198 replies to this topic

[Omigir]

Graphite, on 20 January 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

[...] Second, ACs in MWO are "cannons" not big "machine guns" (if the trailer is anything to go by) - in other words they shoot big shells at a relatively low rate of fire. MW is a BT game in the BT universe using BT weapons. If it wasn't meant to be BT-like they would never have paid for a licence. Even now, BT still has a large fan following, and while you might not care, they do. MW uses BT mech designs, which become screwed up if you change the weapon stats. No realtime game ever has or will be a perfect implementation of BT, but they're all pretty close. Of course the devs will tweak things away from canon to work well in their game, but always while keeping BT in mind. The MWO devs were required to play TT BT for this project.

Side note, the Trailer,the Warhammer IIC if im not mistaken, is shooting off MG's not AC 2/5/10/20

And thank you for hte last part, the BTU part <3

[verybad]

A lot can happen in ten seconds. The AC and the lasers are doing all sorts of different things. Personaly I think the AC would fire heavy bursts in short spans, while the lasers would have a short beam that dameged over time but recharged faster than the AC.

The overall damage over time of 4 medium lasers versus 1 AC-20 might be the same, but the AC-20 will offer a nasty quick amount of damage that can heavilly damage an area very quickly. Now those lasers, they're doing the same amount of damage, but over the course of 10 seconds, that damage might be more spread out, as different partts of the target are presented to you.Even if the lasers have convergent targetting, they're not doing as much damage in a short period of time as an AC-20.

They both have advantages and disadvantages, it's up to the player to optimize those in order to win.

Graphite, on 20 January 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

I think something like this is the best way to fix the problem. (Put in the '4x' you left out Omigir!)
Personally I'd like to see the AC20 do 20 damage and have a 10 second reload though.

You'd be very lonely on the servers, even the battletech developers (for the boardgame) say that the weapons all have different rates of fire and so on, and that much is optimized for a boardgame.

Quote

MW is a BT game in the BT universe using BT weapons. If it wasn't meant to be BT-like they would never have paid for a licence. Even now, BT still has a large fan following, and while you might not care, they do.
MW uses BT mech designs, which become screwed up if you change the weapon stats.

No Mechwarrior is a Mechwarrior game in the Battletech Universe. Realtime is not the same as Turnbased gameplay. Believe me, if it were so easy to convert one to the other satisfactorilly, than the Developers would love it, it would make their job easier.

The Developers for Battletech have stated MANY times that Battletech is a turn based simulation of combat in the 31st cetury, and should not be considered how those weapons, armor, performance, etc actually function.

Desiring for weapons to actually have a ten second recharge/reload time is ludicrous, it would kill the game.

Battletech does not have nearly as large a player base as the Mechwarrior games have, and real time game play requires compromises and changes in order for it to be engaging and dare I say it, FUN.

Ten second weapon turn arounds, be it small lasers or AC-20s, as well as fanatical worshiping of the TURN based rules to the detriment of any real time game would result in a failed game.

You use the right tool for the job you're working on, battletech rules provide a base to start from, but they aren't the be all end all template to stick to.

Edited by verybad, 20 January 2012 - 03:04 PM.

[Zervziel]

Omigir, on 20 January 2012 - 02:23 PM, said:

You cant just abandon the Table top. You can modify it, ala my '10 second' break down. There are things you can do to make it functonal without discarding the table top.

Look at the '10 seconds' from the TT being a final snap shot or a photograph of what happend at the end of those 10 seconds. In mechwarrior, all you are doing is playing through that 10 seconds. instead or rolling dice you *ARE* the dice. Your skill comes into play vice the little 5/5/5 guy that adds into the equation. Its not that hard. Just have to open up the box and step outside of it.

No one needs to throw out anything. Just look at it upside downa nd backwards and then flip it over to get a diffrent look at it.

