102 replies to this topic

[Malavai Fletcher]

Err,ppc's are in no way shape or form large lasers just a different colour,lasers are point and click,your reciticle is on the enemy your lasers will hit,ppc's you needed to lead,firing ppcs at max range against a medium target moving sideways was hard!As for fighting a ppc mech up close... .....If your gonna close on a ppc mech you will have short range weapons on board,short range weapons run cooler,reload quicker and generally do more damage ton for ton against ppc's,and you wanna make ppcs worse!?!?

I really dont get why LRMS need to be changed to be ineffective at close range either,if its close you are in a brawl,getting and keeping a lock when you have a group of mechs brawling around you is tricky,if another mech moves across your reciticle,you lose lock,you then have to reaquire it when all the mechs are moving around each other,you get lock and fire the mech with the incomming can easily use an enemy mech as a shield and direct the missles into him.

[Oppi]

"We" want people to think about their loadout. PPCs are long range weapons, as are LRMs ( Long Range Missiles). You don't use artillery to shoot an opponent right next to you, because it will kill yourself (and you won't hit).

Those weapons can deal huge loads of damage over long distances, and that's their advantage. If they do the same amount of damage at knife range, there is no reason to use anything else. No strategy, no tactics.

Edited by Oppi, 27 November 2011 - 01:53 PM.

[Black Sunder]

Oppi, on 27 November 2011 - 01:51 PM, said:

"We" want people to think about their loadout. PPCs are long range weapons, as are LRMs ( Long Range Missiles). You don't use artillery to shoot an opponent right next to you, because it will kill yourself (and you won't hit).

Those weapons can deal huge loads of damage over long distances, and that's their advantage. If they do the same amount of damage at knife range, there is no reason to use anything else. No strategy, no tactics.

Well said. Well said. People need a range of weapons to survive. Not the one.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Oppi, on 27 November 2011 - 01:51 PM, said:

"We" want people to think about their loadout. PPCs are long range weapons, as are LRMs ( Long Range Missiles). You don't use artillery to shoot an opponent right next to you, because it will kill yourself (and you won't hit).

Those weapons can deal huge loads of damage over long distances, and that's their advantage. If they do the same amount of damage at knife range, there is no reason to use anything else. No strategy, no tactics.

I never said they should be used as short range weapons,of course they are long range weapons and of course you should use them at long range for as long as you possibly can,what i am saying is i dont see the point in making them almost useless at close range.

A mech using short range weps brawling against a mech using long range weps will win pretty much everytime.

Do you think the guy with the ppcs or the lrms wants to be in a brawl,with a mech that probably has weapons that reload faster,run cooler and do more damage ton per ton than his long range weapons?(kind of what i said in my other post)

I didn't even mention artillery,but,psst,you dont need to hit with artillery.

[Ilithi Dragon]

So the general consensus is that LRMs are easy and quite acceptable to make difficult or dangerous or ineffective to use at close range, through a combination of delayed arming time (to prevent detonation in the launcher and friendly-fire splash damage if fired too close), missile divergence at launch to prevent missile fratricide (the missiles diverge away from each other immediately after launching so they don't collide), making LRMs spread apart at close range before clustering back together and converging on the target, and arched missile flight paths (the missiles are fired 'up' in an arc to allow for fire over obstacles, etc.). Players would then be able to mix things up with various types of missiles made by different manufacturers.

Default missiles would have a delayed arming time after launch, making them rocket-powered rocks inside that minimum range, and would widely diverge after launch, like a wide-choke shotgun blast. Many mechs would also fire their missiles angled up, because of the location and angle of the pods (though not all mechs - some would fire straight-forward, but iirc all the mechs designed to be dedicated LRM boats have their pods oriented to fire in arcs). Missiles from some manufacturers would hot-load, with the warheads armed and ready to go in the launcher, at the risk of them going off in the pod, and setting off the whole pod of missiles, or getting splash damage if they hit a target right in front of you. Missiles from other manufacturers would have the missiles stay clustered together out of the tubes, at the risk that they would collide with each other. Missiles from other manufacturers would do both, with the additive risks of both (like the risk of your hot-loaded, clustering missiles colliding right out of the tubes and setting off the whole pack right in your face). Personally, I think the arching angle of missiles firing should be mech-dependent, to help give points of difference between different mechs.


