23 replies to this topic

[One Medic Army]

Just wondering?
Pulse Lasers are supposed to be easy to use, easy to hit with.
A LPL with a 10.6 dmg hit at 8.5 heat and a range of 300 isn't as bad as a PPC, and a SPL with 3.4 dmg at 2.4 heat might suddenly become viable if it was a fast projectile.

*When I say "projectile" I mean all damage done in one clump, they could have high "projectile" speed, or even be hitscan but with a small firing delay (no firing delay and hitscan/instant travel might lead to issues with ease of cockpitting).

Edited by One Medic Army, 08 July 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[CancR]

I'd like to see pulse be a DH weapon and MLS take over the mechanics of pulse in terms of it's D.O.T.

[Unbound Inferno]

PGI has 'something' in the works due to come out 'sometime' for changing pulse lasers.

What it is, we have no idea.

However, if they behave more like projectiles they'll be crazy OP real easy. I had thought of that in the past, but its basically giving a slight change to either PPC for sniping or Pulses for short range - but doesn't solve the issue.


Beam argument for PPC came up once before. Mixed results, but partially favorable if its a partial up front and half beam DOT for the remainder effect.

[xengk]

I just want to see pulse to have shorter cooldown time and fire time so you can keep pumping them in a brawl but risk cooking yourself.

[Roland]

I would support the idea of pulse lasers effectively being hitscan projectiles, but I think that you would need to break them up into smaller bursts.

For instance, the LPL couldn't do 10 damage as a hitscan projectile I don't think, without becoming crazy broken.

I'd rather make them into kind of how the current lasers are, but where they fire while you are holding down the trigger, and stop immediately if you let go.

[One Medic Army]

Mainly I'd just like it if there was an option other than PPCs for not having to hold a beam on target for a full second I could fit in an energy slot.
Smalls would be fine if there wasn't the 140kph pre-tweak speed cap on my Jenner, I'd gladly drop my F to 6 smalls and spend the extra weight into a big engine.
Small pulses are just sad right now...
Medium Pulses are pretty weak, plus they're heavy and short range, and a LPL weighs as much as a PPC with about the same heat efficiency.

[Lugh]

*sigh*

[zraven7]

So, you want pulse lasers to be Star Wars blasters, and PPCs to defy energy physics.

Yeah, no.

[Mechteric]

No, but it would be interesting to see if PPCs had a very short duration, like 0.25 seconds or so. But honestly until we see their heat go back to where it should be its pointless to ask for more.

[One Medic Army]

zraven7, on 08 July 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

So, you want pulse lasers to be Star Wars blasters, and PPCs to defy energy physics.

Yeah, no.

I'm sorry, you're acting like things in this game aren't already defying physics. Also I'm not sure how making PPCs into a stream would be "defying physics" seeing as particle streams aren't physically impossible.

In case you didn't know there are some modern lasers which are designed to impart energy in very short bursts rather than as a long burn.

[zraven7]

One Medic Army, on 08 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

I'm sorry, you're acting like things in this game aren't already defying physics. Also I'm not sure how making PPCs into a stream would be "defying physics" seeing as particle streams aren't physically impossible.

In case you didn't know there are some modern lasers which are designed to impart energy in very short bursts rather than as a long burn.

Particle streams aren't physically impossible, but making one that dealt any sort of damage would take a ridiculous amount more energy than the ones we're seeing in game.

As far as the "Projectile" lasers, they would have to be hitscan, but with a duration measured in milliseconds.

[One Medic Army]

zraven7, on 08 July 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

Particle streams aren't physically impossible, but making one that dealt any sort of damage would take a ridiculous amount more energy than the ones we're seeing in game.

As far as the "Projectile" lasers, they would have to be hitscan, but with a duration measured in milliseconds.

PPC=Particle Projection Cannon.
Don't blame me, BTech made it up. The books and lore descriptions describe it as a bolt of lightning or a stream, rather than as a high-speed ball.

Personally I'd think a plasma projectile would be a better idea, but then again I'm not a sci-fi game designer, just someone who's taken a few Physics courses...

Also from the first post:

One Medic Army, on 08 July 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

When I say "projectile" I mean all damage done in one clump, they could have high "projectile" speed, or even be hitscan but with a small firing delay (no firing delay and hitscan/instant travel might lead to issues with ease of cockpitting).

Edited by One Medic Army, 08 July 2013 - 10:56 AM.

[CancR]

every time you try and balance the game by bringing in real physics, PGI makes MWO worse. Please, think of Mechwarrior.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

With Pulse Lasers, they shouldn't feel like ballistics IMHO. I think they need to keep burn duration (as we already have) due to the armor they are hitting, so I'd reduce their durations so that they seem more instant and adjust damage, heat and cooldown so that they cool feel different than what we got now, but not necessarily out perform how they currently function.

