107 replies to this topic

[Gaius Cavadus]

Gunman5000, on 04 December 2011 - 08:10 PM, said:

So if the above statement about ignoring armour is true for penetration does it destroy the armour or is the armour still there?

It's still there. The rounds bypass it.

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I think it may be necessary to make it have a chance (I know I know, that probably means a RNG) to penetrate based on how much lower the armour is compared to the damage.

Ugh, please, no. No RNG. RNG needs to die. RNGs are for the lazy.

[AlanEsh]

Nice OP, thanks for all the thought you put into it.

I didn't read all responses, so sorry for any dupes, but here are my thoughts on ballistic weapons, armor, and penetration:

- You shouldn't marginalize small mechs by letting the AC20 always penetrate (because its damage is greater than the armor value of the light mech). There needs to be some randomization on penetration, with the likelihood increasing as damage output increases. This DOES NOT MEAN a non-penetrating round bounces off, it still does some ablative damage to the armor.
- Light mechs carrying lighter weapons, like AC5s and AC2s should have a chance to penetrate the armor on any mech. 5% as a lower limit sounds like a place to start.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Light mechs shouldn't be getting that close (in front) to anything carrying an AC20

[Wolf Hreda]

Well done, Cavadus. You really thought this one out. I applaud and approve.

[Paladin1]

Cavadus, on 05 December 2011 - 08:01 AM, said:

It's still there. The rounds bypass it.

You're going to run into a problem here Cavadus if you keep the penetration model as it currently stands. How do you handle a situation where you have two autocannon rounds of different types hit the same location. For example, if the AC/20 hits an area with only one point of armor left, under your current rules a follow up strike by an AC/5 or AC/2 wouldn't penetrate because the armor was bypassed by the AC/20 instead of being destroyed. I think a better system would be to have the armor destroyed by the penetrating shot instead of just bypassed.

This also allows you to utilize the larger ballistic weapons as they were intended to be used; to open holes for smaller weapons to exploit. If you use the penetration model with this modification, the thought of running into a design packing an AC/10 or AC/20 and SRMs to exploit the holes is absolutely terrifying.

[Paladin1]

Also, one other point. I think you need to revisit either the damage per round or the number of rounds per cassette, as the total damage per salvo, as it stands now, is going to cause "power creep" problems in regards to other ballistic weapons which don't use cassette systems such as Gauss Rifles and Missiles.

Long story short, I think it would be a better idea to leave the total damage value at the canon levels instead of bumping them up in this regard. The penetration model is, IMHO, enough of a boost to make autocannons competitive against multiple Medium Lasers.

[Zyllos]

Honestly, if there is armor at the location of impact, there should be zero chance of a critical.

Taking the picture of armor that was on page 3, you could make ballistic based weaponary have splash damage so that you do not have to hit the exact armor plate that was torn open to get a critical but instead just need to be near it. Were as the lasers must be hitting the exact armor plate that was torn down to the internal structure to get critical hits.

[Paladin1]

I completely disagree.

If an attack exceeds the armor value of a location, even if by only one point, then there should be a critical. Now mind you, the critical may not hit anything, but that's immaterial to the fact that if the armor isn't up to the task of repulsing a hit, then it can't protect any subsystems underneath it.

Edited by Paladin1, 05 December 2011 - 12:09 PM.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Paladin1, on 05 December 2011 - 09:40 AM, said:

You're going to run into a problem here Cavadus if you keep the penetration model as it currently stands. How do you handle a situation where you have two autocannon rounds of different types hit the same location.

The AC that can penetrate penetrates and the AC that can't strips armor normally.

I don't see any issue with that.

Paladin1, on 05 December 2011 - 09:47 AM, said:

Also, one other point. I think you need to revisit either the damage per round or the number of rounds per cassette, as the total damage per salvo, as it stands now, is going to cause "power creep" problems in regards to other ballistic weapons which don't use cassette systems such as Gauss Rifles and Missiles. Long story short, I think it would be a better idea to leave the total damage value at the canon levels instead of bumping them up in this regard. The penetration model is, IMHO, enough of a boost to make autocannons competitive against multiple Medium Lasers.