I'm for keeping things with the TT game, but at the same time people advocating nothing but TT rules need to give ground on some of the parts. Excessive amount of details will drag it down. Alot of what I see people suggesting for this game might not seem that bad at first but considering this is going to be a persistent game where keeping people playing determines the lifetime of the game. Things like excessive destruction due to overheating is fine if it's a game where people slam down 60 dollars once for the game. In a freemium game that's little details will start to drag pretty quickly. I don't want a game like this to die an early death because the players got tired of having to keep track of a million little details. The game needs to hook in MW fans, BT fans and more to be successful. Only catering to the BT fans will start to make others leave.

[Kyzar Kon]

Sadly, I almost think a cone of fire is needed to balance out hit locations, or give energy weapons a DoT effect. Only way i can think of to seperate the weapons into 'hole-punchers' and 'griders'. Ac/20 on TT is about removing a crapload of armor from one-spot, the med lasers, on the other hand, can do same amount of damage for less weight and critical slots, but different hit locations.

This comparison is too difficult seeing that the IS medium laser is THE BEST weapon of all battletech.

[Zervziel]

Cone of Fire? Really? How about we just put all the weapons on one big action bar at the bottom and press them and then wait for the weapon to fire. You can only fire energy weapons if you have enough "charge" as depicted by the blue bar underneath your red overall health bar at the top lrft. Stop trying to take any semblance of personal skill out of the game. Some people can actually aim and would like the ability to do so without getting boned over by artificial device like cone of fire. What is wrong with people being able to aim? I don't see what's wrong with weapons converging and why people say it should hit all over the side of the mech instead of what you wanted to hit. Canon in this case should be thrown out the window, because quite frankly gameplay should trump canon. I'd rather have a game that bent canon in places to increase playability rather than have a "canon" game that is prevents me from having any fun.

Edited by Zervziel, 20 January 2012 - 03:24 PM.

[VYCanis]

Here's the thing though

The numbers 20 pertaining to an ac20 or the number 5 pertaining to a medium laser, are just that, numbers. The numbers are not the weapons. it doesn't suddenly stop being a given weapon if you create new values.

The real question should be, what role does an ac20 have and how should it be balanced compared to a bunch of lasers, how does the fiction describe it, and what is the best way to interpret those aspects to make it a satisfying fun and balanced weapon.

Instead of shoehorning game design to conform to numbers that were designed to balanced for a turn based game, and ending up with awkward and arbitrary seeming weapons, come up with new values that better represent the fiction and role of that weapon in real time.

i mean, look at the rac 5 in MWLL. do you think that thing is firing 6 shots for 5 damage each within 10s? no. But does it look sound and behave like a RAC5, ought to? hell yes it does. Its a veritable bullet hose that runs into problems when fired too long. If you were to try and make it doggedly literal to the tabletop rules instead of the fiction and give it a rate of fire that was only 60rpm, people would decry it as not feeling properly RAC like.

that's what i'm getting at

[statler]

two points:

1. remember getting hit by a bunch o stuff in previous mw games, and it knocking you around and fully throw off you aim or a sec? AC should do that crazy because its a single hit of kinetic energy to one spot. i kinow light has a particle energy type thing going on, and you might feel that at these levels, but i think the majority of damage of lasers is going to be heat right? that would not knock your mech around, so dont make it do that. so as there might be a slight imbalance on the dmg/weight numbers, knocking your enemy off target for a bit of your weap recycle time is a nice bonus.

2. depending on how they do heat and heat sinks/dissipation, they can make it so the weight of heat sinks needed after the first couple evens it up on weight/dmg. if they do it right, a light light mech wont need any heat sinks for a single erll, or a couple mediums or something....that would give a bit of a bump to the lighter mechs, and to well rounded weapon designs on heavier mechs.

the location of hit is a whole other issue in my opinion, because you can put 4 med lasers on a single arm in the same space as the ac 20. the couple foot spread of fire on those mediums is not going to spread anything over different hit boxes, so you have to balance based on that scenario.

