22 replies to this topic

[Xandre Blackheart]

I was reading around a bit and I've seen .. rumors? ... that currently mech variants have a 1:1 hardpoint ratio for stock weapon.

This concerns me. While I understand the point of hardpoints - limitations on just how many weapons you can cram into a body part, and what kinds - the idea of only a 1:1 limit that matches the variant initial loadout seems to be an extreme limitation.

Take for an example, the stock Hunchback From what I'm understanding it will now come with one ballistic hardpoint in the right torso, one energy hardpoint in the left arm, right arm and center torso.

or the Catapult. One missile hardpoint in the left arm, one in the right arm, and 2 energy hardpoints in the left and right torsos each.

This seems like an extreme limitation on customization, and it won't be any better for variant mechs, since they will have the same 1:1 hardpoint limitation.

Anti-Boating (the practice of stacking multiple instances the same weapon) considerations necessitate hardpoint restrictions, and the developers have stated they want to give people a reason to buy and use variant mech chassis. But weapon TYPE restrictions on the hardpoints give players enough reason to purchase and use variant chassis. And I would argue that boating is much less of a problem also just from type restrictions.

3:1 was the original ratio of hardpoints to initial weapons. I guess maybe the developers considered this too liberal. But a ratio of 1:1 makes the mechlab pretty much useless for anything except minor tweaks, I find it hard to believe that is what they want. One of the best (most fun) dynamics in the game is the adaptation of loadouts to tactics and tactics adjusting to new loadouts.

At least 2 hardpoints per initial weapon would allow some flexibility for new dynamics to arise form interesting loadouts. Maybe they will move to this. Or some other method of determining how many hardpoints go in a body part.

I would like to suggest that perhaps the developers should consider moving away form a 1 hardpoint slot one weapon approach if they feel that even a 2:1 ratio is too much. Allowing some weapons to require more than one hardpoint could be a better method of limiting abuse by stacking without drastically curtailing customizations, and the dynamic game play they entail.

I for one consider the stock catapult (as it currently stands) more of an energy based mech than a missile mech at this point, just because of the number of hardpoints available for energy weapons. And that is just wrong. If I can't have enough hardpoints to customize out some interesting missile loads, like 2 SRM4 in each arm for example, why should I consider it a missile platform? I certainly have more options when it comes to energy weapons.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Also, there is the consideration that energy hardpoints are so common that almost any mech can easily be turned into a laser boat. Almost any stock variant comes with several lasers, small or medium, which makes balancing "energy boats" rather problematic under the current 1:1 loadout scheme.

Perhaps a 1:1 for energy weapons makes sense, but it doesn't seem that it makes sense for ballistic and missile hardpoints to follow the same restriction. They already have ammo restrictions, take up more critical spaces, and weigh more than comparable energy based systems. This should be enough of a limitation to prevent stacking abuses.

If something isn't changed I fear that we'll see a lack of mechs using ballistic and missile weapons in favor of "boated" up energy mechs. I'm already thinking 4 large lasers on a catapult is a superior build to anything else I can do with the mech because of the lack of missile hardpoints.

[Bombast]

I have no idea where you heard this, but according to the MechLab video, that's all false. All of it.

The Hunchback has 3 balastic slots, 1 more then it uses.

Other then that, I hav e no examples, but I see no reason why that would change. The developers know variation is one of the wonderful parts of Mechwarrior. I doubt they'll take it away.

[Xandre Blackheart]

From various discussions, but primarily here

"For the rest of you:

Stock Catapult C1
2 LRM 15's
4 ML
Currently 2 Missile Hardpoints and 4 Energy Hardpoints.

Founders Catapult C1
2 LRM 15's
4 ML

Currently 2 Missile Hardpoints and 4 Energy Hardpoints."

This plus other more speculative discussion (since it's under NDA) would bring one to consider the conclusion that currently there is a 1:1 ration on hardpoints. I admit that it is not hard proof, but it is certainly suggestive.

If it is so (and people have said it is, but I don't want to go find other examples right now since they are possibly also speculating) then I think making certain weapons use more than one hardpoint slot might be a preferable solution to a strict 1:1 ratio.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 08 July 2012 - 04:36 PM.

