6 replies to this topic

[ProfessorD]

It appears that we have a majority opinion in this community that pulse lasers are underpowered for their weight (relative to beam lasers) and lack a distinctive role or purpose. We can fix that, and I think we can do so in a positive way that adds distinctiveness, adds fun, and is overall a buff, rather than a nerf.


== 1st: Set Medium and Large Pulse Laser ranges (both clan and IS; Note 1) with their optimal range at no more than 2/3 of their beam laser counterpart (Note 2).

== 2nd: Set all pulse laser maximum range at no more than 1.5x their optimal range. These two changes eliminate much of the current overlap in function between beam and pulse lasers.

== 3rd: Reduce Clan beam duration slightly. I would follow a principle that pulse lasers should do approximately twice as much damage per second of beam duration as their beam laser counterpart. Since Clan laser damage values are pretty similar between beam and pulse lasers, this means we would need to set pulse lasers at about half the duration of beam lasers.

== 4th: Substantially reduce all pulse laser cooldown times. (<-- This is the big one!) The principle I would use here is to bring all pulse lasers to somewhere between 40% and 50% higher sustained DPS than their beam laser counterparts (Note 3).

== 5th: Keep pulse laser damage and heat about where they are. I think pulse laser damage and heat values, along with IS durations, are in about the right place (Note 4 and 5).


I didn't figure everyone wanted all the notes, so I moved them here.

Note 1: Small lasers of all types are already so weak, and so rarely the superior choice, that I don't want to weaken them any further by reducing their ranges. Basically the only remotely optimal use case for small lasers is boating 12 of them on a Nova.

Note 2: You might notice that this leaves the Clan Large Pulse Laser still having an optimal range around 600m, which, combined with proposal the 2nd, still leaves them able to touch a target out to 900m. Separately, I would also bring the optimal range of Clan ERLLas in to below 800m, and I would probably reduce the range of Clan LPL even more. I don't want to mix proposals here, though. Focus on the pulse lasers!

Note 3: It's very important to do this with cooldown, rather than by increasing damage value. This is part of what will make pulse lasers more distinctive. This set of proposals will give them a big DPS advantage over most alternatives at short to knife-fight ranges. In exchange for that DPS advantage, the have low or zero effectiveness at long range, rapid heat generation, and require you to face your target for several cycles or somehow maneuver and twist extremely quickly (does anyone here twist and maneuver on 2 second cycles? You literally can't do it in an assault mech). If you are facing your target, you are vulnerable to return fire, and you aren't causing any cockpit shale with lasers that might disrupt their aim. If you are somehow maneuvering and twisting that fast, you're spreading damage for sure. If you are able to move and twist, and still deliver precise shots, on a 2-3 second cycle, you deserve to do lots of damage. You'll still overheat after a couple cycles, anyway, if you keep it up.

Note 4: I would keep two possible tweaks in the bag for refinement if pulse laser damage got out of hand when testing this proposal on the Public Test Server (which would be essential). First, if pulse laser boats take over, apply a universal heat penalty to any combination of more than 6 lasers fired at the same time. I wouldn't expect this to happen, so I wouldn't expect to have to use this one, but it's a thought. Second, be prepared to bump the heat value on all pulse lasers up by about 10%. We would roll this one out if I turn out to be wrong about the top-tier folks, and fast brawling with rapid pulse laser cycling turns out to be a devastating enough style to challenge the currently optimal pinpoint instantaneous damage style.

Note 5: As another separate change, I would also favor increasing the damage of all large class lasers (with the possible exception of the C-ERLLas) by up to 20%. The change proposed above is an attempt to make pulse lasers distinctive and valuable. I think we need another change to make any kind of large class laser other than the C-ERLLas actually worth their tonnage. As it is the tonnage jump between medium class lasers and large class lasers is very steep for all types, and if you have the hardpoints available, it's much more favorable to add more medium lasers (and more heatsinks or engine upgrades) than to add any large laser to your build.

Alright Forumwarriors. I know how this works, and I know what I was asking for here. Fire away.

Edited by ProfessorD, 17 August 2014 - 01:49 PM.

[Sleipnir]

Edited by Sleipnir, 17 August 2014 - 02:51 PM.

