then other weapons to a minimum (the amount of damage the HE warhead causes).

[Karl Streiger]

You can simplify them as you like...in meters or 25meters or 50meter steps. For my calculation i have used 25meter steps.
Its nearer to the TT values...although only the basic idea comes from TT....because to hit less often in TT does not mean you don't hit at all...it simple means you dealt less damage....
So when in TT you rolled in 2 rounds one time a miss and one time a hit...it doesn't mean you hit and you miss automaticaly it could mean you hit both times but you only inflicted 2.5dmg per round... i knew that abstraction is little bit srewede...and i knew that this topic will go rant any moment because i have used that damnable chars.

[Bobzilla]

While I do agree lasers need a boost, i voted no. This idea would make brawling more ideal, and I feel the game is too heavily centered on brawling. More incentive to move face to face is not needed.

[Karl Streiger]

Bobzilla, on 05 April 2013 - 05:06 AM, said:

While I do agree lasers need a boost, i voted no. This idea would make brawling more ideal, and I feel the game is too heavily centered on brawling. More incentive to move face to face is not needed.

Thanks for your opinion...while I'm not really objective in terms of brawling because I hate short range fights, why do you think it will cause more brawling?

That was not the idea behind. I wanted to find a mode where the AC 20 on the 4G outperforms any stock sway back configuration. However it is not about AC 20 only...even when i admit that I'm not comfort with the muzzle damage of the AC 10 and AC 20. But i wanted to make the decreasing linear (as simple as possible) and the AC should deal 100% damage to the end of their effective range.

But it is not a hidden try to improve the AC 20. I really wanted to have a fair balance between long range and short range...with the optimum of all in the middle range bracket.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 05 April 2013 - 05:23 AM.

[Bobzilla]

Karl Streiger, on 05 April 2013 - 05:20 AM, said:

Thanks for your opinion...while I'm not really objective in terms of brawling because I hate short range fights, why do you think it will cause more brawling?

That was not the idea behind. I wanted to find a mode where the AC 20 on the 4G outperforms any stock sway back configuration. However it is not about AC 20 only...even when i admit that I'm not comfort with the muzzle damage of the AC 10 and AC 20. But i wanted to make the decreasing linear (as simple as possible) and the AC should deal 100% damage to the end of their effective range.

But it is not a hidden try to improve the AC 20. I really wanted to have a fair balance between long range and short range...with the optimum of all in the middle range bracket.

The weapons with the highest DPS (ballistics) get a bonus to fireing at close range, which also is where their easier to hit with. It would be naive to not realize players will take the most optimal build. If you have a choice between ballistic and energy, why worry about a close range penalty, along with an overall limited range, plus less dps and more heat. You wouldn't you'd fill that ballistic slot with as much tons and slots you could. Energy weapons are already a 'filler' for me in most cases. This would also really hurt mechs that have to rely on energy weapons. It just seems like a penalty to lasers and a bonus to ac's, with a bonus to closer fighting overall. I do like your idea, perhaps your idea put with a range doing full damage and less from that point, closer and further ( ML does 5 dmg from 200m-300m with less damage like your scale from 200m down to 0m and from 300m up to 540m.) sort of an optimal range.

[Karl Streiger]

Thx for your advice. I did not have considered DPS.
Just base damage.
But what about DPS?
Should the MPLAS DPS rating at 60m be unbeatable in ratio with mass and heat?
Is 2 DPS for AC2 2.5 for AC5, 3 for AC10 and 4 dps for AC20 at optimum range acceptable?
what about laser?
2mlas should have more DPS at 100m over a single llas.
but at long range dps of biger weapons should still outclasses smaller weapons.(not acs)

[Bobzilla]

Playing with the optimal range size you could make it larger for some weapons. Maybe the AC20's optimal range is 100-270 where as the ML's is 150-250 for example.

But really, going back to your OP, I think 4 ML's aren't equal to one AC20 because of heat and max range. Same with all ballistics vs energy really. Compare them at heat neutral, and the ballistics take less tons and slots even with ample ammo.

[Karl Streiger]

I'm working at another model this time with dps heat of course with weapon cycle time.
the idea of different optimal ranges for different weapon sounds most interesting.

As it is withe the v1 ppcs in the OP. A awesome with 3 PPC can win a fight of equals against a AWS with 3 ERPPCs as long he stay out of minimum but below 200m.

[The Prime Minister]

I'm gonna vote yes because anything that gets the devs looking at game/weapon balance is a good thing. (And no, TT values are useless in a real-time game, naysayers).

And I'd love a buff to my beloved AC20 on my atlas... so someone actually feels that it's being hit by a 100 ton assault mech.

On the other hand, I've got just 3 (well, ok, one of them is a composite german word) words for you. Dual AC20 Jagermech. <- That... POINT BLANK. Facehugging you. Imagine it.

[Alois Hammer]

Seems to be the greatest effect this would have is an exponential increase in "huggy bear" combat. How could it not, with a simple "the closer you are, the more damage you do, period" system?

