140 replies to this topic

[zraven7]

Hammertrial, on 15 May 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

With a cap of 30, you'd need 45 sinks worth of drain, or 23 DHS in order to get below shutdown.

With the way MWO is set up with engine heat sinks, even with all doubles being doubles this is impossible as you can only fit 18 DHS with the 300 engine and available crit slots. With clan doubles and ERPPCs it becomes possible, but you are threading the line with every shot.

In current MWO its PPC all day every day because of the heat cap being tied to DHS and the lowered heat, but same damage.

Ok, fair, overheat damage would help some things. Lights can still be one shot by a few builds, though, and at decent range. 4 and 5 PPC builds are viable, I believe (I know 4ppc builds are), and there are still AC40 builds. Also, the Misery can mount 4 ppcs and gauss, which will really ruin some days at respectable range.

So, yes, I'll concede that something should be done about "fire, shutdown, startup, fire" builds, but I still think it's entirely fine for high-damage builds to be able to ace Lights.

Edited by zraven7, 15 May 2013 - 09:42 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hammertrial, on 15 May 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

How can you get cored any quicker than instantly? I am curious. And why is it okay to keep the instagib all the lights aspect of TT, and not the "you'd be a walking bomb" aspect of TT.

If I create a tachyon pulse I can kill you before i pull the trigger to fire the tachyon Pulse!

[Roland]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

I'm not saying you're not good. I'm saying GET BETTER. you're playing the light mech everyone loves to hate. Spiders are almost as reviled as Ravens, and I'm not even sure why. Maybe they just look irritating.

I think it's because a good chunk of the time, spider pilots are pure cap trolls... because the mech's not really good at fighting.

Bear in mind, I drive a spider myself pretty frequently, but I usually try to actually fight in it (mainly for the lulz of killing folks while driving a spider).

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 15 May 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

I think it's because a good chunk of the time, spider pilots are pure cap trolls... because the mech's not really good at fighting.

Bear in mind, I drive a spider myself pretty frequently, but I usually try to actually fight in it (mainly for the lulz of killing folks while driving a spider).

Let's see. Fast, ECMed, Can jump like Swan Lake!

Whats not to hate? LOL

[Kmieciu]

I enjoy killing light mechs in one salvo, because I remember the times when PPC were considered a joke weapon, and the damage would only register if you missed ahead of a running mech. I remember the times when Ravens were always on the top of the scoring board with 1000+ damage and multiple kills and only reliable weapons against them were TAG+LRM.

But I'm also in favor of slowing down weapon convergence, so that you would have to aim for about one second to get all the weapons to hit a single component. That would both solve the pop-tarting and help light mechs survive longer.

And the beauty of this solution lies in its simplicity. There is a pilot skill called "Pinpoint". That means PGI has the means to control convergence speed via a parameter. So little to no programming work is required.

Edited by Kmieciu, 15 May 2013 - 09:50 AM.

[zraven7]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 May 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Let's see. Fast, ECMed, Can jump like Swan Lake!

Whats not to hate? LOL

Oddly, I find them easier to hit out of the air. They can't change direction.

[Hammertrial]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Ok, fair, overheat damage would help some things. Lights can still be one shot by a few builds, though, and at decent range. 4 and 5 PPC builds are viable, I believe (I know 4ppc builds are), and there are still AC40 builds. Also, the Misery can mount 4 ppcs and gauss, which will really ruin some days at respectable range.

So, yes, I'll concede that something should be done about "fire, shutdown, startup, fire" builds, but I still think it's entirely fine for high-damage builds to be able to ace Lights.

AC/40 builds are heavily balanced by weight, speed, range, and ammo limits. And to a lesser extent heat. They are also extremely easy to crit and destroy, and the ammo cook off can rip a mech to shreds. None of these things other than heat to an extremely small extent balance the PPC.

4 PPC builds should still overheat very quickly, 60 heat requires 15 true DHS to not shutdown, with the 18 in the stalker you're still going to 80% in a single salvo.

If you want to be able to use a 4 PPC boat, you should be able to, but you'd only be able to fire once every ten seconds because if you don't you overheat AND damage your mech.

Alphas are supposed to be last ditch efforts, not a giant red flashing button saying "PUSH ME!"

Edited by Hammertrial, 15 May 2013 - 10:02 AM.

[Prezimonto]

Kmieciu, on 15 May 2013 - 09:45 AM, said:

And the beauty of this solution lies in its simplicity. There is a pilot skill called "Pinpoint". That means PGI has the means to control convergence speed via a parameter. So little to no programming work is required.

I'm pretty sure that's the swing speed of your arms from your center torso.... not convergence of weapon fire over range.

[zraven7]

Hammertrial, on 15 May 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

AC/40 builds are heavily balanced by weight, speed, range, and ammo limits. And to a lesser extent heat. They are also extremely easy to crit and destroy, and the ammo cook off can rip a mech to shreds. None of these things other than heat to an extremely small extent balance the PPC.

4 PPC builds should still overheat very quickly, 60 heat requires 15 true DHS to not shutdown, with the 18 in the stalker you're still going to 80% in a single salvo.

If you want to be able to use a 4 PPC boat, you should be able to, but you'd only be able to fire once every ten seconds because if you don't you overheat AND damage your mech.

Alphas are supposed to be last ditch efforts, not a giant red flashing button saying "PUSH ME!"

