3 replies to this topic

[Bobfrombobtown]

As a non-Beta player I only have a few small scraps of info to go on here. I apologize if some of these have already been addressed in full, but I can't find anything through a search that says, "this is how it is, and this how it will be, forever and always."

Heat and heat dissipation. This one is tough to gauge since in every MW computer game iteration the heat incurred was often either given as just a fluctuating bar or sometimes the bar was given numbers (they appear to most commonly be in Kelvins) but the direct correlation to the 1-30 heat scale in Table Top was not always directly obvious (though I think in old MW2 it went up to 9000 Kelvin so one could say that each point of heat build up was 300 Kelvin so maybe the correlation was there and I just never noticed). I'll add more in a later section of this post regarding weapons and heat build up.

Ammo explosions due to heat: At 19, 23, and 28 on the table top heat scale there is a chance of an ammo explosion. The only "fair" way to accurately depict the chances of ammo explosions would be to use a random number generator to make "rolls" vs the "saving throw" and many people are likely to be against this, but it's the only way I can think of to demonstrate these possibilities. Also, it would stand to reason that the internal heat build up of the 'mech would have to be above the indicated heat levels for a certain amount of time before the "saving throw" roll gets triggered.

Shutdowns due to heat: in table top shutdowns occur at 14, 18, 22, 26, and 30. At 30 it's an automatic shutdown with no saving throw, at 14, 18, 22, and 26 a shutdown may occur but can be avoided. I see 2 possible ways to deal with this. The first way is to still use the same Random umber generator vs saving throw idea. The other way is to give the player the ability to override shutdowns within a varying time frame from hearing the computer say "shutdown immenent" or whatever warning the computer gives and immediate shutdown at the max heat level.

"Legging" has been beaten to death on these forums, but here are my views: I do agree that the loss of a single leg simply equals a limping 'mech. I also agree that firing at a "destroyed" leg should not transfer to the corresponding torso. Where I disagree on the current stated facts (from Q&As and what in game footage has been made available) is that destroying both legs destroys the 'mech. I do understand this decision from a development point of view as it simplifies things a bit. I cannot find any specific Table Top rules that deal specifically with the loss of both legs so, I suppose I can accept this decision. However, I think it would be more interesting to allow the 'mech to survive but be laying in the prone only able to torso twist to a degree and fire weapons from it's torso (if the enemy is in the weapons field of fire) and from the one arm that is not "under" the 'mech (simulating the table top rules for 'mechs firing in the prone).

Damage transference: The "no damage transference" thing makes sense up to a point. However, in the gameplay videos it appears that when an arm is destroyed it's destroyed up to around mid-bicep/shoulder. Unless this is cosmetic only and the body part can be shot through, this means that some 'mechs (the Awesome comes to mind with it's fin-like projections on top of its shoulders) now have a permanent indestructible shield. This same "no indestructible shields please" mechanic applies to the left and right torso as well.

General gameplay stuff

In at least the last two iterations of MW (MW3 and MW4) recycle times, heat, and damage were adjusted a bit, I assume to try to fit in with the idea of a "combat round" vs real time combat. I assume you guys (the devs) will likely be doing this, if you haven't already, for the sake of balance at least.

Projectile weapon recycle times, and ammo:
Now, I'm going to use a Machinegun for the first theoretical because it has low damage, and a high rate of fire so it's going to be one of the more difficult weapons to balance in a scenario of sustained fire ammo consumption and damage. There are two ways to do this that come to mind immediately. The first way is having a "burst" fire and the ammo count can reflect the number of "bursts" you can fire which can span any number of seconds and hit only the original location when the burst was fired. (This is more or less the way the table top does it but the ""bursts" represent a "combat round".) The other is to have an actual ammo count with a low cycle time (maybe as low as fractions of a second). Let's use a real weapon for comparison, the M61 "Vulcan" which fires six thousand 20mm rounds per minute, which breaks down to one thousand rounds every "combat round" which means one ton of ammo would equal 200,000 individual rounds. Some people might think, "That's way too many rounds, no one would use that many rounds in a match!" Until you realize that in a table top game, running out of Machine gun ammo was pretty much unheard of unless the game lasted for days or you had multiple machine guns pulling from the same ammo cache (I think this was an "advanced" rule, or I may be mistaken). The challenge now faced is that the damage value of 2 from table top now has to be represented when spread over a thousand rounds giving us a damage value of .002 per round. This is assuming direct translation from table top to MWO of both armor values and damage values. Heat in the case of a machine gun is irrelevant, but larger caliber weapons do have associated heat values, but the heat values are fairly low and can also be adjusted in the same manner as the damage and ammo consumption values. For example an AC/10 puts out 3 units of heat in a "combat round" and thus it should take 10 seconds of "sustained fire" to generate those 3 heat points.

Damage, recycle time, and heat for energy weapons:
In a Q&A or "Ask the Devs" it was stated that standard lasers are going to be 2 second long bursts which can sweep across a 'mech or if the pilot is good, they can keep it focused on one area. This makes me wonder about the recycle times, damage per second of activation, and heat generated. In table top a medium laser produces 5 points of damage and 3 points of heat in a "combat round". Now let's pretend a medium laser has a 3 second recycle time, this means that it should do 2.5 damage for the entirety of its activation time and 1.5 points of heat to maintain the 5 points of damage and 3 points of heat that it produces per "combat round". In the case of something like a standard PPC, this weapon has a damage value of approximately 1 point of damage and 1 point of heat per second. Now, for a quick scenario related to the PPC. Let's pretend it's the only weapon fired in a "combat round". Now in all previous iterations firing a weapon with this much power causes a massive spike in heat, but it seemed like the dissipation rate was not on par with the heat generation rate vs the recycle time and amount of heat a 'mech was capable of dissipating in a given amount of time.

It is entirely possible that everything under the heading of "General Gameplay Stuff" has already been addressed, so I apologize if it has.

Thanks for reading this giant wall of text post and I hope this game lives up to all our hopes and dreams. (Or at least most of them.)

[Reoh]

I'm not sure I see a need for an actual value to the heat, but they can shut down your mech if you go to high. Ammo explosions might be worked into that but I haven't personally seen it. People talk about it, but I'm not sure if thats knowledge of the fact or estimation from TT rules.

TT If you lost both legs you fell prone (taking damage) and could only use arm mounted weapons if I remember correctly.

Machine Guns; could work like Lasers. i'm uncertain whether PPC work like this or not, but from the clips I've seen it traced a line and not the "floating ball" you see in older games.

[Bobfrombobtown]

Reoh, on 03 July 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

I'm not sure I see a need for an actual value to the heat, but they can shut down your mech if you go to high. Ammo explosions might be worked into that but I haven't personally seen it. People talk about it, but I'm not sure if thats knowledge of the fact or estimation from TT rules.

For programming it would have to have a value of some kind. Doesn't need to be represented to the player as an actual value, but when the game is deciding whether or not you should be shut down it needs a measurement for a comparison.

[Reoh]

Bobfrombobtown, on 03 July 2012 - 11:54 AM, said:

For programming it would have to have a value of some kind. Doesn't need to be represented to the player as an actual value, but when the game is deciding whether or not you should be shut down it needs a measurement for a comparison.

Oh well in that case I'm sure they must because there is a heat gauge and at least some of the mechanics.