5 replies to this topic

[Nothing Whatsoever]

With this thread, I'm just sharing some ideas I'd like to explore in relation to tweaking existing weapons and equipment and adding some more options in the future.

Projectile Weapons

• Adjust Effective Ranges to be more realistic, so projectiles can deal full damage out to 1000 M
  
• Velocities and ammo adjusted also.
  
• As a result, projectile damage is reduced along with cooldown.
  
• Heavy Gauss has a range of 300 M up to 600 M
  
• ERPPC retain their 810 M range, PPCs, retain their 540 M range as Energy Weapons.
  
• Clan ERPPC, should likely keep it's arcing damage pattern, but explore dealing 11 damage then, 3 and 1
  
• MGs become a Projectile weapon.
  
• Range Quirks, should then be adjusted to affect Velocity and/or Ammo Count for most Projectile Weapons
  
• The PPC Capacitor when readily available in 3060, should function similar to the Artemis Upgrade for IS PPC weapons
  
• LB-X and SB Gauss will fire Pellets at 1 damage each, with a tight spread

---

Hit-Scan Weapons

• Damage, Heat, Cooldown and Beam Durations Adjusted to better accommodate newer Tech.
  
• Cooldowns shortened, where Heat Management is still very important, and also should aid mechs with fewer Energy Hardpoints combined with Quirks to increase burst damage potential.
  
• Flamer got deleted when adjusting list, but it would receive a Beam Duration and Cooldown with its 2 damage and 3 heat so that it cannot exponentially heat the user.
  
• Clan Heavy Laser should have some sort of extra negative affect, possibly brief blinding due to brightness of beam for the user, and/or affect on the HUD.

---

Missile Weapons

• Cooldowns raised to accommodate new tracking, Missiles will follow the crosshair / reticle until impact and to allow better mixing of different Launchers to available Mech Tube Counts
  
• Quirks should be tweaked to affect Missile systems collectively, and Modules should also see changes.
  
• Can have different styles of ripple fire patterns for missile systems.
  
• Should test out the possibility of Fire and Forget capabilities for missiles.
  
• Indirect Fire should see specific restrictions such as functioning with TAG and NARC.
  
• Artemis will instead influence Missile response to crosshair / reticle movement instead of spread and Lock-on time.
  
• Streaks would not be affected against ECM, and if Lock is lost, missiles stop firing until Lock is reacquired.
  
• LRMs and Mortars would fly up to a range of 1000 M, before detonating, SRMs and MRMs, can reach out to 500 M.

---

Heat System, Quirks, Modules and Efficiencies

• These weapon values, should work against a Heat Capacity of 30, plus Heat Sink count, where each Heat Sink, SIngle or Double, raises the value by 0.1 each.
  
• SHS Dissipation should be tested at 0.2 or 0.25 each.
  
• DHS Dissipation should be tested at 0.4 or 0.5 each.
  
• Mech Tree Efficiencies should be replaced with a more dynamic system, such as re-purposing Quirks as Mech Efficiencies and/or utilizing more modules in a Modular Mech Efficiency system where the play can choose and sort modules into a limited number of slots.

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Edited by Praetor Knight, 06 April 2015 - 11:06 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Updated OP.

Spoiler

Here are Clan Weapons, from what I was looking at, they should be balanced enough when introduced, since DPS, HPS, ammo, cooldown and so on, can be easily modified get Clan Weapons to whatever performance values the devs are looking for as mentioned here.

Ballistics

Energy

Missiles

Here is the Weapons and Equipment Lists I used to get their BT values.

Edit: fixing typo.

http://i.imgur.com/23YbEsY.png

http://i.imgur.com/FZ8B0V9.png

Edited by Praetor Knight, 04 February 2015 - 07:30 AM.

[Stingray Productions]

interesting mechanics, will have to ponder on the information in these graphs..............

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I got to thinking about physical attacks from the original game, and wondered what those rules were, I looked up what I could about the rules for such attacks, and came up with this table:

Spoiler

I know this kind of work for the game is going to be on the back burner as far as current priorities go, but I thought, why not share now anyway?

What I figured is that any mech could Kick and Charge.

DFA would be available to mechs with JJs.

Punching would be available with mechs that have Shoulders and the Upper and Lower Actuators. Equipping a melee weapon like a sword or hatchet and so on, would require a hand to hold the appropriate weapon, along with enough free tonnage and crit slots.

