84 replies to this topic

[Demos]

Basically I'd only make smaller adjustments to the PPC's:
. PPC: minimum range 90-45m linear reducing damage to '0', 44-0m no damage
- ERPPC: increasing velocity to 1750m/s

[FupDup]

General Taskeen, on 23 September 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Mmm, I think you know better than that FupDup. You are thinking in MWO PGI terms™. The only reason stock mechs are terrible in this game is literally due to design decisions - and bad ones at that, from heat design, trickling all the way down to weapon design and equipment design.

The video above is an exact stock Mech of a Prime Puma Variant in MW3 (with only 11 DHS, i might add) - which is why I posted in conjunction with stating that the Heat System in MWO is terrible in comparison. And as seen in the video, it can do fine with 2 ER PPC's and 11 DHS, being able to snipe (as it is meant to do) with impunity. By comparison a Mech in MWO with 11 DHS must take 30 seconds just to cool down. And Mechs with SHS, in MW3/4, can disappate heat much quicker than MWO - making stock Mechs completely viable. Even MW:LL has SHS Stock Mechs that work absolutely fine - again because design decisions in a real-time game. These are things I have tested consistently by going back to those games and comparing the heat system and stock designs and comparing them to MWO's.

Poor Design Decisions (I call it how I see it), thus far, have consistently made "stock" Mechs terrible in MWO compared to any other Mech Warrior game.

PGI's decisions do definitely increase the gap between stock and custom, but customs were always better in the lore turn-based environment. I'll explain more below. Note that I'm talking about these mechs in the context of the turn-based environment in which they were constructed; an environment in which custom builds outperform them (but to a lesser degree than MWO).

General Taskeen, on 23 September 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Stock Prime Madcat (MW3) - Stock Prime only caries 1 ton for 2 MG's, per Record Sheet, this is the same practically for any TT Mech with 2 MG's. This Mech in Stock format is a beast in MW3, and the MG's can actually destroy the armor.

2 MGs take 100 turns to use up 200 shots of ammo. Mechs almost never survive that long in TT, meaning that the ammo is fairly likely to take a critical hit and destroy the unit carrying it. The only time any mech should ever carry MG ammo is if it has enough MGs (something around 6 MGs per ton of ammo) to use it all up before its armor gets stripped (and it becomes vulnerable to crits).

FASA equipped many mechs with more MG ammo than they could ever hope to use up in order to increase their vulnerability, such as the Battlemaster, Thunderbolt, Mad Cat, Bushwacker, Hellbringer, and so on.

General Taskeen, on 23 September 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Urban Mech (MW4) - Easily defeated on open maps in MW4. In solaris and city maps, its a totally different ball game. For being so slow on those types of maps, it is actually quite powerful - which also has to do with better jumpjets.

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Puma (Flamer Example) (MW3) - 1 or 2 Flamers are very good in that game. They heat up Mechs instantly and do straight up damage.

The Urbie's main uses in TT were that it was really really low-cost to build, and had a really low BV. Basically, the Urbie was good if you wanted an AC/10 in a fun-sized and economical package. In actual combat it wasn't really that great unless going up against other lights in medium-close range combat (in which case the AC/10 could do some nice damage to them).

---

Flamers were never that great in TT. The Puma would've been more effective if FASA had given it an ER Small Laser instead. The ER SL even generates less heat on the firer and does 1 extra damage point.

General Taskeen, on 23 September 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Warhawk (design, too few heatsinks) (MW3) - Warhawk stock in that game does absolutely fine and acts just as it states in canon. You can stagger fire the ER PPC's, however using 4 ER PPC's at once will blow up your Mech. The amount of DHS stock in MW3 on that Mech quickly disappates the heat efficiently. This is due to the lower heat cap in that game, which is canon - and how it has been developed in every Mech Warrior game except MWO.

