17 replies to this topic

[Spleenslitta]

As you know the Rifles in Battletech have lot of disadvantages when compared to Autocannons.
- Low velocity shells.
- Does -3 damage against mech armor. Light rifles becomes harmless against mech armor.
- Each shell weighs a lot so the ammo count per tonn is low.
- No special ammunition types.
- AC's have better range and firerate. They are Autocannons after all.

Here is a link to sarna- http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Light_Rifle

I've found a way for Rifles to become an alternative to other ballistic weapons without breaking lore much.
As a matter of fact i wont even need to touch heat, range, weight, critical slots.
Damage has only gotten 0.5 damage adjustment on each rifle. Explanation for that a few lines down.

Let's cover the most important changes first. I'll fatten up letters and put in spoiler buttons to make it easier for you guys to find what interrests you.
For those that worry rifles will outperform LBX AC's look in the spoiler button below titled -
But won't the rifles become superior to LBX AC's and MG's?


Slight -3 Damage adjustment.
Taking away the -3 damage to mech armor may sound like a good idea, but that would break the lore too much for PGI tastes.
So let's just adjust the -3 damage into -2.5 damage since even an MG can scratch paint on an armored target.
An explosive shell could do at least 0.5 damage to armor. Better than a light rifle that does no damage whatsoever to armor at least.


Reasonable ammunition adjustment

Spoiler

AC's got double the ammo count in MWO. For example the AC10 had 10 shells per tonn in the boardgame while in MWO it has 20 shells.
Naturally the Rifles needs the same adjustment of double ammo.
Funny thing is that my version of the rifles aren't ammo hungry at all. You can manage with 1 or 1,5 tonns of ammo with any of the rifle sizes.
You save your rifle shells for midmatch or later you see. When they can cause the maximum amount of mayhem.

Here is the adjusted shell count per tonn of ammunition for each of the rifles.
Light Rifle - 36
Medium Rifle - 18
Heavy Rifle - 12

Rifles most important quality. (3 ways to do it)

Spoiler

Lets make the rifles into crit seeker weapons so they fill a niche much like MG and LBX AC's but with a significant difference to both of them.
Unlike MG's you do not need to boat Rifles to make them worth it and rifles has better range.
Rifles are better than LBX AC at criting at longer ranges, but have enough disadvantages to make LBX AC's have their clearly superior points.

As a matter of fact Rifles are best used in singles since you need weapons to chew through the armor.
If you don't like the idea of increased crit chance look at the title below called-
If you don't like the idea of splash damage or + crit chance how about this?


Ordinary and the LBX AC's chances to criticaly hit components can be found here-
http://mwo.gamepedia.com/Critical_Hit

1st way to do it
Here are my suggestions for the Rifles critical hit chances. Bigger shells tosses out more shrapnel.
Please keep in mind that these are my suggestions and that i'm far from flawless in my judgment.
If you feel that the stats need a rebalance or got a better suggestion please give a holler post.
1- **% stands for the chance to crit 1 component. 2- **% for 2 comps and 3- **% for 3 comps.

Light Rifle 1- 60% 2- 30% 3- 15%
Medium Rifle 1- 80% 2- 50% 3-30%
Heavy Rifle 1- 95% 2- 75% 3- 50%

2nd way - Hardcore Shrapnel
As you know 1 MG bullet does 0.08 damage but does 1.08 (1350%) damage to any component it crits.
It has these chances to crit 1,2 or 3 components.
1 - 39% 2- 22% 3- 6%

It takes 37.5 MG bullets to do 3 damage which is the same as a Light Rifle. Let's say that every time a light shell hits a target it tosses out 38 pieces of shrapnel.
Each shrapnel piece has a chance to crit 1 or 2 or even 3 components for 1.08 damage.
That could become a monstrous amount of damage from just a single light shell.

Imagine further what amount of chaos a medium or heavy shell would do.
That's 76 or 114 pieces of shrapnel....that is a lot of potential damage from just a single shell.

I wanted to roughly calculate how many crits an averagly lucky shoot would do to an unarmored section but sadly i'm not cut out to that kinda math.

3rd way.
Let's say that with each 3 damage the shell gets another chance at criting and that it uses the Light Rifle crit chance table.
Rifle crit chance table. 1- 60% 2- 30% 3-15%
The light rifle gets to roll once on this table, but the Medium gets 2 chances and the heavy 3 chances.
This way it's easier for the developers to balance it all.
What about these chances if splash damage is in?
Rifle splash damage crit table 1- 30% 2- 15% 3- 6%
But since this is splash damage should medium/heavy rifles also have multiple chances to crit through splash damage?