As for PPCs, a Particle Projection Cannons basically IS an over-sized laser, it just uses hydrogen ions, or protons, instead of photons (light particles). It's a beam or bolt of charged particles, hence the recoil and kinetic effects despite being an energy weapon, and electrical surge problems. Now, the canonical explanation for PPC range limitation makes some sense - you're basically hitting the target with a stream of charged particles that can play holy hell with a target's systems, and a feedback along the ionized trail to your mech that hits you with the same EMP-like effects is not something that you want to have happen. The problem I have with this is that the effects would be severely limited - it fires a stream of protons, which are charged particles, but they are not going to act like an electrical surge because they're not electrons, which are what conduct electrical energy along wires and which are what cause the first-tier and main damaging effects of a nuclear EMP (check out the wikipedia page on electromagnetic pulse if you want some specifics on the physics behind that). It COULD still potentially work, though, if the PPC induces a high positive charge in the area around where it hits, that is rapidly neutralized by a flow of negative electrons to the area - causing some electrical drain and static discharge effects. Depending on how the PPC actually works, its firing might also create a heavy negative charge in the cannon itself, which would have to be neutralized. Presumably, if this is so, the cannon has mechanisms to safely neutralize the charge while the weapon recycles (possibly part of the need for the recycle time in the first place?), which at close range could cause a feedback surge from the target along the ionized plasma trail of the energy bolt back to the weapon itself, which could, hypothetically speaking, act as if the weapon fired and partially 'bounced back' into itself, which would be what is known as A Bad Thing.

So, in my opinion, and as others have suggested, having a PPC fire at reduced damage inside a certain range (90 meters being the canonical minimum safe range), with an option for players to override the safety protocol, or buy weapons that override the safety protocols, at the risk of causing a feedback into the weapon for, say, half damage or so of the weapon, with the damage bypassing the mech's armor and being directly applied to its internals. This is both canonical, and at least kinda-sorta consistent with real-world physics (though being a physics major myself, I will say that they seem a bit stretched to me, but not unreasonably so), and doesn't introduce silly and hard-to-explain things like a charged particle beam firing in a cone that somehow converges on itself some hundred meters or so beyond the barrel of the weapon, or a weapon that is fairly precise to aim at 900 meters suddenly going all wonky and all-over-the-place inside a tenth of that range...

[Jervinator]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

Err,ppc's are in no way shape or form large lasers just a different colour,lasers are point and click,your reciticle is on the enemy your lasers will hit,ppc's you needed to lead,firing ppcs at max range against a medium target moving sideways was hard!As for fighting a ppc mech up close... .....If your gonna close on a ppc mech you will have short range weapons on board,short range weapons run cooler,reload quicker and generally do more damage ton for ton against ppc's,and you wanna make ppcs worse!?!?

That depends on which version/edition you play. Personally, I am used to a bolt of lightning. I remember the old PPCs that fired sssssssssssllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww blue puff-***** that could be outrun, but the PPCs I am most familiar with require no more leading than lasers.

But the big thing PPCs have going for them isn't the damage or their efficiency (heat, tonnage, or space), but their range. The only other weapon that can do that much damage to a single location at more than 450 meters is the ammo-limited Gauss Rifle.

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

I really dont get why LRMS need to be changed to be ineffective at close range either,if its close you are in a brawl,getting and keeping a lock when you have a group of mechs brawling around you is tricky,if another mech moves across your reciticle,you lose lock,you then have to reaquire it when all the mechs are moving around each other,you get lock and fire the mech with the incomming can easily use an enemy mech as a shield and direct the missles into him.