I increased the ACs' damage by 25% to make them more attractive than lasers which, in the TT, they are absolutely not.

Also, it's important to keep in mind the DPS of these weapons. For instance, the DPS of an AC-20 in TT is 2 DPS, AC-10 is 1 DPS, AC-5 is 0.5 DPS, and the AC-2 is 0.2 DPS.

So if you take the AC-20 with it's 25 damage per cassette, gave it a firing rate of say 100 rounds-per-minute, you're getting 25 damage over 3.0 seconds (the time it takes to empty a full cassette with a 0.6 second cooldown, which would is the 100 rounds-per-minute) so a 9 second cassette reload time would balance the weapon back down to the TT AC-20's 2 DPS.

And that's if preserving the exact TT performance of the AC-20 even matters. To me it really doesn't so long as the weapon feels right.

[CeeKay Boques]

Great thinking, Big fan of this, to take it even further I think that every square meter should have a hit box, and criticals should be, logically behind some of them.

Having multiple hit boxes like this makes pinpoint accuracy very hard to achieve, because you would need ACTUAL pinpoint accuracy. Under a 12 point, or even a doubling to a 24 point section mech, "Pinpoint accuracy" is scary because I can just point at somewhere generally on the left torso, and that's a big deal because you only have one left torso panel. If there were 8 individual panels covering my left torso, well...you'd need to hit the same one twice... and pinpoint accuracy becomes very, very hard.

This will allow for great stories like :

"Yeah so the first laser went right into his thigh, then Billy got a lucky cannon shot in that smoking hole, bam, Upper leg actuator hit, his leg seized up! One in a million shot! Then Jackhammer comes in with the DFA as he staggering around. Fun stuff!"

[Gunman5000]

Cavadus, on 05 December 2011 - 08:01 AM, said:

It's still there. The rounds bypass it.



Ugh, please, no. No RNG. RNG needs to die. RNGs are for the lazy.

While I do like the idea of the rounds bypassing the armour, simply because it prevents them from doing "extra" damage, I'm still not entirely sold on it either. Don't really know why to be honest at the moment, it all sounds good but as always play testing is the best way to go.

I agree with you completely on the no RNG, I know I suggested it in my post but upon further thinking about it I would like to retract the part about the chance of penetration. I wouldn't necessarily say that RNG is for the lazy, but it really doesn't fit as nicely into a "semi-realistic" simulator as I originally had thought.


Also, I like the explaination of how increasing the damage and using varying reload times allows the weapons to use cassette-styled "clips" while still holding true to the TT standards for the weapons. At the same time though I have to agree that there is the "power creep" issue mentioned by Paladin1 when compared to other ballistic weapons. However, if a similar penetration model were also applied to them it would most likely remove that "power creep" I think. To me it just makes sense that if an AC-10 can penetrate damaged armour, then by all means so should the Gauss rifle. I'm not saying the Gauss rifle should be able to penetrate 14 points of armour (though it would deal 1 point internal damage regardless of penetration), instead use the same idea as the autocannons, an AC-20 can penetrate 4 points of armour (20 / 5) hence a Gauss rifle should be able to penetrate 3 points of armour (15 / 5) in a similar fashion. I know thats going off topic since this thread is based on ACs but if penetration is added to one ballistic weapon it needs to be considered for all ballistic weapons to avoid issues I think.

[Paladin1]

Cavadus, on 05 December 2011 - 02:44 PM, said:

The AC that can penetrate penetrates and the AC that can't strips armor normally.

I don't see any issue with that.

The problem lies with the fact that the AC which penetrated the armor was powerful enough to strip that armor away while still penetrating to the underlying internal structure. As you have it now, you have a situation where the penetrating AC has magically penetrated the target armor while leaving it intact for the follow up AC to deal with. If it's powerful enough to penetrate, it's powerful enough to open a hole for that follow up shot.

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I increased the ACs' damage by 25% to make them more attractive than lasers which, in the TT, they are absolutely not.

For someone who doesn't care for the TT rules, you sure don't seem to understand them very well.

