437 replies to this topic

[Melissia]

I believe they mean remove coolant dumping. It's supposed to be something done as last resort to save the pilot's life, not something done every battle.

Edited by Melissia, 27 November 2011 - 02:25 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Maybe he meant remove coolant flushing?

[Black Sunder]

If he meant remove coolant flushing then I can get behind that.

[Raeven]

Melissia, on 27 November 2011 - 02:25 PM, said:

I believe they mean remove coolant dumping. It's supposed to be something done as last resort to save the pilot's life, not something done every battle.

I like this idea. Having coolant flush only be good for keeping the 'Mech from shutting down and ammo from exploding. Since the coolant is boing focused towards the Engine and Ammo bays, it doesn't cool down the entire 'Mech just keeps them from redlining.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Removing a way to cool yourself sounds a really bad idea to me,i imagine there will be weapons in the game that add heat to a mech but maybe not cause damage,if you have no way to remove the heat you will just be stuck there,until you either explode,the other mech kills you,or if he has no other means to kill you the timer runs out,fun fun fun!

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Inferno rounds or flamer

[Black Sunder]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 03:07 PM, said:

Removing a way to cool yourself sounds a really bad idea to me,i imagine there will be weapons in the game that add heat to a mech but maybe not cause damage,if you have no way to remove the heat you will just be stuck there,until you either explode,the other mech kills you,or if he has no other means to kill you the timer runs out,fun fun fun!

No one is saying that. People are saying to remove coolant flush as an option because what will happen is you alpha, overheat, flush coolant and go again.

People need to be considerate of their heat gauge and if it means waiting a few extra seconds before firing then so be it. Heat dissipates depending on the number of heat sinks and the environment anyway, If you decide though to overheat by firing your all laser boat and you're helpless while your system desperately tries to take heat way then you need to reconsider tactics.

Edited by Black Sunder, 27 November 2011 - 03:14 PM.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Black Sunder, on 27 November 2011 - 03:12 PM, said:

No one is saying that. People are saying to remove coolant flush as an option because what will happen is you alpha, overheat, flush coolant and go again.

People need to be considerate of their heat gauge and if it means waiting a few extra seconds before firing then so be it. Heat dissipates depending on the number of heat sinks and the environment anyway, If you decide though to overheat by firing your all laser boat and you're helpless while your system desperately tries to take heat way then you need to reconsider tactics.

hmmm,no one is saying remove coolant flush?

Black Sunder, on 27 November 2011 - 02:43 PM, said:

If he meant remove coolant flushing then I can get behind that.

Nik Van Rhijn, on 27 November 2011 - 02:26 PM, said:

Maybe he meant remove coolant flushing?

Zakatak, on 27 November 2011 - 01:12 PM, said:

Remove coolant, or make it a heavy piece of Equipment. Easy.

Three people mentioned it on this page,you did twice.I am not fighting a battle for laser boaters.

I could shut down mechs and kill them in a matter of seconds in MW4 as it is,the right map,flamers and arty beacons,wait for them to fire,overload their heat,drop arty on them.To remove the chance to flush coolant and remove heat from your mech will make this even easier!

[dm5k]

"reconsider tactics" You mean just replace some lasers with a low heat gauss rifle? That won't help with an easy use of alpha striking with no penalties.

[Black Sunder]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 03:26 PM, said:

I could shut down mechs and kill them in a matter of seconds in MW4 as it is,the right map,flamers and arty beacons,wait for them to fire,overload their heat,drop arty on them.To remove the chance to flush coolant and remove heat from your mech will make this even easier!

So are you saying the only way to remove heat is to coolant flush?

dm5k, on 27 November 2011 - 03:28 PM, said:

"reconsider tactics" You mean just replace some lasers with a low heat gauss rifle? That won't help with an easy use of alpha striking with no penalties.

But think of all the heat they won't have to deal with anymore.

Edited by Black Sunder, 27 November 2011 - 03:35 PM.

[Jervinator]

dm5k, on 27 November 2011 - 03:28 PM, said:

"reconsider tactics" You mean just replace some lasers with a low heat gauss rifle? That won't help with an easy use of alpha striking with no penalties.

