42 replies to this topic

[Prezimonto]

Joseph Mallan, on 30 July 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

Or... we could allow it to be the useless crit/tonnage filler it is on TT? Nobody takes Flamers as a weapon of choice. Let it be what it is, and move on.

Remember a Flamer makes more heat for the user than causes to the target. That is in Universe physics.

This is why chemical flamers with NAPALM like ammo would be a good solution. Let's mechs use a flamer to KEEP an enemy hotter for around 10 seconds. Ammo limited, so you can't just spam it all day, but for a few fights you can seriously limit the ability of your enemy to cool or and probably even increase heat for a while.

[Ambuscade]

As much as I like the "Naplam" aka Inferno Flamer idea, I have to voice a caveat to it. I don't want to see the Inferno ammunition become a requirement for effective flamer usage. I'd rather have the "Inferno Flamer" as a choice to be weighed against choosing a standard flamer. Each should have it own strengths and weaknesses, but one should not supplant the other.

One way to improve the standard flamer (as suggested on this thread and others; its also kind of what your hinting at in your previous post) would be to give it the ability to debuff the target. For instance, we can use the new external heat transfer attribute to our advantage. The debuff would apply a negative to that attribute with a certain percentage (ex. 1%, 5%, etc.) with a certain number of stacks. It takes a certain amount of time (X seconds for example) to apply each stack to a certain maximum (lets say 5 stacks). Such stacks would disappear one at a time after a period of time (Y seconds, likely shorter than X).

That's just one way of doing it. There are many, many other ways of doing so. At any rate, kind of digressed from the original point. Your idea is still good Prezimonto, and I encourage continued discussion and creation.

Ambuscade

[Ambuscade]

After taking my Firestarter out for a spin, I began to contemplate various weapon modules I'd like to see for flamers. I'll start with bonuses before discussing drawbacks. With that, here are the bonuses I'm interested in:

- Damage
- Crit Seeking
- Weapon Heat
- Heat Damage
- Special Abilities

These are the big five that I would consider. Taking into account that I haven't elited my chassis yet, Weapon Heat is probably not that big of a deal. I will see significant heat improvement once I hit elite with the FS9H. Special abilities is one of the big ones, but is ultimately dependent on PGI. What, if any, special abilities offered will have a huge impact on my other choices. The other two big ones are Crit Seeking and Heat Damage. Heat Damage was the intended focus of the build. The crit seeking strength (given 4x flamers and 2x machine guns) was a unintentional bi-product of the design (and a good one too).

Now, for the drawbacks. Quite frankly, the drawbacks are going to be a huge driving factor for my selection. I really don't want to see increases in heat, as the build is fundamentally hot. Damage, surprisingly enough despite my original post suggestions, is something else I would be hesitant to touch. The flamers make up a decent portion of the damage oriented firepower, even if that wasn't intended in the design. The bonus would have to be pretty sweet for me to take it. One thing I would definitely sacrifice, however,would be range. The combat philosophy of the entire design is close quarters combat, so meager reductions in range is not truly a drawback.

Those are my thoughts for weapon modules at the moment, feel free to include some of your own.
Ambuscade