67 replies to this topic

[Just wanna play]

Praetor Shepard, on 11 July 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

Partly how they were done for MWO.

Here is a Hunchback 5M (basically an upgraded 4G) from Sarna with an AC/20

Spoiler

And here is a Hunchback IIC with Ultra AC/20, note how the cannons look.

Spoiler

hmm interesting, and i would **** myself if i ran into that hunchback iic....

are there any chances for pgi to create a ROTARY ac/20???? PLEASE SAY YES PLEASE SAY YES

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Just wanna play, on 11 July 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

hmm interesting, and i would **** myself if i ran into that hunchback iic....

are there any chances for pgi to create a ROTARY ac/20???? PLEASE SAY YES PLEASE SAY YES

That HBK IIC is only rocking six tons of armor on that entire mech, ~192 to ~216 or so, points of armor, so it should be near the current size of a Hunchback in MWO, but with the armor of a light mech with a small engine and a slow speed. It's a Glass Cannon and in the lore more for duels.

Rotary doesn't seem available until after 3062, so depending on how the devs do their jumps in the timeline, we might see those eventually, but not for a while.

[Just wanna play]

Praetor Shepard, on 11 July 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

That HBK IIC is only rocking six tons of armor on that entire mech, ~192 to ~216 or so, points of armor, so it should be near the current size of a Hunchback in MWO, but with the armor of a light mech with a small engine and a slow speed. It's a Glass Cannon and in the lore more for duels.

Rotary doesn't seem available until after 3062, so depending on how the devs do their jumps in the timeline, we might see those eventually, but not for a while.

but in lore there are only rotary ac/2s and ac/5s maybe pgi could get a little creative and make some bigger ones.....

and id still **** myself......

wait why does sarrna say the is rotary ac/5 takes up less space then the clan version?? is that a mix up or is that something the is actually does better?!?!?!

[LordBane]

You need an option for "No, this is a bad idea." because all it would accomplish is make people switch from using ACs to PPCs. And there's already enough of those on every battlefield.

I don't like going up against the high alpha snipers anymore than anyone else, but this would just make things worse.

[Just wanna play]

LordBane, on 11 July 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

You need an option for "No, this is a bad idea." because all it would accomplish is make people switch from using ACs to PPCs. And there's already enough of those on every battlefield.

I don't like going up against the high alpha snipers anymore than anyone else, but this would just make things worse.

talking about ppcs as well.....

[Just wanna play]

ROFl you would be able to fit 2 inner sphere rotary ac5s into the side torso of an atlas d or d-dc good lord that would be awesome, each with three times the firepower of uac/5s AND weighing only 2 more tons in total

[Koniving]

Just wanna play, on 11 July 2013 - 06:34 AM, said:

wait so if the bigger the auto cannon simply the longer the burst of bullets (but all acs shoot same sized bullets doing same damage each) why do ac20 also have a bigger barrel if it fires multiple small bullets

Not necessarily. Different manufacturers make different calibers (sizes) of autocannons, but they generally are the same weight and do the same damage with the same wait times.

For example the Super Crusher Heavy Autocannon 20 (which I chose just because it's the easiest one to replicate in MWO) fires 10 AC/2 rounds in a quick burst. The Chemjet Gun, another AC/20, has very huge bullets and fires 3 of them to make 20 damage. Then there's another with somewhat smaller bullets than the Chemjet Gun but bigger than the AC/2 rounds, which will give 20 damage with 6 shots, which deal 3 1/3rd damage each. Another that does 20 damage with 5 shots, dealing 4 damage each. The list goes on. But ultimately they are all 14 tons with different bullet speeds, and a time between trigger pulls of 4 seconds.

Now if one gun takes longer to pump all of its shells than another, the "cooldown" time would be shortened so that it can fire again in exactly 4 seconds after the last trigger pull. So if an AC/20 fired 20 individual bullets and took 2 seconds to do it, it'd be ready to fire in 2 more seconds after it stopped firing totalling 4 seconds between trigger pulls.

What makes this great is the AC/2, lets say they did it so it fired 2 bullets at 0.25 seconds apart. It reloads in 0.5 seconds after the first trigger pull. It'd never stop firing. MACHINE GUN OF EPICNESS!!!!

What it boils down to is there should be at least 6 different sizes of barrels just for the AC/20.

Edited by Koniving, 11 July 2013 - 09:18 AM.

