55 replies to this topic

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Well... except that some of us -like- using smaller missile tube sets. For a good while I had an LRM-10 in a four-tube slot on one of my Cataphracts expressly so I could use it to waste AMS ammo, hit light 'mechs with most of the missiles, and deal core damage to things without AMSes active.

I've done similar things on other 'mechs, and many people put LRM-10s in NARC tubes for the same reason as well (particularly on Ravens).

I think if they just go completely in any one direction with this (other than the direction they've expressly stated they're not going), there are going to be people losing out.

[XphR]

DerelictTomcat, on 11 November 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

Then they need to make each weapon control fire rate and not the TT rules or some cosmetic item. A LRM 20 should fire 20 shots at once. Simple no?

No, I think simple would be more direct one for one control over weapon per hardpoint. The post directly leading mine has some very good examples.

Edited by XphR, 11 November 2013 - 12:02 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Good heavens, an intelligent, and reasonable discussion of game mechanics?
Is this allowed?

Enjoying reading it though.
Even if I am not following all of it

[Void Angel]

XphR, on 11 November 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

No, I think simple would be more direct one for one control over weapon per hardpoint. The post directly leading mine has some very good examples.

Well, it might be more advantageous (or not) but having to worry about exactly which missile launcher you put into each specific hardpoint isn't simpler than simply using the characteristics of the weapon to determine it's function. In both cases, you say "Well, I have around 17 tons for long-range weapons, and I want some missiles; looking at my hardpoints, I have three hardpoints, so I'll plug in two launchers." The difference is that instead of saying "I want to fire these together, so I'm going to pick two ALRM15s," you have to say, "Now, let's see, I have one 20-tube hardpoint, and one 10-tube hardpoint, so I'm going to have to use one ALRM20 and one ALRM10 unless I'm ok with firing a second salvo from my second launcher - dang, that's going to make my launchers desynchronize their cooldowns either way! Dangit, I just wanted to fire 30 missiles..."

Selecting hardpoints individually while leaving the tube system alone may (or may not, depending on how you jump - it's an aesthetic question) provide a richer experience, but it cannot provide a simpler one.

Edited by Void Angel, 11 November 2013 - 03:27 PM.

[Felio]

XphR, on 10 November 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

Unfortunately when this was brought to light they shrugged and said they had no intention of players being able to select specific weapons for specific hard points within a location.

Which is insane, by the way. It was in an Ask the Devs; I read it. It came across as dismissive and lazy. Like they don't really take any pride in their work. If it sort of works -- I mean, the weapons fire, right? -- it's close enough.

It also shows just a hint of contempt and disregard for the players.

It's worst with missiles, but it's also a problem when you want to mount your sniper weapons up high for ridgehumping.

[Void Angel]

As far as that goes, just because PGI isn't planning on allowing us to micromanage our hardpoints (such as putting my PPCs in the correct place...) doesn't mean they cannot and will not change their minds if we make a good enough pitch - they've done it before. That being said, stuff on this level is likely going to be a lower priority than bugs like hit registration and major features the game needs to survive and grow (like community warfare.) Still, it's something to consider, and possibly bring up from time to time until it gets resolved.

For my part, I think that the dev team works hard enough already to balance weapons without adding a tubes mechanic that further alters the certain weapons' characteristics (and thus performance,) making their task more difficult.

Edited by Void Angel, 11 November 2013 - 03:33 PM.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

In the meantime I just want people to be able to become informed easily on this without flooding the patch bugs forum with 'The missiles on the Thunderbolt keep moving', 'The Missiles on the Battlemaster keep moving', 'The cannons on the Shadowhawk keep moving', and so on with a new topic every time.

It's a known and persistent fact/issue/feature/etc. that is not in any way related to the new patches coming out currently and having one topic in an easily located spot to go to in order to find out about it is sensibly superior to making the developers wade through a shallow sea of by-'mech by-weapon loadout complaint threads. Which was my actual goal here.

[Petard]

Void Angel, on 10 November 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Interesting, but I have to point out a couple of things:

First, knowing how it came about doesn't make the functionality any less a bug.