[Exzander]

http://i.imgur.com/202DvmQ.gif

[ImperialKnight]

tl:dr for lazy people, reduce cooldown time and increase FLD of pulse lasers


it's doesn't add more distinctiveness, it's just a buff

some time back there were suggestions to turn pulse lasers into pulse MGs, basically it keeps pulsing if you hold down the fire button. by tuning the damage per pulse, keep the DPS roughly the same as before. and of course your heat keeps going up as you fire.

now THAT was adding flavour. I still wish it was implemented

[ProfessorD]

knightsljx, on 17 August 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

some time back there were suggestions to turn pulse lasers into pulse MGs, basically it keeps pulsing if you hold down the fire button. by tuning the damage per pulse, keep the DPS roughly the same as before. and of course your heat keeps going up as you fire.

This is a pretty cool idea. I could support that.

It's not clear if you intend this as a change to pulse laser firing mechanics, or an even further reduction in cooldown with corresponding changes in damage. One of my goals was to avoid proposing changes in mechanics, since that would take a lot more code work. Changes in values of properties like damage and cooldown should be pretty easy.

knightsljx, on 17 August 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

tl:dr for lazy people, reduce cooldown time and increase FLD of pulse lasers

it's doesn't add more distinctiveness, it's just a buff

To be clear, I did intend a net buff for pulse lasers as part of this. I do not think their current damage output justifies their weight. Lots of people seem to have wanted a better brawling weapon for a long time, and this seems like a way to offer that.

I assume by the increase in front loaded damage you're referring to the Clan beam duration reduction? I'm pretty confident the net result of this would be that pulse laser users would spend more time facing their target, which would counter any additional front-loaded-ness the duration reduction offers. That was Note 4, for the folks that didn't read it. Most other places in these forums, front-loaded-damage is talked about as the opposite of damage-per-second, and more DPS is definitely the focus of this change. I don't think pulse lasers currently have any problem with too much FLD, and I don't think they would after this change.

[Koniving]

An admittedly simpler thing. Just follow the damn lore.

Lasers: 1:42 in.


Pulse Lasers: 3:20 in.

Koniving, on 22 June 2014 - 06:58 AM, said:

Real quick, the reasoning is that these are mainly based on Tabletop stats. ER Small and Small Pulse are in fact supposed to be identical in heat; but PGI upped the damage for small pulses.

Clan small pulse is supposed to be 3 damage, where clan ER small is supposed to be 5.

The difference is in lore, pulse lasers are laser machine guns. Regular and ER lasers are one time fire, long recharge weapons.
"Instead of firing one powerful beam, they maintain laser beams fired off in quick succession." Not 1 pulsating laser, but several rapid laser beams that do significantly lower damage but in return generate significantly less heat per beam (it's a DoT weapon in the books; think Klingon Disurptors but a little more laser-like and instant-hitting).

PGI ignored this fact of lore because in past mechwarrior games the technology in gaming to do something like this both reliably and not be useless [due to 'projectile' physics that they would have done back then] didn't exist. (Much like they still think that burst fire ACs are against lore when in fact single shot ACs are against lore). PGI mirrored past games instead of looking into more than glimpsing at the Sarna stats.

Instead, what you have is actually the ability to fire faster. You cannot fire the weapon until it recharges, it will not recharge until it stops.
In 6.75 seconds, the small pulse will have fired 3 times and spread less than its ER small counter-part, dealing 10.2 damage.
In 7.5 seconds, the ER small laser will have fired 3 times, and can potentially spread the damage considerably more, dealing 15 damage.

Both have identical range. Both take one crit slot.
So shoot faster for emergencies, or shoot slower for more damage at the risk of spreading said damage more.

I honestly think the ER lasers should have had longer beam times than they do, but have the cooldowns reduced a tad bit to compensate (it'll make the mechs run hotter too for using them).
Example: If ER Small was 1.25 beam time, 2.0 cooldown, means identical DPS, longer beam time means a bit more spread, and finally the shorter cooldown/recharge time means it will technically have less time to 'sink' heat before you start making more again so it'd in theory run slightly hotter in constant use. Transition across the ER lasers for Clans.