[Just wanna play]

Koniving, on 11 July 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

Not necessarily. Different manufacturers make different calibers (sizes) of autocannons, but they generally are the same weight and do the same damage with the same wait times.

For example the Super Crusher Heavy Autocannon 20 (which I chose just because it's the easiest one to replicate in MWO) fires 10 AC/2 rounds in a quick burst. The Chemjet Gun, another AC/20, has very huge bullets and fires 3 of them to make 20 damage. Then there's another with somewhat smaller bullets than the Chemjet Gun but bigger than the AC/2 rounds, which will give 20 damage with 6 shots, which deal 3 1/3rd damage each. Another that does 20 damage with 5 shots, dealing 4 damage each. The list goes on. But ultimately they are all 14 tons with different bullet speeds, and a time between trigger pulls of 4 seconds.

Now if one gun takes longer to pump all of its shells than another, the "cooldown" time would be shortened so that it can fire again in exactly 4 seconds after the last trigger pull. So if an AC/20 fired 20 individual bullets and took 2 seconds to do it, it'd be ready to fire in 2 more seconds after it stopped firing totalling 4 seconds between trigger pulls.

What makes this great is the AC/2, lets say they did it so it fired 2 bullets at 0.25 seconds apart. It reloads in 0.5 seconds after the first trigger pull. It'd never stop firing. MACHINE GUN OF EPICNESS!!!!

so... do the ones that fire less bullets have a shorter fire duration or what?? how exactly does each have a strength over the other???? also, do any of them actually fire just one big bullet???? wait so you said an ac2 would never stop firing but wouldnt it have to wait to finish fring both bullets to start reloading?? so it wouldnt exactly always be firing, IM SO CONFUSED!!!!!

Edited by Just wanna play, 11 July 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[Koniving]

Just wanna play, on 11 July 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

so... do the ones that fire less bullets have a shorter fire duration or what?? how exactly does each have a strength over the other???? also, do any of them actually fire just one big bullet???? wait so you said an ac2 would never stop firing but wouldnt it have to wait to finish fring both bullets to start reloading?? so it wouldnt exactly always be firing, IM SO CONFUSED!!!!!

That's the thing, to balance them they'd have to keep the cooldown times shorter if it takes longer. Otherwise it wouldn't be particularly fair to take the gun with the many smaller bullets.

You'd still be doing the same damage in the same amount of time, even with the shorter cooldown times.

Think of it like this. An AC/2 as it is does 2 damage every 0.5 seconds. An AC/2 firing 2 shots dealing 1 damage at 0.25 seconds apart would need a cooldown time of 0 to keep at the DPS of 2 damage every 0.5 seconds.

How fast each gun fires is a good question, it'd be a balance decision. But the times suggested in the picture are absolutely useless. 1 second to 1.5 maximum. And I'm iffy on the 1.5, unless the recoil is absolutely too strong. Example Chemjet Gun, if it has a violent recoil, a longer duration between shots in the burst would give you more time to line the shot up again.

As an example of that balance decision, the same AC/2 firing 2 shots at 1 damage each could just as easily fire the burst with a space of 0.1 seconds between bullets, and then spend the other 0.3 seconds reloading. It'd still do identical damage in the same DPS. This would be better in the sense that it gives you that 0.3 seconds of 'cooling' between shots, where the same gun firing its single damage shots at 0.25 seconds apart with 0 cooldown time (totalling the identical DPS of 4 damage per second as a regular MWO AC/2) would give us no time at all to cool off unless we let go of the trigger.

Edited by Koniving, 11 July 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[Lord of All]

Once Clan tech Hits all Semblance of balance is an impossibility.

[arkani]

a simpler solution : http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/126689-heat-penaltie-alternative/#entry2547834

[Koniving]

Schrottfrosch, on 18 June 2013 - 04:04 AM, said:

Another solution to the massive usage of huge alpha builds could be to change how huge damage weapons work:

Atm AC/20, PPCs and Gaussrifles are much to close to the TT rules imo. Reading the novels especially ACs are not really firing a single shell, but most of the time they fire a burst of shells.

