62 replies to this topic

[PaintedWolf]

The comparison, especially with SRMs doesn't work because you are including heat: http://mwomercs.com/...ehind-14-sinks/

For a single SRM-6 vs a single AC-20, and presuming both are firing at full rate. A lot is missing, such as weight for multiple SRMs vs AC-20, ammo dependency, and burst fire effects, as well as weapons convergence.

The post does not show, for example, how Pulse Lasers are better vs light mechs.

[The pessimistic optimist]

Lols this theard is full of so much wrong its funny.

[PaintedWolf]

Quote

Damage/Shot of the Weapon" / "Duty Cycle" / ( "Weapon Mass" + "Ammo Tonnage" + "Heat sink Tonnage")

Where:
Damage/Shot and Weapon Mass are fundamental aspects of the weapon.

Duty Cycle is the reciprocal ('1/x') of Rate of Fire ('x'). This rate of fire is assigned and is the Max Rate of Fire for the weapon unless otherwise indicated. The reason this is done is convenience.

Ammo Tonnage is a variable. I chose to represent this variable as something I termed "Common Ballistic Base ammo load" or CBBal. Basically CBBal is a time. It is the total time for continuous fire. Basically if you leaned on the trigger your weapon would fire this long (ignoring heat and shutdown).
Example: A Gauss rifle with a CBBal of 160sec would be carrying exactly 4 tons of ammo. An AC/20 with the same CBBal applied would be carrying 5.714 tons. Due to the lack of rounding (haven't been able to implement it, yet) this is actually overprecise. It represents the weapons with partial tons of ammo. However, the change from that partial ton (up or down) is small.

Heat sink Tonnage is based on Heat per Shot of the weapon, Duty Cycle, and the Heat dissipation Rate (HdR) of a single heat sink, and the tonnage of a single heat sink.

"Heat per Shot" / "Duty Cycle" = "Heat per Second Generated @ Duty Cycle"

"Heat per Second Generated @ Duty Cycle" / "Heat dissipation Rate (for a single heat sink)" = "# of Heat sinks to render heat neutral @ Duty Cycle".

Duty cycle, Heat per Second Generated, # of heat sinks to render heat neutral are linked. The faster you fire, the more heat you generate, and the more heat sinks you need to sustain that average rate of fire.

You don't have to assign RoF to maximum for comparison. It's just convenient. I can explore relative DPSpT comparisons at RoFs other than maximum for different weapons later in the thread if there's a demand.

Quote

An ERPPC has a Heat per Shot of 13. And a maximum RoF of 1 shot every three seconds, for a duty cycle of 3 seconds per shot.

So Heat per Second Generated would be 13 / 3 = 4.333.
And the number of sinks would be 4.333 / .1 = 43.333
So at max RoF an ERPPC would need 43.333 heat sinks to render it heat neutral, and would have a DPSpT of 10/3/(7+43.333) = .06623

"But you can fire it slower!"
As a response I can only say "DUH! And you will lower, not raise your DPSpT by doing so."
If you set the rate of fire, for example, to one shot every ten seconds, you have a duty cycle of ten seconds per shot.
Therefore Heat per Second Generated would be 13 / 10 = 1.3.
Number of sinks would be 1.3 / .1 = 13
So at this RoF an ERPPC would need 13 heat sinks to render it heat neutral, and would have a DPSpT of 10/10/(7+13) = .05

In reality, the Average Rate of Fire for a weapon is set by how many heat sinks you have dedicated to that weapon. If you fire the weapon faster than you have heat sinks for, you build up heat. If you do that, you have to cool off. Once you've cooled off, you're no longer firing, nor affecting your ability to fire, .therefore time spent at baseline heat is not relevant to weapon balance.

Your Average Rate of fire is what dictates how often you can fire over a long period of time, regardless of if you fire very quickly and then spend a lot of time cooling back to baseline, or fire very slowly, cooling back to baseline each time.

When you show weapons with full rate of fire the DPSpT is going to be way better for a single SRM-6 rack then an AC-20 because the SRM-6s require less heat sinks, and a single SRM-6 will be well fed on 2 tons of ammo.

Also the above formula makes a good amount of assumptions. For example- average ammunition is set by the person's estimate of what average ammo will be, and that effects DPSpT.

[Mokou]

PaintedWolf, on 23 May 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

What does "DpSpT" mean?

(damage*tonn)/sec

[Jman5]

SirSmokes, on 23 May 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

Lols this theard is full of so much wrong its funny.

Thanks for clearing it up for us...

[Huntsman]

Pulse lasers are bad on the whole. However they can have their isolated roles. In the case of the LPL, the following has to be simultaneously true in order to choose it over a standard LL.

-Heat must be an absolute non-issue for the build (when not limited by heat the LPL can kill faster than the LL)
-range must not play a role of significant importance to the build
-the extra tonnage cost of the LPL not force any critical compromises to the other aspects of the build

Where I believe the LPL fits is in fast 40 ton or less mechs that otherwise rely on cool ballistics. A Cicada 3C and one of the spiders works with this, but as machine guns would be the ballistics, that brings its own concerns regardiing the viability of the build.

