108 replies to this topic

[pwnface]

Look guys, there is a really easy solution to this.

Flamers currently generate 1 heat per second per flamer. Reduce the heat they generate significantly to say 0.2-0.25 heat per second per flamer. You can now successfully generate more heat on an enemy mech than you are on yourself, can't force a mech to shutdown due to the 90% heat cap, and have a limited duration for spamming flamers because you are still generating heat on your mech. Flamers are useless because you generate more heat to yourself than the enemy, this is the ONLY thing that needs to be changed.

Edit: For everyone talking about TT and infantry, there has been zero sign of infantry being added to the game and is not relevant at all to this discussion.

Edited by pwnface, 10 December 2014 - 03:12 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Not to mention in reality, a mech has 'gearing'. That means the torso can only move in degrees. If the infantry is smaller than the degree of motion, you cant hit him.

Imagine your torso has 720 "angles" it can aim. As the gears rotate, it goes from half a degree, to half a degree. At 10 feet, who cares, half a degree isnt even an inch. At 500m, half a degree could be over 10 feet.

This is why artillery, is better than a rifle. Or why flamethrowers had a use previous to guided munitions.

If you want to kill infantry, who will very clearly be in undulations, behind cover, using concealment, you want flamers, or area weapons.

FupDup, on 10 December 2014 - 03:06 PM, said:

Equipping weapons that only hurt little dudes doesn't make little dudes easier to discover.

Nope but it makes them easier to hit.

I dont have to spot yer entire platoon, I just have to see one man, saturate the area, and chances are I got more. Even if I didnt, I just took away your cover and concealment.

A laser isnt going to do that.

The most important thing you can do to infantry, is take away their cover and concealment, deny them an area, give them no place to hide.

And to be frank. With the ranges were talking about, an MG42 has a RoF and a large enough round, that at less than 400m, there is no drop, there is no space between the rounds.

Its as good as a laser for practical purposes.

Theres alot of things a rapid firing light machine gun cant do, that a flamer thrower can. While devastating to infantry in the open, cover and concealment pretty much neutralizes it.

Thats what mortars, and area weapons are for.

Flamers would absolutely be better than lasers for fighting infantry.

[Davers]

FupDup, on 10 December 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

Those weapons killed any infantry soldier they hit in 1 shot, the difference is that they just didn't hit as many soldiers with each individual shot. But we can't handwave like that in a real time game with aiming and different weapon mechanics.

Sure we could. I am 100% fine with handwaving it since having 30 individual figures all acting independently and using cover and spreading out to avoid damage would be too much to ask for. I don't ask it from TT, not expecting it here.

[pwnface]

Please shut up about infantry that don't and won't exist in MWO.

Do we want the flamer to be usable in MWO or just a troll weapon?

Edited by pwnface, 10 December 2014 - 03:15 PM.

[FupDup]

KraftySOT, on 10 December 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

Not to mention in reality, a mech has 'gearing'. That means the torso can only move in degrees. If the infantry is smaller than the degree of motion, you cant hit him.

Imagine your torso has 720 "angles" it can aim. As the gears rotate, it goes from half a degree, to half a degree. At 10 feet, who cares, half a degree isnt even an inch. At 500m, half a degree could be over 10 feet.

This is why artillery, is better than a rifle. Or why flamethrowers had a use previous to guided munitions.

If you want to kill infantry, who will very clearly be in undulations, behind cover, using concealment, you want flamers, or area weapons.

...

I dont have to spot yer entire platoon, I just have to see one man, saturate the area, and chances are I got more. Even if I didnt, I just took away your cover and concealment.

A laser isnt going to do that.

The most important thing you can do to infantry, is take away their cover and concealment, deny them an area, give them no place to hide.

Lasers are area weapons, because of their beam duration. If you click and drag the laser duration, it can sweep over an area. You're thinking of previous Mechwarrior games where lasers were fully frontloaded and instantaneous.

KraftySOT, on 10 December 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

Nope but it makes them easier to hit.

Hitting them is a matter of pointing and clicking. Hitting an infantry unit with a laser is neither harder nor easier than a Flamer or MG. In fact, the MG's CoF might actually give it a slight chance of missing the small target.