Second, my Battlemaster 1G was still exhibiting the same bug with its energy weapons, loading in ERPPCs (which are not in the stock torsos and thus should not be flagged) into the first (and lower) slot instead of the higher torso location. This is important for hill sniping, and a major bug in the 'mech's functionality. Basically, it means that I have to fire my PPCs from collarbone level, instead of over my head. Now, I used your workaround, and it seems to be working - I reloaded the game client and went to the Testing grounds, and it's still in the right position. I'll have to check it in live games when I have more time.

I'm a fair bit newer than most of you guys, and hence haven't done anywhere near as much fiddling around with loadouts, but while trying to tweak my own BLR-1G, I found that to get an ERPPC into the top energy slot on the torso I had to load 2 smaller energy weapons into the torso first, and then load the ERPPC, and it then occupies the top energy slot.....It seems a little counter intuitive to have the top weapon in the loadout screen occupy the bottom slot on the actual physical loadout, and vice versa, but this has been the only way I have been able to mount the long range sniper weapons in the slot I desire them to be in....It also seems that once it is in that top slot, if I remove the weapons from the slots below, the PPC will reposition itself by default into the next available lower slot, and nothing I try, short of keeping 3 energy weapons in the side torso, will allow me to utilise that top slot...

Edited by Petard, 12 November 2013 - 02:38 AM.

[Bagheera]

Elli Gujar, on 11 November 2013 - 08:33 AM, said:

Interesting to note, but what I've experienced would indicate that this just means you haven't tried to load any 'marked' launchers in there. Have you tried removing the launchers, purchasing a 'mech with similar launchers in pre-organized positions that are different, removing the launchers from that new 'mech, and then slotting them into the Victor in the preferred order? It's expensive, but would serve as verification one way or the other.

If not, no big, just time for some more mental notes that there's something else to check out that may provide evidence one way or the other.

Hmm. I had to read back through to figure out what you meant by 'marked.' Nope, have not specifically done that, though the vast majority of my weapons have come from one purchased mech or another. In this case I think only the srm2 was purchased individually.

It's possible I just found some combination that tricks it into doing what I want.

Koniving, on 11 November 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

Try this to derail the original poster's theory. Take that SRM 6, leave it in the Victor. Swap the SRM-4 with an LRM-5. Swap the SRM-2 with an LRM-15.

To be absolutely certain, sell all LRM-5s and 15s or mount them all on other mechs before doing this so you have brand new ones. Keep your precious "first hardpoint marked" SRM-6.

Notice for LRM 15 you fire 10, then 5.
LRM-5 you fire 5.
For SRM-6 you fire 2, 2, 2.

Alphabetical order with a preference for the largest launcher being in the first slot. LRM-20 will trump LRM-15 due to slots. LRM-10 will trump LRM-5 and SRM-6 due to alphabetical order. SRM-6 will trump LRM-5 for first due to slots, but recede to LRM-5 after the priority first slot. SRM-4 and 2 recede to SRM-6 due to slots, and to LRM-5 due to alphabetical order.

Streaks recede to all SRMs, taking the lowest hardpoint.

Myself with 100% new weapons (I have 78 mechs it's easy to get rid of the weapons) except for an SRM-6 that came from brand new Victor as its only weapon. The SRM-6 got loaded first. The LRM-5 second. The LRM-15 last. The weapon visual representation rearranged as I put them on. I went into a testing grounds. I got the results I posted.

Selling all of said weapons, saving, closing the game, deleting the user cache, going back into the game, buying an SRM-6, LRM-15, and LRM-5 in that order, saving after each individual weapon, I got this.

First save: 6 holes. Second save, original slot 10 holes, second slot 6 holes. Third save, original slot 10 holes, second slot 5 holes, third slot 2 holes (and SRM-6 fires from it).

Sorry, was not attempting to derail, but reading the process there - new weapons vs. older weapons, weapons from mechs vs. weapons purchased, etc. Am I the only one that thinks there are too many caveats for a consistent system here? Never tried mixed lrm/srm in my Victor, and with LRMs never really mixed launcher size much. That right there is weird though.

I'll be gone for a bit till next week, but if the thread's still going I'll try to do some more detailed fiddling and throw that info into the pot.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

That's kind of my point. It's not a consistent system, and there's no indicator in the game itself to let a player know why, so new players have to have an easy to locate option for finding out what the heck is going on.

