22 replies to this topic

[Electron Junkie]

Seeing as we are piloting fusion reactors on legs, why not take the output of each power plant into consideration for recharging electrical weapon systems.

Base it on something simple like the "Hundred Rating" of the fusion reactor.
For example, each time the engines rating is divisible by "100" allow it to charge that many Large Lasers or PPCs at once, two Medium Lasers and three Small Lasers or some fraction there of.

We still get our big opening alphas, but the followup salvos are going to be smaller as the laser boaters that trade off engine capacity for heat sinks and more lasers will have to either fire less weapons on the follow up shot rotating out groups of charged weapons and increase their face time or retreat to cover and wait two+ times as long for their weapons to recharge.

[OznerpaG]

am re-reading all the Stackpole books, and just yesterday found a great quote about this very same subject when Phelan is about to take his Trial of Position with Natasha Kerensky:

Quote

Phelan nodded to himself and studied the auxiliary monitor. "Gauss rifle in my left arm?"

"Great weapon. It uses magnetic currents to launch a ball of ferrous metal about the diameter of a melon. Generates next to no heat and packs one hell of a wallop. The only problem is that its power requirements are fairly heavy. If you try to shoot it and the lasers at the same time, the computer will have to cycle and allocate power, so it will take a bit longer to get your salvo off."

but yeah, instead of ghost heat all weapons PGI should have a weapon limit where you can only fire X amount of any given weapon, and when that limit is reached then all other weapons linked to that weapon all go into cooldown. so say there is a limit of 6 ML/MPL and you had 8 ML/MPL mounted on your mech and you tried to fire them all, only 6 of them would fire but all 8 would go into cooldown. this would make it impossible to fire the 6 ML/MPL, then the remaining 2 a second later to avoid ghost heat

you could go even farther if you wanted and link all laser weapons together:

max 3 LL/alpha
a single LL = 2 ML/MPL = 3 SL/SPL

so you can do any combination of the above in a single apha (3 LL; 2 LL + 3 SPL; 1 LL + 4 ML/MPL; etc), and any remaining laser weapons on the mech would go into cooldown with the fired lasers.

wouldn't that reduce TTK and encourage more weapon diversity? likely not lol

Edited by JagdFlanker, 11 February 2016 - 07:22 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Really don't like of a simple hard cap because it only hinders mechs like the Adder which have low engine ratings and can be an energy boat, and it really doesn't need some sort of limit to how much it can fire.

This also doesn't really solve much of the problem other than make mechs like the Timber Wolf, Black Knight, Battlemaster, and Banshee even stronger with large XL engines since they can afford to have great laser alphas AND large XL engines.

[Electron Junkie]

Think of this as a recharge nerf. Let's just assume that every weapon has it own capacitor bank so that once it is charged it is able to fire. We are just putting a recharge limit based on how much draw all the weapon systems need. Outstrip the output capacity of the reactor and all the energy weapons are unable to charge at the same time leading to smaller follow up alphas as the weapons charge up in groups based off the reactor rating.



(gauss rifle should go back to instant fire no charge mechanic but we can debate this and its explosive capacitor bank later)

[Monkey Lover]

Sounds good but I think this will end up hurting medium mechs the most. Of course if the rescale really helps them than it might be worth trying. I would like to see a small nerf to lasers to bring them inline with ac.

[FupDup]

This would add even more incentive to maximize your engine rating, contributing even further to the Big Engine Stomp Meta (BESM). XL engines become even more superior to STD engines on the majority of mechs than they already are (yes, even the IS XL beats STD engines most of the time).

As such, you get an "lolno" from me.

[1Grimbane]

XL400's all around, any mech that can't pull one suddenly become obsolete (jk)

Edited by 1Grimbane, 11 February 2016 - 09:26 AM.

[chewie]

wait what?

Big Engine Stomp Meta?

Admit it fup, you just made that up.

There's no such meta.... is there?


Based on the OP's post, and the subsequent post from Quick, its not that implausible an idea.


A minimum of a 200 or above engine to fire an alpha of:
2 Large Lasers (standard, pulse or ER) or PPCs (ER or standard), for both Clan or IS
and/or
3 Medium Lasers (Standard, ER or Pulse) for both Clan or IS.
and/or
4 Small Lasers (standard, ER or Pulse) for both Clan or IS.


So the bigger the engine would mean yea, you could fire more weapons for the alpha of certain sizes, but of course at that point you'd then be sacrificing speed/heat if you went standard engine to get the most weapons per ton or survivability for XL to help get more weapons/heatsinks.

On the whole, it sounds quite plausible but it wouldn't solve the issue of boating weapons on mechs that don't normally boat a particular type... So the venerable BLR er large sniper would still be effective, but could only manage a maximum of 3 Large/PPC if you had upto a 390 rated engine for each alpha of that class of weapon.
To do 4, you'd have to say have the 400 fitted.

And very few mechs can mount the 400 and load up with that many big energy weapons to make the trade off worthwhile.

