532 replies to this topic

[Lightfoot]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 03 December 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

Read the latest epistle from St Paul -Clan mechs will be skin deep only in their resemblance to BT. Fine by me as IS anyways. It also means we might get the invasion sometime this decade.

What a shame. I kept encouraging them to make the mechs tougher so they would have a chance to stand up to Clan weapons. It's such a rich source of roleplay lore for MechWarrior. Cross-tech and some sort of salvage aquisition for IS would be better than no Clan tech at all. You want more options in MWO than LRMs, Lasers, and AC20/AC5/AC2. An MMO has to keep moving forward to survive.

[Solis Obscuri]

Bront, on 29 November 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

If heat dissipation worked better, then I might agree, but it's a multi-pronged problem. 1) DHS don't shed heat as fast as they should. 2) PPC/ERPPCs generate a huge amount of heat in addition to being the largest and heaviest energy weapons 3) On the other hand, Balistics have a higher ROF, significantly better HPS profile and DPS profile, meaning they not only are better in a vaccuum, they're significantly more heatsink friendly (point 1) which more than makes up for the ammo they need (which was buffed) If they were to fix 1 and/or 3, then 2 might be less of an issue. 1 and 3 impact all energy weapons, not just PPCs.

Ballistics are heavy and their ammo explodes.

[Sug]

Solis Obscuri, on 03 December 2013 - 08:14 PM, said:

Ballistics are heavy and their ammo explodes.

*plays world's saddest song on the world's smallest violin*

[Lightfoot]

Solis Obscuri, on 03 December 2013 - 08:14 PM, said:

Ballistics are heavy and their ammo explodes.

Ballistics also beat ERPPCs 95% of the time right now. And if you run 3xERPPC or such they are heavier per DPS with 20-22 double heatsinks and critical space used. Plus just use CASE and ammo explosions don't damage the Mech (they say).

Anyway, there are valid advantages to both, but ERPPCs are too hot for DHS 1.4's, so if you just use one with guns, it works fine, but if your mech needs to use 2 or 3 ERPPCs it becomes very unfair, unbalanced and 3xERPPC, like the AWS-9M stock carries, doesn't compete at all, it just shuts down and dies.

[Solis Obscuri]

ERPPCs work fine as long as you don't try to use a whole bunch of them at once. I don't see very many 'mechs carrying 3 AC/20s and firing them at the same time.

[Karl Streiger]

Solis Obscuri, on 03 December 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

ERPPCs work fine as long as you don't try to use a whole bunch of them at once. I don't see very many 'mechs carrying 3 AC/20s and firing them at the same time.

What is a whole bunch?
You can't hardly ever fire 3 of them (you need at last 16 DHS) to make it possible.
You can fire 2 ER-PPC only 6 times in a row - when you have installed 24 DHS (i didn't found any Mech where it is possible to mount more heat sinks) (was Orion with 350XL (without armor you can have 26 but that didn't give you any advantage.

Well have said it before - say it again: on of the BIG THREE balancing problems are not the weapons - you can give a ER-PPC 12 heat or 13 heat and hardly anything will change - its the heat system and the BIG BUFF to get a heat capacity of 50 - just for upgrading your heatsinks to DHS.

(Dual AC 20 could be fired on every Mech capable to have this combo with 10 DHS - 2 times - ignoring Ghost heat - and after that you can blast away the remains of armor with single fire.... not a big drawback)

Only advantage of the ER-PPC to the AC 20 is the range - and when i look at those maps - range isn't that important.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 04 December 2013 - 12:13 AM.

[Bront]

Solis Obscuri, on 03 December 2013 - 08:14 PM, said:

Ballistics are heavy and their ammo explodes.

Heat sinks to fire PPCs reliably are heavy and take up a ton of space. Overheating damages your mech so you explode faster. There are ways to mitigate ammo explosion issues (CASE, using the ammo location intelligently), and by the time your ammo is exploding, you're already taking internal damage, where you could have just as likely lost a weapon or a heat sink if you had those in there instead.

Beyond that, Ammo has been buffed enough that you don't need to take that much ammo, 1-3 tons per weapon is usually enough. LRM Boats? Now they can complain about ammo.

And in exchange, you get weapons that create virtually no heat, have obscene "effective" ranges beyond the normal effective range due to the 3x range setup, and a weapon that puts all of it's damage into a single location instantly when you hit.

Yes, Ammo and explosions are a balancing factor, but if you notice, folks aren't screaming "OMG! Ammo explosions are risky! I'm going all energy!" It's more "mount as many ACs as you can, and then see what energy weapons you can tack on.

Every weapon will never be 100% equal, but better balance would mean it's an interesting choice to take one over the other, where as now, it's Ballistics > All.

Edited by Bront, 04 December 2013 - 08:10 AM.

