212 replies to this topic

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Aethon, on 27 September 2015 - 08:07 AM, said:

transverse

dont say that word O.o

[wanderer]

Whatzituyah, on 26 September 2015 - 11:51 PM, said:

Heres some better questions:

How does a missle be locked on only but not dumb fired? "SSRMs"

How does a missle have to go a certain range before it can explode? "IS LRMs"

Streaks are programmed to not fire unless the weapon thinks it has a guaranteed hit. (And occasionally even when it thinks so, it doesn't as anyone who's had a shot end up eating terrain knows.)

IS LRMs don't arm immediately to prevent fratricidal detonations if a missile (or more) fails to clear the launcher properly or otherwise suffers a catastrophic malfunction. Clan launchers avoid this by "streaming" the launch.

Logical now?

[Aethon]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 27 September 2015 - 08:27 AM, said:

dont say that word O.o

I am an EVE player; transverse meant something to me a long time before PGI used it to make me laugh.

[wanderer]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 27 September 2015 - 07:46 AM, said:

If we are at this. AC5 needs min range as well, for sake of unused AC10, as AC5 took its place.

Funny you should mention that, as in TT the AC/5 DOES have the same minimum range as the PPC. 90 meters.

A gradual damage reduction actually makes sense in most cases (ala Clan LRMS), though that damage reduction shouldn't be a complete-to-zero one. In TT, it's an accuracy loss. Make it that minimum range effects have a damage reduction effect of X% per meter, flat out regardless of the weapon type. This can represent whatever- difficulty in getting a square-on hit up close/properly getting missiles arming/etc. It means all weapons with a minimum suffer equally in terms of "I'm 60m inside my minimum", just like they do in TT (where it's +1 per 30m hex inside minimum range), but weapons with a larger minimum will suffer the worst up close. In TT, firing a PPC at range 0 is possible- just inaccurate. In MWO, firing a PPC at range 0 should just mean it suffers a signficant damage reduction- while Gauss/AC-2 would suffer a smaller % of damage reduction and LRMs with their 180m minimum a larger one.

Gauss rifles seriously should lose the chargeup and increase the recharge time to 7.75/8 seconds, and give them the 60m start to minimum range penalties as shown above.

And we should apply a common mechanic to minimum range rather than different functions for different weapon systems.

[Khobai]

min range is dumb on the ppc. it would be equally dumb on the gauss.

gauss isnt overpowered because it can hit people at pointblank range. its overpowered because it does absurd pinpoint damage for virtually no heat. Primarily what gauss needs is a splash damage component.

if the CERPPC does 15 damage and some of it is splash damage, why isnt gauss treated the same? Gauss should also do splash damage.

Its not exactly a secret that frontloaded pinpoint damage is overpowered in this game. So reducing FLPPD, especially from Gauss, would definitely improve TTK

Gauss should do 10 damage to the location it directly hits and 2.5 damage to each adjacent location. Just like the CERPPC. Gauss would still be an amazing weapon because of its veritable lack of heat, but it would no longer be completely overpowered.

chargeup could probably be removed then too... thered be no need to balance gauss with chargeup if you brought its absurd damage down a peg.

Edited by Khobai, 27 September 2015 - 09:47 AM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Khobai, on 27 September 2015 - 09:14 AM, said:

Gauss should also do splash damage.

A bullet that splashes? Like a shotgun? Oh we have those. And theyre terrible.

No splash. Whiners nerfed the gauss enough kthx

[Foxfire kadrpg]

Here's a suggestion, why not have pilots designate the target they wish to fire upon, and then the game simulates a 2d6 roll to determine if they hit said target.

The charge mechanic in gauss is enough to prevent considerable accuracy at short range, unless the target has been revealed (UAV, friends spotting) or is attempting to stand toe-to-toe in view. (in the latter case, that foe should be focusing his rounds carefully, probably the gauss, or an exposed torso.

