53 replies to this topic

[Matthew Ace]

bump for a great idea

[SerEdvard]

Matthew Ace, on 14 July 2013 - 03:46 AM, said:

bump for a great idea

Thanks... love to get a dev to comment on this idea, given Paul's comment in ATD 42 about the technical difficulty of changing the convergence system. (Has a potentially simpler fix such as this one been considered? the world wonders...)

[Fajther]

I would love to get a dev to comment on this idea my self.

[SerEdvard]

Bump for patch day

[Xanquil]

I think this is a much better idea than the current heat mess we are getting. It is simple and can be built on to be made better. Like having single/chain fired weapons not effected by it, have it be a additional offset % if more weapons are fired at once ect. (ie. 1-2% per weapon past the first) That way it would be a choice to go with skill (single/chain fire) VS "fire everything" alpha strike.

[Matheos]

Simple, elegant, and effective. Bravo!

I like this method for two reasons. First is the obvious one: spreading out alpha damage.

The second is more subtle: if you chain fire weapons on opposing sides of your mech, you have the ability to adjust your shooting trajectory to be able to place all of your shots in one place. So, if you're good at it, you can still pinpoint damage into an area... just not by firing everything you got.

[Coralld]

Overall I like this idea in its simplicity, but my number one concern is how will this effect laser weapons that do damage over time vs the heavy front load weapons, PPC, Gauss, AC20, and them over shadowing the smaller ones, AC2,5, UAC5, and 10 sense they are very heavy but do significantly less damage.

[SerEdvard]

Xanquil, on 30 July 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

I think this is a much better idea than the current heat mess we are getting. It is simple and can be built on to be made better. Like having single/chain fired weapons not effected by it, have it be a additional offset % if more weapons are fired at once ect. (ie. 1-2% per weapon past the first) That way it would be a choice to go with skill (single/chain fire) VS "fire everything" alpha strike.

My thoughts exactly. Applying this to group fire only and keeping perfect convergence for chain fire is a great way to mitigate high alpha builds and reward chain fire.

Coralld, on 30 July 2013 - 07:00 PM, said:

Overall I like this idea in its simplicity, but my number one concern is how will this effect laser weapons that do damage over time vs the heavy front load weapons, PPC, Gauss, AC20, and them over shadowing the smaller ones, AC2,5, UAC5, and 10 sense they are very heavy but do significantly less damage.

Some additional balancing may be required, but I think this will give ACs a bigger role because they are more often chain fired and would thus continue to benefit from perfect convergence, whereas laser (hitscan) weapons would spread their damage out more than they do now.

[Joe Mallad]

I like it but I would expand that to maybe start with your weapons only converging to 25% and at a much slower speed to boot. Then you would actually have a reason to unlock the perks in the pilot tree for a better convergence to maybe your perpossed 15% and have the pin point perk allow for your weapons to converge faster.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 30 July 2013 - 08:16 PM.

[Tehtos]

Would a simple macro defeat this? For example, if using 4 PPCs, each one in a separate firing group. Any macro program could set up a macro to fire each PPC, one after another, with a 1ms delay. 4ms would seem instant to us, yet since they are in separate groups, they would not be subject to the special convergence rule.

[TheDeckardCain]

PGi would never adopt it.

1) its way too simple
2) NEEDZ MOAR COMPLEX FORMULAS!!!111


Nope I love it. Simplistic, easy to adjust.

[Xanquil]

Tehtos, on 02 August 2013 - 05:24 PM, said:

Would a simple macro defeat this? For example, if using 4 PPCs, each one in a separate firing group. Any macro program could set up a macro to fire each PPC, one after another, with a 1ms delay. 4ms would seem instant to us, yet since they are in separate groups, they would not be subject to the special convergence rule.

That is a good point, but also easy to fix. A .5s global cool down for "Re-calculating target range" after firing any weapon.(grouped or single) Would it be annoying? yes, but almost unnoticeable to most players. And add a bit more skill needed to hit the same location twice.

[SteelPaladin]

Xanquil, on 02 August 2013 - 06:19 PM, said:

That is a good point, but also easy to fix. A .5s global cool down for "Re-calculating target range" after firing any weapon.(grouped or single) Would it be annoying? yes, but almost unnoticeable to most players. And add a bit more skill needed to hit the same location twice.

Thanks to the kludgey boating penalty system, they already have the tech to go "was a another weapon fired in the last 0.5s? If so, check some other stuff and do something." They wouldn't even have to build that fresh.

[WarZ]

I believe the most effective way to handle the current issues is introduce a new yet simple mechanic to the game:

Each mech and/or engine has a power output in power / second. Maybe its one number for all, maybe it varies based on what the devs would decide. A basic example would be a mech produces 100 power / second.

Then each weapon has a power draw / second needed in order to fire. In the case of PPC's and Gauss perhaps they both require 50 power / second to fire. AC20's might require 60 power / second. With this new mechanic overlaid on the current mechanics, you can now balance how many types of high power (high alpha / damage) weapons can be fired at the same time.

Plus you dont have to redesign HUD and targeting systems and mechanics. You dont have to mess with heat any more. They can even return to thier old heat system if they wanted. Or keep the new, whatever is best with it.

Basically its simple. Its just another check on weapons that gives them another layer of control so they dont have to build / rebuild current mechanics with overly complicated and unintuitive systems.

Simple = better.

The inspiration for this mechanic is gained from reading the novels. In the blood of kerensky trilogy, you find that the clan gauss requires so much power to fire, that the pilots cannot fire any other weapons at the same time and/or for a few seconds afterward. Using it came with a cost, but it was an extremely hard hitting weapon.