Before everyone says i'm insane and throws me into the loonyhouse i'll just say that.....i never claimed to be sane.
Rifles could become effective niche weapons. You'll need other weapons to crack the armor of course.

Should Rifle shells do splash damage to a target?

Spoiler

If you don't like the idea of splash damage look under the title below this spoilerbutton.
I'm not suggesting splash damage to the ground around the target mech....that just needed to be said.
It would be like the Clan ER PPC splash damage.

The reason i suggest the splash damage is because rifles in the lore had low shell velocity.
Splash damage would be a good way to make up for the lower velocity of that makes rifles less accurate at longer ranges.

It makes sense too since we're talking about high explosive shells that toss out shrapnel.
A light rifle shell would do 2 damage to an unarmored target section it directly hits while doing 0.5 damage to any unarmored sections right next to it.
Armored sections that get's splash damage only suffers scratches to the paintjob from a light shell.

So in theory a rifle shell could hit multiple exposed internal sections of a target mech.
But since the indirectly hit sections are further from the explosion they get far less shrapnel to crit components.
That could result in a lot of crits so the rifles truly becomes effective.

How about these crit chances for splash damage?

Light Rifle 1- 30% 2- 15% 3- 6%
Medium Rifle 1- 40% 2- 25% 3- 15%
Heavy Rifle 1- 50% 2- 35% 3- 25%

If you don't like the idea of splash damage or + crit chance how about this?

Spoiler

Internal structure damage to any unarmored section of a target hit by a Rifle shell.
First try at extra structural damage for Rifles. With size increase you get 5 damage to internal structure in addition to the base damage.
But remember that the rifles have a -2.5 damage against armor.

DAT = damage against armored target. DUT= damage against unarmored target
Light Rifle- 0.5 DAT / 3+5=8 DUT
Medium- 3.5 DAT / 6+10=16 DUT
Heavy- 6.5 DAT / 9+15=24 DUT

I don't know if this is too powerfull or not. Chance to cause crits follow the normal standard.
In other words same chance to crit as a laser.

Shell Velocity

Spoiler

I'll take a crack at balancing AC and Rifle velocities.
Since rifle shells have low velocity but the heavier the rifle the longer the range i'll increase velocity with calibre to keep accuracy to a reasonable level.

AC velocity and range for convient comparison.
Weapon - Velocity & optimal range.
AC2- 2000 & 720
AC5- 1150 & 620
AC10- 950 & 450
AC20- 650 & 270
Light Rifle - 500? & 360
Medium Rifle - 650? & 450
Heavy Rifle - 750? & 540

I put question marks on velocity because quite frankly i'm not certain if it's too slow or fast.

But won't the rifles become superior to LBX AC's and MG's?

Spoiler

LB-X AC's would still have these qualities that makes them capable of competing with rifles.
- Higher firerate.
- No penalty to armor penetration.
- Higher velocity.
- Longer optimal and maximum range in almost all cases. The Heavy rifle and LBX AC10 are equals in range.
- Up close the LBX tends to hit the same section.
So when they crit an unarmored section at close range it's chances of destroying all the components in that section is much better than even the Heavy Rifle.
- Rifles has less shells per tonn of ammo.
- Unless i'm mistaken each LBX pellet has a chance to crit components so it's capable of causing far more crits than any of the rifles.

MG's have their own advantages.
- Light as a feather. At least the clan MG's are light.
- Loads of ammo.
- No heat at all.
- Very easy to hit the enemy. Hitscan weapon.
- Firerate is tremendous when you got 3-4 MG's.
- The sound effect is OPly awesome.

How do we explain this lorewise?
AC shells would be more of the todays real life modern armor piercing variety while Rifle shells are more of brute force explosive nature.
High Explosive shells causes a lot of havoc amongst unprotected components because of all the fragments flying all over the place.
I'd say that ain't much change lorewise. AC's still have all the advantages mentioned in the lore.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 31 August 2015 - 08:02 AM.

[TheArisen]

Good ideas, this way rifles could be useful but quite different from ACs.

[Nik Reaper]

Hm, how to phrase this... what lights need is a real ballistic weapon with more damage per shot than the AC2 but about the same amount of tons and ammo.

Lights don't really need a dps weapon as it is too dangerous to stare at the enemy to do damage, they can use PPCs but they are too hot for constant usage even with many DHS , so that is what they need a 4~5 pin point damage bali weapon that can be boated ( 2 on a light ) but as we have AC5 at 8t+ammo ( 10t to make it worthwhile to take ) we would need something about 4~5 tons per weapon and 2~3 tons of ammo for 2 guns , the down side might be slower rate of fire and less range than AC5.