[ExAstris]

It would be nice to accomodate for the size of the weapon when considering how many hardpoints to give the mech.

For example, a medium laser only justifies one energy hardpoint in that location, but a large laser or a ppc in the base configuration could justify 2 energy hardpoints at that spot. Sure you could cram in dual ppcs or dual large lasers in an alternative configuration, but it would help align mechs to their actual weapon concentration a bit better.

So the hunchback with its giant AC20 would get at least 2 hardpoints for ballistics, while the catapult would get 2 missile slots in each arm.

It doesn't have to be an absolute rule either (for example, the Hunchback could easily get 3 ballistic slots and not seem unjustified). But it does seem like a nice middle ground to make the base number of hardpoints vary with the size of the original weapon (and perhaps a fair bit with the model itself as well, since the catapult obviously has more room for missiles and the hunchback for the AC than either has for lasers).

[Xandre Blackheart]

I sort of agree. The problem likely stems from the fact that the developers seemed to think that critical slots and weight were not enough of a restriction to justify people purchasing alternate mech chassis. And there ARE undeniably abuses that can be done with stacking, which are exacerbated to game breaking issues when you talk about moving to a real time sim.

So they put in hardpoints. I may not like that system, but it's not a bad solution. Except that it has it's own issues- specifically if it's too restrictive then you lose all flexibility in customization.

The main issue to me appears to stem from the fact that energy weapons are both common on most stock variants AND efficient. So if you give out a standard 3:1 you turn every mech variant into a potential energy boat, but if you cut everything back to 1:1 you have only slightly less potential for energy boats, but absolutely no flexibility for missile or ballistic mechs.

Maybe an even simpler solution is 1:1 hardpoints for energy weapons, and 2:1 for missles and 3:1 for autocannons. Still seems a bit limiting for flexibility regarding non-energy weapons however, since even under that ratio you wind up with a catapult that has 4 missile and 4 energy hardpoints... and a hunchback with 3 ballistic hardpoints and 3 energy hardpoints.

Maybe a better solution is 1:1 for energy, 3:1 for missiles, and 4:1 for ballistics. I don't know, and I don't think anyone could know without testing, but an across the board 1:1 ration just seems unnecessarily restrictive of non energy weapons while tilting the favor in the direction of energy weapons to an extreme degree.

[Degrath]

Boating is not just limited to energy weapon in my opinion. Your Idea while it might stop multiple chassis out there from laser boating it would open up boating of other types of weapons.
For example I have an Autocannon 20 and say if I remove that it gives me 4 AC hard points. What is stopping me from putting 4 auto cannon 5s in its place it is still 20 points of damage however I now get more shots per ton of ammo and I have an increased range. Basically linked together it’s an AC20 with the range and cycle time of an AC5. The same can be said for missiles, why take a LRM 20 when I can just take 4 LRM 5s or 2 LRM 10s. What if I use my 4 AC5s on chain fire, I could time it out to have near continuous rate of fire until I use all my ammo.

I think the 1:1 system is just fine. If I want to upgrade my lasers to ER or Pulse I can, if I want to upgrade that SRM to a streak pack or Smaller/Larger size I can or go from LRM to SRM.

How much more flexible do you really need unless you want to be frankenboat mech. You want customization ask for custom paint jobs and decals not a system that can be exploited by the min/max crowd.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Degrath, on 08 July 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

Boating is not just limited to energy weapon in my opinion. Your Idea while it might stop multiple chassis out there from laser boating it would open up boating of other types of weapons.
For example I have an Autocannon 20 and say if I remove that it gives me 4 AC hard points. What is stopping me from putting 4 auto cannon 5s in its place it is still 20 points of damage however I now get more shots per ton of ammo and I have an increased range. Basically linked together it’s an AC20 with the range and cycle time of an AC5. The same can be said for missiles, why take a LRM 20 when I can just take 4 LRM 5s or 2 LRM 10s. What if I use my 4 AC5s on chain fire, I could time it out to have near continuous rate of fire until I use all my ammo.

I think the 1:1 system is just fine. If I want to upgrade my lasers to ER or Pulse I can, if I want to upgrade that SRM to a streak pack or Smaller/Larger size I can or go from LRM to SRM.

