34 replies to this topic

[Sargon X]

I get that Alpha Strike fires all weapons at the same time, but the part I'm unclear about is whether that is any different than firing all weapons at the same time without using Alpha Strike?

In other words, if I only have 2 weapon groups and I click my right and left mouse button simultaneously, is that effectively the same thing as an Alpha Strike, or is there something else involved?

[TercieI]

Mechanic doesn't matter, alpha strike just means "all your guns at once."

Additional comments:

1) Sometimes it's used for "all your main guns." i.e. all your big direct fire weapons, perhaps leaving out backup weapons (MLs or streaks for instance)

2) Personally, I never use the alpha strike key. My weapon groups are all on my mouse and if I need an alpha, I press them all simultaneously.

Edited by Terciel1976, 12 March 2014 - 02:42 PM.

[Sargon X]

Terciel1976, on 12 March 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:

Mechanic doesn't matter, alpha strike just means "all your guns at once."

Thanks. I knew it was probably a dumb question!

[TercieI]

Sargon X, on 12 March 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:

Thanks. I knew it was probably a dumb question!

This game has a ton of lingo and no manual. Don't feel bad about any question like this in the New Players' Section.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Sargon X, on 12 March 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:

Thanks. I knew it was probably a dumb question!

Nah not dumb at all.

FTR, this is a perfect example of the kind of question the Short Question, Short Answer thread was created for. Not fussing, just tossing it out for those that follow

[Koniving]

Sargon X, on 12 March 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

I get that Alpha Strike fires all weapons at the same time, but the part I'm unclear about is whether that is any different than firing all weapons at the same time without using Alpha Strike?

In other words, if I only have 2 weapon groups and I click my right and left mouse button simultaneously, is that effectively the same thing as an Alpha Strike, or is there something else involved?

It's the same thing. Back when heat mattered and thresholds (limit of heat until shutdown) weren't astronomically high, almost all mechs fired things in chain fire. One at a time.
Much like this video.


Later on, after double heatsinks and pilot skills were added to the game, the entire concept was lost. Everyone just fired weapons all at once.

This vid was back when DHS were taking storm. But by then, it was too late. Repair and rearm (if it wasn't already) was being taken out, preventing any hope of heat mattering again without super hot maps.

So rolled in Terra Therma, Tourmaline, and Caustic (in reverse order).
Because of this course of events, Heat Scale (also known as Ghost heat) became necessary. The severe reduction in double heatsinks to "1.4" heatsinks was also a required move. At the time this wasn't so bad, because convergence (where weapons aligned to hit something) took 1 full second. But as mechs got faster and faster and with HSR, delayed convergence became impossible as it caused many hit registration failures. (This kinda becomes a chain reaction but the long and short of it is I hope that PGI is looking into other ways to reduce pinpoint issues or to do something about the high thresholds before the clan mechs get here...)

And yes, firing all your weapons at once is simply an alpha strike. There's nothing special about it.

In source material and Mechwarriors before MW4... 30 heat would shut you down. Two ER PPCs = instant shutdown. (Mw2 playstation version and expansions for the PC had 40 threshold for arcade-like gameplay. MW4 had 60. MWO has minimum 40 for SHS, minimum 50 for DHS, minimum 60 for DHS + pilot skills to elite levels. MWO also has the only rising threshold system where more heatsinks = more threshold = more repeat alpha strike potential).

So, in the long run... every shot may as well be an alpha strike.
You can use this link to figure out what the threshold of your mech is on whatever map you go on. So far the highest one I've managed to fit an ER PPC on is a 27 DHS Victor. More than 100 threshold.


Let the firing commence.
Edit: Fixed vid link.
Edit 2: Saw unnecessary duplicate paragraph -- not sure how that happens.

Edited by Koniving, 12 March 2014 - 02:59 PM.

[luxebo]

I believe you know ghost heat right Sargon X? If not, use this chart to tell if your breaking it or not, as alphas usually come across ghost heat depending on what weapons are used. (edit: refer to below post) The button by stock for alphaing is \ as well if you didn't know.

Edit: Thanks Koniving, dunno but I think my browser bugged or the like.

Edited by luxebo, 12 March 2014 - 04:55 PM.

[Koniving]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_heatscale
Don't know why that didn't turn into a link. But redone to give it as a link.

