Posted 13 June 2013 - 06:51 PM
The number one rule with any Cone of Fire mechanic must be to have it cause small deviations.
Implementing a cone of fire that caused you to miss targets in your optimal range would be a poor way to go. If you're missing when firing past optimal, while using JJs, and while running hot, you should find it difficult to hit your target at all. In other words, stacking modifiers should get to be prohibitive if you're really getting a lot of them.
To examine the situation of snipers hiding behind a hill while harassers try to mess with them:
Let's say there's a 4 PPC Stalker behind a hill, and a 6 ML Jenner coming at him.
Stalker is stationary and below the heat penalty threshold (he's at base running temps, in other words). Jenner is moving flat out and is at base running temps, so he has a minor cone on his lasers (for moving at 100% throttle).
Jenner fires first, since he comes at the Stalker from behind. He gets most of his lasers on the same location, but one deviates enough to hit an adjacent zone. His heat spikes a bunch.
Stalker turns and fires back. He has a minor accuracy penalty since the Jenner got inside 90m (the minimum on his PPCs), but he's cool and not moving much so that's the extent of his penalty. He blows through the Jenner's front Armor on both his CT and LT. His heat spikes a bunch.
Jenner fires again, this time with a much larger cone of fire due to his spiked heat. He's close enough now for it not to matter as much, but he still can't focus all the lasers on one point. Two of them deviate enough to hit an adjacent zone (given the point-blank range most would still hit the same hit box). His heat spikes even more, and now he's moving much slower and having trouble keeping his sights on the enemy due to lower twist and turn rates.
The Stalker fires again, this time one of his PPCs misses entirely (due to combined minimum range and heat penalties) and the other three each hit different locations on the Jenner. His heat gets very close to 100%.
Jenner fires a third time and his heat gets quite high. He wasn't able to track the Stalker as well as he'd like, so he was aiming for its nose, which meant half his lasers missed wide. The others all hit the CT. His speed drops even more and he starts to steer quite sluggishly. He decides to disengage and makes for a hill.
The Stalker tries one more shot. The Jenner has moved out of the 90m minimum, but the Stalker's heat is now really high. Still, he connects with one PPC that blows out the Jenner's rear armor on its RT. The heat spike blows the Stalker past 130%, causing internal damage until it drops below 125% (the pilot did not Override). He stays shut down until below 90%, when the automatic shutdown disengages. The Jenner makes it over the hill and out of the Stalker's engagement envelope.
Does all that seem bad? I rather like it. Mechanically-speaking, it seems reasonable to add an element of imprecision when pushing your mech out of its nominal operating conditions. Whether that means moving full-throttle (I prefer tying it to throttle rather than actual speed, as that normalizes the penalty for all mech builds, and the movement penalty should be minor even when moving flat-out) or pushing the envelope with your heat, it would add an element of skill to the gameplay.
Do you push your mech harder and risk missing a vital shot, or play more carefully and land shots more reliably but possibly lose out in other ways? The more in-game risk-reward decisions that must be made, the more real skill enters in to the equation.
Stationary snipers would still have brutal alphas for their first shot after cooling down, but they would suddenly not be nearly as dangerous in sustained combat (which is as it should be for a sniper build). There would suddenly be a reason to drive at something other than full throttle. Heat efficient builds would have a real place in combat. All in all, I suspect this mechanic, if done carefully, would be great for the game.
6
Sybreed, on 13 June 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:
