50 replies to this topic

[Sign]

Instead of a flat 4 second cooldown, make it 1.5 seconds powerup, then it fires, then it cooldowns for 2.5 seconds.

Would add difficulty for poptarts and difficulty for mixed Gauss/PPC boating. Simple, straightforward, transparent, gives them even more uniqueness and can be compensated with actual timing skills.

[Soy]

Cool idea!

What about, you could fire it after 1 sec but the range and dmg are all poopy. The longer you go, out to the 4 secs, closer it gets to full power and the nominal range stuff.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Seems like a super bad idea. It'd render the things unusable.

Far better to have a longer cool down on the sniper weapons and a shorter one on brawler weapons. Better still to add some external, predictable, balancing mechanic such as a graduated heat scale that affects movement, twist speed, arm reflex, convergence, cool down rates, and accuracy.

An interesting idea I had a recently was to give weapons current accuracy levels out to their optimal range, and give them a scaling accuracy penalty (predictably expanding margin of error as the range increases) out to their maximum range.

[Sign]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 22 May 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

Far better to have a longer cool down on the sniper weapons and a shorter one on brawler weapons. Better still to add some external, predictable, balancing mechanic such as a graduated heat scale that affects movement, twist speed, arm reflex, convergence, cool down rates, and accuracy.

An interesting idea I had a recently was to give weapons current accuracy levels out to their optimal range, and give them a scaling accuracy penalty (predictably expanding margin of error as the range increases) out to their maximum range.

I'm actually a lot more inclined and a big fan for such a heat scale (TT roots); as for accuracy, convergence is a much preferred alternative than cone of fire/accuracy. Since PGI seems hellbent on NOT implementing them, I was thinking of alternatives that aren't too convoluted.

Don't see why would it render things unusable though, and how it is also not predictable. Would you elaborate?

[Monky]

I support the OP's suggestion and have made it many times before.

It's no different in concept to how lasers work - just all of the damage is at one point after firing. It would turn sniping into a skill rather than an 'oh anyone can do that' by making people time where that point is.

[von Pilsner]

No thanks, the capacitors should be ready before you press the trigger otherwise a ppc should not explode when critted.

Also, adding a trigger delay makes the game 'not fun'.

[Tombstoner]

i dont care for the idea. the damage would need to be increased to compensate for the difficulty in hitting your target
it would make ppcs better for large slow targets and worse for small lights. the game really cant handle more more things that mess with mech survivability.

[Sheraf]

A charge up time, hold your mouse to charge your PPC damage up to 1.5x at full charge after 2 sec , and release the mouse button to shoot

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Sign, on 22 May 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

Don't see why would it render things unusable though, and how it is also not predictable. Would you elaborate?

The PPC is supposed to be a mid-to-long range mainstay, and the ERPPC a long-to-extreme range upgrade. At any kind of meaningful range, a charge-up time quickly becomes prohibitive. If you had a set charge time and an automatic fire when it finishes it'd be well nigh impossible to use at any reasonable range (especially if it had graphical effects when charging, like lightning gathering at the barrel), and if it is a charge-up-while-you-hold-the-trigger-and-fire-on-release setup then it'd still be way too unwieldy.

Forget about shooting people dodging between cover. Forget about hitting somebody who's juking effectively. The gun would be reduced to shooting at only slow, foolish targets.

[Deathlike]

Have people not experienced using SRMs on a Catapult or Cent or even a Stalker?

That delay can be mindblowingly annoying, especially if you're trying to shoot a light mech with them.

If you hate that delay, this idea would be unbearable for you.

[blinkin]

this sounds kind of neat and i am a little surprised at the support i am seeing for something like this. i didn't expect this many people to be gluttons for punishment like me. or is all of the support for this idea out of rage against PPC mechs?

oddly enough the old super nintendo mechwarrior game had a charge up time for PPC weapons. -> http://en.wikipedia....echWarrior_3050 if you charged up too much you could blow off your own arm. i think that was the only way to lose a specific component in that game.
and if i remember correctly the gauss rifle was some crazy area of effect grenade round and the flamer was incredibly destructive, but it was still fun.

