62 replies to this topic

[Dakkaface]

FireSlade, on 23 April 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

True but if flammers imparted more heat on the enemy and less on you then they would be much more viable. In MW3 they were down right terrifying because of their ability to keep you either too hot to fight back or locked up. Granted MW3 was far from balanced but it should not be too dificult to find a happy medium. Besides I have been praying to the Battletech gods that PGI would stop babying us and impart penalties for running hot, ammo explosions, slower movement speeds, targeting issues, and the mech showing static in the HUD.

In MW3 they were terrifying because you could make enemy reactors go critical with them, destroying the mech and also inflicting massive damage to nearby mechs. Thankfully, stackpoling is not a thing in MWO.

[FireSlade]

Dakkaface, on 23 April 2014 - 03:10 PM, said:

In MW3 they were terrifying because you could make enemy reactors go critical with them, destroying the mech and also inflicting massive damage to nearby mechs. Thankfully, stackpoling is not a thing in MWO.

Yes but the go to weapons was the 14 ER Small Lasers on the Shadow Cat. Besides flamers were short range and no one wanted to be that close to a mech going nova. Team games we would trade a few lasers and put flamers to keep the enemy locked up and not moving while your teammate would then proceed to surgically remove legs, arms, weapons and any thing that made them a threat. I would not mind reactors going in MWO though, might just keep people from thinking that 100% heat is safe to hit seeing that PGI refuses to have ammo cook off or add any heat penalties to the game.

[a gaijin]

Pariah Devalis, on 23 April 2014 - 03:31 AM, said:

VIa:

https://soundcloud.c...nogalaxy/mdb-15

Ultra-Autocannons will be firing in bursts. Thank god. Now if they can only do that for all ultra-autocannons in the game.... Still a jam chance.

Lasers will do more damage, will take up less space, will have more range, but will also have that extended burn time. More required time on target to do full beam damage.

LRMs firing in ripple fire. Oh yeah. Totally nailed this one, suckas. A very fast ripple fire. Think MW2 ripple fire. This is exactly what I hoped for, as it provides counterplay in AMS, but keeps the LRM system totally functional as a direct fire weapon system. This is intended to be placed on top of the minimum range concept they are mulling over, where it does 0 damage at zero meters and 80% at 160 meters. The actual damage curve is being tinkered with. Could even have a "minimum" of less than 180 for all we know.

This surprised me. They are already eyeballing ATMs. Not sold on inclusion but they are already looking at them. I thought these were post Tukayyid weapon systems. o_0

HOLY CRAP. Clan LBX. He is trying to give us CLUSTER/SOLID toggle! Happy day! But, he wants to keep it a Clan only feature. Still, dual modal LBX! FINALLY!

Thanks very much for sharing the update and spreading the info, Pariah Devalis
Yes, you're right on about ATMs: they aren't released until 3060.

Though it's not perfect IMHO overall I like the balancing PGI is doing so far regarding clan tech.

[Ardney]

Increased burn time for lasers has me just as worried now as when they first floated the idea months ago. Pointless to rant before I see how much they're increasing it by, but it definitely has the potential to screw up my plans for my Nova

Edited by Ardney, 23 April 2014 - 10:06 PM.

[CCC Dober]

FireSlade, on 23 April 2014 - 01:45 PM, said:

We will probably (never know) never see any ammo that ignores a portion of armor or burns through armor faster when just about everyone (even PGI) can agree that mechs are dying too quickly.

Depends on how it's implemented, wouldn't you agree? You could tweak a probability based table for penetration in such a way that armor penetrations could only happen if one or more armor conditions are met. Means that Mechs of all weight classes could be relatively safe from penetrations up to a certain point. Of course, small caliber ACs should defintely have a harder time penetrating stuff than their bigger brothers, which is important because they can be boated in considerably higher numbers.

If needed, then I can whip up some numbers and diagrams to illustrate the concept.

[Strum Wealh]

Raiyuken, on 23 April 2014 - 05:35 AM, said:

Just finished the listening to the recording. Well what was stated if I'm not mistaken that Clan UAC 20 will fire in a chain-burst of 4 rounds of AC5.

Odanan, on 23 April 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

That's a very clever solution for balancing! It might work.
I'm impressed.

But what about UAC/10?

Gas Guzzler, on 23 April 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:

I read another post, so it sounds like UAC 20 gets a 5 shot burst of 4 damage each. Does the Ultra side of it mean you get another burst in quick succession with chance of jamming?