The Warhawk in TT carries 20 DHS, giving it 40 dissipation per turn. 4 ERPPCs generate 60 heat per turn. This results in a net heat per turn of 20. If the Warhawk ever fires all of its ERPPCs in a single turn, then it has a chance to shut down. That wasn't good enough for FASA, so they gave it LRM ammo to give it an ammo explosion risk for firing an alpha as well.
Basically, the Warhawk in TT can only viably use 3 of its ERPPCs for maybe 1-3 turns, and then use volley fire after that to prevent heat issues. The Warhawk carries 7 tons of dead weight at all times from that extra unused ERPPC (Targeting Computer extra weight). The weight used on the LRM10 and ammo would have been more useful if dedicated to extra DHS. Also, the Warhawk used Ferro Fibrous instead of Endo Steel, further reducing the mech's available tonnage by 1.

General Taskeen, on 23 September 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Using Case with XL Engine examples - The design in MWO is terrible, and that's just a fact. CASE should have been programmed, for a real time game, to prevent an XL engine from taking damage as well. In MW3, you can use an XL with CASE stock, and the case will prevent the ammo from doing damage to the engine.

This one I don't have an spiffy comebacks to, other than the fact that it may or may not make XL almost mandatory on most mechs due to the huge weight and speed gains compared to sacrificing 1 ton and 2 slots to put CASE in each side torso (also save slots due to engine-mounted DHS).

Edited by FupDup, 23 September 2013 - 07:37 AM.

[SteelPaladin]

FupDup, on 23 September 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

<Lots of pretty good analysis>

What you say is true, but I don't see this discussion being as much about making stock mechs optimal as it is about making them viable. The game designers are never going to be able to make all of their stock designs optimal unless they have pretty serious imbalances in the rules to make optimal obvious. There's just too much distributed processing that the community can throw at the designs to think that the designers' mechs will be at the bleeding edge.

The point is that a lot of stock designs were decent (a lot were also total garbage, but they were trying to sell TROs and there's only so many good ways you can combine BT weapons; I'm pretty sure that number is less than the few hundred official mech designs out there). You wouldn't be laughed off the table for dropping them on there. They may not have squeezed every drop of power possible out of their designs, but you didn't feel like target practice for running them. Sure, an Adder Prime might be better w/an ER Small Laser in a purely objective sense, but that's not going to make or break your game very often.

Stock versus custom in MWO WILL make or break your game very often because of the design decisions PGI has made, the majority of which were not mandatory for the translation of a turn-based game to real-time. They had to shorten the fire cycle of weapons; I get that. The rest is all for some design that PGI has that I have never understood and where the results of their choices seem to contradict their stated goals (like incentivizing heavy alpha strikes and boating when they say those are bad things) . It just doesn't make sense to me.

Edited by SteelPaladin, 23 September 2013 - 08:20 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Steel On TT would a Adder be better with 2 ERPPCs or 2 Large Pulse? An oversight in my opinion as the Targeting computer gives more bag or the buck with Pulse weapons.

[SteelPaladin]

Joseph Mallan, on 23 September 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

Steel On TT would a Adder be better with 2 ERPPCs or 2 Large Pulse? An oversight in my opinion as the Targeting computer gives more bag or the buck with Pulse weapons.

Depends on if you want to be able to aim. IIRC, pulse lasers can't do called shots w/a Targeting Computer (at least under the latest rules). PPCs can, so there's the choice between super accurate but still rolling hit locations and sacrificing some accuracy to be able to pick out that damaged panel.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Joseph Mallan, on 23 September 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

BattleTech Wiki/Auto Cannons
Which is referenced to Tech Manual Pg 207.

And no where does it say that ballistics are heat neutral, just that far less heat.

[Vodrin Thales]

Lupus Aurelius, on 20 September 2013 - 08:38 PM, said:

Correction, they are long range weapons, as is the AC2, AC5, Gauss. They can be used to snipe, or in long range engagement. Based on your premise, neither should the ballistics be able to be constantly fired while remaining heat neutral. Even if the ERPPC heat were dropped to 12 or 13. they still would not be heat neutral. Whereas dual AC5, and Gauss currently are heat neutral.