[Davers]

FupDup, on 10 December 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

Lasers are area weapons, because of their beam duration. If you click and drag the laser duration, it can sweep over an area. You're thinking of previous Mechwarrior games where lasers were fully frontloaded and instantaneous.



Hitting them is a matter of pointing and clicking. Hitting an infantry unit with a laser is neither harder nor easier than a Flamer or MG. In fact, the MG's CoF might actually give it a slight chance of missing the small target.

Imagine how quirky the hit boxes on a human sized target would be.

[DukeDublin]

Personally I would like to see Flamers lose the constant firing and have reload mechanic.
For example:

X = Duration weapon fired for (possible min and max time)

Flamer has a burn time of X seconds.
Causes Y amount of heat for each of those X seconds.
Deals D amount of damage for each of those X seconds.
Generates 1/2 Y as heat created for the duration of 2X.
Recharge rate is 2X+Z (or reload time).

Exponetial heat scaling is removed. Heat cap can be maintained.

The formula guarentees equal heat between mechs (just at different times) which could allow for flamer equiped mechs to manage a 'tempo' in their fight. Regardless of the stats, I feel that Flamers implemented like this could have more tactical gameplay that would be fun to use (and guarenteed to never feel unfair for either side).

If a Flamer equiped mech shut you down, it's because you failed to regulate your own heat levels (or were ambushed). The fault is then upon the player (instead of simply 'trolled by flamers'). The short range gives plently of time to react and punish to such ploys.

Edited by DukeDublin, 10 December 2014 - 03:22 PM.

[FupDup]

Davers, on 10 December 2014 - 03:19 PM, said:

Imagine how quirky the hit boxes on a human sized target would be.

Well, at least they're pretty slow. Infantry without jets can only move 1 hex per turn, which makes them slower than even the Dire Wolf or a stock Urbanmech. Even jump infantry can move only 2 hexes per turn, which still means that a Dire Wolf can run twice as fast as they can.

[Rhialto]

pwnface, on 10 December 2014 - 03:14 PM, said:

Please shut up about infantry that don't and won't exist in MWO.

Do we want the flamer to be usable in MWO or just a troll weapon?

This!

[KraftySOT]

FupDup, on 10 December 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

Lasers are area weapons, because of their beam duration. If you click and drag the laser duration, it can sweep over an area.

Youre not getting it.

The entire beam width is less than 3 inches, with a sweep of 1 second you may get 400 feet across, at 3 inches wide. This is no good.

They arent super beams...they arent going to go through concrete walls, trees, dirt, rocks, berms, etc...without sustained fire.

Even washing an area, to actually cover the area, it would be like trying to paint a foot ball field with an air paint gun.

Edited by KraftySOT, 10 December 2014 - 03:28 PM.

[Davers]

Blame Ed Steel for derailing us!

Flamers should be a viable weapon choice, even if it has a smaller niche than the medium lasers it competes with.

[Sigmar Sich]

quote from Battletech rulebook
"FLAMER
Under normal circumstances, a flamer does not cause heat damage to a target. However, if all players agree, they may choose to add 2 to a target battlemech's heat scale for the turn in which it is hit by the flamer attack, rather then doing 2 point of damage. "

So, what if apply some changes to flamer game mechanics:
1) Flamer selfheat decreased, heat damage to the target dismiss. Damage is slightly decreased.
2) If mech is under flamer attack, its weapons generate 120% more heat, and +5% for each additional flamer attack.
3) (?) Flamer gets low critical chances against ammo, if ammo's location loses armor. Crits dont work through armor.

Could become handy against hot builds, and ammo crits against ballistic builds; though remain in support role.

UPD Differs from current mechanic by having a failsafe from being flamed to shutdown - dont want shutdown - dont shoot anything hot, if you are flamed.

Edited by Sigmar Sich, 10 December 2014 - 03:39 PM.

[FupDup]

Davers, on 10 December 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

Blame Ed Steel for derailing us!

Flamers should be a viable weapon choice, even if it has a smaller niche than the medium lasers it competes with.

I think the first anti-infantry comments actually came earlier than Ed.

[KraftySOT]

You can test this yourself. Get a laser pointer, some friends, go to the woods. Try and paint them with the laser pointer.

Compare that to simply saturating a 60 foot radius in 2,000 degree plasma.

