201 replies to this topic

[Kyone Akashi]

Reitrix, on 19 January 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

I'm still of the opinion that ammo should be loaded in the same Section or Adjacent section. In the 'Mech loadouts i read in Sarna (All of them) i never once saw a 'mech that stored it's ammo in legs.

This. Ammo bins in legs are as silly as putting your cockpit in the right arm or something like that (if that were possible in Mechlab).

Here's my thoughts:

• Increase chance of ammo explosion
  
• Decrease damage from ammo explosion
  
• Ammo bins can only be loaded into torsos (LT, CT, RT), or any arm that has a Ballistic hardpoint
  
• Ammo bins can be ejected by push of a button* (another detail from the tabletop)

Projected results:

• Carrying ammo (and thus Ballistic and Missile weapons) becomes more dangerous
  
• Ammo explosions go from OMGIAMDEAD to Damn That Hurt
  
• Increased realism from sensible ammo placement, CASE becomes more useful (as nobody will put stuff in their legs anymore)
  
• Pilots have the option to eject their ammo once they fear an ammo explosion is imminent (e.g.: component armor destroyed)
  
• Additional drawback for the Gauss: Whilst its ammo could be ejected, it does not explode - but the weapon, which cannot be ejected, would.

*: said button could be a trigger that only works in combination with a weapon group number.
For example: press and hold the Eject Ammo hotkey, then press "1" to eject any ammo associated with weapon group 1.
This way you can keep ammo bin locations in mind when designing your 'Mech loadout, such as placing any ammo for one weapon into a single component, and putting the ammo for another weapon elsewhere.

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 19 January 2014 - 02:59 PM.

[wanderer]

Serpieri, on 19 January 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

In Battletech, inner Sphere mechs can only place case in torso locations - if the mech had an XL engine (depending on how many rounds left of the ammo) - a crit on the ammo was an instant kill since the explosion took out all the internal points of that section. In this game, C.A.S.E. is not used because players have the freedom to stick the ammo anywhere they want which is not how it was handled in Battletech, If I remember correctly the ammo had to be placed within the same location or an adjacent one. For example, ammo placed in the right leg can only feed a weapon in the right torso. Where as ammo in the right torso can only feed a weapon in the center torso and right arm.

This is partially incorrect. Ammo in TT can be placed in any location and still feed a weapon in any other location on a 'Mech. You can cheerfully load your legs with Gauss slugs and feed an arm-mounted GR, or put your autocannon in one arm and the ammo in the other- it's legal and works fine.

As for CASE, it's not some kind of invulnerable shield that contains an explosion- it simply gives that explosion a shape that directs it away from the rest of the 'Mech, redirecting it outwards (in the case of IS 'Mechs, through the back of the torso). Similar protection is used in modern combat vehicles to shield crews from catastrophic internal explosions.

[Fut]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 19 January 2014 - 04:57 AM, said:

Oh I wish they would implement this, the tears would be delicious. This from an AC and missile user.

Same here, normally run LRMs and I'd love to see this happen - I honestly think that this would help balance things out, less people would be willing to cram as many ballistics as possible if it made them that much more vulnerable. Also, the whole C.A.S.E. thing, and how it's fairly pointless at the moment.

Kyone Akashi, on 19 January 2014 - 02:57 PM, said:

This. Ammo bins in legs are as silly as putting your cockpit in the right arm or something like that (if that were possible in Mechlab).

Here's my thoughts:

• Increase chance of ammo explosion
  
• Decrease damage from ammo explosion
  
• Ammo bins can only be loaded into torsos (LT, CT, RT), or any arm that has a Ballistic hardpoint
  
• Ammo bins can be ejected by push of a button* (another detail from the tabletop)

Projected results:

• Carrying ammo (and thus Ballistic and Missile weapons) becomes more dangerous
  
• Ammo explosions go from OMGIAMDEAD to Damn That Hurt
  
• Increased realism from sensible ammo placement, CASE becomes more useful (as nobody will put stuff in their legs anymore)
  
• Pilots have the option to eject their ammo once they fear an ammo explosion is imminent (e.g.: component armor destroyed)
  
• Additional drawback for the Gauss: Whilst its ammo could be ejected, it does not explode - but the weapon, which cannot be ejected, would.

