223 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

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The very weight and size of the gauss plus ammo is a big nerf in it's own right. The fact that you can fire two at once and equip four on a DWF was never meant to be. Else the TRO would have it.

Never mind that there's a canonical Clan 'Mech that packs 4, even -five- Gauss rifles.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Annihilator

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Annihilator C2 Apparently based on the ANH-1G, this variant only uses Clan technology. The 'Mech's top speed was 32.4 km/h and the armor protection was reduced, but four Gauss Rifles backed up by an ER PPC in the center torso and a head mounted ER Small Laser provided withering firepower for defensive engagements. Ten tons of ammunition kept the Gauss Rifles fed through the longest engagements. To make room for all these weapons, the C2 used an Endo Steel internal structure. Integrated CASE protected the arms and torsos from Gauss Rifle explosions. BV (2.0) = 2,722^[12][

Annihilator Bryan "Gausszilla" Apparently based on the Annihilator C2, this customized variant carried a fifth Gauss Rifle in addition to the standard Gauss Rifle layout, with altogether only eight tons of ammunition. It was the customized personal 'Mech of early 29th century Clan Ghost Bear Star Colonel Bryan Kabrinski, and apparently a unique modification given the note (as of 3074) that the 'Mech was "lost to history".^[13] Known as "Gausszilla" it its time,^[13] it is obviously a nod to the somewhat famous non-canonical Gausszilla design by Bryan Nystul but it should be noted that it is indeed a slightly different design: It has 14 tons of armor (instead of 11.5), double heat sinks (instead of regular heat sinks), less ammunition (8 instead of 9 tons), and no secondary weapons. BV (2.0) = 2, 455^[14]

[Tombstoner]

cdlord, on 05 October 2015 - 02:26 PM, said:

How is that any different from now?

The issue with every heat system I have seen to date has to do with the difference between instantaneous heat spikes (PGIs sytem) and accumulation of heat after 10 seconds of dissipation (TT). The heat effects everyone lists last for how long? As presented i presume it's a sliding scale.Alpha repeatedly and you eventually grind to a halt/shutdown. then slowly you regain movement as heat drops. This leads to some very jerky all or nothing mechanics some may find jarring and annoying.

The heat capacity system PGI built is the result of PGI realizing the Awesome would auto shut down if it fired 3 pp's because 3 PPC+ moving would make you generate 31 heat and the TT scale thats auto shut down. Except PGI omitted a TT rule that heat effects only occur after 10 seconds of heat dissipation. Thus a mech needs some sort of capacity and why heat sinks add to the threshold in order to handle heat spikes.

PGI got instantaneous heat vs. accumulated heat over time wrong or chose it for some reasons we are left to ponder. PGi wanted heat to be a consideration for all mechs... Someone considered heat neutral mechs an issue.... then we got the dual gause cat and much QQ and head scratching occurred....

What i would do is remove the current heat bar and show the player what the mechs heat will be after 10 seconds of dissipation. Then recalculate a new 10 second window every second. heat effects go into effect once you cross a new heat threshold. That way as a player keeps accumulating heat they have to hit the override button in a meaningful way on the way up not just at max heat.

10 seconds was chosen because thats what the heat disapation rae is set too, because after the friends and family night where PGI used TT stats PGI decided the game needed more pew pew, so someone changed rate of fire but didn't correctly balance heat or damage. This created what i recall was a complete gank fest.... you literally lasted maybe 10 seconds. with 60-120 second matches. That's because armor was still at TT values and rate of fire was 2x..... then we got double armor instead of half heat/damage... it went down hill from there. heat disapetion rates are still set for 10 seconds of disapation relative to rate of fire.

Any new heat effects needs to handle a rapid change in heat levels or the effects may be too choppy.

[Impyrium]

The heat system is a very curious area of BT/MW that really ought to have more depth to it, so +1 to this idea. Personally I'd lean more towards having a capacity/safe area though. Not a large safe area, so you couldn't just sit comfortably in it and you would get more out of pushing the heat scale while taking the risk (risk management does count as skill IMO), but enough to reflect the 'safe zone' in BT.