ACs in the TT game are balanced against laser weapons in more ways than just heat or tonnage. Want to compare two medium lasers (2x5 damage) to an AC/10? Sure, I'll take that challenge. Let's see you load a ton of flak ammo into those MLs to deal with aerospace or load a ton of flechette to deal with infantry. Want more? Load a ton of tracers to help during that vital night battle where every shot counts. All that and more can be done at almost twice the range of a medium laser (15 hexes vs 9 hexes for the medium laser) and that's with a stock AC/10. I can really cause your precious lasers problems with an LB-10X or God help you a LB-20X.

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Also, it's important to keep in mind the DPS of these weapons. For instance, the DPS of an AC-20 in TT is 2 DPS, AC-10 is 1 DPS, AC-5 is 0.5 DPS, and the AC-2 is 0.2 DPS.

So if you take the AC-20 with it's 25 damage per cassette, gave it a firing rate of say 100 rounds-per-minute, you're getting 25 damage over 3.0 seconds (the time it takes to empty a full cassette with a 0.6 second cooldown, which would is the 100 rounds-per-minute) so a 9 second cassette reload time would balance the weapon back down to the TT AC-20's 2 DPS.

And that's if preserving the exact TT performance of the AC-20 even matters. To me it really doesn't so long as the weapon feels right.

I still think you need to balance the cassettes back down to four 5 point rounds per cassette with a RoF closer to 120 RPM but with a cooldown/reload period closer to 8 seconds per cassette. The DPS under this set up remains true to the TT (20 dmg per 10 second turn)while still allowing for multiple high-speed hits.

And I do feel that preserving the canon performance profile of the AC/20 is important, as to not do so introduces the previously mentioned problem of power creep to other weapons. Feelings have nothing to do with this, I'm interested in results.

[Paladin1]

Gunman5000, on 06 December 2011 - 09:49 AM, said:

Also, I like the explaination of how increasing the damage and using varying reload times allows the weapons to use cassette-styled "clips" while still holding true to the TT standards for the weapons. At the same time though I have to agree that there is the "power creep" issue mentioned by Paladin1 when compared to other ballistic weapons. However, if a similar penetration model were also applied to them it would most likely remove that "power creep" I think. To me it just makes sense that if an AC-10 can penetrate damaged armour, then by all means so should the Gauss rifle. I'm not saying the Gauss rifle should be able to penetrate 14 points of armour (though it would deal 1 point internal damage regardless of penetration), instead use the same idea as the autocannons, an AC-20 can penetrate 4 points of armour (20 / 5) hence a Gauss rifle should be able to penetrate 3 points of armour (15 / 5) in a similar fashion. I know thats going off topic since this thread is based on ACs but if penetration is added to one ballistic weapon it needs to be considered for all ballistic weapons to avoid issues I think.

While I understand what you're saying when you state that one way to counter the "power creep" inherent in the cassette/penetration system is to implement a similar damage system to the other ballistic weapons, you're actually just adding to the power creep by doing that, not to mention that only autocannons function in the way described by the cassette system. Gauss Rifles use a single round while missiles use multiple individual rounds. I do think that a type of penetration system could be implemented, but perhaps we need a minimum damage level required to produce a true penetration hit, otherwise we're going to be eliminating systems like Headhunter and Tandem Charge SRMs.

The penetration system has potential, but it needs to be balanced with other systems in mind as well.

[CaveMan]

Just make penetration based on a percentage.

Lasers, 0% of damage skips the armor.
PPCs, 5% (0.5 damage) skips the armor and directly damages internals.
LRMs and MRMs, 0%.
SRMs, 10% per missile (0.2 damage each).
Autocannons (except LB-X cluster rounds and armor-piercing rounds), 20%.
LB-X cluster rounds 0%.
AP rounds, 33%.
Gauss rifles, 33% (Gauss rounds pack more momentum into a single projectile).