In the recording (from 35:50 to 37:36), Paul uses the 5x4 (burst of 5 shells @ 4 damage per shell) statement solely as an example ("...the [Ultra] Autocannon/20, for example - just throwing out some ideas here - is that it'll shoot a 5-round burst with every round doing 4 damage..."); the use of speculative language indicates that the 5x4 pattern was not set-in-stone as of the time of the recording - the CUAC/20 could ultimately end up firing in a 3x6.67 configuration (burst of 3 shells @ 6.67 damage per shell), or a 4x5 configuration, or a 6x3.33 configuration, and so on.

The other CUACs would probably follow the same pattern, IMO; a CUAC/10 could easily end up as 3x3.33 (burst of 3 shells @ 3.33 damage per shell) or 4x2.5 or 5x2, while a CUAC/5 could be set up as 3x1.67 (burst of 3 shells @ 1.67 damage per shell) or 4x1.25 or 5x1 & a CUAC/2 could be set up as 3x0.67 (burst of 3 shells @ 0.67 damage per shell) or 4x0.50 or 5x0.40.

Also, when Paul discusses the Clan LB-X ACs (from 40:40 to 42:48), he does not indicate whether CLB-X slug mode would also use a burst-fire implementation (like what's described for the CUACs) or if slugs would fire as single shells (like the IS Standard ACs).

[Pariah Devalis]

To the LB comment, he does insinuate it does, however. Specifically in his reasoning to avoid giving it to IS mechs, he did not want to make the standard AC useless. It also makes sense, logically, to allow the Clan players a frontloaded damage option. The LB20X is going to be a nightmare weapon, though.

[Raiyuken]

When it comes to lasers all that matters is the heat generation per fire and burn time. Making the Clan MLs doing 16% more damage should cost no more than 16% extended burn time with the same heat, even under such conditions I'd rather take the IS variant. Unless of course there is a significant tonnage advantage.

As for the LRM proposal that's what I find illogical about it. Missile should either do damage or none at all! Allowing LRM to be fired under it's minimum range should do reduce it's damage or have "sacrificial" missiles, but instead toggled to fire at 40% of the launcher's capacity or strictly say 2 LRMs per LRM5 capacity i.e. LRM2s in 4 continual burst salvo for LRM20.

AC2 heat was implemented due to it being way too efficient as a long range weapon. As far as my opinion goes, ACs should strictly have 40-50% heat of a Laser for the same damage. ( AC10 having 4.0 heat, AC5 2.5 Heat etc)

LBX can have a build in duckbill just like what shotguns have, but as I said It should not be able to perform both roles on par to it's IS counterpart seeing as they have flexibility. Ammo load-out would just mean that it is no different from it's IS version.

Gauss charging is simply bad implementation and should be removed all together, it was just a fix for pop-tarting and as such just disabling it upon jump jetting or cause it to have a chance of internal damage if fired without steady foot-hold. A sniper weapon system should remain as a sniper weapon. Gauss being volatile has always been it's Cons for having zero heat Pros.

My machine gun proposal was that machine guns would only have 2x Crit chance should it his a glow zone from a laser fire. Meaning that without lasers the machine guns are useless. Even if the Heavy/Assaults were to take advantage of this are they willing to sacrifice their Ballistic hardpoint and PPCs just so they can make a weapon which is effective 180m viable without the ability to close in as most Heavies run around 110kmph tweaked. They would have so much extra tonnage, critical slots. Do you think a CTF-4X with 4MGs 1AMS 2 MPLs 28/19 tons of ammo running at 64 kmph be viable or 3MGs 2 LPLs 85kmph VTR-9B be viable. I really doubt so.

A destroyed ST on a XL setup would meant your death anyways, for the reason of being alive the penalty was one of the following suggested options. As it is logical that heat dissipation should be down to 50% of total on engine HSs, keeping up the HSs yet only restricting torso twisting would meant that the Mech will be more prone of being rear-ed as it is unable to torso twist shield whichever CT, ST or Legs which are more likely to be the next to go, while still being capable of moving at full speed and arm swing.

PPC safety feature turn off was a measure that should you fire it under 90m you are most likely going on a losing battle. Besides the reasoning for ER PPCs being able to shoot under 90m is bollocks if you ask me, why wouldn't the engineers install such function to begin with in PPCs since they have the technology. LRM5 has a dead-zone but LRM20 doesn't or Large Lasers deal reduced damage under 90m while ER Large Lasers does not suffer from this quirky technological quirk. Taking 50% damage you deal on top of your opponent's firepower will spell the end of you more often than not.

