7 replies to this topic

[Aim64C]

We can set heat for the ERPPC at 15. We all know that's not going to fix the inherent reason people stick to 'boating' PPCs. Hardpoint configurations and restrictions are one method of dealing with it - but even that is only going to shift the competitive play onto a few chassis rather than balance many of the existing.

There are two main reasons people gravitate toward the PPC. The first is its ease of use; point-click-boom. The second is that it's a cheap investment when it comes to chassis space and hardware. Seven tons - three criticals. The comparable AC10 weighs in at 12 tons and requires -seven- criticals. You could not physically operate more than 4 AC10s on a single chassis.

The same goes for a Gauss Rifle. (And God Forbid an assault mech come out that can mount two of those... it can mount 3+ PPCs for the same alpha and mechanics, but not 2 gauss rifles)

While hardpoint restrictions on the PPC would be similar in effect to creating a sort of autocannon-like restriction, they would not change the factors that make the PPC overwhelmingly superior as an energy weapon (even if they were restricted to a 40-point chassis alpha. The fact is that a PPC has no ammunition and applies all of its damage up front.

Numerous ideas have been proposed regarding convergence - but those will really not change the 'problem' with PPCs. Something with heat efficiency similar to a medium laser with greater damage and effectiveness will always be preferred to weapons with a damage-over-time factor that run hotter. Convergence or no.

Thus, the logical answer is a shift in PPC mechanics. This is especially obvious when you begin figuring that the Clan ERPPC comes with 15 points of damage to 15 points of heat at 6 tons and 2 criticals.

The solution is two-part.

First, add a 'charging' stage to the PPC (ER and Clan). You hold down your mouse button (or whatever) to charge, and release to fire. The damage given represents a maximum damage potential at full charge. 30% of the heat generated by the weapon builds up (without dissipating) during the charge process (aprox 1.5-2.5 seconds) which would be able to trigger a system shutdown. The other 70% is applied during the firing process (just like lasers and pulse lasers). Heat is built up and applied linearly in accordance with the damage potential (so an ERPPC with a maximum damage of 10 and a heat of 15 would generate 7.5 total points of heat if fired at half-charge, or 5 points of damage).

Once the system hit maximum charge, there would be a 250ms (1/4 second) grace-period before the weapon automatically discharged. Another possible solution is to allow the charge to be held indefinitely while accruing 10% of the PPC's heat generation per second per charged PPC. That heat would be able to be dissipated in real-time by heat-sinks.

Damage applied would be done over 4 increments (at 100ms intervals) as a 'hit-scan' weapon. 25% of the damage is done during the first increment, 50% during the second, 15% during the third, and 10% during the final.

Thus, the Particle Cannon would charge and emit a stream of particles that deal intense (but not instantaneous) damage to the target. The PPC is still an effective and fearsome weapon, without supplanting ballistics in their utility as up-front damage dealing weapons.

The weapon would 'consume' a portion of your heat capacity equal to 30% of its heat generation as it is charging, build up 10% of its heat per second while the charge is held, and then build up 70% of its heat generated once it fires and all heat added dissipates as normal.

The details of the mechanic can be shifted for balance reasons - but the overall concept is rather solid and modular in nature (different portions of the idea could be applied with or without each other).

There are two previous games, that I know of, that used a similar concept regarding PPCs. MechWarrior 3050 for the SNES had charge mechanics for both the Gauss Rifle and the PPC. The PPC could shoot through material objects(actually a property of real particle accelerators) - but had to be charged just right to hit a given region of space.

MechAssault had a charge-based PPC, as well - though the thing was semi-guided (and slow).

Thoughts? Suggestions? Yeas or Nays?

[Solis Obscuri]

ERPPCs were set at 13 once, and they were useless. Of course, they also went much slower then and had crappy hit detection.

Making every weapon into a Laser is boring.

MechAssault sucked. That said, having a charge-based weapon could be interesting, but it really wouldn't do anything to prevent people firing five of them at the same time and hitting the exact same spot and the exact same instant.

[Aim64C]

Solis Obscuri, on 07 July 2013 - 08:34 PM, said:

ERPPCs were set at 13 once, and they were useless. Of course, they also went much slower then and had crappy hit detection.

Making every weapon into a Laser is boring.

