101 replies to this topic

[East Indy]

YueFei, on 09 April 2014 - 06:43 AM, said:

If you're moving laterally at 500 meters in a HBK going 25 meters/sec (90 kph, which is by no means blazingly fast), it will take PPC fire 333 ms to reach you, and AC/5 fire 384 ms to reach you. In the time it takes for a PPC shot to reach you, you'll have moved 8.3 meters.

But if the shooter is following the meta, the PPC and AC/5 will be fired together, making impact times the only relevant factors.

In 0.051 seconds (0.384-0.333), a target on a truly perpendicular course at 25 m/s will only have moved 1.3 meters, which is within a single hitbox on most 'Mechs. If the target is a typical light at full speed? Just 2.3 meters. A heavyweight 'Mech trundling along at 18 m/s (67 kph) doesn't even spread a PPC and AC/5 impact a single meter.

Hence my suggestion in which tenths of seconds are necessary if (and only if) delay is the desired solution for disrupting convergence.

Edit: To clarify, I understand you make similar points but for the opposite argument. In almost all situations, meta-friendly convergence is effective at pinpoint damage, while exceptions force targets into very disadvantageous positions. If "run at 90 degrees to me or else" is the defense, there's something out of balance.

Edited by East Indy, 09 April 2014 - 09:22 AM.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

if you want to talk about realism, having weapons on a static mount means they will not be dynamically accurate on a pinpoint level, especially if they are not oriented near the cockpit. Although because this is a game with "customization", all this will do is make people use lrm's even more, because auto aim weapons are very convenient.

Edited by Battlecruiser, 09 April 2014 - 08:31 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Ultimatum X, on 09 April 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

A Large Laser does 9 damage over 3 pulses (3, iirc) that takes 1s.

An AC 5, broken into 3 'shots' at 0.5s each, would take 1.5s to deal 5 damage (1.667 per shot).
An AC 10, broken into 3 'shots' at 0.5s each, would take 1.5s to deal 10 damage (3.33~ per shot).

That would make an AC10 completely inferior to a weapon that
> Has nearly half the weight
> Is a hitscan weapon, no projectile speed
> Has no ammo requirement
> Takes up only 2 slots as opposed to 7.



Also, technically, every weapon is already DPS weapon.

Laser damage is applied not in pulses, but whenever it makes contact. So, it might be 90 ticks of .1 damage. Pulse lasers have the same method, as do MGs.

Although I'm not sure if PGI ever announced officially how lasers work? This is from players experiments, to my knowledge.

[Ultimax]

Mcgral18, on 09 April 2014 - 08:34 AM, said:

Laser damage is applied not in pulses, but whenever it makes contact. So, it might be 90 ticks of .1 damage. Pulse lasers have the same method, as do MGs.

Although I'm not sure if PGI ever announced officially how lasers work? This is from players experiments, to my knowledge.

I will..find some method to test once I can do 1v1 launches with a friend.

The comment about 3 pulses over 1 second I believe was something that another poster told me in a thread.

So with only 2 conflicting concepts, its not really enough information to go on without testing.

Thanks though for the info, it lets me know that I do need to test this at some point.

[Mcgral18]

Ultimatum X, on 09 April 2014 - 08:37 AM, said:

I will..find some method to test once I can do 1v1 launches with a friend.

The comment about 3 pulses over 1 second I believe was something that another poster told me in a thread.

So with only 2 conflicting concepts, its not really enough information to go on without testing.

Thanks though for the info, it lets me know that I do need to test this at some point.

Well, take a LL in the testing grounds and run it along a mech, then use a SL to test the 3 damage theory. It doesn't make sense to me, since you can get barely 1 point of damage with a laser if you hold it on target for less than a second.

[Almond Brown]

MoonUnitBeta, on 07 April 2014 - 10:57 PM, said:

UNTIL YOU RUN OUT?
With more ammo, you run with less weapons, smaller engine, less armor, or what ever your set up may be. Ammo dependance affects a lot of things

You ever run out? If so, they say you're doing it wrong.

To fix pin-point, and it has been said many times, just turn off the ability to Group and fire multiple weapons at the same exact time.

Turn OFF group fire but NOT weapon grouping. Easy peazy and done.