If you read up on AC/20s on sarna it says:

"The Autocannon is a direct-fire ballistic weapon, firing HEAP (High-Explosive Armor-Piercing) rounds at targets either singly or in bursts.
Different manufacturers and models of autocannons have different calibers (25mm-203mm) and rates of fire. Due to this, autocannons are grouped into generic "classes" of autocannons with common damage ratings, with Autocannon/20s doing massive damage while having very short range.
An example of the rating system: the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon is a 150mm weapon firing ten shells per "round" while the Chemjet Gun is a 185mm weapon firing much slower, and causing higher damage per shell. Despite their differences, both are classified as Autocannon/20s due to their damage output."

source: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/AC/20

Description
An Autocannon is a type of rapid-firing, auto-loading direct-fire ballistic weapon, firing HEAP (High-Explosive Armor-Piercing) or kinetic rounds at targets in bursts. It is, basically, a giant "machine gun" that fires predominantly cased explosive shells though models firing saboted high velocity kinetic energy penetrators or caseless ordnance do exist. Among the earliest tank/BattleMech scale weaponry produced, autocannons produce far less heat than energy weapons, but are considerably bulkier and are dependent upon limited stores of ammunition.
Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage vs armor.[1] The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors. Autocannon are grouped into the following loose damage classes:
Autocannon/2
Autocannon/5
Autocannon/10
Autocannon/20
Beyond the "standard" models, variants include the shotgun-like LBX, quick-firing Ultra and the gatling-type Rotary. Light-weight variants and capital ship scale models also exist. The experimental Hypervelocity Autocannon has also entered limited production.[2][3]

Caliber
Caliber is fluff for the size of the barrel that the shell or shells are fired from and no standard caliber has been set for any of the classes of Autocannon. Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each "round" or burst of fire. Probable exceptions are the 185 mm ChemJet Gun Autocannon/20 mounted on the Demolisher combat vehicle and Monitor Surface vessel or the 203 mm Ultra Autocannon/20 on the Cauldron Born A BattleMech.

Barrel Arrangement
All Rotary Autocannon are multiple-barrel arrangements.[4] Some standard, Light, and Ultra autocannons also use a multiple-barrel arrangement, but not as frequently.

Source: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon
------------------------------------------
So great news. I finally made a video demonstrating these!

First, MWO's AC/20.
Second, the Crusher Super Heavy Autocannon 20.
Third, ChemJet Gun "Test 1."
Fourth, ChemJet Gun "Test 2."

Stats on each.
Current AC/20
203mm Howitzer round
Single-shot, 4 second reload.
5 DPS

Proposed AC/20 Variant:
Crusher Super Heavy Autocannon/20
This is intended to be one weapon.
10-shot 0.9 second burst, 3.1 second reload.
5 DPS

Proposed AC/20 Variant:
Chemjet Gun AC/20 Test 1
This is intended to be one weapon.
3-shot 0.5 second burst, 3.50 second reload.
5 DPS

Proposed AC/20 Variant:
Chemjet Gun AC/20 Test 2
This is intended to be one weapon.
3-shot 0.8 second burst, 3.2 second reload.
5 DPS

This video does not demonstrate the effect of recoil on the guns. It then compares them side by side, and gives information as to "why," as well as reasons to allow both single-shot and multi-shot variants in most cases (except the AC/20). It also explains why in the case of the AC/20.

[Orzorn]

Okay, I'll bite.

If we go with the idea of autocannons having cassette sizes and thus, doing 20 damage across multiple shells instead of one shell, then we remove a lot of that weapon's pinpoint capability. I'm fine with that, and there's even some advantages to 20 damage across shells, as you can use one of those shells to attack a nearly dead target, then use the rest to attack a different target.

While firing your cassette, it should empty pretty quickly. Like a shot every .5 or 1 second.

So how do we fix PPCs so they aren't absolutely pinpoint? Make them fire a stream of ions, say, a meter or two in length. If a mech gets hit by part of the stream, they take a certain % of damage. That means that if you manage to land a shot on a moving mech, your damage will still split between 2 or 3 locations potentially. If they're standing still, they get hit by all of it.

How is this different than a laser? Well, its fire and forget. Once that stream of ions is in the air, you can forget about it, whereas lasers must be held on targets as they burn.

What about the Gauss rifle? I'd say is such a large and occasionally unwieldy weapon that its OKAY if its pinpoint. Its travel time isn't exactly conducive to crazy shots like the PPC is, and it weighs 15 tons and can explode. I think that is enough to balance the weapon. But maybe I'm wrong. I'd like some perspective on these thoughts.

[Koniving]

Orzorn, on 13 July 2013 - 01:38 PM, said:

So how do we fix PPCs so they aren't absolutely pinpoint? Make them fire a stream of ions, say, a meter or two in length. If a mech gets hit by part of the stream, they take a certain % of damage. That means that if you manage to land a shot on a moving mech, your damage will still split between 2 or 3 locations potentially. If they're standing still, they get hit by all of it.

