11 replies to this topic

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

10 and 20 gauge cannons, gauss rifles and to a lesser extent PPC's and Large Pulse Lasers being heavy and having relatively high mass would probably have a higher encumberance and slower turret rotation than lighter weapons.

This opens the door to heavier weapons systems coming with negative torso twist quirks, negative turret elevation and depression quirks, and negative arm maneuvering quirks(with arm mounted weapons).

In the end game, this could mean that gauss rifles, AC-20's and heavier weapons should have more difficulty targeting lights/fast mechs than lighter weapons systems like medium lasers, SSRM's, etc. Which in turn could deter boating of heavier weapons to avoid compounding negative torso and arm maneuvering quirks.

In terms of geekdom. Many large anti ship cannons mounted on spaceships in the star wars universe are too large and unwieldy to target fast & maneuverable fighters. The battleship missouri's main guns are probably too slow to target jets, planes or helicopters.

I'm half kidding about this, btw.. On one hand I think it could have potential. On the other hand there are assaults like the direwolf which already have issues with light mechs without piling additional handicaps on top of it.

Consider this a joke. (*Wonders if anyone will bother reading this far*) It would be nice if more "original" ideas were floated. Sized hardpoints and other ideas have already been done. Here's my attempt.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 28 November 2016 - 07:24 PM.

[El Bandito]

So, mechs with tons of hardpoints to support lighter versions of missles/ballistic/energy are next meta?

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Kodiaks with 4 gauss will be too impeded by emcumberance (torso swivel malus) to have an easy time targeting light mechs.

In theory it would encourage less mass boating of large bore weapons.

With higher emphasis on short range lasers, machine guns, flamers, etc which would carry a torso swivel bonus.

Its far from being an elegant solution. Lots of tweaking would be necessary. So pointless maybe.

But in terms of TTL - time to live and the complaints some have about TTK - time to kill being too quick, it is another option on the table.

[Karl Streiger]

as usuals you need to take the number of weapons not the size of each weapon.
(If Ghost Heat always worked from two weapons, doesn't matter the type, or ED has a number of weapon multiplicator we could talk about "negative" quirks for using heavy weapons.

Reason: 6 ER-Small Lasers are already much better than supposed and a single AC20 is worse as supposed.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 29 November 2016 - 01:36 AM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Karl Streiger, on 29 November 2016 - 01:35 AM, said:

as usuals you need to take the number of weapons not the size of each weapon.
(If Ghost Heat always worked from two weapons, doesn't matter the type, or ED has a number of weapon multiplicator we could talk about "negative" quirks for using heavy weapons.

Reason: 6 ER-Small Lasers are already much better than supposed and a single AC20 is worse as supposed.

The motive behind sized hardpoints and ghost heat 2.0 is to deter boating of gauss, PPC's, large lasers, 10 and 20 gauge cannons. To encourage the use of machine guns, flamers small lasers and other weapons that are under represented in game. To encourage builds that are more traditional with weapons being distributed more in terms of range. Traditional builds are typically more divided by range. Builds distributed more in terms of range would also have longer time to kill which could result in longer matches.

One way to approach this is to create incentive to boat less long range and more short and medium range.

A 14 ton AC20 with 3 tons ammo is the mass of 17 medium lasers. Gauss and boating of large lasers and other big bore are typically the weight of 20 medium lasers.

It makes sense for big bore weapons to have negative maluses in terms of torso rotation, elevation and depression as they typically carry much more mass which realistically would slow targeting. Basic rule of thumb says smaller caliber weapons like 50 cal machine guns are better suited to targeting fast moving vehicles like aircraft while larger bore weapons like tank main guns are better suited to targeting larger, slower moving, targets.

One exception to that is boating of heatsinks. Depending on whether they were air cooled or liquid cooled they would probably be composed of empty space like a sponge or radiator. But the mass of heatsinks tends to be distributed mainly in the center torso and engine which are in the center of the mech which could mean they wouldn't have as much of an effect being at the center of the pivot radius which would make them unsprung weight more than encumbering weight.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 29 November 2016 - 11:47 AM.