[Ultimax]

Almond Brown, on 09 April 2014 - 08:41 AM, said:

You ever run out? If so, they say you're doing it wrong.

People say things like that because it's an easy way to bully people to not respond.

You paint the other person as someone who doesn't know what they are doing.

Whether it's true or not is often irrelevant, it creates an instant perception.

Marketing & Advertising teams do this kind of thing all of the time.





FWIW you should always aim to only have just enough Ammo and run out right as the mission ends.

Obviously this is an ideal, and not reality.


The point being if you constantly have oodles of ammo left over you are carrying too much ammo and not enough of something else - if you are constantly running out, then you don't have enough.


Ammo costs tonnage, this is a fact.

So while you might be able to take "enough Ammo" that you can't run out, you spent tonnage and slots on specifically building to not run out.


That means there is, in fact, a cost.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 09 April 2014 - 08:49 AM.

[Mechteric]

Ultimatum X, on 09 April 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

A Large Laser does 9 damage over 3 pulses (3, iirc) that takes 1s.
...
Also, technically, every weapon is already DPS weapon.

Maybe I'm not using the term properly, or some other misunderstanding on your end. But here's how I'm perceiving it:

- A DPS weapon is one that strictly relies on its damage over time, and thus needs constant LOS on target to do its damage.

- The opposite of this weapon would be a weapon that doesn't fire very often but does more damage in one shot, so you don't need constant LOS on target. You can shoot, move around/hide, then when its ready fire once more.


So a DPS weapon and its opposite can both technically do the same damage over time assuming a constant LOS, but they are completely different since a non-DPS weapon allows time between shots. Typically DPS weapons are superior at brawling, where non-DPS make better snipers.


With that clarification out of the way, I say again that a laser is not a DPS weapon in the same way that an AC2 or Machine Gun is because you have quite a bit of time between shots to break LOS and still keep the max damage over time. The duration of a laser pulse/beam is not part of this equation.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 09 April 2014 - 09:47 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Almond Brown, on 09 April 2014 - 08:41 AM, said:

You ever run out? If so, they say you're doing it wrong.

To fix pin-point, and it has been said many times, just turn off the ability to Group and fire multiple weapons at the same exact time.

Turn OFF group fire but NOT weapon grouping. Easy peazy and done.

But firing multiple weapons should in itself BE the cure to pin point damage... Find me a naval broadside that lands all its damage in a 3' target! A 5' target? Anyone?

[MoonUnitBeta]

Almond Brown, on 09 April 2014 - 08:41 AM, said:

You ever run out? If so, they say you're doing it wrong.

To fix pin-point, and it has been said many times, just turn off the ability to Group and fire multiple weapons at the same exact time.

Turn OFF group fire but NOT weapon grouping. Easy peazy and done.

Haha, yes you’re right. You shouldn’t run out of ammo. If you do, you should take a nice long break and think about things lol. But that’s part of my point, though. If you’re more likely to miss shots because of convergence, one of the answers is to take more ammo so you can shoot more. Think about the current tonnage allotted to ammo that most people run with. They don’t need to pack very much ammo, part of that reason is that all those shots are hitting the same point (killing mechs faster, easier, and requiring less ammo requirements). That available tonnage will decrease as people will likely pack more ammo because of more missed shots/shots spread over the mech. Allotting more tonnage to more ammo results in less tonnage available for other things, and thus you might end up with a smaller engine, less heat sinks, fewer back up weapons, etc. Or maybe you just won’t use auto canons at all.

You can counter this by simply making less shots that are more accurate. But less shots mean less damage over time since there is more time spent on aiming and waiting for your convergence to align. So patient people might carry same ammo, but they’re firing much less. Some people might like to spray and pray for fast firing, but you need more ammo for that, and it’s less accurate. So, the spread on convergence for spray and pray vs the time it takes to line up shots and allow convergence to calculate the focus and alignment, should equal to about the same.

Mind you, this is just on the topic of auto cannons.