[Zervziel]

VYCanis, on 20 January 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:

Here's the thing though

The numbers 20 pertaining to an ac20 or the number 5 pertaining to a medium laser, are just that, numbers. The numbers are not the weapons. it doesn't suddenly stop being a given weapon if you create new values.

The real question should be, what role does an ac20 have and how should it be balanced compared to a bunch of lasers, how does the fiction describe it, and what is the best way to interpret those aspects to make it a satisfying fun and balanced weapon.

Instead of shoehorning game design to conform to numbers that were designed to balanced for a turn based game, and ending up with awkward and arbitrary seeming weapons, come up with new values that better represent the fiction and role of that weapon in real time.

i mean, look at the rac 5 in MWLL. do you think that thing is firing 6 shots for 5 damage each within 10s? no. But does it look sound and behave like a RAC5, ought to? hell yes it does. Its a veritable bullet hose that runs into problems when fired too long. If you were to try and make it doggedly literal to the tabletop rules instead of the fiction and give it a rate of fire that was only 60rpm, people would decry it as not feeling properly RAC like.

that's what i'm getting at

That's a good point. On paper the RAC 5 from MWLL doesn't seem to threatening until you run into the Fafnir carrying four of the things.

[Graphite]

Omigir, on 20 January 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

Side note, the Trailer,the Warhammer IIC if im not mistaken, is shooting off MG's not AC 2/5/10/20

And thank you for hte last part, the BTU part <3

The Atlas is firing an AC20 from its right torso.

verybad, on 20 January 2012 - 02:50 PM, said:

You'd be very lonely on the servers, even the battletech developers (for the boardgame) say that the weapons all have different rates of fire and so on, and that much is optimized for a boardgame.

Are you perhaps reading stuff I didn't write?

I've said (multiple times) that I want different rates of fire - I've even posted links to them in replies to you!

The sentence you quoted means ony exactly what it says: I'd like to see the AC20 have a 10 second reload time.

Quote

No Mechwarrior is a Mechwarrior game in the Battletech Universe.

No, MW *is* a BT game. Look up the history of the BT computer game licencing. And have a look at battletech.com and tell us what you see there.

Quote

Realtime is not the same as Turnbased gameplay. Believe me, if it were so easy to convert one to the other satisfactorilly, than the Developers would love it, it would make their job easier.

Well done, this is correct. Believe me: I'm a software developer, who plays both BT TT and BT computer games.

Quote

The Developers for Battletech have stated MANY times that Battletech is a turn based simulation of combat in the 31st cetury, and should not be considered how those weapons, armor, performance, etc actually function.

Desiring for weapons to actually have a ten second recharge/reload time is ludicrous, it would kill the game.

Battletech does not have nearly as large a player base as the Mechwarrior games have, and real time game play requires compromises and changes in order for it to be engaging and dare I say it, FUN.

Ten second weapon turn arounds, be it small lasers or AC-20s, as well as fanatical worshiping of the TURN based rules to the detriment of any real time game would result in a failed game.

You use the right tool for the job you're working on, battletech rules provide a base to start from, but they aren't the be all end all template to stick to.

Now you seem to simply be paraphrasing me.

Anyway, its said best by the devs themselves: "We are adhering very closely to the BattleTech® tabletop rules. Some mechanics in the tabletop version of the game do not translate well into a videogame and we are coming up with our own rule sets that mitigate these differences in an intuitive and fun manner."

If you can find a quote of myself saying something contrary to that I'd love to see it!

VYCanis, on 20 January 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:

Here's the thing though

The numbers 20 pertaining to an ac20 or the number 5 pertaining to a medium laser, are just that, numbers. The numbers are not the weapons. it doesn't suddenly stop being a given weapon if you create new values.

How is it "given"? By its name?
It's role is defined by its numbers.

Edited by Graphite, 20 January 2012 - 05:40 PM.

[Undead]

Graphite, on 20 January 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

Personally I'd like to see the AC20 do 20 damage and have a 10 second reload though.

