59 replies to this topic

[PurpleNinja]

If you're going to talk about ammo locations, we should be able to specify which ammo should be spent first.

[Krivvan]

Agree entirely. Ammo-only builds are generally less powerful than energy builds atm, and one small thing you can do to fix that is drain ammo from the arms and ST where they're less likely to get lost first.

Juodas Varnas, on 22 August 2015 - 05:30 AM, said:

Ammo should be used from the Head first, then the CT, then the STs, because those locations are the most vital and ammo explosions there are the most devastating.

Other way around. There's a reason good ammo builds use the CT and Head first for ammo. Head because it's the safest component on the mech. And CT because you ideally have the CT going down last and you're shielding with your arms and ST.

[Juodas Varnas]

Krivvan, on 23 August 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

Other way around. There's a reason good ammo builds use the CT and Head first for ammo. Head because it's the safest component on the mech. And CT because you ideally have the CT going down last and you're shielding with your arms and ST.

Oh, i was talking lore-wise. Mechs rarely had ammo in the head or CT, because if you cook it off, you're dead instantly, when the ammo in your STs might leave your mech still alive (if you're not running XL engine, that is)

Here in MWO, since you can't really cook it off yourself (unless you REALLY try to), you might as well put it in the head and CT. (I'm a huge supporter of a more punishing heat-scale with actual penalties to running hot)

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 23 August 2015 - 10:25 AM.

[Krivvan]

Alistair Winter, on 22 August 2015 - 07:56 AM, said:

Uhhhhh pretty sure they need to help balanced builds, not missile boats and ballistic boats.

Balanced builds are impossible to achieve without extreme and silly limitations on the game. Balanced builds just make less logical sense. You don't give today's soldiers 4-6 weapons and tell them to use them all at once. If you want to have a balanced build, you don't give one person a whole bunch of different weapons, you give different people different specializations.

So yes, they do need to help ballistic-specialized mechs. And SRM brawlers. LRM mechs are a lost cause without mechanic changes.

Edited by Krivvan, 23 August 2015 - 10:26 AM.

[FupDup]

Juodas Varnas, on 23 August 2015 - 10:24 AM, said:

Oh, i was talking lore-wise. Mechs rarely had ammo in the head or CT, because if you cook it off, you're dead instantly, when the ammo in your STs might leave your mech still alive (if you're not running XL engine, that is)

I think that ammo allocation in lore was more about "realistic," in that the ammo was almost always stored in the same location as the gun or the location directly next to it.

In terms of head ammo, if you get critted in the head then you're probably in for a bad time no matter what you put in there...

Krivvan, on 23 August 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

Balanced builds are impossible to achieve without extreme and silly limitations on the game. Balanced builds just make less logical sense. You don't give today's soldiers 4-6 weapons and tell them to use them all at once. If you want to have a balanced build, you don't give one person a whole bunch of different weapons, you give different people different specializations.

So yes, they do need to help ballistic-specialized mechs. And SRM brawlers. LRM mechs are a lost cause without mechanic changes.

I think that certain balanced builds can work...but nothing like Tabletop's infamous 6+ weapon group mechs. Mechs with that many non-synergizing groups can never be viable, and never were effective even in the board game itself.

I'm talking something like, say, my 4 ERML + 2 UAC/5 Hellbringer. I actually consider that to be a "mixed build."

[Juodas Varnas]

FupDup, on 23 August 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:

In terms of head ammo, if you get critted in the head then you're probably in for a bad time no matter what you put in there...

I was thinking less about getting crit, more about having it cook-off due to heat.

[Krivvan]

FupDup, on 23 August 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:

I'm talking something like, say, my 4 ERML + 2 UAC/5 Hellbringer. I actually consider that to be a "mixed build."

Agreed. Generally in this game you want to limit weapon types to at most 3. Certain weapons mesh together like LPL and ML, so they can be counted together as a type. But putting on both UACs and SRMs is silly when you can't get them to hit at the same time.

I consider even Gauss Vomit to be a mixed build. But when people talk about "balanced" builds here on the forum they often mean bracketed monstrosities where you need at minimum 4 firing buttons.

[Anarcho]

I just want the old ammo explosion effects back...

[C E Dwyer]

Because the ammo in the arms isn't used last is the correct reply.

There had to be a system, and frankly its by far not the next thing that needs looking at.

the sensible way of doing it would be to have ammo used only by the launcher in that section but then ac20's in the arm wouldn't work.

