4 replies to this topic

[ChoboN00b]

I just had an idea: What if flamers had a similar mechanic to Jump Jets and MASC? If I understand correctly, the reason flamers are so terrible right now is because PGI is afraid of them being used to "stun-lock" (ie. trap an enemy 'mech in shut down). This is seen as a potentially game breaking mechanic.

But what if they had a reserve of flamer fuel(?), similar to what jump jets have, that would deplete rapidly when they are fired and slowly recharge when they are not in use. This way, if an enemy 'mech shut down, the flamer would not be able to recharge fast enough to keep the mech shut down. It might be able to spurt a bit of fire with whatever little "fuel" has recharged by the time the enemy 'mech powers up, but this would be too little to overcome the enemy mech's cooling rate.

The devs could play with the recharge rate, burn time, and just how many flamers one would need to shut down an enemy 'mech from cold in one burn. I'd think 4 to 6 might be a good number to start off with; that's 2-3 tonnes and 4-6 energy hardpoints, which is a pretty heavy cost. Fewer flamers would heat up a mech, but not be able shut it down starting from cold.

Flamers would also no longer produce heat for the 'mech firing them; that's currently the worst part of this already terrible weapon. I believe it's also very contrary to the lore.

[Firewuff]

Honestly flamers should be heat neutral and tha5 would fix a lot of issues.

My only issue with this idea is how do you deal with multiple flamers and chain firing them?

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Either make Flamers give the user less heat than the target (I don't like this plan, but it'd make them useful for something), or rework them altogether.

I favor a MechCommander-inspired rework: 5 damage, 5 heat, 5s cooldown, 90/180 range, and give the target 5 heat as well. It gives everyone a light PPFLD energy option that has significant downsides to prevent it from becoming the dominant weapon.

[Araevin Teshurr]

Stop to think, if any mech had enough flamers to heat lock another mech, it has a problem.
I thas to stand still or circle around a mech and keep all those flamers on its target; while the targets buddies rip off the flamers legs and makes it eat them.

[ChoboN00b]

"My only issue with this idea is how do you deal with multiple flamers and chain firing them?"

In this proposal, flamers would not fire a burst and cool down the way lasers do. Rather they would fire continuously as they currently do. The difference being that they would tap into a reserve of "fuel" in a manner similar to jump jets. Firing a single flamer or chain firing them would simply deplete this "fuel" more slowly than firing them all at once. The idea would be to have the fuel recharge too slowly for the user to be able to heatlock or inflict massive overheating related internal structure damage. Just enough to potentially cause a shut down.

It is an open question as to whether the fuel would be a fixed amount, with additional flamers simply depleting it faster (more heat on target in less time) or whether the amount of fuel would increase with each flamer equipped. In the first scenario, a single flamer would have to take something like 20 seconds to deplete the fuel, thereby incentivising the equipment of more. In the second scenario, the number of flamers needed to shut down a mech from cold would have to be decided based on game balance.

In the first scenario, the fixed amount of fuel would have to represent the amount of heat that could be placed on the enemy (I'd think about 50 points of heat). A single flamer could throw 50 heat at an enemy, but it would take forever, but 6 flamers could do it quite quickly.

It might be fun to insta-kill an already hot mech with his override engaged. Skilled players would learn to recognise the sound of a flamer hitting their mech and make sure their override is disengaged.