Rambling/Not really important:

Spoiler

I also feel like with this new convergence, the streaks targeting system could equal the same as it was in MW4 for example (having a leg in your reticle, means the missiles will try their best to hit that leg, instead of randomly distributed between components), but I also would like to see streaks have min turning radius and are armed after a certain travel distance. (so, they can turn, say, 90 degrees over a 45m arc, and are armed(can explode) 25m after being fired.) With those limitations, that should offset the benefit of being able to target components. And, obviously, working within those limitations grant you the full benefit of the streaks targeting capabilities. So you would likely see less streaks on lights since they would be harder to aim with, but heavier mechs will still be able to use streaks against light mechs under the correct circumstances (at a distance)Reduced damage and dumb-firing streaks should also be seriously considered.

But to touch on your suggestion, I think you’ve basically described forced chain fire on grouped items. I don’t like the sounds of that, so my reaction would be to bypass that since I could put 6 weapons each on different weapon group and still be able to alpha fire with a macro, or use the Alpha Fire button. I rarely have more than 6 weapons on a mech, so lack of weapon groups isn’t a real issue, it would just be annoying to set up key bindings, with a third party macro program (which PGI is OK with), and it would that’s just be a one-time set up.
Competitive players will abuse the system, but you have the issue for new players as well who won’t understand why they can’t fire the weapons they want to, when they want to.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 09 April 2014 - 10:43 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

But Joe, naval broadsides are effectively stuck in '40s technology. I'm pretty sure that they could do it much better now, if there was ever a reason to do so. Look at modern artillery batteries.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 09 April 2014 - 10:46 AM, said:

But Joe, naval broadsides are effectively stuck in '40s technology. I'm pretty sure that they could do it much better now, if there was ever a reason to do so. Look at modern artillery batteries.

Show me Modern Arty that is as accurate as MechWarrior?

[Ultimax]

CapperDeluxe, on 09 April 2014 - 09:46 AM, said:

Maybe I'm not using the term properly, or some other misunderstanding on your end. But here's how I'm perceiving it:

- A DPS weapon is one that strictly relies on its damage over time, and thus needs constant LOS on target to do its damage.

DPS is just damage per second.

If you have X seconds of uninterrupted firing, how much damage you will deal is just a simple DMG x Seconds.

If you can't outright kill your opponent in a single shot, and the two of you are out of cover in a brawl - the DPS of your weapon becomes relevant regardless of the weapon.

How much damage can your build do in the X amount of seconds the two of you are doing the Tango.


I think perhaps more accurately (and get ready for muddy waters ) a laser functions similar to "DoT" mechanics from other MMOs.

DoT being "Damage over Time", but specifically that the power/weapon needs a specified amount of time applied on the target to deal it's damage.

So for say the large laser, you actually need to keep the beam on the target for one full second to deal 9 damage.
It's not a 9 DPS weapon though - it doesn't do 9 DPS per second, it can do 9 DPS in any single second (which is it's burst, or in this game "alpha/firepower" score).

The DPS is restricted by cycle time, the LLAS' cycle time is 3.25s.

So 9 damage
1s beam
3.25s
Recast at 4.25s total

9 / 4.25 = 2.12 damage per second.
http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/#weapon_beam


That's assuming your build is heat neutral.

CapperDeluxe, on 09 April 2014 - 09:46 AM, said:

- The opposite of this weapon would be a weapon that doesn't fire very often but does more damage in one shot, so you don't need constant LOS on target. You can shoot, move around/hide, then when its ready fire once more.

Technically yes, that's a more burst focused weapon like an AC 20.

What if you don't have cover?
You and your opponent are shooting each other repeatedly in the face because it's Yippie Ki Yay MFer time.


Now you need to know how many shots it will take of you AC 20 to kill your target if you never miss, and they have 100 points of armor left (imaginary scenario).

20 damage
4s recycle
Instant
20/4 = 5 DPS

100 life / 5 DPS = 20s, or 5 firing cycles.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_ballistic

CapperDeluxe, on 09 April 2014 - 09:46 AM, said:

So a DPS weapon and its opposite can both technically do the same damage over time assuming a constant LOS, but they are completely different since a non-DPS weapon allows time between shots. Typically DPS weapons are superior at brawling, where non-DPS make better snipers.

If you swap the terms DPS with DoT in your statement, we are basically saying the same thing.

Except DoT is typically used to describe weapons like lasers and DPS is typically used to calculate how much damage any given weapon or effect can do over the course of a single second but is also concerned with deal that damage consistently. So DPS will fluctuate with how often you fire your weapon and hit your target.

