1094 replies to this topic

[Dagorlad13]

Mystere, on 10 February 2016 - 10:51 PM, said:

Again, that's nothing but gross misrepresentation of the OP. <smh>

No, that is entirely what is possible if an RNG COF system is implemented.

[Kuritaclan]

Old MW4 Ranger, on 10 February 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

an with this Tech fight Aerofighter against Aerospacefighter , and Mech fights against Aerofighters ?

Yes with this Tech fighting Conventional Airfighters and Land Air Mechs. Not every time with the best results, but who wanna expect those from ballistics against targets with such speed and maneuverability.

Old MW4 Ranger, on 10 February 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

with this technique might not fly once or maneuver with this in space, not to mention JumpShips very one..navigate Jumpships with a Abacus? or Sextant or can walk with a Mech..

Jumpships are maintained during the "dark ages" after the star league disapeared. Hands on they also needed malfunction subsystem parts repaired and replaced if needed. Thats not about building new ones.

Old MW4 Ranger, on 10 February 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

each Infantrymen in the 31 century shooting and aiming better as the Mechs...ok, give away the Zoom for the Mechs, all Optical systems and paint a Cursor of the Monitor...the Story of Battletech is

That's an untenable thesis, that is floating around for, well since forever. But it never was true.

Sure it is hard to acknowledge, when something like APPLE COMPUTERS INTERSTELLAR (Ap Cmp) is around since 20th century and many other tech manufacturer, that they stil maintained a substantial tech level. However this tech level was not comparable to that of the high of the star league. But it stil gets things done. And thats the problem nearly most people do not take reasonable into account.

Old MW4 Ranger, on 10 February 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

unfortunately very easy and far from every reality, is a good for a very simple Boardgame system , not more

Sorry to be the devil's advocate. But you are wrong.

[pyrocomp]

IronClaws, on 10 February 2016 - 11:05 PM, said:

No, that is entirely what is possible if an RNG COF system is implemented.

No. That is possible only if you have RNG hit locations instead of aiming. As original state goes, you didn't understand what OP proposed. If the proposed CoF is implemented you, as you stated few posts before, from medium range from stationary position aiming CT will hit CT. And, yes,that's how the CoF works. The only truly significantly negatively affected weapons will be LL-family as the distance at which it's possible for a cool mech from stationary position aiming for CT to hit a foot is from 1000-1200 m. Just how many weapons do we have that deal damage past that distance? GR, ACs and PPC requires leading (e.g. aiming past the target) which results in the projectiles often going parallel and not converging at all.
Plus at high distances shooting at a moving target results in an effective 'fixed directions' at which you can fire. Get to Alpine with somebody and ask to shoot at you from 2 km. The shots will go at a distinctive pattern at specific angles. The less screen resolution your buddy will have, the higher distance will be between two shots. It's how the mouse works. Not even the engine. So to make it all consistent small CoF is proposed.

Small CoF. Not randomized hit locations as in TT. Read original post carefully.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

pyrocomp, on 10 February 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

No. That is possible only if you have RNG hit locations instead of aiming. As original state goes, you didn't understand what OP proposed. If the proposed CoF is implemented you, as you stated few posts before, from medium range from stationary position aiming CT will hit CT. And, yes,that's how the CoF works. The only truly significantly negatively affected weapons will be LL-family as the distance at which it's possible for a cool mech from stationary position aiming for CT to hit a foot is from 1000-1200 m. Just how many weapons do we have that deal damage past that distance? GR, ACs and PPC requires leading (e.g. aiming past the target) which results in the projectiles often going parallel and not converging at all.
Plus at high distances shooting at a moving target results in an effective 'fixed directions' at which you can fire. Get to Alpine with somebody and ask to shoot at you from 2 km. The shots will go at a distinctive pattern at specific angles. The less screen resolution your buddy will have, the higher distance will be between two shots. It's how the mouse works. Not even the engine. So to make it all consistent small CoF is proposed.

Small CoF. Not randomized hit locations as in TT. Read original post carefully.

What hes saying is that with the cones of fire proposed in the OP there are multiple cases in which you can be aiming at the enemy's CT but your shot goes into their leg or misses them entirely. Even if its a small percentage of the time, as some people have been saying with their standard deviation examples, its still a valid possibility.

Also you can't say that at 400 meters away you'll hit the CT without a doubt, some mechs have much smaller CT hitboxes than the Cataphract in the OP. For example the Jenner, also in the OP, was entirely surrounded by the cone of fire.

