70 replies to this topic

[ShinVector]

BrockSamsonFW, on 03 November 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

The result of this relatively flat damage across all configurations is that lasers are either underpowered on heavy and assault mechs or overpowered on light and medium mechs. I think this is one factor in why external DHS have 1.4 instead of 2 heat dissipation. Most mechs carry roughly the same amount of heatsinks so a straight buff to dissipation rates would increase the DPS across all chassis weights equally and and the lighter mechs would become absurdly powerful.

Apparently lasers are over power on light and medium mechs and under powered on assaults and heavies.
I SEE...

I would like to put more PPCs and AC20s on lights mechs. Hope PGI can reduce the weight.

[Training Instructor]

I like the idea of the DHS being more effective in heavier chassis.

If you put a fast computer processor in a very small box, it will struggle to shed heat. If you put it in a bigger box you increase the volume of space it can dump heat into.

For fun, I ran a 24dhs battlemaster with six medium lasers, two machine guns, and an erppc. While brawling with just the medium lasers and the machine guns, the mech still overheats way too easily.

Lower heat cap and higher dissipation is what we need. It makes more sense.

[DerMaulwurf]

Two things:

1. The sustained DPS value on smurfi (still a great site) is useless. That is, because it cannot understand and calculate proper bracket fire. For example if you equip both a ER-PPC and 4 ML it will show a lower sustained dps than for either of these weapon systems on their own, although they are intended to be used separately in their respective range bands for sustained fire and only simultaneously in last-ditch alphas.

2. The Battlemaster's advantage is being able to load heat efficient ballistics on top of enough energy weapons to make your heat sinks glow. If you don't make use of that and only load up your crits with DHS that's your own failure.


I would be very careful with inducing sweeping changes just because some bad loadouts don't work out, when there are working ones available. People should be expected to build a mech to its strengths. Especially when the proposed fix to a non-issue poses the risk of creating real balance problems.

[ShinVector]

Training Instructor, on 05 November 2013 - 02:22 AM, said:

I like the idea of the DHS being more effective in heavier chassis.

If you put a fast computer processor in a very small box, it will struggle to shed heat. If you put it in a bigger box you increase the volume of space it can dump heat into.

For fun, I ran a 24dhs battlemaster with six medium lasers, two machine guns, and an erppc. While brawling with just the medium lasers and the machine guns, the mech still overheats way too easily.

Lower heat cap and higher dissipation is what we need. It makes more sense.

Why are people overlooking the fact bigger mech can equip bigger engines with In engine DHS that run at true 2.0 ??
They should seriously make Assault Mech Online for you people.

[Troutmonkey]

Wait, someone is seriously trying to say that Assault mechs are underpowered? How you not dropped at all lately!? It's all assaults and heavies, with a few broken spiders thrown in the mix. Weapons should not scale with the mechs. A light and an assault holding the same gun are firing the same gun, but the assault can hold bigger guns or more of the smaller ones (while also being able to take much more damage).

[Roland]

BrockSamsonFW, on 05 November 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

You guys are both assuming an ideal situation where a laser user begins a fight within optimal range and with 0 heat. It just doesn't work like that.

No, dude. Folks are pointing out to you that in real world gameplay situations, your perception of DPS being an important factor aren't actually true.

You need more experience playing the actual game.

[Asyres]

I feel like there's an easy solution to this -- strip off some of those DHS, maybe drop some engine rating, and give your Battlemaster an adequate armament. Arguing that it's wrong that an Assault with only backup weapons is only slightly better than a Jenner in one, largely irrelevant metric strikes me as inane, at best.

ShinVector, on 05 November 2013 - 03:56 AM, said:

Why are people overlooking the fact bigger mech can equip bigger engines with In engine DHS that run at true 2.0 ??
They should seriously make Assault Mech Online for you people.