Based on your statement, then, heat needs to be increased on those ballistics so they will not be heat neutral when used at range.

If the ballistics were 7 tons, had unlimited ammo, did not explode when sneezed on (in the case of gauss), and did 10 or more damage per shot then your argument would have merrit.

PPC/ERPPC have two many other advantages over ballistics to not have a substantially higher heat penalty.

[Ngamok]

Tsig, on 20 September 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

Lupus, you seem to be under the assumption that Ballistics and Energy Weapons have to be exactly the same? PPCs were always meant to be the Energy Weapon version of the ACs. PPCs are free from Ammo constraints, but have high heat to compensate. Auto-Cannons have low heat, but have to carry ammo to do their damage. Thus, they both should, ideally, weigh the same amount after ammo/heatsinks are brought in.

Exactly which is why in the BT Universe, if an engagement meant long time on field with little to no resupply, the mechs chosen were all energy variants with little to no ammo dependant systems on them.

[Joseph Mallan]

Lupus Aurelius, on 23 September 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

And no where does it say that ballistics are heat neutral, just that far less heat.

Not neutral. But lower heat so they can actually be neutral. My AC40Jager was Heat Neutral (12 heat on 10 doubles) til some dummies came up with a false mechanic to fix a problem with convergence. 4 AC2s should be Heat Neutral with 10 Doubles also.

SteelPaladin, on 23 September 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

Depends on if you want to be able to aim. IIRC, pulse lasers can't do called shots w/a Targeting Computer (at least under the latest rules). PPCs can, so there's the choice between super accurate but still rolling hit locations and sacrificing some accuracy to be able to pick out that damaged panel.

Not any more they. But for over 20 years it was the best weapon to do calls with. As I think you know.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 24 September 2013 - 06:50 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

Joseph Mallan, on 24 September 2013 - 06:49 AM, said:

Not neutral. But lower heat so they can actually be neutral. My AC40Jager was Heat Neutral (12 heat on 10 doubles) til some dummies came up with a false mechanic to fix a problem with convergence. 4 AC2s should be Heat Neutral with 10 Doubles also.

Honestly? This I'd not have a problem with in theory, the only issue is that energy weapons, particularly beam-duration ones would need a considerable buff to remain competitive if ACs ran that cool. heating up the AC/40 Jaeger was, IMO, the wrong answer, but it was a tad too effective.

[focuspark]

PPC velocity should be put back to 2000 m/s, heat is fine. That's my opinion.

[Joseph Mallan]

Gaan Cathal, on 24 September 2013 - 06:58 AM, said:

[/size]

Honestly? This I'd not have a problem with in theory, the only issue is that energy weapons, particularly beam-duration ones would need a considerable buff to remain competitive if ACs ran that cool. heating up the AC/40 Jaeger was, IMO, the wrong answer, but it was a tad too effective.

Only because it was putting 40 damage on one Pixel. When we are massing weapon fire (alpha) Our reticule should get a little fuzzy. Many Mechs Fluff had lines saying they had targeting issues and needed work arounds... Like the House Liao 3025 Marauder (IIRC) they had to have a separate circuit for it's Large laser cause the TCPU could not handle the calculations.

[Gaan Cathal]

Joseph Mallan, on 24 September 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Only because it was putting 40 damage on one Pixel. When we are massing weapon fire (alpha) Our reticule should get a little fuzzy. Many Mechs Fluff had lines saying they had targeting issues and needed work arounds... Like the House Liao 3025 Marauder (IIRC) they had to have a separate circuit for it's Large laser cause the TCPU could not handle the calculations.

When, though? Either you need to pre-empt the choice to alpha (impossible), introduce a firing delay on alphas in order to expand the reticule (plain bad) or expand the reticule as the alpha is fired (pointless).

To be honest, whilst it's far too late in the day for this to work, the simplest solution to pinpoint alpha would simply be to remove alpha by introducing a global cooldown, whereby weapons are forced to fire sequentially. The problem with this of course, is the impact it has on mechs that boat a lot of small weapons (the HBK-4P, for example) since they'd need to be facing their target more or less continuously.