If you happen to also be running hot or moving it further adds to that spread, giving even more possibilities to miss shots you lined up because the random nature of the cone of fire.

A cone of fire is random. That is a fact, not an opinion. The computer uses a random number generator to produce the area within that cone that you hit, it is not a given value that you have direct control over. The OP proposes that you will have control over the range of values that may be produced by the random number generator to determine the cone size, but that there will be a cone rather than a specified point. Meaning hitting the exact point you are aiming at is at a level near impossibility with even the smallest of cones, even if it doesn't make you miss the component you aimed at.

[adamts01]

OK, just caught up on the last 20 pages, I'm taking a whole page over.

tortuousGoddess, on 09 February 2016 - 08:38 AM, said:

Incorrect, requiring me to chainfire requires me to maintain facetime, putting me at a significant defensive disadvantage.

.... Everyone is effected equally.... how are you the only one at a disadvantage?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 February 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

So I have a question then, if I have a mech with 2 AC5, and I fire both at the same time, is that an alpha strike? Is there something wrong with firing 2 AC5 at the same time?

some weapons are only viable when in large groups (small lasers) and should affect spread less than others.

Krivvan, on 09 February 2016 - 12:35 PM, said:

You want to argue about lasers doing a bit too much pinpoint damage? You should be arguing about duration then, but that's a completely different argument.

This is about all weapons being able to be fired completely accurately at the same time under all circumstances except masc and jumping, not just lasers, but lasers are of course a part.

Gas Guzzler, on 09 February 2016 - 01:06 PM, said:

The discussion should be about gameplay not about realism.

MWO is described as a simulator so it should be about realism, but of course gameplay is taken in to account, as real missiles are supersonic and canons can fire for miles.

Khereg, on 09 February 2016 - 02:15 PM, said:

Oh, who the hell am I asking. Nobody's reading this any more anyway. Carry on.

I'm still reading, and I'm tier 1 so I'm super important.

SQW, on 09 February 2016 - 04:04 PM, said:

Unfortunately, many vets are so invested in the current play style to want (or be able to) shift away from pinpoint accurate hit scan weapons.

Vets will adapt, just like we always have. And some are arguing that comp players won't be able to handle this..... please.

LordKnightFandragon, on 10 February 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

RUn and gun doesnt mean being able to endlessly spam your fire button pin point accurately all the time. Run and gun is generally very inaccurate anyway. I mean, just try it in RL, grab 2 airsoft rifles, hang them below your arms like a battlemech and just try to shoot a target at like 50 yards while jogging back and forth.

that experiment alone would really display how much sense CoF actually makes.

Exactly, or even try using sights while running, or hell, even walking. COF would add much needed realism.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 February 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

that seems to be thing you don't get, the whole point of adding CoF is making alpha strikes worthless so that only chain-fire lives, especially given that heat is a factor as well.

What you don't get is that no one wants to make alpha strikes useless, just not the go to solution for every occasion.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 February 2016 - 10:47 AM, said:

No I'm saying that any worthwhile alpha is bound to have an insane amount of spread otherwise the CoF fails to actually stop alphas.

Why does everyone jump from zero spread to "insane amount"? Just a little bit so that there's a downside to dumping your entire payload in an instant.

Gloris, on 10 February 2016 - 11:52 AM, said:

How is it not RNG to have a big aiming circle, where it's random what point of the circle your shots go to?

Because this is a simulator, or at least should be. Weapons have inaccuracies, it's the shooters job to fire under circumstances where those inaccuracies aren't a factor.

FupDup, on 10 February 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

Yes it is actually. You have some control over how big the cone is, sure, but no matter what the size of the cone is you still never know WHERE in that cone that the shot will land. It just gives you the maximum boundaries of where it can/can't land.

So for example with cones I might shoot a bullet and it goes straight to the left of the aiming point. Or it might go up and to the right diagonally. Or it could go in any other number of directions. For all intents and purposes, it's still "random."

Yeah, just like real life. Given a Glock in any shooter, you wouldn't whine because you missed a 1000m shot even though your aim was dead on, and especially if you were sprinting off a ledge. Because it's exactly what would happen in real life. We're just asking for an extra bit of simulation to be added. Of course not WoT awful, but a little bit could do this game good.

Dakota1000, on 10 February 2016 - 01:13 PM, said:

TC and Command Console*

I do see that as a fatal flaw in OP's post, as most of IS can't mount one.