Because that's only true for the first 10 sinks. Every mech 30 tons or heavier can equip an engine large enough to get 10 in-engine sinks at .2 heat per second each. Additional heatsinks slotted into the engine retain their normal dissipation, so all you gain by increasing your engine rating is more space to play with, essentially.

Edited by Asyres, 05 November 2013 - 06:43 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

DerMaulwurf, on 05 November 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

1. The sustained DPS value on smurfi (still a great site) is useless. That is, because it cannot understand and calculate proper bracket fire. For example if you equip both a ER-PPC and 4 ML it will show a lower sustained dps than for either of these weapon systems on their own, although they are intended to be used separately in their respective range bands for sustained fire and only simultaneously in last-ditch alphas.

Go to weapon lab, set whatever mech efficiencies you want and turn the weapons not in a particular bracket down to 0%, presto, bracket fire simulated.
If only the damn think would factor in map heat and heat spikes...

Edited by Satan n stuff, 05 November 2013 - 07:43 AM.

[Kunae]

BrockSamsonFW, on 03 November 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

A 35 ton Jenner (http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9719f2ca74690b5) with 6xML and 18 DHS. The weapon system requires 14 tons and 30 critical slots which results in a 30 damage alpha and 3.9 sustained DPS.


A 35 ton Jenner (http://mwo.smurfy-ne...552d1c9270ebe0b) with 1xLL and 3xSL. The weapon system requires 12.5 tons and 23 critical slots which results in an 18 damage alpha and 3.84 sustained DPS.

What absolutely stupid Jenner builds. You've obviously never really played one.

[aniviron]

PEEFsmash, on 03 November 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

YOU POSTED A 127KPH JENNER AS AN EXAMPLE OF A JENNER.

Dear ***** lord.

Jenners typically have between 13 and 14 DHS.

Yeah, I was shocked nobody else pointed this out. I actually bothered clicking the link he posted, and the build he recommends is running an xl250 and one of the rear side torsi has no armor; while it may be possible to jam 18dhs into a Jenner, the most you can realistically fit is 15, but if you want jumpjets and don't want to cut armor, you're talking 13 or 14. That makes a HUGE difference in the amount of damage you can sustain long-term.

And yes, taking a laser-only assault is a painful experience right now. I should know, I have an AWS-8Q and 9M. Ghost heat is pretty crippling to large laser builds, and large pulse lasers are just bad. Fix one or both of those things, and assault mechs with lasers are better. I'd also beg to differ that making dhs into true 2.0 sinks would buff lights even more, as that only affects external heatsinks, and almost all of a light's heatsinks are going to be in-engine, whereas an assault that relies heavily on energy weapons has at least 8-10 external sinks, if not more.

Edited by aniviron, 05 November 2013 - 09:23 AM.

[PEEFsmash]

BrockSamsonFW, on 04 November 2013 - 11:50 PM, said:

With the second idea we would increase the weight of lasers but in return we are reducing the amount of heatsinks required to run them. With the third idea we would increase the weight of heatsinks but make them better so you don't need as many. In either case the buff/nerf combo would be balanced so that light and medium mechs retain roughly the same performance that they have now.

If done correctly these buff/nerf combos would change little or nothing for lighter mechs. The changes would occur only for heavier mechs which would get a small buff proportional to the amount of extra tonnage that they can dedicate to their weapon systems.

If you can't read this post and understand that what you are suggesting is a direct buff to heavy and assault mechs and a relative nerf to lights and mediums, then you have lost your mind and should not be allowed to post on the forums ever again.

You are saying, "Let's keep Lights and Mediums the same, and make Heavies and Assaults better. That won't make Lights and Mediums worse relative to Heavies and Assaults!"

Leave the forum.

[Gorgo7]

PEEFsmash, on 03 November 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

YOU POSTED A 127KPH JENNER AS AN EXAMPLE OF A JENNER.

Dear ***** lord.

Jenners typically have between 13 and 14 DHS.

Stick with the topic.

It's an interesting point.

