16 replies to this topic

[Lootee]

meteorol, on 03 July 2013 - 05:25 AM, said:

You know what i would love to see? Some kind of recoil mechanic. (I don't really care if it is canon or realistic for a GR or PPC to have it)
.

It is canon. PPCs are one of the few energy weapons with recoil. The heavy gauss rifle can knock the firing mech over if they don't skip the movement phase to firmly plant their feet in the ground, so gauss rifles also generate recoil. Autocannons, a no brainer. Rockets and missiles as well. The only weapons that wouldn't generate much recoil are lasers. Lasers in MWO have built-in damage dispersion anyway.

In TT the heavy gauss rifle has a chance of knocking yourself down and it only does a maximum of 25 pts of damage. So why in the hell should this game allow you to fire 35, 40, 45, 55, 60, 90 pts of dmg worth in recoiling weapons all with 1 trigger pull without the same chance of self knockdown as the measly 25 dmg heavy gauss ?

If a player has moved in the past 5sec and fires 25+ dmg worth of recoil producing weapons with 1 mouse click it should have a chance of making his mech fall over. This forces them to either stagger their weapons fire or expose themselves for 5s motionless while bracing for the recoil from a full alpha strike. Or they could cut loose with everything while moving anyway and be prepared to pay the price if they fall down out in the open.

It'd be easy to code too. If you set throttle to 0 and don't jump for 5 seconds make the word STABLE appear on the HUD. That means you can fire whatever you want with 1 click. If you throttle up or jump STABLE goes away. If you fire 25 or more dmg worth of recoil weapons with 1 mouse click without STABLE, you might knock yourself down.

So double gauss rifles, a heavy gauss, huge swarms of LRMs or SRMs, 2 AC/20s, many PPCs you would have to either fire from a stable position, chain fire them, or take the risk of falling. Seems like a fair drawback for putting that much dmg out in 1 strike.

You wouldn't be able to game this system by mounting 2 PPCs and 2 ERPPCs like the PGI heat nerf. And it's consistent with TT and makes logical sense too. PGI won't have to invent pretzel logic to explain why 1 heavy gauss knocks you down but 6 PPCs fired simultaneously doesn't, if the game survives to that point in the timeline. Best of all there is no random cone of fire. The player maintains full control over where the shots land, it just makes massive alpha strikes have actual drawbacks.

Keep in mind, this is something PGI will have to program ANYWAY once the Heavy Gauss Rifle gets added to the game. So why not get it cranked out early and use it to fix the mega alpha strike issue too ?

Any opinions on this idea or ways to improve upon it?

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 July 2013 - 11:39 AM.

[William Mountbank]

Potentially you could circumvent this with a rapid fire macro, or just mad-clicking. That would spread out damage on a moving mech, but maybe not by much if the firing mech has a short enough delay between firing.

[Mechteric]

recoil only affects subsequent shots, so it wouldn't affect alpha strikes

[Prezimonto]

If recoil could actually knock down a non-stabilized mech, it would highly affect ;arge alpha strikes.

I'm all for this. No more ppc spiders. 2x ac40 mechs need to sit still for a few seconds before firing or risk falling over.

It's have to wait until collision and knockdown are back in the game, but I'd love to see this, if it actually worked.

My fear is that really large mechs will just be totally dominant as it wouldn't/ shouldn't actually affect assaults all that much... at least in terms of knockdown unless they're really booking it and twisted in a weird way. Though if you work off the "stable" sign you put in a shorter delay to "stable" for large mechs.. like maybe they can move slowly and maintain stability (the Stalker's job was to mosey into the face of fire while dishing it). A Jager though.. .I could easily see having to sit still to not fall over, that's a big fulcrum with those weapons way up high.

[Lootee]

CapperDeluxe, on 03 July 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

recoil only affects subsequent shots, so it wouldn't affect alpha strikes

Oh really ? Meet Mr. .577 T-Rex



You'll be less likely to alpha strike if 4 PPCs + gauss knocked your mech around like that elephant gun. And yes even the 100 ton Fafnir can be floored from firing its heavy gauss weapons.

Quite a few of those guys got knocked down and they were firing from a motionless 'stable' shooting position.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 July 2013 - 07:35 AM.

[Lootee]

William Mountbank, on 03 July 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

Potentially you could circumvent this with a rapid fire macro, or just mad-clicking. That would spread out damage on a moving mech, but maybe not by much if the firing mech has a short enough delay between firing.

True there'd need to be a cooldown of .25 or .5 sec between weapon groups or maybe add a little reticle rise. Since macros fire the weapons in sequence reticle rise would spoil the aim of macro spam.

[FunkyFritter]

I'm all for it if it means a ppc spider can leap tall buildings by shooting the ground while jump jetting.

[Lootee]

FunkyFritter, on 03 July 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

I'm all for it if it means a ppc spider can leap tall buildings by shooting the ground while jump jetting.