Dakota1000, on 10 February 2016 - 01:20 PM, said:

Also just wondering, since alpha strikes are punished but chain fire isn't, what does the Locust 1V with its one ERLL do?

I love Locusts. Just slow down to take a long range shot, or if you're within brawling range, accept that your shots will slightly spread, it's not a problem.

Mystere, on 10 February 2016 - 02:07 PM, said:

Well, it's entirely your fault you used those big circles. Now almost everyone thinks those are the actual sizes and not that you did those "for illustrative purposes only".

Seriously, OP went a little to WoT with his pictures and shot himself in the foot, which would be a very hard shot from his picture, unless he had a TC7.

lex conway, on 10 February 2016 - 05:05 PM, said:

Skill is better than chance. There will always be an element of chance in cones. If there is no RNG in aiming, then all factors can be predictable and by extension controllable. If I miss it's my fault. When I hit, I'm the best, not lucky.

Close the distance to be more accurate with my long range, direct fire weapon? Nay, drink again.

Maneuver to within your weapon's ideal range and/or take steps to minimize weapon inaccuracies. It adds a new skill to the game, adds depth and realism, I think this game needs it.

[SQW]

Dakota1000, on 11 February 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

Meaning hitting the exact point you are aiming at is at a level near impossibility with even the smallest of cones, even if it doesn't make you miss the component you aimed at.

What, you've been headshotting Atlas every match or something? Were you living life on the edge by purposely aiming at the edge of CT and ST? A CoF means instead of hitting that one pixel on the CT with your alpha, you may land 4 shots on the CT and another two on the ST. You guys are talking as if you can't hit where you aim (which, let's be honest, is the CT), all your shots will magically miss the rest of the 60% of the mech.

Are you guys so meta that the only way you can be gud is boating scan hit weapons with perfect accuracy? Break out the ACs and SRMs once in a while eh? PGI made a mistake at the start and have been bandaiding this sorry mess with armor upgrade, beam duration and charging gauss so laser boats don't ruin the game for the rest of us.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

SQW, on 11 February 2016 - 12:54 AM, said:

What, you've been headshotting Atlas every match or something? Were you living life on the edge by purposely aiming at the edge of CT and ST? A CoF means instead of hitting that one pixel on the CT with your alpha, you may land 4 shots on the CT and another two on the ST. You guys are talking as if you can't hit where you aim (which, let's be honest, is the CT), all your shots will magically miss the rest of the 60% of the mech.

Are you guys so meta that the only way you can be gud is boating scan hit weapons with perfect accuracy? Break out the ACs and SRMs once in a while eh? PGI made a mistake at the start and have been bandaiding this sorry mess with armor upgrade, beam duration and charging gauss so laser boats don't ruin the game for the rest of us.

I don't headshot people every round, but I do punish those who stand perfectly still and don't twist with a well placed one from time to time.

Personally I tend to use brawling loadouts with mixes of SRMs, ACs or UACs, and a few small lasers. What I don't agree with is that lasers should behave like SRMs because you fired too many at once. I like brawling, I like that I am required to twist and turn to manually spread my opponent's damage. With a cone of fire it becomes far too easy to spread damage, SRM brawlers would be even more powerful.

Laser boaters already run very hot if they run high alphas, they also have to deal with beam durations, even then their alphas tend to be lower than some brawlers and their face time already greater. What is saving them is their ability to use pinpoint accuracy to hit targets and try to respond to enemy twisting.

If you like those weapons you speak of then learn better brawling, it makes laser boats one of the least scary opponents, other brawlers and ballistic boats worry me much more, but it all seems balanced when you work to spread damage yourself rather than making the computer force your enemies to not always hit their shots.

[smokefield]

Quote

No idea why the anti-cof crowd is so opposed to the idea of adding a bit of realism to a sim game.

maybe because its not a sim game ? realism...really ?

Quote

MWO is described as a simulator so it should be about realism

actually no, its not. dont lie

A tactical, 'Mech-based online shooter set in the rich BattleTech Universe.

Quote

Because this is a simulator, or at least should be

again..no, it shouldnt. its a wrong argument. you can "simulate" something that exists in reality. what you can do with something just imagined can be everything else but a simulation.

we already have randomness in the game, ac's hit random, lasers spread damage, missles hit random...i think its enough random already. live with it

[adamts01]

smokefield, on 11 February 2016 - 01:17 AM, said:

we already have randomness in the game, ac's hit random, lasers spread damage, missles hit random...i think its enough random already. live with it

ACs hit exactly where you aim them, same with lasers.... Missiles are random, and that's why they can't compete with the first two...