That's why smurfy's gives a list of DPS, both maximum and sustained, for your build's total capable weapons brought to bear on a target.

CapperDeluxe, on 09 April 2014 - 09:46 AM, said:

With that clarification out of the way, I say again that a laser is not a DPS weapon in the same way that an AC2 or Machine Gun is because you have quite a bit of time between shots to break LOS and still keep the max damage over time. The duration of a laser pulse/beam is not part of this equation.

You have no time in between shots of machine gun fire to break LoS, it deals 0.1 per bullet and can fire 10 of those over 1s.

If you want to do 5 damage you need to keep it on target for a full 5s.


AC2s are very similar, because of the 0.52s recycle.


AC 10 and AC 20 are better examples, as 5s for an AC 20 round is enough to duck behind cover - however.

If you deal 20 damage per AC 20 round fired, and you only fire 3 AC 20 rounds of the course of 3 minutes (180s)

You dealt 20 / 180 = 0.11 DPS in that situation.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 09 April 2014 - 01:00 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Show me Modern Arty that is as accurate as MechWarrior?

modern arty is pretty accurate because it always lands on the school or church.

[cSand]

Stop thinking DPS in this game

it's a meaningless value in anything other than MMO's where you stand your character next to an enemy and watch various numbers float up and bars decrease/increase

[YueFei]

East Indy, on 09 April 2014 - 08:15 AM, said:

But if the shooter is following the meta, the PPC and AC/5 will be fired together, making impact times the only relevant factors.

In 0.051 seconds (0.384-0.333), a target on a truly perpendicular course at 25 m/s will only have moved 1.3 meters, which is within a single hitbox on most 'Mechs. If the target is a typical light at full speed? Just 2.3 meters. A heavyweight 'Mech trundling along at 18 m/s (67 kph) doesn't even spread a PPC and AC/5 impact a single meter.

Hence my suggestion in which tenths of seconds are necessary if (and only if) delay is the desired solution for disrupting convergence.

Edit: To clarify, I understand you make similar points but for the opposite argument. In almost all situations, meta-friendly convergence is effective at pinpoint damage, while exceptions force targets into very disadvantageous positions. If "run at 90 degrees to me or else" is the defense, there's something out of balance.

You omitted the part where I point out that the shooter must lead ahead of the target, and put his crosshairs on the background, which will loosen up his convergence further. The difference in mount point between weapons in the right torso and the right arm is in itself already the difference in hitting separate hitboxes.

The side-on profile of most mechs is skinnier than the broad-side aspect, which only helps force the enemy to aim into thin air to hit you when you're moving laterally.

I see nothing wrong with one of the primary defenses against direct fire being to move laterally relative to the opponent.

[East Indy]

YueFei, on 09 April 2014 - 06:59 PM, said:

I see nothing wrong with one of the primary defenses against direct fire being to move laterally relative to the opponent.

Not just direct fire; high-damage, convergent fire. Is the shooter moving laterally and trying to roll damage, too? Possibly not, but definitely not if the target isn't armed for the meta. That's a problem. I mean, that need to reciprocate is why there's the current meta.

[Monkeystador]

@yuifei
What you andnlightfoot dont get right is.to put this all into a resonable scenario.
500meters on a high speed hunch, perpendicular? You know he wants to shoot back right? And that scenario is very unlikely. A hunch is either with long range guns or a brawler under 270. In both cases they dont run perpendicular. either they ridgehump or peak around the corner. And as a brawler a fight close range. In both cases the spreed doesnt matter.
And i now can start to argue that convergence into.the far works in 50% of the cases for the shooter toncompensate weapon speed duhh.. Think about that. Maybe you can figure out why.

[Sam Slade]

I remember seeing this all suggested somewhere before... hmm... where was that... oh right! Closed Beta...

hope.. don't hold it

[Ultimax]

cSand, on 09 April 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

Stop thinking DPS in this game

it's a meaningless value in anything other than MMO's where you stand your character next to an enemy and watch various numbers float up and bars decrease/increase

It's only meaningless if you try and calculate how much damage you can do in 5 minutes using a DPS formula.

If you mentally break up combat into 5s to 15s or even 30s (pushing it) scenarios, the damage you can do in those 3s to 10s is completely relevant.