113 replies to this topic

[Paigan]

WM Quicksilver, on 07 May 2015 - 11:41 AM, said:

1. LRM15s are a bad comparison because they are bad weapons and don't function like any direct fire.
2. It would have to be much higher than the LBX to be even considered, and that weapon is bad. Granted this idea would beat LBX at most ranges.
3. Unless it has a significant impact on gameplay other than soft ECM or HUD counters, it will still be bad. Even a HUD fizzle wouldn't work that well given we have a laser meta. Lasers not only do damage but function as good tracers for things like Gauss.
4. Good velocity doesn't make up for a flawed weapon. LBX could be hit scan and they would still probably be bad (and also would require lag shooting because of this).

What you don't seem to understand, is that while you are doing more damage overall, your damage is not concentrated. This is the reason PPFLD is so powerful, it is concentrated damage. If a weapon lacks the concentration of better FLD weapons, it must have higher damage potential to make up for this. The advantage of damage potential over PPFLD varies depending on how the weapon deals damage, and for a weapon that equally distributes damage across the mech it must have very high damage potential because it can never be focused unlike burst weapons like lasers and CUACs which have SOME potential to line up and hit the same component. The damage would probably be better set at 4 per section, and just drop all the extra bells and whistles because these do little to make the weapon useful against better opponents.

Of course I understand that. I even wrote about it in my initial post at length.
One more proof that you didn't even bother to read it properly.
Which is why I'm getting tired of discussing your negativistic objections.

[The Mech behind you]

Uh what? Okay I must be the only one who finds it pretty easy to hit moving targets at 1km with PPCs or win sniper duels with LL-boats. And I'm actually a Lasers, AC5s and SRMs guy.

Wait, what did I just say?!... nvm, go ahead and make them stronger! If I could boost the KDR on my PPC mechs even further... I'm in!

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Did someone say PPCs?

As an avid user of PPCs to this day, I think the PPCs need some McLovin'

But not much mind you. I regularly play Awesomes, Vindis, Panthers, Pumas and Dragonslayers.

Where the PPCs sit on those mechs (minus the Slayer) is about right. The key thing with those mechs are the heat gen and velocity quirks. The 8Q, 1AA, and 9R are firing PPCs at 7.5, 8, and 8.5 heat respectively. And they're moving between 1187 and 1330m/s. That velocity just feels right. Then you have the 9M and 10K firing ERPPCs for 11.25 heat at 1312 and 1470m/s. Which also feels right velocity wise.

But the PPCs direct competition is the LL.

PPC base stats:
-7 tons
-3 crits
-10 damage
-10 heat
-540m range
-950m/s
-instant damage

LL base stats:
-5 tons
-2 crits
-9 damage
-7 heat
-450m range
-instant hit
-1 sec beam duration

2 PPCs on the 8Q:
-14 tons
-6 crits
-20 damage
-15 heat
-675m
-1187m/s

3 LLs on the 4N
-15 tons
-6 crits
-27 damage
-16.8 heat
-540m range
-hitscan
-1sec beam duration

Hell, 3LLs on the 8Q:
-15 tons
-6 crits
-27 damage
-18.375 heat
-506m range
-hitscan
-0.85sec beam duration

PPCs just need a velocity buff across the board. All of them to 1200m/s baseline. Both IS and Clan ERPPCs need their heat dropped (preferably I'd like to see IS ERPPCs have 10 dam/12 heat and CERPPCs do 13dam/15 heat no splash).

And conversely, I want to see:
-LL/LPL heat back up to 8 (range buffed slightly to compensate)
-ERLL heat back up to 9 (duration dropped slightly to compensate)
-LPL damage back down to 10
-C LPL damage back down to 10 (duration dropped slightly to compensate)
-C ERLL damage back down to 10 (duration dropped slightly to compensate)

And just do away with heat gen quirka entirely with the sole exception of a select few edge cases that still some loving, like the Awesome (whose real issues lie in bad bad geometry, bad engine cap, and bad hardpoint placement. And quirks can't fix that.)

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Paigan, on 07 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

Of course I understand that. I even wrote about it in my initial post at length.
One more proof that you didn't even bother to read it properly.
Which is why I'm getting tired of discussing your negativistic objections.

You barely touch on it, you actually put more writing about critical hits than you did about doing more damage in general. Not to mention your example which gives it the same damage output it currently "enjoys" which is inadequate currently given the efficiency of lasers (and the fact you can stack different kinds to avoid ghost heat).