Thing is unless they allow Clan weapons on Clan mechs exclusively we will see people porting Clan weapons into IS Mechs. Hence why Omni-racks, Clan XL Engines to some extend maybe Clan DHS cannot be too much of a disadvantage.


But one thing I can say for certain is that I will always pick my weapons based on the following rule:
- Less hold time/ Upfront damage
- Less Heat
- Less Tonnage
- Better Range
- Better Rate of Fire
- Flexibility

[CCC Dober]

Regarding LRM minimum range, there might be something else PGI could do, so they are not abused as streak missiles with long range option:

+ decreased velocity below minimum range
+ reduced missile maneuverability below minimum range

These options would not directly interfere with their ability to deal damage, but make LRMs less effective and easier to counter/avoid at close range.

Edited by CCC Dober, 24 April 2014 - 08:16 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Could also dumbfire them altogether under 180 meters.

[Strum Wealh]

Pariah Devalis, on 24 April 2014 - 06:41 AM, said:

To the LB comment, he does insinuate it does, however. Specifically in his reasoning to avoid giving it to IS mechs, he did not want to make the standard AC useless. It also makes sense, logically, to allow the Clan players a frontloaded damage option. The LB20X is going to be a nightmare weapon, though.

Then, there is also the interesting question of how PGI plans to implement the cluster rounds for the Clans' LB 2-X, LB 5-X, and LB 20-X with regard to submunitions-per-salvo and damage-per-submunition (since we can already guess that the Clan LB 10-X cluster round will work like its IS counterpart - that is, ten (10) submunitions per salvo, 1.0 units of damage per submunition).

• For example, would the Clan LB 2-X cluster round fire only two (2) submunitions at 1.0 units of damage each (for a total of 2.0 units of damage per salvo), or ten (10) submunitions at 0.2 units of damage each (again, for a total of 2.0 units of damage per salvo)?
  
• Would the Clan LB 5-X cluster round fire five (5) submunitions at 1.0 units of damage each (for a total of 5.0 units of damage per salvo), or ten (10) submunitions at 0.5 units of damage each (again, for a total of 5.0 units of damage per salvo)?
  
• Would the Clan LB 20-X cluster round fire twenty (20) submunitions at 1.0 units of damage each (for a total of 20 units of damage per salvo), or ten (10) submunitions at 2.0 units of damage each (again, for a total of 20 units of damage per salvo)?

(Note that "ten (10) submunitions" was used as an example, because we already know that PGI has working code (including animations, spread calculations, and so on) to implement it with minimal/no modification.)

[Pariah Devalis]

Aye, that is something that I would also love to know. Higher number of projectiles will result in larger strain on the server, I would wager, though the advantages and disadvantages of both more doing less and less doing more are interesting. More projectiles means larger scatter making more pellets guaranteed to hit what you want, but fewer projectiles might make it a little easier to aim at specific parts while doing more damage to what you do manage to hit.

Either way, the option to crack armor open with solids, then switch to scatter and feast on their insides is absolutely glorious.

[FireSlade]

CCC Dober, on 24 April 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

Depends on how it's implemented, wouldn't you agree? You could tweak a probability based table for penetration in such a way that armor penetrations could only happen if one or more armor conditions are met. Means that Mechs of all weight classes could be relatively safe from penetrations up to a certain point. Of course, small caliber ACs should defintely have a harder time penetrating stuff than their bigger brothers, which is important because they can be boated in considerably higher numbers.

If needed, then I can whip up some numbers and diagrams to illustrate the concept.

This is PGI that we are dealing with who still have yet to figure out that ghost heat does not effect ballistics that way it does everything else. And it took them forever to admit that ECM was too OP and to start presenting hard counters to it. It is a good idea but with years of let downs and experience with PGI has left me cynical about them being able to balance this. Do not get me wrong though I love MWO and the mechs in game it just that I do not have much faith in PGI being able to balance it.

[FireSlade]

Pariah Devalis, on 24 April 2014 - 08:17 AM, said:

Could also dumbfire them altogether under 180 meters.

I do that now at about 190 meters. But then you would have missiles acting like SRMs able to deal 44 damage for 10 tons.