MechAssault sucked. That said, having a charge-based weapon could be interesting, but it really wouldn't do anything to prevent people firing five of them at the same time and hitting the exact same spot and the exact same instant.

The reason PPCs were "useless" 'back in the day' is because of horrible hit detection and the poor ballistic performance. They weren't really all that great until host state rewind and netcode improvements made them viable weapons.

Further, the PPC will always be horrendously imbalanced among energy and ballistic weapons if it delivers its damage up front.

Convergence will not fix this issue. If anything - it will actually make it worse. If all of your laser beams don't converge, you are still going to have to track through your target - AND some of them may be going off into never-never land. That makes weapons that deal their damage as "all or nothing" to a component preferable than weapons that do not.

Evidence? A number of high-ranking PPC boats on organized teams run 4x PPC builds, preferring to fire two in staggered intervals rather than firing 4 (or 6) all at one time. These players are going to be damned good no matter what weapon you give them - the thing is that there's absolutely no reason to consider lasers or pulse lasers over the PPC unless you're a light mech (and even then - a number of players have a high degree of success with 1x PPC light builds).

While this might sound like it would push players toward autocannons - that's also not the case, as autocannons require ammunition and even the lightest autocannon weighs in at only one ton under a PPC while dealing 20% of the damage of a PPC. Only at the AC20 do things start to break even with weight/damage effectiveness of the PPC, and the PPC now out-ranges the AC20 and still doesn't have to worry about ammunition.

Convergence will not balance PPCs. High heat generation upon firing will not balance PPCs (doesn't much matter if you shut down after vaporizing a mech). Making a portion of the heat come into play before firing the weapon, and giving a slight damage over time mechanic to PPCs is a better option.

You -could- try to treat them as a projectile stream - but that is going to add a tracking and ballistic intercept factor into dealing damage to a target... the weapon doesn't get a -1+ checks on hitting the target - and the mechanic presented already complicates things a bit over lasers and autocannons (though it does have a better damage interval than even the small pulse laser).

[Solis Obscuri]

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

The reason PPCs were "useless" 'back in the day' is because of horrible hit detection and the poor ballistic performance. They weren't really all that great until host state rewind and netcode improvements made them viable weapons.

Oh, I don't know about that - I had a lot of success with AC/20s and Gauss Rifles and UACs back in CB. PPCs were just godawfully bad. I really don't want to push them back there, especially when there are plenty of other weapons that feed into the current high-alpha meta.

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

Further, the PPC will always be horrendously imbalanced among energy and ballistic weapons if it delivers its damage up front.

All ballistic weapons deliver damage up front.

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

Convergence will not fix this issue. If anything - it will actually make it worse. If all of your laser beams don't converge, you are still going to have to track through your target - AND some of them may be going off into never-never land. That makes weapons that deal their damage as "all or nothing" to a component preferable than weapons that do not.

That really depends a lot on how the convergence system is implemented.

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

Evidence? A number of high-ranking PPC boats on organized teams run 4x PPC builds, preferring to fire two in staggered intervals rather than firing 4 (or 6) all at one time. These players are going to be damned good no matter what weapon you give them - the thing is that there's absolutely no reason to consider lasers or pulse lasers over the PPC unless you're a light mech (and even then - a number of players have a high degree of success with 1x PPC light builds).

I'm betting they fire all four on the first volley, then switch out to prevent overheating.

Though I agree that pulse lasers need some love.

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

While this might sound like it would push players toward autocannons - that's also not the case, as autocannons require ammunition and even the lightest autocannon weighs in at only one ton under a PPC while dealing 20% of the damage of a PPC. Only at the AC20 do things start to break even with weight/damage effectiveness of the PPC, and the PPC now out-ranges the AC20 and still doesn't have to worry about ammunition.

I actually have great success with autocannons and prefer them to PPCs on almost all of my builds.

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

Convergence will not balance PPCs. High heat generation upon firing will not balance PPCs (doesn't much matter if you shut down after vaporizing a mech). Making a portion of the heat come into play before firing the weapon, and giving a slight damage over time mechanic to PPCs is a better option.

Not really. It just makes them into lasers.

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

You -could- try to treat them as a projectile stream - but that is going to add a tracking and ballistic intercept factor into dealing damage to a target... the weapon doesn't get a -1+ checks on hitting the target - and the mechanic presented already complicates things a bit over lasers and autocannons (though it does have a better damage interval than even the small pulse laser).

