532 replies to this topic

[Cest7]

OP makes good points.

How many ERPPCs do you see in game...?

[Karl Streiger]

Cest7, on 14 October 2013 - 10:49 PM, said:

OP makes good points.

How many ERPPCs do you see in game...?

Usually 2
Mount on my Mech

[JimboFBX]

just let this thread die already

[aniviron]

Peter Thorndyke IV, on 14 October 2013 - 03:13 AM, said:

:-) Fully aware of that suggestion, nevertheless, the Targeting Computer seems still a lot better.
(though, you are right about rather trying to push the current system in the right place, instead of trying to advocate a much better idea that nevertheless will probably not even be considered)
Especially since it would allow a really good way of inserting the Targeting Computer as a meaningfull Asset instead as spare crits and tons, as the Command Console currently is.

For what reason else would you need an Targeting Computer in a mech currently?
Right.
NONE ! The targeting is anyways pinpoint accurate as long as convergence is achived, basically making any mech we pilot currently being equipped with a Targeting Computer equivalent.

Targeting computer strengthens LRM tracking strength and shows an icon for PPCs, ballistics, and SRMs where you need to fire ahead of the target to hit if it is moving. Bam. Targeting computer is useful (for everything but lasers, I guess- any ideas?) but hardly OP. Best of all, it should definitely be doable, this is a pretty standard feature in most spaceflight sims that feature weapons with lead times.

[Peter Thorndyke IV]

aniviron, on 15 October 2013 - 12:03 AM, said:

Targeting computer strengthens LRM tracking strength and shows an icon for PPCs, ballistics, and SRMs where you need to fire ahead of the target to hit if it is moving. Bam. Targeting computer is useful (for everything but lasers, I guess- any ideas?) but hardly OP. Best of all, it should definitely be doable, this is a pretty standard feature in most spaceflight sims that feature weapons with lead times.

That wasn't the point Aniviron, the Targetingcomputer is probably not that much of an technical problem.
The point is, in the BT Universe accurate shots were only possible when your directfire weapons were controlled by a massive Targeting Computer (1t and 1 crit per 5t of controlled weapons), else the weapons were hitting somewhere on the mech.

[FinsT]

Lupus Aurelius, on 06 October 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

... The following is hard data as to the ERPPC performance with current heat mechanics, as compared to the long range ballistic weapons. Please, regardless of your feelings or opinions, read the data and listen to what the data tells you, not to what you want the data to be.
...

There is much sense in the data you present. I agree that ER PPC heat is too high even considering its range and max range, the fact that it is expected to disable the target's ECM cover (if present) for 4 seconds, it's kinetic punch (impulse x damage). I agree it should be reduced at least to 12 if all the other stats remains as they are.

I've been running a few dual PPC games in one of my jagers (not even ER ones) and i still found the heat is too high for those weapon systems to be viable; and PCCs have only 10 heat per shot, not 15.

Just one thing, though. If you present data and compare dual ER PPCs to dual cannons' setups, then perhaps you might want to present the best practically possible heat dissipation setup (no matter it'd be very impractical to run a mech like that in a live game; just for the sake of data). And if you think you did that, - well, i guess you didn't, because:
- the best cooling efficiency i was able to do in mechlab for a dual ER PPC, dual-heatsinks mech - is 56%, and i DARE ya to make anything with dual heatsinks which is better than that!
- the best cooling efficiency i was able to do in mechlab for a dual ER PPC, SINGLE-heatsinks mech - is substantially higher at 71%.

I do suspect the latter one would fare much better than your dual-PPC setup, in the test you did.

It is of course nonsense to run a mech like these; and it's of course ridiculous that with 54 tons of heatsinks (total, including 10 built-in into the engine) - the thing is still at 71% cooling efficiency by using just two ER PPCs. Since it's wrong to increase cooling power of heatsinks just to fix one family of weapons, i therefore am firmly convinced indeed that ER PPC's heat per shot (and correspondedly, PPC's heat per shot as well) - is to be reduced quite much.

P.S. I wonder, can't PGI see through their stats how unpopular PPCs became? Don't they want to keep much/all of the existing content of the game to be viable and popular enough? Don't they want diversity? Sigh. May be they have no time for this, or may be it'll all be addressed in some incoming big patch. I dont' know. I can only hope it will be.

[Nryrony]

Yes they are too, hot, alteast with the current heat system.

ER PPCs need to be where regular PPCs are now, or slightly above.

To blance regular PPCs, one should increase the deadzone to 150 or even 200. In addition one could thing about adding a deadzone to the ER PPC.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Nryrony, on 15 October 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Yes they are too, hot, alteast with the current heat system.

ER PPCs need to be where regular PPCs are now, or slightly above.