Which means you are focusing too much on doing damage when a mech is cored than doing more damage period. I hate to use this argument, but the weight you have to devote to mounting 2 PPCs is equal to that of 3 LLs which puts it firmly in main weapon territory, and relying on critical damage for a main weapon is just bad, MGs were barely able to get away with that when the Ember was one of the top lights and that was a 0.5 ton weapon. A PPC is 7 tons, which means it needs to be capable of serious damage and be efficient which it would not be if it relied heavily on critical hits for DPS.

So let me put it this way, for it to be useful, it has to do serious damage that gives it at least twice the output it currently has because the mentality this game entertains is "spread damage is wasted damage." It also has to be unconditional damage because conditional damage for a weapon that requires such a devotion in tonnage will be bad, just look at the LBX10.

I'm not necessarily against a splash damage type weapon, but one thing must be remembered, they need to have really high damage potential to be worth taking (think Long Tom from MW4) but also are still probably better left to actual artillery type weapons.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 07 May 2015 - 02:53 PM.

[Matthew Ace]

The need to raise velocity on all variety of PPCs when used with unquirked mechs is definitely necessary; On the AWS-9M, ER PPCs feels close to that sweet spot. Bring the regular PPCs up to 1200 while ERPPCs and cERPPC up to 1400. Remove velocity quirks and this stage, and then slowly introduce it to mechs as necessary. Personally I would want them all to run cooler by 1 point heat across the board but it's fine to keep them at their current heat. Should see how the increased velocity play out first.

The regular PPCs also have the unfortunate inclusion of a hard dead range of 90m and under; it's time to restore linear damage dropoff yes? I would also go the extra distance and bring range up to 600 (pun not intended).

Finally, and this is instrumental in addressing it, fix the susceptibility of colliding into every piece of terrain despite the tiny projectile hitbox vs mechs.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 07 May 2015 - 03:48 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

I dunno, I've been using 1x PPC and 1x ERPPC on the BJ-3 as its only two weapons, and it's been pretty fantastic. So, bump baseline PPC/ERPPC performance to whatever it is after the BJ-3's quirks, remove all PPC/ERPPC quirks, and I think it's good.

[Matthew Ace]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 May 2015 - 03:26 PM, said:

I dunno, I've been using 1x PPC and 1x ERPPC on the BJ-3 as its only two weapons, and it's been pretty fantastic. So, bump baseline PPC/ERPPC performance to whatever it is after the BJ-3's quirks, remove all PPC/ERPPC quirks, and I think it's good.

What's the quirks on it? If it even have something like -25% heat gen on PPC/ERPPC overall, wouldn't that make Awesomes virtually pointless again?

[Y E O N N E]

Matthew Ace, on 07 May 2015 - 03:51 PM, said:

What's the quirks on it? If it even have something like -25% heat gen on PPC/ERPPC overall, wouldn't that make Awesomes virtually pointless again?

Let me check...

*Checks*

• PPC Velocity +20%
  
• PPC Cool-down -10%
  
• Energy Cool-down -10%
  
• PPC Heat Generation -10%
  
• Energy Heat Generation -10%

So, a grand total of +20% Velocity, -20% on Cool-down time, and -20% heat.

That means PPC has the following specs:

• 10 damage
  
• 8 heat
  
• 3.2 s cool-down
  
• 1140 m/s projectile velocity

Basically...it's where it was before they corrected PPC/ERPPC to 10 and 15 heat up from 8 and 12, respectively, at the beginning of last year.

So maybe I jumped the gun when I said drop PPC quirks entirely; we could use cool-down to make certain 'Mechs special. But otherwise, it handles very well on the BJ-3. I should also note that it seems the ERPPC is benefiting from the PPC cool-down quirk, because it takes the ERPPC the exact same amount of time to cycle as the PPC on the BJ-3. Might be an oversight, might not be. Honestly, I hope they don't fix it.

[Shaio]

Before you can consider bringing the PPC back to it's glory days you must remember the weapon systems that are inevitably used with PPCs the Gauss Rifle, AC 5s, and the AC20. These are the weapon systems that have made the PPC what it is today. To make any changes to the PPC you consider what potential balance issues will be created by other weapon systems.