I'm not entirely sure what this paragraph is supposed to mean.

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 08 July 2013 - 01:11 AM.

[Aim64C]

Solis Obscuri, on 08 July 2013 - 01:10 AM, said:

Oh, I don't know about that - I had a lot of success with AC/20s and Gauss Rifles and UACs back in CB. PPCs were just godawfully bad. I really don't want to push them back there, especially when there are plenty of other weapons that feed into the current high-alpha meta.

PPCs would still be damned good weapons.

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All ballistic weapons deliver damage up front.

Guess that tells me what you think my capacity for intelligence is.

The lightest ballistic weapon in the game, spare the machinegun, weighs in at 6 tons. Thankfully, it only takes up one critical. Yet it requires an additional critical and ton of ammo. Which brings it into equivalence with the large pulse laser for critical space and tonnage to utilize. It yields 2 damage provided you can manage the basic task of leading your target.

If you got a wild hair up your whazoo - you might be able to put six of those on a mech (assuming you had the hardpoints for it) before you really had to start chewing into your engine rating, armor, etc to free up tonnage. A whopping 12 point alpha.

In tabletop, that weapon fired once per round (ten seconds).

The next tier we get into is the AC5 at 8 tons (9 tons if you actually want to shoot it), 4 criticals (5), and 5 points of damage. You can plausibly mount about 5 on a mech, maybe 6. 25-30 point possible alpha. Again, firing once every 10 seconds.

The AC10 follows, at 12 tons (13), 7 criticals (8) and 10 points of damage. You're only getting 4 on any mech. Ever. Unless we completely ditch the critical system. Maximum alpha of 40 points. Per ten seconds.

The AC20 follows at 14 tons, 10 criticals, and 20 points of damage. It might be possible to mount 4 onto a single frame... but I have my doubts as to how plausible that would be (and it sure as hell isn't happening under the current hardpoint system). Realistically - 3 would be about the limit in an unrestricted mechlab using the critical system. For a total alpha of 60 points with about the most you'll see under this system at 40.

The Gauss rifle brings up the rear at 15 tons, 7 criticals, and 15 points of damage. 3 is your upper limit without getting into tonnage limits - total alpha of 45 points.

Compare that to the PPC and ERPPC. 7 tons, 3 criticals, 10 damage. 5 and 6 PPC configurations are not at all difficult without the hardpoint system. But most assaults can easily manage 4 PPCs, and that's really all you need to match an AC40 jaeger at double his range and the same invested tonnage without ammunition restrictions.

Ballistics come at a -huge- cost to do what the PPC and ERPPC do. Not to mention the PPC compared to lasers (which are competing for the same hardpoint).

It doesn't matter what you do to convergence. The PPC trumps them.

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That really depends a lot on how the convergence system is implemented.

Not really. I've seen several different ideas. Most would further gravitate the game toward assault mechs because movement would heavily penalize shots (because the 6ppc stalker with all of its jump-jets and 100 kph speed need to be brought into check). Mediums and heavies would suffer the most - while lights would simply laser-LBX everything at 30 meters. Assaults would stand still and vaporize anything that decided to step out of cover.

Giving everything convergence regardless of motion or time-over-target would simply turn everything into a form of LBX. And it would really suck to be the guy only running one or two weapons - as you can get RNGed out of hitting something you pointed at.

Establishing a "convergence penalty for multiple weapons" runs into the same weird problem that a "firing more than x number of weapons simultaneously" heat-penalty does. Namely, 'how many is too many' and 'so what does this do to lights?'

Having convergence based on what you have targeted doesn't really solve the convergence issue - just adds a time delay factor and imposes an additional layer of situational awareness while pretty much trashing your shots against anything you haven't targeted (so you hit for a high alpha or hit for just about nothing because your rounds converge ahead of the target).

I'd be willing to hear the argument that torso-mounted weapons should not have any convergence (they should just shoot straight out) - or should have a convergence fixed at the maximum range of the weapon - but otherwise they aren't really effective.

Even if they were implemented - PPCs would still be the largely superior weapon for competitive play.

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I'm betting they fire all four on the first volley, then switch out to prevent overheating.

It does depend upon the player and the particular shot in question, but not usually.

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Though I agree that pulse lasers need some love.