LPL Damage 9, Heat 6, Cooldown 2.85, Duration 0.55.This should give a DPS of 2.65 and HPS of 1.76 (still hotter than Large Lasers) if I calculated properly.

MPL, Damage 5.5, Heat 4, Cooldown 2.50, Duration 0.55 so should be a DPS of 1.8 and HPS of 1.31.

SPL Damage 3, Heat 2, Cooldown 2.00, Duration 0.35, DPS 1.28 HPS 0.85




PPC's could possibly be compared to the concept of a Particle-beam weapon, and considering that mechs are running fusion reactors for power, I guess a transformer and a capacitor would be essential to build up the necessary energy for them (as Gauss Rifles need in comparison) so I'd be fine with them acting more hit-scan with a duration like a laser, maybe even a feature of a slight fire delay deducted from the cooldown.

So if the cooldown will remain near 4.00 (plus beam duration), then simply introduce a 0.15 fire delay with a 3.85 cooldown. Combined with a beam duration that matches the existing animation (I guess somewhere arould 0.25 to 0.30), and we might be fine with PPC's. Raising or keeping the heat between 8 and 10 would depend on how they will feel after testing out the beam duration and delay.

Do the same with ER PPC but extend the cooldown with increased heat too. So there could be a fire delay of 0.20 and a cooldown of 4.80 and the beam duration matching the animation (again I guess around 0.25 to 0.30). With heat at 15 and a longer cooldown, should keep them hot but still useable as a sniper weapon I hope.

Having heat spike at the start of the delay could then be used to help prevent players from spamming a (ER)PPC shot if they are too hot, and make it harder to combine between the two and Gauss, which itself could use a small fire delay of 0.10 added to the cooldown (which possibly should be increased itself anyway) to lower DPS a tad, since its DPS is too high being a sniper weapon anyway.

[zraven7]

Because of the physics behind the PPC, having it hit over a duration would be pretty much unfeasible. They work on Rail Cannon theory. Basically, a chamber takes particles and ionizes them by adding an electron to each of them. Then, a magnetic pulse or rail is used to propel the grouping of particles to speed. They are passed through a reverse-ionized field as they are fired, scrubbing the added electron from them. This makes the fired particles a neutral charge, which increases stability.

As they are fired using rail cannon physics, they would be travelling at several times the speed of sound (which is the noise you hear when they are fired. It's a sonic boom). As such, the entirety of the particles would hit practically instantaneously. Honestly, the PPC travel time is slower than it should be. Given, so is the gauss, and the gauss cannon range should be several miles, not some thousand meters.

But there, that is what a PPC is. It's pretty much a Gauss Cannon that fires a cluster of particles instead of a slug.

And yes, it frankly should explode like nobodies business when destroyed. If they gave it the same damage to self when destroyed as they do a Gauss, I'd be fine with that.

Edited by zraven7, 08 July 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

zraven7, on 08 July 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

Because of the physics behind the PPC, having it hit over a duration would be pretty much unfeasible. They work on Rail Cannon theory. Basically, a chamber takes particles and ionizes them by adding an electron to each of them. Then, a magnetic pulse or rail is used to propel the grouping of particles to speed. They are passed through a reverse-ionized field as they are fired, scrubbing the added electron from them. This makes the fired particles a neutral charge, which increases stability.

As they are fired using rail cannon physics, they would be travelling at several times the speed of sound (which is the noise you hear when they are fired. It's a sonic boom). As such, the entirety of the particles would hit practically instantaneously. Honestly, the PPC travel time is slower than it should be. Given, so is the gauss, and the gauss cannon range should be several miles, not some thousand meters.

But there, that is what a PPC is. It's pretty much a Gauss Cannon that fires a cluster of particles instead of a slug.

And yes, it frankly should explode like nobodies business when destroyed. If they gave it the same damage to self when destroyed as they do a Gauss, I'd be fine with that.

No I disagree.

The PPC is said to fire concentrated stream, an ion beam so not based on a rail gun that uses a different process to accelerate matter. The in-game Gauss Rifle is a high powered, multistage coil gun.

PPCs and ER PPC are more related to a weaponized type of Linear particle accelerator.


Edit: I missed the last line. If (ER)PPCs' were made to explode, that would be fine with me, since a PPC would need something like a capacitor too, to store enough power like a Gauss Rifle to do damage.

Edited by Praetor Shepard, 08 July 2013 - 12:50 PM.

[zraven7]

Praetor Shepard, on 08 July 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

No I disagree.