As far as PGI is concerned I can not help be feel that they have simply given up on the PPC as a main weapon system. The only Mechs that will run PPCs to a point that I am almost satisfied with is the Black Jack BJ-3 and possibly the TDR-9S though I have not run the thunder in a while. Every other PPC mech simply runs better with Lasers. Maybe if PPCs where tied into the gauss max number of weapons that can be fired simultaneously i.e. you can fire up to one Gauss and one PPC, two PPC, or two Gauss simultaneously we could reduce heat and increase velocity of the PPC to a point running 2 PPCs would be viable on more then two Mechs in the game.

[Romeo Deluxe]

These ideas aren't bad but the first order of business is fix the freaken hit reg!

[Khobai]

I agree PPCs need higher velocity and splash damage.

The problem with PPCs in the past was the pinpoint damage. By making them splash damage you fix that. So you can give them back their higher velocity.

Quote

you must remember the weapon systems that are inevitably used with PPCs the Gauss Rifle, AC 5s, and the AC20. These are the weapon systems that have made the PPC what it is today

again making the PPC do splash damage fixes that. no more crazy pinpoint damage.

as for Gauss that likely needs a nerf too. 15 damage for 1 heat at long range is still overpowered despite the ill-conceived chargeup mechanic which failed to balance the weapon. Gauss probably needs splash damage like PPCs (gauss splash can easily be explained by a high velocity projectile spiraling around inside the target)

pinpoint damage in general needs to be phased out of the game... it has caused nothing but grief since day1.

Edited by Khobai, 07 May 2015 - 06:56 PM.

[Moldur]

I like my dual PPC Timber, given I have about 50 heatsinks. I agree the PPCs need a little buff (not much.) I really like the idea of secondary effects and slight heat transfer to target (I recall PPCs did that in MW3 or 4.)

[CocoaJin]

PPCs are fine...and should remain Front loaded damage. Its a compromise between the instant damage of ballistics without the ammo dependency, but the balancing trade-off in heat...it's a fine niche that doesn't need to be altered. If you try to buff them too much, you'll get too heavy a move toward a PPC meta, which we don't need...lasers should be the vanilla weapon on the battlefield as the best middle-ground, multi-tasking, go to weapon for most operations.

The PPC already fills a particular tasking very well...and those of us who operate within that tasking do just fine...suggesting the balance is about right. There aren't too little PPCs on the battlefield by any stretch of the imagination, but we could easily ended up with too many if we keep trying to everything we want out of the weapon system...a key aspect of balance is insuring any given system always has something you wish it had.

As an avid user of PPC/ER-PPCs, I'm Kuritan after all, I'd say leave them alone...they are about right. There is just enough "wanting" in them to keep them balanced.

[Strum Wealh]

Kavoh, on 07 May 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

Some of the new Kurita Mechs with Ballistic-Reinforced Armor would like to have a word with you.

You mean, the Hardened/Reactive hybrid that has no effect against any LB-X Autocannons firing Cluster rounds, or LMGs & LMG-based Machine Gun Arrays, or Silver-Bullet Gauss Rifles, or Class-2 Standard ACs & Light ACs firing Flak or Flechette rounds, or the singly-launched LRMs that would be carried by infantry or ProtoMechs (as confirmed by BT devs in this thread as being purposefully done to avoid duplicating/conflicting-with the onmi-resist armors (specifically, Ferro-Lamellor) & as also discussed in this thread; for reference, in TT rules terms, "Against ballistic and missile weapons, Ballistic-Reinforced Armor reduces the damage effects by half (rounded down, to a minimum of 1). Damage from other sources (including collisions, falls, physical attacks, and energy weapons) is unaffected.")?

Reactive Armor works similarly ("Reactive Armor reduces all damage from explosive-type weapons such as missiles, mortars and artillery weapons by half (rounded down, to a minimum of 1 point per hit)."), which would also make it vulnerable to singly-launched LRMs.

Reflective Armor is arguably more effective against energy weapons than Reactive is against missiles, as even smaller/weaker energy weapons (such as those used by infantry) are affected ("Laser Reflective Armor reduces all damage and heat effects from flamers, lasers, PPCs, plasma weapons and energy-based infantry weapons by half (rounded down, to a minimum of 1 point of damage and/or heat; infantry lasers halve their total damage before resolving hit locations normally).")

Ferro-Lamellor Armor "reduces all damage by 1 point for every 5 points (or fraction thereof) delivered per hit (to a minimum of 0 points of damage per hit)" & Hardened Armor "can sustain two points of damage" for each armor point, putting them at the top-of-the-heap in terms of damage resistance effectiveness.

