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[Gentleman Reaper]

Another week, another PTS update. PTS4 brought some big, sweeping changes across both weapons and, for the first time since the beta days, changes to the heat scale. A lot of the ideas expressed here have been requested by a good number of people for a long time, although the numbers need some work before these changes can be considered balanced.

Heat:

Quote

Single Heat Sinks

• External Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.12
• Engine Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.12
• Heat Capacity: 1.2

Double Heat Sinks (Inner Sphere and Clan)

• External Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.17
• Engine Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.17
• Heat Capacity: 1

Here we see sweeping changes to how heat sinks function. Previously, every heat sink raised the heat cap by 1.5, allowing some heavier mechs to reach over 70 heat, now the increase has been lowered to 1. This has multiple implications, heavier mechs don't have such a large advantage over lighter mechs now, as they can't dump as much damage within a certain span of time, giving lighter mechs a chance in more fights.

The second big change is dissipation rates, engine and external heat sink dissipation rates have been normalized now, and the overall dissipation rate is higher than it has been for external heat sinks. Unfortunately, taking the normalization into account, lighter mechs tend to suffer more due to relying mostly on their internal heat sinks, which is much lower than before.

The third change deals with the reduced efficiency of the Cool Run and Heat Containment skills. This falls in line with the nerfs to the other skills, which helps lower the performance differences between mastered and unmastered chassis, and makes the game more fair for newer players. These changes though, do hurt overall heat efficiency in most mechs, making them feel uncomfortably hot compared to previous iterations. Here are my proposed changes for the next iteration:

Single Heat Sinks (Inner Sphere and Clan)

• External Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.14
• Engine Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.14
• Heat Capacity: 1.2

Double Heat Sinks (Inner Sphere)

• External Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.2
• Engine Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.2
• Heat Capacity: 1

Double Heat Sinks (Clan)

• External Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.19
• Engine Heat Sink Dissipation Rate: 0.19
• Heat Capacity: 1


With these changes, mechs will see heat efficiency closer to what we previously had, while still keeping the lowered heat cap, and IS DHS dissipate slightly better to account for the added bulk. Personally, I would like to lower the heat capacity even further, to no less than 0.5, which would immensely help lighter and/or less armed mechs, and mixed builds, with ED used to manage ballistic weapons, while heat controls energy and missile weapons.

Gauss Rifles:
The charge mechanic has always been a controversial addition, some people feel that it makes the weapon feel unwieldy, which others feel that it gives it more of an identity, and helps balance it when used in alphas. I feel indifferent if the mechanic exists or not, although it requires other balancing measures to keep it in check depending on its inclusion. The charge does help de-sync the weapon in alphas, and this is important if we would see some of my proposed changes to the IS ERPPC implemented, but without charge, ED is required to keep it in check, or else you would need to increase the cooldown even further to balance it.

PPCs:
In PTS3, the Clan ERPPC was given its lore-accurate 15 damage per shot, at the expense of an extremely long cooldown. Despite this, it was still woefully overpowered, as it matched the DPS of the other PPCs while having a much lower HPS and less face-time.

In PTS4, the c-ERPPC was completely reverted to its old values, which is something I don't agree with, as a damage reduction would've been sufficient in balancing it, with the IS PPCs given different buffs to make them more competitive. What we have now is an increase to the anti-ECM effect it imposes on target, a very niche and situational buff that doesn't mean much in the vast majority of battles, although I'm not against keeping this effect with my proposed changes:

PPC:
Damage: 10
Heat: 9
Cooldown: 4.5
Velocity: 1200

I'd like to see the PPC as more of a brawling weapon, with greater DPS and more manageable heat buildup compared to the other PPC types.

ERPPC:
Damage:10
Heat: 13.5
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Velocity: 1800

This is the choice if you want a competitive sniping weapon for IS mechs. 1800-2000 velocity makes it easy to land shots within its optimal range, so a patient and accurate hand can make up for the extra heat over the standard PPC.

c-ERPPC:
Damage: 13
Heat: 15
Cooldown: 6.5
Velocity: 1300

At 13 damage with a 6.5 second cooldown, this puts it at the about the same DPS as the IS ERPPC for less face-time, but it's significantly harder to land accurate hits with the base velocity, so overall it outperforms the IS ERPPC in brawling, but is outperformed in long range engagements.

These changes would give each individual PPC type a specific role, making them feel unique in comparison.

Lasers:
In PTS4, we see a new direction taken for making laser types more distinctive, namely unlocking cooldown duration across a class (small, medium, large). Standard lasers stay relatively unchanged, pulse lasers get shorter cooldowns, and ER lasers get longer cooldowns.