The TT game gives Inner Sphere LRM racks a minimum range, and there are quite a few people here that want MWO to be faithful to the TT game. Also, to do otherwise would kind of make LRMs into shotguns with rifle ranges. Why get an LB-20X when an LRM 20 has far better range, more ammo per ton, and weights half as much?

[Malavai Fletcher]

I swear i read these posts and it comes across that hardly anyone has actually played a mechwarrior simulation,the physics might suggest that a ppc and laser are similar but no way in hell do they come anywhere close to being same thing in a fight,and im not talking about TT,i mean a PC simulation,pilot orientated game,where the pilot has to learn to fire weapons and adjust for heat generated or lead.

[Black Sunder]

Here is a good reason not to allow PPCs to be used below minimum range. It'll force people to think about secondary weapons instead of trying to put as many PPCs and heat sinks in as possible. I don't care if those 2ndary weapons are lasers. It still forces the question. Me? I like me some SRM and laser mix and choose what to fire depending on heat.

[Oppi]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

A mech using short range weps brawling against a mech using long range weps will win pretty much everytime.

If it isn't dead by then, killed in the approach. Good chance that the long-range-Mech will win the brawl if it's opponent has taken some PPC hits before beeing able to shoot himself, don't you think ?

Giving long ranged weapons a minimum range will also force players to work together, combining the advantages of their different Mechs.

Quote

I didn't even mention artillery,but,psst,you dont need to hit with artillery.

Yes you do, it's just simpler because the "splash" will kill most targets as well

@ilithi dragon

Quote

It COULD still potentially work, though, if the PPC induces a high positive charge in the area around where it hits, that is rapidly neutralized by a flow of negative electrons to the area - causing some electrical drain and static discharge effects.

That's what I imagine

Edited by Oppi, 27 November 2011 - 02:39 PM.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Jervinator, on 27 November 2011 - 02:19 PM, said:

That depends on which version/edition you play.

MW4 mercs i played up until,NBT were going about introducing the Hardcore mod when i started losing intrest.PPC had to be lead then,to remove the need to lead PPC's if they did it was a truely dumb idea.

Jervinator, on 27 November 2011 - 02:19 PM, said:

The TT game gives Inner Sphere LRM racks a minimum range, and there are quite a few people here that want MWO to be faithful to the TT game. Also, to do otherwise would kind of make LRMs into shotguns with rifle ranges. Why get an LB-20X when an LRM 20 has far better range, more ammo per ton, and weights half as much?

I can t believe you are even comparing an LBX 20 with an LRM 20.

No way ever would an LRM20 be more effective in a city fight......ever ever ever.

You need to get a lock on with LRMs,you dont with an LBX20.

The LBX 20 does an incredible amount more damage than an LRM20

You need to be radar on to use LRM's,you can walk up behind a mech radar off with LBX20 and blow his colon through his centre torso.

Saying that it would make LRM's into shotguns with rifle range is just plain wrong.

Edited by Malavai Fletcher, 27 November 2011 - 02:53 PM.

[Malavai Fletcher]

Oppi, on 27 November 2011 - 02:36 PM, said:

If it isn't dead by then, killed in the approach. Good chance that the long-range-Mech will win the brawl if it's opponent has taken some PPC hits before beeing able to shoot himself, don't you think ?

Absolutely disagree,you seem to be implying the brawler has just run over open ground to get within range of the long range mech,which is suicide and a really crappy tactic.Flanking?moving in under cover of terrain?moving in under cover of team mates fire?

Oppi, on 27 November 2011 - 02:36 PM, said:

Yes you do, it's just simpler because the "splash" will kill most targets as well

Not hitting a target with artillery will still cause damage to their mech,as you point out splash,which was kind of the point i was making,so i dont understand this comment.

[kevin roshak]

Only the IS PPCs had a minimum range, the Clan ones were just as good from everywhere.
For LRMs, just less accurate i guess

[Bear Shaman]

Not that I'm personally a stickler for the TT rules, but how does everyone feel about minimum ranges on the smaller missile racks? I don't think LRM-5's or LRM-10s have a minimum range to them, and I'm not so sure they'd break the game the way an unrestrained LRM-15 or-20 might.