[Greyhart]

adamts01, on 11 February 2016 - 01:24 AM, said:

ACs hit exactly where you aim them, same with lasers.... Missiles are random, and that's why they can't compete with the first two...

Yes but don't you have to lead with ballistics and therefore isn't the point of convergence where you're aiming i.e. the background not the mech.

Therefore don't ballistics already suffer from a lack of convergence, which lasers never do.

Edited by Greyhart, 11 February 2016 - 01:30 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

adamts01, on 11 February 2016 - 01:24 AM, said:

ACs hit exactly where you aim them, same with lasers.... Missiles are random, and that's why they can't compete with the first two...

ACs offer cold DPS at the cost of leading and weight, lasers offer hot but unsustainable damage over a duration, SRMs offer high damage low heat (compared to the damage lasers would do for that heat) but spread, and LRMs offer long range lower risk options.

SRMs adequately compete with ballistic and laser builds in my opinion. LRMs need a bit of help due to them warning people before they hit, allowing them to get to cover, and AMS systems shoot them down, ballistics and lasers cannot be shot down.

Otherwise I'm feeling the weapon groups are decently balanced.

[adamts01]

Greyhart, on 11 February 2016 - 01:28 AM, said:

Yes but don't you have to lead with ballistics and there isn't the point of convergence where you're aiming i.e. the background not the mech.

Therefore don't ballistics already suffer from a lack of convergence, which lasers never do.

Lasers are definitely easy mode. Leading your target and convergence are two different things though.

Dakota1000, on 11 February 2016 - 01:31 AM, said:

ACs offer cold DPS at the cost of leading and weight, lasers offer hot but unsustainable damage over a duration, SRMs offer high damage low heat (compared to the damage lasers would do for that heat) but spread, and LRMs offer long range lower risk options.

SRMs adequately compete with ballistic and laser builds in my opinion. LRMs need a bit of help due to them warning people before they hit, allowing them to get to cover, and AMS systems shoot them down, ballistics and lasers cannot be shot down.

Otherwise I'm feeling the weapon groups are decently balanced.

We all have our opinions but statistically speaking, serious games are overwhelmingly populated with laserboats.

But that's not really the point of this post. This game has always been dominated by the weapon that can most easily put all it's damage on one pixel. Maybe lasers get nerfed and next month it's AC2s... it doesn't matter. This is about changing a core mechanic to keep boated weapons from being so deadly. Every weapon has it's little thing it does well, and if it wasn't preferable to stack 12 of the same thing on a mech, then we'd start seeing more diverse loadouts, and more well rounded mechs. And really, balance would be better because of it. There was never a balance problem with PPCs or gauss till people but 4 of them on a mech and shot them all at the same time. Same with the evil Clan Medium Laser.

[Greyhart]

yes but where is the convergence point with ballistics when you have to lead the target. is it the mech that it hits or the thing that was under the cross-hairs when the trigger was pulled?

[Ratpoison]

Ah, I see the OP couldn't be bothered to apply actual numbers to his overly complicated concept to show that it could actually work how he wants, and all the proponents are doing shout downs, so I guess there's no reason to bother with this anymore since the idea will be assumed unworkable.

Glad to see this all went down well. See you on the battlefield MechWarriors, CoF free.

[adamts01]

Greyhart, on 11 February 2016 - 01:54 AM, said:

yes but where is the convergence point with ballistics when you have to lead the target. is it the mech that it hits or the thing that was under the cross-hairs when the trigger was pulled?

They'd shoot where you aim them just like they currently do. Of course they have travel time so you have to take that in to account. But they should be like everything else, a little less accurate if you're running top speed or firing everything you have at once.

[Greyhart]

adamts01, on 11 February 2016 - 02:43 AM, said:

They'd shoot where you aim them just like they currently do. Of course they have travel time so you have to take that in to account. But they should be like everything else, a little less accurate if you're running top speed or firing everything you have at once.

So firing say 4 AC2s simultaneously on a running (obviously not running towards or away but perpendicular) target will mean that none of the shots will land in the same place on the mech and some may miss because the point of convergence is behind the mech. Is that right?

[adamts01]

Greyhart, on 11 February 2016 - 02:48 AM, said:

So firing say 4 AC2s simultaneously on a running (obviously not running towards or away but perpendicular) target will mean that none of the shots will land in the same place on the mech and some may miss because the point of convergence is behind the mech. Is that right?