They do - but it doesn't really matter what you do to them. They'll never be competitive with the PPC. It doesn't really matter how you change the stats. The Large Pulse Laser gives a considerable amount of time for defensive piloting and shooter error. So does the large laser. While that doesn't make them useless - it makes the PPC's mechanics overwhelmingly favorable. So long as you're 80 meters away - you can zap for 10 damage and be twisting your torso away. If your shot was lined up right - you're golden.

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I actually have great success with autocannons and prefer them to PPCs on almost all of my builds.

That's fine. In generally every circumstance, where allowed, you would be better served by a PPC.

I prefer my dual AC5 blackjack to a dual PPC one. I play it because PPCs are boring to play. It tends to be a bipolar experience. Either I'm grabbing 3 kills at a damage/kill ratio lower than my Jenner usually does, or I'm dead within five seconds of first contact. Usually because I got vaporized by PPCs.

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Not really. It just makes them into lasers.

Which is what they are.

Except they have a superior range along with a better 'dot' profile. They deal 10 points of damage in less time than the small pulse laser deals its 3.4 . But 75% of that damage is done within the first 200 milliseconds after a charge-up period.

By leaving PPCs as superior solutions to even autocannons in functional application of the weapon - the game will continually be dominated by PPCs. No matter what you do to convergence.

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I'm not entirely sure what this paragraph is supposed to mean.

Think of what would happen if your machine-gun shot in 4-round bursts, but the first and second bullet did more damage than the following bullets... and your machine gun had a recycle time akin to a PPC (along with damage).

That is what I mean by a projectile stream. It would be identical to how the laser operates - except that the laser would be treated as a ballistic object with a travel time.

I was commenting, however, that the system would be overly complicated for the pilot when compared to other weapons that do not, in tabletop, suffer an effective accuracy penalty (such as the HAG series weapons when firing into long range).

[Skyfaller]

Aim64C, on 07 July 2013 - 08:01 PM, said:

Thoughts? Suggestions? Yeas or Nays?

PPC's need to be returned to their canon heat costs. 10 damage, 10 heat PPC, 10 damage, 13 heat ER PPC.

Then they need to have their slot cost increased to match a gauss rifle. This is not canon of course but mechs like the stalker were not designed to carry PPCs... and a spider certainly cannot be loading a PPC on its arm (it is a HUGE weapon).

[Aim64C]

Skyfaller, on 08 July 2013 - 04:41 PM, said:

PPC's need to be returned to their canon heat costs. 10 damage, 10 heat PPC, 10 damage, 13 heat ER PPC.

That won't fix the problem, either - though 15 heat is what the ERPPC generates.

And the problem will come right back when we get to the Clans, as the CERPPC has the same damage/heat ratio as the PPC with superior performance.

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Then they need to have their slot cost increased to match a gauss rifle. This is not canon of course but mechs like the stalker were not designed to carry PPCs... and a spider certainly cannot be loading a PPC on its arm (it is a HUGE weapon).

That makes a number of canon builds impossible.

Even so - that solution doesn't keep a spider from mounting it on the arm.

A more sophisticated hardpoint system would need to be added to take better control over what weapons can be employed on what mechs. There again, however, mechs like the Awesome come in versions that have 4ppcs.

The weapon, itself, needs to have an altered mechanic. Treating it the same as PPCs in past MechWarriors will give us the same problems we saw manifest, then.

[Waking One]

Aim64C, on 09 July 2013 - 01:04 AM, said:

That won't fix the problem, either - though 15 heat is what the ERPPC generates.

And the problem will come right back when we get to the Clans, as the CERPPC has the same damage/heat ratio as the PPC with superior performance.



That makes a number of canon builds impossible.

Even so - that solution doesn't keep a spider from mounting it on the arm.

A more sophisticated hardpoint system would need to be added to take better control over what weapons can be employed on what mechs. There again, however, mechs like the Awesome come in versions that have 4ppcs.

The weapon, itself, needs to have an altered mechanic. Treating it the same as PPCs in past MechWarriors will give us the same problems we saw manifest, then.

So much truth.

Not sure why weapon damage is the same as in TT tbh (except for machineguns which are apparently a special snowflake and missiles due to stupid tracking mechanics), as in TT its clearly over 10 seconds. Hell, you could make ppcs fire more often for lower heat and lower damage but same dps or a bunch of other options. Why are we stuck with random cherry picked TT stats?