----------

If they were done correctly... Here's why you would have chosen a small pulse over an ER small laser.

ER lasers are typically 1 to 4 shots to get X damage. (Regular lasers up to 8, don't know the limit of regular smalls but we'll use 4).
Lets use a small laser at 4 shots. 0.25 heat per shot, 0.75 damage per shot, damage is instant (not a lengthy beam but instant). Zap, zap, zap, zap.
Lets use a Clan ER Small Laser at 4 shots. 0.5 heat per shot (twice as hot), 1.25 damage per shot (0.5 more damage pinpoint), damage is instant. Zap, zap, zap, zap.
Take a bunch together and that heat adds up, especially since less than 50% heat is when ammo could get violently unhappy with you.
But take pulse lasers now. They go up to 20 shots. Lets take one that does 10.
Clan Small Pulse laser at 10 shots. 0.2 heat per shot, 0.3 damage per shot, damage per shot is instant. "Eeerreeee-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew!" Substitute with wub if you like.
In other words, in the long run it'll be colder because it'll spike you less. Also a bunch of them would look and sound awesome.
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Note:
Real quick, I do want to point out that pulse lasers are not be confused with the supposed heavy gatling lasers, which I can't find any information on other than "experimental" and "dark ages." From what I heard they're basically regular (or the Clan version ER) lasers that can queue the laser damage and heat more than once for that much more heat, basically a laser version of the Rotary autocannon. But I barely know anything about this and I suspect it might be apocryphal.

Pulse lasers in the books are supposedly considerably weaker than regular lasers, but far many times more frequently and with significantly shorter recharges, dealing equal or greater damage over time.

Of course in lore both pulse and regular lasers are 'instant damage' weapons; that is the damage is dealt as soon as it's fired but nothing says it's all at once. Pulses fire many lasers in a short period of time, where the regular ones fire once and take a while to recharge; the typical pulse laser will fire as many as 20 times to do its rated damage, meanwhile the typical standard laser will fire up to 8 times but are typically 3 to 5 times; ER lasers typically fire far more front-loaded damage in the books, resulting in significantly higher heat output such as the ER LL's "12 heat". Hence the greater effectiveness against groups of small moving targets such as platoons and battle armor wolfpacks.

For a little more fun... Why an LRM-20 with 4 salvos of 5 damage in 10 seconds was actually pretty good, why the Atlas K was among the best Atlases you could have (and worth the 12 million more than an Atlas D-DC), and a number of other things. Includes a LOT of information about the weapon variants, including why -- while an Atlas D or D-DC's AC/20 was more powerful as a DPS weapon -- the Atlas RS's AC/10 was a much more dangerous front loaded damage weapon.

In other words a crapload on weapon variants focusing specifically on the Atlases. Even includes the difference in cockpit between the typical Atlas (nose-seated cockpit) and D-DC (eye-seated cockpit).

Spoiler

Koniving, on 06 August 2014 - 07:47 AM, said:

In the case of Atlases, the Boar's Head was based on a canon design.
"AS7-D Atlas Danielle

Piloted by Wolf's Dragoons Captain Danielle Rondema, this modified Atlas carried three medium lasers in each arm, trading away the SRM rack to do so. The additional heat was dissipated by two additional heat sinks that replaced the rear-firing medium lasers."

It still had an AC/20 and the LRM-rack (which was supposed to be 5 tubes as ALL Atlases had 5 tube LRM-20 rapid reload racks except the K; the K replaced the SRM launcher with a larger 10-tube count LRM rack).

Far as the other Atlases, all Atlases had 1 ballistic hardpoint, up to 2 missile hardpoints and with THAT one exception (the Boar's Head), only up to 4 energy hardpoints. All torso energy hardpoints are REAR mounted to shoot backwards.

I know none of this works in MWO, and the favoritism came with a few things (to include ECM on a mech that doesn't carry it mainly due to the lore reason "there isn't even enough room to mount a proper LRM-20"). So instead lets take a minute to look at the Atlases in the source material to make some sense out of them, and to have an idea of what the game could have been like with some intelligent design.

Energy hardpoints and Atlas Cockpit to Dual Cockpit design.