[Koniving]

Bagheera, on 12 November 2013 - 07:11 AM, said:

Sorry, was not attempting to derail, but reading the process there - new weapons vs. older weapons, weapons from mechs vs. weapons purchased, etc. Am I the only one that thinks there are too many caveats for a consistent system here? Never tried mixed lrm/srm in my Victor, and with LRMs never really mixed launcher size much. That right there is weird though.

I'll be gone for a bit till next week, but if the thread's still going I'll try to do some more detailed fiddling and throw that info into the pot.

The point is, even if Paul designed the system there's too many useless variables in Elli's theory. Not to mention on several mechs it gets derailed rather easily by the priority (largest slots on an object goes into the main mount. Stalker 5M that was the NARC launcher when it first came out), followed by alphabetical order. Note that alphabetical goes by AC, LRM, SRM, Streak, ML, MPL, SL, SPL, etc.

Ignore everything but priority (largest slots = goes first regardless of when mounted or any of Elli's hypothesis). After that, it becomes alphabetical by letter where the number (2, 5, 4) is sometimes interchangeable depending on when you slap it on but typically the highest number and the lowest letter gets second slot.

New, old. Supposedly marked or not. It doesn't truly matter.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Problem is that it doesn't consistently work by your current theory either- if you were right, PPC would always default to the bottom (starting with a letter that comes after the initial letter of every other energy weapon) and ERPPC would always default to the top (unless an ERLL was in the location), and as stated about the Battlemaster, that's not what's happening in at least that case.

[Koniving]

I've got some cbills to spend anyway, UI 2.0 is being delayed and even then I won't make 18 million by the time the merc units can start. So let's try this. Give me a specific example, Elli. A specific mech and a specific test and I'll record trying it. Knowing what I know about PGI and Paul's ideas, no matter how insane or convoluted it is, it's quite possible that it is true for some mechs.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Well, why don't you just use the three examples that have been done here? Quickdraw (missiles and energy), Victor (ballistics and missiles), and Battlemaster (ballistics, missiles, and energy) and fiddle around with things to see if a consistent rule can be deciphered?

Let's say test just energy and just missiles in the Quickdraw (RT/LT if you use the 4H), LRM/SRM mixes on the Victor, and energy and ballistics on the BLR (one of which has two ballistics on the off-hand).

Keep in mind, I'm not saying you're absolutely wrong, I'm saying you're not absolutely right.

And frankly, I'd be happier to have a consistent rule to lay out than mixed rules slash guessing slash supposition.

It would probably be really really helpful if someone from PGI would weigh in on this with some actual information about why it's happening, but I doubt we've reached that level of attention yet, so something is warranted.

Thank you very kindly for volunteering to test this stuff.

Edited by Elli Gujar, 12 November 2013 - 07:50 AM.

[XphR]

Or they are attempting to figure the arbitrary rules out themselves.

[Koniving]

Elli Gujar, on 12 November 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Well, why don't you just use the three examples that have been done here? Quickdraw (missiles and energy), Victor (ballistics and missiles), and Battlemaster (ballistics, missiles, and energy) and fiddle around with things to see if a consistent rule can be deciphered?

Let's say test just energy and just missiles in the Quickdraw (RT/LT if you use the 4H), LRM/SRM mixes on the Victor, and energy and ballistics on the BLR (one of which has two ballistics on the off-hand).

Keep in mind, I'm not saying you're absolutely wrong, I'm saying you're not absolutely right.

And frankly, I'd be happier to have a consistent rule to lay out than mixed rules slash guessing slash supposition.

It would probably be really really helpful if someone from PGI would weigh in on this with some actual information about why it's happening, but I doubt we've reached that level of attention yet, so something is warranted.

Thank you very kindly for volunteering to test this stuff.

Battlemaster. LB and/or UAC and/or AC/10 and/or Gauss Rifle takes the priority underarm slot every time regardless of order. New, old, or taken from other mechs. They always have priority due to their size. Priority slot is assigned due to the fact that two UAC/5s or larger weapons could never be paired. All weapons are removed from the first slot and moved to the second to favor a Priority weapon.