To implement, could set one Weapon listed in the Arm Group for attacks with the arms and if the mech can hold a weapon for those types of attacks. The rate of arm movement to strike and range would be limited by the model.

Kicks could be listed in the Torso Group. It can be setup that the mech must be stationary or will moving stop to kick towards the cross-hair direction. When in motion, if a kick is triggered it could then be a charge strike.

DFA could be executed by kicking in the air. Would require JJs to provide more horizontal speed.

Animating the strikes seem as if they can be pretty straight forward. Where punches could simply be like straight punches or upper cuts moving towards the cross-hair, kicks could simply be a low forward kick (like kicking a soccer ball), for example. And the rest don't need too much animation variety either, once they can apply damage.

The main question I have is, how fast can these attacks be? And the range on most of these will easily be within 20 M of the attacking mech on most of these, which is also why this area is low priority.



And what I thought was interesting is the amount of fall damage received using the BT formula. To translate into MWO, the amount could be set to how far a mech falls such as 10 damage every 30 feet for a 100 ton mech, could make a big difference if poptarting would cause that much damage for each attempt.

Collision damage will be an important element with physical attacks, since some strikes cause different amounts to the attacker. Such as for every 2 damage dealt charging, 1 damage is dealt to the attacker, for example, or 1 damage for every 10 tons of the defending mech to the attacker.

Melee weapons should also have an amount of hitpoints as equipped items before being destroyed, could start with 20 to 50 and go from there after testing.

And knockdowns don't need to return, since that aspect seems to have too many variables to tackle anyway, and really isn't necessary to bring back once we are able to deal melee damage due to it's potential stun-locking ability.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 20 July 2014 - 12:15 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Original Post

Spoiler

Just wanted to share some ideas for weapon tweaks that I'd like to hopefully test out in the future.

Ballistics

In the Lore, Ballistics have been described as firing in bursts, so knowing how existing ballistics weapons currently work, I wondered how burst fire could work in MWO. Currently Autocannons are quite lethal, having a high damage potential and a high rate of fire. So what if we could create a trade-off that keeps a high DPS, while spreading damage out a bit more? If my math is accurate, here is table showing how they might be setup for both Inner Sphere and Clans:

Spoiler

The numbers in the table above present some ideas for burst fire, fully automatic and semi-automatic ballistic weapons. Ideally they remain lethal and viable, while being able to better match up with the other weapon groups.

Energy

With energy weapons, the Pulse Lasers don't pulse enough, so I thought what if their beam duration was significantly reduced and fired in a burst? As with AC's above, I wondered how the PPC's could be if they also fired in a burst?

Spoiler

There is a possibility to improve Pulse Lasers. With the numbers for ballistics above, PPC's are shown as firing in bursts to see if that maybe an option for tweaking them as well (with another other possible change such as possibly reducing their Heat after trying them that way), or simply keep them as-is 10 damage per shot.

Missile

Lastly missile weapons need some attention. And it may be possible to tweak how the servers track them. Instead of tracking each individually, it might be possible to reduce that by grouping missiles together. LRMs in groups of 5 and (S)SRMs in groups of 2.


The second idea is to boost their ammo to not only help lights, but to make missing less costly if a mech is limited by the amount of ammo that can be carried such as any light or medium running SRMs.

The third idea is to boost missile speed, since there could also be a possibility that missiles are too slow for when HSR is trying to correct for variable ping and other possible netcode issues.

Also, here are some values I'd like an opportunity to test out for missile weapons:

Spoiler

Damage for LRMs was put back to its BT value with the boost to speed and ammo (if that ammo count is too high it can always remain at it's current value of 180, but 240 is double that of the BT ammo count of 120).

Lights have a tough time carrying enough SRM ammo, so SRMs should at least get a boost to at least 120 missiles per ton.

With the speed boosts, missile weapons are still the slowest, but to deal with hit reg issues I'd like to see how those numbers could work.

That's about it, and here is a link to current numbers from Smurphy's great site.

Let me know what you think.

Original

Spoiler

Just wanted to share some ideas for weapon tweaks that I'd like to hopefully test out in the future. One thought is to have burst fire Auto Cannons available. A second thought is actually making Pulse Lasers pulse fire. The third idea has a possibility to improve the hit registration of missiles. If the ideas are viable enough to test out, it would be nice to add more options to our arsenal at least.

