231 replies to this topic

[DeathjesterUK]

KraftySOT, on 20 September 2014 - 02:09 PM, said:

I think you could do 1:1 if you made all the recycle times the same. So long as the heat you made is gone by the time you can fire again, if youre heat neutral, all is well. Then you have 30 heat cause the shut down and the add in the effects to movement, ammo explosions, and accuracy, and you have a TT system that achieves the same goals as ghost heat.

Mounting 4 PPCs and 30 DHS in an assault if fine, and if he's moving, he's going to become an in accurate turret in 3 alpha strikes. (well not that severe, but a 20% reduction in speed, from a 4-6 to 3-5 or 3-5 into a 2-3...30kph is pretty darned slow) He's gonna get plagued by locusts as they say (reamed by lights)

If you dont want to go that route, and want to stay with just generalities, then id say you still stick with the 30 heat scale (or the 120 extrapolated scale from solaris, that functions essentially the same but with higher resolution) and youre hitting movement and accuracy penalties at the correct places on the scale, ammo explosions a possibility at the highest levels, and doubling the scale should just kill you out right (it enabled the auto ejection we'll say).

If we want to go on the lighter side id say a 10% reduction in "over all performance" every 10 "heat" on the scale, with a maximum of 30% penalty to aiming, movement, and have every 10 heat over 30, increase your "restart up" time by a few seconds that could be tweaked to everyones liking.

Sounds good, but I would take the inaccuracy from heat up to a 50%. I realize that have RDM numbers is not liked by some, but that is part of the challenge. Finding a system that would accurately simulate the fact that the onboard targeting computer was overheating and not returning the correct values as a result. Coupling this with heat interfering with the movement of the mech including torso twisting and the speed of weapon convergence and you could help to mitigate the use of random numbers to a minimum.

Edited by DeathjesterUK, 20 September 2014 - 02:36 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

KraftySOT, on 19 September 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

Technically, CBT is the quick start rules, that doesnt even have gyro hits, and is 3025...Warhammers, no clans, etc...

http://en.wikipedia....ssic_BattleTech
http://boardgamegeek...h-total-warfare
just a couple quick grabs


"CBT" by your definition, no adv tech, so no ER PPCs at all.
I can rebuild the Annihilator to have 4 PPCs (40 ht) and 16.5 tons armor and 42 SHS. Heat Neutral.

With clan tech, can mount a 300xl, 31 DHS, 4 ER PPC, 19 tons armor and an ECM. Heat Neutral.

Anyhow, not really trying to but into your guys argument, but with traditional BT rules, of the Clan Era in which MWO is set, you could most assuredly make high energy heat neutral mechs.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 September 2014 - 02:52 PM.

[KraftySOT]

DeathjesterUK, on 20 September 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

Sounds good, but I would take the inaccuracy from heat up to a 50%. I realize that have RDM numbers is not liked by some, but that is part of the challenge. Finding a system that would accurately simulate the fact that the onboard targeting computer was overheating and not returning the correct values as a result. Coupling this with heat interfering with the movement of the mech including torso twisting and the speed of weapon convergence and you could help to mitigate the use of random numbers to a minimum.

I agree with that, I was just trying to err on the side of noob lol 50% is a hefty penalty, but then again, 50% of what...50% less accurate than we have now would still be pretty accurate, but it would also make for a big difference at max ranges.

[KraftySOT]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

http://en.wikipedia....ssic_BattleTech
http://boardgamegeek...h-total-warfare
just a couple quick grabs


"CBT" by your definition, no adv tech, so no ER PPCs at all.
I can rebuild the Annihilator to have 4 PPCs (40 ht) and 16.5 tons armor and 42 SHS. Heat Neutral.

With clan tech, can mount a 300xl, 31 DHS, 4 ER PPC, 19 tons armor and an ECM. Heat Neutral.

Anyhow, not really trying to but into your guys argument, but with traditional BT rules, of the Clan Era in which MWO is set, you could most assuredly make high energy heat neutral mechs.

And I have no problem with those designs...so long as the alpha isnt hitting a single pixel.

And thats a fair definition, im just saying theres at least a few people to whom classic battletech, is the first production rules, and our first "classic" game was the quick start rules, and ill bet most people at PGI (I remember them saying they had everyone play a game of it) played CBT with the quick start rules, and most new players at demos at cons are playing the quick start rules.

My first personal game, was the quick start rules, and everything else was more advanced. Theres nothing classic about anything that was done after I already had graduated highschool. "Classic" is pretty relative.

