Not sure if recoil is a sound solution because of replys already given as to whether certain weapons would experience the effect, other options sound better like the retical shake however could cause poptarting to become extinct altogether if done poorly.
I don't disagree at all with poptarting as a viable tactic nor sniping for that matter. I keep a dual gauss jager and sometime enjoy running a sniper mech myself. I think the core of the arguement is that weapons can be fired at very long range and have no effective counter other than other weapons that fire at very long range i.e. snipe fest. This translates to essentially a trench warfare style of play that some are finding less than a fullfilling gaming experience.
Poptarting only further excacerbated this problem and mainly because it went from being a possible tactic to the go to tactic as it offered an advantage over others. That would be the ability to snipe from very long range with a very limited exposure time and therefore less risk of return fire and damage.
I won't go into the arguement of whether a mech should or shouldn't have recoil. I've seen references in books that describe a pilot fighting the recoil of his autocannon as it fires others acknowledging that there is a recoil affect associated with it. I've also seen descriptions that seem to indicate that the mech's battle computer and other systems built into the weapon to reduce recoil affectively minimize or negate it. Therefore the differing OP's on that issue seem to indicate differing interpretations or materials they have read or remember reading.
I don't want poptarting nor sniping dead it's a very important tactic and viable. I do think it should have a effective counter that returns it to a possible tactic to use in the appropriate situation. I mentioned this thought in another thread about ballistics.
Have the autocannons behave like well autocannons. In the books they are described as growling and multiple impact points froming on a mech when fired. In the tech manuals they are described as each shot or round actually being a cassette clip of 5 to 10 shells. Depending on manufacturer and type. So instead of one boom when u click the button there should be at least 5. Smaller caliber weapons would of course fire them off faster. Each impact would then cause the cockpit shudder as well as the other effects. Quad AC2's AC'5s and UAC5 builds try to accomplish this affect and do so fairly well, however they chew ammo at a prohibitive rate. To much so, this idea would rebalance this without allowing them to do prohibitive damage each shell would do a fraction of the total damage so damage per ton would remain the same.This would give greater utility to smaller autocannon builds, their suppressive fire becomes the counter to poptarts and restores mobility to the battle field. The larger caliber weapons would be less inclined, if their wise, to engage in long range sniping simply because unless the enemy is kind enough to remain still they would waste alot of damage potential on smaller stocks of ammo. Also remember larger guns would fire off that burst a bit slower making tracking a moving target at longer range much more difficult. That would help reduce the range of the AC/20 back to something more reasonable. It's effective range is 270m, just because it CAN hit at up to 800m doesn't mean it should be a easy task.
I also run the dual AC/20 jager and often forget it's effective range is 270m I'm usually thinking more like 600m, 500m effective. There's something not right with that. I also feel that at shorter ranges it even's up the field against lights particularly the ECM variants a bit. I might not get full damage but then I don't have to be quite as percise in my shooting to do some damage and at least get some healthy respect. The default light circle of death dance would become less of a default. Although more skilled light pilots would still probably stand a very good chance. I know their out there. I believe this again levels the playing field without going to far overboard.
I acknowledge a trade off here unless a person has a certain amount of skill they will not get the concentrated damage to a single location that we're accustomed to, but I think with a certain degree of skill it would still happen. I do however believe the trade off is worth the above mentioned gains. Which I also believe would reduce but not irradicate poptarting and the general sniperfest we've been experiencing. I also think that this idea would be best deployed and tested in the long awaited official test server to get the firing rates, reload rates and such tweeked prior to deployment to prevent creating other unforseen imbalances in the game.
Edited by Jack Lowe, 27 April 2013 - 11:48 AM.
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p4g3m4s7r, on 26 April 2013 - 07:01 PM, said:
