22 replies to this topic

[Sader325]

So, first for this change to work and simply it, we're going to multiply all Energy values by 10.

So if a medium laser was 7 energy, it'll now require 70.

After thats done, my suggestion is to tie all energy output to the size of your energy, with a lower on energy being 25 damage.

What that means is sub 250 Rating engines, all mechs will have a power output of 250 (equal to 25 on the current system), but an XL400 would generate 400 energy (equal to 40 on the current system).

This would help to add some flavor/choice to the engine system. While making mechs unique in their damage outputs.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Sader325, on 18 August 2016 - 07:51 PM, said:

What that means is sub 250 Rating engines, all mechs will have a power output of 250 (equal to 25 on the current system), but an XL400 would generate 400 energy (equal to 40 on the current system).

This would help to add some flavor/choice to the engine system. While making mechs unique in their damage outputs.

Yes, let's further encourage BESM!! /s

[pyrocomp]

Sader325, on 18 August 2016 - 07:51 PM, said:

So, first for this change to work and simply it, we're going to multiply all Energy values by 10.

So if a medium laser was 7 energy, it'll now require 70.

After thats done, my suggestion is to tie all energy output to the size of your energy, with a lower on energy being 25 damage.

What that means is sub 250 Rating engines, all mechs will have a power output of 250 (equal to 25 on the current system), but an XL400 would generate 400 energy (equal to 40 on the current system).

This would help to add some flavor/choice to the engine system. While making mechs unique in their damage outputs.

No choise, no option since biggest engine grants you damage, heat sinks (those doubled!), speed and agilty. Thus why take smaller one? So, I'd say no to this idea.

[R 13]

As stated elsewhere, I wholly agree with the OP

Tie it to the engine, but don't tie the draw for each weapon straight to it's damage. Want to run crazy laser vomit? fine, try to balance having a big enough engine to fire them all, with leaving enough tonnage to carry them all along with enough heatsinks.

Same effect with ballistics/missiles because even though they should logically draw less energy to just run ammo feed, etc. they also generally weigh a lot more. Again, try to carry enough ACs/ missiles to do piles of damage while still running a big enough engine to run them all and still.

That's not a trivial task, and seems like it would work ridiculously well if tuned correctly.

Edited by R 13, 18 August 2016 - 08:12 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

This could work but most mechs engine caps would need to be tweaked and clan mechs would have to be unlocked.

[Sader325]

pyrocomp, on 18 August 2016 - 07:56 PM, said:

No choise, no option since biggest engine grants you damage, heat sinks (those doubled!), speed and agilty. Thus why take smaller one? So, I'd say no to this idea.

Because you can carry more weapons.

[Kaptain]

Disagree. Too much is tied to engine already. I would like to see maneuverability(turning and such) cut from engine rating.

[Wuxian]

Should bigger mechs really have higher max alphas? I don't think so. The current energy draw provides you with a large short time sustained burst on heavier mechs. Lower pinpoint damage is good and I think the general orientation of 30 alpha is justified.

[Khobai]

Quote

Should bigger mechs really have higher max alphas?

Absolutely. Thats the only thing that makes assault mechs scary.

They literally have nothing else going for them. Theyre slow. Bad at turning. Abysmal at hill climbing. Crap jumpjets. They have huge hitboxes and not enough armor to make up for having huge hitboxes. Firepower was their one and only advantage. You cant take that away from them or they have nothing left.

max energy should be based on weight class though and not engine size.

Edited by Khobai, 19 August 2016 - 03:29 AM.

[Soulslave]

Disagree too, this would increase the engine arms race further.
Suggestion: Just tie the available energy to the mach weight, like 10 + half the tonnage

[Kaptain]

Khobai, on 19 August 2016 - 03:25 AM, said:

Absolutely. Thats the only thing that makes assault mechs scary.

They literally have nothing else going for them. Theyre slow. Bad at turning. Abysmal at hill climbing. Crap jumpjets. They have huge hitboxes and not enough armor to make up for having huge hitboxes. Firepower was their one and only advantage. You cant take that away from them or they have nothing left.

Firepower is not measured solely in alpha strike damage. Assaults are still damn scary. Bam 4xSRM6, Bam 4xMPL, Bam AC20. I for one like having to use different weapons for different situation instead of alpha-alpha-flush-alpha-overheat-alpha.

[Khobai]

Quote

Firepower is not measured solely in alpha strike damage. Assaults are still damn scary. Bam 4xSRM6, Bam 4xMPL, Bam AC20.

Sure if your opponent is bad enough to stand in the open and let you fire multiple volleys at him.

Thats not how we play though. We fire once then duck back into cover. So a light mech that peeks out and fires once is going to have the same firepower as an assault that only has time to return fire one volley.

Firepower in this game IS mostly measured in how strong your alphastrikes are. And assaults need to have bigger alphastrikes than lights to offset all their other downsides (namely lack of speed, enormous hitboxes, crappy turning, poor hill climbing, weak jumpjets, etc...).

Why would I wanna play a slowass assault mech that can only do 30 damage an alpha when I can play a much faster heavy mech that can also do 30 damage an alpha? Theres simply zero reason to play an assault mech if you limit its alphas to being the same as everything else.

the only reason to play assaults is firepower and if you dilute that firepower you render assault mechs useless.

