23 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

I was brainstorming about how a Flamer could be...you know...useful. The demo of a spider lighting trees on fire helped fuel this idea. The main thing is looking at a flamer as a weapon that fires flaming material with an x amount of burn duration time. Just some ideas below...

* Flamers would be treated less like a lick of flame, but more like firing flaming napalm that can stick to and burn on things. It can catch traditional non-burning things on fire (like mechs), but the effects only last as long as the napalm like fuel is present and hasn't burned out.

*Stacking flamers offers no additional effects.

*Sets terrain (buildings, tree, etc..) On fire for x amount of seconds (maybe 15 to 20). It disrupts targeting through the fire due to heat and creates false targets (actually done in Mechcommander). This makes it difficult to lock SSRMs or LRMs through fire (have to hunt through false targets for legit ones).

* Set mechs on fire for x amount of seconds. Reduces heat efficiency of heat sinks while on fire (maybe 10~15%).

* Due to the intense heat on a mech (when on fire), it makes the mech easier to detect at longer ranges.

* A burning mech can not rely on ECM for cover while on fire. The ECM may blanket other near by allies like usual, but any mech on fire within the blanket is visibile (including the mech generating ECM).

The flamer accomplishes 3 things...
1. Cover when setting fire to terrain: Visually from smoke and false targets making lock-ons difficult.

2. Reduces heat efficiency of burning mechs

3. Makes burning mechs more visible to sensors and acts as a temporary counter to ECM.

It would make flamers a bit more desirable to carry for lights that could set fire to terrain ahead of a push or run in to enemy lines and light up an enemy ECM mech or assault for easier targeting and temporary ECM negation.

EDIT: This might step on the NARCs toes a bit too much. I suppose it could be seen as an alternative for lights without a missile slot for NARC, but I'm thinking overall that the ECM counter and easier to track idea may need to be nerfed or at least re-thought. Bummer.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 29 May 2015 - 05:14 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Would have to be a chemical flamer then, which means ammunition.

[Joseph Mallan]

Don't know if PGI would go with this, but I like the direction you are going.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I think it may overlap NARC a bit too much in hindsight, but maybe an the duration of the fire on a mech might need to be reduced to maybe 50% of the duration of NARC. Maybe that feature might need to be dropped all together. Hard to say :/.

[Sergeant Random]

I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Inferno SRMs are in lore and work like napalm - producing several turns of heat.

[Joseph Mallan]

MeiSooHaityu, on 29 May 2015 - 05:17 AM, said:

I think it may overlap NARC a bit too much in hindsight, but maybe an the duration of the fire on a mech might need to be reduced to maybe 50% of the duration of NARC. Maybe that feature might need to be dropped all together. Hard to say :/.

But thats part of the brain storming process man! Spitball some ideas and see if they take off.

[El Bandito]

...then you drop on Alpine...

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 29 May 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

...then you drop on Alpine...

20 times in a row!

[SilentScreamer]

I also would like flamers to be more useful in-game. However, multiple burning objects, plus the smoke generated from the fires could be a potential hit to FPS for most computer systems.

If you remember the FPS hit earlier this year caused by too many particles (visualized as steam) surrounding overheated mechs, it was considered a pretty big performance hit. I would expect burning terrain, mechs, etc. to be as just as taxing on gamers systems.

I would suggest lingering effects on Mechs only. Rather than flamers only adding heat to a mech when directly used, add a lingering effect similar to what was mentioned, the target mech would disburse heat slower than normal for a time. This would be due to the mechs heat vents automatically closing temporarily due to the flamer rather than continued burning of the mech as suggested by the OP.

No continously burning mechs = better game performance.

Edited by SilentScreamer, 29 May 2015 - 05:38 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

El Bandito, on 29 May 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

...then you drop on Alpine...

Well, we could look at it this way...

The flamer has a 90m range maybe. Alpine has a lot of open terrain to cover, do a mech hoping to light up an enemy had to really expose them self to enemy fire to for that. Besides, if successful (mech lights enemies on fire), it could make it harder for a team to hold Mt. Tryhard with no cover and mote visible to LRMs.

It wouldn't make the terrain smoke/fire shield possible in most places (due to lack of terrain or buildings), but then again, maps being more or less ideal for certain weapons is really nothing new anyway *shrug*.

[MeiSooHaityu]

SilentScreamer, on 29 May 2015 - 05:29 AM, said:

I also would like flamers to be more useful in-game. However, multiple burning objects, plus the smoke generated from the fires could be a potential hit to FPS for most computer systems.

If you remember the FPS hit earlier this year caused by too many particles (visualized as steam) surrounding overheated mechs, it was considered a pretty big performance hit. I would expect burning terrain, mechs, etc. to be as just as taxing on gamers systems.

I would suggest lingering effects on Mechs only. Rather than flamers only adding heat to a mech when directly used, add a lingering effect similar to what was mentioned, the target mech would disburse heat slower than normal for a time. This would be due to the mechs heat vents automatically closing for a time due to the flamer, rather than continued burning of the mech as suggested by the OP.

No continously burning mechs = better game performance.

Very good point.

