132 replies to this topic

[Luca M Pryde]

I thought of a potential solution after reading up to page 4 of this thread.

I am hoping to bring some sort of realism and stay away from fantasy mechanics. Not saying anyone else's ideas are fantasy but just trying to make mine as real as possible.

So you got the heat gauge as it is now.

Perhaps label the heat gauge into stages OR have a separate gauge called the power gauge as has been tested now.

The lower the power gauge, the more sluggish your mech movement is and the ability to torso twist.

The other major effect is that weapon recharge rates take longer and depending on weapon location the same weapon may take longer to recharge.

For instance, the weapons on the arms would charge back slightly quicker as they are further away from the Engine than torso weapons.

My understanding of the realism of power draw is not that there is only a finite amount of power that the whole battlemech can use but that each component of the mech can only take so much energy/heat at any one time.

So the power draw gauge should not be an indication that you cannot fire weapons anymore but that weapon recharge times are increased and movement and torso twisting is slowed down. Cone of fire could be a side effect at a really extreme level power gauge level (like most extreme).

Continue now to flame or troll my idea if you like.

[The6thMessenger]

The widening crosshair seems to work already, i don't think you need that gauge.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 01 September 2016 - 10:51 PM.

[MechWarrior414712]

Here, behold! Ghost CPU.
Also I think it could be a fun neat mechanic that only arm weapons shoot pinpoint in to the center, but torso-mounted weapons shoot straight from their mounts. Towards the general direction of course, but only the guns on dead-center of your robot would actually hit the center.

Edited by The Mech Daddy, 02 September 2016 - 01:48 AM.

[LordNothing]

this is kind of one of the ideas i incorporated into my 3 bar concept. it doesnt really fit in with lasers and other energy weapons, energy draw is a lot more intuitive for those. cof would instead be one of the ballistic mechanics and could impose soft limits to ballistics boating. you would get cof jitter once you started having dps above a set threshold. it would be accompanied by another effect to deal with large ballistics alpha. remember in mechwarrior 3 when you fired a big gun, your entire torso would shift off target and you would have to re acquire. stupid builds, like quad uac20s dires, cac60wolves, uac40aks, or quad gauss anything, would physically damage you when you fired alphas. also there wouldnt actually need to be a bar, reticle shake would suffice to inform players when they are going too far.

missiles get a similar system. a guidence computer bar, or it could just be an icon that flashes when the system is overloaded. your guidence computer can track 30 points worth of objects. lrms are worth one point and srms worth about 2, perhaps steaks cost 2.25-3. if you overload it, it has to split its resources and so there are fewer course corrections transmitted to the missiles. the result is ghost spread (of course it shows your bar so its not really hidden). one of the grand side effects is that you no longer have to utterly nerf the mega launchers. you can run a pair of lrm15s just fine. 20s might be used singularly on a mixed build, if doubled up, you would have to fire them one at a time and closer range. it also kind of encourages missile boats to get closer to the action because if you have 100 missiles in the air (due to longer flight time), you are pretty much going to be an over glorified area effect carpet bomber who is not really going to do much damage to targets. it also bites those op 5x5 builds, pretty much relegating them to moderate range (300-400m) skirmishing as they should be.

lasers keep their ghost heat of course, the penalties can be made slightly more severe since other weapons wont be drawing from the bar. bar recharge time should be about 5 seconds, slightly longer than the cycle time for a 6 pack of medium lasers.

and something i like to call cross effects. the 3 mechanics are not totally insular. while they tend to come with particular weapon types, their effects may be manifest on other weapons systems. recoil effects from ballistics would also cause inaccuracy from all direct fire weapons. gauss uses energy (either on charge or cooldown) and would produce ballistics recoil effects. ppcs might have recoil effects as well as its energy draw effects. missiles might have light recoil effects, and targeting might play a roll in lbx spread as well. lots of these effects would be needed to keep mixed builds from becoming op, as they have 3 pools to draw damage from before involking penalties. cross effects are intended to be the mitigation.

now boats have pros and cons
mixed builds have pros and cons
dps builds have pros and cons
high alpha builds have pros and cons
and each system can be tuned independantly so that all 4 modes of operation will be in balance.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 September 2016 - 02:47 AM.