As OPs suggestion, a longer range pinpoint crit seeking weapon is kinda desirable, but at that point unless it's 1 heat like the gauss you would rather blow up the compartment with lasers and extra DHS, for higher dps with the left over weight, rather than crit seek with a low dps ( against armor ) weapon.

I know it sucks but with out a RAC ( single one for lights ) or such a 4~5 ton low heat bali. weapon doing 4~5 damage per shot at shorter ranges there is no point going bali on a light, as is seen if taking an ac2 for fun..
We kinda need a heavy small cannon class, like an ac2 that reduced range and rate of fire for damage.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 28 August 2015 - 01:54 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

Thank you guys. I thought this thread would be buried too. This will keep it around for a day longer at least.....i hope.
If you got any feedback on crit chance, firerate, velocity i'd appriciate it. I'm totally in the dark when it comes to firerate especially.

Nik Reaper, on 28 August 2015 - 01:50 AM, said:

Hm, how to phrase this... what lights need is a real ballistic weapon with more damage per shot than the AC2 but about the same amount of tons and ammo.

Lights don't really need a dps weapon as it is too dangerous to stare at the enemy to do damage, they can use PPCs but they are too hot for constant usage even with many DHS , so that is what they need a 4~5 pin point damage bali weapon that can be boated ( 2 on a light ) but as we have AC5 at 8t+ammo ( 10t to make it worthwhile to take ) we would need something about 4~5 tons per weapon and 2~3 tons of ammo for 2 guns , the down side might be slower rate of fire and less range than AC5.

I think the Light Autocannon 2/5 fits that description fairly well. Link- http://www.sarna.net...ight_Autocannon
One of the goals i had when i made this version of the rifle was that it would not be necessary to boat it to make it effective no matter the caliber.
Even a single Light Rifle should be decent threat to a damaged mech with exposed internals.

Nik Reaper, on 28 August 2015 - 01:50 AM, said:

As OPs suggestion, a longer range pinpoint crit seeking weapon is kinda desirable, but at that point unless it's 1 heat like the gauss you would rather blow up the compartment with lasers and extra DHS, for higher dps with the left over weight, rather than crit seek with a low dps ( against armor ) weapon.

Light rifle has 1 heat, medium 2 and heavy 4 according to Sarna. So they are efficient heatwise. Especially since they have a lower firerate than the AC's.

Most would go for a bundle of lasers to take out the whole section of the mech rather than take out the internal components such as weapons, ammo and heatsinks like you say.
But when you face an angry heavily injured assault mech with exposed internals 1 of these rifles might do the job better than a bundle of lasers.
It because an Atlas has 42 hitpoints of internal structure. Using lasers to get through all that could take a decently long time if he torso twists a lot.
But with a single rifle shell you have a good chance to remove big guns that the Atlas might have in that torso. All it takes is a single shell.


Oh yeah.....i got really good news. I just figured out 2 possibly 3 new ways to calculate critical hit chance for the Rifles.
I'll add them to the OP when i'm done doing the math.

[TheArisen]

Good stuff Spleen.

[Spleenslitta]

I've added another question in the poll and 2 new ways to roll for critical damage is now explained in the original post.

TheArisen, on 28 August 2015 - 09:28 AM, said:

Good stuff Spleen.

Thanks. Do you happen to know of anyone with a good head for mathematics?
I want to figure out how many crits an average hit from a Hardcore Shrapnel shell would work out.

[Alistair Winter]

I'd definitely go with structure damage, but to be honest I'd prefer a flat bonus to structure damage for the LBX and MGs too. I don't like the way crits work in this game. Instead of a penalty to armour, just let it do x amount of damage and then add the structure damage bonus to that.

How about letting the heavy rifle do splash damage to represent some sort of large internal explosion, while letting the light rifle do full damage to a single component?

As for how to calculate how big the bonus to structure damage should be, I think you have to do a few tests with the RVN-4X vs RVN-2X or the Blackjack 1X vs Blackjack 1, for example. Figure out how long it takes for them to destroy a medium mech's CT with only lasers, and then replace lasers with a combination of lasers and light rifles. Ideally, it should only take slightly longer to destroy a mech with a combination of lasers and light rifles compared to only light rifles. I don't really want to do the math, because this is just a hypothetical discussion anyway. But laser boats should be somewhat better at attacking fresh targets, while mechs with a combination of lasers and light rifles should be somewhat better at attacking damaged targets. The difference should not be too big, otherwise mechs with light rifles are too vulnerable in 1 v1 engagements.

That's my little take on it. Very vague, but I never spend much time looking at exact numbers in MWO anyway, unless I'm uncertain whether something would actually work.