[Strum Wealh]

To throw in my $0.02:

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From the Sarna article on BattleMech Armor:

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Introduced in 2470 by the Terran Hegemony. In the BattleTech universe, armor is ablative in nature. This means that it is generally destroyed or blown off when hit, but in the process of doing so, it absorbs enormous energies, protecting the unit it is mounted on. While powerful blows will still rock a vehicle, there will be little, if any, internal damage as long as armor plating still remains. Armor-piercing rounds do exist for certain weapons, but they require a higher technology level and cost more. As a result, destroying a 'Mech requires either immense firepower, concentrated fire on a vulnerable location, or a lucky hit.

Standard BattleMech armor is composed of several layers providing various degrees of protection and support. The first layer is extremely strong steel, the result of crystal alignment and radiation treatment, which is also very brittle. The second layer is a ceramic, cubic boron nitride, which combined with a web of artificial diamond fibers acts as a backstop to the steel layer. These two layers rest atop a titanium alloy honeycomb structure which provides support, and a layer of self-sealing polymer sealant which allows for space and underwater operations.

In other words, 'Mech armor seems to be intended to function in much the same way as Chobham armor (developed in the UK in the 1960s):

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Although the construction details of the Chobham Common armour remain a secret, it has been described as being composed of ceramic tiles encased within a metal matrix and bonded to a backing plate and several elastic layers. Due to the extreme hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance against shaped charges such as high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators.

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Due to the extreme hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance against a shaped charge jet and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators (KE-penetrators). The (pulverised) ceramic also strongly abrades any penetrator. Against lighter projectiles the hardness of the tiles causes a "shatter gap" effect: a higher velocity will, within a certain velocity range (the "gap"), not lead to a deeper penetration but destroy the projectile itself instead. Because the ceramic is so brittle the entrance channel of a shaped charge jet is not smooth — as it would be when penetrating a metal — but ragged, causing extreme asymmetric pressures which disturb the geometry of the jet, on which its penetrative capabilities are critically dependent as its mass is relatively low. This initiates a vicious circle as the disturbed jet causes still greater irregularities in the ceramic, until in the end it is defeated. The newer composites, though tougher, optimise this effect as tiles made with them have a layered internal structure conducive to it, causing "crack deflection". This mechanism using the jet's own energy against it, has caused some to compare the effects of Chobham to those of reactive armour. This should not be confused with the effect used in many laminate armours of any kind: that of sandwiching an inert but soft elastic material such as rubber, between two of the armour plates. The impact of either a shaped charge jet or long-rod penetrator after the first layer has been perforated and while the rubber layer is being penetrated will cause the rubber to deform and expand, so deforming both the back and front plates. Both attack methods will suffer from obstruction to their expected paths, so experiencing a greater thickness of armour than there is nominally, thus lowering penetration. Also for rod penetrations, the transverse force experienced due to the deformation may cause the rod to shatter, bend, or just change its path, again lowering penetration.

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Ceramic tiles draw little or no advantage from sloped armour as they lack sufficient toughness to significantly deflect heavy penetrators. Indeed, because a single glancing shot could crack many tiles, the placement of the matrix is chosen so as to optimise the chance of a perpendicular hit, a reversal of the previous desired design feature for conventional armour. Ceramic armour normally even offers better protection for a given areal density when placed perpendicularly than when placed obliquely, because the cracking propagates along the surface normal of the plate.

Personally, I've taken an individual "armor point" to represent one layer of BattleMech armor (which, as described above, is in turn made up of individual layers), where multiple APs on a single location represents a layering of plates atop one another (more APs in a given location = more layers in that location), somewhat like scale armor - a notion backed up by the description in the Classic BattleTech Companion (pg. 244):

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Armor plating is individually mounted to extension plates that protrude from the internal structure. This type of mounting has many of the armor plates overlapping to prevent access to the internal structure.

And, furthermore, that the damage value for any given weapon represents how many individual layers it can get through in a single salvo.
That is, a standard IS AC-10 (10 damage per salvo) can chew its way through 10 layers of armor plating - a loss that's more substantial for a 20-ton 'Mech (maximum total of 69 APs spread across the 'Mech's body) than for a 100-ton 'Mech (maximum total of 307 APs spread across the 'Mech's body).

