11 replies to this topic

[R 13]

Good:

Nerfs the extremes of Clan Laser Vomit and clan/IS dakka boats severely/mildly respectively.

Subjectively this won't kill the game for me. Many 'mechs I play competitively or otherwise do not substantially run afoul of this incarnation of basically a modified ghost-heat system.

Bad:

Will invalidate many already-struggling 'mechs that rely on
powerful energy builds: Executioner, Gargoyle, etc.

Visual recharge bar causes more visual clutter than useful
information given the speed at which it refills. 'more distracting than useful IMO.

The current iteration of the mechanic doesn't prevent high/super-high alpha. e.g. 6ppc stalker
viable again. TTK: Immediate for some 'mechs. It limits their rate of file to an extent.

Subjectively, I paid money for an EXE package, and have PTSD from the last round of PPC pop-tart island.

Ugly:

It doesn't "logic", and that bothers me. (all mechs with same energy draw limit, and energy draw linked to damage)

From a sci-fi engineering standpoint, a 'mech should have
something like a bank of capacitors (your total burst energy possible)
that are re-charged by the fusion engine of varying size (which drives how often you you can release that burst energy)

Attempting to fire more weapons than your capacitor bank can support
should result in either: A) one or more weapons don't fire or all weapons fire, but at reduced effectiveness (weaker beam, slower rate of fire for AC)

Overriding this to abuse your capacitor bank / engine should yield other results like reduced speed, sensor range, etc.


TL:DR: Worse than I hoped, Better than I feared, but I would appreciate a more logical/explainable approach (see "ugly" above).

[Cy Mitchell]

I kind of ignore the whole Ugly aspect of the system. True, Laser draw on energy but ballistics and missiles do not to any significant extent. They each have to be reloaded. The Gauss only has to be reloaded with one slug but then the magnetic fields have to charge up.

I rationalize the whole thing by thinking that it really is not just Energy Draw. Energy Draw is just an all encompassing term to included recharge and reload. It kind of makes some sense if you look at it with that perspective. More Lasers or energy weapons take longer to recharge. More ballistic weapons or missiles take longer to reload. Gauss uses so much power to recharge that you can only mount two. Welcome to my insanity but it leaves me not worrying about the scientific logics of the system in a game.

[Dingo Battler]

Good: Rewards the bads
Bad: Punishes the goods
Ugly: We are heading towards the path of CoD

#360noscope420blazeit

[Kuaron]

Same thoughts as OP on the 'ugly' part when I was reading the system description.

A third suggestion on this part:
Overextending the engine capacity (or wherever the energy comes from) leads to an decreased recharge for the next moments, leading to a longer cooldown of the weapons that are being on cooldown during this time.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

R 13, on 18 August 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

*snip*
Bad:

Will invalidate many already-struggling 'mechs that rely on
powerful energy builds: Executioner, Gargoyle, etc.

Visual recharge bar causes more visual clutter than useful
information given the speed at which it refills. 'more distracting than useful IMO.

The current iteration of the mechanic doesn't prevent high/super-high alpha. e.g. 6ppc stalker
viable again. TTK: Immediate for some 'mechs. It limits their rate of file to an extent.

Subjectively, I paid money for an EXE package, and have PTSD from the last round of PPC pop-tart island.

Ugly:

It doesn't "logic", and that bothers me. (all mechs with same energy draw limit, and energy draw linked to damage)

From a sci-fi engineering standpoint, a 'mech should have
something like a bank of capacitors (your total burst energy possible)
that are re-charged by the fusion engine of varying size (which drives how often you you can release that burst energy)

Attempting to fire more weapons than your capacitor bank can support
should result in either: A) one or more weapons don't fire or all weapons fire, but at reduced effectiveness (weaker beam, slower rate of fire for AC)

Overriding this to abuse your capacitor bank / engine should yield other results like reduced speed, sensor range, etc.


TL:DR: Worse than I hoped, Better than I feared, but I would appreciate a more logical/explainable approach (see "ugly" above).

I have been thinking about this and I feel what is needed is something that uses mass of your mech and size of your engine to fuel the energy system. Say a small mech it refills quickly but has a small cap (maybe 25 potential damage or 30) of 30 or so, tie this with heat sinks being just about cooling and not capacity (so bigger mechs automatically have higher capacity due to more mass, surface area, and volume). This would create say a formula of like a locust with a 160 engine being able to throw out 20 potential damage before hitting the mech's energy capacity. So you upgrade to a 190 and then can throw out 23 damage. This is a simple Mech mass/5 + engine rating/10 system. This would also make the Kodiak able to do 60 damage alpha with taking a 400 engine.

This more or less would allow higher alphas to exist on bigger mechs, but, trade off is more space to the engine. Just a rough possible way of dealing with this.

Another thing is I feel stream and burst fire weapons should take energy over time/each shot. So say you are burning an IS LL for a 1 second duration, it then takes .9 energy over the burn time. Streamed missiles would get a further energy rate decrease from .75 per damage to maybe 2/3 energy per damage. This would make cLRM 30's take up 20 energy leaving room for some self defense. This would also be a boon for say RAC's, HAG's and MRM's in how I envision them which are more stream fire weapons. Hmm, I should go make a post in the feature section on how to do those.

