482 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Livewyr, on 20 December 2015 - 12:09 PM, said:

They are fine. Leave them alone.

No. They aren't. Or they would be used more. Even with insane quirks, they seldom are.

[Khobai]

Id like to see PPCs get the following changes...

-ppc min range is dumb, get rid of it
-erppc projectile velocity is too slow, increase it
-lower heat on all ppcs/erppcs
-give ppc a shorter cooldown than erppc so ppc is better at midrange
-make ALL ppcs/erppcs do splash damage to avoid FLPPD issues when combined with gauss
-give ppcs/erppcs a HUD disruption ability that temporarily knocks out sensors/detailed target info/electronics like ecm, etc...

Edited by Khobai, 20 December 2015 - 12:36 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Even Russ remarked on their under use and desired to have them used more often. That they are not fine is not up for debate.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 20 December 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:

Id like to see PPCs get the following changes...

-ppc min range is dumb, get rid of it
-erppc projectile velocity is too slow, increase it
-lower heat on all ppcs/erppcs
-give ppc a shorter cooldown than erppc so ppc is better at midrange
-make ALL ppcs/erppcs do splash damage to avoid FLPPD issues when combined with gauss
-give ppcs/erppcs a HUD disruption ability that temporarily knocks out sensors/detailed target info/electronics like ecm, etc...

not a bad list, though as long as their is a realistic speed desync between Gauss and PPCs, plus the charge up? I don't think it will be that horrible, especially considering the size/speed of the mechs needed to really pull it off (2x PPC, Gauss plus DHS and AMMo adds up).

And even the 30 PP-FLD was really only a massive issue during the age of Poptarts...which this would not bring back, because most heavies and assaults suck at jumping too badly, plus reticle shake, etc.

Shadowhawk (1 PPC/1 Gauss) and Summoner (Again, 1 ERPPC, 1 Gauss... squeeze in 2 PPC with a LOT of sacrifices in armor and heat) can vaguely pull it off, but not too impressively.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 December 2015 - 12:48 PM.

[Khobai]

if ppcs are splash damage I dont think ppc/gauss is a concern.

even a dual cerppc/dual cgauss dire wolf wouldnt be that scary with the new gauss cooldown

especially if the erppc/cerppc got bumped upto 5.0 cooldown (while regular ppcs stay at 4.0 cooldown). that change is necessary to give the regular ppc more dps than the erppc and make it better in the mid ranges.

Edited by Khobai, 20 December 2015 - 12:52 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 20 December 2015 - 12:51 PM, said:

if ppcs are splash damage I dont think ppc/gauss is a concern.

even a dual cerppc/dual cgauss dire wolf wouldnt be that scary with the new gauss cooldown

especially if the erppc/cerppc got bumped upto 5.0 cooldown (while regular ppcs stay at 4.0 cooldown). that change is necessary to give the regular ppc more dps than the erppc and make it better in the mid ranges.

Splash further weakens the mechs with 1 PPC or who can mount 2 PPCs and nothing else. Again, the Dire Whale isn't even that scary anymore, hence why Vomit and Dakka Whales far outnumber it.

And I'd rather see a negative nerf on the DWF as a chassis, then an entire class of weapons kept weak.


On a separate thought:

Have been pondering a .5 to 1.0 second difference in cooldowns between PPCs and ERPPCs though, too.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 December 2015 - 12:58 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Splash further weakens the mechs with 1 PPC or who can mount PPCs and nothing else

Hence the PPC hud disruption ability. even a mech with 1 PPC can still be annoying by disrupting your HUD. And that disruption utility would be their main advantage over lasers.

If you want PPCs to have higher projectile speed and lower heat than something has to give... and that something is splash damage. They need splash damage instead of pinpoint damage in order to balance all their other attributes. Or its just going to shift the meta back to PPC/Gauss. The CERPPC already has splash damage so its not much of a stretch to give the IS PPC/ERPPC the same splash damage mechanic.

And quite frankly its idiotic for the ERPPC to have a slower projectile velocity than Gauss when it has a higher max range... ERPPC should have a higher projectile velocity than Gauss... splash damage is how you allow that while keeping it balanced.

Edited by Khobai, 20 December 2015 - 01:04 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 20 December 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:

hence the PPC hud disruption ability. even a mech with 1 PPC can still be annoying by disrupting your HUD.

If you want PPCs to have higher projectile speed and lower heat than something has to give... and that something is splash damage. They need splash damage instead of pinpoint damage in order to balance all their other attributes. Or its just going to shift the meta back to PPC/Gauss.