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The thing about that is that a lot of the advanced armors come into being later in the canon timeline:
Armored Components - developed by the Free Worlds League in 3059-3061
Ferro-Lamellor Armor - developed by Clan Snow Raven in 3070
Heavy FF Armor - developed by the Lyran Alliance in 3069
Laser Reflective/"Glazed"/"Reflec" Armor - developed by the Lyran Alliance in 3058 (copied by Clan Jade Falcon in 3061)
Light FF Armor - developed by the Free Worlds League in 3067
Reactive/"Blazer" Armor - developed by the Draconis Combine in 3063 (copied by Clan Ghost Bear in 3065)
Stealth Armor - developed by the Capellan Confederation in 3063

The armor types that were developed prior to the game's start point are:
Ferro-Fibrous Armor - reintroduced to the IS by the Draconis Combine in 3040 (the Clans never lost the FF tech from 2571)
Hardened Armor - developed by the Federated Commonwealth in 3045-3047 (copied by Clan Ghost Bear during the invasion)
Primitive Armor - the original BattleMech armor used on the Mackie in 2439; essentially modern (non-Chobham) tank armor
Standard Armor - developed by the Terran Hegemony in 2470; maintained by IS and Clans since

Then there're the Commercial- and Industrial-grade armors...

Depending on how closely the Devs stick to the canon timeline, fancy armors are not going to be around for a while.

Personally (and FWIW), I generally agree with Cavadus' ideas, especially the meta-section/sub-section and internal/equipment modelling.

I do take some issue with some of the later points:

Regarding penetration: standard BattleMech armor seems to be modeled on Chobham armor, which (as described above) is very good at dealing with solid KE penetrators (such as what would be the case with a Gauss Rifle slug) and shaped-charged ordinance (HEAT (and HEAP?) rounds, individual LRM/MRM/SRM rounds, etc).
Multiple layers of such armor, placed atop one another (a notion supported by the canon, as described above), should provide BattleMechs' innards with substantial and effective protection against all but a few specialized weapon systems (described below) until it is completely worn away.

Furthermore, armor-piercing rounds for autocannons (usable by standard and lightweight autocannons only) were canonically introduced by the Federated Suns in 3053 (with full production in 3059), while tandem-charge warheads for SRM launchers were canonically introduced by the Terran Hegemony but weren't widely available or used until pressed into service by the Federated Suns "during the Clan Invasion" (probably late 3051 or early 3052).
I would disagree with any weapon system other than those described above having the AP ability, as it would substantially reduce the effectiveness of armor (and, thus, make the 'Mechs much more fragile than they should be) and takes away from the purpose of having such weapon systems (where damage and AP ability are balanced by increased weight and price per round, among other things) to begin with.

As for internal components having their own hitpoint pools... canonically, that is covered by having "armored components" (also mentioned above); otherwise, "Note that some weapons, double heat sinks and other equipment take up multiple slots on the Critical Hit Table. A single critical hit disables any weapon or equipment except the engine, gyro, and sensors. (A heat sink critical hit destroys only the specific heat sink hit.) Critical hits on additional slots occupied by the weapon, double heat sink, and so on only increase the difficulty of repairing the damaged equipment" (CBT Master Rules, pg. 37).
However... if the Devs stick to both the canon AND a real-time timeline, it would be about a decade before armored components appear in-game...

Your thoughts?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 06 December 2011 - 05:39 PM.

[CeeKay Boques]

Yes, I'd also love the partial damage effect to piloting caused by a single gyro hit. Slow me down... multiple arm actuators make it so I do not have the aiming range in that arm... anything to make me think, and overcome, to compensate.

[Gunman5000]

Strum Wealh, on 06 December 2011 - 04:58 PM, said:

To throw in my $0.02:

...

Your thoughts?

Very nice, I have to admit after reading that I am kind of against armour penetration again. I still believe that ACs should be re-worked in some manner to make them more appealing to the larger crowd (I've always preferred ballistic weapons myself) than lasers. Whether that means the variety of "specialized" ammuntion types or changes to how they fire, or changes to their gameplay mechanics.