I would hate to see ballistic weapons become redundant too, but fortunately matching dps isn't going to do this. 10 shots at 2 damage is very different from 2 shots at 10 damage - the latter is far better at punching holes in armour at a single location.

10 second reload time is absurd in a real-time game. That again gives the advantage to the faster-cycling lasers. If you happen to miss w/ that AC shot you're totally screwed, if you miss w/ the lasers no biggie, you can fire again in 2 seconds.

Another thing I totally forgot to mention in my previous post is ammo explosions. Now you're carrying a heavy weapon that not only cycles slow, but can run out of ammo and/or totally explode you if your opponent gets a lucky shot. What is the advantage of that weapon compared to the infinite-shot laser array that does the exact same dps and can't blow up?

Granted, as you said the Ac will have greater potential for piercing a single location's armor, but imo, that alone doesn't come close to making up for the massive drawbacks of ammo-dependency/explodeability.

Edited by Undead, 20 January 2012 - 04:16 PM.

[VYCanis]

Quote

How is it "given"? By its name?
It's role is defined by its numbers.

In the TT its balanced by those numbers. But the weapon is not a magical number shooting weapon. It does not load and fire the number 20.

The fiction gives you that its a class of large repeating cannons that come in various calibers, rates of fire, consume through a ton of ammo very quickly, and excel at short ranges.

Thats what an ac20 is all about. The value of 20 dmg, 7 heat, 5 shots per ton for ammo, etc was simply how it was expressed in the TT,

I mean, i could not care less if the values for all armor and weapons are completely different and bear zero resmblance to the TT, if it means that the relationship, roles, fiction, and balance are presented well for real time. If the weapon i'm firing is a big BFG of a cannon that tears things apart at close range and is balanced vs its smaller cousins and other weapon systems, and looks, feels, and sounds like an ac20 should, what do i care if its based on the number 20 or not?

Obviously this applies to some things more than others. An LRM 20 needs to fire 20 missiles. thats a given. ditto for an srm 6 firing 6 missiles, mainly because thats how all the art and fiction describes it. but so long as each weapon has the proper niche without being overpowered vs other systems and behaves like their descriptions imply they should, then I'm open to anything.

Edited by VYCanis, 20 January 2012 - 04:25 PM.

[Graphite]

Undead, on 20 January 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

10 second reload time is absurd in a real-time game. That again gives the advantage to the faster-cycling lasers. If you happen to miss w/ that AC shot you're totally screwed, if you miss w/ the lasers no biggie, you can fire again in 2 seconds.

I agree it's absurd for most weapons. I think it's a nice feel for the AC20 though - a huge cannon that deals massive damage bat takes ages to reload. Of course, its perfectly possible that after trying it I would feel differently, but probably not. Anyway, the trailer has already shown the AC20 firing rate is much higher than that - just a few seconds, from memory.

Your argument cuts both ways: after hitting with an AC20, 20 damage is assured. After hitting onve with your 4xML you still have to hit another 4 times. Basically what this thread is about.

Quote

Another thing I totally forgot to mention in my previous post is ammo explosions. Now you're carrying a heavy weapon that not only cycles slow, but can run out of ammo and/or totally explode you if your opponent gets a lucky shot. What is the advantage of that weapon compared to the infinite-shot laser array that does the exact same dps and can't blow up?

I don't think anyone is saying ML and AC20s are fairly balanced, but there are some good things about the AC20:
A single AC20 shot is going to punch holes in armour, 4xML isn't. An AC20 will (hopefully) cause the target to stagger, 4xML isn't.

Quote

Granted, as you said the Ac will have greater potential for piercing a single location's armor, but imo, that alone doesn't come close to making up for the massive drawbacks of ammo-dependency/explodeability.

If you're right then people won't use it, but I don't think you are. An AC20 can take down a light or medium mech in a single shot (depending on how it's abilities are modeled of course! )

[Graphite]

VYCanis, on 20 January 2012 - 04:24 PM, said:

I mean, i could not care less if the values for all armor and weapons are completely different and bear zero resmblance to the TT, if it means that the relationship, roles, fiction, and balance are presented well for real time. If the weapon i'm firing is a big BFG of a cannon that tears things apart at close range and is balanced vs its smaller cousins and other weapon systems, and looks, feels, and sounds like an ac20 should, what do i care if its based on the number 20 or not?