[Sargon X]

luxebo, on 12 March 2014 - 03:57 PM, said:

I believe you know ghost heat right Sargon X? If not, use this chart to tell if your breaking it or not, as alphas usually come across ghost heat depending on what weapons are used. (edit: refer to below post) The button by stock for alphaing is \ as well if you didn't know.

If a weapon is not listed on that chart, does that mean ghost heat does not apply at all?

[TercieI]

Sargon X, on 12 March 2014 - 05:56 PM, said:

If a weapon is not listed on that chart, does that mean ghost heat does not apply at all?

Yes? What weapon isn't listed? Small lasers? They have no ghost heat...I'm sure there are others.

[Koniving]

If it is not on the "weapon heatscale" chart, then it is not punished.

[Sargon X]

Terciel1976, on 12 March 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

Yes? What weapon isn't listed? Small lasers? They have no ghost heat...I'm sure there are others.

Yeah. Small Lasers and Small Pulse Lasers are the two I noticed not being listed.

[Koniving]

No punishment on small or small pulse lasers.

No punishment on medium pulse lasers either.

[no one]

Koniving, on 12 March 2014 - 06:25 PM, said:

No punishment on medium pulse lasers either.

That's very true! No punishment at all
except for the fact that they're medium pulse lasers.

[Koniving]

If ML were 3 heat each and MPL 4 heat each, it wouldn't be an issue.

[luxebo]

Sargon X, on 12 March 2014 - 06:19 PM, said:

Yeah. Small Lasers and Small Pulse Lasers are the two I noticed not being listed.

Weapons without ghost heat:
Small Lasers. Small Pulse Lasers. Medium Pulse Lasers. LRM5. AC5. Ultra AC5. AC10. LBX AC10. Gauss. And AMS, Narc, and Tag if you count those as weapons. I think I covered them all.

[Bhelogan]

luxebo, on 13 March 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

Weapons without ghost heat:
Small Lasers. Small Pulse Lasers. Medium Pulse Lasers. LRM5. AC5. Ultra AC5. AC10. LBX AC10. Gauss. And AMS, Narc, and Tag if you count those as weapons. I think I covered them all.

And don't forget the quirky application for AC2s

[LauLiao]

"Alpha Strike" is really more of a TT thing. A lot of (especially pre-clan) Inner Sphere stock mechs were not designed to fire all their weapons at once. Many had "layers" of weapons and only enough heat sinks to fire one or two "layers" at a time. For example, a mech might have had 2 LRM 15s, then possibly some lasers and SRMs for medium and short range defense. There would be enough heat sinks to fire the LRMs and be heat neutral, or fire the lasers and SRMs and be heat neutral, but if you fired everything at once you'd be looking at a massive heat build-up, so Alpha-striking was kind of a desperation/special circumstances type of move in TT. With the level of mech customization we have in this game, it's not really a big deal so much anymore.

[Alaskan Nobody]

LauLiao, on 13 March 2014 - 03:35 PM, said:

"Alpha Strike" is really more of a TT thing. A lot of (especially pre-clan) Inner Sphere stock mechs were not designed to fire all their weapons at once. Many had "layers" of weapons and only enough heat sinks to fire one or two "layers" at a time.

Stock Stalkers are a perfect example of that.

[Koniving]

It still was a big thing in Mechwarrior and Mechwarrior 3. In MW2 it was kinda a thing. In MW4 the entire concept was getting lost.

Though even with customized mechs, you still had 'random hit locations' which wasn't intent to be random but a replication of firing weapons in a sequence across 10 seconds, at a moving target who went x number of hexes in a turn, while your mech also was moving.

I've noticed that there are actual hit modifiers by the rules reduce your chances to hit optimal locations if you moved, if they moved, and with certain aspects of movement too.

The actual concept of Alpha Strike didn't come into play until Mechwarrior 2 and the Solaris 7 rules. MW2 was the first game to allow you to fire everything at once, and often resulted in an immediate shutdown depending on how taxing it was.

As mentioned before, in MW3, simply firing 2 ER PPCs was an instant, though brief shutdown. 3 PPCs. 4 LL was pretty close and did shut you down if you were moving or if the environment was hot. But then again, the threshold was maintained and could never be risen. So even if you had 27 DHS, you'd still shut down on firing 2 ER PPCs, even if you were cold by the time you overrided and powered back up.

Here, the threshold rises with every heatsink we add. It allows us to ignore the 30 threshold limit because instead of set in stone it slides up and down with how many heatsinks we have.

Edited by Koniving, 13 March 2014 - 03:53 PM.