Ballistics

In the Lore, Ballistics have been described as firing in bursts, so knowing how existing ballistics weapons currently work, I wondered how burst fire could work in MWO. Currently Autocannons are quite lethal, having a high damage potential and a high DPS. So what if we could create a trade-off that keeps a high DPS, while spreading damage out a bit more? If my math is accurate, here is table showing how they might be setup:



The numbers in the table above present some ideas for burst fire, fully automatic and semi-automatic ballistic weapons. Ideally they remain lethal and viable, while being able to better match up with the other weapon groups.

Energy

With energy weapons, I was wondering how they could be improved while staying as close to their current stats as possible. Regular lasers at 1.00 second burn time often means that a player is going to scatter some of that damage, so what if the beam duration was shorter? Then Pulse Lasers don't pulse enough, so I thought what if their beam duration was significantly reduced and fired in a burst? As with AC's above, I wondered how the PPC's could be if they also fired in a burst?



DPS and HPS, should be about the same as before, but with shorter beams, there is a possibility that less damage could be lost between trigger pulls when on target and a possibility to improve Pulse Lasers. With the numbers for ballistics above, PPC's are shown as firing a two shot bursts to see if that maybe an option for tweaking them as well (with another other possible change such as possibly reducing their Heat after trying them that way), or simply keep them as-is 10 damage per shot.

Missile

Lastly missile weapons need some attention. And it may be possible to tweak how the servers track them. Instead of tracking each individually, it might be possible to reduce that by grouping missiles together. LRMs in groups of 5 and (S)SRMs in groups of 2.

The second idea is to boost their ammo to not only help lights, but to make missing less costly if a mech is limited by the amount of ammo that can be carried such as any light or medium running SRMs.

The third idea is to boost missile speed, since there could also be a possibility that missiles are too slow for when HSR is trying to correct for variable ping and other possible netcode issues.

Here are some values I'd like an opportunity to test out for missile weapons:



Damage for LRMs was put back to its BT value with the boost to speed and ammo (if that ammo count is too high it can always remain at it's current value of 180, but 240 is double that of the BT ammo count of 120).

Lights have a tough time carrying enough SRM ammo, so SRMs should at least get a boost to at least 120 missiles per ton, 180 per ton is shown but that can easily be lowered. Also the cooldown for SRM 4, and (S)SRM 2 was lowered to boost their DPS a bit (along with bringing SSRM damage in line with SRM 2s), to see if those numbers could work as a boost for those launchers.

With the speed boosts, missile weapons are still the slowest, but to deal with hit reg issues I'd like to see how those numbers could work.


That's about it, and here is a link to current numbers from Smurphy's great site.

Let me know what you think.

Edit: spacing and grammar.
Edit: 12/14/13 saw that I made a calculation error, and added greater variety of burst, full and semi-auto ballistics.
Edit: title
Edit: Update

Also, new Poll in the future.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 20 July 2014 - 12:14 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Updated ideas from mentions of advancing timeline. Old OP here.

Spoiler

Updated Ballistic type weapon Ideas

• Make Class 2 Ballistics a burst weapon to extend Cooldown and reduce HPS.
  
• Remove redundant Clan AC options
  
• Minor adjustments with Range to Cooldown considerations.
  
• Change MGs from hit-scan to projectile
  
• Add some more IS variant weapons into the Mix

Updated Hit-Scan / Energy Ideas

• Adjust Damage, Heat and Range closer to TT values, then adjust Beam Duration and Cooldown to get desired DPS values.
  
• Adjust Flamers
  
• Then consider further Heat adjustments to lower HPS (such as IS LPL at a Heat value of 8, can consider reducing to 6 for a new HPS of 1.67 for example)

Updated Missile Ideas

• Lower Ammo, Damage and DPS on LRMs, include a slight speed boost with decreasing impulse.
  
• Adjust Cooldown on Streaks and LRMs.
  
• Change Lock-on mechanism (making it independent):
  
  • Holding the reticle/crosshair on a target long enough brings up the 'Lock-On set' reticle independently
    
  • No longer need to acquire a Target lock with the default 'R' with Line of Sight on Target.
    
