29 replies to this topic

[Livewyr]

I think most can agree that without weapon balance, mech balance is impossible.

An idea that was mentioned in another thread, but not the point of the thread:
Reduce clan overrange by half, and return all weapons to their TT values.

Across the board.
Give clan Erppcs their 15 pinpoint, but drop their over range to 50 percent.

Clan Gauss would be debatable, as gauss rifles were meant to be sniper weapons. Evidenced by them retaining 3x range. Perhaps the balance could be to keep their explosion chance at 90 but drop IS gauss explosion chance to 45%

Cut the over range of clan lasers to 50% and give their burn times comparability to IS lasers.
IS medium lasers would max out at 540, Clan Er med would max out at 675, which would retain the flavor of clan weapon superior tech, but the Gulf of difference would be considerably smaller.

Missiles have no over range, so they would not be affected.

Acs and uacs could be normalized, giving both sides a magazine shot (tweak the rate for balance) which would drastically increase the TTK from not having an AC20 remove armor from a single component no matter what.

(side note, I don't think MGs should not do any damage at all to armored components... only unarmored and exposed components)

Lasers need a tweak, because right now they are just straight up better than ACs (except gauss), especially at range. One lore based idea that I had was that regular acs Er lasers would have damage drop off if maintained on a single component. (idea from the reasoning behind the pulse lasers; ablative armor evaporating and defusing followup beam)

Much of the remaining overlap would be compensated by the lack of customization of omni mechs.

Thoughts?

[Rebas Kradd]

Would close the gap for sure. Clan laser alpha would still need more nerfbat, though, especially if you shorten the burn time (which I would keep, given that burn time was meant as a distinguishing flavor for Clans).

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 13 September 2015 - 08:32 AM.

[Livewyr]

Would the laser change (ablative diffusion) not be enough to put a crimp on laser vomit meta?

[Rebas Kradd]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 08:38 AM, said:

Would the laser change (ablative diffusion) not be enough to put a crimp on laser vomit meta?

Problem is that it has the same effect as simply reducing the damage value: weakening its power as a single standalone weapon, which is the primary reason they don't just reduce damage on boatable weapons.

[kilgor]

Look at the Solaris VII rules and the weapons are mostly compliant with it. The main variation was the heat reduction from ERLLs. The heat scale was supposed to be one of the balancing factors but it never got implemented.

Edited by kilgor, 13 September 2015 - 09:01 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Sounds like a major buff at close & medium range. Ouch.

[Livewyr]

True that it would decrease the pinpoint damage, but I think that would make it more likely to be diversified because.

1: Lasers would have that pinpoint accuracy for dealing with long range (long range makes it harder to keep damage on one component anyways)
2: Ballistics would have the ability to put all damage into one component. (with a bit of skill)

It would make lasers more attractive at range, but much less attractive at short range, instead of working just as well at close range as they do at long range.

[Mcgral18]

I support the halved Extended Range, but I'd start with just that. No damage or duration buffs.

Tweak few things at a time.


My full list of recommendations:

Mcgral18, on 12 September 2015 - 06:16 PM, said:

Well, all that text and it can be summed up pretty easily.
TL;DR?

• Don't NegaQuirk bad robots. Nega-Quirk God Tier robots
  
• Normalize XL engines
  
• Give STD engines significant Structure bonuses (CT at minimum, possibly ST)
  
• Buff SRMs, LRMs, MGs
  
• ******* buff Flamers
  
• Change the 2x Extended laser range for Clan Lasers to 1.5x (as a starting point)

I also feel MGs shouldn't be nerfed further, they should be buffed on damage, back to 1 DPS, and the CoF removed for the isMG.

Details inside that thread, click the arrow to see them.


Can't support that ERPPC buff.

Edited by Mcgral18, 13 September 2015 - 08:48 AM.

[Livewyr]

Duke Nedo, how?

(sorry I can't quote and edit very well, I'm on my phone at a function)

[El Bandito]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 08:27 AM, said:

Thoughts?

15 damage CERPPCs will make my Whale very happy. 60 PPFLD at 660 range? Evil.

Cutting down Clan laser duration means they will do that much higher DPS on hit. I suppose all depends on just how much duration that is going to be cut. People will stil laser vomit though.

Edited by El Bandito, 13 September 2015 - 08:49 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 08:48 AM, said:

Duke Nedo, how?

(sorry I can't quote and edit very well, I'm on my phone at a function)

Shorter durations, every mech can mount an ERPPC (15 PP FLD makes them powerful)

900M LPL, with a 2/3 second duration? Brutal.

[Livewyr]

McGral,

1: If you just decrease the over range of the Clan ERPPCS, it would become flatly inferior to the IS ERPPCS. (same heat for the same (real) damage and 75% range. Clans don't get a cooler PPC option.