Main idea is make weapons that aren't pin point front loaded damage not take all their energy at once and instead constantly drain at a much lower rate equal to the damage they are doing (or in the case of missiles a fraction). Couple this with burst fire weapons being a chunk of energy drawn for _when_ the projectile fires and I feel it is a bit more intuitive. IS AC's, LRM's, Gauss rifles of both sides,all PPC's and (S)SRM's would be dirt simple fire weapons while lasers would have more skill involved, while stream fired LRM's would be much cooler running leaving the mech's running them able to take back up weapons for defense.

[Freebornrus]

R 13, on 18 August 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

Good:

Nerfs the extremes of Clan Laser Vomit and clan/IS dakka boats severely/mildly respectively.

Subjectively this won't kill the game for me. Many 'mechs I play competitively or otherwise do not substantially run afoul of this incarnation of basically a modified ghost-heat system.

Bad:

Will invalidate many already-struggling 'mechs that rely on
powerful energy builds: Executioner, Gargoyle, etc.

Visual recharge bar causes more visual clutter than useful
information given the speed at which it refills. 'more distracting than useful IMO.

The current iteration of the mechanic doesn't prevent high/super-high alpha. e.g. 6ppc stalker
viable again. TTK: Immediate for some 'mechs. It limits their rate of file to an extent.

Subjectively, I paid money for an EXE package, and have PTSD from the last round of PPC pop-tart island.

Ugly:

It doesn't "logic", and that bothers me. (all mechs with same energy draw limit, and energy draw linked to damage)

From a sci-fi engineering standpoint, a 'mech should have
something like a bank of capacitors (your total burst energy possible)
that are re-charged by the fusion engine of varying size (which drives how often you you can release that burst energy)

Attempting to fire more weapons than your capacitor bank can support
should result in either: A) one or more weapons don't fire or all weapons fire, but at reduced effectiveness (weaker beam, slower rate of fire for AC)

Overriding this to abuse your capacitor bank / engine should yield other results like reduced speed, sensor range, etc.


TL:DR: Worse than I hoped, Better than I feared, but I would appreciate a more logical/explainable approach (see "ugly" above).

I`m ready to sign on every word.

And I have something to add to "logic" part: mech movement should consume energy too! So if your mech is not moving you must have possibility to have more energy for your weapons.

[Arianrhod]

Freebornrus, on 18 August 2016 - 09:17 PM, said:

And I have something to add to "logic" part: mech movement should consume energy too! So if your mech is not moving you must have possibility to have more energy for your weapons.

^^ That honestly makes a lot of sense. I like that idea.

The logic of the game is huge to me. One of the reasons that I love MechWarrior titles over stupid Call of Duty-style snap shooters is because that stuff in the BattleTech universe makes some degree of sense. Little realism elements like collision damage, heat existing, accleration and deceleration taking time, individual component health, the fact that your accuracy is actually tied to your aiming skill instead of an arbitrary accuracy stat fixed to your weapon. . . . These are things that really build the game's immersion but that we rarely appreciate.

So when you tell me that if I have a weapon that consists of a metal tube to shoot things through, a box of shells with explosive charges on them for that purpose, and an autoloader to move those shells into the tube, causes a substantial tax on my insanely powerful fusion reactor every time I fire them? That the physical size alone of the gun determines its drain even when it has exactly the same basic components? And that if I fire more than one, drawing too much energy from my fusion reactor, that translates to heat? Whyyyyyy? Ghost heat doesn't make huge amounts of sense, but it's more logical than this.

Plenty of games break the laws of physics on a regular basis. MechWarrior titles stand apart because they only do so minimally. I don't want to see that change with MWO.

[Kuaron]

Freebornrus, on 18 August 2016 - 09:17 PM, said:

And I have something to add to "logic" part: mech movement should consume energy too! So if your mech is not moving you must have possibility to have more energy for your weapons.

Ah, a couple minutes ago I was suggesting something similar in another thread. ^^
So yes, I would like it as well, but has potential downsides, as described there.

[50 50]

You could add that for ballistics there is the recoil compensation and stabilization taking up energy.
For missiles, the tracking systems and exhaust pumps.
Whatever.
Make up something interesting.

As a first iteration it is really just testing the concept.

[R 13]

Freebornrus, on 18 August 2016 - 09:17 PM, said:

I`m ready to sign on every word.

And I have something to add to "logic" part: mech movement should consume energy too! So if your mech is not moving you must have possibility to have more energy for your weapons.

As a table-top nerd, I love this. Using the Capacitor/Engine combo model I suggested, your energy pool would recharge quicker while stationary. Jumping would have a penalty to the recharge period, which would help keep our pop-tart overlords at bay to an extent as well.

[Alistair Winter]

The visual clutter is real.

[Savage Wolf]

Alistair Winter, on 19 August 2016 - 06:00 AM, said:

The visual clutter is real.

Welcome to having to patch a decade old system made for an entirely different gameplay into an online shooter. The system was already overcomplicated and now it's worse. But i still prefer it to not having the information at all aka Heat Scale.