It sounds complex, but workable.
Of course, it doesn't address the other meta spam mechs out there like the 6 UAC 5 Daishi's.

But it would definite increase the TTK for Laser builds.

It certainly wouldn't effect Clan OMNI's that much.




But for gauss, it would be nice to see a removal of the Charge mechanic in place for say a 1-2 option where you can fire the 1st one at any time ONCE ITS INITIALLY CHARGED but can't fire the second one until the first has been discharged and it has had time to charge.

That would fit in nicely with the stackpolism mentioned above.

Say have a charge time of 2 seconds.

So, you bring a dual gauss king crab. You join game and it takes 2 seconds for 1 Gauss to charge and be ready. Which is fine because you haven't made contact with the enemy yet.
The second gun remains inert until you've fired the first.

Number 2 then starts charging once you release the trigger from the first shot, and only once the system records that you have released rather than allowing you to hold down the trigger so that you get a second shot off after 2 secs so you can't deliver a 1-2 shot hit in rapid succession by holding down the trigger.

It means our old friends the PopTarts can still use the Gauss mid jump, but they can only use 1 as are likely to have touched down by the time the second gun is ready to fire.



Hmm, just need to come up with a mechanic to deter all those 6 UAC dires and other nasty horrible builds.......

[FupDup]

chewie, on 11 February 2016 - 09:42 AM, said:

wait what?

Big Engine Stomp Meta?

Admit it fup, you just made that up.

There's no such meta.... is there?

The term came from GMan.

And yes, it does actually exist. Generally speaking, the most "optimal" way to build a mech is to install a relatively large XL engine such that you get to have more agility (e.g. makes torso twisting more effective, allows you to accel and decel faster) and more heatsink slots (therefore more sustainability/DPS), saving tonnage that can be spend on a bigger weapons payload, in addition to more linear ground speed.

All around, it makes the mech better. The fact that a lot of mechs have side torso structure quirks further improves the XL by reducing its only drawback.


The exceptions are mechs that either lack the hitboxes to be playable with XL engines (e.g. Stalker, Atlas, etc.) or lack a high enough engine cap to fully exploit the tonnage savings of XL. In those cases, they don't use STD because they want to, they use it because their design traits MAKE them use STD unless they want to be walking coffins.

There are only a few mechs that can actually use both engines (e.g. Banshee?) without one being clearly better than the other.

Edited by FupDup, 11 February 2016 - 09:50 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

chewie, on 11 February 2016 - 09:42 AM, said:

It sounds complex, but workable.
Of course, it doesn't address the other meta spam mechs out there like the 6 UAC 5 Daishi's.

And here is the rub, it doesn't address all the problems, it is merely specific to lasers, much like the Gauss charge limit, this idea is merely a bandaid for one problem and not some universal balance change.

It is complex, and shoehorned which means it really doesn't fix the problem, it just mitigates it a bit.

[Kuritaclan]

Electron Junkie, on 11 February 2016 - 07:44 AM, said:

Think of this as a recharge nerf. Let's just assume that every weapon has it own capacitor bank so that once it is charged it is able to fire.

That is what the damn COOLDOWN SIMULATES.

And on a side note. Thats why gauss charge is a good ingame mechanic. Since the power need to be stored to unleash the gauss round is so high, that it only can be charged up for a short time instead of getting pre charged and "stored" up until release.

Towards the engines. I think there is some flavor in it. If you would combine movement penalties while charge up, it could somewhat work.

For example you have your 8 Laser BLR with its 400XL engine. After you shot an alpha and all Lasers recharge within the cooldown you need a certain amount of energy relocated to fill up the capacitors. This energy is not usable for acceleration and speed so you would drop down to 70-80% (figures are a guess) of your full speed for a certain amount of times. And why are XL Engines lighter over the STD engines, because STD-Engines are constructed different so they don't get the movement/acceleration penalty for the cooldown time. Just a thought. I know it isn't consistent towards lore but not that unrealistic.

However as i said before the capacitors for the lasers should do the job without penalizing. But if we would have had a game without fixed cooldowns, where you actually have to track if your lasers are charged up again. Boy that would be fun. And if you release it before it is 100% charged you only get a percentage of the expected damage when 100% charged.

Edited by Kuritaclan, 11 February 2016 - 11:36 AM.

[chewie]

Kuritaclan, on 11 February 2016 - 10:49 AM, said:

For example you have your 8 Laser BLR with its 400XL engine. After you shot an alpha and all Lasers recharge within the cooldown you need a certain amount of energy relocated to fill up the capacitors. This energy is not usable for acceleration and speed so you would drop down to 70-80% of your full speed for a certain amount of times.

Wouldnt make a blind bit of difference for them with the 70-80% loss, because they're stood still sniping when they do this.


As far as the gauss charge mechanic goes, i didnt think the cooldown had anything to do with the any charging mechanic.

This is purely to prevent constant firing of the weapon otherwise you'd see someone pull a trigger, the laser cuts out after time period t, he pulls the trigger again and the weapon fires straight away.

