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Here are the basic variables for a weapon calculator:
Damage
Range
Weight
Size (slots)
Heat
Firing rate (time between shots)
Firing time (time it takes to get off a single shot)
pinpoint damage or spread
My suggestion to the devs would be to build a weapon calculator composed of slider bars (if they haven't done so already).
Example: I'm a dev at PGI and I'm trying to balance an energy weapon (let's ignore table top for the moment and just pretend I'm making a new weapon)
First I start with a weapon that does 5 damage at medium range but I want to increase it's damage and bump it to 6 damage. So I move the damage slider up from 5 to 6. I should then see the numbers on the weight, slots, heat, firing time, and firing rate slider bars also increase while the slider bar for range would drop. So by increasing my damage from 5 to 6 I'm making my weapon heavier, bigger, hotter, slower, and shorter ranged.
Lets say I lock in my damage slider bar at 6 damage and then increase the range of the weapon. I should then see the sliders for weight, slots, heat and firing rate go up again. Figuring out how much they increase would be the tricky part.
So how do you balance ballistic vs missile vs energy? My suggestion would be a modifier to heat. When I first make a new weapon I can designate it as energy based by clicking a box to start and then a modifier is added to the heat slider. Basically an energy based weapon will run hotter because it doesn't need ammo.
To designate a weapon as spread damage versus pinpoint damage you again click a box and you get another modifier. This should help sort out ballistic versus missile and take into account the LBX, flamer, and machine gun.
The range slider could be unique from the others and offer two handles...one for minimum and maximum range. By moving these handles you determine max range and min range. Initially the min range handle would be set to 0 but you could slide it up towards your max range handle to lower heat, weight, size, etc.
So how would current weapons fit in this system? Well lets look at a weapon like the AC2. It may stay pretty much the same. It has low damage per shot but obviously someone cranked up the firing rate slider so correspondingly the weight, size, and heat sliders went up. It's got really good range so again the weight, size, and heat sliders had to go up.
Let's look at another example; the medium laser. It does medium damage at medium range but it's really light and small so the heat slider went way up. Is it hot enough? With a calculator you'd know for sure relative to the other weapons in the game. That's the value of the calculator.
Finally the downside of the calculator...certain weapons may end up with very different stats than TT.
On paper the PPC does twice the damage of a medium laser with double the range but only has double the heat. If you use the calculator it should probably end up with triple the heat. Why? The slider bar for heat moves up when you increase damage but also when you increase the weapons range. So double damage means double heat. Double range also equals double heat. Now range and increased damage also comes with increased weight, size, and potentially firing rate. But if I've already tripled the heat why does it need to get heavier, bigger, and slower as well? Simple...to balance against alpha damage and heavier mechs.
So now my PPC has triple heat and I don't like it. What can I do to lower the heat? First I lock the damage and range in on their sliders and then increase weight, size, and/or firing rate. But that's not enough. I end by sliding the minimum range handle on the range slider up from zero to (x) range. Now if I hit someone with the weapon under (x) range it does no damage but the benefit is I've lowered the heat of the weapon.
So there you go. That's my solution. Is it absolutely true to tabletop? No. It's true to balance and that's what MWO needs first.
Edited by Obelus, 12 July 2013 - 10:30 AM.