No, it really won't, because as explained:
- Gauss and PPCs don't sync anymore. The moderate speed buffs in the OP will not change that.
- When PPC/ERPPCS were meta, Heat was around 8 and 12 respectively.... not 9 and 14
- Gauss itself is no longer as attractive because of poor DPS and charge up
- Poptarting which is what made the "30 PPFLD" so dread is gone and dead.
-Laughable peripheral effects do not replace actually killing and breaking stuff on mechs that can only run 1 ppc.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 December 2015 - 01:04 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

- Gauss and PPCs don't sync anymore. The moderate speed buffs in the OP will not change that.

OP is stupid. ERPPCs should have higher projectile velocity than gauss because it has higher max range. The higher max range a weapon has the faster its projectile velocity should be so it can actually hit targets at its max range. Thats common sense. Game has it backwards.

Its why LRMs suck too. Because theyre so friggin slow that you can dodge them before they even reach their long range. LRMs are more like medium range missiles because firing at anything at long range with them is pointless. LRMs also need a massive projectile velocity increase (and the tradeoff should be LRMs being much worse at indirect fire).

Longer range weapons should go faster so they can hit targets at longer range more easily.
Shorter range weapons should go slower because they dont need to hit things at long range.

See how that works?

Quote

- When PPC/ERPPCS were meta, Heat was around 8 and 12 respectively.... not 9 and 14

Significantly lowering heat on PPCs/ERPPCs/CERPPCs is something ive already advocated. The heat is way too high compared to lasers.

Quote

- Gauss itself is no longer as attractive because of poor DPS and charge up

And yet clan mechs still use Gauss because its their only source of instant pinpoint damage that doesnt spike their heat. Gauss is only no longer an option for IS mechs. Its still very much a part of the Clan repertoire of weapons.

Quote

- Poptarting which is what made the "30 PPFLD" so dread is gone and dead.

The Direwolf can run 2 CERPPCs and 2 CGauss which was 60 damage (not including its other weapons). that needs to be balanced. CERPPC getting a 5.0 cd increase combined with gauss cooldown already being nerfed prevents that build from being OP. It also makes the CERPPC into more of a sniping weapon and not as good in brawls, which is how it should be.

Quote

-Laughable peripheral effects do not replace actually killing and breaking stuff on mechs that can only run 1 ppc.

Maybe not. But the fact is anyone running just 1 PPC is an idiot anyway. Weapons work best when boated. If youre running a single PPC instead of boating a bunch of lasers youre doing it wrong. Likewise you should only be running PPCs if you can use 2 or more of them, in which case you could keep someone continually disrupted by alternating fire of 2 PPCs.

Edited by Khobai, 20 December 2015 - 01:23 PM.

[Quaamik]

If we bumped the velocity to Gauss levels (2000 mps) and made PPCs all splash (4,3+3 for the IS side, 5,5+5 for the clans), and dropped the heat down to the 8 / 12 range, they would be the dominant sniper weapon AND the dominant go to meta to replace laser vomit.

I don't think that's what PGI, or the player base wants, and I'm betting its not what PGI would give us in any case.

[Bishop Steiner]

Quaamik, on 20 December 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

If we bumped the velocity to Gauss levels (2000 mps) and made PPCs all splash (4,3+3 for the IS side, 5,5+5 for the clans), and dropped the heat down to the 8 / 12 range, they would be the dominant sniper weapon AND the dominant go to meta to replace laser vomit.

I don't think that's what PGI, or the player base wants, and I'm betting its not what PGI would give us in any case.

and it would really screw the 1-2 pPC mechs even more.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

They can do a lot of PPC buffing if they add some kind of ancillary change to keep them reined in a bit.

This could mean arcing damage for all PPC types (say, 5/2.5/2.5 for IS PPCs and 7.5/3.75/3.75 for cERPPCs). It could mean heat penalties (any number of options could be on the table for these, but at minimum I'd be looking for shot deviation similar to what we see when firing while burning JJs, though the amount of precision lost should scale based on your heat %).

[Bishop Steiner]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 20 December 2015 - 01:39 PM, said:

They can do a lot of PPC buffing if they add some kind of ancillary change to keep them reined in a bit.

This could mean arcing damage for all PPC types (say, 5/2.5/2.5 for IS PPCs and 7.5/3.75/3.75 for cERPPCs). It could mean heat penalties (any number of options could be on the table for these, but at minimum I'd be looking for shot deviation similar to what we see when firing while burning JJs, though the amount of precision lost should scale based on your heat %).

Or they can do mild buff/tweaks/changes...as proposed...and NOT jump through a bunch of crazy hoops?

[Pariah Devalis]

I'm honestly confused. Most people who can aim find the splash damage from Clan ERPPC worthless. It adds no worthwhile value to the weapon. None. Nada. Zip. If you hit what you want to kill, you don't care that you oh so slightly damaged what is adjacent to it.

