30 replies to this topic

[Duke Nedo]

So, what would happen if torso mounted weapons generated 10% more heat than arm mounted weapons? (or vice versa, arm mounted weapons generate 10% less heat)

Jagers, BJs, Stalkers, Rolfmen, Jenners, Ravens, would be extra happy. All humanoid mechs would be happy.

Warhammer torso builds, Hunchies(IIC), nipple-summoners, grasshoppers, battlemasters, thunderbolts, ebon jags, some nightgyr builds, timberwolves, CTF-3D etc would be less happy.

Probably wouldn't break things, main drawback I believe would be that KDK-3 with 2x ERPPC in the arm and NGR poptart that on only uses one ERPPC wouldn't be affected while some competitors would.... so some adjustments would be required but it's not like it's very good now - these adjustments are needed anyways.

Just an idea that popped up that I found mildly intriguing as a means to blanket-buff (humanoid) designs with important hardpoints in the arms.

Have a good weekend!

Edited by Duke Nedo, 17 February 2017 - 05:44 AM.

[Curccu]

Duke Nedo, on 17 February 2017 - 05:38 AM, said:

Jagers, BJs, Stalkers, Rolfmen, Jenners, Ravens, would be happy.

You are talking about to help humanoid mechs and listed only mechs that are NOT humanoid mechs...

[Duke Nedo]

Curccu, on 17 February 2017 - 05:43 AM, said:

You are talking about to help humanoid mechs and listed only mechs that are NOT humanoid mechs...

Yeah, I am nija-editing that... saw it as I posted it, it was a bit misleading...

Edit: It's a buff to all humanoids though, just a double-buff to non-humanoids. Reason I listed them was just to show that none of them receiving buffs would be game breaking in any way. Perhaps the biggest danger is the JNR-IIcs of the non-humanoids, and builds like the KDK-3 and some NGRs and perhaps even MAD-IIcs and EBJs that have their arms high up even though they are humanoids (or at least have arms), and have their main heat generation in the arm.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 17 February 2017 - 05:51 AM.

[NoiseCrypt]

I would go the other way and say that arm mounted weapons only should generate 75% heat.
But any incentive to actually make arm mounted weapons an equal choice compared to torso weapons is fine by me.
The current agility advantage doesn't really outweigh the risk of loosing an arm mounted PPC or LPL.

[Duke Nedo]

NoiseCrypt, on 17 February 2017 - 05:55 AM, said:

I would go the other way and say that arm mounted weapons only should generate 75% heat.
But any incentive to actually make arm mounted weapons an equal choice compared to torso weapons is fine by me.
The current agility advantage doesn't really outweigh the risk of loosing an arm mounted PPC or LPL.

Yeah, that was my first thought as well, but then I though that it would be a rather hefty buff to the KDK-3 2xgauss,2xerppc build that has the PPCs in on of the arms... but in the end that doesn't really matter, relatively speaking the result will be the same, so it's something to keep in mind if one would ever do something like this.

In any case, one could consider this a type of "auto-quirking". Common for all mechs that needs quirks, not considering all IS mechs that needs it because of the tech disadvantage, is that the are forced to carry more than half of their weaponry on non-optimal hard points, i.e. low slung arms. The interesting thing about this approach is that it would only buff weapons that are actually on the arms, it would for example not buff torso mounted PPCs on a WHM or the nipple PPC SMN, but it would be a buff to any build where the WHM or SMN actually puts lasers or PPC in the arms.

Anyways, just a thought.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 17 February 2017 - 09:23 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Duke Nedo, on 17 February 2017 - 09:22 AM, said:

SMN actually puts lasers or PPC in the arms.

The problem with the Summoner and arm PPCs is the same as the Vindi and arm PPCs, they are easily neutered because of their large arms. The whole reason you run them in the same arm in the first place is because convergence tends to be horrible on those as well (because the cockpit position relative to the arm hardpoints is max things worse. In those cases, the problem isn't firepower (because they can spam them a lot), it is a problem of fragility (aka too much risk of getting gimped).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 17 February 2017 - 09:27 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 17 February 2017 - 09:26 AM, said:

The problem with the Summoner and arm PPCs is the same as the Vindi and arm PPCs, they are easily neutered because of their large arms. The whole reason you run them in the same arm in the first place is because convergence tends to be horrible on those as well (because the cockpit position relative to the arm hardpoints is max things worse. In those cases, the problem isn't firepower (because they can spam them a lot), it is a problem of fragility (aka too much risk of getting gimped).

Aye, in principle its the same for all mechs that need to use the arms, they all need durability over firepower, totally agree... but it wouldn't be intuitive to give structure quirks for every arm-weapon equipped... but, it has worked for some mechs compensating exposure with weapon quirks, for example the old dragon-1n or wolverines. There are some examples still around too isn't there, like enforcers? They are durable as well on top of that tho....

Edit: Also, perhaps I should underline that I don't suggest this would fix all problems, but it could be a small step in the right direction. Wouldn't in any way remove the need for all quirks, but it could perhaps remove the need for 1 quirk per quirked mech...

Edited by Duke Nedo, 17 February 2017 - 09:39 AM.

