5 replies to this topic

[Moonlight Grimoire]

So last night I got in a disagreement with a friend about the AC/10 being worth it or not over an LB10X. He didn't believe that the AC10 feels just a bit sluggish for the ranges that it is intended to be used in while AC/5's feel just about right, GR's need no change, same with AC/2's in my book, but AC/20's could use a bump. So without further meandering I will post the proposed velocity changes, as well as current velocities and the percent change. My spread sheets for anyone interested.



By changing LRM's with Line of Sight to have a reason for LRM boats to share armor with their team as well as a reason to put LRM's on mechs that can take them for a more generalist build. This buff of course would stack with TAG, NARC, Command Console, Artemis FCS, and other such equipment and modules making LRM's a more viable weapon instead having no benefit for standing with your team, sharing armor, while firing LRMs at targets you can visibly see yourself.



None of these fixes of course will affect boating or change the SRM bomber meta that exists currently but, breathes in new life to mechs built around LRM's. Last point of this is that with this change to LRM behavior under 550m with line of sight there would be no longer a need for the flat 10% missile velocity buffs we currently have on every mech designed to take LRM's. Not only do we help curb quirks we also potentially see LRM's used in a less standoff manner.

Note this is all just adjusting velocity, I propose no changes to the current cycle times, damage, fire models, or anything else to these weapons until velocity changes are tested, preferably on the live server. With fixing weapon velocity instead of band-aiding it with quirks we can then take certain mechs and adjust heat generation and cool down quirks to fine tune mechs, if a roughly universal quirk rate is found for any weapon system it means that likely said weapon over all should and possibly must be changed to reflect this.

That is my two cents at least.

edit to add, it seems my tables broke in pasting, I will fix them later, you can find them on the second sheet in the document listed.

Edit 2: Apparently there is no native nor sane way to do tables in these forums so had to hand format these.

Edit 3: Hand formatting failed, I want to punch something, but, at least it isn't smushed, maybe I should just use images of the data instead, what a stupid work around.

Edited by Moonlight Grimoire, 30 July 2016 - 12:46 PM.

[Seddrik]

They seem fine. AC 20s are meant to be short range. AC10s have great range IF you can track people or catch stationary people. Etc. Plus with modules today... lol...

[Moonlight Grimoire]

Seddrik, on 30 July 2016 - 11:01 AM, said:

They seem fine. AC 20s are meant to be short range. AC10s have great range IF you can track people or catch stationary people. Etc. Plus with modules today... lol...

This is true, but, pretty much every AC and Missile weapon in the game has some form of velocity quirk to it anymore, this would be a move to bring mechs that rely on these weapons into balance without using quirks while at the same time not creating sync weapon velocity builds like GR+2xERPPC or the old meta that got jump jets and PPC's nerfed.

[VonBruinwald]

The boost to LRMS w/LOS seems stupid. The missile flying faster due to LOS makes no sense, if anything their flight path should become more direct (better tracking/shortest path/direct flight).

And nerfing the LBX10 so it sits inline with the AC10 doesn't work for me either, the AC is generally considered the better variant, taking away one of the LBX's strengths is going to see it used even less. Unless you're planning on boosting it in other ways.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

VonBruinwald, on 30 July 2016 - 01:33 PM, said:

The boost to LRMS w/LOS seems stupid. The missile flying faster due to LOS makes no sense, if anything their flight path should become more direct (better tracking/shortest path/direct flight).

And nerfing the LBX10 so it sits inline with the AC10 doesn't work for me either, the AC is generally considered the better variant, taking away one of the LBX's strengths is going to see it used even less. Unless you're planning on boosting it in other ways.

The boost to LRM's is more of they are at a shorter range (under 550m) and you have line of sight so your mech isn't having info being fed to it through another mech for sending guidance information to the missiles. Due to the shorter range and being direct yes a flatter flight path (which also would speed up their time to target) they can also burn their fuel faster and thus fly faster, so maybe due to the flatter path they take 25% less time to get to the target instead of needlessly arching into the air. That is something I don't really have to tools to play around with but would be a very acceptable alternative in my book.

As for the LB10X, it is losing what 20m/s? a -1.8% change in velocity changing time to effective range by .01 seconds, and time to 1000m by .025 seconds. Barely changing it in my book. They still have much longer range and there is something to be said that the spread on most mechs that by default run LB10X's have quirks to narrow said spread, so, maybe they do need that adjustment as well. However, adjustment to spread is not something I am playing around with atm due to no easy and quick way to run those numbers since the spread multiplier is by distance from your mech via a ray cast instead of a velocity based spread mechanic.

[Koniving]

Moonlight Grimoire, on 30 July 2016 - 10:54 AM, said:

By changing LRM's with Line of Sight to have a reason for LRM boats to share armor with their team as well as a reason to put LRM's on mechs that can take them for a more generalist build. This buff of course would stack with TAG, NARC, Command Console, Artemis FCS, and other such equipment and modules making LRM's a more viable weapon instead having no benefit for standing with your team, sharing armor, while firing LRMs at targets you can visibly see yourself.



None of these fixes of course will affect boating or change the SRM bomber meta that exists currently but, breathes in new life to mechs built around LRM's. Last point of this is that with this change to LRM behavior under 550m with line of sight there would be no longer a need for the flat 10% missile velocity buffs we currently have on every mech designed to take LRM's. Not only do we help curb quirks we also potentially see LRM's used in a less standoff manner.

I generally agree though I'm not quite sure where I'd put the numbers. We gotta keep in mind the cluster-duck of quirks and how that would change things... and the tears of those who see their cookie-clicker percentages go down "ZOMG this mech nerfed!" "DOA!" "My mech's worthless now!" Even when with a significantly lowered percentage quirk it'd probably have superior velocity to the original slow-as-balls-yet-quirked version.

Now, the LRM velocity increase with LOS idea? I really like that. That's worth a like right there. Would certainly encourage more 'active' LRM use rather than passive "I'll sit in a corner, read the comics and hold down the fire button."
----
To the guy saying AC/20s are meant to be short range:
Depleting returns from ACs are meant to represent recoil from rapidly firing cannons. AC/20 isn't meant to be short range. It's meant to shoot so damn fast -- or barring the lack of speed, several shots that are so damn big -- that the recoil makes it difficult to hit something beyond 270 meters away.
Observe.

Of interesting note, old primitive weapon "Rifle"... which is written to be based on pre-space-flight tank cannons (aka Big Bullet, Big Bang), have progressively increasing returns per model.
Light Rifle has the shortest range (360 meters) and weighs 3 tons to do 3 damage. But against 'modern' armor that is actually zero damage.
Medium Rifle has the middle range (450 meters; same as BT's AC/10) and does 6 damage. 3 against armor.
The one example I've got of a Heavy Rifle in use in a book describes it as a 190mm cannon (biggest 'common' Inner Sphere AC/20 is the 185mm Chemjet Gun, noteworthy for having to fire 4 shots to get 20 damage). This big puppy fires one shot with an accurate-without-undue-difficulty range of 540 meters, though a pilot with the sniper trait can use it to nail that shot out to 1080 meters. That single shot? 9 damage against structure, or 6 damage against armor.

<.< AC/20s aren't meant to be short range. They're meant to fire so damn fast OR hard that their accuracy is supposed to be garbage.

But I digress. PGI wants them short ranged.
Medium Rifle