So why does splash keep coming up and, more confoundingly, splash at the direct expense of already dubiously useful amounts of pinpoint damage? You can repackage it any way you want, if any PPC does less than 10 damage at the point of impact it is immediately made worse than a LPLas of either tech line. Immediately. If people want splash, fine, that's cool, but only as a secondary function to the improvements to the weapon systems altogether.

Acceptable splash additions could include things like:

PPC Doing 10/1/1 outside of 90 meters and 3.33/3.33/3.33 under 90 meters @ 10 Heat
IS ERPPC Doing 10/1/1 at all ranges including sub-90 meters @ 14 Heat, slightly increased velocity
C ERPPC Doing 13/1/1 at all ranges including sub-90 meters @ 15 Heat

In all cases, the pinpoint damage is not being reduced in any way. It is, however, being paid for in the ER varieties by the heat of the weapons, compensating for the front loaded pinpoint nature of it all. I could also see splash mimicing a destabilized standard PPC where the inhibiters are disabled for under 90 meter use.

Having said that, the weapon system doesn't need the splash mechanic. At all. One could remove the splash component from the above values and I don't think too many people would bat an eye. Though I kinda like the idea for sub-90 on standard PPCs just because it is unstable. Still feel that splash mechanic is a better fit for LB style autocannons.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 20 December 2015 - 02:15 PM.

[Matthew Ace]

Khobai, on 20 December 2015 - 01:10 PM, said:

OP is stupid. ERPPCs should have higher projectile velocity than gauss because it has higher max range. The higher max range a weapon has the faster its projectile velocity should be so it can actually hit targets at its max range. Thats common sense. Game has it backwards.

The only reason why Gauss has 2000m/s velocity is because it was buffed from 1200m/s to make up fot the charge-up mechanism.

[Tarl Cabot]

BigBenn, on 17 December 2015 - 06:23 PM, said:

The MAD-3R has a 50% quirk for PPC velocity. After using the -3R quite a bit (mastered) I strongly believe a velocity boost is all the PPC family needs. Leave everything else alone.

Increase cooldown timer with Velocity increase, revise ER/PPC quirks. Gauss Rifle is closer to Solaris 7 delay than previously. You could go and increase cooldown timers on C-IS/ERLL

Lightfoot, on 17 December 2015 - 08:33 PM, said:

ERPPCs are too hot when you have imposed DHS 1.5. It's okay that they cap out after sustained firing, it's not okay that you need 26 double heatsinks to run 2 of them. That breaks Battle Tech mech designs. AWS-9M, Adder, Nova Cat, etc. None of these mechs work as they do in Battle Tech due to uncontrollable overheating.

It may break TT designs with 10sec rnds but S7 (2.5sec rnds) is also based on the BT universe, and all the high heat generated weapons could not be fired at once nor as often after cooldown (delay). One of the outstanding items is the actual buffer, the ability to exceed the heat cap by whatever margin before cooling is applied at the end of the round. That HScale buffer is more pronounced in one verses another:

(I am sure I screwed up something here)
TT: 30 Heat Scale+SHS:DHS (ex. 30HS w/20DHS = 50. Fire 4ERPPC (15ht each=60ht)
cooling 1pt SHS or 2pt DHS, every 10 secs (0.1/sec or 0.2/sec)

vs
S7: 120 Heat Scale + SHS:DHS Weapons heat is BT# * 4
cooling is 1pt SHS or 2pts DHS, every 2.5 secs (0.4/sec or 0.8sec) Remember, weapons have a delay(cooldown), the number of rounds the weapon can not be fired.

3 delay or 7.5sec cooldown ERPPC/PPC/ERLL/LPL
2 delay or 5.0sec cooldown Gauss Rifle/AC20/LL/MPL/LRMs
1 delay or 2.5sec cooldown most others
0 delay (can fire next round) AC2/MG/AMS

MWO: 30 Heat Scale + (internal 1pt SHS or 2pts DHS, max 10pts or 20pts) + external 1.1 to 1.5? SHS;CDHS:ISDHS
cooling varies, dependent on the number of SHS/ISDHS/CDHS, from 0.1/sec to 0.2/sec
250+ engines
30+10 (SHS in engine) + external SHS = 40+ externals
30+20 (DHS in engine) + external DHS = 50+ externals

What if FASA had set the rules where weapons heat total could only exceed the cap by a set percentage (50%) before cooling kicked in at the end of the round? And/or it had additional internal structural damage occur if mech ended round beyond the heatcap, such would happen if the mech had taken an engine crit during that round. It would be similar to locking the HScale at 30. /shrugs In the end 10secs is a long time. For BT then only 3 of 4 ERPPC (15ht each) max could be fired. 17SHS (10internal+07external) or 10DHS internal (running is 2pts heat) to make sure it stays under the heat cap.

