198 replies to this topic

[Kudzu]

Riptor, on 18 November 2011 - 09:51 PM, said:

Yeah but saying smashing through the armor sounds more like the shells they used in WW2 that would do little damage to the armor but still destroy the insides, wich seeing how mechs are build wouldnt be as effective on a mech then on a tank

From what I understand spalling was the major problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spall

[guardiandashi]

I am going to say first of all I am not military or even involved in weapons design, but I read .... A lot all military ammo especially "cannon rounds" have an alphabet soup designator that explains (in general) how the round works

HE abbriviation for High explosive, IE the round goes BOOM whin it hits something.

AP Armor Piercing the round is intended to poke a hole in armor without stopping

HEAP High explosive Armor piercing some combination of the previous 2 types typically uses an explosive charge to throw/ram a penetrator further into the armor

HESH mostly obsolete warhead type the end of the round squashes onto the surface of the object struck, then the high explosive goes off, intended purpose cause "spalling" of the inner surface of the armor IE shake the armor so hard pieces fly off

APHE armor piercing high explosive, another mostly obsolete design (except as a stage in more modern rounds) shell has an armor piercing componant intended to allow the round to penetrate (or partially penetrate) armor prior to the round detonating

DU any round made with a depleated uranium componant

LRP Long rod penetrator a round intended to defeat reactive armor by having a long pointy part that strikes the target disrupting reactive armor prior to the main warhead striking the armor.

etc

the point is every round has a mechanism for causing maximum damage to the target and most (armored) vehicles have some mechanism intended to make them highly resistant (or invulnerable) to the expected threat.

in our "normal" world weapons have mostly won the war of offense vs defense, in battletech canon that paragon has mostly been turned on its head armor won the war, to the point that barring a "lucky shot" all the armor has to be ablated off a location before componants are at a risk of being damaged.

[GI Journalist]

If you want all your laser power to hit in one spot, there's only one proven way to do it.

Use a bigger laser.

Otherwise there are no guarantees.

[Draco Argentum]

TheRulesLawyer, on 18 November 2011 - 12:34 PM, said:

Because that's what battletech canon says they do. Take any well established sci-fi universe and go tell them you need to radically change how everything works to make a video game and you'll end up with pretty much the same response. The game needs to fit the fiction, not the other way around.

The game must fit the fiction, true. Thats quite different from 'the game mechanics must match the TT game mechanics'. As soon as ballistic weapons actually use ballistics instead of being hitscan the mechanics have changed. Of course making it real time got there first. Weapon values will have to be tweaked.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

As far as I know ballistic weapons in TT were never hitscan, it's just that with a 10 sec turn time it seemed that way. With a velocity of say 800 m/sec it would take approx .3 sec to hit at max range. Such things need to be represented in game, all ballistic weapons would need to lead a moving target - it's a required part of the skill to use them. It may be that the computer would give an indication of where to aim, and TC's would do it automaticall, with the appropriate penalty in weight and crits. A/C's are certainly much more difficlt to use properly without some assistance than "instantanous" energy weapons.

[wanderer]

DocBach, on 18 November 2011 - 04:54 PM, said:

Machine Guns and Autocannons pretty much ruled Solaris 7 rules.

Although in this kinda game, getting the ranges needed to hose down people with MG fire is less likely- especially if they have cone of fire widening with holding down the trigger.But it made the AC/5 useful- and that's saying something. Besides, in a game where ammo costs money, I'm all for people tossing C-bills at their opponents.

[Hodo]

4 ML will do the same amount of damage, BUT will not do it to the same spot. It would be like firing 4 weapons next to each other on one target... You can do all you want but they will never hit in the same spot. Just look at the old WWII fighters. P47D Thunderbolt, had 8 .50cal (12.7mm) HMGs. It was common to have them all set to converge on one point. But due to weapon kick, barrel flex, and wing loading, they guns would often spread out and hit different areas, give or take 5m spread.

This would be the SAME problem with a mech firing 4 Medium Lasers mounted in the same general area. If you set a convergence on them they would just be affective at ONE range and not a meter beyond or less.

Then the other fact is, the AC20 will always hit harder, because it is firing a 185mm CANNON ROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Given the choice, I would take the AC20 over the 4ML, because of the heat generation. And the fact that its always cool to fire ACs.

But all in all, I am always going to pilot either my Shadow Hawk, or my Archer-K.

[GreenHell]

Having many MLas in one spot would give diminishing returns due to "Diffusion". Canon states the pulse laser fixes this problem by pulsing which allows vaporized armor to dissipate, which eliminates the Diffusion effect.

/thread

[Yeach]

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?

[Kip Wilson]

Just get rid of the alpha strike feature and bam, problem solved. Make every pull of the trigger only able to fire one weapon at a time. The alpha strike was always a game imbalancer (making laserboats the annoying designs they are). Personally even with alpha strike capabilities, I still fire my weapons individually (well, except in my MW4 Daishi sporting 5 LBX20s lol).

