2 replies to this topic

[Skoren]

OK, this will be a long post so bare with me. While playing I had some ideas that might be a good addition to the game, either in full or in part.


Ammo - This idea came to me a while ago and I would like to re-post and expand on it. As it sits right now, no matter where you have ammo it loads the same. Ammo in the torso loads as quickly as ammo in the leg. Well why not add load times to weapons based on how far the ammo needs to travel to load. For this we will use a Jagermech with an AC/10 in the left arm. Under this load system ammo stored in the arm would load 25% faster, ammo in the left torso would load at the normal speed, ammo stored in the center torso and left leg would load 25% slower, ammo in the right torso would load 50% slower, and ammo in the right arm and leg would load 75% slower.
Now you may be asking "What if I put another AC/10 in the right arm, how would that work?" Now that is a good question. Another system would have to be implemented to force the game to load ammo correctly. Right now the ammo is taken from one stack in the body. This other feature would add a toggleable feature that would by default load the nearest ammo to the weapon first. You could bind this to a key to make it change if it loads from the nearest or the farthest location. Benefits could be if you are at range you change it to load farthest to help you with heat management and if they get close change it to the closest for a bit of reload speed.
This would be more of a benefit to weapons that are in the torso where the ammo is most likely stored.

​Capacitors - Right now only ammo has a chance to explode if crit is scored on ammo. What about lasers and PPC's. After you fire a weapon it needs time to recharge the capacitor holding the energy before you can fire again. I propose if an energy weapon is destroyed it should also have a chance to explode. Now before you go off saying how bad of an idea that is let me tell you the effects of a critted energy weapon. For one it would not do anywhere near as much damage as ammo exploding. It would do damage equal to the energy stored in the capacitor. So a PPC does 10 damage if it hits the target, why not have it do that or half that do internals where it is stored.
Now what about Gauss. Gauss would work the same way, If you have it CHARGED and ready to fire it can be critted resulting in an explosion, but if you do not have it charged there is no energy to release making it not explode. Gauss ammo would stay the same as it is just a metal slug with no propellant, just the gun itself as it is a series of magnetic coils contracting to throw the slug out.

Heat Sinks - This has been a heated topic (no pun intended) ever since Double Heat Sinks only cool 1.4 and not for double as the name would suggest. Well I have a work around that may explain what happened to the missing heat and make everyone happy about it too. I will tackle this in two ways first in Inner Sphere DHS and then in Clan DHS.
IS has both double and single heat sinks. In the engine it is suppose to cool for the full amount, but outside the engine it cools for less. Now for this to work you would need to reduce the heat efficiency of SHS to .7 out of the engine. Now some of you are not happy about that but here is where the missing .3 from SHS and .6 from DHS gets added back in. Make the missing heat reduce the overall heat of the weapon that shares the component with the HS. So lets take a PPC with a heat of 10. This would reduce its heat by .3 per SHS and .6 per DHS. Well now that might not seem like much but hear me out. The DHS take up 3 slots where a single takes up one. So if you use SHS in those three slots you would get .9 heat reduction on the weapon itself. This would make using SHS a good idea based on the build making SHS viable again.
Now here is the part of the balance issue, it only effect a weapon that shares the same component as the weapon and the heat dissipated is divided by the amount of weapons it is cooling. So that PPC with 3 SHS would be 9.1 heat, If you add a second one it would only get .45 heat per PPC so 9.55 heat, and three PPC would make it .3 or 9.7 per PPC. If you have a PPC in the either torso and only one has a DHS in it one would be 10 heat and the other would be 9.4 heat.
Now as for Clan, they are suppose to be a lot better at cooling then their IS counterparts. So their over all heat should be raised to 1.6 cooling to reflect this and provide only a .4 to the weapons it effects. They only take up two slots so compared to two IS DHS taking up six slots would give 1.2 heat and three C-DHS would also give 1.2 heating making them comparable. Smaller size same heat.

Thank you for those that read this, please feel free to comment on what you liked and did not like.

[9erRed]

Greetings,

From the Lore, about ammo and where it's stored.

- The Pilot has controls and selections that allow for moving ammo from one location to another, as well as a full dump of selected ammo locations. (Not seeing this in-game. Have a destroyed weapon? You should be able to 'dump' its 'no longer required' ammo and save an ammo explosion later.)
- We do have a readout showing where and how much ammo is stored in different location, this exists on some monitors around the cockpit. Normally requiring 'free look' to see it, sometimes it's visible. ('Mech layout dependent)

There is a listed directional feed layout of all stored ammo, this never changes. Integrated into all 'Mechs, the game code, and hit registration code. Very difficult to simply change for 24 different 'mechs within a battle.

- But if PGI is looking at the ability to 'reload ammo', we may need some additional controls 'activated' for the Pilot.
- We are quickly getting into 'micro managing' some elements and for some Pilots, 'Overload' info.
- But, if it's a tactical benefit for a Pilot to move or dump some ammo from an already critical location, I would want that option. (even if 'Betty' suggests the option and we just say 'yes' to that locations 'dump' sequence.)

Just some info,
9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 26 March 2015 - 11:28 AM.

[JadeWolf01]

Ammo feeds to the weapon from a storage bin but there is probably a chain of ammo to the weapon waiting to be fed so there probably isn't ammo needing to travel the whole distance from the bin to the weapon at any given time. I imagine the missile launchers having a device like a bowling pin setter that feeds the tubes all at once for launching. Just the picture in my head. The capacitors exploding? Well I'm not positive but I believe those weapons feed directly from the power of the engine without the use of capacitors. I believe the gauss rifle is the only weapon that states that it uses capacitors. Nothing to say about DHS HS thing. I will need to reread it to understand better what you mean.