41 replies to this topic

[Strum Wealh]

CaveMan, on 04 December 2011 - 11:22 AM, said:

Given the choice between a flamer and a medium laser, you're going to pick the medium laser every single time, unless the flamer gets a serious overhaul.

Not necesarily.

If you want a direct anti-BattleMech weapon, then a medium laser would indeed be the way to go.

However... flamers are not meant to be anti-BattleMech brawling weapons!

Let's examine a 'Mech based around the concept of how flamers are meant to be used: the FS9-H Firestarter.

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The Firestarter was rarely attached to a lance, but rather was assigned to a company or regiment. The commander would deploy the 'Mech to support an attack group or to scout wooded terrain.

Though a real threat to light 'Mechs, a Firestarter can do little against the formidable armor and weaponry of medium and heavy opponents. It was the ability to set fires that made the FS9 so valuable. Skillfully placed blazes could rout enemy forces, break lines, and corner 'Mechs. A whole series of tactics was developed around creating and spreading wildfires. Firestarter pilots are particularly fond of setting dense woods afire while enemy 'Mechs are advancing through them and of igniting buildings that are sheltering enemy units. If an engagement is lost, a Firstarter could create fire and smoke to cover a retreat and to hamper pursuit.

The Firestarter also works well as a scout. Its speed and armor give it good protection in the field. Not only could it map terrain as it traveled, but it could also clear away wooded areas that the enemy might use as defensive positions or for an ambush.

The Firestarter also carried out scorched earth missions in the early days of the Succession Wars. In recent decades, as armies attempt to capture and hold targets intact, scorched earth has become an extremely rare policy. It is only used when even long-term victory is impossible or when the target is too valuable to fall into enemy hands.

Also, from the Sarna page:

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The Firestarter was traditionally assigned at the company level instead of the lance level. The reason for this would seem to be that the 'Mech has such a specialized role that it is useless to assign it to lances. This changed in the later Succession Wars as it was found that the Firestarter performed well in the scout role, as it could start fires to prevent an enemy from attempting to follow through the inferno it could leave in its wake, and it could also clear areas for the advancement of friendly forces.

(Emphasis mine)

A flamer-boat like the Firestarter is valuable not because it can (necessarily) run up to other 'Mechs and roast them into shutdown or ammo explosions (a tactic that the BT creators seem to have actively wanted to discourage by making heat delivered to the firing 'Mech higher than heat delivered to the target), but as a harasser and area-denial unit, performing such functions as:
- setting the environment (woods, buildings) around an enemy unit ablaze, trapping them in an inferno
- setting fire to buildings, causing them to collapse (for example, to bring a flaming building down on top of a group of enemy 'Mechs)
- shutting down (and/or cooking-off the ammo of) already hot-running enemy units
- flushing out enemy units in hiding (by setting fire to the woods and buildings in which they're hidden)
- dispensing with enemy support units (infantry and vehicles) while an enemy's 'Mech forces are otherwise engaged
- delivering heat to enemy 'Mechs from the flanks and rear while said enemy is engaged with an allied 'Mech
- using fires to confuse enemies and enemy weapons (heat-seeking warheads) relying on thermal sensors
- creating smoke screens or using the smoke as a signal
- clearing paths through woods and cities for friendly units' advance
- covering friendly units' retreat (by setting fire to pathways and bridges after they've passed)
- implementing scorched-earth strategies

In short, the flamers are not so much outright weapons as versatile tools that can also be used as weapons under the right circumstances (as determined by the players' situation and the environment).

Also, from the CBT Master Rules:

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The typical flame thrower carried by ’Mechs taps into the heat generated by the fusion reactor to create a powerful but short-ranged burst of fire. These weapons are rarely mounted on ’Mechs due to their poor heat-to-damage ratio, but they can be useful incendiary weapons.

Under normal circumstances, a flamer does not cause heat damage to a target.
However, if all players agree, they may choose (each time the unit fires) to add 2 to the target BattleMech’s Heat Scale for that turn as a result of the flamer attack, rather than doing 2 points of damage.