[CyclonerM]

The other side is making them launch almost vertical like in MWLL..It was mentioned earlier by someone, in MWLL there is no minimum range to CLRMs but there is an effective minimum range of 90m i think because of their trajectory. Actually there is a simple trick to get around it but i will not tell you

[Gonzo007]

Raiyuken, on 23 April 2014 - 05:35 AM, said:

Just finished the listening to the recording. Well what was stated if I'm not mistaken that Clan UAC 20 will fire in a chain-burst of 4 rounds of AC5.

hm, if thats true, they can keep that UAC to themself. Because..
The Ultra AC/20 is the largest bore Ultra-class autocannon. Like all Ultra autocannons, it is capable of twice the rate of fire of a standard autocannon, doubling its heat output and, potentially, its damage.
And what we gonna have in game? Crapper version of ac20, a something that deal less damage (a lot less damage) and probably have lots of restrictions (heat, price, weight and slots)

Edited by Gonzo007, 26 April 2014 - 02:48 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Gonzo007, on 26 April 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

hm, if thats true, they can keep that UAC to themself. Because..
The Ultra AC/20 is the largest bore Ultra-class autocannon. Like all Ultra autocannons, it is capable of twice the rate of fire of a standard autocannon, doubling its heat output and, potentially, its damage.
And what we gonna have in game? Crapper version of ac20, a something that deal less damage (a lot less damage) and probably have lots of restrictions (heat, price, weight and slots)

Paul's discussion of Clan UACs (from 35:50 to 37:36) uses the 5x4 (burst of 5 shells @ 4 damage per shell) statement solely as an example ("...the [Ultra] Autocannon/20, for example - just throwing out some ideas here - is that it'll shoot a 5-round burst with every round doing 4 damage..."); the use of speculative language indicates that the 5x4 pattern was not set-in-stone as of the time of the recording - the CUAC/20 could ultimately end up firing in a 3x6.67 configuration (burst of 3 shells @ 6.67 damage per shell), or a 4x5 configuration, or a 6x3.33 configuration, and so on.

The other CUACs would probably follow the same pattern, IMO; a CUAC/10 could easily end up as 3x3.33 (burst of 3 shells @ 3.33 damage per shell) or 4x2.5 or 5x2, while a CUAC/5 could be set up as 3x1.67 (burst of 3 shells @ 1.67 damage per shell) or 4x1.25 or 5x1 & a CUAC/2 could be set up as 3x0.67 (burst of 3 shells @ 0.67 damage per shell) or 4x0.50 or 5x0.40.

[FireSlade]

Gonzo007, on 26 April 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

hm, if thats true, they can keep that UAC to themself. Because..
The Ultra AC/20 is the largest bore Ultra-class autocannon. Like all Ultra autocannons, it is capable of twice the rate of fire of a standard autocannon, doubling its heat output and, potentially, its damage.
And what we gonna have in game? Crapper version of ac20, a something that deal less damage (a lot less damage) and probably have lots of restrictions (heat, price, weight and slots)

So a cannon weighing 12 tons, able to fire twice in 5 seconds, which would be doubled up, meaning 80 damage in less that a second (you would have to tap the trigger twice quickly) sounds better? If that would happen then the new meta would become any chassis that can use that config or more with enough ammo and it would become a game of who can shoot first wins. Yeah that sounds like a lot of fun.

[Koniving]

Pariah Devalis, on 23 April 2014 - 07:46 AM, said:

Now, my curiosity is peaked. When it comes to clan ultra burst firing, if you "double tap," will it be burst, pause, burst, or a continuous stream of bullets?

Lore describes ultra autocannons as having two rates of fire. One that does not jam, and twice that rate which has a risk of jamming over time.

Rotary autocannons fire fast no matter what, it's whether or not you keep firing that determines if you jam.

[Strum Wealh]

Koniving, on 26 April 2014 - 04:06 PM, said:

Lore describes ultra autocannons as having two rates of fire. One that does not jam, and twice that rate which has a risk of jamming over time.

Rotary autocannons fire fast no matter what, it's whether or not you keep firing that determines if you jam.

Actually, the Rotary ACs had four separate ROF settings (with a progressively increasing likelihood of jamming for each mode), versus the UACs' two settings - RACs could fire in standard-ROF mode (fired a single shell per TT turn, 0% chance of jamming), double-ROF mode (fired two shells per TT turn, 2.78% chance of jamming (roll result of 2)), quad-ROF mode (fired four shells per TT turn, 8.33% chance of jamming (roll result of 3 or below)), or hex-ROF mode (fired six shells per TT turn, 16.67% chance of jamming (roll result of 4 or below)).