• Does both sets of ERPPC/PPC and autocannons need a boost in velocity? Yes
  
• Does how the HeatScale cap function need to be reduced? Yes, where only the amount of heatsinks increases it, regardless of type.
  
• Should there be more threshold points in the Heatscale than just what happens at Max Cap? imho yes, at least 1, if not 2, additional points where movement penalty kicks in. If one at 66%, 2 at 33% then 66% -- 75% or 50%/75%.

Edited some typos but to add, the game needs a better heat foundation, be it a mix of BT/S7, but not just of the positive side but also of the negative side, a ying for the yang. Do to no convergence/CoF, be it during poptarting (which was primarily done at range), peek and scoot/fade, there will always be that heavy FLD. What you want to happen is to reduce how often that can be done with a timespan. Desync velocity (but not extreme like current setting), increased cooldown timers is a start, but should be followed by a reduction in max heat cap (compromised between current TT/MWO, more along S7) and additional heat threshold points.

The above with a total revision of quirks and weapon duration length to add actual flavor to each techline and to each chassis/chassis line.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 20 December 2015 - 03:56 PM.

[AEgg]

What about splash scaling DOWN with range as a downside, but more overall damage when the spread was higher? (This is assuming heat goes down a small amount and velocity goes way up)

Something like this for the IS PPC:
5/5/5 at 180m
7/3/3 at 270m
8/2/2 at 360m
10/0/0 at 540m, scaling down from there?

Obvously the values would need tweaked, but It's a downside with interesting applications. The weapon would still probably be best at longer ranges, but at closer ranges, it isn't strictly better or strictly worse than ACs.

Edited by AEgg, 20 December 2015 - 03:27 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

AEgg, on 20 December 2015 - 03:25 PM, said:

What about splash scaling DOWN with range as a downside, but more overall damage when the spread was higher? (This is assuming heat goes down a small amount and velocity goes way up)

Something like this for the IS PPC:
5/5/5 at 180m
7/3/3 at 270m
8/2/2 at 360m
10/0/0 at 540m, scaling down from there?

Obvously the values would need tweaked, but It's a downside with interesting applications. The weapon would still probably be best at longer ranges, but at closer ranges, it isn't strictly better or strictly worse than ACs.

how about...NO to splash damage. At the heat PPCs are at, even reduced, weakening their actual effective damage I simply can not get behind.

[Pariah Devalis]

AEgg, on 20 December 2015 - 03:25 PM, said:

What about splash scaling DOWN with range as a downside, but more overall damage when the spread was higher? (This is assuming heat goes down a small amount and velocity goes way up)

Something like this for the IS PPC:
5/5/5 at 180m
7/3/3 at 270m
8/2/2 at 360m
10/0/0 at 540m, scaling down from there?

Obvously the values would need tweaked, but It's a downside with interesting applications. The weapon would still probably be best at longer ranges, but at closer ranges, it isn't strictly better or strictly worse than ACs.

It's certainly a more interesting use of splash as a mechanic, I'll give you that. It could also allow a faster projectile if it was only dealing "full" pinpoint damage at a very specific range and decreased below that. However this verges on complicated coding, and as a result makes it much harder to implement.

[Zordicron]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 December 2015 - 10:26 AM, said:

Welcome and so too are your ideas.

I would not mind "peripheral" functionality. Not one bit. The problem is they seldom work out as a balancer. PGI tried that by making PPCs disrupt ECM. To say it was met with an underwhelming response, would be to put it mildly.

Also, new functionality, requires new code. Not a deal breaker, but one has to decide is the investment worth it, which is hard to model.

Hence why the overarching approach to this, Pariah's LB-X thread and a few other balance one's I have posted are to stick to simple but effective balance changes, like changing numerical values in the XML files of the weapons (speed, heat, damage, possibly "footprint") and other mechanics already in game (like using the splash mechanics from C-ERPPCs on LB-X instead cones)

Once we see some basic combat balance, then I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see these things added, and if need be tweak the numbers a bit if felt needed later.

Pariah Devalis, on 20 December 2015 - 10:30 AM, said:

What Bishop said. Having said that, disrupting laser systems would be an interesting mechanic. Even if all it did was increase cool down or, alternatively, adding a small amount of heat to the enemy mech.

LOL

So I suggest this a few pages back, get told it's not going to fix them. New guy shows up, and its great!!

I am done here. Not to bash new guy, I just find it amusing the people being most vocal in the thread are so wishy washy.