So I say no. Any imbalance in Gauss should be addressed by empowering other options, such as increased reload speed of AC20s, shorter duration for ER lasers, or some form of PPC/ERPPC buff.

[pyrocomp]

If we will have minimum ranges on Gauss/PPCs/AC5s/anything with range above 400m, then there should be a magical minimal ranges on medium and large lasers. Just for consistency. And after that let's introduce minimum speed for Lights, just along same line that something accessing highest something should be limited at the lower end of that something (and I will be eager to hear the explanation for that one).

[Vlad Ward]

I'd be content if they upped the ghost heat cap on AC/20s to 2 and made LBX cannons remotely useful.

Hell, just get rid of the shotgun-of-stupid mechanic entirely and make the LBX a reskinned version of the existing CERPPC mechanic (single projectile + splash).

Bam. Suddenly you have a LB20X that can put out 20+10 damage at close range and can be fired in pairs. Gauss is no longer superior in that range profile. Problem solved.

[Khobai]

Quote

A bullet that splashes? Like a shotgun? Oh we have those. And theyre terrible.

No splash. Whiners nerfed the gauss enough kthx

no not like a shotgun. that would be the silver bullet gauss which is basically LBX gauss.

more like a high velocity projectile that hits you in the chest and spirals around like crazy into your shoulder and neck as it bleeds off its momentum. It would work just like the CERPPC where it would do 10 damage to the location it hits and 2.5 damage to adjacent locations.

and no gauss has not been nerfed enough. in fact, when was gauss ever really nerfed to begin with? when has gauss ever had its damage, range, or projectile velocity lowered? oh never. the only nerfs gauss has ever gotten were nerfs like the health nerf and chargeup which werent really even nerfs in the truest sense (chargeup kindve was a nerf but actually makes gauss worse at what its supposed to do which is snipe, rather than making it worse at what its NOT supposed to do: headshot at point blank range).

what gauss needs is a REAL nerf like making it do splash damage... and then you can get rid of the stupid nerfs that accomplished nothing like reducing its health and giving it chargeup.

gauss is a fundamentally unbalanced weapon because it does the best type of damage (front loaded pinpoint) at long range for virtually no heat. It absolutely needs to be nerfed; anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong.

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I'd be content if they upped the ghost heat cap on AC/20s to 2

um no. dual AC/20 has a ghost heat cap of 1 for a reason. because pinpoint damage in that amount breaks the game severely. Exactly like how dual gauss/laser and gauss/laser builds break the game now.

A better solution would be to make AC/20s burst first and then get rid of ghost heat entirely.

The problem is the frontloaded pinpoint damage. That is the whole reason ghost heat had to be implemented. And the only way to get rid of ghost heat is to significantly reduce frontloaded pinpoint damage. The easiest way to do that is weapon mechanics like burst fire, splash damage, burn time, etc...

Quote

The charge mechanic in gauss is enough to prevent considerable accuracy at short range

not really. I pointblank mechs all the time with gauss. in fact its much easier to get headshots that way.

all the chargeup does it make it more difficult to snapshot with gauss at long range, which is the whole point of gauss in the first place. By preventing snapshoting, chargeup is in complete contradiction of gauss' role which is long-range sniping.

Chargeup needs to be removed to restore gauss as a sniping weapon that can snapshot at long range. And instead gauss' damage needs to be reduced by making it do splash damage. that also makes it impossible to headshot with gauss which makes it weaker at point blank range where headshotting is easiest.

Edited by Khobai, 27 September 2015 - 12:02 PM.

[Vlad Ward]

Khobai, on 27 September 2015 - 11:07 AM, said:

um no. dual AC/20 has a ghost heat cap of 1 for a reason. because pinpoint damage in that amount breaks the game severely.

A better solution would be to make AC/20s burst first and then get rid of ghost heat entirely.