Not only have you killed them, youve turned their cover and concealment in an empty smoldering parking lot, still on fire, which now cant be occupied by more infantry.

Infantry in a trench? No problem. In a house? No problem. Patch of woods? No problem. In a bunker? No problem. Behind a shield? No problem. Using anti mech artillery piece with a shield? No problem.

Something like a Pak36 with a shield, would defeat your lasers.

[NocturnalBeast]

Davers, on 10 December 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

Blame Ed Steel for derailing us!

Flamers should be a viable weapon choice, even if it has a smaller niche than the medium lasers it competes with.

I merely explained what the role of the Flamer is in Battletech and how the MWO Flamer is fine in its cue state.

[FupDup]

KraftySOT, on 10 December 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

Youre not getting it.

The entire beam width is less than 3 inches, with a sweep of 1 second you may get 400 feet across, at 3 inches wide. This is no good.

They arent super beams...they arent going to go through concrete walls, trees, dirt, rocks, berms, etc...without sustained fire.

Even washing an area, to actually cover the area, it would be like trying to paint a foot ball field with an air paint gun.

A laser wouldn't need to cut up the whole ground, it would only need to cut up the cannon fodder. The beam can be adjusted during firing ("walk the beam" along targets) as needed to reduce the amount of "wasted" duration.


As for penetration, a Flamer or MG isn't going to do that either.

[Ovion]

Honestly, with flamers as-is, I think you could do 2 things to make them usable.

1: Increase the range to 100M base instead of 90. (Or make it 90/120 or something, which I think I'd like more).
2: Make it a flat heat rate, rather than an exponential heat rate.

This would make them short-range, infinite ammo MGs. While not amazing, at least they would become somewhat viable, and potentially on par with the MG and maybe Small Laser.

[Davers]

FupDup, on 10 December 2014 - 03:29 PM, said:

I think the first anti-infantry comments actually came earlier than Ed.

Ed Steele, on 10 December 2014 - 03:32 PM, said:

I merely explained what the role of the Flamer is in Battletech and how the MWO Flamer is fine in its cue state.

It's ok. I just like to blame Ed.

P.S. Nice to see you back in the Purple Ed.

[KraftySOT]

FupDup, on 10 December 2014 - 03:32 PM, said:

A laser wouldn't need to cut up the whole ground, it would only need to cut up the cannon fodder. The beam can be adjusted during firing ("walk the beam" along targets) as needed to reduce the amount of "wasted" duration.


As for penetration, a Flamer or MG isn't going to do that either.

What cannon fodder?

http://en.wikipedia....ghting_position

This isnt the revolutionary war, they dont just stand around in lines waiting to be cut down. In reality youre shooting at this:



Your laser has to actually hit the few square inches of exposed soldier, to kill him.

A flamer just has to hit the area.

And you dont need penetration with heat. This is why molotovs worked well against German panzers. Or a flame thrower works well against a bunker.

If the bunker is over 200 degrees inside. Everyone dies.

Edited by KraftySOT, 10 December 2014 - 03:36 PM.

[pwnface]

Sigmar Sich, on 10 December 2014 - 03:28 PM, said:

quote from Battletech rulebook
"FLAMER
Under normal circumstances, a flamer does not cause heat damage to a target. However, if all players agree, they may choose to add 2 to a target battlemech's heat scale for the turn in which it is hit by the flamer attack, rather then doing 2 point of damage. "

So, what if apply some changes to flamer game mechanics:
1) Flamer selfheat decreased, heat damage to the target dismiss. Damage is slightly decreased.
2) If mech is under flamer attack, its weapons generate 120% more heat, and +5% for each additional flamer attack.
3) (?) Flamer gets low critical chances against ammo, if ammo's location loses armor. Crits dont work through armor.

Could become handy against hot builds, and ammo crits against ballistic builds; though remain in support role.

I think this is making it much more complicated than it needs to be.

1) Reduce self heat from 1 heat per second to 0.2-0.25 per second.
2) MAYBE reduce DPS to 0.5, I'd say try it with the same DPS and see how well it works.
3) Keep 90% heat generation cap.


Infantry don't exist. Who cares about imaginary infantry. Go play TT if you want infantry.

Edited by pwnface, 10 December 2014 - 03:38 PM.