Of course, you're correct.

When we write 20, 4, 5, here we don't mean the devs are literally typing "20" into their code - it's all relative.

[Solis Obscuri]

Kurios, on 15 November 2011 - 10:34 PM, said:

Thats a broken assumption you know.... Your talking about 4 different weapon systems. Mounted at 4 separate points. Each one has to traverse to the target, ect, ect... especially as your point blank mark isnt even going to be at the same "angle..." So you got a computer system that attempts to put the guns onto your target curser. Though, I guess if you really think you are the ****, you could try to aim 4 guns yourself. But I think the computer ~just~ might do a better job then you at it. And even it isnt perfect. Ill think about drawing you diagrams and such if you think that im just making some bullshit up. But feel free to look at sterographic vision, Its a similiar problem... But in reverse. ( ie, you arnt trying to aim the cameras. Just make a 3d image with them. ). So yah. They actually are going to spread. At least a little. Theres alot of movement going on on those weapons mounts. it isnt like your rifle. (which, by the way, doesnt always shoot where the sight points, but thats another discussion. If you really care to know about that, go read rifle reviews in a shooting mag. They talk about scatter to. and thats RL. ) So some points: Unstable firing platform. Weapons arnt perfect to began with Weapons dont have same Point of View on target. A computer aims. Not you. (kinda)

THIS ^^^

And then take into account that not all weapons will fire at precisely the same instant, so if the target is moving, that will throw their point of aim off slightly.

Also, if you're moving, and any lasers are arm mounted, I'd expect a fairly big discrepancy it hit location because the arms will move relative to the torso, as well.

Though, of course, if the AC/20 is firing a ten-shot burst of shells for each "round" of ammo, it should spread damage when either the target mech or the firing mech is in motion, too...

Kurios, on 15 November 2011 - 11:25 PM, said:

Heh, no problem. You prompted me to draw a picture anyways.

Love it!

[Bloody]

the best way to balance is to ensure Heat scale works properly. The main reason why 4 Medium Lasers do not work as well as a Heavy AC20 is that the heat is only dissipated at the end of the round rather than immediately. So 12 ( 3 heat per Medium Laser ) points of heat will apply and that will cause the loss of control, possible shutdown etc. Risk versus reward. Eventually the mech will just shutdown and well, a stationary mech is a dead mech.

[Omigir]

Zervziel, on 20 January 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

I'm for keeping things with the TT game, but at the same time people advocating nothing but TT rules need to give ground on some of the parts. Excessive amount of details will drag it down. Alot of what I see people suggesting for this game might not seem that bad at first but considering this is going to be a persistent game where keeping people playing determines the lifetime of the game. Things like excessive destruction due to overheating is fine if it's a game where people slam down 60 dollars once for the game. In a freemium game that's little details will start to drag pretty quickly. I don't want a game like this to die an early death because the players got tired of having to keep track of a million little details. The game needs to hook in MW fans, BT fans and more to be successful. Only catering to the BT fans will start to make others leave.

Well thats fine, why dont you let people love the game and the BTU for what it is. It is a 'nerd' game. So is eve, eve is a very indepth and complicated world and its been around since MW4. MW4 died, Eve did not. So how about you stop trying to 'change' the game to make it 'playable'. Otherwise we will all be playing MechAssault online. <- perefect example of 'changing the game to make it playble.'

[Yeach]

Bloody, on 21 January 2012 - 04:13 AM, said:

the best way to balance is to ensure Heat scale works properly. The main reason why 4 Medium Lasers do not work as well as a Heavy AC20 is that the heat is only dissipated at the end of the round rather than immediately. So 12 ( 3 heat per Medium Laser ) points of heat will apply and that will cause the loss of control, possible shutdown etc. Risk versus reward. Eventually the mech will just shutdown and well, a stationary mech is a dead mech.

