38 replies to this topic

[Monkeystador]

The current linear PPC damage drop off ist still to weak. To nerf them in a unique way, such as making their know weakness stand out clearly, i like to see the damage drop off increased.

Make them do no damage < 90 meters. This way there is a clear safety zone where PPC boats become harmless.

Missiles do have the same disadvantage < 180 meters.. why is the PPC weakness not a real weakness in MWO?

[Nothing Whatsoever]

270 to 90 M is still a fine range for brawls, so maybe.

[CancR]

pgi ****** this aspect up horrible.

Both PPCs and Gauss should only do 1 point of damage in min range. There has to be a far more sever punishment for firing them in min range as they are meant to be 'sniper' weapons.

PPCs should also have the BT nerf where they cant fire at mechs that are shut down. A pipe dream though because PGI wants a CoD/mechassault shooter, not a mech sim.

[General Taskeen]

So where was everyone when people did not complain about lack of min ranges in MW3/4/LL? Does it really matter so much that min range be in a Mech Warrior game?

In my opinion is that there is no need for it. And the PPC already lacks a potential simulation aspect with managing a Field Inhibitor in real-time by engaging it on/off.

[Skyfaller]

Monkeystador, on 13 July 2013 - 01:54 AM, said:

The current linear PPC damage drop off ist still to weak. To nerf them in a unique way, such as making their know weakness stand out clearly, i like to see the damage drop off increased.

Make them do no damage < 90 meters. This way there is a clear safety zone where PPC boats become harmless.

Missiles do have the same disadvantage < 180 meters.. why is the PPC weakness not a real weakness in MWO?

I completely agree. I find it idiotic to the extreme that I can one-shot a spider in the chest with quad PPCs at point blank range. Not ERPPC...normal PPCs.

From Sarna:

Quote

PPCs are equipped with a Field Inhibitor to prevent feedback which could damage the firing unit's electronic systems.^[6] This inhibitor degrades the performance of the weapon at close ranges of less than 90 meters. Particularly daring warriors have been known to disengage the inhibitor and risk damage to their own machine when a target is at close range.

On Field Inhibitor:

Quote

Some inhibitors can degrade the performance of a PPC so much that it renders the weapon little more than a "light show", this is a common practice on Solaris VII

Quote

Game Rules

In the Tactical Handbook, a PPC Field Inhibitor could be disabled by a player before firing. This allowed the unit to fire a PPC at units inside the minimum range. The normal minimum range modifiers were then ignored. The to hit rolls were resolved as normal, but the controlling player had to roll 2D6 to determine if the PPC exploded due to feedback. If the target was 1 hex away, the firing unit had to roll a 10 or more to avoid the explosion. A target at 2 hexes away required a roll of 6 or higher, and a target 3 hexes away needed a roll of 3 or more. A successful roll indicated no damage occurred to the unit firing the PPC.
If the firing player failed to get the roll needed, the PPC was immediately destroyed and critical slots for the PPC were crossed off the record sheet. The firing unit also took ten points of damage to the internal structure of the location housing the PPC.

So there you have it.

A PPC fired inside 90m without disabling the inhibitor should be doing very little damage. As in, 1 point of damage.

A PPC fired inside 90m range with the inhibitor off (it could become a keybind option) should have the following effects:
--- Instand 10 damage applied to internals in location of PPC.
--- Based on target distance it has a chance to explode (20m=70%, 40m=40%, 40m=20%, 90m=10%)


Also, PPCs need to have their heat returned to canon amounts. It should be 10 for the PPC and 15 for the ER. The reason the PPC was tweaked to current levels was because of the half second delay between click and weapon fire and the fact that there was no damage rewind code... back then hitting with a PPC was very difficult and required a lot of weapon fire...and back then we did not have the DHS in the engines to 2.0 either.

[Angel of Annihilation]

CancR, on 13 July 2013 - 02:16 AM, said:

pgi ****** this aspect up horrible.

Both PPCs and Gauss should only do 1 point of damage in min range. There has to be a far more sever punishment for firing them in min range as they are meant to be 'sniper' weapons.

PPCs should also have the BT nerf where they cant fire at mechs that are shut down. A pipe dream though because PGI wants a CoD/mechassault shooter, not a mech sim.

You might be able to justify the PPC being this way due to it taking 90m for the bolt to gain enough particle density or something, but the Gauss rifle is a rail gun. It's projectile eaves the muzzle at it's maximum velocity so from the second it is launched it is just as deadly as it is at significant ranges.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 13 July 2013 - 06:59 AM.

[Helmer]

I still like the solution some have put forward before. Negative feedback. The damage is (or at least should be) figured linearly as a mech gets closer inside the 90m min range. So at 45m the PPC should be doing 5 pts of damage. The other 5 points should go towards the PPCs individual health of 10. Once the PPC takes 10 pts of damage, its done.



Cheers.

[Deathlike]

I would consider feedback damage with PPCs at min range.. if only to discourage its use. The question would be how the damage would be dealt. Maybe it should just go straight to internals? The alternative is to directly damage its health points...

Edited by Deathlike, 13 July 2013 - 07:36 AM.

[Jaguar Prime]

How about we just do a few simple buffs to short range weapons instead of tinkering with the mechanics of a currently functioning weapon. You know, possibly breaking it for a long period of time.