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Kip Wilson, on 17 January 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

Just get rid of the alpha strike feature and bam, problem solved.

No, that is neither a solution nor a good idea.

Kip Wilson, on 17 January 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

I still fire my weapons individually (well, except in my MW4 Daishi sporting 5 LBX20s lol).

A Diashi cannot hold 5 lbx 20's in MW4. Stupid, Capellans.

[Kip Wilson]

mwhighlander, on 18 January 2012 - 12:19 AM, said:

No, that is neither a solution nor a good idea.



A Diashi cannot hold 5 lbx 20's in MW4. Stupid, Capellans.

Sorry, I meant 3xLBX20's and 2xLBX10's, which as you can see, can be mounted. And you might want to consider editing your post, it could be construde as a violation of forum ettiquette.

Firstly, my idea is a solution. A rather effective one at that. Secondly, its only a bad idea to missile/AC/laser boaters.

[anglomanii]

i dont think your taking into effect atmospheric ionisation disturbance... too many highly ionised charged particles too close together and the particles interfear with each other.

[Zervziel]

Kip Wilson, on 18 January 2012 - 12:47 AM, said:

Sorry, I meant 3xLBX20's and 2xLBX10's, which as you can see, can be mounted. And you might want to consider editing your post, it could be construde as a violation of forum ettiquette.

Firstly, my idea is a solution. A rather effective one at that. Secondly, its only a bad idea to missile/AC/laser boaters.

No, it's a whole new problem as you are advocating the deletion of alpha striking on the grounds that YOU don't like it. Plus it makes no sense. Lighter mechs mounting small amounts of weapons would then not be able to do full damage in one burst against say an assault mech, which in turn only needs to land one or two hits with a single heavy weapon to cripple it.

[Sug]

Zervziel, on 18 January 2012 - 12:54 AM, said:

Lighter mechs mounting small amounts of weapons would then not be able to do full damage in one burst against say an assault mech, which in turn only needs to land one or two hits with a single heavy weapon to cripple it.

Well yeah....



I'd like to see something along the lines of all weapons having a slight lock on time when fired in a group. Yeah, you can fire 10 medium lasers at once but the less time your reticle is on the target the less accurate they are and the more they spread over the target.

The lock on time would represent the computer compensating for having weapons on multiple hardpoints with different firing angles all aimed at the same point.

Or give the targeting reticle the same kind of drift and spread that you see in first person shooters. If you stand still and hold the target you'll be super accurate. If you fire while running your accuracy suffers.

[BigMo5]

Weapons To Hit/Damage were never modeled well in the Video Game. In the TT game there were range restrictions, in a Video Game that's a little tougher to do. Using a direct translation will not be easy and in the past met with limited success. IE: MW3 Med Laser Boats, MW4 LL Boats. While i wish there was an easy way, i have a sneaky suspicious it will take some serious thought...

I had a few thoughts about how some weapons would operate.

AC-2/20 the difference would be rate of fire...AC-2/5/10 Semi Auto AC-20 Full auto
LBx-2/20 ITs a shot gun farher away more areas hit closer less..
RAC-5/20 Rate of Fire, and No control over how many fired...Pull the trigger and hold on...(Ammo limited)
IS Lasers: Pull the trigger and boom target hit(lots of heat from Engine Output)
Gauss Riffles: Always liked them in the previous games
LRM Missles: Same Lock on and Fire
SRM Missles: Same Lock on and Fire
Streaks: Like a Laser once on target no waiting but can hit stuff in the way


Just some thoughts. Feel free to add or delete...

The Alpha needs to stay, but it needs something to make it worth the wait...

[MaddMaxx]

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?

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.

[BigMo5]

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.

it would be about 160K + Extra HSs required...not sure if it makes much difference..

[mekabuser]

I am starting to wonder about some of you. It seems as if fully half of you just refuse to have anything resembling concentrated damage no matter what.
All four lazers will hit in the same configuration as they are fired. If all four barrels are within a 1 m radius, THATS how they will strike.
The op said they are bunched together. They are not dispersed over the mech.

[Kip Wilson]

Zervziel, on 18 January 2012 - 12:54 AM, said:

No, it's a whole new problem as you are advocating the deletion of alpha striking on the grounds that YOU don't like it. Plus it makes no sense. Lighter mechs mounting small amounts of weapons would then not be able to do full damage in one burst against say an assault mech, which in turn only needs to land one or two hits with a single heavy weapon to cripple it.

I never said I dont like alpha strikes, i wouldnt have my Daishi if I didnt. I merely stated that it would be the easiest way to solve the problem.

In truth you should only go up against an assault mech if you are in a light if you have absolutely no other choice. You shouldnt be able to take on an assault mech in a light one on one and expect to win.