2: MGs are already ridiculous with internal components (which makes since) but they should not be strong against armor, for the same reason that firing a 50cal at a Bradley fighting vehicle is pointless until they drop the ramp. Having .5 ton (or .25 ton) weapons able to do that much damage right of the bat is insane. Especially if you can focus 6 of them on a single location.

3: Will talk about engines and stuff in another thread.

Keep in mind, I said comparable duration, not equal. (intentionally vague to decide on what is comparable while regarding their current durations incompatible with such reduced range.

[Mcgral18]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

McGral,

1: If you just decrease the over range of the Clan ERPPCS, it would become flatly inferior to the IS ERPPCS. (same heat for the same (real) damage and 75% range. Clans don't get a cooler PPC option.

2: MGs are already ridiculous with internal components (which makes since) but they should not be strong against armor, for the same reason that firing a 50cal at a Bradley fighting vehicle is pointless until they drop the ramp. Having .5 ton (or .25 ton) weapons able to do that much damage right of the bat is insane. Especially if you can focus 6 of them on a single location.

3: Will talk about engines and stuff in another thread.

The Extended range is pointless when the normal range is 810M.


MGs are closer to the Gau-8. Mech armour is also ablative, so anything WILL damage it, but nothing will penetrate.
MGs use volume to remove the armour slowly, rather than heat, HEAP, or heavy kinetic force to do that. It's just as effective, it just takes more.

[FupDup]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

2: MGs are already ridiculous with internal components (which makes since) but they should not be strong against armor, for the same reason that firing a 50cal at a Bradley fighting vehicle is pointless until they drop the ramp. Having .5 ton (or .25 ton) weapons able to do that much damage right of the bat is insane. Especially if you can focus 6 of them on a single location.

A 50cal gun isn't going to require even remotely as much tonnage as the Battletech Machine Gun does.

Wikipedia indicates to me that the M2 Browning weighs a total of 58 kilograms with its full tripod and T&E. The Battletech Machine Gun weighs 500 kilograms, which is almost 9 times as heavy! Expecting those two weapons to have the same lethality is ridiculous, especially in the very distant future in space.


...Or we could forget shitass definitions of "realism" entirely and just go for fun/balance in a space robot video game.

[Livewyr]

Mcgral, fub,

Touche, but in the game consideration of fun, what gives the small laser a reason to exist? same range, same weight, less dps, more heat. (one could make be mg group a toggle to fire constantly, while firing all other weapons. one could not do that with small lasers)

small lasers do not get a damage bonus against components.

[FupDup]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 09:17 AM, said:

Mcgral, fub,

Touche, but in the game consideration of fun, what gives the small laser a reason to exist? same range, same weight, less dps, more heat. (one could make be mg group a toggle to fire constantly, while firing all other weapons. one could not do that with small lasers)

small lasers do not get a damage bonus against components.

The Inner Sphere Small Laser is currently a sub-par weapon as well... (Clan ERSL though is quite good).

Beyond that, the biggest benefit is having a higher upfront damage value. This means less facetime and/or an easier time concentrating the damage. They also have infinite ammo, and since they don't need ammo they have a slightly lower initial tonnage investment (e.g. 2 MGs + 0.5 tons ammo = 1.5 tons, 2 SL is 1 ton). Lastly, they require an energy hardpoint instead of ballistic, which means different mechs can equip them.

[Mcgral18]

Livewyr, on 13 September 2015 - 09:17 AM, said:

Mcgral, fub,

Touche, but in the game consideration of fun, what gives the small laser a reason to exist? same range, same weight, less dps, more heat. (one could make be mg group a toggle to fire constantly, while firing all other weapons. one could not do that with small lasers)

small lasers do not get a damage bonus against components.

Smalls are in a bad place.


Range boosts, damage boosts (4 for Small, 5 for SPL? Or just go for parity with Clams, at a range disadvantage, or vice versa).

Could cut durations way down. 0.1s duration for isSPLs, 0.4 for isSL? One of the above buffs alongside that.



Just as Flamers could be made useful, so could Smalls. It just takes some tweaking.

[Livewyr]

I think we are just going to have to disagree on this front. (I don't like a weapon being better than or on par with a similar weapon, and then having a powerful boost when armor is removed. Especially in the face of the suggested ablative diffusion for regular and Er lasers. Longevity is of little concern in normal matches.)

Back to the original topic.: TT values with 1.5 range for clans...

[Felbombling]

Take the words Extended and Range out of the Clan vocabulary. Re-imagine them as brutal infighters, which does fit the lore when things like the Grand Melee or Trials are taken into consideration. Let the Clans live and die with the superior tonnage and space savings of their weapon systems, but knock their range down to that of the Inner Sphere for all weapons. They'd still have the edge, especially with their XL engines.

I've invested money into multiple Clan Mechs, but for the sake of game balance, I'd STILL be perfectly fine with that nerf.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Would give some better balance, though most battles happen within 400 meters. I probably do less than 10% of my match damage beyond that even with long range loadouts...