61 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

make the flamer a thermal weapon like it should be. it should be able to saturate heat sinks so that the enemy cannot fire without exploding. ppcs should have similar effects. while they are at it throw in inferno srms.

[monk]

How about a fun new toy that does something useful. While recognizing that being "stun locked" is probably the least fun thing that can ever happen in a game, we can still make flamers a tactical and potential viable weapon option.

- method 1. Flamers fire a burst of plasma. This plasma burns and emits smoke on whatever it hits. If it hits a mech, the amount of plasma making contact will determine how much heat is generated to the enemy mech. This heat is heavily front loaded, but then has a slow over time effect as well that keeps the heat on the burning mech high as the plasma cools and eventually dissipates. Plasma on enemy mechs or the field (buildings, ground, etc.) will continue to burn and emit smoke until it cools, allowing it to be used for tactical maneuvers as well (a real point to thermal vision finally?). The more plasma the more heat. Flamers apply minimal heat to the host mech. Plasma bursts can be up to 2 seconds. Flamers have a cooldown of 20 seconds. If a flamer is destroyed whilst firing there is a high chance it will explode causing damage to the host mech equivalent to an AC5 shell exploding (modifying this to be more like the large flamer rules). Flamers can shut down an enemy mech - there is no heat cap for flamers, however, due to the extremely long cooldown period, the ability for a single mech to "stun-lock" an enemy is minimized. Water will near instantly cool burning plasma, but will cause a steam cloud.

- method 2. Same as method 1, except flamers use ammo and can be fired continuously with no need to wait for cooldowns (i.e. treat them more like heavy flamers). The longer a flamer is held down, the more heat that is applied to the host mech (initially very low, but over time increases). Plasma acts as method 1, emiting smoke and creating flames until it cools. Flamer ammo explodes if hit by crits.

[kapusta11]

What do you mean flamer buff? Are you suggesting adding counter to current meta? Like in rock paper scissors? This is an outrage!

Edited by kapusta11, 15 September 2015 - 11:45 PM.

[Lily from animove]

just remove the idiotic feature that flamers can heatup the mech it usses them to a degree it can overhat. how cna a SINGLE flamer overheat a mech? Thats ridiculous.

let a flamer emit and be dissipated as a single DHS does and the entire issue is done.

[LordNothing]

ultimately the problem boils down to how to avoid perma stun in whoever happens to be a victim of a flamer boat. in the books flamers were more or less traditional flame throwers that use fuel. mechwarrior has always made flamers an energy weapon, using the bit of technobabble about it being plasma from the reactor which is always available.

the compromise is to have each flamer have a 'tank' that refills over time, but ultimately limits the flamer to short blasts. a flamer might fire for 2-5 seconds to run dry and might take twice as long to fill the tank. you dont have to worry about reclassifying it as another type of weapon, or create a new type of hardpoint or ammo for it. you can probibly lower the base heat and use ghost heat to impede boating. you can also double or tripple up on crit space (like how mw4 had it take up 2 slots in its sized hardpoint system). those are some basic ideas, but i think it would add a much needed tactical aspect to the game.

[Mcgral18]

kapusta11, on 15 September 2015 - 11:39 PM, said:

What do you mean flamer buff? Are you suggesting adding counter to current meta? Like in rock paper scissors? This is an outrage!

Well, not so much a counter as not worthless damage dealer (which is the only role I see).

Heat mainly as a side effect. I'll try to get some testing done.


The current 90% heat cap prevents much of a stunlock.

[Duke Nedo]

Flamers are weapons for which it could make sense to have diminishing returns balance them instead of exponential heat buildup? I.e. two flamers would not produce twice as much damage/heat on the target as one flamer does, but rather 1.5 times as much, three flamers would produce 1.75 times the damage/heat of one flamer etc.

For a traditional flamer that would make some sense, two flames don't burn hotter than one flame sort of, but for released plasma that may be different... but I am sure it's possible to come up with an explanation that sounds somewhat reasonable, like it's limited by the temperature of the plasma and not the amount of plasma. Whatever...

In any case, if they introduce some kind of mechanism like that they don't need to worry about boating, then they wouldn't need to be afraid of making 1-2 flamers actually useful...

[FupDup]

Duke Nedo, on 16 September 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

Flamers are weapons for which it could make sense to have diminishing returns balance them instead of exponential heat buildup? I.e. two flamers would not produce twice as much damage/heat on the target as one flamer does, but rather 1.5 times as much, three flamers would produce 1.75 times the damage/heat of one flamer etc.

For a traditional flamer that would make some sense, two flames don't burn hotter than one flame sort of, but for released plasma that may be different... but I am sure it's possible to come up with an explanation that sounds somewhat reasonable, like it's limited by the temperature of the plasma and not the amount of plasma. Whatever...

In any case, if they introduce some kind of mechanism like that they don't need to worry about boating, then they wouldn't need to be afraid of making 1-2 flamers actually useful...

Please no more "Ghost" mechanics.

Flamers are already limited by several factors:
1. Extremely tiny range, further exasperated by not having an extended max range at all.
2. Require continuous facetime to be used at all, zero frontloaded/upfront alpha strike ability.
3. Require the user to sacrifice energy hardpoints that could normally be spent on weapons that actually kill people (unless we go with McGral's big DPS increase suggestion).


Normal weapons don't have diminishing returns, so why should Flamers? When I fire 2 Medium Lasers, I don't deal 8.5 damage, I deal 10 damage instead of 5.

[LordNothing]

Mcgral18, on 16 September 2015 - 04:31 AM, said:

Well, not so much a counter as not worthless damage dealer (which is the only role I see).

Heat mainly as a side effect. I'll try to get some testing done.