Are we talking the massive, bulky things with only 8 shots per ton? Seems to me that limited battlefield endurance is a penalty.
How about the variants introduced after 3060? Seems to me that that probably wont be an issue unless they alter the timeline, but even then, that isn't a terrible issue given the weight/bulk and reload times of most Gauss weapons.

The only one I see being a potential issue is Clan Jade Falcon's AP Gauss Rifle (introduced in 3069) as it's only 0.5 tons/1 space and holds 40 shots/ton, but only 3 damage per makes it only mildly more dangerous than a Machine Gun. Put 10 of then together to make a Pirahna and we are down to 4 shots/ton for a 30-point Alpha.

I guess you are thinking Clan-style battles where endurance doesn't matter and teams don't exist, but in a team-based game with combats lasting more than 2 minutes, your concerns seem odd to me.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Black Sunder, on 27 November 2011 - 03:34 PM, said:

So are you saying the only way to remove heat is to coolant flush?

The only way to remove heat quickly on some maps is to coolant flush,which is why i said "the right map".Mechs even in stock aren't built to stand upright against a constant attack by flamers,the hotter the map the quicker you will shut down.

[dm5k]

Malavai Fletcher makes a good point. I would think you could keep your distance or have allies around to drive away that pesky flame spammer. But from what I understand the MWO maps are going to be more confined and perfect for some flamer abuse..

@ Black Sunder
My point is that people would find a way around the heat penalties from a laser boat. I would be happy if an alpha strike wasn't as accurate compared to if you fired single fire instead.

Edited by dm5k, 27 November 2011 - 03:50 PM.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Jervinator, on 27 November 2011 - 03:43 PM, said:

I guess you are thinking Clan-style battles where endurance doesn't matter and teams don't exist, but in a team-based game with combats lasting more than 2 minutes, your concerns seem odd to me.

This is a bizarre comment to me,are you under the impression that fighting against a clan means they use only tactics found in CBT lore?

[Jervinator]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 03:52 PM, said:

This is a bizarre comment to me,are you under the impression that fighting against a clan means they use only tactics found in CBT lore?

I was thinking the traditional Clan combats which are often (but not always) a series of duels. However, given that each Clan has it's own ideas about Zellbrigen, your point is taken, at least insofar as combat styles do vary.

Would it have been better if I had used Solaris arena duels as an example instead?

[Malavai Fletcher]

Well,my reference is from MW4 in the NBT league only,clan lore i learnt was half passed across to me by the loremaster of our clan and what little i picked up from some of the BT novels i read.

When it comes to actually playing this game i will find my home with a clan Hells Horses if its at all possible,we roleplayed a little back in our league,but our emphasis was more on developing tactics and fine tuning our teamwork.

We only offered Zell to two teams and accepted it from one in the whole time i played in the league.The two times we offered it was because the drops against the team had been absolutely amazing,back and forward fights.What should of been settled in two or three nights of drops went on till one team literally had no mechs left.Then we would give them the chance to drop the last of their mechs and fight each mech one on one.The rest of the time we would use intelligence about who we were fighting and devise a tactic around that,exploiting their weaknesses and trying to win with the least possible trouble for us.

Not very clan like,but hugely immersive and incredibly tactical,we didn't use clan tactics in league drops because clanners in CBT lore seem to lack self preservation,our aim was to win,not stay true to CBT.

[PhantomX]

AS and groupfire is a good tactic to use in in the game and a cooldown won't really fix the problem. You could add a weapon jam chance based on how many weapons are fired to prevent stringing *** and groupfires. The larger the damage the higher the chance.