I just built a Thunderbolt with the same firepower as my Awesome (same number of hardpoints) using lasers only.
x4 med and x3 lrg. Heatsinks, DHS are the same number. My Thunderbolt is faster but has less armour.

I'm pretty sure I could replicate it in a Hunchback.

So you tell me...what gives?

[Kunae]

Gorgo7, on 05 November 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Stick with the topic.

It's an interesting point.

I just built a Thunderbolt with the same firepower as my Awesome (same number of hardpoints) using lasers only.
x4 med and x3 lrg. Heatsinks, DHS are the same number. My Thunderbolt is faster but has less armour.

I'm pretty sure I could replicate it in a Hunchback.

So you tell me...what gives?

When idiotic straw-men are created as the premise for an absurd topic, it's absolutely on-topic to show them to be false.

[PEEFsmash]

Gorgo7, on 05 November 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Stick with the topic.

It's an interesting point.

I just built a Thunderbolt with the same firepower as my Awesome (same number of hardpoints) using lasers only.
x4 med and x3 lrg. Heatsinks, DHS are the same number. My Thunderbolt is faster but has less armour.

I'm pretty sure I could replicate it in a Hunchback.

So you tell me...what gives?

Show me your builds.

And, who cares about all of this mathwarrior? The fact is that the armor is so important, and allows you so much more return-fire ability, that the fact that laser DPS doesn't directly scale with mech weight is still leaving us with overpowered heavy and assault mechs. So there really is no basis for complaint.

[Stelar 7]

BrockSamsonFW, on 03 November 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

It does have much more armor yes, but it is also much more vulnerable because it is much larger, much slower, and not nearly as maneuverable. On larger slower mechs like this the sustained DPS rating becomes even more important because you can't simply run away and escape. A Jenner can hit-and-run for 30 damage alphas all day long. A Battlemaster will fire a few times, overheat, and die. The sustained DPS is not nearly enough to brawl so your only choice is to snipe with a few LL/PCC and hope that nobody gets close to you.

Emphasis mine,

This was where you completely lost me. Your perception of how these two mechs play out is so absurdly far from how they actually play that you clearly either have no idea what you are talking about, or your are trolling.

The battlemaster can probably overheat, shut down and survive. A shut down Jenner is dead. You are also, like so many on the other thread, focusing on DPS over all other metrics, which is an error, for all the reasons you have heard.

Finally, you are grossly overstating the benefits of ballistics and the draw backs of lasers, while totally ignoring PPC. It would be like talking about Autocannons and refusing to mention the AC20, or treating them all as if they had that weapon's power.

[aniviron]

Gorgo7, on 05 November 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Stick with the topic.

It's an interesting point.

I just built a Thunderbolt with the same firepower as my Awesome (same number of hardpoints) using lasers only.
x4 med and x3 lrg. Heatsinks, DHS are the same number. My Thunderbolt is faster but has less armour.

I'm pretty sure I could replicate it in a Hunchback.

So you tell me...what gives?

His point is that nobody would run a jenner that only uses an XL250, or at least, no jenner pilot worth being afraid of. It's too slow to be an effective light mech. It's like posting a triple-gauss Ilya build and then talking about it as though it were good or something that people run a lot, and using it to compare to other mechs. Is it possible to run a 3-gauss Ilya? Sure. Is it a good idea, or something that people run a lot? No.

It's the same thing with the jenner. Yes, you could run it with an xl250 and no armor and 18 heatsinks, but nobody does, because it's a bad build even if it does let you get a lot of something. So comparing that build to another one and saying "look at this build I made, it is representative of the typical cooling ability of a light mech" is disingenuous. That's what PEEF is saying, albeit a little, um, more forcefully.

[Gorgo7]

aniviron,

Thanks for the polite reply!

[redacted]

Edited by miSs, 05 November 2013 - 11:56 AM.

[Deathlike]

I like how we're theorywarrioring builds that would very likely die from sheer laughter from the opponents.