[Spleenslitta]

Alistair Winter, on 28 August 2015 - 12:08 PM, said:

I'd definitely go with structure damage, but to be honest I'd prefer a flat bonus to structure damage for the LBX and MGs too. I don't like the way crits work in this game. Instead of a penalty to armour, just let it do x amount of damage and then add the structure damage bonus to that.

How about letting the heavy rifle do splash damage to represent some sort of large internal explosion, while letting the light rifle do full damage to a single component?

As for how to calculate how big the bonus to structure damage should be, I think you have to do a few tests with the RVN-4X vs RVN-2X or the Blackjack 1X vs Blackjack 1, for example. Figure out how long it takes for them to destroy a medium mech's CT with only lasers, and then replace lasers with a combination of lasers and light rifles. Ideally, it should only take slightly longer to destroy a mech with a combination of lasers and light rifles compared to only light rifles. I don't really want to do the math, because this is just a hypothetical discussion anyway. But laser boats should be somewhat better at attacking fresh targets, while mechs with a combination of lasers and light rifles should be somewhat better at attacking damaged targets. The difference should not be too big, otherwise mechs with light rifles are too vulnerable in 1 v1 engagements.

That's my little take on it. Very vague, but I never spend much time looking at exact numbers in MWO anyway, unless I'm uncertain whether something would actually work.

Extra internal structure damage. It should be much easier for PGI to balance. I'll work on it since i want good alternatives for all ideas.
I still prefer crit seeker rifles since they sound so wild. You never know the mood of the shell in the firing chamber.
As for heavy rifles doing splash damage to internals. I figured all rifles would do splash damage actually.

When it comes to mechs equipped with rifles being too vurnerable i don't worry at all.
Reason is that i wanted them to be weapons worked best alongside other weapons that stripped armor first.
Like MG's are beasts when they get under the armor.

I want the Rifles to be like that but without the need to boat them. They are supplementary weapons only.

[Spleenslitta]

First try at extra structural damage for Rifles. With size increase you get 5 damage to internal structure in addition to the base damage.
But remember that the rifles have a -2.5 damage against armor.

DAT = damage against armored target. DUT= damage against unarmored target
Light Rifle- 0.5 DAT / 3+5=8 DUT
Medium- 3.5 DAT / 6+10=16 DUT
Heavy- 6.5 DAT / 9+15=24 DUT

I don't know if this is too powerfull or not. Chance to cause crits follow the normal standard.
In other words same chance to crit as a laser. I'll add this to the OP.

[Nik Reaper]

Yeah, I would agree that light rifles and ACs are exactly what we need, and if we got to 3068 , we would have light engines and IS ermid and there would be balance X) .
Oh and by that point we would have MG arrays , good times .

Edited by Nik Reaper, 29 August 2015 - 04:11 AM.

[TheArisen]

Yeah I want the timeline moved up too.... /sigh.

[Hashocky]

I really just want to fit more canons on my mechs.

[Spleenslitta]

Nik Reaper, on 29 August 2015 - 03:49 AM, said:

Yeah, I would agree that light rifles and ACs are exactly what we need, and if we got to 3068 , we would have light engines and IS ermid and there would be balance X) .
Oh and by that point we would have MG arrays , good times .

MG arrays. That's a promising weapon indeed. Speaking of MG's any feedback on the Hardcore Shrapnel crit method?
The max amount of crits this method can cause sounds good but i think i might have aimed a bit low. Maybe double the amount of shrapnel per 3 points of damage would be better?

Regardless if the Rifles are put into MWO i hope their sound makes a bigger BOOM sound than anything else.

[wanderer]

Rifles are canonically available, and honestly, you could just halve the damage reduction vs. armor to have yourself an easily fit MWO ballistic weapon series. Adjust ammo the same way you have ACs and they'll still have lower ammo/ton than AC's, tweak velocity and give them 2x maximum range.

It'll also mean the Magshot in later tech still has a go, since it'd have Gauss-style damage falloff, and of course much later the LAC/Protomech AC.

[Spleenslitta]

wanderer, on 03 September 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

Rifles are canonically available, and honestly, you could just halve the damage reduction vs. armor to have yourself an easily fit MWO ballistic weapon series. Adjust ammo the same way you have ACs and they'll still have lower ammo/ton than AC's, tweak velocity and give them 2x maximum range.

It'll also mean the Magshot in later tech still has a go, since it'd have Gauss-style damage falloff, and of course much later the LAC/Protomech AC.

You necroed my rifle suggestion thread Wanderer? Why.....thank you. XD
There are several problems with this suggestion. No offence meant. But i totally agree with the ammunition adjustments.

