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I've heard that in TT, turns, and the resulting values for the game's weapons, were based on a 10 second time frame. Whether or not I heard correctly, this could be used to help balance the weapons out and give them different niches. The following are rough ideas, but the basic premise of the idea should be clear as the list goes on.
(Note: Just using Inner Sphere for now to save time, as the point of this is to lay out the basic idea. All values are based on information pulled from Sarna, not the current in game stats)
Sniper Weapons
PPC: 10 damage. 10 heat. 10 second recharge. 7 tons.
ERPPC: 10 damage. 15 heat. 10 second recharge. 7 tons. (Advantage is range and perhaps flight time over standard ppc.)
Gauss Rifle: 15 damage. 1 heat. 10 second reload 15 tons + ammo
The above are to my knowledge the de facto sniper weapons, thus they'd do all their damage in one burst. This has the obvious advantage of being front-loaded, but comes with the disadvantage of being useless for 10 seconds after firing, during which your target can re-position or close the distance. Not to mention missing is quite detrimental with a long reload.
Lasers
Large Laser: 4 damage. 4 heat. 5 second recharge. 5 tons.
ER Large Laser: 4 damage. 6 heat. 5 second recharge. 5 tons. (Same as ERPPC: Range advantage comes with extra heat)
Medium Laser: 1.25 damage. 0.75 heat. 2.5 second recharge. 1 ton.
Small Laser: 0.60 damage. 0.20 heat. 2 second recharge. 0.5 tons.
Note that the above values add up to their tabletop values over 10 seconds. it simply breaks the damage and heat into multiple shots. This would help with pinpoint laser damage as each shot needs to be re-aimed or kept on target to get the full damage on one part of the mech. It would also give you mainstay weapons that can be used far more frequently than the sniper weapons, and would be much more forgiving to missed shots. A good balance between firepower and rate of fire.
Pulse Lasers
Large Pulse Laser: 2.25 damage. 2.50 heat. 2.5 second recharge. 7 tons.
Medium Pulse Laser: 1.20 damage. 0.80 heat. 2 second recharge. 2 tons.
Small Pulse Laser: 0.30 damage. 0.40 heat. 1 second recharge. 1 ton. (Really? Small pulses don't have more damage than small lasers in tabletop? wierd.)
Pulse lasers tend to do more damage than standard, but spread it out over more frequent shots, making it mechanically pulse the damage, rather than just the visual rapid flash currently in place. These become DPS weapons, with the Small Pulse being akin to a laser machine gun. This makes them useful backup weapons to deter cheeky light mechs trying to take advantage of the longer cooldown of the large sniper weapons. Or as brawling weapons when you close the distance on the enemy mechs.
Autocannons
AC/20: 10 damage. 3.50 heat. 5 second reload. 14 tons + ammo.
AC/10: 5 damage. 1.50 heat. 5 second reload. 12 tons + ammo.
LB 10-X: 5 damage. (5 pellets, 1 per pellet.) 1 Heat. 5 second reload. 11 tons + ammo.
AC/5: 1.25 damage. 0.25 heat. 2.50 second reload. 8 tons + ammo.
Ultra AC/5: 1.25 damage. 0.25 heat. 2.5 second reload. 9 tons + ammo. can fire every 1.25 seconds at the risk of jam (make it much smaller than the game to accomodate the much faster rate of fire)
AC/2: 0.20 damage. 0.10 heat. 1 second reload. 6 tons + ammo.
It's here that I have to stress that these are examples. Autocannons come in so many different flavors in lore that any one profile could be correct to a particular manufacturer. If PGI were so inclined, they could actually have different models of the same weapon in the game as options. Want that Pontiac 100 AC/20? have it fire a shot every 0.1 second for 0.2 damage as long as you hold down the fire button, basically turning it in to a large caliber machinegun.
The basic idea for this example is that as caliber gets smaller, the weapons range increases (as we all know), and the rate of fire increases to accommodate for the greater risk of missing at that range. I don't know how to balance the LB 10-X if they're not going to allow for swapped ammo, but reducing the pellet count to 5 per shot would help it keep the shotgun feel while increasing general accuracy at range.