EDIT: Nevermind. Clan LRMs don't, IS LRMs do.

Edited by Bear Shaman, 27 November 2011 - 07:41 PM.

[Gunman5000]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 02:50 PM, said:

The LBX 20 does an incredible amount more damage than an LRM20

I may be wrong, but as far as I'm aware an LBX-20 autocannon does 20 damage, (either 20 in a single slug, or 1 per pellet [20 pellets] in a cluster round) exact same as an LRM20 (1 per missile, 20 missiles). Only difference in damage is that an LBX is much better at hitting criticals when armour is damaged. {Note all of this info is based on TT}

In most games, I believe damage may have been slightly increased above standard AC-20s (above 20 dmg per shot) due to not having any means of implementing criticals and/or limitations in programming to simulate cluster rounds. Can't think of any other reason off-hand at the moment at least.

[Jervinator]

Malavai Fletcher, on 27 November 2011 - 02:50 PM, said:

I can t believe you are even comparing an LBX 20 with an LRM 20.

No way ever would an LRM20 be more effective in a city fight......ever ever ever.

You need to get a lock on with LRMs,you dont with an LBX20.

The LBX 20 does an incredible amount more damage than an LRM20

You need to be radar on to use LRM's,you can walk up behind a mech radar off with LBX20 and blow his colon through his centre torso.

Saying that it would make LRM's into shotguns with rifle range is just plain wrong.

You obviously never played in a Tesla pod then. Trust me, that Vulture with it's twin LRM-20s doesn't need to wait for a lock; it doesn't track targets that it hasn't locked onto, but it dead-fires those LRMs quite effectively. You can take your theory and believe it all you want; I will go with the number of kills I have actually gotten by impersonating a claymore mine.

BTW, both do 1 point per hit, and don't always hit with all 20. At short range, they are directly comparable. At Medium range, the LB-20X has a slight edge over a dumb-fired LRM-20, but not one with a lock. At long range, the LRM-20 has a hard time without a lock, but LB-20X just plain old cannot reach period, and I will take a hard shot over an im[possible one any day.

Maybe you are thinking about the Ultra AC20? Those do do more damage.

Edited by Jervinator, 27 November 2011 - 10:08 PM.

[Odin]

Thanks Melissia, I didn't know that.

[Owl Cutter]

For LRMs, I like the obvious "dud" implementation since it would be practical to implement, good for gameplay, and totally in agreement with canon.

It looks like a lot of people here are not familiar with the source material, so I suggest Psydotek add a post-script to the OP clearing up how minimum ranges work there. In case that doesn't happen...
Players of the turn-based game can skip the following paragraph.

If you read the sarna.net article for "PPC," which was quoted earlier in this thread, you can see that it clearly says that "performance" degrades, but nowhere does it say anything about damage reduction. The article does not make this clear, but the performance degradation comes solely from a loss of accuracy, not damage or anything else. The "field inhibitor" that people are talking about is a safety mechanism that prevents the weapon from destroying itself when firing at what would otherwise be an unsafe distance. In gameplay terms, this means the weapon simply has a lesser chance to hit. There is an optional rule allowing the user to disengage this safety mechanism to lose the accuracy penalty, at risk of destroying the weapon and dealing its damage value to the 'mech carrying it. In other words, the field inhibitor mechanism simply prevents the weapon from operating normally when there is a chance of blowing itself up with "feedback" due to insufficient range to target. Light and Heavy PPCs have the same ranges, including the minimums, and follow the same rules, while ER PPCs and Snubbies have no minimums. Of those four variants, only the ER PPC exists before the 3060's. Since novels and other canon materials contradict each other sometimes, it is probably more important to use something that is faithful to the game rules in that LRMs and PPCs are less effective up close, than it is to try to mirror the mechanics exactly or represent the fluff provided to expain the game mechanics.