*: said button could be a trigger that only works in combination with a weapon group number.

For example: press and hold the Eject Ammo hotkey, then press "1" to eject any ammo associated with weapon group 1.
This way you can keep ammo bin locations in mind when designing your 'Mech loadout, such as placing any ammo for one weapon into a single component, and putting the ammo for another weapon elsewhere.

Great suggestion!

Edited by Fut, 19 January 2014 - 03:34 PM.

[wanderer]

Fut, on 19 January 2014 - 03:09 PM, said:

Same here, normally run LRMs and I'd love to see this happen - I honestly think that this would help balance things out, less people would be willing to cram as many ballistics as possible if it made them that much more vulnerable. Also, the whole C.A.S.E. thing, and how it's fairly pointless at the moment.

Yeah, in a sense it's like the decrease in AMS use- since the odds of being bombarded with missiles is lower, people don't install defenses. Likewise, since ammo explosions are much less frequent than they should be, CASE is ignored.

Before the changes, I was used to hearing that KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK any time someone shot out the LRM ammo bay on my Atlas-RS, and CASE saved my bacon many times, leaving me the opposite side and CT to keep fighting with- better than dead, certainly and I've made more than one kill with the right side when something blew the left side off.

[Dan Nashe]

Ah, yes.
TT:
Step one: spend the first round dumping ammo. It just wasn't worth carrying!
CASE is only available in torsos.
If you have an XL, case remains useless, but mechs just get a lot more fragile.
Do you really want mechs to just be a lot more fragile?
Also, backup SRMS would amount to voluntarily putting a death trap in your mech.
One AC? Worth the risk. a couple SRM4s or an LRM 15? NO WAY.

[wanderer]

DanNashe, on 19 January 2014 - 03:56 PM, said:

Ah, yes.
TT:
Step one: spend the first round dumping ammo. It just wasn't worth carrying!
CASE is only available in torsos.
If you have an XL, case remains useless, but mechs just get a lot more fragile.
Do you really want mechs to just be a lot more fragile?
Also, backup SRMS would amount to voluntarily putting a death trap in your mech.
One AC? Worth the risk. a couple SRM4s or an LRM 15? NO WAY.

Wait, you mean that XL 'Mechs would think twice about ammo-based weapons? That there'd be some kind of *gasp* drawback to using an XL like that?

CASE saves a 'Mech from a kill shot. It doesn't magically shield the 'Mech from being shredded, it's there to make ammo explosions not equal death. Used to be that XL + energy weapons was the magic words, because people had a real chance of watching their 'Mech go up like popcorn from ammosplosions otherwise and hated the results, or played risky.

Funny enough, this meant that unless you wanted easier side torso death, you did ballistic builds with a standard in MWO....and surprise, this meant ballistic builds tended to have to less firepower than they do now, or else risked having critical hits obliterate the 'Mech. Ammo meant risk. Now, it doesn't, even really WITH a bunch of it. Seriously, how many folks here seen their dakka-Mech cook off regularly any time recently, despite packing all those bombs?

[FupDup]

Gaan Cathal, on 19 January 2014 - 11:43 AM, said:

I don't like disagreeing with you, your thoughts are usually well informed, but in this case I really do have to.

No problem.

Gaan Cathal, on 19 January 2014 - 11:43 AM, said:

Assume a mech with a 250std engine and Dubs as the base.

A pair of AC/5s and four tons of ammo runs to 20 tons. It doesn't overheat on Terra Therma while being humped by a lance of flamer Locusts.

Well, part of the main role of ACs is to have relatively low heat. It makes sense for them to work well in a high-heat environment like Mordor, and they make a natural counter to heat-inducing weapons such as Flamers. Of course, a lance of Flamer Locusts should be able to shutdown anything up to an Overlord dropship, but the silly 90% cap currently in place for people being Flamer'd prevents that.