The so-called vehicle flamer uses ammunition supplied by fuel in tanks rather than tapping into the fusion reactor. As such, it is considered a ballistic rather than energy weapon.
This means vehicles need not mount heat sinks to dissipate the heat generated by vehicle flamers, making them ideal weapons for use on internal combustion-powered units. Despite the weapon’s name, BattleMechs may also mount this type of flamer, but they must accommodate the heat generated by firing the weapon using heat sinks in the usual way.

Besides sounding rather odd...
If flamers really need a "buff" to appear/be more useful/attractive (by playing up the weapon aspect of its nature), one plausible and (IMO) reasonable way to do so would be to make it a "two-fer" - that is, a flamer can be made to deliver both damage and heat to a target, while still being balanced (read: more difficult to abuse) by it's flaws (relatively high heat to the firing 'Mech, short effective range).
Also, players could be allowed the choice between the higher-heat, infinite-use "standard flamer" and the lower-heat, finite-use, ammo-explosion-risking "vehicle flamer".

Your thoughts?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 08 December 2011 - 01:24 PM.

[wolf74]

Let us not forget Flamers did have two modes of Fire.
Cutting Mode: This did Damage to Heavy Armor But transferred very little heat to the armored unit. Area of Effect Small
Thrower Mode: Covered a Large Area with Flames Did little to no Damage to Heavy Armor but did Transfer a Good amount of heat to the target.

[Corsair114]

Yeach, on 08 December 2011 - 11:56 AM, said:

Um... they were highly exploited in MW3 multiplayer where you blew up an opposing mech just my spraying them with 13 flamers.
So no to MW3 flamers.

It's possible that first sentence wasn't delivered with enough sarcasm. That post went up while I was on my out the door to jury duty.

My point, ultimately, was that I would like them to be a carefully considered tactical weapon. You're in a [a 'mech with flamers] stalking, for example, a Warhammer. The Warhammer fires both its PPC's at a distant target and you leap into action, blasting it from behind with your flamers and other weapons, exacerbating its already problematic heat build up, and putting it in a situation where putting its PPC's into play would very likely mean the end of the road for it... but where not using them is also not an ideal situation. Your flamers add as much heat to you as your target, but as your target is hot and you're not, you're in good shape.

[Corsair101]

Cutting for damage and spraying for heat is lore friendly and would be awesome in game - especially in urban environments that we'll likely be seeing. And yes, making them produce no heat would of course be very, very broken. Generally flamers are only useful in a couple roles though, and should remain that way - seeing the overpowered flamers from "mechassault" again would make me weap tears of pain (for those blisfully unaware, flamers were among the most powerful weapons in that arcady spin-off, alongside the dreaded machine guns)

[Tierloc]

Please remember that the stepchild of this discussion is limiting or removing coolant.

Turning up the heat has the potential to make them so overpowered it's the only thing pilots play.

[A dog]

I hated the flamers in MW4 mercs. I remember having 2 supernovas fully loaded with flamers and we couldnt even get an argus to explode. all it did was shut down
But i do agree with Tierloc, making them hotter just unbalances the game.

[Evgeny Bear]

Can't help but I only think about:

[Strum Wealh]

Andar89, on 11 December 2011 - 06:29 AM, said:

Can't help but I only think about:

Hmmm...

Another interesting thing to distinguish the "standard flamers" (draw plasma from the 'Mech's engine) from "vehicle flamers" (draw fuel from an on-board fuel tank) might be the depiction/mechanic of the flame itself - standard flamers could have a MW3/MW4-style "burst" (explainable as a built-in safety measure to avoid drawing too much plasma from the the engine) while the vehicle flamers could have a continuous stream, like what is depicted above (for as long as their fuel lasts, anyway).

Your thoughts?

[Evgeny Bear]

As far as I know Battletechflamers uses Fusion generator plasma to incinerate.
So it expands and creating a super heat fireball with the normal air.
In MW:LL you fire a continous fireblast at enemies, but you gain heat also,
you can fire as long as your mech can withstand the heat.

[Cheesybox]

I'm not an expert on Battletech info but from what I remember, aren't flamers just bursts from the main reactor? You'd think they'd cool the attacking mech if anything.