Now granted I wouldn't expect a lot of fire happening everywhere, but I could see it impacting the performance like you said.

I like your lingering idea without visible fire or smoke on a mech. To know your affected, your HUD could have a visible indicator similar to NARC. Maybe the frame around the heat indicator flashes or something similar.

[Mad Porthos]

Mister D, on 29 May 2015 - 05:09 AM, said:

Would have to be a chemical flamer then, which means ammunition.

Actually, not necessarily. Chemical that is. People forget, the flamers are supposed to be vented excess engine plasma, in most mechs. Plasma isn't a friendly little fire, or a safe and tame state of matter... it's superheated gasses and even molecules of super heated things like iron, carbon, titanium, etc. If you vent that onto anything in the real world, it should ignite it on fire... not just burn it like holding a candle under it, but literally ignite it as the plasma is at millons of degrees in temperature. Steel liquefies, trees would vaporize, at least right where they were touched and THEY WOULD CONTINUE TO BURN after the stream of plasma had passed by them, because they are now their own fuel, they are ON FIRE.

Yes, even metals when hot enough can burn, oxidize etc and these superheated run away chemical reactions (aka. burning) would continue for a few moments at least until they cooled off after the plasma jet (flamer) was pulled off of them. One thing that they should do if they really pull destructible trees in, is not just have that light ashey depiction of fire particle effects on a tree, but actually have a burnt/on fire tree model that replaces said tree after fire has raged through an individual tree or several in an area after a flamer washes over them.

Technically some buildings or at least areas of buildings should/could be able to be set on fire too, but that's neither here nor there.

[Mad Porthos]

SilentScreamer, on 29 May 2015 - 05:29 AM, said:

I also would like flamers to be more useful in-game. However, multiple burning objects, plus the smoke generated from the fires could be a potential hit to FPS for most computer systems.

If you remember the FPS hit earlier this year caused by too many particles (visualized as steam) surrounding overheated mechs, it was considered a pretty big performance hit. I would expect burning terrain, mechs, etc. to be as just as taxing on gamers systems.

I would suggest lingering effects on Mechs only. Rather than flamers only adding heat to a mech when directly used, add a lingering effect similar to what was mentioned, the target mech would disburse heat slower than normal for a time. This would be due to the mechs heat vents automatically closing temporarily due to the flamer rather than continued burning of the mech as suggested by the OP.

No continously burning mechs = better game performance.

Yeah, this is true, HOWEVER mechs smoke as it is right now. So if game settings being turned down prevent the rendering of a damaged/smoking effect from a damaged mech, then someone needing to turn down settings to play, still would get that performance boost by turning down settings, since the smoking/burning effect would only render the same as a mech that had been badly damaged. This actually could mean that a mostly fine mech could be smoking/burning for a little while due to flamers having been used on it recently, making it a little easier to track. Yet again, the performance hit need not be so bad when someone must turn down settings.

[Deathlike]

I would like Flamers to not fire through walls.

There is a current bug (AFAIK) that at least visually sees the Flamer shoot through walls in MWO.

The best place to see it in action is like HPG, and shoot through some of those "blocks" near the outside exits/entrances to the spawns.

[LordBraxton]

I love these ideas, but they are far beyond PGI's capabilities.

If you notice, they have not added any drastic new features to the core gameplay since their programmers left during beta. In fact, they removed a bunch.

Im kinda starting to agree with that, 'PGI as art house,' thread.

Maps, modes, mechs... that's probably all we will see from here on... maybe some new weapons if the timeline moves. The destructable terrain on the revamp River City isn't quite 'new.' As there used to be a test tree you could knock over, they just never applied the animation to any other foliage.

[STEF_]

Totally support this.
A step to BT is a step to make mwo better

[TLBFestus]

All I can imagine is every match being played with every mech on fire. The abuse would be horrendous.

[MeiSooHaityu]

TLBFestus, on 29 May 2015 - 07:24 AM, said:

All I can imagine is every match being played with every mech on fire. The abuse would be horrendous.

I don't think it would be that bad. The take rate wouldn't be much different than a NARC. Players still need to decide if 1 energy slot is worth losing a laser for a flamer. Also, the flamer as I proposed wouldn't really do any direct damage, it would be more of a utility/mech cooling debuff tool.

It won't stack so running 9 flamers would be no more effective than running 1.

Lastly, setting terrain in fire wouldn't really be abused. You'd use it where your at. It also goes out after 10sec or so. Its not like you could set the map a blaze.

Lastly, for mechs to deal with being attacked, the enemy mech would have to close within 90m. I'd suspect lights would use it more, and a light that close is vulnerable. Even assuming 6 enemy mechs got hit, a LRM mech has to pick one mech to attack, he can't rain death on 6 at once.

Overall, so far, I can't see this as a system too abusable.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 29 May 2015 - 08:04 AM.

[LordBraxton]

Add a recharge time. Let the flamer shoot a ~2 second stream of fire, like a laser, to spread fire around, and then give it a long cooldown. 6-10 seconds.

This would prevent smoke spam\ CPU death.

[DONTOR]

I really would love to see a city on fire, and then fight in it!