23 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Noesis, on 10 February 2014 - 09:48 AM, said:

When I've got some more time I'll thoroughly read that. But for the moment remember that the stock+100 isn't all increases. The fact is about 60% of the variants are getting either major, minor or insignificant armor nerfs. To name two specifically the Spider gets a +2 points in armor. The Victors are losing maximum armor potential in the 40 to 50-ish range. All 65 ton mechs except the Thunderbolt are getting huge armor cuts. The Jager DD becomes on part with a Raven. Two of the Cicadas get less armor than locusts.

There is no need for increased ammo; the reason that single hit ballistics are such a huge problem is that they have too much ammo and have been given ammo to revolve around the concept of "all guns being able to do the same amount of damage per ton" and were set with the Gauss Rifle as the base; the king of ~any~ instant damage in lore is the base for all ammo amounts per ton.

Battletech amounts. AC/20 = 5 uses (100 damage). AC/10 (100 damage), 10 uses. AC/5, 15 uses (75 damage). AC/2, 45 uses (90 damage). Gauss rifle = 8 uses (120 damage).

Current. AC/20 = 7 uses. 140 damage. AC/10 = 15 uses. 150 damage. AC/5 30 uses. 150 damage. AC/2 75 uses, 150 damage. Gauss Rifle 10 uses, 150 damage.

Say we did increase ammo. Laser weapons become useless. What was the point of that? Say we increase the heat; we can already do 7 ER PPCs + ghost heat and survive an excess of 11 alpha strikes, back to back, while originally being in Override beyond 100% heat. Now what would raising either just accomplish? I'll be back to read it soon; but that would make a bad situation worse when very few mechs truly benefit from the stock + 100 concept.

In most cases, the worst mechs of all (the easiest to kill) benefit the most and the meta mechs are pimp-slapped (the hardest to kill). Maybe your stuff can change my mind, but largely I fail to see the need to increase anything. If anything at all, reduce medium laser heat back to 3 where it belongs and reduce beam time to 0.5 seconds, with pulse lasers being 0.25 or less. Problem solved.

[Macksheen]

Although - if the question is "time to kill" being too short - why not go the other way?

On mechs that are not often used or are currently lackluster, allow them to sport more armor? Stripping armor doesn't improve time to kill.

[Noesis]

Understood, Koniving.

But my conclusions were to reduce heat for heat dependent weapons or increase dissipation capabilities to allow for the increase in armour.

Also need to consider confidence with pinpoint weapons vs spread however and an increase in armour will exacerbate this issue, but could be compensated elsewhere with other improvements to weapons that do spread even if subtle to help balance the issue.

I'll let you read it more fully though.

And I'll repeat that I'm not opposed to increasing armour or longevity in the game an consider this proposal as useful. But I do think by making these adjustments there a few extra considerations to balance to make as a result.

[Satan n stuff]

Koniving, on 10 February 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:

When weight limits comes, a Spider will always be superior to a Urban mech. The Urban mech cannot contribute evenly if it's one benefiting factor is completely removed from it to be "even" with the Spider. The Urban mech is a slow one-shot-dead piece of dirt with the current limits. With the stock+100, unlike the Spider who only survives while moving, the Urban mech will be able to tank two shots before dying.

Remember, with how PGI does engine limits the Urban mech by design would have a cap of 60-ish kph. With the same armor as a spider going 150+. If armor remains "even", then the Urban mech is dead on arrival.

Put a standard 115 engine (the urban mech's max according to how PGI does engine ratings) in a Spider, grab AC/10 and small laser, and tell me how you do. Without more armor than a spider can carry, say Urbanmech's stock + 100, you won't have a chance.

I got three notifications for this? Must have been a lot of typos.
I never said that the Urbanmech could compete with the Spider directly, it obviously can't. It can be used in a different role, that is basically a cheap ( by tonnage ) poptart, and at equal cost ( for example three vs one Highlander ) it can easily beat heavier poptarts. The only reason it doesn't work now is that drops are so heavy that you can't expect a balanced match if there's too many lights on a team.
Sure it would take three players in Urbanmechs to reliably beat one Highlander, but that means you'll have a whole lot of tonnage available for the rest of the team. If you happen to not be facing a Highlander, you'll still have between 1.5 and 2 Highlanders worth of firepower for the price of one to unload at any available targets.
Three Spiders would eventually kill a Highlander, assuming they can survive that long, but they'll have to expose themselves to a lot more enemy fire, or play poptart themselves. Three Urbies would kill a Highlander in as little as two alphas each, while poptarting.
The whole point of slow lights is to provide cheap firepower, and while we probably won't get BV balancing or Cbill balancing, weight balancing ( that actually works ) would still make them viable.

I play a lot of RTS games, and generally the different units aren't equal to each other in value, but each has its own purpose. You might need more units of a cheaper type to counter a more expensive one ( or the other way around ) , but you'll end up paying less for your units and costing your opponent more. RTS players value units not just based on how they perform in one on one combat, but mostly how they perform in numbers against a specific force of equal cost. If I throw my ten cheap units at one enemy unit that costs ten times as much per unit and win, that is cost effective, because I just eliminated a large amount of enemy resources while I get to keep part of what I spent as active units. My opponent will then have to use a counter to take out a number of my units, or take the loss and risk losing the match because I now have a more valuable army.
If I were to have three Urbanmechs kill an enemy Highlander, the enemy would be forced to immediately attempt to kill something valuable of mine ( not neccessarily the Urbies ) , or risk losing because he's down a Highlander.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 11 February 2014 - 07:19 AM.