[EvangelionUnit]

most reload times are around 4 sec max
i think for these high damage short range guns should have a longer time maybe closer to 10 sec per shot

so you have time to do the torso twist game even in a slow mech (FAtlas, Awesome ...) and it would make backup weapons more important (no more dual AC20+ as much ammo as fit) but more builds like AC20+LB10X or something with lasers

lasers firerate is limited by heat sinks, even if you could fire every second it wouldn't help much with the heat limit.

maybe this could be used for missiles to, so that LRM5 and SRM2 builds could fire all 2 sec (or 1.5 sec) so they get through there ammo as fast as the heavier but require good aim ?
to bad we can't set up servers to play with some kind of these settings and test it for ourself as community

[Karl Streiger]

EvangelionUnit, on 07 April 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

maybe this could be used for missiles to, so that LRM5 and SRM2 builds could fire all 2 sec (or 1.5 sec) so they get through there ammo as fast as the heavier but require good aim ?
to bad we can't set up servers to play with some kind of these settings and test it for ourself as community

I'm just figuring out only the difference between MPLAS and Medium Laser.
But as you said..it's all about Cycle Time and Beam Duration with Mass/Crit/Heat variables

Same goes for every weapon.
I'm looking forward to present some new values on tomorrow.

Actual thinking: make the Beam of standard lasers shorter = less to hit accuracy vs fast targets... so with a
longer beam you will automatically take the pulse lasers...

but on the other hand you can - make it all about Cycle Time...a medium laser with a cycle time of 1.5sec and a hit damage of 1,0125 (0m) and heat per shot of 0,6 over a Medium Pulse Laser with a cycle time of 1sec and hit damage of 0,934 (at 0m) and a heat production of 0,6.
Or you mix both and create complete different weapons:
Medium Pulse Laser: is slow cylcle large beam and Medium Laser is short cylce and short beam or the vice versa.

But still both weapons should keep the OTs base damage of 5 and 7. (but with modifications through expected average to hit rate of average players) Last thing means a high rof weapon...that is expected to hit 75%...can be quiete more dangerous in the hands of an expert.

I hope you give me more imput.

Quote

maybe this could be used for missiles to, so that LRM5 and SRM2 builds could fire all 2 sec (or 1.5 sec) so they get through there ammo as fast as the heavier but require good aim ?

I think same ways... a LRM 20 should be do more damage as 4 LRM 5...not only because of AMS...but also because of spreading damage. etc.
But on the other hand...it should need more time for reload.

I didn't wanted to consider missiles...because they should always do 100% of damage.... only thing possible is spread.
Hm...maybe you can do something with LockOnTime too.
SSRM2 will have 100% to hit probability with a good shot pilot and at short range....so lock on time maybe only till 100m
with the minimum range of 180m for LRM...there is a 80m gap where SRM could show what they were made for.

Quote

to bad we can't set up servers to play with some kind of these settings and test it for ourself as community

That is indeed a problem... of course I duno how easy or hard it is to change that values.. I really hope its just some data in a database or scripts

However: my way to achieve balance is to imbalance weapons at a specific range bracket.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 07 April 2013 - 11:53 PM.

[Bobzilla]

I think messing with damge at ranges could be a good method to balance weapons. The biggest problem I see with your method is all AC's doing more than full damge up close. The longer a weapons max range, the less damage it should do up close. But a weapon design for short range (AC20, Pulse lasers) should do full damge up close then decrease with range. It forces the role of a weapon. This would add to the negatives of boating weapons as an ac20 boat would be more useless at range, and a Gauss boat would be useless up close. Gauss could really be balanced well with this as they could beef its HPs back up but have it do very little damage at close range putting it back in its role for long range and making not such a big liability. Perhaps lasers should suffer the least from this range damage drop to make them more viable as I think they are pretty weak due to the heat system.

[EvangelionUnit]

what would you think about a slider for energie and balistic weapons? ob One side, highest damage, most heat, fewer ammo per ton. so you get hard hitter guns. in the other end more stuff made for higher rof. so you van mount different medium lasers, Thatcher both have the same basic stats, but apply there damage different!

[Karl Streiger]

EvangelionUnit, on 08 April 2013 - 03:59 AM, said:

what would you think about a slider for energie and balistic weapons? ob One side, highest damage, most heat, fewer ammo per ton. so you get hard hitter guns. in the other end more stuff made for higher rof. so you van mount different medium lasers, Thatcher both have the same basic stats, but apply there damage different!

Hey...the slider idea was the starting point...or special...i was thinking about the difference of a AC 5...named Whirlwind and Imperator B
I believe the Whirlwind of the MAD had 5 shot magazine with 120mm shells and the Imperator B of the Rifleman was used to 80mm and 10shot magazines. So you have virtually the same weapon...and the same damage output at a defined time...but one weapon create more hits the other gun create "heavier" hits.


But to have this sliding system means: you can not calculate with DPS and HPS as it is actual.
I don't want to see a slow volley PPC...that fires once every 9 sec but with 30dmg and 24heat per shot.