This should have been something that was done long ago, as it can replace beam duration as a balance measure, which allowed pulse lasers to completely outperform standard lasers, while the extra heat on ER lasers was negligible for having nearly identical DPS with much more range. While the current numbers need work, this is a good first step to making standard lasers more useful and giving it a distinct role from its pulse and ER counterparts.

LRMs:

Quote

LRM 5
• Inner Sphere LRM 5 Cooldown Duration increased to 4 (from 3.74)
• Clan Cooldown LRM 5 Duration increased to 4.3 (from 3.74)
• Inner Sphere and Clan LRM 5 Spread increased to 4.2 (from 3)

LRM 10
• Inner Sphere LRM 10 Cooldown Duration increased to 4.3 (from 4.6)
• Clan LRM 10 Cooldown Duration decreased to 4.6 (from 5.18)
• Inner Sphere and Clan LRM 10 Heat decreased to 3.33 (from 4)

LRM 15
• Inner Sphere Cooldown Duration decreased to 4.6 (from 5.46)
• Clan Cooldown Duration decreased to 4.9 (from 6.33)

LRM 20
• Inner Sphere LRM 20 Cooldown Duration decreased to 5 (from 5.46)
• Clan LRM 20 Cooldown Duration decreased to 5.3 (from 7.48)
• Inner Sphere and Clan LRM 20 Heat decreased to 5.5 (from 6)
• Inner Sphere and Clan LRM 20 Spread decreased to 5.2 (from 6.2)

LRMs have seen their spread mostly normalized across all classes. This meant a large buff for the horribly underpowered LRM20, but unfortunately a nerf for the LRM5, which could be considered one of the only LRM classes that was worth equipping. Aside from the LRM5, all other LRM types had their cooldowns significantly reduced, so at least they're more viable than before, but the LRM5 should get tigher spread. Now comes the next step, of which I have a few ideas:

1) Further tighen spread, possibly at the expense of some cooldown. This is likely what most people would want, a tigher spread makes for more efficient use of ammo, although with the current cooldowns this might make them too powerful.

2) Increase velocity. Increased velocity would allow LRMs to better perform at longer ranges, where mechs can more easily move to cover before the missiles reach them.

3) Increase Damage. This only makes sense if you want to further the LRM's role at softening up targets, rather than eating away torso armor like the LRM5 did. 1.2 damage per missile would seem like an appropriate first step.

These are changes that would be easy to implement, but they're not what I want to see LRMs eventually become, namely losing indirect fire without TAG/Narc and become better mid-range weapons.

Ultra-Autocannons:

Quote

Inner Sphere U-AC/5
• Jam Chance increased to 15% (from 12%)
• Jam Duration reduced to 5.5s (from 8s)

Clan U-AC/2
• Jam Chance increased to 17% (from 7%)
• Jam Duration reduced to 2.3s (from 8s)

Clan U-AC/5
• Jam Chance increased to 17% (from 15%)
• Jam Duration reduced to 6.5s (from 8s)

Clan U-AC/20
• Jam Chance decreased to 17% (from 20%)
• Jam Duration increased to 10s (from 8s)

With UACs we finally see the unique jam times that everyone has been clamoring for forever. While testing, I found the UAC/2 and UAC/5 to feel significantly better than before, but the UAC/10 and UAC/20 feel awkward with their horrific jam times. I also found out something worrying while testing, and I'm not sure if this was here from the start or not, but UACs don't jam if you don't double tap. This frankly makes UACs superior to standard ACs if you have the choice to avoid jams for about the same DPS, so this led me to devising to potential options short of removing the RNG element:

1) Allow jams on the first shot, remove double tap, half cooldown:
This prevents people from reducing face-time for double the damage, so they're forced to wait out half of the standard AC's cooldown to actually fire again, like it's supposed to be in lore. The system would only jam after you fire a shot, not before, so it would at least feel a bit more reliable.

2) Increase cooldowns:
This is just an easy tweak, so that they're virtually unchanged from now, except that if you want to avoid jams, you have to deal with a much lower DPS than the standard ACs, jam chances could be tweaked to compensate if the average DPS is too low.

Aside from these, I'd like to see the UAC/10 go down to about a 7 second jam time, and the UAC/20 about the same, since you are trading that 20 damage for nearly half the range, lower velocity, and a long cooldown.

What do you guys think of these? Which options proposed would you choose? Do you like the direction some of these changes are going?

[Wild Cat]

I'm glad to see a constructive post that suggest minor changes and tweaks, where I can find myself fully agreeing with, Instead of all the complaining about X, Y or Z and suggesting complete system overhauls.