Now what happens without a priority slot? Let's take a Shadowhawk for instance, the Phoenix variant. Slap a UAC/5 as the last weapon and you will see why. On the Shadowhawk the Priority Slot was not properly set. Thus the third slot gives it an AC/5 barrel, a contingency never supposed to happen. What this indicates is that priorities are typically assigned per weapon typoe (possibly size too), per mech, and this priority was never established for the UAC/5 in the Shadowhawk P variant. Take the 2 ballistic variant and notice that the UAC/5 on THAT Shadowhawk always puts a single UAC/5 in the top slot. The only 2 instances a second slot UAC/5 can occur are A) There's 2 UAC/5s put in. (Edit: BUTCHERS THE SUNGLASS FACE!) B ) There's a higher priority LB-10x, AC/10, or Gauss Rifle put in. Ac/20 trumps all weapons in priority but putting a UAC/5 in there is impossible with an AC/20 present).

Jagers, the largest space is the priority slot for ballistics.

Energy slots do not have a preference on the Battlemaster; there is no priority established. Same appears to be true for the BlackJack 1x. However I haven't tested going into match where priority sometimes clicks in.

Quickdraw. The mechlab gave me SRM-6, SRM-4. After launching, the weapons get flipped due to alphabetical order (priority isn't established for the larger mount). In the mechbay, SRM-4 in upper shoulder, SRM-6 in 5 tube slot. Priority was not established in the 4H and with the 4G's 6 and 4 for an LRM-10, there's clearly confusion in the system. Without priority, MWO defaults to alphabetical order. 4 comes before 6. Without a priority it's quite feasible to screw with the system akin to what happens with the Orion and the Highlander.

Funny thing... Quickdraw 4H used to always put the 4 tube cube slot in when attaching SRM-4 unless an LRM-10 was attached. SRM-6 would always go in the bottom slot. This looks to be a bug and a fairly recent one. Good find. Only LRMs in an SRM + LRM-5 rig or SRMs in an LRM-10 + SRMs rig should go to that side slot. SRM 6 + SRM 4 should always go in the cube slots as it had been for many patches. This new instance of side-mounted SRMs is a bug that has started some patch or patches after the Quickdraw's release.

---------------------------------
Kintaro. I don't have an 18 but I have a Golden Boy. Priorities in mechlab don't exist until an LRM-20 is thrown in. In match, it appears that SRMs favor the side-arm mount and LRMs favor the lower arm mount in every case. Retesting with SRMs only, the one with the lowest favors the upper mount in every instance of a match even when insisting that the lower number be mounted on the bottom of the arm and the higher number on the left of the arm. They will swap in favor of the largest SRM being at the bottom of the arm. To further expand on this... I tried an SRM-6 and a NARC, an SRM-2 and a NARC, an SRM-4 and a NARC, and finally a Streak and a NARC. I mounted either way. Every time, NARC became favored the left side and SRM favored the bottom. For this we seem to have to rule out alphabetical order or NARC has secondary slot priority with 2 weapons while the highest LRM has the primary slot priority with 2 weapons.

Note in Kintaro I refer to the Underarm slot as primary and left forearm slot as secondary. I refer to them like this because any single weapon goes underarm first.

Now a NARC by itself in the Golden Boy... stays in the primary slot it seems. It only moves to yield to every other weapon to the side slot including LRMs.

SRMs yield to LRMs, allowing LRMs to always occupy the bottom slot.
-------------
Thunderbolt. What you see in the mechlab occurs only when an LRM-15 is involved or LRM-20 is involved. This shows the mechlab gives priority to them. I cannot get either to stay in the bottom slot when doing that (loadout with larger launcher in bottom, save, reopen). However in launching into a match, the LRM trumps the SRM in the upper launcher regardless. LRMs trump NARC for shoulder launcher. SRMs trump NARC for shoulder launcher.

(How odd. Come to think about it now that I test the NARC in the 5m... Ah. They changed the slot size priority. Explains why certain bugs have been happening. NARC is now excluded in alphabetical priority and its slot is now always desires to be secondary That does fix the missile boat bug of the Stalker 5m).

Streak versus SRM-2...Streaks trump SRM-2 for the top slot. SRM-4 trumps streak. So alphabetical might not be applied after all or there are priorities set there.

Seems I can't defend the alphabetical assortment far as hardpoints. That is, however, how they are assorted on the weapons list. Arms: Right, left. Torsos: Head, center, right, left. Alphabetical order from there.

As I used LRMs from my A1 and C4 with LRMs as hardpoint 2 and hardpoint 3 weapons, for them to always be moved to primary slot for the Kintaro, and Highlander and yet not moved to the primary slot for the Quickdraw shows that there likely isn't a 'marking' involved. Evidently mechs are set to assess a priority for certain slots associated with the weapon's type and size. If the two have the same type and no priority is set, the game gets confused. (See Quickdraw 4H).