The system I'm using for a little fan-made BT game of mine is to have the heat-sinks represent both the capacity and heat dissipation levels. For example, a 'mech with 10 heat sinks has a range of 10 heat points before it goes into the 'excess heat' scale and begins taking effects. To take into account the 10 second turn-duration that the heat-sinks are based off of, the 'mech looses one heat point per second.

A 'mech with 17 heat-sinks would therefore have a safe-capacity of 17, and would lose 1.7 points per second, a 'mech with 28 heat-sinks would have a safe-capacity of 28 and would lose 2.8 per second.

Now I might be being stupid here and be just doing what PGI has already done (I'm actually not entirely sure how MWO's heat system works ), but to me this reflects TT pretty well, adds an effects scale and can be tweaked in values fairly easily.

[CDLord HHGD]

wanderer, on 05 October 2015 - 02:52 PM, said:

Never mind that there's a canonical Clan 'Mech that packs 4, even -five- Gauss rifles.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Annihilator

[i]

At least it's stock...

And thank God we don't have it in game "yet". I am not looking forward to that day....

[Mazzyplz]

i hate this heat idea because it nerfs erppc mechs that aren't even good right now; and quad ac5/uac10 and dual gauss go unpunished because you want to nerf lasers. also lrm generates less heat than srms for what they do

so yeah.. i would say your heat scale has consequences alright - but not good consequences
so lol.. no ty

when you can figure up a balance idea that won't make the awesome useless or allow us to bring other energy boats into the game like the novacat, then i will back it up

like, idk if your memory is off or you played the game for just a few months, but if it wasn't for lasers -
all energy mechs would go back to being a pariah
same for energy + missile variants like aws, treb, qkd mechs that actually need love this thing would nerf.

Edited by Mazzyplz, 06 October 2015 - 04:49 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

The Gauss and battletech - well its like playing the history battle of bannockburn and one player removes all of his Longbowmen for two machine gun teams because he got the points.

The Gauss should not exist in BT as it does - a weapon with extreme range and high damage should not deal only 1 point of heat. As long as the Gauss is not "fixed" we will never see a good balance

[nehebkau]

Honestly, I thought that heat should be calculated for individual weapons as opposed to the mech as a whole. It would mean greater heat per shot but you could then cause individual weapons to cease working, turn off or 'asplode' if they are fired beyond their heat capacity. It would also allow you to tie heatsinks to weapons, meaning, heatsinks in an arm would help the weapons in the arm etc. It would bring more depth to builds -- that's for sure. Really it seemed stupid that a whole tank would heat up if you fired the gun repeatedly -- could you imagine a battleship having to shut down it's engine because it fired too many salvos from it's main guns?

I know, its not TT -- but did you ever consider TT didn't do it this way because it would be too hard and nit-picky for a table-top game and now that we have a 'puter handling the heavy lifting that it makes sense?

[Karl Streiger]

nehebkau, on 06 October 2015 - 05:33 AM, said:

I know, its not TT -- but did you ever consider TT didn't do it this way because it would be too hard and nit-picky for a table-top game and now that we have a 'puter handling the heavy lifting that it makes sense?

this is a valid argument

[Trip Hammer]

I've read through most of the reply's here and I think that there is one other thing that would need to happen to make this work well.

TT was based on a 10 second round with all of the weapons firing and accumulating their heat during that time. ALL of the weapons in this game fire faster (in some cases MUCH faster) than the TT game and thus incur more heat more quickly as well (especially with ghost heat).
I would personally like to see a combination of added Heat penalties and either slowing down the ROF of the weapons or decreasing the damage & heat values of all the weapons to spread it out over a longer period of time. This would help slow TTK (the second suggestion would also help to reduce pinpoint damage) and I also believe that it help to encourage more diverse builds.


Just my two cents worth

[Karl Streiger]

the solaris 7 duel rules are the way - a round of 10seconds is split into a round of 2.5sec - a PPC may generate 40heat. and even when you have 20 SHS and could fire two PPCs in the standard round you were forced to chain fire them in S7.