  • ECM no longer blocks locks if player can hold reticle/crosshair on target with Line on Sight on Target
    
  • Target Decay and Radar Deprivation will still be able to modify Target Retention for Locks
    
  • Showing the Paperdoll of a Target should be a separate (independent) mechanism from Locks
    
  • Indirect Fire Lock-On needs a Target to be TAG'ged, NARC'd, and/or revealed by a UAV
• Consider making LRMs fire and forget
  
• Consider extended ranges on SRMs
  
• Consider limited LRM style guidance for normal SRMs.
  
• Consider adjustments to Artemis.
  
• Consider streams for IS with LRM speed boosts (Impulse reduced).

Updated Strike Ideas

• Require carrying TAG to be able Call a Strike
  
• Add variety and tweak unlock and costs
  
• Would likely need to test variants to have them be viable and not overpowering

Idea for TAG

• Make it another Passive piece of equipment like BAP, Command Console, Targeting Computer
  
• Remove it from needing to be mounted in an Energy Slot
  
• Remove the visible light beam
  
• Reduce range back to 450m
  
• Mounting TAG allows for strikes to be available to call
  
• TAG is no longer necessary to attain locks, as long as the player holds the reticle/crosshair on target
  
• TAG still can reveal the Paper Doll of a mech under ECM.

Idea for ECM

• ECM no longer prevents locks or slows them down.
  
• Equipment reducing spread is still canceled as normal, but targets still lockable.
  
• It will continue to obsure the HUD and deny a Paper Doll (HTAL, hopefully in the future) as it currently functions.
  
• TAG, NARC, PPC shot can reveal a Target, filling the Magic Dorito for Allies and the Paper Doll info just as currently can happen.

Idea for MASC and TSM

• Utilizing a 'Sprint' ability that is activated with the same key for Jump Jets might allow for MASC to be added, the key is what the Cryengine will allow.
  
• Triple Strength Myomer could also be added and would activate based on heat level
  
• So depending on what speeds are allowable (if ~171.1 kph is that upper limit), then MASC and TSM would need to be checked so that Engine Rating would be capped to no go above that speed, so for example a 20 ton mech like the Flea, would have an engine cap of either 155 or 160 with MASC.

Spoiler

I decided to take a look at what we have in MWO compared to how speeds were originally setup in TT to get a feel for normal speeds, MASC and even TSM in relation to what we have in game at this point.




The main thing that made it interesting is that originally there was both a Walking and Running Speed, in MWO we can move at any speed up to our max running speed.

So speed-wise, it seems like the devs are close to being able to handle a little bit of ludicrous speeds to a point (and I don't expect to be seeing some of the massively engined Locusts I found with one mounting up to an XL 280! Good thing that is in the year 3071 and wouldn't need to ever make it into MWO).

So the 20 ton Firemoth running at 162.00 kph and then for 10 seconds being able to Sprint at 216.00 kph might also be doable in the future, (and one thing neat that I found was that our Speed Tweak speed looks to be the speed a mech can reach using Triple Strength Myomer with a 200 rated engine on a 20 ton mech).

The key that I found was determining what the actual walking speed was and building a table from there.

Here is the table I came up with for 20 ton mechs:

Spoiler

So, what I saw is that a Flea that would mount a 155 could easily fit in at a top MASC speed of 167.4 kph with a normal running speed of 125.55 kph, without too much trouble.

If we would get stuck with Speed Tweak, then an engine at 145 might be fine at a MASC top speed of 172.26 kph.

The key then would be figuring out how to implement MASC into MWO.

More brainstorming in spoiler

Spoiler

I dunno what could be in mind and I'd need to keep looking around to see if any mechs have both MASC and Jump Jets, but I have an idea to share, the devs could make MASC speeds work like a 'Sprint' (as seen in other games and maybe sharing the button to activate Jump Jets) either tapping or holding the space bar to activate MASC for a 10 second or so period for each activation.

So using MASC for that long would deplete the meter and would need a short period to recharge. Then if MASC is used and the meter goes negative then there is a chance to freeze/immobilize the mech until the meter goes back to positive values. That should be enough for a MWO, since stopping to a dead stillness, like if shutting down can often be a death sentence in MWO.

Some Melee ideas

• All mechs can Kick and Charge each other (needs new collision damage code).
  
• Mechs with Jump Jets can perform Death from Above under the right circumstances.
  
• Punches require a certain number of actuators in arms to do activity.
  
• Clubbing / Weapon Damage require Hands/Claws.
  
• Add possibility to push around other mechs.