To blance regular PPCs, one should increase the deadzone to 150 or even 200. In addition one could thing about adding a deadzone to the ER PPC.

That would be a bit drastic. ERPPCs should be hot, just not as hot as they are, and traditionally they have never had a minimum range. Current heat levels on the PPC are not far above large lasers, but they should go back to doing reduced damage under 90 meters.

ERPPCs at 10 heat would be too cool running, 12-13 would be more appropriate, but the current 15 is way too hot.

The real issue, as stated before, is preventing boating that allows for massive pinpoint alphas. And that should apply to any weapons, not just ERPPCs and PPCs. Convergence and almost omni-mech fitting capability. Unfortunately, with the current fitting and heat systems, the only method of balancing is heat and ghost heat, which impact the energy weapons the hardest, and has created the current set of imbalances.

No one wants the return of the 4-6 PPC Stalker, but using 2 ERPPCs on a mech should be viable. Currently, 2 PPCs on a mech can be viable, but with the amount of crits and tonnage to run 2 ERPPCs reasonably well, not counting other weapons, with the current heat levels is not viable.

[Ngamok]

Cest7, on 14 October 2013 - 10:49 PM, said:

OP makes good points.

How many ERPPCs do you see in game...?

I have many on many mechs still. My HGN-733P has 1, my HGN-732 has 2, my DRG-1C has 2 (runs hot but I use them for sniping, aslo has 2 ML for brawling), my DRG-1N has 1, my CDA-3C has 1, my HBK-4H has 1 still I believe, my CTF-1X has 2 (again torso for sniping, LL for brawling). But my favorite 2 weapons in this game have always been AC/20 and Large Lasers so I have more Large Lasers (ER and Pulse as well) on mechs with energy hard points in the arms than anything else.

Nryrony, on 15 October 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Yes they are too, hot, alteast with the current heat system.

ER PPCs need to be where regular PPCs are now, or slightly above.

To blance regular PPCs, one should increase the deadzone to 150 or even 200. In addition one could thing about adding a deadzone to the ER PPC.

No way in hell. If ER PPCs were that cool, I would put them on everything.

Edited by Ngamok, 15 October 2013 - 06:12 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

real reason of course is that teams need a safe way to cook bacon

[Lupus Aurelius]

Cathy, on 15 October 2013 - 06:25 AM, said:

real reason of course is that teams need a safe way to cook bacon

yummmmmmmmm.....bacon! Even vegetarians luv bacon...

[JimboFBX]

I hope the devs are taking names so that they know which people who's opinions they can safely ignore in this honeypot of ignorance

[Lupus Aurelius]

JimboFBX, on 14 October 2013 - 11:24 PM, said:

just let this thread die already

JimboFBX, on 15 October 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

I hope the devs are taking names so that they know which people who's opinions they can safely ignore in this honeypot of ignorance

In other words, your opinions, since you have offered no constructive input based on actual data, just an orifice farting...

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 15 October 2013 - 12:34 PM.

[Lupus Aurelius]

From this thread - http://mwomercs.com/...-was-excessive/

Mellifluer, on 15 October 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

ya check out my post on ghost heat,

http://mwomercs.com/...n/page__st__220

ac2's make WAAAAY to much heat and all the other ac's are overshadowed by the ac5, ultra 5, and ac20. realistically none of the other ac weapons compete at all, the lbx 10 is nice but the ac20 craps all over it if your not packing a lbx 20 (2x lbx 10's), which is both heavier and hotter then 1 ac20.

Don't know why he necro'd that thread, this is the recent one with the math...

[Karl Streiger]

Hello - here is the broken record again.

Have you allready updated your math with ER-Large Lasers?

Do you know what is funny - if they buff the ER-PPC back to 13 heat - hardly anything will change - most mechs with most combinations of heat sinks will still overheat as fast as with 15heat - (we are talking about 4 heat - with 20 DHS this heat could be dissipated within an additional 1.1 sec)

But people will start using ER-PPCs again - because they are cooler now -much cooler.

Oh before i forget - I now that ER-LargeLasers are more superior over PPCs... and i will choose 2 PPCs all the time over 2 ER-Large-Lasers as well i would choose a single ER-PPC all the time over 2 PPCs - its not only the math - some of us a psychos

[Lupus Aurelius]

Karl Streiger, on 16 October 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:

Hello - here is the broken record again.

Have you allready updated your math with ER-Large Lasers?

Do you know what is funny - if they buff the ER-PPC back to 13 heat - hardly anything will change - most mechs with most combinations of heat sinks will still overheat as fast as with 15heat - (we are talking about 4 heat - with 20 DHS this heat could be dissipated within an additional 1.1 sec)

But people will start using ER-PPCs again - because they are cooler now -much cooler.