The cooldown is the conversion if you will between TT dynamics of firing a weapon during round 1's combat phase etc etc. Otherwise if it you'd just hold the trigger down and firing straight away after the last shot has ended.

Its all conjecture though.


Fup

As far as the engine "meta" goes as you've described it.

I wouldn't call it meta to fit a bigger engine to make you go faster or turn better etc, or to fit a larger XL engins to do this and retain similar or better loadout options. Its just the thing you do because you don't wanna be as slow, or you wanna run more/bigger weapons.

There's nothing meta about that.

It only becomes meta i guess when you do it so you can boat weapons such as ER Large or small pulse (dependent on mech class etc)

[Kuritaclan]

chewie, on 11 February 2016 - 11:22 AM, said:

Wouldnt make a blind bit of difference for them with the 70-80% loss, because they're stood still sniping when they do this.

Who stand still for sniping in this game is a fool. I never make a full stop to alpha anything when i run around and melt mechs. We are not talking about the standoff meta in Tier 5.

chewie, on 11 February 2016 - 11:22 AM, said:

As far as the gauss charge mechanic goes, i didnt think the cooldown had anything to do with the any charging mechanic.

This is purely to prevent constant firing of the weapon otherwise you'd see someone pull a trigger, the laser cuts out after time period t, he pulls the trigger again and the weapon fires straight away.

Yes it hadn't. But it is plausible towards an explanation given physical borders.

[SkaerKrow]

The best laser nerf would be the addition of UPC Armor for Mechs. A Mech with UPC Armor takes half damage from lasers, and the attacker's HUD is suddenly replaced with an arbitrary dollar amount, like $3.99.

...yeah, I stole the idea from HoL, but it seems legit.

[Kuritaclan]

SkaerKrow, on 11 February 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

The best laser nerf would be the addition of UPC Armor for Mechs. A Mech with UPC Armor takes half damage from lasers, and the attacker's HUD is suddenly replaced with an arbitrary dollar amount, like $3.99.

...yeah, I stole the idea from HoL, but it seems legit.

http://www.sarna.net...eflective_Armor

Not in the Timeline yet.

[GrimRiver]

I made comments and posts about this same subject sometime ago.

That energy boating will be limited by engine rating due to output limitations, energy draw will be factored by weapon damage, max range and duration exceeding these factors will result in increased cooldown by .5 per weapon.

Here is my math exp's:

Medium laser (5)dmg x (0.9)duration x (540)max range divided by engine rating (in this case a STD/XL240) = 10.1 weapon rating, so 6 medium laser will use 60.1% of 100% engine energy consumption.

Large laser (9)dmg x (1)duration x (900)max range divided by engine rating(STD/XL240) = 33.7 weapon rating, so 2 Large lasers will use 67.4% of 100% engine energy consumption.

Using this will cut down on laser boating and repeated alphas due to increased .5 cooldown per weapon if exceeded 100% engine energy consumption.

Of course you can still go over these limits but you'll have to deal with .5 cooldown per weapon.

Note: This only works with lasers and does not effect cooldown for any other weapon type.

Edited by GrimRiver, 11 February 2016 - 12:16 PM.

[chewie]

Kuritaclan, on 11 February 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

Who stand still for sniping in this game is a fool. I never make a full stop to alpha anything when i run around and melt mechs. We are not talking about the standoff meta in Tier 5.


Yes it hadn't. But it is plausible towards an explanation given physical borders.

You obviously don't do much CW then. When you drop and there's 8 or so BLR's all firing 4 ER large from the peaks behind the Gun/Gen emplacement on the cold map with a perfect LoS on the gates and can reach with the modules they have fitted.

[Revis Volek]

A true heat Scale would do the same thing essentially, but i Think we should have both a TRUE heat scale and power consumption meters.

But i dont know how we will all feel without UNLIMITED POWER!

[Kuritaclan]

chewie, on 11 February 2016 - 12:00 PM, said:

You obviously don't do much CW then. When you drop and there's 8 or so BLR's all firing 4 ER large from the peaks behind the Gun/Gen emplacement on the cold map with a perfect LoS on the gates and can reach with the modules they have fitted.

Obviously you are false. Look @ my Signature. You will find enough BLR CW matches i guess. Even as a Sniper you constantly repositioning on those hills or at least swing back and forth to prevent standoff situations.

[chewie]

Kuritaclan, on 11 February 2016 - 12:12 PM, said:

Obviously you are false. Look @ my Signature. You will find enough BLR CW matches i guess. Even as a Sniper you constantly repositioning on those hills or at least swing back and forth to prevent standoff situations.

Nope, nothing false about my comments. Why should i have to go trawling through your sig data?

Every time I've dropped on Boreal Vault, I've had to attack the gates.
When you attack the right hand one, in every single game on that map, the enemy has had BLR's shooting at everyone who comes through the right hand gate.


As you know, and have stated, you can move back and forth along those ridges. But you don't need to worry until the enemy team gets in close enough to start hitting you back etc. By which point your interceptors are running interference so you can still zap folks with impunity and only minor movements if any.