Short Range Missiles
SRM-6: 6 missiles/shot. 2 damage/missile. 4 heat. 10 second reload. 3 tons + ammo.
SRM-4: 4 missiles/shot. 2 damage/missile. 3 heat. 10 second reload. 2 tons + ammo.
SRM-2: 2 missiles/shot. 2 damage/missile. 2 heat. 10 second reload. 1 ton + ammo.
Streak SRM-2: 2 missiles/shot. 2 damage/missile. 2 heat. 10 second reload. 1.5 tons + ammo. Lock-on system.
SRMs are supposed to pack a punch. Also, missiles are missiles, the weapons just determine amount fired. Thus they keep their damage/heat/cooldown. This, alongside splitting up lasers to damage over time, gives the Commando and other light mechs with missiles the option to become the hit-and-run heavy punch light mechs. Alternatively on other mechs, and as tonnage increases, taking these alongside Medium/Small or Pulse lasers gives you dps on one trigger and punch to strip armor or finish a target on the other. Streaks already pay for their lock on system with increased weight and PGI's limb targeting system. Thus they keep the same 2 damage as the other missiles.
Long Range Missiles
LRM-20: 4 missiles/shot. 1 damage/missile. 1.60 heat. 2 second reload. 10 tons + ammo.
LRM-10: 2 missiles/shot. 1 damage/missile. 0.80 heat. 2 second reload. 5 tons + ammo.
LRM-5: 1 missile/shot. 1 damage/missile. 0.40 heat. 2 second reload. 2 tons + ammo.
LRMs are in an awkward place right now, as everyone already knows. Splitting up the shots not only makes them sustain damage, but it also fixes a few other things. Nobody uses larger launchers, because the spread makes them miss far too many shots. Smaller batches of missiles allow even the LRM-20 to hit reliably, barring physical terrain or lock-on breaks. On the other end AMS will easily shoot down smaller batches of missiles, thus a conveyor belt of LRM-5s would be shut down. But a Kintaro with 5 LRM-5s, for example, could still fire them in groups to get the missiles past AMS. Missile flight speed would definitely have to be increased to account for this, else AMS would completely shut them down with so few missiles per volley.
Flamers and Machine Guns
I don't have enough knowledge of how these could be made to work in the game to hypothesize on that. Ideally, flamers would transfer more heat to the target than what is being consumed to keep them going. Maybe lock the target's heat dissapation for as long as they're being hit? Just throwing a random idea out there.
Machine Guns seem to be in a decent place as crit-seeking weapons once armor has been stripped. Ideally they'll become decent weapons in their own right once Machine Gun Arrays come around.
Again, this post is mostly an idea dump for me to get these thoughts written down, but feel free to comment on the concept whether to disagree or agree or offer alternatives. The general thought behind this is to bring the weapon damage back in line with the armor of the mechs they're shooting at. If weapons are firing 3x as fast as intended, but mech armor doesn't account for that, time to kill takes a dive. Splitting up most weapons into multiple shots over 10 seconds also helps spread damage around while still doing their TT value of damage and heat if used for the full 10 seconds of fire time. This also has the benefit of giving your heatsinks more time to cool the mech, allowing you to sustain for longer, which could allow the heat cap to be brought down to potentially make alpha strikes more dangerous to the user, and give the flamer a use.
And for the long reload weapons, it also gives merit to the idea of not firing an alpha strike. You can take the shot and hide to recharge, or chain fire to keep the pressure on with the FLD. Psychological warfare is definitely a thing, especially in solo que. Nobody likes getting hit by back to back PPCs.
Another advantage is that, in theory, this wouldn't require much in terms of coding. All of this is changing values for damage, heat, fire-rate, and ammo amount per ton.
Thus ends my wall of text thought dump.
Edited by Tarilaan, 09 November 2015 - 01:59 AM.
