71 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

Bonger Bob, on 26 January 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

I think this almost exactly ( or something very similar ) was tried recently on the test server, and OMFG the crymoar shitstorm it created even made Russ sit up and pay attention, and so it was canned....

What they did was cause damage reduction, rather than imperfect convergence without lockon.

That is, weapons magically did less damage at range because nolocks. It was justifiably reviled.

[Strum Wealh]

Bonger Bob, on 26 January 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

What if a limiting factor was placed on ERLL that made you think twice about pulling the trigger in vain and how it would alter peoples bad habits ?? ammo for lasers was just a passing thought more centered around " how can bad player behaviors be altered to improve game-play ?? " and that may mean, put another nail in the coffin for lore. How different would game play be if laser users had to make every shot count not just play snipe / poke games ??

That is part of what would be supported by Wanderer's suggestion of using the coolant failure mechanism from BattleTech (specifically, page 105 of Tactical Operations).

"Despite the wonders of technology and solid maintenance, push a ’Mech’s heat too far and venting for emergency pressure relief and evaporative cooling results in a reduction of coolant inventories to dangerous levels. In some cases, the heat burden reduces the efficiency of heat sinks in a vicious cycle of overheating and efficiency reduction, until the ‘Mech is barely able to cool itself..."
(TacOps, pg. 105)

My previous post in response to Wanderer's also described how an approximation of that mechanic, being derived from already-existing MWO mechanics, could be implemented.

Strum Wealh, on 26 January 2016 - 12:25 PM, said:

That wouldn't/shouldn't even be very difficult to implement.

It would essentially reuse the "overheat-damage-to-CT-structure" mechanic/code, applied to each individual Heat Sink, then tie each individual Heat Sink's cooling ability to its individual health (e.g. if the HS is at 100% health it cools at 100 % of its ability, if the HS is at 57% health it cools at 57% of its ability, if the HS is at 24% health it cools at 24% of its ability, and so on).

So, each and every time a 'Mech overheats itself to the point of shutdown, the damage is applied directly to the Heat Sinks instead of (or, perhaps, in addition to) the CT structure.
Good heat management then becomes even more important, and high-heat alpha strikes become appropriately risky/costly.

Thoughts?

While not making a change to individual laser weapons or having too much impact on small groups of lasers, what it does do is discourage constant group-firing & alpha-striking of large banks of high-heat weapons (e.g. large numbers of lasers and PPCs), by imparting a real, substantial cost to pushing the 'Mech's cooling system too far too often...

[Sandpit]

wanderer, on 26 January 2016 - 09:30 PM, said:

What they did was cause damage reduction, rather than imperfect convergence without lockon.

That is, weapons magically did less damage at range because nolocks. It was justifiably reviled.

much better idea than just sitting down for 30 minutes, calculating ranges of every weapon in the game, then adjusting from the top down so there is more "cushion" between different ranged weapons

[Mechteric]

What if our energy weapons instead were just flashlights?


Because that would be a better idea than making them use ammo.

[wanderer]

Honestly, you could easily work overheat damage into a lot of things.

Superhigh heat levels? Rather than melt internal structure, damage that specifically targets heat sinks, ammo, etc.

Keep riding that 100% bar as close as you can and ammo starts getting -destroyed- (note:not automatic explosions, as that's frankly garbage given no dump options + how much ammo is required vs. TT), heat sinks risk popping with corresponding losses in heat removal. And not even massive amounts of damage- even if it's a few HP of damage to a random ammo/HS location per tic a 'Mech is at X% over the threshold.

[Lugh]

1453 R, on 25 January 2016 - 05:26 PM, said:

Clan op?
GJ, Smoked Jaggers. GJ.

People stopped saying that after this latest round of nerfs...

[MoonUnitBeta]

I wish mechs just had an energy resource. When depleted, it would have effects on weapon damage, cooldowns, etc. It would replenish fairly quickly, but if you fire 5 lasers, all at once, it would take longer to replenish all 5 all at once. If you chain fire, the cooldowns would replenish faster, but over time if you fire faster than the energy replenishes, you'll slowly have longer and longer cooldowns.

Same goes along with gauss, they use energy to charge, and they'd use a lot of energy, so you could only charge two at a time. Kind of like how PGI has it hard coded, but i definitely wouldn't be against having to manage another resource, or have another resource affect weapons.
Autocannons would generate more heat than lasers. Which is something that most people might not feel comfortable with. But lasers wouldn't get very hot as they have to deal with their own resource pool as well.