[Deathlike]

This idea kinda resembles the Bombast Laser in MW4 (not MW4 Mercs). The idea was to "charge up a weapon" and the longer it was charged, it would deal more damage. There would be a limit for the charge by restarting the recharging sequence up to a certain point. The only reason it was a really bad idea was that the implementation and stats sucked.. it was worse than an ER Large in the game in more ways than one (heat, damage, tonnage used) and that if you shot the weapon in the less than favorable state (it would use the small/medium laser effect when it's not fully charged), you would be charged with the max amount of heat (instead of the level of power the weapon was at the moment).

In any case, the short answer of a resounding NO is my current opinion.

[MustrumRidcully]

Monky, on 22 May 2013 - 02:54 PM, said:

I support the OP's suggestion and have made it many times before.

It's no different in concept to how lasers work - just all of the damage is at one point after firing. It would turn sniping into a skill rather than an 'oh anyone can do that' by making people time where that point is.

No, it's very different. When the laser is firing, you see the beam, and you can steer it to correct the path.

A weapon invisibly charging up and you have to hope that you still got the target in your sight. That will be a nightmare, it will become too unpredictable.

[Lightfoot]

No.

[Hexenhammer]

A fire delay? Please no. While in closed beta ACs had a firing delay and hitting things was a total nightmare. I have no idea if its fixed because I got tired of missing all day long and dumped ACs.

[Deathlike]

Hexenhammer, on 23 May 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

A fire delay? Please no. While in closed beta ACs had a firing delay and hitting things was a total nightmare. I have no idea if its fixed because I got tired of missing all day long and dumped ACs.

It's been fixed (or removed rather) since the ballistic/projectile HSR implementation. If you missed the AC2 Jager is annoying threads, then that's when it begun (which was 1.5 months ago).

[Buzzkillin]

Charge up? o boy Mech Assault, let's add power ups and health picks up while we are at it.

[Rhent]

Sign, on 22 May 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

Instead of a flat 4 second cooldown, make it 1.5 seconds powerup, then it fires, then it cooldowns for 2.5 seconds.

Would add difficulty for poptarts and difficulty for mixed Gauss/PPC boating. Simple, straightforward, transparent, gives them even more uniqueness and can be compensated with actual timing skills.

Awesome idea, lets apply that to all weapons in the game. Give everyone a 1 1/2 second delay of firing. You know what would be better yet, if we could have real melee weapons put in. I'm thinking Goose Feather Pillows!

IOW's, bad idea man, real bad idea. Worst I've read in a long time. Why?
Lights run a PPC, they are going 152KPH and how are they suppose to hit a target with a 1 1/2 sec delay? There are so many bad scenarios, do you want me to list them out?

[blinkin]

Buzzkillin, on 23 May 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

Charge up? o boy Mech Assault, let's add power ups and health picks up while we are at it.

mech assault was all about dumbing down the game for the console crowd. a charge up feature actually adds another small layer of difficulty to the game. because you have to know you are going to take your shot several seconds BEFORE you actually take it. much like the closed beta days before you could manually open the missile bay doors.

0.5 second delay before being able to fire my SRM, AFTER I HAD PULLED THE TRIGGER, definitely didn't make things any easier.

[Bloody Moon]

Gotta admit this idea crossed my mind a few days ago, but i didn't mention it on the forums as it would possibly throw PPCs back into the dumpster.

Then again Lasers are currently not on par with PPCs in long range combat, so either those need shorter beam duration or an idea like this needs to get implemented for PPCs.

My preference would be shorter beam (roughly 0,5 seconds for normal and 0,25 for pulse) and +1 heat for PPCs, but i'm not holding my breath for the devs noticing ideas in this thread when there are tons of similar ones around.