Since B-R armor cannot do anything against fairly-common 'Mech-mounted ballistics (e.g. LB-X, LMG) despite that being its purpose (hence the name), I'll slightly amend my statement to "there isn't an equally effective 'anti-ballistic armor' in the same sense as Reflective armor is 'anti-energy armor' or Reactive Armor is 'anti-missile armor'".
If you want effective anti-ballistic armor protection, you're still better-off with the omni-resist armors.

Edited by Strum Wealh, 08 May 2015 - 12:30 AM.

[CocoaJin]

Heat transfer from PPCs doesn't sound right. If lasers don't deliver doesn't deliver heat, why would PPCs? What's the purpose of an ablative armor if isn't dissipating the heat energy through its destruction?

The heat build up in mechs is very specific issue affecting internal components within the structure. Mech heat is waste heat generated by the massive amounts of electricity being routed from the engine(which generates little heat in operation) to the various weapon and locomotion systems on the mech. I'm not convinced PPCs would deliver enough heat after armor impact to warrant any significant increase in the impacted mech's overall internal temperature to begin thermal failure of internal components...it seem to be a drop in the bucket.

[Y E O N N E]

If anything, the microscopically thin beam of a PPC would pierce right through even ablative armor and destroy components outright.

[CocoaJin]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 May 2015 - 11:51 PM, said:

If anything, the microscopically thin beam of a PPC would pierce right through even ablative armor and destroy components outright.

I don't think it would be microscopic or penetrating in terms of its area of affect as a weapon. It would likely tend to spread its charge around the exterior surface area of the mech. The impact of charged particles and super-heat gases surrounding the bolt could very well be voluminous like the positive return strike from earth to cloud from lightning(unlike the thin, negatively charged, forked probing fingers of the initial cloud strike).

Even full blown lightning only creates a small, stirring-straw sized hole on thin aircraft aluminum...but it doesn't seem to behave like a penetrating projectile like a through and through...the hole just seems to be the localized area that burns out as the transition point for charge transfer in and out of the surface of the skin. It would seem the mech's armor would do a good job of insulating the internals from much of the heat and current damage(especially the ceramics used in the armor plates)...but not the temporary static interference on electronics.

The exterior of the mech would certainly see a temperature increase...but would it really be enough to generate internal temperature rise of any significance...it might just as easily radiate much of that heat outward as inward.

Edited by CocoaJin, 08 May 2015 - 12:19 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

You are over-complicating it. It's just a particle beam (according to lore, the MW games all depict it incorrectly) and likely a neutralized one or else we'd all be equipped with simple electro-magnetic repulsor fields to deflect or scatter it. It's a projectile weapon. It's dumping a bunch of energy into a tiny point, and there's no material dense enough to realistically protect against it. It's the same operational concept behind any type of KE penetrator taken to an extreme and requiring similarly extreme measures to stop.

Here's an article, and here's the relevant bit:

Quote

Beam penetration. The subatomic particles that constitute a beam have great penetrating power. Thus, interaction with the target is not restricted to surface effects, as it is with a laser. When impinging upon a target, a laser creates a blow-off of target material that tends to enshroud the target and shield it from the laser beam. Such beam/target interaction problems would not exist for the particle beam with its penetrating nature. Particle beams would be quite effective in damaging internal components or might even explode a target by transferring a massive amount of energy into it (the catastrophic kill mechanism). Furthermore, there would be no realistic means of defending a target against the beam; target hardening through shielding or materials selection would be impractical or ineffective.

You would get radiation and EMP as the beam hits the air, but that's an AOE along the length of the beam. On the impact site, you are going to bore straight through in a tiny spot and dump the energy straight past the armor and directly into the internals. Then things go boom with such a sudden surge in energy. If you drag the beam around and it is powerful enough, you cut the target to ribbons. Think of it like a water-jet cutting tool, scaled to relativistic speeds with a smaller-diameter working fluid.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 08 May 2015 - 08:25 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Almond Brown, on 07 May 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

Think "Dragon Bowling" Mystere'. "Fun" for the Dragon. Not so much for its "victim(s)". LOL!

I enjoyed it. Watching Dragons falling all over themselves trying to knock me down. Good Times!

[Sjorpha]

Mystere, on 07 May 2015 - 07:05 AM, said:

Make PPCs have the following effects on targets:

• ECM disruption (as now)
  
• HUD disruption
  
• % chance of shutdown
  
• heat spike
  
• loss of targetting

basically any EMP-like side effects you can think of.

Shutdown would be overkill I think, but I like the general idea of making PPC a little more EMP like.