Or not to combine Level 1 and Level 2 tech. Ie letting Mechs starts off with 10 DHS instead of 10 SHS which was probably why the heatscale was so forgiving in the previous Mechwarrior games. 4 medium lasers (12 heat) is nothing on a Mech with 10 double heatsinks (-20 heat) standard.

[Yeach]

Back to the reason I rezed this topic.

Yeach, on 17 January 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

Does anyone know the costs of 4 medium lasers vs 1 AC20.

If they are going to make autocannons viable, they will have to give ACs an advantage in terms of cost because lasers beat them in savings of tonnage, critical space and unlimited ammo (and risk of ammo explosions)

Does an AC5 cost more or less than a Medium laser?

MaddMaxx, on 18 January 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

As in C-Bills?

ML = Cost 40,000 - Long Range 7-9
AC20 = Cost 300,000 - Long Range 7-9
AC5 = Cost 125,000 - Long Range 13-18 (1 hex = +/- 30m)
The OP has the other Stats.

When I first heard to the name BattleTech with Mechs with combination of autocannons, lasers and missiles I always thought the "Tech" refered to the use of "high" technology weapons such as lasers, PPCs and "low" techology weapons such as autocannons (and machine guns) and assumed that the balance betwen them was cost.

I think about is that lasers in an efficiently spaced (tonnage and critical) package should cost immensly more than autocannons that require the full critical space for loading, muzzles, recoil dampers, etc but is more ancient technology.

What MaddMaxx has showed me in his post is that this was not the case in TT which I thought it would be.

What IMO would give a good balance was if the medium laser (and associated beam weapons) have a large jump in cost.
If one medium laser cost half or even a third as much as an AC20, would you take the 4 medium lasers over the AC20 (ie 4 Medium lasers costing DOUBLE an AC20)?

If an AC5 costs as much as medium laser, would this not make "low" tech autocannons (with ammo constraints and ammo explosion possibilities and more criticals meaning easier to disable) much more attractive to use in a cost environment?

[Strum Wealh]

To add a couple of cents:

Given that the damage numbers in the TT rules represent the damage done over the turn (10 seconds), what about having both the ROF and the damage and heat per salvo for each weapon set such that the DPS and heat generation for each weapon is such that the TT-listed damage and heat would be generated over the course of 10 seconds of firing?

That is, for the Medium Lasers (5 damage and 3 heat per 10-second period, 1 ton each):

Quote

Model A Medium Laser
ROF: 1 salvo per second
Heat: 0.30 heat per salvo
Damage: 0.50 damage per salvo

Model B Medium Laser
ROF: 1 salvo every 2 seconds
Heat: 0.60 heat per salvo
Damage: 1.00 damage per salvo

Model C Medium Laser
ROF: 1 salvo every 2.5 seconds
Heat: 0.75 heat per salvo
Damage: 1.25 damage per salvo

Model Z Medium Laser
ROF: 1 salvo every 10 seconds
Heat: 3.00 heat per salvo
Damage: 5.00 damage per salvo

and so on

versus the AC-20s (20 damage and 7 heat per 10-second period, 14 tons each (+ 1 or more tons for ammo)):

Quote

Model A AC-20
ROF: 1 salvo per second
Heat: 0.70 heat per salvo
Damage: 2.00 damage per salvo

Model B AC-20
ROF: 1 salvo every 2 seconds
Heat: 1.40 heat per salvo
Damage: 4.00 damage per salvo

Model C AC-20
ROF: 1 salvo every 2.5 seconds
Heat: 1.75 heat per salvo
Damage: 5.00 damage per salvo

Model Z AC-20
ROF: 1 salvo every 10 seconds
Heat: 7.00 heat per salvo
Damage: 20.00 damage per salvo

and so on

versus the Medium Pulse Laser (6 damage and 4 heat per 10-second period, 2 tons each):