Note that I don't actually advocate the above approach, if the game is ruined by firing all your guns, there's a fundamental problem with the guns, IMO, not firing them all at once. The actual problem, I think, with the AC/40 Jaeger wasn't that it did 40 damage pinpoint. It's that it didn't sacrifice enough to do so. If falloff ranges weren't so extreme (say, only double for ballistics, same as energy) and the falloff was exponential, the mid-range weapons like the AC/10, AC/5 and LL would have an appreciable range window advantage over the AC/40 build, which - given that an AC/40 Jaeger is necessarily slow and/or running an XL with big side torsos - would make it a much more all-or-nothing build.

A dual-AC/10 Jaeger should, with the extra engine size and auxiliary weapons the tonnage saved gives it, have fairly even odds of taking out a dual-AC/20 Jaeger. However, at 450m, where the dual-AC/10 Jaeger is doing 20 damage pinpoint, the dual-AC/20 Jaeger is doing (AC/20 looses 1 damage every 27m after 270, 450-270= 180m of falloff, so damage is 20-((180/27)=~7)=13) 26 damage at the same range. It does more damage at AC/10 range than the AC/10. That's why it's a problem build.

[Bacl]

ERPPC's and PPC's heat is fine not but still get severly punished with the ghost heat system , much more then the rest. Awesome or even stalker running 3 or 4 PPC' sshould be able to do so but either by chaining fire or but colling off for 2 minutes ( that doesnt requires the thing to melt down tho).

People were complaining about 4 PPC's derp killed me... Use cover and get in his face, that simple. It has a huge weakness, if you dont exploit it then dont cry on the forums.

Gauss ER is another story since its high alpha damage with pixel precision from far too close. The heat from the 2 ERPPC's is a small tradeoff compared to the potetial of that weapon group. 4 or even 6PP'c were fine, huge ammount of heat, no damage under 90m ( wich is pretty big) specialy the 6 PPC's variant. That thing was shooting 1 full salvo every seasons because it has too cool off but as a tradeoff a well placed alpha could 1 shot small mechs.

[Joseph Mallan]

That's a fair question Gaan... maybe simulate it with a hard rocking of the Mech if more than 3 weapons fire simo???

I am a fan of the dual AC10, 3 Medium Build I used to have.

Limited ammo, No back up weapons, The always problematic XL engine... I'd say he trade offs are pretty fair as is. You have a fairly all or nothing build. That can be devastating or useless depending on the combat situation.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 24 September 2013 - 10:46 AM.

[Pale Jackal]

4 PPCs killing you was an issue because previously even if you were within 80m, there was only a minor reduction in damage.

PPCs are fine. Still use them frequently. ERPPC heat could be dropped to 14, then again, I was never a fan of ERPPCs, so I'm certainly not going to use them when their heat is 50% higher... I normally used 1 PPC and 1 ER PPC when ER PPC heat was only 33% greater.

[MaddMaxx]

Lupus Aurelius, on 20 September 2013 - 08:51 PM, said:

No where, in this game nor in Battletech, is that statement ever made. Please quote the source for that criteria. Otherwise, it is just your opinion on what it should be, unsubstantiated by any data. Please restrict yourself to the data as published by MWO and the BattleTech franchise.

Seriously! Go to Smurfy's data sheet, scroll down to Weapons. Now compare the Heat Column of the Ballistics to that of either the Energy or Missile columns. Those numbers, afaik, are BT values with the erPPC and PPC back to thwir nominal values (or very very close). I think the ML got an increase. Proof enough for a sane person I would guess.

The difference is as has been noted. AMMO versus the need for HS's.

P.S. Hopefully the AC2 may get another look at for Heat under the aka "Ghost" plan.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 24 September 2013 - 10:54 AM.