This is the way to solve things:-more heat for each weapon and a higher dissipation - firing Alpha Fire 4 ER Large Laser with 24 DHS....BOOM - firing each laser after another - you Mech may react sluggish, flickering HUD etc....

Mechwarrior 3 heat system or no change at all

Edited by Karl Streiger, 06 October 2015 - 06:07 AM.

[nehebkau]

Again i stipulate that TT heat rules are stupid and should not be implemented. A battleship's engines would never shut down if it over-heated its main guns; It's radio would not stop working and it's radar would not cease to function.

Heat on individual weapons only please.... Ever see a MG that is fired for too long? The tank doesn't shut down, the barrel of the MG melts.

[mechkearney]

Mister Blastman, on 25 September 2015 - 09:41 AM, said:

I miss running my Dragon with 4x small lasers, AC 10 and SRM 6 and doing just fine.

Remember all that? A single AC/10... was... useful. Imagine that! Nowadays 10 points of pinpoint is laughed at with a face full of 50+ point pinpoint laser vomit alpha.

It seems to me the only solution is to remove customization from the game. Or, only allow customization in private matches. All CW and Public Games require the mech to be stock.

As for the heat, it's not like teams are going to care about the penalties. The players on teams don't alpha and then run away. They alpha and let the rest of the team run in and alpha. It's very coordinated alphas. And, there's 12 of them happening.

I wouldn't change the heat scale. I'd make it so that you can't fire a weapon till the previous weapon is done firing. Problem solved. BattleTech is about surviving, not, "I'm going to give it all I got to then shutdown in battle".

Or, someone else posted, if the mech gets too hot, a weapon explodes. It doesn't have to be ammo. In fact, make the weapon explode instead of ammo. Punish the laser vomit builds. Punish the auto-cannon builds. Make diversity a real thing.

And, the ability to fire weapons faster than their table top rules should be done away with.

[wanderer]

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Again i stipulate that TT heat rules are stupid and should not be implemented. A battleship's engines would never shut down if it over-heated its main guns; It's radio would not stop working and it's radar would not cease to function.

Heat on individual weapons only please.... Ever see a MG that is fired for too long? The tank doesn't shut down, the barrel of the MG melts.

Funny you should mention that. Solaris VII rules had options for rapid-firing your guns- which would cause extra heat and risk damaging them. And the expanded heat scale.

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And, the ability to fire weapons faster than their table top rules should be done away with.

Solaris VII also had weapons with differing reload/recharge rates. 0 meant every 2.5 second "turn", 1 meant every other turn, 2, 3 (for the slowest ones). Gauss had a recharge of "2", meaning fire, wait at least 5 seconds, fire again (ER PPC/ERLL/LPL/PPC all were "3").

So "faster than TT" actually would have some flexibility in MWO terms, seeing as we're basically realtime.

[Red Shrike]

Bump!

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Widowmaker1981, on 25 September 2015 - 12:08 PM, said:

How does this work?

If i fire an ERPPC, do i immediately suffer a 30% top speed reduction? If i fire 2, do i shutdown instantly?

If so, can you not see how completely unworkable that is? It would, quite literally, make equipping any weapon not called Gauss or (U)AC5 complete lunacy. There HAS to be some kind of buffer before you start getting penalties, or heat generating weapons become unusable, unless you completely rework the heat system to make weapons generate heat over time instead of upfront heat.

It has to be possible to fire energy weapons without incurring penalties. Its arguable certainly that penalties should come sooner than they do now, and be more diverse than just shut down, but if do what you propose here you just remove all heat generating weapons from the game.

With a redo of Heat Scale you would need a redo of the Heatsink system as well to make sense. I came up with somthing off the top of my head and Ill give it a go here, though most will probably call me crazy.

First make Heat sinks actually do what they did on TT, meaning a Single has a 1 Heat Capacity and a Double Has 2. Meaning a 10 DHS Warhammer would have a Heat Capacity of 20. Fire 5 Mediums, 20 Heat, it doesnt go up at all, fire 6 Mediums, 24 Heat, and your at 4 on the heat scale.