Re: fluff: PPC are clearly specified as kinetic and thermal weapons, with the "man-made lightning" just being a side-effect. They throw Protons, specifically, because they have about a couple thousand times more mass per unit electric charge than Electrons and thus are probably more efficient in terms of how much kinetic energy you can throw at your target for the magnitude of electric charge you must take on in order to do so. I seem to recall something about the notion that they damage targets through high voltage being an in-universe misconception amongst the poorly educated inhabitants of backwater worlds, but take that with a grain of salt since my memory of it is foggy and may simply be fanfic from somewheres. I

If you produce a particle beam that is not electrically neutral, you need to take on an equal and opposite charge to that of the beam, which makes it kinda impractical if that effect accounts for a significant portion of its value as a weapon. If the "man-made lightning" effect were a serious threat to a battlemech or tank, they'd be astoundingly vulnerable to such effects considering that aircraft today are expected to safely conduct natural lightning across their skins. Also, PPC would instead simply be a giant transformer or something combined with some kind of ionising laser since building a synchrotron or equivalent capable of producing weapon-level beam Wattage just for man-made lightning is analogous to building a spaceplane just for trips down the block to the grocery store. If zapping your target is actually a threat to it, Electrons are more practical since they're much easier to zap stuff with than Protons.

One of the mechanics I like about BT, and a large part of why I prefer the Succession Wars era, is that top-tier long-range weapons don't work as well up close since they're optimised for long-range performance. I am hoping this MW game implements minimum ranges well. I don't have a problem with boats existing, and in fact want them to, but I prefer mixing flavours of weapons for myself and would like for that approach to be just as viable, like in the source material. Similarly, I hope the game also represents the way can-openers and crit-seekers work so that a combination of big autocannon with SRMs will destroy 'mechs more easily than just however many Medium Lasers you can fit to the same chassis instead.

I love the idea of using different mechanics for different models of "the same" weapon, all designed to represent the same BT mechanics and fluff to varying degrees of faithfulness, but doubt that it's a practical game design and balance task for a small developer to tackle. That said, I would actually prefer to diverge from canon by using a damage reduction for PPC at inside minimum range instead of a chance to do no damage at all. The ideal IMO would be for different models to use different safety mechanisms, though, so some do reduced damage while others instead have a chance to fail to do any damage, both with a clear sound and/or visual effect indication that you are inside minimum range and, in the latter case, whether you dealt damage or not. Maybe a classic all-or-nothing model could use a "stifled" sound effect and produce a harmless spray of fireworks when it misses, fluffed as the inhibitor engaging because the system detected an usnafe path, while an always-connecting model could instead use a gradually smaller-looking/weaker-sounding beam as you get too close, again fluffed as suppression by the field inhibitor. Maybe a post-release update could add alternate fire modes like rapid fire for AC, heat vs. damage for Flamers, and inhibitor disengage for PPC. Inhibitor disengage could also vary in effect by model; all-or-nothing could continue to function as in BT, while the damage-reducing type could deal smaller but predictable amounts of damage to the user's 'mech and, instead of destroying the weapon, just pile on lots of extra heat for a while.

[Xhaleon]

Uh, guys? Malavai's speaking from the MW4 weapon selection, which is why he thinks that LBX20s do more damage than LRM20s. I bet he thinks an LBX is a pellet-only "shotgun" too, despite the fact that it usually had a longer range than regular ACs and option for slugs to match them.

Which incidentally is an advantage of the LBX over an LRM even if you didn't make the latter inaccurate at short range, because that one-shot slug damage could be very worthwhile. Not that I don't want weapons to have minimum range, though, I want some faithfulness please.

[Blackfire1]

Minimal arming distance for missiles is silly. Most missile systems fired from platforms that are not giant cruise missles are armed the instant they leave the barrel. I really liked how Mw3 handled missles. They weren't fired all at once like MW4. They didn't start tracking till they had a lock and were a few meters out from the mech. And if fired dumb they kinda shotgunned out.

[Sera]

About anything that's related to gameplay mechanics, just look at MW4, improve it a little bit and you can't go wrong