How much more flexible do you really need unless you want to be frankenboat mech. You want customization ask for custom paint jobs and decals not a system that can be exploited by the min/max crowd.

Well the obvious answer is that AC/s and missile weapons have their own internal limitations, as I pointed out above.

You aren't going to FIT 4 AC/5's into anything but an empty torso. That's 12 critical slots. At 8 tons per AC/5 you are now 40 tons heavier, add 4 tons for ammo and that's 44 tons to extend your 20 damage out to AC/5 range. Considering that you only freed up 15 tons by dropping an AC/20 boating AC/5's isn't really an issue, since you are going to have to seriously compromise other portions of your mech to do it. Even 4 ac/2;s is going to run you 24 tons, 28 with ammo. You are going to have to cut some serious tonnage to make it work. And all of your eggs are in one basket.

At that point, you would just go and buy a Jaggermech, if you were smart.

As for missile weapons there are indeed some issues to consider, and efficiencies to be gained. But they don't rock targets so chain firing benefits are limited mostly to heat dissipation. That's why I specifically suggested that missile hardpoints be less than autocannons.

But they are still limited by the same weight and ammo considerations of autocannons, just to a lesser degree. It's not like you're going to be able to shove 4 LRM 20's in a catapult without seriously compromising armor or ammunition or speed. Replacing a LRM 20 with 3 LRM 15's or even 3 10's for that matter is going to yield the same result: serious compromise in your mech capabilities.

And if you consider replacing a LRM 20 with 3 LRM 5's "frankenboating", I don't really know what to tell you, except you're a loony.

Laser weapons however are not subject to those kinds of tonnage and space issues. Heat is the balancing factor. But that fails to be a balancing factor when heatsinks aren't subject to hardpoint limitations.

As it stands now laser boating works well enough under a 1:1 ratio, while missiles and ballistics are subject to limitations making them far less useful. It needs to be changed or you will see a "raft" of "laser boats".

Obviously no one wants to see missile or ballistic boating either but making the hardpoint ratio 2 or 3 for missiles and 3 or 4 for ballistics just isn't going to make them magically viable, and therefore plentiful. If it concerns you that much, go with the lower values of 2 for missile hardpoints and 3 for ballistic hardpoints.

Degrath, on 08 July 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

You want customization ask for custom paint jobs and decals not a system that can be exploited by the min/max crowd.

This bears repeating, because this statement alone tells me you are missing the point. There is ALREADY a FLAW in the CURRENT 1:1 system that WILL be exploited by the min/max crowd. Lasers are balanced by heat, and heatsinks are NOT tied to hardpoints. This means that the "min/max" crowd will be shooting you with lasers, PPC's and more lasers. And then some more lasers. As the system currently stands there is little reason for a min/maxer to use anything BUT energy weapons, and it really won't be difficult because energy hardpoints are plentiful on stock variants. At the very least increasing the number of hardpoints available for missile and ballistics weapons will force them to make a choice, because as it is there really just isn't a choice.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 08 July 2012 - 10:39 PM.

[ManDaisy]

I'm actually a fan of 1 to 1 hardpoints. It adds more value to variants, really giving a distinct roles to mechs such as the jager mech, atlas, and stalker. Weapons variation also greatly increases as most mechs cant hold more then 4 energy ports meaning less medium laser boats and more optimization to meet damage/ space limits.

[ExAstris]

Upon further reflection, it seems aparent to me that no fixed ratio of hardpoints to initial weapon slots will be sufficient to prevent boating of any given weapon type.

Drastically limiting the total number of hardpoints has its own problems too, so it seems the best solution to me is to fix the number of hardpoints on a chasis by chasis basis and then leave the boat balancing up to the weapon balance to solve. Swaybacks will always be able to boat medium lasers, deal with that fact by making sure medium laser boats do not outshine any other solid configuration of a similar mech. This gives the Devs leeway to give the Hunchback a large number of ballistic hardpoints and the Catapult lots of missle hardpoints with the option to reduce hardpoint numbers on any mech that is causing serious balance issues because they aren't tied to a specific rule of "the base config has x, so it gets y(x) hardpoints".