Gaan Cathal, on 19 January 2014 - 11:43 AM, said:

A single PPC and enough heatsinks to reach the same level of heat efficiency (admittedly, excessive) runs to 17 tons. That's not a particularly big difference, especially considering that the AC/5 has a 1.5s refire, compared with the PPC's 4s refire, and that many dubs takes up all of the crits in the world.

That said, it's not a very good comparator anyway, the AC/5 takes two weapon slots, for example, and the PPC is and AC for the purposes of the 'pinpoint vs not pinpoint' debate. The slot it takes up is irrelevant, it's effectively a ballistic, it just happens to be a ballistic with the only advantage lasers have going for them tacked on (and people wonder why it's so prolific).

Compare an AC/10 and a Large Laser. Same situation with engine/dubs. One AC/10 plus four tons ammo comes out to 16 tons and a cooling efficiency of 1.67. A Large Laser with enough DHS to hit the same cooling efficiency comes out to 11 tons. It has less overall damage, a worse refire rate (almost double), spreads it's less-than-ten damage, as opposed to being pinpoint and has less functional range because of the stupid multiplier ********.

Yes, a cooling efficiency of 1.67 is unrealistic in isolation, but who fits a realistic mech with one ten-damage weapon?

This leads onto the other issue with pinpoint damage and ballistics, it scales. Add a second AC/10 and a second Large Laser. The pinpoint advantage becomes more prominent, because it's more damage being concentrated (hitpoints being finite). Not only will a pair of AC/10s burn through an arbitrary 100 hitpoints of target faster if both shooter and target are stationary and ergo pinpoint is irrelevant (close to twice as fast, infact), but in the case of movement, it will only need to be on target for a split second in every 2.5s. A pair of large lasers will need to be on target for a continuous one second period out of every ~4s.

Given that PGI won't touch any convergence-based mechanics with a ten foot pole, MW:O will always be about clustering firepower for an operational range. The best way to do that is stack the same or similar weapons. That, because of the above effect, amplifies the pinpoint damage advantage.

When I said "pinpoint" earlier, I was referring to the damage put into one stop when firing off a single alpha strike and then hiding/twisting/whatevering. Most ballistics do indeed have RoF and heat advantages, but those are separate quirks from pinpoint alpha'ing. The PPC's own pinpoint ability does throw a wrench into the comparison (debate of if it is a pinpoint energy weapon or infinite ammo ballistic) but the AC/2 and LB 10-X still spread damage as much as or more than lazors.

Personally, I'd just like for heatsinks of all types to dissipate faster (with lower capacity of course) so that we don't need such an absurdly high number of dubs to keep energy weapons running cool for more than a few moments. That lets energy weapons truly claim their classic lightweight and compact advantages (on a larger scale than just 1-2 backup ML), and we can leave ACs alone or make whatever tweaks where needed.

It's also kind of silly that lasers' beam duration counts against their cooldown time (LL reloading slightly slower than an AC/20 = dafuq?). Removing that quality would increase the DPS rate of all lazors, and the faster dissipation would let them make some use of that increased RoF without melting your robot.

Edited by FupDup, 19 January 2014 - 05:44 PM.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 19 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Thats not entirely true. Because you can take three AC/5s. 15 damage every 1.5s certainly counts as pinpoint. The reason why AC/5s are so much better than AC/10s is because you can spam 3-4 of them on one mech unlike the AC/10 which you can only have two of, and youre always just better off with two AC/20s instead.

"Pinpoint," in the context I referred to it, meant putting damage into a single spot from a single alpha strike and then hiding or whatever. In your 3 AC/5 example, that requires 24 tons for the weapons and I'm guessing something around 6-7 tons of ammo. 2 AC/10 also take up a base weight of 24 tons, and require 6 tons of ammo. So the weight investment is basically the same in both cases, but the 2 AC/10 has 5 point of extra pinpoint damage from one alpha strike. Of course, the triplet of AC/5 has a faster firing rate (higher DPS), longer range, and a much faster projectile speed, but those qualities aren't what I was referring to earlier.

Edited by FupDup, 19 January 2014 - 05:45 PM.