The overheating another mech is something that needs to be handled delicately. To much heat transfer and people spam them, not enough and people probably won't ever use them. Maybe with the above (assuming that info is right) it has to be limited to X flamers per mech (after all, if the reactor keeps blowing fuel and whatnot out of flamer ports, how can it keep running?)

[Hex Dog]

I managed to corner an atlas and make a catapult run away by effectively using a flamer last night. The key is teamwork, however. Flamer causes suppression, confusion, and component damage when ammo cooks off.

They work pretty good but you have to work as a team, utilising covering fire to keep the enemy mech pinned down, but also to cover your rear, and risk being mauled for taking the close-range action to the enemy. It's not for the faint of heart but it sure does work!

I only became at a loss when out of range for using the flamer which is where the enemy wanted to be anyway.

Edited by Hex Dog, 10 November 2012 - 03:38 AM.

[Malzel]

The bits of lore surrounding flamers' use in setting fires for tactical advantage and against vehicles and infantry are interesting, but irrelevant unless it can be used for the same purposes in this game. Since this is a game about mechs fighting mechs, and the flamer exists in it, then the flamer should be effective against mechs in some way.

That said, it is a fine line to walk to make such a niche weapon useful without being incredibly overpowered. The flamer should always create more heat in the attacker than the target to prevent exploitation, (Yes, you're just venting heat from your core, but you're venting it through your mech, which means it's heating up other things along the way.) but I could see increasing the amount of heat generated on both sides by a significant portion. This would mean that overheating an enemy would become possible, but that the user couldn't fire it for extended periods, either.

In another thread, someone offered the idea that the flamer could ignore armor and damage internal components, only, as it "baked" them inside. That might be a interesting, but the damage and heat generated in the target would have to be kept pitiful, and the heat generated in the user raised to compensate.

[syngyne]

UncleKulikov, on 04 December 2011 - 12:04 PM, said:

Flamers should definitely be better. Like causing no heat for the firing mech, since they actually vent plasma from the reactor

They were like this at the beginning of closed beta.

They were ridiculously overpowered. Matches became nothing but flamer Swaybacks running around shutting people down and roasting them while they were helpless.

[ltwally]

UncleKulikov, on 04 December 2011 - 12:04 PM, said:

Flamers should definitely be better. Like causing no heat for the firing mech, since they actually vent plasma from the reactor

Yes... and, how does that plasma exit the mech? Is the mech's engine mounted on the outside of the mech with a vent right there? Or, does the incredibly hot plasma need to travel through the mech (often times all the way through to the arms) before exiting the mech?

I would image that a literal river of plasma being channelled through your mech creates a substantial amount of heat as it flows.

[ltwally]

The issue with flamers is that as long as they're not just doing straight damage, but also applying heat, they're extremely difficult to balance.

Which is why I am all for flamers either only doing normal damage, or being altogether removed from MW:O. They're just too difficult to achieve balance with if they're producing heat. Either they're too weak, or every game is going to have gangs of light mechs using them to "cook off" the opponent's ammo.

[ltwally]

Malzel, on 10 November 2012 - 04:01 AM, said:

...

That said, it is a fine line to walk to make such a niche weapon useful without being incredibly overpowered. The flamer should always create more heat in the attacker than the target to prevent exploitation, (Yes, you're just venting heat from your core, but you're venting it through your mech, which means it's heating up other things along the way.) but I could see increasing the amount of heat generated on both sides by a significant portion. This would mean that overheating an enemy would become possible, but that the user couldn't fire it for extended periods, either.
...

How do you tackle the issue of a gang of Commandos with Flamers circling an Atlas, blazing away for a short period of time before that Atlas's ammunition explodes?

Personally, I feel the balance issue for the heat is just too difficult (if not out-right impossible) to get right, and that Flamers should therefore only do normal damage.

[p4g3m4s7r]

I say have them apply slightly more or the same heat to the attacker. It makes sense from a physics standpoint (heat is lost first in your mech and then the atmosphere before reaching the enemy mech) and would be difficult to abuse. This way, if someone wants to build a scout mech for taking on heavies, they can throw on a flamer or two, and use it to force an overheat on an atlas or awesome right after said mech fires, and perhaps hold that mech there for a very short while. However, attempting extended forced-shut downs would cause the attacker to shut down as well.