Total warfare is considered classic on wiki. How something that came out 18 years later is classic is...strange to me.

[KraftySOT]

But yeah, CBT to me, is before there was ever an ER PPC...theres "classic" battletech...the first edition. Then theres the battletech most people are familiar with, with clans and such...then theres the travesty of things other companies have done that seem to have a really wide array of opinions pelted at them.

You got alot of 3025 Megamek players who just refuse to accept that stuff exists, and alot of Total Warfare guys who think the 3025 ankle kicking fest is a bore.

I dont try and say which is right or wrong, just to me, classic battletech, is the oldest iteration. The classical one. Not the other things that came out later. Like the classic star wars movies will, to me, always be the first 3 to come out. Whenever disney remakes them, I wont be considering the 90s and 2000s ones, part of the classic star wars movies, though im sure some wiki entry will say something to that effect.

Its semantics really.

Classic DnD on wiki is AD&D First edition to me...not apparently the D&D BEFORE AD&D that was a map and chits in a cup.

[Bishop Steiner]

KraftySOT, on 20 September 2014 - 03:00 PM, said:

And I have no problem with those designs...so long as the alpha isnt hitting a single pixel.

And thats a fair definition, im just saying theres at least a few people to whom classic battletech, is the first production rules, and our first "classic" game was the quick start rules, and ill bet most people at PGI (I remember them saying they had everyone play a game of it) played CBT with the quick start rules, and most new players at demos at cons are playing the quick start rules.

My first personal game, was the quick start rules, and everything else was more advanced. Theres nothing classic about anything that was done after I already had graduated highschool. "Classic" is pretty relative.

Total warfare is considered classic on wiki. How something that came out 18 years later is classic is...strange to me.

my first Btech book. Got it in 1987.
Along with these


Classics, indeed.

All of which I still own.

[Bishop Steiner]

KraftySOT, on 20 September 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

But yeah, CBT to me, is before there was ever an ER PPC...theres "classic" battletech...the first edition. Then theres the battletech most people are familiar with, with clans and such...then theres the travesty of things other companies have done that seem to have a really wide array of opinions pelted at them.

You got alot of 3025 Megamek players who just refuse to accept that stuff exists, and alot of Total Warfare guys who think the 3025 ankle kicking fest is a bore.

I dont try and say which is right or wrong, just to me, classic battletech, is the oldest iteration. The classical one. Not the other things that came out later. Like the classic star wars movies will, to me, always be the first 3 to come out. Whenever disney remakes them, I wont be considering the 90s and 2000s ones, part of the classic star wars movies, though im sure some wiki entry will say something to that effect.

Its semantics really.

Classic DnD on wiki is AD&D First edition to me...not apparently the D&D BEFORE AD&D that was a map and chits in a cup.

Yeah...I like Megamek. It is very useful. But the optional rules and stuff in it, have people like Koniving, who have never apparently played, in the flesh, TT, out of book or Box Btech, very confused on some things, like heat implementation. (not saying his idea would not work for MWO, but that contrary to his belief, in TT, Heatsinks do indeed add to your threshold and that there is no alpha strike autoshutdown rule)

So I feel ya. Also to me, "classic D&D" is split between the old original Red Box, and 1st Ed AD&D.

None of the newer come close.... because they are all so rules heavy, trying to cover every situation, instead of letting roleplay and common sense sort a lot out. I actually really like the Dragons Age box set, because it is a return to rule light, RPG. (Same reason I liked WoD. Grab a bunch of d10. Role your pool. Count anything over a 7. Opponent roles and counts his. Winner took all. Simple.)

**Also, Classic Battletech just means it was a return to the traditional Btech rules and settings, not related to Dark Age, etc.

Believe you me, my feeling is that everything went downhill in 3049. The INvasion made an interesting story from the fiction point, and of course, sold a bunch of books, but the game never had the feel or balance of the old Succession Wars, ever again. Even DA trying to force the balance back, so ham-handedly, just made things worse.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 September 2014 - 03:19 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Exactly thats all I meant, those were my first introduction into battletech. It came out at a comic shop in 88. My "comic guy" had this weird grin on his face, and had the box and some of the books in a display. We spent many and afternoon kicking each other to death.

Thats "Classic" to me.

Wasnt trying to derail the thread or anything.

[KraftySOT]

And yeah im not saying Koni's ideas is perfectly TT, its just better than what we have, and it might work. Its a good idea I think.