[Tesunie]

Problem with OP's suggestion:
- In TT, a single ton of ammo carried more mechs through the entire game with plenty still left over.
- In TT, a crit took out it's rolled location, no "damage" needed besides the crit result.
- In MWO, we need to have tons and tons of ammo (normally 3-4 or more) just to be able to last a small skirmish.
- In MWO, if you want to use LRMs to some effect, you often times need tons and tons more ammo than any other ammo dependent weapon in the game (normally a ton per LRM5 size for average, real boats need more).
- If it was 100% destruction in MWO, the extra ammo needed provides even more of a chance of a detonation than what would happen in TT.
- In MWO, to help counter the extra ammo needed, they made it have 10 health, but many weapons can quickly deal 10 damage to it in a crit.
- Crits also have something close to 42% chance of causing a crit, compared to TT, which last I recalled had a much lower chance of a crit actually happening.
- To counter that, in MWO, ammo was given a 10% chance, instead of 100% chance, to detonate. I could see this chance value be bumped slightly if anything, but 100% chance would penalize mechs far more in MWO than it did in TT simply because of the need to have much more ammo to simply function here.


Basically, when we do carry ammo here, we generally need lots of it. In TT, less ammo was needed for a single match, a lot less. More crit slots being taken by ammo means far more chance that a crit slot hit will be ammo, instead of something else. We also have higher crit chances here than in TT, meaning that if it was 100% chance of exploding it would be much more hazardous and far more likely to explode than it would be in TT. (We can also get more than one crit in a single shot, I don't recall being able to in TT, but I'm not that experienced of a TT player.)

[Oriius]

FupDup, on 19 January 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

Personally, I'd just like for heatsinks of all types to dissipate faster (with lower capacity of course) so that we don't need such an absurdly high number of dubs to keep energy weapons running cool for more than a few moments. That lets energy weapons truly claim their classic lightweight and compact advantages (on a larger scale than just 1-2 backup ML), and we can leave ACs alone or make whatever tweaks where needed.

It's also kind of silly that lasers' beam duration counts against their cooldown time (LL reloading slightly slower than an AC/20 = dafuq?). Removing that quality would increase the DPS rate of all lazors, and the faster dissipation would let them make some use of that increased RoF without melting your robot.

I Agree, I too think we should have a lower heat cap with a faster dissipation rate. Any nerfs we make currently are just shifting which weapons are being used to alpha strike currently. If the point is to stop constant alpha's then it seems to me a change to the heat system is a good first step (again though it isn't a magic fix-all just a first step).

With a heat scale that has penalties added I think the game could be shifted more towards a dps or at least a sustainability style, that is to say you don't just pick the biggest guns and blow your load, as that would just blow your top! It might also as fupdup suggests help a little with laser builds.

Though the question is would that be better? would it be more fun? I don't know what others think, in my opinion it would be, though it is just an opinion.

[Slepnir]

I am all for TT ammo explosions.....with a 90m blast radius, if they have lots of ammo with no case then every mech around them friend or foe goes boom as well. come hug me lights and brawler assaults, I may die but so will you.

[Krujiente]

Ammo needs to explode a lot more often then it does and ammo needs to have a chance to cook off at the extremes of your heat bar, case doesn't work on XL engines, running XL engine'd ballistics mechs is supposed to be terrifying and done gingerly. It'd be harder to poptart if your ammo could detonate above 80% heat factor they'd have to slow down or set of an explosion reaction. Case should be worth the half ton it is. It would also improve the usefulness of brawlers over Barrel wagglers because their arms can protect their side torso, and you can crit-pad ammo in the side torsos. It would also make the poptarts more vulnerable because most of them are ammo dependent while using PPCs.

[Serpieri]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 January 2014 - 04:56 AM, said:

You know what the table top rule really meant - that ballistics were never really a good idea. The devastation wrought by ballistic and missile ammo was so extreme that you were better off picking the equivalent in range or damage energy weapon.
Only Gauss and the various AC/20s didn't have an equivalent damage-wise, and could still be interesting. (And Gauss is only true for IS, the Clan ER PPC dealt also 15 damage per shot. But of course, Gauss also has the advantage that it didn't use explosive ammo and only exploded for a small amount of damage, compared to the 100 damage possibly by a ton of AC/20 ammo).