Spoiler

The Atlas in lore has medium lasers that fired 3 times in a firing cycle (1 firing cycle = 1 rating of damage and heat, so firing its lasers 3 times is 1.666666666666667 damage per firing + 1 heat per firing per medium laser, totalling 5 damage and 3 heat).

The Atlas K's ER Large Lasers, they fired twice in a single rating, providing 4 damage on target in a single shot (with 6 heat, out of 8 damage total and 12 heat). (Inner Sphere Large Lasers are known to around 4 times in a single rating to get 8 damage). Of course this means that in firing 2 at once, that's 8 damage pinpoint and on the second volley that's 16 damage, with a total of 24 heat built in two segments of 12 [for firing 2 at once]. In a single volley this would instantly fry the mech, but with the firepower of the ratings split into two shots firing two of them at once is actually reasonably safe, especially with a spacing of about five seconds to sink its heat (with 20 SHS that's 10 heat removed in 5 seconds, so that second volley would bring it to 46.67% heat. Generating up to 2 heat per 10 seconds in walking maybe up to slightly over 50% heat. The slow frequency of firing makes it okay, though. And the high pinpoint damage of just one ER LL is comparable a single shot from the second largest AC/20 in the Inner Sphere (which fires 5 shots of 4 damage each; the Hunchback's 180mm Tomodzuru AC/20). So two of these ER LLs is like having two of those shots hit you at the same time, minus the physical impulse/shake.

Now with the Atlas K, with hotter weapons you might wonder what the logical sense would be in mounting hotter rear-facing lasers as well? Pulse lasers in lore are rapid fire 'machine gun' lasers so to speak. Instead of 4 heat and 6 damage per beam it varied depending on the variants. The Atlas K's MPL shot count per rating is not mentioned, unfortunately, but they have gone up to '20' per rating from what I had seen. If it is 20, then that's 0.3 damage and 0.2 heat per shot, with an automatic fire (which is very handy considering that it's a rear mounted gun that you can't focus on). So it wasn't actually hotter (sure hotter over time) but very cool and manageable. Especially since you only got 1 to 2 uses out of them in 10 seconds depending on the ruleset, and honestly Solaris VII lore specifically separates itself from Battletech in saying that all mechs are modified to do less damage and draw the fight out as long as possible, so while the ratings are not changed to prevent confusion, the game overall forces more chain firing and the like.

(Continued)Two MPL together at the 20 shot rating make 0.6 damage and 0.4 heat per squeeze, making trying to sneak up on an Atlas (who isn't busy) a very deadly thing to do as a light or medium mech when you consider an Atlas actually had 404 points of armor and a Hunchback had 160 points of armor. Of course, that's the worst case scenario, Atlas K's MPL shot count has never been fluffed and it could easily be something like 6 shots in a 'use' or 3 shots in a use. But the fewer the shots, the higher the damage and heat per shot to fit that rating we go, the harder or more impractical it is to use.
------
Cockpits.
The Atlas D-DC sacrificed the torso lasers as well as lost 1 ton of LRM storage to make room for the weighty equipment involved in its Dual Cockpit design.

Unlike ALL OTHER Atlases who are controlled with the pilot sitting in the middle of the head looking the NOSE, the Atlas D-DC is controlled from the eyeballs. The Right eye is specified as the command chair and the Left eye is specified as the primary cockpit.

Where most dual cockpit setups have one pilot controls the navigation while the other controls the weapon systems, this one gives full control to EITHER pilot but only one can have control at any one time. The primary pilot typically has the controls while the Command Chair has the battlegrid up giving out orders to an entire company. If the primary pilot is killed or knocked out, the commander can take the controls. This could be done in a number of ways in MWO, to include two separate head hitboxes with half armor/structure on each meaning a single headshot would never kill the D-DC.

Ballistics.

Spoiler

It is important to note that aside from the head and wirings on the inner body, the Atlas D and D-DC are identical.