[SniperCon]

ERPPCs are not too hot. I can run 2xERPPC practically heat neutral. The new ERPPC Stalker

Single heatsinks FTW

[JohnnyWayne]

55 Tons for 20 pin point alpha on an assault. Seems legit.

[Karl Streiger]

SniperCon, on 04 December 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

ERPPCs are not too hot. I can run 2xERPPC practically heat neutral. The new ERPPC Stalker

Single heatsinks FTW

I see what you did there.
(to add that many heatsinks is a pain in Smurfy eh?)

Edited by Karl Streiger, 05 December 2013 - 12:32 AM.

[SniperCon]

Karl Streiger, on 05 December 2013 - 12:32 AM, said:

I see what you did there.
(to add that many heatsinks is a pain in Smurfy eh?)

I'd much rather add SHS in Smurphy than take them into battle.

[Lefty Lucy]

SniperCon, on 04 December 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

ERPPCs are not too hot. I can run 2xERPPC practically heat neutral. The new ERPPC Stalker

Single heatsinks FTW

Two ERPPCs on a sub-50-kph mech is pathetically bad.

Edit: holy triple-strength-myomer, I didn't even look at the armor on that mech. It's a bad mech. You should feel bad for suggesting it.

Edited by Lefty Lucy, 05 December 2013 - 09:18 PM.

[SniperCon]

Lefty Lucy, on 05 December 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

Two ERPPCs on a sub-50-kph mech is pathetically bad.

Edit: holy triple-strength-myomer, I didn't even look at the armor on that mech. It's a bad mech. You should feel bad for suggesting it.

What's pathetically bad are ERPPCs and single heat sinks. I couldn't figure out which was worse so I made a mech with both to hopefully settle the score. I still don't know which is worse though.

[Lefty Lucy]

SniperCon, on 06 December 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

What's pathetically bad are ERPPCs and single heat sinks. I couldn't figure out which was worse so I made a mech with both to hopefully settle the score. I still don't know which is worse though.

There are a few builds where SHS gives you mathematically better heat efficiency. You can build an Atlas RS with 4 LPL and SHS that runs cooler than with DHS for example. Not that it's a good build.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Karl Streiger, on 04 December 2013 - 12:13 AM, said:

What is a whole bunch?
You can't hardly ever fire 3 of them (you need at last 16 DHS) to make it possible.
You can fire 2 ER-PPC only 6 times in a row - when you have installed 24 DHS (i didn't found any Mech where it is possible to mount more heat sinks) (was Orion with 350XL (without armor you can have 26 but that didn't give you any advantage.

Well have said it before - say it again: on of the BIG THREE balancing problems are not the weapons - you can give a ER-PPC 12 heat or 13 heat and hardly anything will change - its the heat system and the BIG BUFF to get a heat capacity of 50 - just for upgrading your heatsinks to DHS.

Agreed. The root cause here id the heat system itself, and heat dissipation rates ported from TT with engine external DHS doing only 1.4 heat dissipation every 10 secs, and the massive asymmetric increase in weapon firing speeds. However, PGI seems adamant in maintaining that fail system and balancing based on weapon heat, firing speeds, and "projectile speed" or beam duration.

So the original OP was argued from that perspective. Bringing ERPPC down to 12 heat again would only marginally mitigate the sustainability issue compared to comparable ballistics. The other objective of the OP was to show that PGI's "balancing" philosophy and justification fr raising ERPPC heat is erroneous, and that they have only achieved generating an even less balanced system. Add to that the laser issues, and non-ballistic mechs currently are at a severe disadvantage.

PGI needs to totally rework the system. All of this should have been evident initially, but like many organizations, they go for the short term fix that causes long term problems.

[Damia Savon]

Damocles69, on 06 October 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

so... you want PPC warrior back? NO they are fine L2P

How about we balance everything by making all weapons that do the same damage have the same heat.

Then we avoid the massive AC builds we have now and force a mixed weapon load out.

Or just up AC10 heat to 5, and AC/UAC5 to 3?

How about adding ghost heat to any AC5/10 types when you fire two or more?

My personal favorite is cutting the ammo per ton by 1/3. That forces AC heavy builds to take more ammo and fewer ACs and increases the real risk of running out of ammo during a match. The fear of running out of ammo should be present in every game. That is supposed to be the downside of ballistic weapons.

Gotta crush all the ballistic weapons in the game under the boot just like every other weapon has been crushed in a total overreaction to people flipping out.


Or gee, make PPCs/ER PPCs actual, viable weapons for energy builds. It is utterly moronic that it is more effective to run ACs in my K2 than the PPCs/ERPPCs that are supposed to be its primary weapons. I'd love to run them in my Jester but it runs hot enough.

It is like forcing a Catapult to use something other than LRMs as their main weapon, oh wait.. LRM have totally be smashed by total nerfing.