[C E Dwyer]

LordNothing, on 22 August 2015 - 10:53 PM, said:

ammo should move from the furthest locations first and the same section last, if i have ammo for a weapon in the left arm and store some ammo in the both arms and in the legs. since the distance (how many segments you have to go through) between the gun and the ammo in both the right arm and leg should be used first at the same rate. once spent then the ammo in the left leg should be used, then the ammo in the arm with the gun last. if you also had a gun in the right arm then the legs would go first followed by the arms. i dont know what actually happens.

ammo storage bins are used the closest to the weapon first, its why they are ready lockers, then the ammo is moved from further locations to the one closest, so that rate of fire isn't needlessly reduced

[LordNothing]

sceii, on 23 August 2015 - 07:07 AM, said:

Is it so hard to adjust your build a little bit? Throw 1 launcher away and bring freaking SIX esrsml instead, put active prob in your hand, BAM, no ammo in hands, 30 volleys of ssrm24 and a whopping 30dmg laser hand to finish dem lights. May be you will want to swap some ammo for dhs.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...0a6c6e24079bc0b

idk, if you loose the rt, then there goes your backup weapons and your ammo. i think i would put the active probe in the head and an extra ton of ammo each in the lt and la. i might even drop one of those lt launchers to a streak 4 to get another ton of ammo in there.

SCR-D

you also have an energy slot in the head which could be utilized, put something like an er large there and keep 5 launchers, dropping a couple to 4s. of course then if you loose whatever side the bap is in you loose a lot of functionality, but hell you have a large laser in your head if that happens.

SCR-D

Edited by LordNothing, 23 August 2015 - 11:22 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Fundamentally it would be good if you could set the order of the ammo usage...

[LordNothing]

Nightmare1, on 23 August 2015 - 09:01 AM, said:

Who runs ammo in their arms anyways?

clanners who cant put ammo in their legs because no slots.

[Kira Onime]

Ammo in the arms being used last kinda makes sense.

[Koniving]

Juodas Varnas, on 22 August 2015 - 07:32 AM, said:

But... That might require... AIMING! *shudders*

Point and click adventures; so easy a child could do it.

Mcgral18, on 22 August 2015 - 07:45 AM, said:

(See signature)

Koniving said:

...this game doesn't want real skill. It wants point and click adventures that were common place in elementary schools in the 90s.

Posted 01 August 2014 - 03:18 PM

[Koniving]

Kira_Onime, on 23 August 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

Ammo in the arms being used last kinda makes sense.

I could see why. Assuming your weapons are in the arms, all ammo from 'elsewhere' would feed through on belts most likely, emptying from the 'last' place on the feed first... but this assumes everything is placed on a single feed that somehow goes to both weapons.

However between BT's "ammunition bins" being (lore-wise) fixed trays designed to carry a ton of ammunition each (in the literal sense)... it's hard to imagine the ammo from previous bins filling the bins closer to the guns. In BT you assign which bins go to which guns (but you can tap multiple guns to a single bin and multiple bins to a single gun). I think it's a shame we can't assign what draws from where.

[LordNothing]

Kira_Onime, on 23 August 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

Ammo in the arms being used last kinda makes sense.

i really have to say depends on build.

for single weapons i like to keep the ammo with the weapon if at all possible. since we cant jettison ammo, if the arm gets blown off, so does the ammo and it wont blow up other parts of me. if its not possible then legs and head become prime real estate.

on mechs with multiple weapons in multiple sections, i like to distribute ammo and would like more or less even ammo usage from all sources. some builds with a lot of distributed guns and ammo (any dakka whale build) i really want the arms to get used first. loose an arm you loose the gun and any ammo that was there. if the arm ammo was used last and you loose an arm, your torso guns no longer have any ammo because torso ammo was used first. arms first is better in this case. i also really dont want ammo moving through ct unless absolutely neccisary so if you loose an entire st, you loose no more than 50% of your remaining (torso and arm) ammo.

i know i have one build with a couple ac5s on one arm and i have an extra ton of ammo in the other arm which has very little armor on it (its one of those useless vestigial arms), i would really like that arm ammo to get used first, before the leg and head ammo, because it tends to get shot off within 5 minutes of the game starting.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 August 2015 - 12:02 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Krivvan, on 23 August 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

Balanced builds are impossible to achieve without extreme and silly limitations on the game. Balanced builds just make less logical sense. You don't give today's soldiers 4-6 weapons and tell them to use them all at once. If you want to have a balanced build, you don't give one person a whole bunch of different weapons, you give different people different specializations.
So yes, they do need to help ballistic-specialized mechs. And SRM brawlers. LRM mechs are a lost cause without mechanic changes.