Well a Spider with 1 PPC wouldn't generate enough cumulative recoil to propel itself into the air or ground. It'd have to be a heavy gauss rifle or a combination of weapons equal to or exceeding a HGR.

So lights and meds with 1 or even 2 PPCs wouldn't be affected.

[Hythos]

Unfortunately, propellant-ballistics and energy/partical projection don't fit within the same model of physics.
The reason of recoil with propellant is because of the pressure build-up in a way that just does not exist with a Gauss or electromagnetic-partical discharge. Inertia would be created from the ejecta, but that would be negligible.

[Lootee]

Hythos, on 03 July 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

Unfortunately, propellant-ballistics and energy/partical projection don't fit within the same model of physics.
The reason of recoil with propellant is because of the pressure build-up in a way that just does not exist with a Gauss or electromagnetic-partical discharge. Inertia would be created from the ejecta, but that would be negligible.

How is a heavy gauss rifle able to knock over a 100 ton Fafnir then ?

For whatever reason it is able to do so in the BattleTech universe, and MWO is supposedly based on the same universe. So similar laws of nature should apply. Take it up with Catalyst games if you don't like their CBT rules which state gauss rifles and especially the heavy gauss cause significant recoil.

What I'm suggesting is taking existing Battletech rules and expanding them to work in a real time FPS and maybe solve the problem of massive alpha strikes. The idea didn't come out of a vacuum, it's from Core BattleTech.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 July 2013 - 08:22 AM.

[Hythos]

Some enjoyable reading:
http://www.patents.com/us-4307652.html

Gauss Rifles do not exactly (need) have a sealed barrel, and require only guide-rails.

[Lootee]

Hythos, on 03 July 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Some enjoyable reading:
http://www.patents.com/us-4307652.html

Gauss Rifles do not exactly (need) have a sealed barrel, and require only guide-rails.

Irrelevant. In BattleTech a big enough gauss rifle can knock over an assault mech. This game is still set in the BT universe and not the real world.

If taking a few liberties and remaining true to TT nuances makes the game balance better, that's more important than trying to adhere to real world physics in a sci-fi world where faster than light travel is routine, fusion engines are everywhere and 18 meter tall robots duke it out with lasers.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 July 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[Hythos]

PanchoTortilla, on 03 July 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

Irrelevant. In BattleTech a big enough gauss rifle can knock over an assault mech. This game is still set in the BT universe and not the real world.

If taking a few liberties and remaining true to TT makes the game balance better, that's more important trying to adhere to real world physics in a sci-fi world where faster than light travel is routine, fusion engines are everywhere and 18 meter tall robots duke it out with lasers.

I'm quite fond of Battletech and what FASA had, so I won't argue against a 'Wizard did it' condition; though, when talking points become the argument for the sake of 'balance', it crosses the line.

[Lootee]

Hythos, on 03 July 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

I'm quite fond of Battletech and what FASA had, so I won't argue against a 'Wizard did it' condition; though, when talking points become the argument for the sake of 'balance', it crosses the line.

So if a wizard used space magick to give gauss rifles and PPCs recoil to add some sort of drawback to clumping all your weapons together and firing them at once all hitting the same spot, everything's cool then ?

Works for me.

At this point I'd welcome any mechanic to move the game forward out of Alphastrike Online as long as it's consistent and effective. The PGI heat nerf for arbitrarily assigned >= x+1 weapons of a certain name is neither.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 July 2013 - 08:46 AM.

[Hythos]

CapperDeluxe, on 03 July 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

recoil only affects subsequent shots, so it wouldn't affect alpha strikes

I get what you're meaning here: lining up a shot that discharges at the speed of light would not affect yor initial Alpha regardless of the amount of weapons used... Only subsequent shots would be, and need to be re-focused if/from any amount of recoil. The rifle-firing example doesn't apply to that first volley.

[Lootee]

Hythos, on 03 July 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

I get what you're meaning here: lining up a shot that discharges at the speed of light would not affect yor initial Alpha regardless of the amount of weapons used... Only subsequent shots would be, and need to be re-focused if/from any amount of recoil. The rifle-firing example doesn't apply to that first volley.

Sure you might cripple or destroy an enemy with that first volley, because recoil isn't a factor yet.

But if afterwards you fall down from lighting off the equivalent of 2.5 heavy gauss rifles worth of recoil, in plain sight of the enemy and they blow off 2 of your torsos and a leg before you scurry back behind cover, that'd make you think twice about trying it again, no ?

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 July 2013 - 09:01 AM.

[HansBlix WMD]

Oh god, another thread without momentum conservation.

Obey this simple rule. If what you're hitting with your shot receives momentum from it, then you gave that projectile an equal amount of momentum when you fired it. Whether it was a bullet, a rock, a bundle of photons (yes, photons do have momentum) or other particles, chocolate butterfly wings, a lead slug fired from rails powered by a dynamic magnetic field (gauss), it doesn't matter. Momentum is conserved.

The only exception is if you fire a self-propelled object like a missile.