The PPC is said to fire concentrated stream, an ion beam so not based on a rail gun that uses a different process to accelerate matter. The in-game Gauss Rifle is a high powered, multistage coil gun.

PPCs and ER PPC are more related to a weaponized type of Linear particle accelerator.


Edit: I missed the last line. If (ER)PPCs' were made to explode, that would be fine with me, since a PPC would need something like a capacitor too, to store enough power like a Gauss Rifle to do damage.

The Linear Particle Accelerator and the Particle Beam Weapon, or PPC, popularized in Science Fiction are very similar critters. The Particle Beam Weapon simply takes some leaps not possible in current technology.

Here, take a look at this.

http://en.wikipedia....cle-beam_weapon

Thanks for citing resources though. I was unaware that the Mechwarrior Gauss rifle was a coil gun rather than a rail gun.

Still, the PPCs should blow up when destroyed.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

zraven7, on 08 July 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

The Linear Particle Accelerator and the Particle Beam Weapon, or PPC, popularized in Science Fiction are very similar critters. The Particle Beam Weapon simply takes some leaps not possible in current technology.

Here, take a look at this.

http://en.wikipedia....cle-beam_weapon

Thanks for citing resources though. I was unaware that the Mechwarrior Gauss rifle was a coil gun rather than a rail gun.

Still, the PPCs should blow up when destroyed.

I'm fine if they are made to blow up, but I just wanted to share this related to plausible R&D into Particle Weapons: http://www.airpower....ug/roberds.html

The article is old, but it makes me wonder what progress could have been made since then in some Darpa sponsored Labs.

So comparing real-world to BT; real world we are limited by the power needed, but in BT each mech has a fusion engine, which is how the weapons are even possible to function with high energy requirements.


Here is a neat excerpt from the article which could also support the idea of using the Gauss rifle damage on destruction for PPCs.

Quote

Possibly the most difficult technical problem in developing an atmospheric particle-beam weapon is the development of its electrical power supply. To operate an endoatmospheric PBW requires that a tremendous amount of electrical energy be supplied over very short periods of time. Since power is energy divided by time, large amounts of energy over short spans of time translate into extremely high power levels. Building a power supply to produce high power in short bursts involves a very advanced field of technology known as pulsed-power technology.
Basically, a pulsed-power device can be divided into three component areas: the primary power source that provides electrical energy over the full operating time of the weapon (prime power source), the intermediate storage of the electrical energy as it is generated (energy storage), and the "conditioning" of the electrical power bursts or pulses of suitable intensity and duration (pulse-forming network) to fire the weapon. Each of these three areas represents a technological challenge.

[jeffsw6]

I don't understand why you guys think real-world physics should be important to weapons available in the game. The point of the game is to be fun, and based on an established genre. It's not trying to be realistic.

I mean, otherwise, some of these mechs would probably have rear-facing cameras by now? And, I dunno, voice communication to your teammates?

If you want to talk about physics, I suggest you go look up that thread where the poster is telling us about the S waves and P waves used by seismographs to determine the origin or distance of earthquake-induced vibrations. It was a lot more interesting than this pretend discussion about how particle-beam weapons are feasible. I'm sure there is some miniturization needed and all.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

jeffsw6, on 08 July 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

I don't understand why you guys think real-world physics should be important to weapons available in the game. The point of the game is to be fun, and based on an established genre. It's not trying to be realistic.

I mean, otherwise, some of these mechs would probably have rear-facing cameras by now? And, I dunno, voice communication to your teammates?

If you want to talk about physics, I suggest you go look up that thread where the poster is telling us about the S waves and P waves used by seismographs to determine the origin or distance of earthquake-induced vibrations. It was a lot more interesting than this pretend discussion about how particle-beam weapons are feasible. I'm sure there is some miniturization needed and all.

Well, I happen to like finding out how stuff works, and we can infer how BT tech could work since it found inspiration from science and science fiction, art imitates life, life imitates art etc.

So to be true to the genre you need to try to make sense of how something can translate as written fluff to a game like MWO so that the game can feel realistic while staying true to canon and be fun. And weapons have been coming along rather nicely so far, even with the current balance challenges we have.

Your comment about cameras and comms; well, let's wait and see what happens with the game, since the challenge there might be implementation with the cry engine and what the devs want for gameplay.

Therefore, if you prefer to read that thread you mention fine by me, but why try to tease others with a dismissive tone?

Either way, PPCs and Lasers are in the game and we need to have them thought about so we can provide different ideas to better balance them and make them feel like a plausible weapons system that would be fielded by a military force and work in MWO from a game play balance stand point. Seismic needs to addressed, but I don't want to discuss that in this thread.