There needs to be a mechlab in the game if not it is nothing more than a fighting game to me. This allows us to build and play to our strengths and cover our weaknesses. A laser boat suffers from heat so they cannot keep firing as effectively or have less weapons for more heat sinks. Missile and ballistic boats suffer from both heat and ammo shortages. So in my opinion AS and groupfire is already pretty well balanced as is. Also, to make to make AS less of a problem the weapons don't deal damage to one location. And if they add the special armors Reflective and Reactive and AMS, and if they can chaff for missiles as standard equipment on mechs, the problem lowers even further. The problem of poptarts could be solved by the same method as most FPSs while jumping your accuracy is lowered. Building mechs to cover certain areas is good for teamwork if not calls for even more teamwork, in my opinion

[Huntrava]

I believe I have a simple solution to this dilemma, if you don't mind reading it. Forgive me if it was covered in the last few pages of this massive thread, but there seemed to be a devolution into differing philosophies regarding the battletech universe.

Considering the way that weapons were fired in previous MW titles, one would simply aim, fire, and each of the individual weapons would, with varying degrees of accuracy, hit the same point. That is essentially what leads to "boating," since all weapons, whether lasers, PPCs, ACs, etc., all hit the same point with varying degrees of accuracy.

Now, in conventional combat this is not the case. Few weapon platforms have the capability of firing multiple platforms and striking the same point due to the barrels being offset from one another. One exception that comes to mind, fighter aircraft from WWII, fire multiple machineguns under each wing and are zeroed at a certain range, but within and beyond that range there is a significant spread. If they weren't zeroed at a particular range, they would be largely ineffective since they were generally just throwing a bunch of lead downrange.

The solution is simple in my mind: fix weapons to be zeroed at a certain range. Firing all weapons at once should be allowed, but it shouldn't be a surgical strike. It SHOULD be more like a giant shotgun blast, since all the weapon platforms have been calibrated independent of one another.

[Taurick]

I think the aiming method is the best solution, there was a nice topic recently about parallel weapon mounts and weapon convergence. The problem isn't big alpha damage (well except for defiance to canon, more on that in a minute), the problem is alpha strike that results in easy, consistent coring. The problem is only a problem cause every bit of damage is going to the CT of your mech instead of over a more manageable area.

As far as canon goes, I wouldn't object to some sort of chance based system of a critical overload on mech components, BUT if you were to do something like that I'd also like to see a customisation option to reinforce the electronics/engineering systems of your mech, so that it better copes with the stresses and strains of an alpha strike. Maybe this could be heavy as well as take a few crit slots (gotta fit in all those heavy gauge wires and redundant power couplings right?), that should balance out the alpha strike capabilities by forcing a reduction in total firepower, armour, or speed.

Boating would be better fixed by rebalancing the weight, crit, and damage aspects of the canon weaponry, as unpopular as that may be it's the only real way to stop stuff like ER Med filling just about every spare slot on a mech

[MaddMaxx]

Taurich, on 27 November 2011 - 08:29 PM, said:

I think the aiming method is the best solution, there was a nice topic recently about parallel weapon mounts and weapon convergence. The problem isn't big alpha damage (well except for defiance to canon, more on that in a minute), the problem is alpha strike that results in easy, consistent coring. The problem is only a problem cause every bit of damage is going to the CT of your mech instead of over a more manageable area.

As far as canon goes, I wouldn't object to some sort of chance based system of a critical overload on mech components, BUT if you were to do something like that I'd also like to see a customisation option to reinforce the electronics/engineering systems of your mech, so that it better copes with the stresses and strains of an alpha strike. Maybe this could be heavy as well as take a few crit slots (gotta fit in all those heavy gauge wires and redundant power couplings right?), that should balance out the alpha strike capabilities by forcing a reduction in total firepower, armour, or speed.

Boating would be better fixed by re-balancing the weight, crit, and damage aspects of the canon weaponry, as unpopular as that may be it's the only real way to stop stuff like ER Med filling just about every spare slot on a mech

The Dev could force the use of Targeting Computers to allow more than 2-3 weapons to be convergent at any one time.

BT rules have it that a TC weighs 1 Ton for everyone 4 tons of weaponry tied into it (rounded up). To test, take a low end Medium Mech and build your Boat. Then take the total Weapon Weight and subtract 1T for every 4T of weapons you want to Alpha. That TC will soon become a drain on available weight. High end Mediums and Heavies eat weight up real quick.