How is this different than a laser? Well, its fire and forget. Once that stream of ions is in the air, you can forget about it, whereas lasers must be held on targets as they burn.

Listen to NGNG Podcast 79. Found here. http://mwomercs.com/community 32 minutes to 40 minutes, the question is asked about PPCs. The CEO literally tells us what is going to be done. To summarize it:

Russ Bullock (the CEO) says (Paraphrased) "Once we fix the splash damage mechanic, one of our ideas is to apply this to the PPC."

By fixing the splash mechanic he means taking damage from a preset pool rather than expansively multiplying it as the CryEngine's default mechanic was.

(Example: SRM at 2.5 damage per missile would generate an average of 12 to 18 damage per missile against skinny targets like the Trebuchet and the Commando).

"Once we fix the splash damage mechanic, one of our ideas is to apply this to the PPC. For example if you hit the enemy, it would do 10 damage total, but 25% of that would go to an adjacent section."

75% of 10 is 7, so it would be 7 damage on the place you hit, and then 3 damage "splash" nearby. So if you hit CT with 1 PPC, you'd do 7 damage and possibly splash 1.5 to each side torso, totalling 10 damage.

So, that's how PGI's decided to balance them in the long run.

Orzorn, on 13 July 2013 - 01:38 PM, said:

What about the Gauss rifle? I'd say is such a large and occasionally unwieldy weapon that its OKAY if its pinpoint. Its travel time isn't exactly conducive to crazy shots like the PPC is, and it weighs 15 tons and can explode. I think that is enough to balance the weapon. But maybe I'm wrong. I'd like some perspective on these thoughts.

I agree. Does this mean that there should only be one kind of Gauss Rifle? Nah. Some balancing traits is while the single shot gauss rifle might be very self-destructive, variants may be a bit more stable but also fire multiple shots to total out their damage.

Nothing says every variant has to do a different number of shots, either. There can be 2 or 3 different Gauss Rifles that does 2 shots. For example if we look at the current gauss rifle the cooldown time from the trigger pull is 4 seconds. So one 2 shot variant might do a 2 evenly distanced shots 2 seconds apart, giving us the illusion of it being a faster firing 7.5 damage gauss rifle. Another might do a rapid, recoil-less twin-shot burst for identical damage per shot but might have more or less component health or might cause more or less damage when it explodes -- or simply a higher or lower chance of exploding. These are just examples.

Also nothing says that each shot has to do identical damage, either; for example a Gauss Rifle variant by such-and-such might build a design that slings out a test shot which does 1 damage to help you calibrate your aim and lead-time, followed 0.25 seconds after by the real 14-damage shot.

I found this on Sarna about Gauss Rifle "types" and manufacturers. Sadly there's no details about each but this keeps PGI free to be inventive. (it's scroll worthy, so spoiler inserted.)

Spoiler

• Gauss Rifle Name;
  
  • Company;
    
    • Mechs or vehicles using them by default.
• Imperator Dragon's Fire[6]
  
  • Atreus Imperator Automatic Weaponry
    
    • VTR-9K Victor, AS 7-K Atlas
• Grizzard[7]
  
  • * *
    
    • WR-DG-02FC War Dog
• Grizzard 200
  
  • New Earth Yankee Weapons Systems
    
    • MR-V2 Cerberus, SQS-TH-002 Sasquatch
• Grizzard 210[8]
  
  • New EarthYankee Weapons Systems
    
    • HUR-WO-R4L Huron Warrior
• Inokuma
  
  • Betelgeuse Aldis Industries
    
    • ?
• Norse-Storm M-7D
  
  • Loxley Norse-Storm Technologies Incorporated
    
    • ?
• Poland Main A[9]
  
  • New Syrtis Johnston Industries
    
    • BZK-F3 Hollander, BNC-5S Banshee
• Poland Main A [10]
  
  • Hesperus II Defiance Industries
    
    • FLC-8R Falconer, GUN-1ERD Gunslinger
• Poland Main C
  
  • New Syrtis Johnston Industries
    
    • ?
• Zeus Slingshot [11]
  
  • Stewart Corean Enterprises
    
    • TMP-3M Tempest, CP -11-A Cyclops
• Zhi-tong-yao
  
  • Victoria Shengli Arms
    
    • ?
• Kali Yama Grand Slam [12]
  
  • Kendall Kali Yama Weapons Industries
    
    • ON3-M Orion
• Mydron Concussor Unknown manufacturer or mechs
  
• Prototype: NAIS Mk. I Gauss Rifle[13] Unknown manufacturer or mechs

​

Edited by Koniving, 13 July 2013 - 03:24 PM.