[Xandre Blackheart]

ManDaisy, on 08 July 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

I'm actually a fan of 1 to 1 hardpoints. It adds more value to variants, really giving a distinct roles to mechs such as the jager mech, atlas, and stalker. Weapons variation also greatly increases as most mechs cant hold more then 4 energy ports meaning less medium laser boats and more optimization to meet damage/ space limits.

It might add more value to some variants, but it also means that other variants are going to be less valued. I dread seeing the swaybacks. But 4 ports is more than enough for energy boating anyway. The problem isn't really medium lasers. it's Large Lasers and PPC's. You can't realistically boat more than 3 or 4 of those anyway. And yet you can do it on the majority of stock variants.

I just don't see the point in restricting missile hardpoints and autocannon hardpoints to the same degree as energy hardpoints when they are inherently less efficient to stack.

As it stands, you can't even split the missile loadout in a catapult to 2 lrm 10/s and 2 srm 4's, a sad loss in flexibility. But you can sure as hell stack 4 large lasers in it with the (double) heatsinks to fire a full salvo every time they cycle.

ExAstris, on 08 July 2012 - 10:48 PM, said:

Upon further reflection, it seems aparent to me that no fixed ratio of hardpoints to initial weapon slots will be sufficient to prevent boating of any given weapon type.

Drastically limiting the total number of hardpoints has its own problems too, so it seems the best solution to me is to fix the number of hardpoints on a chasis by chasis basis and then leave the boat balancing up to the weapon balance to solve. Swaybacks will always be able to boat medium lasers, deal with that fact by making sure medium laser boats do not outshine any other solid configuration of a similar mech. This gives the Devs leeway to give the Hunchback a large number of ballistic hardpoints and the Catapult lots of missle hardpoints with the option to reduce hardpoint numbers on any mech that is causing serious balance issues because they aren't tied to a specific rule of "the base config has x, so it gets y(x) hardpoints".

That is also an acceptable solution. Not as elegant perhaps. but acceptable. I of course favor making certain weapons take more than one hardpoint, But you probably got that from reading my original post.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

You are correct in your statement that the 1:1 hardpoint system restricts ballistic and even more so SRM builds or multiple small LRM's while effectively allowing fairly free reign with regard to LL & PPC builds. My memory of the Hunchback in the MechLab was that it had 3 ballistic HPs in the right torso and 2 energy in each arm. This would tend to indicate a non 1:1 correlation with the stock loadout. That was a Beta setup and may change for the "open" build. If you want to run a 2 PPC Hunchback, you din't even have to vary your playstyle to level up the variants as you can build it on any of those available. Makes it "easier" to level up if thats your preferred style of play.
To be honest I'm more concerned that doubled armour will militate against anything but mainly energy builds.

[Fooooo]

Well, it is a 1:1 hardpoint ratio.

However, as Nik Van Rhijn has stated, each mech has "extra" hardpoints ontop of the standard ones they have from the default loadout.

So just because a stock / variant only has 2 lasers and 1 lrm or something doesnt mean there isnt 3 missile hardpoints or 4 energy ones, it just means that its not using them all up for whatever reason.

That said there might be a couple of variants that won't have any extra hardpoints........(im looking at you mr swayback)

The devs will definatly be playing around with the "extra" hardpoint slots for balancing im sure.

Edited by Fooooo, 08 July 2012 - 11:43 PM.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Fooooo, on 08 July 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

Well, it is a 1:1 hardpoint ratio.

However, as Nik Van Rhijn has stated, each mech has "extra" hardpoints ontop of the standard ones they have from the default loadout.

So just because a stock / variant only has 2 lasers and 1 lrm or something doesnt mean there isnt 3 missile hardpoints or 4 energy ones, it just means that its not using them all up for whatever reason.

That said there might be a couple of variants that won't have any extra hardpoints........(im looking at you mr swayback)

The devs will definatly be playing around with the "extra" hardpoint slots for balancing im sure.

Errr... that was the point of the post. Currently they are testing a 1:1 hardpoint system in beta according to statements and rumors.

well that and to say that it's a bad idea in my opinion from my admittedly limited point of view.