Quote

Model A Medium Pulse Laser
ROF: 1 salvo per second
Heat: 0.40 heat per salvo
Damage: 0.60 damage per salvo

Model B Medium Pulse Laser
ROF: 1 salvo every 2 seconds
Heat: 0.80 heat per salvo
Damage: 1.20 damage per salvo

Model C Medium Pulse Laser
ROF: 1 salvo every 2.5 seconds
Heat: 1.00 heat per salvo
Damage: 1.50 damage per salvo

Model Z Medium Pulse Laser
ROF: 1 salvo every 10 seconds
Heat: 4.00 heat per salvo
Damage: 6.00 damage per salvo

and so on

On top of this:

• Damage on "normal/standard" lasers should not be "front-loaded" - the damage should be delivered over the duration of the beam, such that fire would have to be maintained on the same area in order to deliver the listed damage.
  
• Damage on pulse laser salvos should be distributed across the individual beams/bolts within a salvo, with the damage of each beam/bolt not being front-loaded.
  
• Damage on ballistic weapons should be distributed across the shells/slugs per salvo, with the damage-per-shell front-loaded for each shell in the salvo.
  
• Each unit on the in-cockpit ammo counter for ACs represents a clip or belt that carries enough shells for 10 seconds worth of firing at the particular make/model's ROF (to maintain the TT/canon ammo longevity).
  
• Lasers, in general, should have very little "knock" in comparison to the ballistic weapons (as the knock from lasers would be produced by the explosive vaporization of armor, while the ballistic weapons produce knock by virtue of momentum transfer from the slug(s)/shell(s) to the target in addition to the explosive shattering/vaporization of armor).

Under such a system, the AC-20s for a given ROF would have the advantages of higher damage per salvo, higher damage per second, higher knock per salvo, and very low heat per unit damage with the trade-offs of high per-weapon weight, low damage per ton, and dependency on ammunition (and all that that entails).
By contrast, the Medium Lasers and Medium Pulse Lasers with the same ROF would have the advantages of low per-weapon weight, high damage per ton, and no dependency on ammunition, but would have less damage per salvo, less damage per second, less knock per salvo, and high heat per unit damage.

Under such a system, it is possible that one type of AC-20 may become more popular than another type of AC-20, one type of Medium Laser may become more popular than another type of Medium Laser, one type of AC-20 may be preferred to a quartet of one type of Medium Laser, a quartet of another type of Medium Laser may be preferable to another type of AC-20, and so on.

This would also have the effect of making most weapons generally less effective as "high-alpha weapons" while also generally shifting the game as a whole toward a more DPS-oriented style of gameplay; "high-alpha builds" could still be created and used if the right makes and models of weapons (and a sufficient number of heat sinks!) are outfitted and the individual pilot(s) are skilled in hit-and-fade tactics, but it should (hopefully) make other forms of play (grouping by ROF or multiples thereof in addition to grouping by range, for example) equally-or-more viable than "kill everything with one shot, overheat and flush/shutdown, and repeat", with one-shot-kill boats (ideally) becoming the exception rather than the rule.

It could also be made to affect the in-game economy (assuming there will be an in-game economy) - if specific makes/models of weapons become more/less popular, they can be made more/less expensive (supply and demand, and all that)...

Your thoughts?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 21 January 2012 - 07:41 PM.

[Razor Kotovsky]

Caballo, on 15 November 2011 - 10:08 PM, said:

tank can aim the main cannon and the coaxial machinegun at the same point.

Uh, no, they really can't.
Their axis' can have a point of crossing, but it is physically impossible for them to have the same trajectory.

Lasers don't experience drop (inb4 refraction) and are basically immune to windage so they don't diverge from their original axis at all.
Therefore unless they are all mounted in separate chambers that provide aiming corrections in order to change the distance of point of crossing they can't hit the exact same spot.

You should read about 40's era fighter's weaponry.

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 21 January 2012 - 03:46 PM.