[Lupus Aurelius]

MaddMaxx, on 24 September 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

Seriously! Go to Smurfy's data sheet, scroll down to Weapons. Now compare the Heat Column of the Ballistics to that of either the Energy or Missile columns. Those numbers, afaik, are BT values with the erPPC and PPC back to thwir nominal values (or very very close). I think the ML got an increase. Proof enough for a sane person I would guess.

The difference is as has been noted. AMMO versus the need for HS's.

P.S. Hopefully the AC2 may get another look at for Heat under the aka "Ghost" plan.

Seriously! Learn to read. Someone made the statement that ballistics were meant to be heat neutral / no heat. I responded that no where in BT does it ever say that, and it does not.

Secondly, BT values are based on a 10 sec turn, with heat based on firing that weapon once every 10 seconds. Under Solaris rules, it's every 2.5 seconds per rounds, but each weapon still can only be fired every 10 seconds. Converting heat scale from a turn based to a realtime play means that it all has to be adjusted. So saying that it is the same heat in BT does not mean it is balanced here.

[redacted]

Edited by miSs, 29 September 2013 - 07:37 AM.
unnecessary

[Lupus Aurelius]

Bacl, on 24 September 2013 - 10:37 AM, said:

ERPPC's and PPC's heat is fine not but still get severly punished with the ghost heat system , much more then the rest. Awesome or even stalker running 3 or 4 PPC' sshould be able to do so but either by chaining fire or but colling off for 2 minutes ( that doesnt requires the thing to melt down tho).

People were complaining about 4 PPC's derp killed me... Use cover and get in his face, that simple. It has a huge weakness, if you dont exploit it then dont cry on the forums.

Gauss ER is another story since its high alpha damage with pixel precision from far too close. The heat from the 2 ERPPC's is a small tradeoff compared to the potetial of that weapon group. 4 or even 6PP'c were fine, huge ammount of heat, no damage under 90m ( wich is pretty big) specialy the 6 PPC's variant. That thing was shooting 1 full salvo every seasons because it has too cool off but as a tradeoff a well placed alpha could 1 shot small mechs.

Sorry, no. Here is what happened - a lot of people complained about the 2 PPC/ERPPC & Gauss combo, once ghost heat was introduced and heat increased on PPC/ERPPC effectively eliminated the 4-6 PPC builds. However, during the reign of the PPC Stalker, the Misery and Highlander had been basically running that 2 PPC/ERPPC & Gauss combo without much complaints, because everyone focused on the 4-6 PPC builds.

Once the 4-6 PPC builds became impractical, that's when the 2 PPC/ERPPC & Gauss combo started really showing up on the radar. Now, with both weapon systems having a 4 sec recycle time, there was weapon synergy, you could easily alpha pinpoint for 35 damage each volley.

PGIs solution, instead of looking at convergence and fixing that, was a double wammy. The charge mechanic by itself alone would have removed weapon synergy, making it harder to alpha a 2 PPC/ERPPC & Gauss combo. But they drastically increased heat on the ERPPC, 3 points, and removed damage under 90m from the PPC, and implemented the Gauss firing mechanic.

Excessive knee-jerk reaction, when simply adjusting convergence, or just the introduction of the Gauss charging mechanic, or even just changing the cycle time again on either the Gauss or PPC/ERPPCs would have sufficed. That drastic heat increase, combined with ghost heat, makes the ERPPC or Dual ERPPC builds impractical based on HPS/DPS potentials. It wasn't a balance, it was a burial.

And b4 anyone says anything about unlimited ammo, matches last 15 minutes against 12 opponents. Based on my original premise, with the dual AC5s, each has 3 tons of ammo, for a potential damage total for the Dual AC5s being 900 damage. Unless you are a pisspoor shot, that is more than sufficient during a 15 min 12 man match.

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 26 September 2013 - 09:33 AM.

[Komagn]

@Lupus

The ERPPC wasn't given drastic heat, it was brought back to what it is in TT and what it was in CB. The heats were lowerd because in CB, the speed was slow and it was hot and there was no HSR. They were really hard to use and too hot. Now, they are still faster than they were in CB and easier to use, but the heat is now back to what it was. I'm fine with it.