[General Taskeen]

Helmer, on 13 July 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

I still like the solution some have put forward before. Negative feedback. The damage is (or at least should be) figured linearly as a mech gets closer inside the 90m min range. So at 45m the PPC should be doing 5 pts of damage. The other 5 points should go towards the PPCs individual health of 10. Once the PPC takes 10 pts of damage, its done.



Cheers.

The only way it can do that Helmer, is if the Field Inhibitor is fully featured in the game. It is "on" by default to prevent negative feedback, hence the damage degradation between 0-90m. Turning it "off" would apply a damage feedback, BUT there would have to be a reason to have an "on/off" feature, where "off" could mean full damage in 90m range with damage feedback for example.

The PPC min range is being blown out of proportion. I score kills all the time with ER PPC's in that range and those don't even have a min-range per canon. There is no need for it to begin with, I don't recall any Mech game even using it. Shall we institute a fake min range for AC/20's too since they have 20 pin point damage at 90m?

There are other solutions too like reducing pin-point convergence at extreme close range to spread damage. Or even making extreme short range weapons more powerful. Or other types of 'simulation' aspects.

Edited by General Taskeen, 13 July 2013 - 07:49 AM.

[Mystere]

CancR, on 13 July 2013 - 02:16 AM, said:

... Gauss should only do 1 point of damage in min range ...

Do you know what a gauss rifle is?

[soarra]

Mystere, on 13 July 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

Do you know what a gauss rifle is?

gauss rifle has a Minimum Range, 2 in tt

[Inkarnus]

how about increasing min range and make damage falloff exponential?

[Helmer]

General Taskeen, on 13 July 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

The PPC min range is being blown out of proportion. I score kills all the time with ER PPC's in that range and those don't even have a min-range per canon. There is no need for it to begin with, I don't recall any Mech game even using it. Shall we institute a fake min range for AC/20's too since they have 20 pin point damage at 90m?

I agree. The min range is blown out of proportion. I personally don't use PPCs, but I've seen many a kill within 90m. It's just one of the quirks of the weapon.
People where discussing ways of punishing the PPC further, I thought it was an interesting idea.




Cheers.

[Mystere]

soarra, on 13 July 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

gauss rifle has a Minimum Range, 2 in tt

I should have been clearer then. I was talking in terms of Physics and not TT.

[verybad]

I'd rather see a potential for short range back fire. PPCs are supposed to have poor accuracy at close range because you have to turn off a safety mechanism that prevents them from looping back too you Safety penalties at short range are boring, and this would make the ERPPC a more interesting strategy than just for the longer range. Backfiring would cause some internal damage to the location the backfiring PPC was at, have a potential for shutting down the mech, and shut down all it's sensors for 5 seconds. Give players the option of keeping the safety button on (in which case it will not fire at all at targets within 90 meters) or shutting the safety button off with the backfire potential.

Edited by verybad, 13 July 2013 - 09:30 AM.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

How does the field inhibitor thingy work in the lore?

I know the pilot could disable them with great risk, but I don't really know the details.

[Unbound Inferno]

Skyfaller, on 13 July 2013 - 05:36 AM, said:

I completely agree. I find it idiotic to the extreme that I can one-shot a spider in the chest with quad PPCs at point blank range. Not ERPPC...normal PPCs.

From Sarna:


On Field Inhibitor:




So there you have it.

A PPC fired inside 90m without disabling the inhibitor should be doing very little damage. As in, 1 point of damage.

A PPC fired inside 90m range with the inhibitor off (it could become a keybind option) should have the following effects:
--- Instand 10 damage applied to internals in location of PPC.
--- Based on target distance it has a chance to explode (20m=70%, 40m=40%, 40m=20%, 90m=10%)


Also, PPCs need to have their heat returned to canon amounts. It should be 10 for the PPC and 15 for the ER. The reason the PPC was tweaked to current levels was because of the half second delay between click and weapon fire and the fact that there was no damage rewind code... back then hitting with a PPC was very difficult and required a lot of weapon fire...and back then we did not have the DHS in the engines to 2.0 either.

Helmer, on 13 July 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

I still like the solution some have put forward before. Negative feedback. The damage is (or at least should be) figured linearly as a mech gets closer inside the 90m min range. So at 45m the PPC should be doing 5 pts of damage. The other 5 points should go towards the PPCs individual health of 10. Once the PPC takes 10 pts of damage, its done.



Cheers.

That's I think the basis of the old game rules, as you had a chance the internal damage that was received could do that.

But I like your approach a bit better. Under 90m there should be a reduction of damage the target recieves and an increase in what the PPC get hit with.

> 90m nomral
90-89 9 damage, 1 self
80-79 8 damage, 2 self
70-69 7, 3
60-59 6, 4
50-49 5, 5
40-39 4, 6
30-29 3, 7
20-19 2, 8
10-9 1, 9 self
0 range is 0 damage, 10 self (face it, it happens sometimes)

So its either fire outside 90m or eventually loose the PPC, although I am partial to the internal damage idea. Chance you'll loose something else like an the shoulder joint and tear your own arm off.

[SMDMadCow]

In basic TT rules the min range only makes PPCs harder to hit with and does not negate any damage or cause other detrimental effects to mech, weapon, or pilot.

[Otto Cannon]

Meh. Nerf ppcs and you'll just drive people to erppcs and be taking full short range damage instead of reduced.