[Feindfeuer]

The only ballistic weapon you can boat are machineguns, and that might be fun but not realy gamebreaking... AC weight too much to replace one AC/20 with multiples of smaller mechs. An AC/5 weights 8 tons, thats more than half of the weight freed by an AC/20 (14 tons IIRC). Also you need 4 crit slots for each AC/5, with the AC/20 needing 10 you neither have the tonnage nor the number of critical slots to get up to the damage output of the AC/20 with any other AC combination unless the mech has a lot of spare room and tonnage. With ACs it's more about if you want to reach out or you want to do a lot of damage... the heavy weight that also applies to the low-rated AC prohibits real boating with them.
On the other hand, the weight/critslots scale rather fluently with lasers and you can do quiet a lot of brutal boat-builds with laser based weaponry as you can fit so many of them. There are even canon boat-builds like the Hunchback HBK-4P Swayback, dropping the AC/20 for 6 med lasers, bringing the med laser count up to 8, outdamaging any AC based hunchback while also removing the danger of magazine explosions.

At least for me, the only dangerously game/balandincbreaking boatbuilds are energy based. Ballistics just dont have the statline to support that kind of minmaxing.

[Fooooo]

Xandre Blackheart, on 08 July 2012 - 03:36 PM, said:

Errr... that was the point of the post. Currently they are testing a 1:1 hardpoint system in beta according to statements and rumors.

well that and to say that it's a bad idea in my opinion from my admittedly limited point of view.

I was saying there is more than 1 hardpoint for each weapon that is on a mech. You are saying the opposite according to this.....

Xandre Blackheart, on 08 July 2012 - 03:36 PM, said:

Take for an example, the stock Hunchback From what I'm understanding it will now come with one ballistic hardpoint in the right torso, one energy hardpoint in the left arm, right arm and center torso.

or the Catapult. One missile hardpoint in the left arm, one in the right arm, and 2 energy hardpoints in the left and right torsos each.

This seems like an extreme limitation on customization, and it won't be any better for variant mechs, since they will have the same 1:1 hardpoint limitation.

From everything I have seen so far in the mechlab vid and whatnot, the hunchback has an ac20 in its torso, which means there is a ballistics hardpoint to accomodate that ac20. What is also in there with that ac20 is another TWO hardpoints.

What you looked like you were saying in your original post was that said hunchback would only have 1 ballistics hardpoint total where that ac20 is........ this is not the case, it has 3 hardpoints total in that location.

So if thats not what you mean't then basically you are saying you would like the hardpoints to be universal ? ie just call them hardpoints and let any weapon type use that slot ?

Or did you mean that you would like certain weapons to take up half a slot or something so basically say machine guns run at a 2:1 ratio instead of the normal 1:1 ?

Im sort of confused on what you mean now.....

Edited by Fooooo, 09 July 2012 - 03:03 AM.

[Feindfeuer]

The mechlab video you are referencing is rather old, and newer information, like the one linked further up in the thread, hints that you'll only get as many hardpoints as the variant uses for its weapons.

[Schtirlitz]

Wait for Clans and Omni-mechs

Edited by Schtirlitz, 09 July 2012 - 10:48 AM.

[peve]

If I was creating this universe from the scratch, I would require energy weapons to draw their energy from a limited power supply, say a fusion reactor...

That would require laser boats to upgrade their engine heavily. Also it could mean that the pilot would have to shut down some systems to really draw more power to use his weapons in certain situations.

Energy weapons could be really made interesting using imagination.

But I know, not canon.

[Xandre Blackheart]

thontor, on 09 July 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

That's one variant of one mech, it's entirely possible that the Catapult C1 is restricted to 1:1 hardpoints... but every other mechlab video and screenshot (none of which show the C1) shows more hardpoints than there are weapons in the stock version of that variant. It's possible that the Catapult C1 is relatively unique in the fact it doesnt have any extra hardpoints

It's possible. But as I stated, things that other people have posted and said.. in other places... that I shall not link... leads me to the conclusion that the developers are currently considering (considering mind you) a system that is basically 1 hardpoint per original stock weapon.

Which is why people may have been confused by what I thought would be a clarifying statement: that the stock hunchback under the system being (allegedly) currently considered (which is different from the system they were using when they made the posted videos about the other mechs) would only have 1 ballistic point in the right torso and the other energy hardpoints located.. uh wherever the original weapons were located.

Maybe I wasn't specific or clear enough, sorry.