I frequently wonder what would happen if mech's adopted a power supply.
Ballistics are limited by ammo.
So energy can be limited by... well.. energy.
If PGI implemented a "lore" reason why you can't charge more than two gauss because of power issues, and the lights dim when charging, there's obviously a finite source of power available. So where the heck is that source of power, and why isn't it a problem with anything else?

With gauss, remove the hard cap, and reduce the velocity of gauss projectiles the more energy that is in used (such as charging two gauss). Charge two gauss? 30% reduction in velocity. Simulate damage with it's velocity. Slower projectiles have an increase ballistics arc. You want 3 gauss but want them to fire at full power, then you fire them individually. Charge one, shoot it, charge the second one (takes longer), shoot it, charge the third one (takes even longer), shoot it. Make it so you can fire Gauss rifles at varrying levels of charge. You can either wait to shoot your gauss when it's fully charged, or fire it when it's 1/2 charged, or 1/3. Firing premature will give you a shorter cooldown, but drastically reduced velocity, range, and damage.

Energy cooldowns are directly related to your available power source, and how much you use. Wanna do an alpha? Then you will certain suffer the consequences of waiting for your power to regenerate.

PPCs, you wanna fire two, three, four, implement chance % to simulate power shortage failures and some PPC's will simply dissipate into thin air.
If your mech can't handle the load, your weapons systems will fail.
If you're on the move and want to fire off your 72 medium pulse laser alpha, you're mech is going to suffer in speed.
Why are we putting all these restrictions on heat alone? (see that one thread talking about a new way to redo heat)
Lets get a power source in Mechwarrior and balance the s*** out of energy based weapons, or weapons that use energy, and mech mobility.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 27 January 2016 - 11:38 AM.

[wanderer]

There is a limit on energy.

It's called "how much heat can you get rid of before the 'Mech shuts down/melts?". MWO's limit on Gauss isn't because of energy requirements, it's to keep you from eating effectively zero-heat 60-point alphas from Dire Wolves. Lorewise, 'Mechs (and even tanks) can easily keep three, four, even five Gausses working without a care.
The reason it's a poor one in MWO is because Paul, in his infinite wisdom threw out coding an actual overheat system in the first place.

The current one is the stopgap from closed beta. They took out the auto-explosion part and added a random-damage system in it's place. Nothing was altered otherwise.

So no. No frickin' energy management system. No ammo for energy weapons. That's right up there with such polished turds as the ghost heat system.

Put the heat scale in the game has been missing since 2011.

[RedDragon]

Energy weapons with ammo is exactly in line with Paul's other balance ideas.

[1453 R]

Lugh, on 27 January 2016 - 11:18 AM, said:

People stopped saying that after this latest round of nerfs...

Is JohnnyZ still on the forums?

Then there're still people bellowing CLANZ OP

Trust me, they're out there, and not just Johnny. It's simply not a ten-threads-per-front-page topic anymore because the Sphere guys are starting to get the idea that if they keep harping on it they're liable to lose their supermegaultraquirks, as well.

[Bonger Bob]

wanderer, on 27 January 2016 - 12:14 PM, said:

There is a limit on energy.

It's called "how much heat can you get rid of before the 'Mech shuts down/melts?". MWO's limit on Gauss isn't because of energy requirements, it's to keep you from eating effectively zero-heat 60-point alphas from Dire Wolves. Lorewise, 'Mechs (and even tanks) can easily keep three, four, even five Gausses working without a care.
The reason it's a poor one in MWO is because Paul, in his infinite wisdom threw out coding an actual overheat system in the first place.

The current one is the stopgap from closed beta. They took out the auto-explosion part and added a random-damage system in it's place. Nothing was altered otherwise.

So no. No frickin' energy management system. No ammo for energy weapons. That's right up there with such polished turds as the ghost heat system.

Put the heat scale in the game has been missing since 2011.

omfg what i'd gladly pay to PGI for a real heat scale that holds meaning, not this ghost heat shite.....

RedDragon, on 27 January 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

Energy weapons with ammo is exactly in line with Paul's other balance ideas.

see this guy gets it

- joke thread to take this piss out of Paul's / Russ' previous genius idea's.

[RedDragon]

Bonger Bob, on 27 January 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

see this guy gets it

- joke thread to take this piss out of Paul's / Russ' previous genius idea's.

Still, you're playing with fire. That's how Ghost Heat started.