[Orzorn]

Koniving, on 13 July 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

[/size]

Listen to NGNG Podcast 79. Found here. http://mwomercs.com/community 32 minutes to 40 minutes, the question is asked about PPCs. The CEO literally tells us what is going to be done. To summarize it:

Russ Bullock (the CEO) says (Paraphrased) "Once we fix the splash damage mechanic, one of our ideas is to apply this to the PPC."

By fixing the splash mechanic he means taking damage from a preset pool rather than expansively multiplying it as the CryEngine's default mechanic was.

(Example: SRM at 2.5 damage per missile would generate an average of 12 to 18 damage per missile against skinny targets like the Trebuchet and the Commando).

"Once we fix the splash damage mechanic, one of our ideas is to apply this to the PPC. For example if you hit the enemy, it would do 10 damage total, but 25% of that would go to an adjacent section."

75% of 10 is 7, so it would be 7 damage on the place you hit, and then 3 damage "splash" nearby. So if you hit CT with 1 PPC, you'd do 7 damage and possibly splash 1.5 to each side torso, totalling 10 damage.

So, that's how PGI's decided to balance them in the long run.

Then I'm quite happy with that. I just hope that they also alter autocannons (or at least AC/20s) so they aren't, along with Gauss Rifles, the only pinpoint weapons left in the game.

Let me just say on a different note, I'm not satisfied at all with PGI's new heat system. I think its a poor bandaid that could mostly have been addressed by your and many others, included myself, idea that double heat sinks should not apply +2 to your heat cap. People will always find a way around a system, so we need to directly make the system have no way around the heat cap, and thus, no way around alpha strikes.

I think we're getting close to a less pinpoint game if PGI is serious about the splash damage on PPCs. Like I said, all that's left after that is autocannons and gauss rifles. Autocannons, except AC/20s, haven't exactly been dominating the metagame, and gauss rifles are only extremely powerful in combination with PPCs (because Gauss rifles are so heavy and thus need lighter weapons. Having a light weapon like a PPC also have a huge range makes those weapons combine very, very well).

Hopefully the SRM damage boost should help brawlers come back from the absolutely depressing slump they've been in.

Edit: Edit is in bold, should make a lot more sense!

Edited by Orzorn, 13 July 2013 - 03:13 PM.

[Koniving]

Orzorn, on 13 July 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

Hopefully the SRM damage boost should help brawlers come back from the absolutely depressing slump they've been in.

"should got" and +2 heat cap is kind of confusing.

But otherwise yes. Btw did you backtrack a little bit? The video I made for AC variants is up (with the annotations now.)

Also SRMs aren't really that bad; check this out! Recorded on the 10th.

Edited by Koniving, 13 July 2013 - 03:13 PM.

[Orzorn]

Koniving, on 13 July 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

"should got" and +2 heat cap is kind of confusing.

Yes, was a typo. "Should not", as in they should not add +2 to your heat cap (the heat cap equation is 2 * the # of DHS + 30). The TT heat cap was a static 30.

Quote

Btw did you backtrack a little bit? The video I made for AC variants is up (with the annotations now.)

Yes, it was a good video and really demonstrated the mechanic well.

[Koniving]

Orzorn, on 13 July 2013 - 03:20 PM, said:

Yes, was a typo. "Should not", as in they should not add +2 to your heat cap (the heat cap equation is 2 * the # of DHS + 30). The TT heat cap was a static 30.
Yes, it was a good video and really demonstrated the mechanic well.

Thanks. A like on the video itself and perhaps even a comment on the video itself as to what you genuinely think and which Chemjet Gun version you liked better would be awesome! /\_/\

[Sweet Baby Pirate]

I'd definitely like to see different makes of weapon in each "class" with subtle quirks.

I prefer Homeless Bill's idea as as solution to pinpoint alpha though.

[Urfin]

Both the alpha-to-burst and the weapon-to-weapon class ideas are great ones. Especially the weapon class one - it should be quite obvious that WE NEED MORE DIFFERENT GUNS, and this is a good way to do variety.