1st problem. The developers want to stick close to the lore.
That's why i made the Rifles this way while sticking to the TT game stats almost perfectly except for that 0.5 damage adjustment to the armor penalty....
...that was mostly since even MG bullets can scrath paint off armor plating.
The rifles became outdated was because of less range than AC's, ammo capacity, low velocity, no special ammo and just had problems penetrating the armor plating.

2nd problem. Let's say we got the armor penalty halved. That means a light rifle would do 1.5 damage against armor and 3 against internal structure.
Even if the range was doubled so a light rifle had the exact same range as the AC2 that light rifle still would not be worth it's weight.
Reason is quite simple.
- It's firerate would still be lower than the AC2.
- If shell velocity is tweaked it will still have a lower firerate and velocity than the AC2 which means there will be targeting problems.
If you miss with an AC2 it's no biggie because of it's firerate, but rifles don't have high firerates. If we make the rifles firerate faster the rifles might as well be AC's.
- Even if it hits an unarmored section of a target it's only 50% more damage than an AC2 shell.
But with less firerate it becomes lacklustre even when you compare it with the AC2 which is currently the one of the 2 worst weapons in MWO alongside the flamer.

Another reason why i made the rifles like this is because i want them to have a niche for themselves.
Look at the MG's for example. They are typical niche weapons. They're nearly useless against armor.
But once that armor is gone 2-3-4 MG's can really tear apart those internals thanks to their high firerate, higher critical chance and that 1350% critical damage multiplier.

I wanted rifles to be able to do what MG's can at longer ranges in just a single shell. Nearly useless against armor for their weight but once the armor comes off....

Edited by Spleenslitta, 26 October 2015 - 09:10 AM.

[Xilacnog]

Well, they could change the AC2 tonnage to 4 or 3.

Either by reducing the tonnage on the weapon itself or by giving quirks to the mechs. Light Mechs get a 50% reduction in AC2 weight. Medium Mechs get a 70 or 75 reduction...

I don't care much about the lore, since JJs for instance don't have the same range as the TT rules, same as the speed rating for each engine, if I'm not mistaken..

[7R1P0D]

Imma necro this just because the huge gap between ac2s and Mgs in both weight and role has been really annoying me

I really think that just completely removing the -3 damage penalty light rifles have (seriously, how is this a thing when nobody bats an eye at MGs working just fine against super advanced mech armor) would be perfectly acceptable. A lot of the changes in the game already have a huge impact on how it plays compared to the tabletop, like ac20s only having under 2x the damage per second of ac2s instead of 10x the damage per second of ac2s they should have (and the game being much better because of it)

Right now as a light mech or light medium, or just a mech that can fit a couple of ballistics somewhere without them being your primary (like the battlemasters), you can basically choose between putting on some MGs that are useless 90% of the time unless your force yourself to be a brawler at super close range or an AC2 or two that weigh way too much and have too much of a niche role to be used as anything other than a primary support weapon at super long range.

Making light rifles fill the role of being a medium range (360 meter effective) weapon that has slightly more dps than an ac2 and can be paired well with mechs that run medium/large pulse lasers but also have a ballistic slot that they want to fill to increase their heat efficiency without entirely turning their medium/large pulse lasers into secondary weapons for their AC2s or force themselves to rush into 100 meter ranges at all times in order for all the MGs and MG ammo they bothered mounting to not just be a waste of tonnage

To give light rifles their own drawbacks instead of just making them a gun that does 1.5 the dps of an ac2 at half the range for half the weight, you can take the fact that in the tabletop they have pretty pathetic potential damage per ton of ammo and make them have 30 rounds of ammo per ton for a total of 90 potential damage per ton (compared to the ac2's 150 damage per ton and the ac10s 200 damage per ton), meaning that mechs mounting them have to sacrifice the tonnage they saved by taking a light rifle over an ac2 by filling their mech with almost twice as much ammo, which has it's own drawbacks


TLDR: completely removing the -3 damage penalty on light rifles to make them a viable and needed addition to the game would be less of a drastic step away from the tabletop than the massive buffs the lower caliber autocannon weapons already have (and makes sense realistically since MGs have no problem dealing with mech armor), and making the light rifle be a shorter ranged higher damage version of the ac2 that requires you to risk filling your mech with tons of ammo because of it's low damage per ton of ammo ratio could add an interesting risk vs reward factor to using such an "outdated" weapon

Edited by 7R1P0D, 21 February 2016 - 07:12 AM.

[VinJade]

question;
lol, Since when does MWO creators and 90%+ players actually give a damn about lore?
This weapon actually looks like it would fit real well in MWO.