The problem is the frontloaded pinpoint damage. That is the whole reason ghost heat had to be implemented. And the only way to get rid of ghost heat is to significantly reduce frontloaded pinpoint damage. The easiest way to do that is weapon mechanics like burst fire, splash damage, burn time, etc...

Except 40 damage to a single component at extreme close range is no longer particularly special.

Lasers can easily do this. Clan Tech anything can easily do this. Even the TDR-5SS can put out a 42 damage pinpoint alpha near-instantaneously.

So either we can scrap MWO's existing game code and rewrite a completely different game with cone of fire and a bunch of other random sim-esque junk to make a few delusional players happy, or we can balance the FPS we have like an FPS and make short range weapons deal more damage at short range like they should.

Right now there's no point in taking AC/20s that are locked into Chain Fire mode when you can just double Gauss or laser vomit someone in the face.

There's also absolutely zero reason to take an LBX shotgun that deals up to 20 damage spread among any number of components when you can take an AC20 that deals exactly 20 damage to exactly 1 component.

Want to keep the LBX spread mechanic? Fine. Make each pellet deal 2 damage instead of 1. Then they might actually be useful in knife fighting range. But getting to the extreme close range that using a shotgun-LBX requires is nigh impossible in our current rendition of the game where hitreg is no longer chronically broken and long range damage is a real thing.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 27 September 2015 - 11:47 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Except 40 damage to a single component at extreme close range is no longer particularly special.

When you can do it for 12 heat it is (AC20 is only 6 heat!). Which is what youre asking for.

Even laser vomit has to generate much more than 12 heat to reach 40 damage. CERML have to generate 36 heat to do 42 damage. That is three times the heat as dual AC/20, plus they have the disadvantage of having a beam duration, and not applying the damage instantly like dual AC/20

And gauss well needs to be nerfed big time... but I already went into detail about why gauss was overpowered.

Quote

Lasers can easily do this. Clan Tech anything can easily do this. Even the TDR-5SS can put out a 42 damage pinpoint alpha near-instantaneously.

Again... not for 12 heat. At 12 heat you can keep firing dual AC/20s non-stop. At least laser vomit, as broken as it is, hits a brick wall with heat.

Quote

Right now there's no point in taking AC/20s that are locked into Chain Fire mode when you can just double Gauss or laser vomit someone in the face.

Which is why clan lasers/IS laser quirks/gauss need to be nerfed. Its better to nerf the strong weapons and increase TTK than buff the weaker weapons and lower TTK even more.

We dont want mechs dying even faster. Thats why buffing weapons isnt a good solution. Especially if youre not going to fix the underlying problem of pinpoint damage.

An exception is weapons that dont do pinpoint damage like LBX and SRMs. Theres room to buff those weapons because theyre not in any real danger of becoming overpowered if you slightly increase the damage per pellet/missile.

Edited by Khobai, 27 September 2015 - 12:19 PM.

[Homeskilit]

Since heat was brought up I am going to add this to the discussion, heat is the single biggest problem with the game. Ballistic weapons that fire chemical ammo (a/c and missiles) should not add heat to the mech, they should heat the weapons themselves. This is simulated in u-a/c with jamming, the normal a/c have a slow enough fire rate that they would not overheat the barrels. Missiles that fire out of the body should cause heat only until the missile has left the tubes (so a short spike) and missiles firing from boxes should not be affected at all (think TBR and CTP shoulders, excess heat should be jettisoned out the back). But as a certain point the tubes should overheat and cause a jamming penalty.

The gauss should have a higher heat penalty, and that penalty should be incurred while the weapon is charging only, you should also be able to hold that charge as long as you want, at the cost of heat and damage (weapon is more easily crit while holding said charge).

In regards to the PPC, I really do not understand why people would use ANY non-ER weapon after an ER variant has been added/discovered. Humans stopped using muskets when we discovered cartridges, manual loading when we discovered automatic, so on and so forth. The only reason we did not have ER PPC and ER lasers is because we "somehow" forgot how to make them. Once you can make them again, you should only be using the top equipment available. I can see how second line and militia units were not given top equipment right away, but we are not said units.

