68 replies to this topic

[Doctor Proctor]

wanderer, on 06 February 2014 - 03:17 PM, said:

It does extend your AMS umbrella slightly for keeping others safe, though. Adding 16m in every direction does boost how many flights your AMS gets an effective crack at as they're coming in on others, even if the self-protection boost is minimal.

I mean, would a module that extended ECM an extra 16m out be useful?

Again though, the difference is negligible. For it to help, you're talking about a missile volley that would've been out of range of the old AMS, but is now within the range of the new one. Since it's at the edge of he circle though the missiles will only be in range for a fraction of a second, which means at best a single missile will be shot down out of the volley.

I mean, sure, one missile is better than no missiles I guess, but will it really make all that much a difference that your buddy took an LRM49 to the face rather than an LRM50? Me personally, I'd rather take something like Target Info Gathering so that I can see the crit side torso on that LRM mech faster and perhaps take out half his weapons systems before he can even fire that LRM50 volley at my buddy.

ECM, on the other hand, is totally different. ECM doesn't depend on time spent within the bubble, it works on a "If you're in, it's covering you completely" model, and therefore any range extension works at 100% effectiveness. I don't run any ECM mechs, but if I did, I might consider a range extension of 16m because that would allow the team to spread out that much more (especially since the bubble increases in diameter by 32m) and be less vulnerable to the constant Arty strikes that people love to shoot off. ECM and AMS are just completely different support systems in that respect.

[MadCat02]

Sephlock, on 06 February 2014 - 04:27 PM, said:

In all seriousness, I do understand that the modules as they are now are more of a proof of concept than anything else, but why not go crazy with them on the test servers? Gather some data.

Isn't that what test servers are for? To find out if stuff is stupidly broken?

how are we gona gather data if nobody gona use 20 meter modules?

[Sephlock]

MadCat02, on 07 February 2014 - 08:22 AM, said:

how are we gona gather data if nobody gona use 20 meter modules?

The scientist in me understands this.

The normal person in me wonders what data could possibly arise from a module that barely does anything.

We aren't Orks. If something makes little to no difference, it will... make little to no difference.

[Doctor Proctor]

MadCat02, on 07 February 2014 - 08:22 AM, said:

how are we gona gather data if nobody gona use 20 meter modules?

Sephlock, on 07 February 2014 - 08:25 AM, said:

The scientist in me understands this.

The normal person in me wonders what data could possibly arise from a module that barely does anything.

We aren't Orks. If something makes little to no difference, it will... make little to no difference.

The lack of usage is data in and of itself. For example, if we had all the tiers and no one used Tier 1 through 3, then that should tell you that you really just have 2 tiers that consist of the bonuses of Tiers 4 and 5. Or more probably, you should just have one module that just has the Tier 5 bonus.

Honestly though, at least in their current implementation I don't even think I would use Tier 4 or 5 versions of these modules. Sure, at that point the bonuses on some of the modules might actually be worth something, but their penalties are scaling linearly as well! As the modules get better, the penalty is getting progressively worse as well, which will just make many of them not worth it in the end.

[Sephlock]

Doctor Proctor, on 07 February 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

The lack of usage is data in and of itself.

So based on NARC, we can expect the effects of our lack of usage to show up in... 2 years?

[Scryed]

OneEyed Jack, on 04 February 2014 - 11:04 PM, said:

Or, if you'd paid, attention you would know that they're planning to add modules for other weapon stats and this is just the first wave.

They've also mentioned the idea of changing the modules to have different categories (passive, skill, expendable, etc) with more total slots divided up between the categories, so "taking up a module slot" might not be such a big thing in the long run. If they don't do something along those lines, yeah, most weapon modules of any sort will probably be a waste of time. But there's a very fine line between useless and OMFG OP with something like this. That or total P2W, as far as new players without large banks of GXP are concerned.

They still suck, and PGI can't balance the game cause they stick to these convoluted Solaris VII rules which don't work.. Input has been given time after time and they ignore it, so I will do just like them read the forums and ignore the game...

Edited by Scryed, 07 February 2014 - 09:20 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Sephlock, on 06 February 2014 - 04:09 PM, said:

Also I really don't see the benefit to reaching .0000000001cm further in exchange for more heat, even discounting the need for a module slot.

You have to consider that the heat gain is just as miniscule as the range gain.

WHat I find very questionable however is that it seems the percentage heat and range gains are similar across all weapons. That shouldn't be the case, because not every weapon has the same heat to damage or heat to range efficiency. SOme weapons, for gaining range, gain a lot of weight instead of a lot of heat. (See AC/5 vs Medium Laser. Both are 5 damage, one has 270m range, but weighs only 1 ton, the other weighs 8 tons for twice that range). SO if you just increase the heat component, that means they sacrifice less than the lower range but lower weight weapon.
Likewise, some weapons, for gaining damage, need a lot more weight but less heat (See AC/20 vs the needs of 4 MLs).

Seems range modules are best used on ballistics, since the cost are lowest.
I suppose if there is a "cooling" module that, say, lowers range, it might be more interesting for energy weapons.
WItht he miniscule values used,it's no big deal, but if the values were more important, this of course also means a lot of noob trap potential. I believe someone at PGI really likes the concept of System Mastery.

[Doctor Proctor]

Sephlock, on 07 February 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

So based on NARC, we can expect the effects of our lack of usage to show up in... 2 years?

Hey, I said it was data, I didn't say they would actually use the data in a timely fashion...

[MustrumRidcully]

Doctor Proctor, on 07 February 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

Hey, I said it was data, I didn't say they would actually use the data in a timely fashion...

And all of this data points form a beautiful line! *lalala*