The current 90% heat cap prevents much of a stunlock.

still kind of a stun even with the cap. you might not force a shut down but you do really limit its weapon options. this then opens the mech up for attack from a team mate. flamers just need to get it to 90% faster without overheating the mech using it worse than the target.

[Dawnstealer]

I love flamers for the terror factor and the fact a lot of players run their builds as hot as possible and a little extra heat causes them to shut down. The problem with flamers is that you will gain heat faster than your target and, unlike your target, your heat keeps going up until you shut down.

They need to take the cap off of how much heat you can dump into a target, need to make it so that you can light fires to the ground around you, even if it only lasts for a few seconds, and need to turn down the dial on how much heat it dumps into your own mech.

[Duke Nedo]

FupDup, on 16 September 2015 - 05:52 AM, said:

Please no more "Ghost" mechanics.

Flamers are already limited by several factors:
1. Extremely tiny range, further exasperated by not having an extended max range at all.
2. Require continuous facetime to be used at all, zero frontloaded/upfront alpha strike ability.
3. Require the user to sacrifice energy hardpoints that could normally be spent on weapons that actually kill people (unless we go with McGral's big DPS increase suggestion).


Normal weapons don't have diminishing returns, so why should Flamers? When I fire 2 Medium Lasers, I don't deal 8.5 damage, I deal 10 damage instead of 5.

Lots of weapons you can boat has diminishing returns, no? Or exponential drawback, but it's about the same ****. Just trying to help. If it must remain boatable we can only hope for a change that does not produce weird stuff when 10 + are boated... Just saying diminishing returns could open up possibilities for equipping a single flamer.

[Mister Blastman]

For your viewing pleasure! Flamers... in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries! Enjoy!



Three 'mechs, three kills. The first one takes a while. The two after do not.

(be sure to watch fullscreen in HD to get the full, authentic experience)

Edited by Mister Blastman, 16 September 2015 - 07:04 AM.

[Xoco]

If it can hit multiple parts at the same time, I'd be pretty happy. Having 3 or 4 of them hitting 4 parts at once, each doing 2 or 3 dps wouldn't be so bad.

[Soulstrom]

I have run a 12 Flamer Dire, named "Godzilla." It works just fine when you run three banks of flamers on chain fire.

Also one of my hunchbacks runs 3 flamers on it and I get several kills. Flamers are not horrible, they just take a serious amount of skill and luck to pull of effectively.

[Mister Blastman]

Soulstrom, on 16 September 2015 - 08:03 AM, said:

Also one of my hunchbacks runs 3 flamers on it and I get several kills. Flamers are not horrible, they just take a serious amount of skill and luck to pull of effectively.

No, they are...

http://tts.imtranslator.net/X10x

(click to play)

[nehebkau]

Flamer should be a zero heat weapon -- that is all.

[Mcgral18]

LordNothing, on 16 September 2015 - 06:18 AM, said:

still kind of a stun even with the cap. you might not force a shut down but you do really limit its weapon options. this then opens the mech up for attack from a team mate. flamers just need to get it to 90% faster without overheating the mech using it worse than the target.

I'll try getting some testing tonight.

How long to become overheated with a 20 heatsink Nova via hostile Flamers, and how long to overheat with your own flamers. Maybe Hot and Cold maps.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Any flamer rework has to account for 2 things, PGI won't let flamers disable or shut down a mech and it can't blind people.

As such it cannot remain a continuous weapon and it must be competative with the much longer ranged medium laser and CERSL.

I'd advocate we take a page out of TT and make it a sudden burst of plasma. I'm thinking it ought to do 2-3 instantaneous damage to 2-3 components and temporarily disable a heat sink for like 1-2 seconds.

That way it'd be a useful damage dealing weapon, it can't blind people,. and while it can hinder cooling it can't shut someone down. In short, it's everything on PGI's requirement list and a different sort of energy weapon for the rest of us.

[Mister Blastman]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 16 September 2015 - 09:07 AM, said:

Any flamer rework has to account for 2 things, PGI won't let flamers disable or shut down a mech and it can't blind people.

I think they should be able to shut down a 'mech.

If you manage to get close enough to a gauss boat, and they are dumb enough to take no heatsinks (what gauss boat does?), then you absolutely should be able to roast them alive in their cockpit.

Why?

Because anyone who has tangoed with a gauss boat up close knows it WILL be a painful experience and you are nearly guaranteed to have a red torso (armor at least, maybe even internals exposed) before you kill them.

Flamers should shut down 'mechs. There should be a clear reason to use them over long range weapons. Not shutting down 'mechs is a waste of time. There is no point using a weapon that does damage at ultra close range without some other clear advantage to it.

[Soldier91]

Weapon Matches Fired Hit Accuracy Time Equip. Damage FLAMER 18 3,728 2,028 54.40% 01:56:33 754 MACHINE GUN 36 165,178 66,350 40.17% 03:03:46 6,024
I should probably replace my flamers with heatsinks but it shoots giant fireballs out of my mech I don't know why I like to do that.

One time I threw 3 flamers next to my PPC on my panther match got down to me and another guy in an heavy mech with a PPC spent 2-3 minutes running a circle around him with flamers didn't come close to hurting him or getting him to shut down when he shot his PPC or other weapons. He had a few other things on him he couldn't hit with had 2-3 people on my team telling me to go back to ppc range flamers will never kill him, didn't have a chance. I'm trying to see if I can ever get a kill with this thing. Took a hugin's head armor off and got it orange with small pulses this morning, decided to use the flamer held it on there for like half a minute the guy sprung back from AFK to shoot me so I had to finish him with the pulses.

Edited by Soldier91, 16 September 2015 - 12:56 PM.