Oh before i forget - I now that ER-LargeLasers are more superior over PPCs... and i will choose 2 PPCs all the time over 2 ER-Large-Lasers as well i would choose a single ER-PPC all the time over 2 PPCs - its not only the math - some of us a psychos

That is an entirely different topic than this. The premise of this study was weapons that deliver pinpoint damage at range, with emphasis on the ERPPC and the current over the top high heat. All the ballistics excepting the LB10X and machine guns are pinpoint, whereas all of the long range energy weapons, excepting the ERPPC and PPC, are not.

Of course, people will say "learn to aim", but the simple truth is that the ERLL and LL beam durations preclude pinpoint damage at range, since the beam has to be held on the same location the entire duration of the beam. When both you and the target are moving over uneven terrain, this becomes nigh unto impossible. The beam duration precludes sniping because of the above, and also because you have to stay exposed the entire time of the beam, but the beam is instantaneous contact with target.


The second reason is that heat on the ERLL and LL are not that bad. The ghost heat mechanic, however, and the impact on using more than 2 at a time, is harsh however, I would have prefered 3-4 before the penalties kicked in, but I have no data to back that up, it's just an opinion.

However, considering that the ERLL and LL deliver 9 damage each, vs. the 10 damage of the ERPPC/PPC, with significantly less heat and somewhat reduced range, it's not surprising we are seeing significantly more ERLL and LL builds. At least PGI didn't violate speed of light with lasers, unlike the ERPPC/PPC. But, the heat only starts dissipating at the end of the beam duration, as does the cooldown, effectively making the cycle time 4.25 seconds, instead of 3.25, making them have a slower recycle than the ERPPCs/PPCs.

Edit: Good post on weapon efficencies by Mustrum: http://mwomercs.com/...rts-2013-11-10/

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 16 October 2013 - 05:41 AM.

[Cereal Killer]

Interesting post but, if you are going to refer to a heat sink as "ammo" for an energy weapon, you need to account for the fact that a heat sink is "ammo" for all types of energy weapons whereas ballistics and missiles require specific ammo in addition to the heat sinks.

[General Taskeen]

The entirety of the problem isn't that weapon X is too hot, it is the Heat System itself that makes them ineffective - and I'm not talking about Ghost Heat. Everyone knows the true issue.

Let's look at a Stock Puma with 11DHS in MW3



As you can see previous games, you could not get away with firing more than 2 ER PPC's, at the same time, otherwise you risked going into the critical shutdown zone, since All Mechs had a fixed lower threshold. The more heat-sinks you had, the faster your heat dissipated, that's how it should work in real-time. The one major issue with the video above, of course, is the incredibly short cool down of 3.5 for an ER PPC. Games like MW:LL solved that simply by increasing the cool down between 6 and 8 seconds, but still kept it powerful and heat intensive.

Heat Sinks, and the way they work in MWO, are just in need of clear refinement and are critically overdue for an overhaul.

Edited by General Taskeen, 16 October 2013 - 07:09 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

The MW3 system was more like the S7 system.... you fired those ER-Large Laser of the Bushwacker in Mission 1:1 for the first time and you got instantly heat warnings...although the 12 SHS should have been enough to keep the heat at bay.

I really had hoped for such a system for MWO. It would have made "stock" mechs perform better - i have fired a Thunderbolt yesterday to the limits...and at this point I had to wait for 4 sec before i was able to fire a single medium laser.

Firing a weapon - or not firing has nothing to do with heat controll. Heat controll means to know when to fire a weapon. And firing 4 shots - wait 5sec until heat is at 75% fire a shot - wait 5 seconds....thats not heat controll....

[Lupus Aurelius]

General Taskeen, on 16 October 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

The entirety of the problem isn't that weapon X is too hot, it is the Heat System itself that makes them ineffective - and I'm not talking about Ghost Heat. Everyone knows the true issue.

Let's look at a Stock Puma with 11DHS in MW3



As you can see previous games, you could not get away with firing more than 2 ER PPC's, at the same time, otherwise you risked going into the critical shutdown zone, since All Mechs had a fixed lower threshold. The more heat-sinks you had, the faster your heat dissipated, that's how it should work in real-time. The one major issue with the video above, of course, is the incredibly short cool down of 3.5 for an ER PPC. Games like MW:LL solved that simply by increasing the cool down between 6 and 8 seconds, but still kept it powerful and heat intensive.

Heat Sinks, and the way they work in MWO, are just in need of clear refinement and are critically overdue for an overhaul.

Already been discussed earlier in this thread ( http://mwomercs.com/...t/page__st__100 ), and in multiple others, since closed beta. PGI shows no indication of considering it, therefore we are stuck in this perpetual cycle of discussing balance by weapon heat, and the continual "balancing" by heat. It's ludicrous, but it is the current system.

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 16 October 2013 - 11:24 AM.