The above description about armour, and the individual armour points representing "layers" of the armour make alot of sense, also the idea of the AC-10 being able to "penetrate" 10 layers of said armour (and by extension a medium laser being able to "penetrate" [or melt] 5 layers of the same armour) makes alot of sense in terms of the TT and how it is laid out. If that can be translated into the game in a better way than simply having a certain number of "hit points" for an armour section that would be awesome. The OP's meta-section and sub-sections of armour fits that bill for me.

[Okie135]

Cavadus,

Very nice work!

Your description of armor and how it works fits wonderfully. It would mean that a steady aim and good shot placement could win the day. Additionally this removes the problem most people have with precision targeting. If my target area to destroy a mech is no longer the whole center torso, then I have to actually aim and cant rely on a one hit wonder from a pair of large lasers.

Your concept of armor and how it should be applied to MWO balances the toughness of amech with the precision of a human, and allows for more interesting tactics. If specific weapons can be targets like your example of the Atlas, then that means that there is more to the game than 'do more points of damage to the other guy'. Sniping and standoff weapons would actually have a place. Even better, when the Clans come their advances to targeting would be much more evident.

Thank you for your post. I think the developers should take a very close look at this. Good Job.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Interesting write up, you've obviously spent a lot of time on this issue. Not sure I actually agree with any of it though..sorry, especially the penetration section..that I most definately don't agree with by any means.

Your hatred of RNG is understood, I even share it in some cases, but I fail to see your proposal as being a better system.

Myself, I'm all for the simple 'where you aim is where you most likely hit and where the damage will be applied' system. MW2 did this, sorta, but Activision didn't use hit boxes, they used hit spheres..yes, actual spheres around each and every section of the Mech, which induced overlap and cover. And it worked..for the most part...there were issues with those spheres and being able to damage a Mech by shooting NEXT to it..literally..shots within the sphere would do damage regardless of them actually HITTING the physical structure. They would also cause issues with some Mechs being literally impossible to head shot due to the arm and torso hit spheres totally overlapping the head area. You COULD hit the head once you'd removed all 3 torso sections..but that's rather silly since the Mech was dead the moment the center torso was gone MW3 and MW4 pretty much did the same thing, minus the spheres, but still with the overlapping hit boxes that would cover different sections of the Mech. And this was ALL mostly due to simple software constraints, the engines they used simply didn't allow for hit boxes of the exact size, shape and depth of the model pieces they were assigned to.

Today..no reason for any that silly type of targetting/hit detection to be used. The engine being used allows for nice exact model hit boxes. True, that would mean that certain Mech designs are essentially walking death traps..but..that's pretty much canon ANYWAY, so I fail to see that as being a problem.

Pinpoint targetting..that's what some people are scared to death of..'I don't have twitch skills, why should I suck because of that?'..honest answer..because you do suck at a game where aiming and firing at exactly the right moment is probably the best way to win. The kids here in my house(and some of the adults too!) constantly whine about getting killed by someone they opened fire on FIRST when playing CoD/ModWarfare/whatever..that's just not FAIR! No, it ain't fair, your dumb *** should have AIMED instead of just spraying and praying, your killer sure as hell AIMED didn't he? He put 1 round in your face instead of putting half a clip into the wall behind you...like you did with him. That's rather the point of any weapon system, be it a sling and rock, bow and arrow, M42, M16 OR a Medium Laser, AC/10 or PPC..you ain't doing anything worthwhile if you don't apply it properly by aiming first. I'm sorry if that offends some of you, which it probably will, but that's how it works when you are dealing with non-area of effect weaponary, which is most, but not all!, of the weapons loaded on a Mech. And there's no reason in heaven or hell for PGI to make the weapons in MWO work in any other fashion.

What does that have to do with the system you proposed? Why..everything of course. With the hit boxes being the actual model pieces, instead of being externally overlaid applications, what you hit is what you hit, simple as that. With that being the case, there's no reason to spread damage out over larger/lesser areas, a shot hits where it hits and all damage is applied to that location only, no reason to scatter it around a meta area and then apply it to subsections within that meta area. Center Torso has 20 armor, takes a hit from an AC20, that CT now has 0 armor, next hit from anything applies directly to the Internal Structure of the CT, and there is a chance that that next hit will generate a critical hit and instead of JUST damaging the IS, it will ALSO hit and damage something important..like your engine. What might be hit by that critical will be determined by...random chance!