And of course 3025 and 3050 are totally different times with totally different balances and TTK and such. As said, 3025 usually has Thunderbolts punching and kicking each other to death unless youre playing a campaign and run away.

Just something that brings the classic heat management into the game, in a way that makes sense to people. They see that they have 30 heat disapation, they have 2 clan er ppcs and a clan medium laser, they know running makes 2 heat, they fire all of them, and they now have 7 heat, and they can see that. It repeats what they see in the mechlab when they set up their mech. Its not an obscure 37% heat that is then going down as the weapon recylces that doesnt help them, or even long time TT players, figure out wtf is going on.

It doesnt have to be rip of the TT, but it A) has to be approachable and make sense, and be based on the TT enough that it provides the same benefit and challenge to the player...its fun to manage and challengng to manage and has a range of effects that effect how you approach any given situation.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

Spoiler

http://en.wikipedia....ssic_BattleTech
http://boardgamegeek...h-total-warfare
just a couple quick grabs


"CBT" by your definition, no adv tech, so no ER PPCs at all.

I can rebuild the Annihilator to have 4 PPCs (40 ht) and 16.5 tons armor and 42 SHS. Heat Neutral.

With clan tech, can mount a 300xl, 31 DHS, 4 ER PPC, 19 tons armor and an ECM. Heat Neutral.

Anyhow, not really trying to but into your guys argument, but with traditional BT rules, of the Clan Era in which MWO is set, you could most assuredly make high energy heat neutral mechs.

With MWO's Heat Dissipation, those builds you mention, would still work if the weapons are fired one at a time inside of a 10 to 12 second period (going up to 12 due to the 4 second cooldown on the weapons).

So, here's a table comparing Dissipation over time (used 0.1 and 0.2 to get the dissipation per second):



So with current MWO Dissipation, as long as there is some way to provide a tradeoff with firing those 4 weapons at once so that they are staggering them out more over time then those build would be heat neutral in MWO too (and seeing that each weapon was rolled separately, having to fire them separately fits well enough).

The Rules should be used as guidelines to improve MWO, and Capacity is what I feel should be looked at first in MWO. Since mechs couldn't go above 14 heat without risking a Shutdown for example.

That sort of restriction to Capacity should be what is applied to reduce the number of weapons fired at once, and then look to tweaking dissipation afterwards as necessary (such as returning external DHS to 0.2 from 0.14).

So at the very least Heat Capacity should be set to 30 for either an override-able or automatic Shutdown.

Then we can explore adding to that, such as applying Heat Effects.

[KraftySOT]

I like that idea too lol.

All these ideas are great and try and take the TT into account best they can, some are more accurate, some are more inspired...and theyre all better than bloody ghost heat!

How does this work with the 12 medium laser Nova? 18 DHS, 12 medium lasers? In the TT if youre not moving, youre making 24 heat with an alpha, which has a chance for shut down, but isnt guaranteed, but you have massive penalties for doing so, and nearby enemies are going to have a chance at an aimed shot.

Also I wanted to ask, I dont remember, I havent shut down in Battletech...in quite a long time...are you counted as immobile while shut down? -4 to hit?

[KraftySOT]

Also if shutdown was increase to 10 seconds...that would have a big impact on people chancing it. Couple that with it happening 50% of the time around the 20+ mark...that would have a drastic impact on what loadouts people had, all with a system thats very easy to understand.

That to me is a big issue too.

If im not familiar with the system, or even if I am from the other games and the table top (or not), I go to the mech lab...I look at a PPC, it has 10 heat..I put two of them on my mech...I make 20 heat...I look at my "heat efficiency bar" at the bottom right, and itll say something like 1.21 or whatever. Ok...what on earth does that mean?

Then I hop into the game...I fire off my twin PPC set up...and I have 28% heat...

28% of what?

I keep firing them as soon as I can, and then im at 34% and its going down...then 40 something, etc etc...

So I go back to the mechlab and I look at heat sinks..I know more is good, but, this is really arbitrary. You know more is better, but theres no way to translate that to what you see in the game. You cant really make the stats in the lab match up with the heatscale. Theres no real relation with what youre familiar with from the other games, and if youre new to it, youre just confused.

If you have that 30 heat scale, you know at least, that 50% is 15 heat...id like it to be more transparent than that...but you can see where the confusion can set in.

Edited by KraftySOT, 20 September 2014 - 03:53 PM.