[Astrocanis]

nehebkau, on 09 February 2016 - 08:13 AM, said:

@ OP

With any solution you HAVE to consider the ease or difficulty of coding the system into the current environment! I can't remember how many times users have come to me after a brain-storming session and given me a list of requirements and I have had to say "Sure we can do it but the current budget is too small." and they ask "how much more?" and I have to say "At least 10 times the current budget if we can stretch out the delivery date by a year or so."

I don't think PGIs environment could handle it both development wise or system-wise.

How many times do you accept someone determining the cost for you on a project? Because that's what you are doing - determining, in advance, what PGI can and will do or afford.

I would suggest that instead of providing obstacles to ideas based on supposition that we replace the ideas with better ones and have PGI tell us "No", "Scale this back to here" or "We aren't going to do this" (which means total silence on the idea).

I am pretty sure that, as experienced with development and estimating as you sound, you would agree with that.

[AngrySpartan]

Just Tweet Russ and ask if he seen this Demo, as I did. And if he did - ask why not to try this? That's probably the only way to make this thing happen.

He will likely response if enough people will ask questions.

Edited by AngrySpartan, 06 October 2016 - 08:06 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

TexAce, on 09 February 2016 - 08:13 AM, said:

As said above, Trout did this in a day....so much for huge amount of coding

Are you serious?

There is a hell of alot of difference between coding a demo and implementing it into a game like this. Have you forgot there is already issues with hit registration? How many more issues with hit registration do you think there would be if something like this is implemented? How about syncing the client with the server and the coding required to do that? How about the visuals and the coding required for that? What about the amount of data that needs to be processed when you have to track 7-10 individual hits rather than where the crosshair is pointed at the time the button is pressed?

Seriously there is a massive amount of factors that have be consider and coded for above and beyond a simple demo.

Lastly, there is no such thing as PPD. If there was such a thing, no one would miss the CT and hit an arm or ST when their target mech moved, dodged or torso twisted.

[Dread Render]

Dakota1000, on 09 February 2016 - 06:31 AM, said:

So to counter high alphas you are allowing higher alphas but making them spread damage out rather than shut down your mech?

I'm just going to dislike the idea for not quite fixing the problem awhile also adding in non pinpoint damages.

people like you are what is Wrong with the world. The OP never even mentions shut down.
IRL i bet you end up in jail because you hear and see what you want rather than what is said or written.

[Andi Nagasia]

Dread Render, on 06 October 2016 - 01:01 PM, said:

people like you are what is Wrong with the world. The OP never even mentions shut down.
IRL i bet you end up in jail because you hear and see what you want rather than what is said or written.

Hey hey Cool it, i had the same idea when i first read this, calm down,


so this is just Power Draw where the Penalty is based on Convergence instead of heat,
i dont think Convergence changes are a good idea for MWO for Obvious Hit reg Problems,
i think we had it originally but it was taken out for that same problem,

[Lyoto Machida]

Andi Nagasia, on 06 October 2016 - 01:15 PM, said:

Hey hey Cool it, i had the same idea when i first read this, calm down,


so this is just Power Draw where the Penalty is based on Convergence instead of heat,
i dont think Convergence changes are a good idea for MWO for Obvious Hit reg Problems,
i think we had it originally but it was taken out for that same problem,

We had it in Closed Beta (hence the useless Pinpoint skill THAT IS STILL HERE IN 2016) but it was removed with the advent of HSR, if I recall correctly. If you shot at something too close like a light, your PPCs in the arms could cross in front of you and stuff like that.

[Tibbnak]

Pgi could just implement the heat penalties straight from tabletop. Yknow, the ones designed by actual game designers to keep people from alphaing too often in their game without consequences?

[Arkroma]

While Op's done a bloody good job.

No thanks I prefer ED.

[Anjian]

Some games like World of Tanks and Armored Warfare already has a working system to manage dispersing or pin point accuracy. You see a similar system also when you play Pokemon Go.

That is, you got this lock on circle on the target.

If the circle is not there and you fired, you won't hit anything. You can only fire when the circle appears on the target, indicating a successful lock on.

When the circle is at its largest, there is chance of RNG dispersion of your shots in the area within the circle.

The circle narrows, so if you decide to wait as the circle narrows, firing will increase the shot accuracy as the dispersion area is smaller, to the size of the shrinking circle.

If you fired at the moment the circle is at its smallest, you have the highest accuracy and the least dispersion.