Hey, my jenner alphas her 6 Medium lasers just fine, thank you. :-P

[Hammertrial]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

Hey, my jenner alphas her 6 Medium lasers just fine, thank you. :-P

And that's fine. With 10 minimum DHS you bleed 20 of the 30 heat. 3 shots and you should overheat. Drop the engine a bit and you should be able to run heat neutral with 15 (or in this game, 17 for slightly less than heat neutral, 18 for neutral).

[zraven7]

Hammertrial, on 15 May 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

And that's fine. With 10 minimum DHS you bleed 20 of the 30 heat. 3 shots and you should overheat. Drop the engine a bit and you should be able to run heat neutral with 15 (or in this game, 17 for slightly less than heat neutral, 18 for neutral).

Yeah, 3 shots is the critter. Good math.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I am of the mind that no mech should die due to one shot from a single mech, while moving at full speed from over 800m away.

The odds on rolling the dice to do something like that should be extreme.

Unfortunately, I see it about 1 in 5 games. And I'm in a low ELO, I bet the best pilots can do it with no sweat due to the convergence mechanics, lack of shake from jumping, etc.

[Hammertrial]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

Yeah, 3 shots is the critter. Good math.

?

[zraven7]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 15 May 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

I am of the mind that no mech should die due to one shot from a single mech, while moving at full speed from over 800m away.

The odds on rolling the dice to do something like that should be extreme.

Unfortunately, I see it about 1 in 5 games. And I'm in a low ELO, I bet the best pilots can do it with no sweat due to the convergence mechanics, lack of shake from jumping, etc.

Ok, the dice and character sheets of Table Top are supposed to represent pilot skill at knowing and firing the weapon while piloting the mech.

Here, we have an analogue of that being... pilot skill.

And actually, it gets harder to do at higher ELO. More defensive maneuvering and implementation of cover occurs at these levels. Assaults are used as cover for squishier mechs, and torso twisting before shots, not after, happens much more often.

[zraven7]

Hammertrial, on 15 May 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

?

I mean you got your calculations right. I overheat 3 back-to-back alphas. You know your stuff.

[Braggart]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Ok, the dice and character sheets of Table Top are supposed to represent pilot skill at knowing and firing the weapon while piloting the mech.

Here, we have an analogue of that being... pilot skill.

And actually, it gets harder to do at higher ELO. More defensive maneuvering and implementation of cover occurs at these levels. Assaults are used as cover for squishier mechs, and torso twisting before shots, not after, happens much more often.

Regardless, in Table top is pretty much impossible to drop alpha strikes all on the same spot. its as easy as point and shoot here, whether it hits what you want, the arm or the torso isnt important, what is important is that those 3 ppcs, or 2 ac 20 just hit the same spot, which required no skill.

Edited by Braggart, 15 May 2013 - 10:31 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Ok, the dice and character sheets of Table Top are supposed to represent pilot skill at knowing and firing the weapon while piloting the mech.

Here, we have an analogue of that being... pilot skill.

And actually, it gets harder to do at higher ELO. More defensive maneuvering and implementation of cover occurs at these levels. Assaults are used as cover for squishier mechs, and torso twisting before shots, not after, happens much more often.

No one would ever bring a Spider (in a serious match) to a high ELO match because of that insta-gib.

Infact it's the reason Lights and Mediums are starting to disappear from the game.

The problem is, I'm fine with Pilot Skill. But right now it's not even Pilot Skill. I suck, I'm on a sucky laptop half the time. And even I can pop-tart and hit things with PPC's due to the obscene travel time and convergence.

Which is why people are stating, make torso weapons shoot in a straight line. Then the skill is knowing when to alpha, and how much adjusting you need to do to make the left torso and right torso weapons hit the same spot while chain firing.

That way it is not random. And it is skill based.

[Hammertrial]

zraven7, on 15 May 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

I mean you got your calculations right. I overheat 3 back-to-back alphas. You know your stuff.

Actually they were horribly wrong. I thought you were being sarcastic and correcting me, so I relooked it up. Medium lasers are 3 heat in TT, not 5 like I thought they were.

So 6 = 18 heat sinks required, and a 250 engine should make it run heat neutral.

So in TT, for the same cooldown period (10s), a ERPPC should be 5 times more costly heat wise than a medium laser.

In MWO, for the same cooldown period (3s), a ERPPC is not even 3x as heat expensive as a medium laser (2.75), making it nearly double as effective as TT in comparison to the medium laser.

Meanwhile, as we are no longer heat capped at 30, 8 extra doubles a stalker gets allows for 11.2 more heat over the standard 10 in a Jenner, which is an entire ERPPC worth extra of heat.

So Jenners are massively less heat efficient than in TT, ERPPCs are massively more in comparison, and the boats are able to fire it more often due to the heat cap being changed with the addition of more heat sinks, making the heat even less of a factor for the heavier mechs compared to the lighter.

And people wonder why brawling is dead...

Edited by Hammertrial, 15 May 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

RG Notch, on 15 May 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

So the answer is to fire once every ten seconds and roll for hit locations.

How about you fire once every 0.5 seconds, all 6 PPCs in a sequence? Let's see if you can "alpha" strike that Spider to death now. If you can, you deserve it(, or your target.)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 15 May 2013 - 10:37 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

MustrumRidcully, on 15 May 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

How about you fire once every 0.5 seconds, all 6 PPCs in a sequence? Let's see if you can "alpha" strike that Spider to death now. If you can, you deserve it(, or your target.)

This is where the game needs to go.