[VinJade]

PPCs maybe old & out of date but they are still useful and worthwhile to have and use. also they are cheaper to buy and produce less heat while keeping the same damage.

Now by your example, why should the military still use the A-10 Thunderbolt when there are new models and more advanced craft?

even though the A-10 Thunder Bolt has proven itself many a time and very reliable in combat.

Its the same with the PPC, yes it is old yet it has proven itself many a times.
They should not be punished for not being ER PPCs.

The horribly screwed over PPC should never have happened, it should retain it's damage and should be fixed.

by the way even top units would still use Std PPCs.

Edited by VinJade, 27 September 2015 - 02:28 PM.

[Homeskilit]

VinJade, on 27 September 2015 - 02:26 PM, said:

PPCs maybe old & out of date but they are still useful and worthwhile to have and use. also they are cheaper to buy and produce less heat while keeping the same damage.

Now by your example, why should the military still use the A-10 Thunderbolt when there are new models and more advanced craft?

even though the A-10 Thunder Bolt has proven itself many a time and very reliable in combat.

Its the same with the PPC, yes it is old yet it has proven itself many a times.
They should not be punished for not being ER PPCs.

The horribly screwed over PPC should never have happened, it should retain it's damage and should be fixed.

by the way even top units would still use Std PPCs.

Poor example, The A-10 is a specialized aircraft that should only be replaced by another specialized aircraft. The F-35 can never be that aircraft because they were designed for a different role. The attempt to do so was an attempt to save money not because it was better for the role. Now if we designed a new, 21st century version of the A-10, that is a different story. The only reason the ER PPC heat is too high is because of "balance" really it should have a slightly higher (say 1-2) over the standard variant.

To use your example of aircraft, when we design a new generation of air superiority aircraft the old generation becomes second line. The new generation costs more but performs better and thus replaces the older tech. Hence ER is more advanced and costs more but replaces non ER variants because it is better. If you choose not to use this advantage it is your choice but you must recognize you are choosing to put yourself at that disadvantage.

I will state this again, the only reason we have non ER energy weapons is because we "lost" the ability to build them, now that we have that ability again, why would you not utilize them?

Edited by Homeskilit, 27 September 2015 - 03:23 PM.

[Mystere]

IraqiWalker, on 27 September 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

Cone of fire has several issues such as "Why can't I hit where I aim?". This tends to negatively impact the player base.

reticle sway could be the better solution to convergence issues, but you should never arbitrarily punish players through RNG, it's ... problematic. (I have harsher words to describe it, but I'll abstain)

EDIT: you are somewhat correct on it simulating minimum range though, because minimum range only implies difficulty of use. The other issue with RNG is that it decides for you, that you missed, even if you shouldn't have.

I'd rather have a gaussian-based CoF than reticule shake. Not that I agree with getting rid of the gauss charge. I don't.

[bad arcade kitty]

gauss already has a charge time and loses the sniping duel to er-ll on the extreme distances

also i dunno what you are talking about uac/10 are better and more ammo efficient than uac/5

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 27 September 2015 - 09:14 AM, said:

Primarily what gauss needs is a splash damage component.

if the CERPPC does 15 damage and some of it is splash damage, why isnt gauss treated the same? Gauss should also do splash damage.

I say no to gauss splash damage. Gauss fires a solid projectile. CERPPC is an energy weapon subject to scattering. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

[Strum Wealh]

wanderer, on 27 September 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

And we should apply a common mechanic to minimum range rather than different functions for different weapon systems.

Different weapon types have minimum ranges for different reasons, however.