Why a random chance? Because life is sometimes random, it's just how it works, chaos theory and all that. Personally, I'd like to see a random chance that any shot fired could be a critical hit just like the TT rules, but that's pushing it and I know it, so we can bypass that option for the moment. Critical hit locations..sure, random chance is great, might be you core someone's engine..might be you just take out another point of IS..who knows? Mechs are big objects, there's a lot of space inside that CT, it's not all occupied space either, same with most every piece of the Mech, lots of space, not all filled, could just as easily hit nothing as something important. Random criticals on any shot fired would be where the penetration factor comes into play, some weapons, specifcally the ballistics, DO have that built into them after all, ACs if you use the right ammo type, gauss as a direct function of how the weapon works, so that would actually be something to consider adding to ballistic weapons to make them more desirable, dependant upon the type of ballistic weapon being used OR the ammo type being used(simply decrease the shots/ton for penetration rounds to balance them..per the TT rules if memory serves, I'm sure someone can call me on that either way).

I know, I know, some of you are about to raise holy hells with me on allowing pin point targetting as that's SO non-canon that I may as well be asking them to give us X-Wings, the Enterprise AND lightsabers that can be set to stun!(sorry..2 weekends of the TOR beta combined with just finishing a Star Trek novel)

Well...you see...the TT rules actually give the answer to the pin point targetting..it kinda sorta doesn't work..but it also sorta kinda does work. Targetting computers give you extra accuracy, heat degrades your accuracy, as does movement, damage and various effects from various weapons, like a PPC shot or an AC20 round or gauss round hitting your Mech(electronic interference from the PPC, simple rocking around like a drunk from the ballistic rounds), plus the recoil if YOU fired any of them yourself(showed very nicely in that 09 concept footage btw!). So if you want to put a gauss round into the head of that Atlas over there, it would behoove you to stand very still and take aim, don't forget lead time if he's moving(and if he ain't, he deserves what you are about to do!), and don't forget..YOU are standing still and are now a much easier target to hit yourself! Again, this IS covered in the TT rules, and it's oddly enough a function of the real world, stationary firing platforms tend to be more accurate then moving ones, be they grunts with an M16 or an M1A2, accuracy goes up when stationary, decreases when moving, goes to hell when jumping around like a jack rabbit on crack(for those jump jet sniper types).

Pretty simple system, which is probably why it's the same one used by the previous MW games, albeit they all used really crappy hit location systems which actually created a LOT of random hits, thereby replicating the TT rules without meaning to. Crytek 3 engine..no worries on that account, hit boxes can and should be the exact pieces of the model. Aiming is easy enough to ***** up via the game engine as well, want to get pin point accuracy, stand still, don't get hot, don't get hit, and get a targetting computer, otherwise, you will always be hitting in the general AREA you fired at, but since you didn't take steps to make your fire accurate as possible, it won't be. This is where personal skill takes over from the random chance of the TT game. No cone of divergence, just literally have the reticule moving around unless you do what's required to make it stop..your shots WILL hit where the reticule was aimed at when you fired, allowing of course for lead time with the weapons that would have it, which due to this being a video game vs other PLAYERS, will be every weapon

This allows for twitch skills to matter but not be paramount, since a non-twitch player with good timing, a good loadout, and proper technique can take out any twitch player. As an old gunfighter once said, 'it's not the fastest gun that wins, it's the smartest gunfighter'.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 December 2011 - 11:05 PM, said:

Stuff.

That's... not for me. Nearly every sentence made me cringe.

@ Paladin1:

Enough with the "power creep" funny business. The ACs are gimp and need a buff. Making them as attractive of an option as lasers requires that be they buffed (i.e. making them better). Making them commensurately powerful as lasers isn't "power creep".

That doesn't mean what you think it means.

Edited by Cavadus, 12 December 2011 - 03:51 PM.