Anomaly: The Catapult does not appear to have priorities for specific points for sizes under 15 (so you can put LRM 5s and 10s anywhere and it won't rearrange them). However, it does favor LRMs in the first and second slots in every instance. It favors streaks inside the arms over SRM-2s, but does not favor streaks over SRM-4s and up. LRMs trump all else for highest location priority, but before LRM-15s, the Catapult doesn't care or rearrange LRMs. 20s trump 15s for inside. The alphabetical assortment also does not appear to take place. I mounted an assortment of used items. The alphabetical order list for weapons doesn't work here...? (When put with LRMs, the SRMs favor the outside for the A1).

Seems we're both a little wrong, but at the same time we're both fairly right. Quickdraw and Catapult are anomalies though. Kintaro (LRM-main) and Highlander (SRM-main) are priority driven mechs. Stalker and Thunderbolt are priority driven as well.

This will be interesting to see on the Awesome 9M's CT mounts. 2 energy + 2 missile, but only 2 slots.

I'll test energy on the Quickdraw and Victor soon.

I can tell you that the Victor (as someone who uses it all the time) favors the center mount for the largest ballistic. The exterior slot favors the second largest. Whatever is left goes into the inner slot of the mech's arm. Doesn't matter what the weapons are for the known priorities (AC/20, LB-10, AC/10, UAC/5). It also appears to favor AC/5 in the primary slot (just tried it). It appears to accept AC/2s and MGs in any order you put them in (again showing me that the alphabetical theory is out the window).

Edited by Koniving, 12 November 2013 - 02:44 PM.

[XphR]

My poor Death Knell wants his large lasers on the top emitters, its the difference in burning someones toes and decimating their shoelaces!

[Koniving]

You might notice in that last post the thing about the alphabetical tidbit is bouncing back and forth because I kept going back and rechecking and fixing things as I came to realize MWO doesn't give a {Scrap} about the alphabet part of the equation. Weapons simply have a preference, but it isn't marked to a specific unique LRM-15 or so. It's all LRM-15s. It's all weapons of a preferred type, based on the chassis/variant.

The largest ballistic cannons prefer specific spots. In the only instance where this isn't the case, we see a huge graphical anomaly (SHD-2H(P) no one likes you!).

Different mechs prefer different missile types in specific places. Some prefer LRMs in the first slot. Some prefer them in the second slot. Nobody likes NARC anymore and so it's always shoved aside. SRM-2s are the only SRMs that don't trump streaks. Though this could change with Streak SRM-4s and Streak SRM-6s.

Certain mechs appear to prefer spaces for certain energy types. The Orion with the 4 arm weapons appears to have this preference backwards, preferring the PPCs to be mounted outside of the arms. To me that's really disgusting, because those PPCs mounted there look smaller than AC/2 barrels on a Jager. This is also why the arm PPC disgusts me on the Shadowhawk, it's as thin as an AC/2 barrel there when on a Kintaro it's as large as an AC/10 barrel.

XphR, on 12 November 2013 - 01:18 PM, said:

My poor Death Knell wants his large lasers on the top emitters, its the difference in burning someones toes and decimating their shoelaces!

That might change when Commandos get their overhaul.

[Void Angel]

So in short, there seem to be multiple, possibly conflicting rules used by the game which may or may not re-work weapon placement depending on variables like chassis, weapon, and whether or not you've sacrificed a goat.

Swell.

I did fix the PPC placement issue on the BattleMaster 1G(P) by selling off all my medium lasers and both my extra ERPPCs, too. Sounds like we need to petition PGI to make mech design predictable - since that is the point of being able to modify our machines, after all.

[Lokesh]

To the original theory - having a weapon somehow 'marked' as being original to the much would require extra code that exists for no reason. It would also needlessly inflate the game's database. Very unlikely.

I once saw a work around described on the forums and can not for the life of me find it. Similar to the method described on the first page, you would save the mech. Then reload it, remove one of the weapons and save the much again. Finally, reload it and add the gun back. I can't remember whether you would remove the gun to be placed in a slot or the one that kept getting in the way. You might experiment with a sequence like this.