The Atlas D and D-DC's AC/20 fires 15 shots to do 20 damage (1.333333333333333 damage per round; typical of all 100mm ACs of EVERY classification). All 15 shots count as a single use, and the reasoning behind the limited range is the recoil that it produces will jerk on the torso, raising it upward. Its accuracy is significantly better while stationary of course, allowing (and this is covered in TT) it to (within reason) hit targets nearly twice its stated range with accuracy provided the pilot has a decent gunnery skill. In 15 shots, the total 7 heat is divided across 15 meaning each shot generated "0.467 (rounded)" heat per shot. Note the Atlas is only intended to have one autocannon. With 6 ratings per ton of ammunition it was factually 90 shots per ton. The 100mm Deathgiver is an automatic type (has only a cooldown per shot, does not use magazines/cassettes, in MWO's time line it'd fire 1 shot every 0.267 seconds. In FASA's time line it fires 1 shot every 0.667 seconds).

The Atlas RS starts with an AC/10. The variant isn't specified but in the book Binding Force, the Atlas RS there has a 120mm AC/10 that fired 5-6 shots per rating. Keeping consistent most other entries for 120mm, 6 shots fits the 3/6/12 pattern of AC/5 through AC/20 for 120mm, which means the RS's AC/10 does (1.666666666666667 damage) per shot, more than the Atlas's AC/20, but its firing rate is slower and in the time the Atlas D's AC/20 pumps out 15 shots, the Atlas RS will have pumped out 6 (Atlas D thusly doing 20 damage and Atlas RS only doing 10). The AC/10's heat at 6 shots was 2 per shot. At 6 shots per rating it has 10 ratings per ton (60 shots). Its firing rate in MWO would be one shot every 0.4167 seconds given PGI's faster rate of fire given to it. In BT its rate of fire would be 1.67 seconds per shot. Slower, but slightly harder hitting than the AC/20 of the D and D-DC. (At the same caliber, an AC/20 would fire exactly twice as fast as an AC/10).

The Atlas K's Gauss Rifle is especially devastating, 15 damage in a single shot. The Gauss Rifle could not be fired at the same time as its ER Large Lasers, however. (Again, purely book stuff). In MWO it does 45 damage in 10.25 seconds. In BT it would do 15 every 10 seconds with exactly one use hit or miss. Given BT rules on charging the Gauss Rifle, you'd tap its fire key once to charge it (and when charged its capacitors will hold that charge so you can use other weapons after it is charged) and tap it again to fire. The charge could be held indefinitely but the Rifle could easily explode if damaged while charged. It won't explode when not charged.

Now count the tubes here before continuing. How many holes in the left shoulder? 6. How many in the pack on the left? 5.

Missile hardpoints.

Spoiler

The Atlas in lore fired 5 missiles at a time...
"For long ranges, the 'Mech carries a FarFire Maxi-Rack LRM-20 in the left torso that allows it to both fire directly at an enemy target at long range, and to give indirect fire support when needed. Unable to fit a full twenty-tube system on the 'Mech, the FarFire instead launches the missiles in waves of five over the course of ten seconds and carries two tons of reloads for twelve such salvos."
Each missile does "1 damage" which in MWO would be 2 damage if you compare the armor ratios. This combined with MOST mechs not having any form of AMS was pretty decent. However it could not rely on spotting information from other mechs, it does not have a C3 computer system. Instead it uses line of sight exclusively, or pulls up a battlegrid and selects coordinates to send the missiles at like artillery.
Which compared was superior to the lasers (except in the Atlas K's case) and that one LRM-20 outdid its SRM-6 launcher, which only fired once and didn't reload as quickly. Of course its SRMs homed in, too. Only the Ballistic weapon (or the ER LLs of the Atlas K) was better than its 5 tubed LRM launcher.

The Atlas K however sports the only change in missiles. The side pack for LRMs is removed and the SRM rack is replaced with a 10 tube LRM-20. [Very specifically in the MRM [Medium Range Missile] lore, it is mentioned that an SRM-6 and a 10 tube LRM/MRM rack launcher are interchangeable. This is because SRM missiles are fatter, taking more space, and thus the LRM/MRM rack could replace it with ease so long as it was up to 10 tubes].