LRMs' minimum range is attributed to the warheads not arming prior to launch, a common trait in real-world missile systems.
BattleTech canon uses this reasoning, and the TT game even has additional rules specifically designed to work with this - namely, the "hot-loading" rules found in Tactical Operations (and, before that, Maximum Tech).
"The minimum range of LRMs and ATMs in the standard rules reflects the time it takes for the internal guidance systems to lock on to targets and for the explosive payloads to arm. Hot-loading enables a player to arm his LRM or ATM warheads before firing the missiles." - Tactical Operations, pg. 102

For standard PPCs (which, for obvious reasons, would not share the LRMs' need to arm warheads), the minimum range is attributed to the risk of feedback along the path of the ion beam/bolt & the "field inhibitor" component intended to prevent damage from said feedback. Again, BattleTech canon uses this reasoning & there are TT rules found in Tactical Operations (and, before that, Maximum Tech) that specifically address the situation.
"The field inhibitors restrict the dangerous charged-particle feedback produced when a PPC is fired, but also prevent the weapon from firing accurately at targets closer than minimum range. Disengaging a PPC’s field inhibitor removes the minimum range modifier, at the risk of subjecting the firing unit to particle feedback." - Tactical Operations, pg. 103

Arguably, the minimum range on the lighter autocannons could be justified via a need for the shells' warheads to arm (example: the 120mm M830 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose Tracer shells used by the M1 Abrams MBT arm approximately 60-100 feet from the muzzle of the gun after firing, and are armed "through the ballistic environment of firing, set back, and deceleration"; source), with the larger autocannons having such low muzzle velocities (which also explains their short effective ranges ) that they are able to arm before traveling any significant distance.
(Personally, I think that all of the ACs should have had minimum ranges to reflect the shells' need to arm their warheads, in one-hex/30-meter increments - that is, AC/2s with a 4-hex/120-meter minimum range, AC/5s with a 3-hex/90-meter minimum range, AC/10s with a 2-hex/60-meter minimum range, and AC/20s with a 1-hex/30-meter minimum range. But, alas. )

In contrast to all of those, Gauss Rifle Slugs are solid ovoids or spheres composed of a nickel-ferrous alloy & about the size of a watermelon (see here, here, here, and here).
Gauss Rifle slugs have no warheads to arm, no booster rockets to ignite, no sabot petals to separate, and they rely purely on kinetic energy (a product of the slug's mass & velocity), and will be at their greatest velocity (read: damage potential) at muzzle-exit.
Thus, the Gauss Rifle's minimum range would have to be explained as a property of the weapon itself, and a significant firing delay (in the form of the charging mechanic) accomplishes this (in addition to its primary purpose of imparting a desynchronization effect versus other weapons, particularly the PPC family).

The broad effect ("being less effective at closer ranges than at greater ranges") is common to each minimum range implementation, but the underlying mechanisms & other particulars are (and should be) different in each case.

[Libas]

Andi Nagasia, on 26 September 2015 - 08:31 AM, said:

so as most Meta Combat seems to be Gauss + Laser was thinking,
why not add in the 60m-90m Minimum range that Gauss had in TT?

But how could Gauss have a Minimum range with it being Fired by magnates?
well most conventional RailGuns/CoilRifles they have a Protective Casing around them,
this Casing protects the Device from the Round during the Firing and is discarded after,
-
so my idea, give IS-Gauss 60m & C-Gauss 90m No-Damage/Reduced-Damage Range,
this is because if the Shell hits before the Casing is discarded, the round disintegrates,
remember this Casing is designed to Carry the Round to allow it to reach High Speeds,
after leaving the Weapon it has to be discarded as its acting as access drag,

Why 60m for IS and 90m for Clan?
Style= to make them abit different than each other,
Balance= because Clan Gauss is lighter,

Thoughts, Comments, Concerns?
Thanks,

Ok so you want to give the gauss a minimum range to nerf the meta.
You say that the protective casing make the bullet harmless .....

And you didnt agreed with my confeti... ?

I say make the lazors have limited voleys since my lazer poinet has a battery that after a while dies when i shot it

Problem solved