How about every Jager being forced to use lasers and machine guns because autocannons generate too much heat. Even people who bought the Firebrand tend to just use a couple autocannons and maybe a couple MLas backup.

It is the rare player who will not put autocannon in a ballistic slot when possible. Frankly the primary complaint of most mechs is the lack of ballistics. When was the last time people whined because a design lacked energy or missile slots?

[Damia Savon]

Asian Tupac, on 06 October 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

The strength of the ER PPC is in its versatility, you can put it on many different chassis because it is not as limited by weight or hardpoint and it works at all ranges. The price you pay for that versatility is heat penalty. When you create a situation where the ER PPC is equal to all other weapons and can fit all chassis with no significant penalty, then you create a situation where there is no incentive to use anything other than ER PPCS (hence the PPCwarrior of the past few months).

That is utterly ridiculous. Might as well give ML 15 heat because it is probably the most common weapon in the game and thus the most versatile. Small mechs that run high heat energy weapons limit themselves because those weapons cycle too slowly and generate too much heat, thus limit the overall performance of the mech.

Right now there is limited incentive to use all missile or all energy builds but no such thing to prevent all ballistic builds. I dunno about you but every match I drop into has multiple Jagers and Cataphracts but few energy builds and those tend to be assaults because they have the tons for the heat sinks.

The heat issue is why so many complained about the Jester. The single most demanded item for the build was ballistics and then missiles.

[Damia Savon]

Andross Deverow, on 29 October 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

ER PPC are not too hot. They are good where they are. They are not meant to be boated which is where mos of the complainers come from. The weapon is now a niche gun. Which is how it is meant to be.
I currently have around 8 mechs with a single ER PPC on them along with a good balanced brawl setup and or maybe a little more range damage. I seldomly overheat as I use the hot gun for its designed pourpose of dishing 10 pinpoint damage at extreme or long range.
Medium range just switch it up to lrms, ballistic or a heavy laser. Short range have a few med lasers and or some srms.
Its not rocket science, its heat management and a balanced set-up. Of course people are going to have problems when they dont make balanced builds, loading up on hot guns they deserve to overheat.

Regards,

My K2 is *supposed* to use PPCs/ERPPCs as its primary weapon, not ballistics. Exactly how many PPC K2 do you see as opposed to K2 carrying dual AC5/UAC5/AC10/AC20 even Gauss.

The K2 is supposed to run PPC weapons comfortably. It is not supposed to be a ballistic platform.

It is not a *boat*. Sheesh. Gain a clue.

[Karl Streiger]

Lupus Aurelius, on 08 December 2013 - 09:52 AM, said:

Agreed. The root cause here id the heat system itself, and heat dissipation rates ported from TT with engine external DHS doing only 1.4 heat dissipation every 10 secs, and the massive asymmetric increase in weapon firing speeds. However, PGI seems adamant in maintaining that fail system and balancing based on weapon heat, firing speeds, and "projectile speed" or beam duration.

...


PGI needs to totally rework the system. All of this should have been evident initially, but like many organizations, they go for the short term fix that causes long term problems.

While a heat dissipation rate of 2 and a scaled down heat for the ER-PPC might help - it wont chance the initial problem.
Even with a dissipation rate of 2 the system is not working in a predictable way.

Some might say that the ACs also suffer with heat because of the larger rate of fire, but there is a reason why a Mech can work with 2 AC 10s but not with 2 ER-PPCs + heatsinks.

I think the problem is based on the 30 heat scale - that has no other impact than an increased heat capacity.
Without additional penalties - this 30 points must be removed/reduced. It favors Mechs and weapon load outs that don't deal so much heat. The Jenner F or the ballistic Mechs make good use with that additional 30 bonus for nothing.

The next problem is it destroys somehow the efficiency ratio of heatsinks - when you have 10 DHS - do you expect that a Mech with 20 DHS perform twice as good?

Yes you do: but even with the full 2 Dissipation - > the heat capacity is only 40% better over the 10 DHS. So again heat capacity is the problem not dissipation.

I can say without doubt that the 30 point heat scale have to be removed if there is no other impact on the game but keeping the system off balance.
After that you can scale heat and dissipation rates as well as internal heat capacity - simpler and more transparent.

Of course you have to scale rates of fire and heat/damage accordingly.

It should never be an alternative to use 2 PPCs and more heatsinks instead of 3 PPCs (same goes for the ER-PPC)

[Nryrony]

There are too main issues here:
Hard points and heat dissipation.
If the hard points where not dedicated to a specific weapon type, we wouldn't have this discussion right now. However, it is a core component of this game in terms of mech and chassis diversity.
Since we have established that the hard points won't be touched, heat dissipation needs,to be fixed. However, aside from ghost heat, we might require a different kind of limitation for the maximum number of ppcs on a mech.

Edited by Nryrony, 09 December 2013 - 01:04 AM.