We may be talking past each other here. It depends what you mean by "balanced builds" and "specialization" and "extreme limitation". That being said...

• You can't compare MWO to modern warfare because MWO is a game with relatively simple variables that has been tailored to turn a fantasy / science fiction universe into a FPS game, with relatively good success. You don't give today's soldiers 4-6 weapons because modern warfare is not a game where you can balance every variable to ensure that every unit and every piece of armament or equipment is viable. The AK-47 is not balanced against the MG-42 or the M-16 or the M-60 or the 9 mm Glock. Nor does anyone care if the F-15E is boating AIM-9 Sidewinders or if the AH-64 is just boating Hellfire missiles. The US Army is not trying to recreate some fantasy world in real life. So in this particular respect, your argument doesn't work.
  
• Before we go further, we should define what a 'balanced build' is. If you're talking about mechs with 4-6 different weapon types, then I agree that it is difficult to make it happen. But if we consider any mech with 2 or 3 different weapon types as relatively balanced compared to laservomit, dakkaboating or missile boating, then it's a lot easier to accomplish. This is why people are already combining lasers and gauss rifles, or lasers and UACs. It's already a viable option. To say that boating is fundamentally best is moronic, because that's clearly not the case. Gauss + lasers works because cool ballistics + hot lasers is a good combination. You won't get the same result by boating either lasers or gauss rifles.
  
• One major factor that leads to boating in MWO is ghost heat and the basic heat values. PGI increased heat on the AC20 to over 9000, because everyone was so worried about the Jagerbomb and the AC40 Catapult. As a result, they reduced effectiveness of both AC40 builds and the balanced AC20 builds.
  
• Another major factor that leads to boating in MWO is quirks. The LL Stalkers, the LPL Banshees, the MPL Thunderbolts... these are especially effective because of quirks. Quirks are a total fail, because they lead to cookie cutter builds which are usually centered around boating the single most quirked weapon on any mech, such as the AC5 on the Dragon. There's no point in bringing SRMs on the Thunderbolt 5SS today because the missile quirks are mediocre and you only have 1 missile hardpoint. But would you bring a single SRM6 on your Thunderbolt if it had an 80% cooldown reduction and an 80% heat reduction? Obviously, you would. You would be an idiot not to. But PGI has chosen to give massive quirk bonuses for boating instead of massive quirk bonuses for balanced builds. The RVN-2X has 7 quirks that benefit lasers, 1 single quirk that benefits missiles. Was anyone surprised when everyone immediately replaced their combined laser+missile builds on the RVN-2X with laservomit builds? Of course not.

I could go on for hours, but I need something to eat.


Bottom line / TL;DR

• It's not hard to incentivize carrying 2 different weapons, at all. But PGI has unfortunately made some really bad decisions which have had the opposite of the desired effect.
  
• It's not long ago since everyone and their grandmother was combining PPCs with ballistic weapons for the ultimate meta rides, so why people claim that carrying single-weapon builds is fundamentally better regardless of how the game is balanced, I don't know.
  
• It's a more challenging to incentivize 3 different weapons. It's tricky to make Lasers + ballistics + missiles work for elite players who are min-maxing mechs to the fullest. Granted. The only way to do this is to take a mech like the Atlas, with no capacity for boating, and just give it insane non-weapon quirks. Like a huge armour and structure bonus. People would probably replace their LPL Banshees with 'balanced' Atlas builds, because the Atlas requires you to use all hardpoints to achieve maximum DPS.
  
• If you're saying that a 'balanced build' means the ability to use 4-6 different weapon types at any range (e.g. small lasers, large lasers, MGs, AC2's, SRMs and LRMs on a single mech) then I agree, it's an impossible, unrealistic and unattractive goal. But that's not what I'm advocating.

<sigh> My TL;DR was longer than most posts...

Edited by Alistair Winter, 23 August 2015 - 12:10 PM.

[Nightmare1]

LordNothing, on 23 August 2015 - 11:30 AM, said:

clanners who cant put ammo in their legs because no slots.

Here, I think you need this: https://en.wikipedia...orical_question

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

This reminds me of one of the optional rules in BT construction where ammo had to be placed into the same location or an adjacent location as the weapon, meaning that ammo for an AC10 in the right arm had to be in the right arm or right torso. Ammo for an LRM20 in the left torso could only be fed with ammo from the CT, LT, or LA.

But regardless, I think the ammo closest to the weapon needs to be used first.