[Dirus Nigh]

Dont need to balance large ballistics, their weight and crit slots, in addition to needing ammunition is balance enough. Thank you for repeating the same argument that has been going on sense closed beta with the boomcat.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Dirus Nigh, on 29 November 2016 - 11:56 AM, said:

Dont need to balance large ballistics, their weight and crit slots, in addition to needing ammunition is balance enough. Thank you for repeating the same argument that has been going on sense closed beta with the boomcat.

The idea isn't to balance ballistics.

Moreso to deter people from boating large bore ballistics and energy weapons & to deter large scale use of builds that have low TTK which aren't canonical to the BT genre.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 29 November 2016 - 12:05 PM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

El Bandito, on 28 November 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

So, mechs with tons of hardpoints to support lighter versions of missles/ballistic/energy are next meta?

At a certain point the benefits of boating lighter weapons would present diminishing returns.

I was stuffing 8 medium pulse lasers on a kodiak 1 last week. The heat more than anything else made it not #worth it.

[Dirus Nigh]

I Zeratul I, on 29 November 2016 - 12:04 PM, said:

The idea isn't to balance ballistics.

Moreso to deter people from boating large bore ballistics and energy weapons & to deter large scale use of builds that have low TTK which aren't canonical to the BT genre.

Really? Not canonical to the genre? Are you new to battletech? Did you not see the nova, super nova, penetrater, war hawk, kraken, stone rhino, battlemaster, wasp, annihilator, pirahna, Kodiak, riflman IIC, king crab, jenner IIC, longbow, blood kite, fafnir, devastator, dire wolf, locust IIC, and on and on and on.

There are a large number of mechs in battletech that prove you wrong.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Dirus Nigh, on 29 November 2016 - 03:05 PM, said:

Really? Not canonical to the genre? Are you new to battletech? Did you not see the nova, super nova, penetrater, war hawk, kraken, stone rhino, battlemaster, wasp, annihilator, pirahna, Kodiak, riflman IIC, king crab, jenner IIC, longbow, blood kite, fafnir, devastator, dire wolf, locust IIC, and on and on and on.

There are a large number of mechs in battletech that prove you wrong.

The question is by canon BT rules should mechs with mixed loadouts outperform ones which boat large bore weapons?

Also can TTK (and gameplay) be improved by incentivizing mixed loadouts.

I know there are plenty of mechs that boated large bore weapons. The question is were those loadouts meant to be dominant builds. Or were they meant to be secondary to mixed loadouts.

Were builds like quad guass kodiak and 6 ER LL boar's heads meant to represent the best builds possible.

Or were more mixed builds supposed to represent what is ideal.

[El Bandito]

I Zeratul I, on 29 November 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

At a certain point the benefits of boating lighter weapons would present diminishing returns.

I was stuffing 8 medium pulse lasers on a kodiak 1 last week. The heat more than anything else made it not #worth it.

That's funny, cause my KDK-5 with 10 CMPLs + CLPL did just fine on the heat department. Just need to chain fire them 5x5.

[Karl Streiger]

I Zeratul I, on 29 November 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

I was stuffing 8 medium pulse lasers on a kodiak 1 last week. The heat more than anything else made it not #worth it.

You put 16tons of weapons on a 100t Mech that should carry 3times the weapons?
And they work well... ok there is a sweet spot of number of heatsinks and weapons you fired - thanks to PGI Quality Department the IS MPL was overseen for years - and when i did run the Topdog with 9 MPLAs it worked - although based on its weight the sweet spot was 7 MPL....but with the KDK? and 33DHS? 75 Heat Capacity baisc, 24heat per 4 MPL...chain left right left... and you can keep your self a while in game.

The issue is that you don't have 8 MPL on this mech you have only 2 weapons - two 32dmg Medium Range Pulse Lasers.
This is the thing you have to adress first - not the terrible idea that boating heavy weapons is an issue.

The boomcat was never a real issue - the guy was slow - commited half its weight in weapon. the 12 SPL Stormcrow is much worser - but nobody speaking of hardpoint sizes is even thinking about to address this guy.

You don't get more versatility in reducing the number of heavy weapons - most players would rather mount an array of smaller weapons plus more armor, and speed and electronics rather than wasting weight in a single heavy weapon that is sucking already.

Is the Dual ERPPC Dual Gauss bad - of course but its the same issu with the 32dm Medium Range Pulse Laser - you have 30dmg Gauss and 27dmg ERPPCs

Edited by Karl Streiger, 30 November 2016 - 12:23 AM.