Of course this is all theoretical. But you should lead your target if your weapon's shot has travel time. And the faster a shooter moves, the more his shots will spread. As for firing 4 AC2s at once and the accuracy penalty, that's one of those weapons, like small lasers, that's only decent when boated, so I don't think the punishment should be that severe for firing multiples of it. But I definitely think all direct-fire weapons should have an accuracy penalty that increases with speed. Though it should be kept small enough to where you won't notice it in a brawl and it only becomes a factor in medium/long range engagements.

[Greyhart]

adamts01, on 11 February 2016 - 03:01 AM, said:

Of course this is all theoretical. But you should lead your target if your weapon's shot has travel time. And the faster a shooter moves, the more his shots will spread. As for firing 4 AC2s at once and the accuracy penalty, that's one of those weapons, like small lasers, that's only decent when boated, so I don't think the punishment should be that severe for firing multiples of it. But I definitely think all direct-fire weapons should have an accuracy penalty that increases with speed. Though it should be kept small enough to where you won't notice it in a brawl and it only becomes a factor in medium/long range engagements.

I think that is a yes. I am just wanting to know what is in game at the moment.

i.e. on ballistics the convergence point is calculated at what is under the cross-hairs and not at the mech that "runs" into the shot.

[smokefield]

ac hit in the same spot ONLY if you and the target are stationary...which is almost never the case. In normal situations AC's spread damage. And clan ones more because of multiple bullets. You want to add to this another random hit or miss dice roll ? rofl ?

lasers hit in the same spot ONLY if you and the target are stationary..which is almost never the case. In normal situations they spread damage cause they deliver the maximum damage in time and are not full damage insta hit. (except ppcs that spread damage in game built in feature ). No one will be able to keep the beam in the exact same spot if you MOVE. you want to add another dice roll for this too ? why ? just learn to move.

missles - do i need to point how much damage they spread ? do we need another random hit/miss to missles ?

[pyrocomp]

Dakota1000, on 11 February 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

What hes saying is that with the cones of fire proposed in the OP there are multiple cases in which you can be aiming at the enemy's CT but your shot goes into their leg or misses them entirely. Even if its a small percentage of the time, as some people have been saying with their standard deviation examples, its still a valid possibility.

If you look at the OP proposal, there are multiple ways to lower the default totally arbitrary CoF size. Using modules for example (yep, pick for more range or higher precision or higher RoF). Not a bad thing. And if there is a possibility that under some conditions the possibility to miss will becon non-zero then you'll try to avoid those conditons (overheating and pop-tarting). Not bad, I think. The question is in CoF size, and I hope you do not take the proposed one as strict-forever-defined one.

Dakota1000, on 11 February 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

Also you can't say that at 400 meters away you'll hit the CT without a doubt, some mechs have much smaller CT hitboxes than the Cataphract in the OP. For example the Jenner, also in the OP, was entirely surrounded by the cone of fire.

If you happen to also be running hot or moving it further adds to that spread, giving even more possibilities to miss shots you lined up because the random nature of the cone of fire.

You want to say that running hot should go as usual as it is now? No heat penalty? Like in really? I think that heat scale abuse should be punishable. And not only by damage after extreme overheat. Lowering precision at midscale is a good option to begin with. Plus making it random make is impossible to abuse it or 'adapt' to the level when it does not matter whether you are running hot ot not.

Dakota1000, on 11 February 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

A cone of fire is random. That is a fact, not an opinion. The computer uses a random number generator to produce the area within that cone that you hit, it is not a given value that you have direct control over. The OP proposes that you will have control over the range of values that may be produced by the random number generator to determine the cone size, but that there will be a cone rather than a specified point. Meaning hitting the exact point you are aiming at is at a level near impossibility with even the smallest of cones, even if it doesn't make you miss the component you aimed at.

And it is was discussed many times that ability to aim in one shot all weapons to the single pixel is among the worst things affecting the balance. My opinion is that perfect convergence must be elliminated this or that way from this game.
And if with that minimal CoF you do not miss that component, then what are your gamewise arguments against it? You are then not affected by this?

PS: if the weapons will converge not on the ray-traced pixel on the mech surface (as it is now as a legacy from delayed convergence) but to the point in the center of the mech model (or rather at that distance) thus lowering 'pinpoint' accuracy will that be sufficient? This, however, requires 'no convergence without lock'.