[deforce]

LPL are awesome if you know what your doing....

and to the OP, your comparing a energy weapon with no ammo to weapons that require 3-4 tons of ammo per weapon.

[Huntsman]

Math says they are not awesome, but they are optimal on a few suboptimal and rarely used builds.

Pulse lasers need to be reworked so as to be optimal in a much more diverse set of circumstances.

[MeatForBrains]

Huntsman, on 23 May 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Math says they are not awesome, but they are optimal on a few suboptimal and rarely used builds.

Pulse lasers need to be reworked so as to be optimal in a much more diverse set of circumstances.

That's it.

[MasterErrant]

the lpl like every other energy weapon trade heat for ammo. so the hps calculations is moot unless you factor in ammo mass and spoace for other types.

additionalle the deliver their damage "Faster" that other lasers. hence more accurately. all weapons balance well against each other in fact.

you play syle and tactics are the diffeence

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Keep damage and heat the same as tabletop, reduce amount of pulses or increase speed of all pulses and decrease the cooldown slightly

Edited by AntiCitizenJuan, 23 May 2013 - 11:49 AM.

[zorak ramone]

Roland, on 23 May 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

Or, if it had the current stats, but equal range to the LL, it'd be useful, since it would actually be doing better damage across the board.

This is the way to fix PLs. Give them the same range as their non-pulse versions. PLs then become a tonnage/heat for damage/accuracy tradeoff. We've already abandoned CBT stats for range (see the LRMs and ERLL) for balance purposes. Why not help the PLs too?

Besides, the IS PLs sucked completely in CBT on everything except super fast jumpers for the same reason: their range was way too short. Super fast jumpers could overcome this by getting into point-blank range and take advantage of their accuracy. Even then, the LPL and SPL sucked compared to MPLs.

[Mokou]

deforce, on 23 May 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

and to the OP, your comparing a energy weapon with no ammo to weapons that require 3-4 tons of ammo per weapon.

And i also comparing with other energy weapon (LL with LPL).

[Soy]

Mokou, on 23 May 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

And i also comparing with other energy weapon (LL with LPL).

Honestly man I think if you dueled someone using LLs, and you have LPLs in same mech with roughly same skills, you'd kill the guy with LLs unless he dictated medium range most of the fight. Think snap shots, torso twist... maybe the other guy is able to pinpoint off your shoulder early if he is a great shot, shouldn't happen though if you played right.

I mean, you just said compare the two. I'd rather compare them in a game context than in a math context. That being said I think LLs are better at the end of the day.

LPL is a light swatter in an arm with good range. The sound effect is best in game. It looks cool as hell. And it's a legitimate weapon. I'd honestly put it in top 5.

[Corvus Antaka]

if their duration was cut to 0.5 theyd be useful

[Alistair Winter]

The medium laser and large laser is much better if you can consistently deliver the full amount of damage to the same spot. Most people cannot. Certainly not against skilled opponents.

[WVAnonymous]

Monky, on 23 May 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

The fix is actually pretty simple - reduce the beam time. Less spread of damage = largely overcoming one of the major weaknesses of lasers.

anything near half a second and below would be ideal for pulse lasers.

+1. Cut the duration with the same damage delivered or scale it so the damage is front-loaded in the first 0.25 of the 0.75 seconds.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Instead of just playing min-max spreadsheet warrior, why not go out and try different builds over a period of time, compare them in your own stats pages, take into account how much fun you had with the weapons, and then decide?

It's not like anything we're doing today counts for anything other than building our own skill, XP, and C-Bills.

This is just my experience ...
In mechs where you are limited by hardpoints and crit space ... such as energy slots in the center torso, LPLs might be the best choice, depending on your play style. They do more damage per (unit of time) during the beam duration than one LL or ERLL and have much better heat efficiency than 2x MPL (even with 3 added DHS) and better range than 2x ML (but if you have room for more DHS, 2x ML is probably a better choice).

Once you start talking about multiples of weapons, it's more about each mech's loadout, your personal play style, and the limitations you're willing to work through. I find the weapons stats page to be very useful in this regard ... if (for example) I love playing with a Small Pulse Laser, but only hit with it 30% of the time, and only do an average of 2 points of damage per hit(FYI - these stats are completely made up - I've never equipped a SPL), it's probably not the most effective choice over a ML (90+% accuaracy, and 3.5+ damage per hit).

Edited by Kageru Ikazuchi, 23 May 2013 - 02:41 PM.

[Grits N Gravy]

They should have been balanced the other way. The range should have been kept the same as standard lasers, with 1 less damage than standard and the same heat penalty. It's a much more interesting tactical choice, than do I want lasers, long range laser or machine gun lasers.

ie MED PULSE LASER 4.00 dam 5.00 heat 3.00 refresh range 270- 540 1 slot 2.0 tons, Duration .75

Edited by Grits N Gravy, 23 May 2013 - 02:48 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

the LPL and MPL cost range and tonnage. 0.5 beam time would justify the tonnage and range loss. Dmg might even need to come down at that point, but the .5 beam time would give them more distinctiveness.