Let me use a better analogy for the OP to consider:

Baseball has been a big game of numbers, but if you go old school, people will tell you that there's more to the game than the numbers say. That is what people have been trying to "expand" the numbers to have more descriptive understanding their implications.

For instance, a batter may have faced a pitcher going 1 for 30 for his lifetime stat. This could happen for whatever reason. However, this batter is on fire with a 10-game hitting streak. Would you have benched this batter altogether because the pitcher owns him?

Another instance, a closer has a terrible time facing a particular batter, going 5 for 10 (many hits, including a HR) in his lifetime stat. Do you suddenly just not use the closer to face this particular batter when the bases are loaded with 2 outs in the 9th inning while your team has a one run lead?

You have to understand the context of what you're talking about before you give out "proposed" loadouts that would not be fielded by an above average player. In fact, it helps a lot to play it and understand how it functions and not totally rely on the numbers the use of a Light mech is COMPLETELY different than the use of an Assault.

There's just no other nice way to say it.

[LoPanShui]

Ballistics Damage vs Chassis Tonnage

A 30 ton Spider can only mount, at most, 4 MGs, 2 AC/2s, 1 AC/5 or 1 AC/10 on anything even remotely practical, and that is by the farthest definition of practical.

A 65 ton Jager can mount 6 MGs, 6 AC/2s, 4 AC/5s, 2 AC/10s, 2 AC/20s or 2 Gauss Rifles. As such a Jager can out DPS a Spider by at least 33%, and more like 75%.

Hi. This is MechWarrior, where there's this thing called balancing. A light Mech can move fast and is hard to hit, but is forced to use Lasers due to the exorbitant weight of ballistics and their ammo. In return, Lights tend to have much less range than heavies and overheat faster, forcing them to avoid prolonged engagements.

Heavies can mount many ballistics, which allows them much better heat management and range in return for being slower. They also mount lasers, usually as backup weapons for the heavier weapons the lights can't effectively use.

When the topic comes up that Lights are better at using light weapons than Heavies then the answer is YES. It's called diminishing returns. Everything about the Jenner is designed from the ground up to make the most use of lower weight lower crit slot weapons.

Heavies are better at using heavy weapons than Lights as well. Everything about the Heavy is designed from the ground up to make the most use out of heavy, high crit slot weapons.

If you're giving a Battlemaster 6 Medium Lasers and nothing else it's just as ludicrous as jamming an AC/20 into a Raven. It can work, and it's surprising, but you're failing to utilize the inherent advantages of the chassis as a whole.

Medium laser effectiveness caps out around 6. Diminishing returns after that make any medium laser after 6 less effective than the others simply due to heat sink worries. The 7th medium Laser is really only about 75% as effective, the 8th 50%, the 9th 25%. They do the same amount of damage, but even without ghost heat you've hit a threshold (19+ heat) that make the dissipation of the excess heat, even without the ghost heat mechanic, for those extra lasers more trouble than they're worth.

Because of this effect of diminishing returns the medium laser's effectiveness is soft capped at the 45 ton range. A Hunchback with 6 MLs can carry nearly the same number of heatsinks as a Battlemaster with 6 MLs, making taking them for the heavier Mech not only suboptimal, but rather ludicrous because the Assault can be much more effective utilizing weaponry designed for its class, which makes better use of its superior tonnage.

Essentially, you are correct in your hypothesis but incorrect in your conclusion. You assume that because Assaults make poor use of lasers that they should receive a buff when, in actuality, because assaults make poor use of lasers you should be taking different weaponry that's designed with that class in mind.

[Clit Beastwood]

BrockSamsonFW, on 04 November 2013 - 11:27 PM, said:

Lights and mediums don't need to be nerfed. The point was that laser performance doesn't scale proportionally with chassis tonnage like other weapons systems do so as you increase your chassis tonnage a laser-based loadout becomes less and less competitive. What we need is a way to slightly buff laser performance on heavier mechs without unintentionally overpowering the lighter mechs.

The buff is that you have more armor on larger mechs.