I am all for increasing ammo explosion chance in M:WO, actually, but the damage must be dialed down significantly - a ton of ammo shouldn't explode for more than 10-15 damage (but then even a 100 % explosion chance could be fine.)

I've been playing Battletech for over 15 years, and I can only count the number of mechs I've lost due to ammo explosions on one hand. And to this date, that hasn't stopped anybody in our battletech league to only use energy weapons.

[Tesunie]

Serpieri, on 19 January 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

I've been playing Battletech for over 15 years, and I can only count the number of mechs I've lost due to ammo explosions on one hand. And to this date, that hasn't stopped anybody in our battletech league to only use energy weapons.

I've been playing for a few matches and I've already killed 3 mechs with ammo exploding. but I think I just got lucky if you asked me. (I rolled the one number I needed to hit the right crit slot.... )

[Yiazmat]

some of you guys are a little off course here; we're not in the topic of coolfowns and rof, taking about ammo EXPLOSIONS being needed to put perspective on mech loadouts and how they needn't be alpha boat monsters and becoming balanced machines.

but none of it will ever happen, so carry on, disregard! :-P

[darkchylde]

Ballistics are greater than energy - they fire faster, deal more damage and are not hampered by the butchered heat system that we have in this game (fake dhs, ghost heat). I only run mechs now that have anywhere from 2-4 ballistic hardpoints, and out of all those games I have yet to run out of ammo and have only died twice to ammo explosion. Which didn't matter since my mech was already ripped apart on several locations, had weapons destroyed, the only thing holding it together was the superb hitboxes on those mechs. I have yet to see any disadvantage in using these weapons, but I see plenty of issues with energy.

[Toong]

Pjwned, on 19 January 2014 - 01:53 PM, said:

Tone down ammo explosions then.

Seriously, I would much rather see a smaller, consistent risk of carrying ammo than a chance of having a limb blown off and trying to shrug it off only to have RNG strike and all of a sudden it's INSTANTLY DEAD and there's not much to do to mitigate it because CASE is garbage.

I suppose it's possible a 100% chance still wouldn't be ideal even with drastically dampened ammo explosions but the way it is now is just stupid.

Hyperbole will get you nowhere. Also, if you think the CASE isn't good, you need to give an argument backing that claim up.

[Sephlock]

I read the OP as "Hey, you know those LRM users? **** them. **** them right in the ***!

"

[wanderer]

Sephlock, on 19 January 2014 - 08:18 PM, said:

I read the OP as "Hey, you know those LRM users? **** them. **** them right in the ***!

"

I live for LRMs.

I still want my ammo to explode. Even a frickin 33% boom rate would be fine. Why?

Because it'd make ammo-hungry ballistics go boom, too. Ammo + XL isn't supposed to be a winner, but with the abysmally low odds of ammo explosions, it is. Frak, they made Gauss rifles bombs and those are actually less volatile than ammo is!

XL + ammo should be basically saying "I want to die fast if my armor is breached". Ammo + Standard engine + CASE should be the "safe" norm, but just watch all those dakka 'Mechs and missile boats giving zeroes about potential detonation now.

[Tesunie]

wanderer, on 19 January 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

I live for LRMs.

I still want my ammo to explode. Even a frickin 33% boom rate would be fine. Why?

I use LRMs a lot as well. I do have a fondness for them, and I feel I am better at using them than I am other weapons.

As for ammo, an increase to it's "boom" chance I could see. A 100% chance would be... way to devastating. Especially with how much ammo we need to take to do anything significant in this game compared to TT.


Whenever you compare this game to TT, you have to consider that some things will have to change to make it work as a first person shooter. We can't have everything literally follow TT values and mechanics. TT does make a great resource to base the game after though, as far as numbers and some basic concepts of game play and customization. However, we can't follow TT too strictly or we will see problems arise.