As is, they don't add heat in the correct way (they effectively deny the ability to use your weapons) and do too little damage. They honestly don't need to do damage, though it really doesn't hurt too much to have them do damage, as long as the heat they generate is much greater than that of weapons that do similar damage.

[ltwally]

p4g3m4s7r, on 10 November 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

I say have them apply slightly more or the same heat to the attacker. It makes sense from a physics standpoint (heat is lost first in your mech and then the atmosphere before reaching the enemy mech) and would be difficult to abuse. This way, if someone wants to build a scout mech for taking on heavies, they can throw on a flamer or two, and use it to force an overheat on an atlas or awesome right after said mech fires, and perhaps hold that mech there for a very short while. However, attempting extended forced-shut downs would cause the attacker to shut down as well.

I'm not thinking about just one scout with a flamer. I'm thinking about a 2 or 3 ganging up and taking out a heavy/assault mech far quicker than they could with lasers or missiles.

So, the flamer produces too much heat, and you start seeing light mechs loading up and roasting heavies in every match. Or, the flamer produces little enough heat that even in groups it isn't going to allow a trio of Commandos take out an Atlas quicker than they would be able to with traditional weapons, and no one wants to use it at that point.

The balance issue seems way too tricky to me. Better that flamers just do normal damage, or get rid of them altogether.

[Greg Djekow]

ltwally, on 10 November 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

I'm not thinking about just one scout with a flamer. I'm thinking about a 2 or 3 ganging up and taking out a heavy/assault mech far quicker than they could with lasers or missiles.

You'd first need 2 or 3 scouts with flamers, then need to gang them up. They're going to be within 60m of the target so they are actually spottet. Missile boats fire away. So first, this tactic is probably only going to happen within premade groups and second all the spotters of the opposite team are now bound by a single unit.
An atlas with cooked off ammo still has laser weapons and if he refrains from firing his weapons he should vent enough heat so it takes reasonable time to make that ammo go boom.

Effect? 3 Scouts don't fire on other target and cause minimal damage as well as being prone to LRM fire due to being spotted. Tradeoff: 1 Assault mech can't fire its weapons.
Secondary effect: CASE makes more sense and storing ammo in the head isn't a cool idea anymore.

I remember some 3025 games where flamers were actually quite usefull due to lots of mech designs being prone to overheating while firing on the move. And Flamers are still less risky for the attacker than inferno missiles.

I suppose the 2:3 heat ratio isn't that bad and won't upset too much. I'd rate flamers as a support weapon, like LRMs.

Edited by Greg Djekow, 10 November 2012 - 02:18 PM.

[ltwally]

Greg Djekow, on 10 November 2012 - 02:16 PM, said:

You'd first need 2 or 3 scouts with flamers, then need to gang them up. They're going to be within 60m of the target so they are actually spottet. Missile boats fire away. So first, this tactic is probably only going to happen within premade groups and second all the spotters of the opposite team are now bound by a single unit.

First off, as I play light mechs almost exclusively, I can say that getting into position for a light mech w/ a decent engine is rarely a problem.

That is exactly what I'm worried about. A few groups running around that can spoil the game for a lot of players.

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An atlas with cooked off ammo still has laser weapons and if he refrains from firing his weapons he should vent enough heat so it takes reasonable time to make that ammo go boom.

Only if that Atlas had CASE, and not XL engine. And, even then, most of the time ammo is stored in side torsos. When a side torso dies, so does the arm attached to it.

So.. yeah... Flamers causing ammo explosions is a really big deal.

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...
I suppose the 2:3 heat ratio isn't that bad and won't upset too much. I'd rate flamers as a support weapon, like LRMs.

Again, groups. When 2 or 3 light mechs can cause that kind of devastation, that quickly, to an assault mech... that's a huge problem. And there is no good balance for it that I can see. Either you have the heat factor being abused by groups, or they're so weak that no one will want them. Better to either keep flamers direct-damage only, or just get rid of them.