Now to make this not have a ridiculous quick return time for output versus heat you need to do the opposite for cool down and actually REDUCE the cooling ability. This will semi duplicate the TT version of not using all your Heat sinks the next turn. I came up with giving SHS a .25 Heat Cool down per second and DHS a .50 Cool down per second, or 25% of their capacity

Lets look at an example. A Warhammer with 10 DHS fires 2 PPCs and 4 Medium Lasers, thats 36 Heat total. Its DHS can deal with 20 putting him at 16 on the Heatscale. Now 1 second after firing the DHS will dissapate 5 of that heat, .50 times 10 DHS, bringing him down to an eleven. Another second goes by he is now down to 6. Meanwhile he can still fire the Mediums and not go up the heat scale. This reduces how often he can alpha while still allowing some damage output.

This isnt perfect but what I came up with after looking at the original chart.

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Lyoto Machida, on 25 September 2015 - 12:16 PM, said:

Revert ammo back to TT levels and you'd be more inclined to have to carry backup energy weapons. Not sure how many weapons got increased ammo counts aside from the AC10/20 but still...

Also, revert heat back to TT levels and get rid of ghost heat. Why are IS MLs still at 4 heat???

Yep. As much as people complain about the TT not working in MWO they already lifted A LOT straight from the books. Weight, Crits, Damage, and some Heat generation is a 1 to 1 copy of the TT, so why not just use the TT Heat scale and Heat sink capacities as a basis for the Heat system? Take a look at my previous post for my opinions on how the Heat sinks should be changed.

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Apnu, on 25 September 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

Further to that we could have true DHS again too. if our heat sinks consumed the heat of firing, moving, and jumping like they do in TT, so its safe run up to a certain number before we hit the scale, many of the questions here would be moot.

What people don't understand is the BT heat scale was taken after heat sinks were used in the heat phase. So if you had 10 single heat sinks and your movement plus weapons fire chewed up 12, you only went up 2 points on the heat scale. In my years of TT, I've never seen a player purposely push the heat scale past 10.

Know my idea isnt perfect but would you mind giving my idea for how to implement the cool down into a "live fire" environment?

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Widowmaker1981, on 25 September 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

Ok, my bad, i read it wrong.

Yes, 30 cap with that penalty table is too severe. I would propose a buffer of DHSx2 (or x1.4) with no penalties, then the 30 point heat scale you propose after that.

Edit:

Actually, my preferred solution would be to completely change the heat system, and have weapons generate their heat over the course of 10 seconds as opposed to upfront. Then have each DHS remove 0.2 heat per second and have a value showing current heat generated per second vs heat dissipated per second. If the heat generated exceeds the heat dissiapted, then the heat bar rises, and you have a 30 point bar as you describe, with penalties as you climb it. You would probably need to introduce a power draw system limiting the max energy alpha in combination.

Think your actually saying the same thing I did but your spreading the heat over 10 seconds where I front loaded it and worked from there.

[Gattsus]

Karl Streiger, on 25 September 2015 - 05:24 AM, said:

well considering that for example 10 DHS give you 20 points threshold - the first penalty at "FIVE" would happen when you have 25 heat points (as said 50%)
But if you use 20 DHS - the same penalty would appear when at 60 heat.

The good about this stuff is you don't need Ghost Heat - or at least less intense.
Firing 2 ERPPC on a 10 DHS Cicade would give you 30 heat - and will result in a reduction of speed - maybe a flickering hud

while using the tripple finger of a AWS-9M would give you only the first heat reduction of "FIVE"
its a fair system

DIE DIE DIE GHOST HEAT DIEEEEEEE

[no one]

Lozruet Gravemind, on 27 January 2016 - 05:46 PM, said:

Know my idea isn't perfect but would you mind giving my idea for how to implement the cool down into a "live fire" environment?

Beep boop I'm lazy, here's a link.

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__4970771

You'd basically end up with two heat bars. One for current dissipation rate, and one for heat buildup.