Meanwhile it should be noted that an Atlas cools with its stock configuration in 15 seconds from an overheat to 0 under nominal temperatures using standard heatsinks. (The same speed as 10 DHS would if thresholds didn't rise). At any one point in time, 50% heat (or 15 units of heat, 1 ER PPC -- it should be noted that ER PPCs in lore do not instantly generate their heat but build it over time) is the beginning of a 3% shutdown risk. Much like any other mech (who usually cool slower), the Atlas cannot generate more than 30 heat at once without a huge risk to itself. Therefore, it is perfectly viable as is if this game was done correctly and actually looked at the lore.

But we have rising thresholds (which when you add heatsinks you are adding cooling over time which thusly helps your mech fit all of its queued firepower into 10 seconds, in MWO you are adding cooling over time AND maximum heat/alpha potential). We also have PGI's belief that "1 AC/20 use in tabletop must be 1 shot" rather than 1 AC/20 use is 1 AC/20 use.
(For the Victor 1 AC/20 use is actually 100 shots, for the largest IS AC/20 it's actually 4 shots, and thus it can be anywhere from 4 to 100 shots for an IS AC/20; the typical range is in the area of 100mm (15 shots) to 120mm (12 shots).)

And so, the balance of things is pretty out of whack. With each patch PGI conjures up its own balance, and while this makes some weapons more practical against mechs (AC/2s for example), the purpose of the weapons is getting increasingly warped and lost.

In trying the MWO meta in BT, it doesn't work. Even with a perfect 0/0 pilot who can make jumpjet landings with only one leg from the PRONE position while under fire, the weapons are virtually worthless. I've tried many combinations. Twin PPC + AC/5 with max armor, JJs, Endo, etc. for a Shadowhawk. LRM boats. 6 SRM-6s (kept overheating), 5 Streak-6s (rarely would fire, tried it again with Streak-4s and streak-2s and it turned out to be best and most viable to carry Streak 2s). Every feasible meta in MWO failed in BT as absolutely worthless. Even changing to Solaris Rules, these mechs were being creamed by Locusts, being creamed by STOCK mechs, being creamed by tanks, jeeps with SRM-launchers, just..absolutely worthless.

But it's meta here, and it's entirely due to PGI's own version of balancing.

More on missiles; particularly minimum range

Spoiler

Oh, and don't forget even at 30 meters an Inner Sphere LRM can still do full damage, the minimum range is NOT an arming range but a to hit chance. I had a tank with LRM-5s and hit 3 out of many targets with the LRM-5s as well as killing the Atlas as seen in this image. Supposedly, unless "Hotloaded," LRMs are actually NOT loaded into the launcher until after told to fire, hence that minimum range (it's because the target is close enough to see the missiles being loaded and dodge). When hotloaded however, the missiles could detonate if the launcher is hit. Clan mech LRMs are always hot-loaded. (There's another balancing technique right there, but failure to look at lore leaves us with many missed balancing opportunities).

The Clan / IS Gauss + PPC meta.

Spoiler

Now when you consider the lore, the ER PPC + Gauss meta the Clans are using would never happen. 2 ER PPCs at the same time is too much heat (30 heat hit at any point in time before it is cooled would be an instant shutdown; of course ER PPCs and PPCs charge up; ER PPCs with a shorter charge up time thus no minimum range, but this charge up spreads the heat so that a single ER PPC can't trigger a shutdown. How much it spreads varies with the variant).

ER PPC + Gauss at the same time is too much energy draw. Over 10 seconds it's perfectly fine, shot one at a time. You can also easily make 4 ER PPCs work in 10 seconds. But at the same time the engine would shutdown and the heat would cause the Gauss Rifles to explode, rapidly disabling the mech if not instantly killing it.

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But all of this is just some food for thought.

If only if PGI had some foresight, or at the very least read some of the manuals with an open mind. The basic Solaris rulebook doesn't cover it, and in fact is very screwed to begin with.

Edited by Koniving, 18 August 2014 - 09:15 PM.

[ProfessorD]

I completely agree that PGI has missed a ton of opportunities to implement weapons in cooler ways, both lore-based or other creative variations, and if you mean to imply that more variations in weapon mechanics would offer more and better balance opportunities, I agree with that, too.

I was trying to work with what we have, only tweaking values we know are already in the code and don't require new mechanics. It's not super ambitious, but it's certainly doable.