Edited by Khobai, 19 August 2016 - 03:39 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Kaptain, on 19 August 2016 - 03:31 AM, said:

Firepower is not measured solely in alpha strike damage. Assaults are still damn scary. Bam 4xSRM6, Bam 4xMPL, Bam AC20. I for one like having to use different weapons for different situation instead of alpha-alpha-flush-alpha-overheat-alpha.

Well no - while it seems like the current system encourage a complex loadout (4 MPLAS, 4 SRM6s and AC 20) - it doesn't
First I can't fire all 4 SRM6s in one volley. If i don't want extra heat - i have to trigger the AC 20 wait 0.5sec fire the lasers and wait 0.5sec and fire the SRMs either in chain or in volleys of 12.

This sound ok but considering the time i need to deliver the damage and the range i can deliver the damage this isn't a good loadout it was even extreme hot before and it is even hotter now. Of course i can go full alpha - and go in shutdown.

So i need to decrease the short range weapons and increase the long range weapons. maybe 2 LRM 5 2 SRM 6 2 Large Laser and a AC 10 mixed with 2 Medium Laser.... or similar. This reduced the average firepower of my Assault at a given range into the firepower of most mediums.
Mixed Loadout Mechs like Atlas, Orion...are the true losers of Energy Drain. Others that should be the loosers get some buffs - i really need somebody that runs 5 Clan ER-Large Laser in one salvo (if the refill works as i think it does - this guy shouldn't encounter negative energy drain)

---

Another advantage of using the Weight Class as modification for the E-pool is that Mech like the Gargoyle might shine over the more advanced clan heavys.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 19 August 2016 - 03:41 AM.

[TyphonCh]

I thought of this too and while it makes sense on paper that a larger engine should allow you to draw more energy... Light mechs especially, or any mech with low engine caps would get shafted hard.
So that's a no from me. The energy draw pool should be proportional to its weight class.

[Syanis]

Khobai, on 19 August 2016 - 03:32 AM, said:

Sure if your opponent is bad enough to stand in the open and let you fire multiple volleys at him.

Thats not how we play though. We fire once then duck back into cover. So a light mech that peeks out and fires once is going to have the same firepower as an assault that only has time to return fire one volley.

Firepower in this game IS mostly measured in how strong your alphastrikes are. And assaults need to have bigger alphastrikes than lights to offset all their other downsides (namely lack of speed, enormous hitboxes, crappy turning, poor hill climbing, weak jumpjets, etc...).

Why would I wanna play a slowass assault mech that can only do 30 damage an alpha when I can play a much faster heavy mech that can also do 30 damage an alpha? Theres simply zero reason to play an assault mech if you limit its alphas to being the same as everything else.

the only reason to play assaults is firepower and if you dilute that firepower you render assault mechs useless.

So what this does is pretty much hurt the pokey poke game for many because if you don't want to brawl it out face to face then your damage is cut. It allows lighter mechs which would unload in one round to duck out as they do now but as the bigger you get the more face time is needed. It still balances out as everyone would need to. In Battletech are they really ducking behind buildings and rocks every second after letting that alpha out? I don't think so.

This would change the gameplay and while someone can still play the poke game those who do have their damage nerfed so to speak.

[Syanis]

What I would suggest is tieing it to weight class and engine size. Max engine size -3 would get full Energy while smaller would get -5 their max energy.

Light = 15-20
Medium = 25-30
Heavy = 30-35
Assault = 40-45

Another way would be doing it by more specific tonnage

20T = 15E
25-30T = 20E
30-35T = 25E
40-50T = 30E
55-70T = 35E
75-95T = 40E
100T = 45E

Of course the numbers could be switched a bit. However tieing it in part to the engine would make more sense from a sci-fi point of view but after all its a game.

[Savage Wolf]

Tying damage to engine would be terrible. Big engines are already on everyone's wish list and giving them one more reason to just means that mechs with big engines becomes the new meta.
It would make lights useless and heavies even more kings than they already are as many heavies can carry 350+ engines. And it wouldn't even help the assaults since heavies would just do better.

30 is fine for all. It tightens the playing field between the weight classes. Assaults are still the kings of DPS and that will be plenty of reason to use them.

[Yellonet]

No. All mechs should have the same energy output. The differences between classes is the armour, speed and how many/large/heavy weapons they can carry. There are other ways to play this game than "high alpha warrior" style.

[Mochyn Pupur]

Nay, nay and thrice nay . . . . probably one of the least considered suggestions to date!

The whole point in customisation of 'mechs is to allow the player the option to balance dps to vulnerability, no matter what the weight of the engine. I routinely run heavies with small engines just to get he weapon weight - would you suggest a 75 tonner just run around with one med laser because of its engine size?

[R 13]

The thing that most dissenting opinions have missed is basically what I stated: It's a self-correcting/self-balancing problem.

Running a measurably bigger engine generally means running an XL engine in order to leave enough tonnage open to carry weapons. XL engines make a mech measurably more fragile than a standard, and eat into crit space.

It's not suggesting that you run your Warhammer around with a single laser. It's saying that you shouldn't be able to take a Stalker with a 200 series engine and go around alpha-ing with 6 PPCs all the time. If you want to spam PPCs, you're going to have to run a bigger engine, maybe even an XL which means carrying fewer PPCs and being easier to kill.