[Andi Nagasia]

Humanoid mechs only?
(but you list mechs that arnt humaniod)\

so you just mean this is for All mechs that put weapons in their arms can benefit?

[MechaBattler]

I was thinking about this the other day as well. Disappointed PGI didn't try balancing by design. There's all kinds of excuses you could come up for it.

Arm mounted energy weapons have more surface to air contact. So less heat. Actuators in arms act as recoil compensation, so lower cooldown for ballistics.

If you have energy points mounted low on the torso, closer to their power source, lower cooldown. Atlas AC mounted low on the torso, situated closer to the mech's center of gravity, more stable firing allows for lower cooldown.

Conversely high mounted weapons throw off a mech's center of gravity. So longer cooldown as the mech and weapons adjust for recoil. It doesn't have to make perfect sense. Harder to come up with excuse to nerf high mounted energy.

Targeting quirks based on what actually makes one mech better than another makes more sense than just arbitrarily distributing quirks. However some mechs do suffer more than others. And not all arm mounted weapons are low hanging. So I guess there would still be some guessing on how to improve them.

[Duke Nedo]

Andi Nagasia, on 17 February 2017 - 09:42 AM, said:

Humanoid mechs only?
(but you list mechs that arnt humaniod)\

so you just mean this is for All mechs that put weapons in their arms can benefit?

No not only humanoids, I did edit that away mostly to avoid confusion. I wanted to say that this will help all humanoid mechs with weapons in their arms because more or less all humanoid mechs that rely on arm weapons are in need of help.

There are a few with high mounted arms that would benefit, like the ones I list in the OP, but none of these getting buffs would be bad for balance, though there probably is some clan meta-monster to be released that will have high arms... but let's save the worries for that day.

[Deathlike]

I'll just catagorize this as Lostech.

I get that this is beneficial for humanoid mechs, but there's no inherent benefit for non-humanoid mechs (if you want a ninja KDK-3 buff, this is it).

There's a fair number of humanoid mechs need arm (structure/armor) quirks... due to them being (unnecessarily) large. While I guess that it won't help their arm profile by that much if they were to "lift" their arms... but you have to remember that the corresponding non-humanoid mechs don't usually get any (or good) arm structure/armor quirks. A Jagermech's arm still falls pretty quickly (it's just better to side core them for obvious reasons) and the Stalker's arm isn't too tiny either.

It's not really something that has a good answer for, outside of actual rescaling efforts.

Edit: I didn't actually thoroughly read the OP's post. I thought it was about "lifting arms".

Anyways OP, your idea is bad, and you should feel bad.

Edited by Deathlike, 17 February 2017 - 11:37 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Deathlike, on 17 February 2017 - 11:35 AM, said:

Anyways OP, your idea is bad, and you should feel bad.

Your reply was in fact bad and you should feel bad for replying without reading the OP.

It's actually not such a silly idea if you think about it since it's more or less mandatory with weapon quirks for mechs that have to use lowslung hardpoints, but anyways, who cares.

[Deathlike]

Duke Nedo, on 17 February 2017 - 01:30 PM, said:

Your reply was in fact bad and you should feel bad for replying without reading the OP.

It's actually not such a silly idea if you think about it since it's more or less mandatory with weapon quirks for mechs that have to use lowslung hardpoints, but anyways, who cares.

Dude, your whole premise is to increase heat output based on location.

It's one thing to ask for quirks to reduce heat to a particular location (like, say a nice heat gen quirk on the Wolverive-6K's energy arm, excluding the head) and then to actually nerf mechs as a whole because torso weapons are generally superior... except the low hung ones on the Atlas or Black Knight.

So, no... I'm not giving you the satisfaction of your terrible idea.

[Duke Nedo]

Deathlike, on 17 February 2017 - 01:47 PM, said:

Dude, your whole premise is to increase heat output based on location.

It's one thing to ask for quirks to reduce heat to a particular location (like, say a nice heat gen quirk on the Wolverive-6K's energy arm, excluding the head) and then to actually nerf mechs as a whole because torso weapons are generally superior... except the low hung ones on the Atlas or Black Knight.

So, no... I'm not giving you the satisfaction of your terrible idea.

Ok, first sorry that I was snappy yesterday. Tired and fed up.

That said, I get really annoyed by people who dismiss other people without reading or making the effort to understand what is said, or the reasoning behind it. It's ignorant and only based on your opinion.

If you read up you can also see that I present this as a "mildly intriguing idea", not the answer to everything. Since mechs relying on arm mounted weapons all have quirks, this may be "a way of removing 1 quirk from every quirked mech". (also written above) That's the significance of it, not huge, but it could make sense.

I also write in the OP that you can reduce heat for arms, or increase heat for torso, it doesn't really matter. It just moves the baseline slightly relative to the heat cap/diss threshold. Relatively in terms of balance it has the same effect.

With that out of the way,

If you look at which mechs would benefit the most: MLX, LCT, COM, UM, JR7, PNT, RVN, non-purifier-KFX, JR7-IIc, CDA-2B, PXH, VND, TBT, WVR, SHC, non-hero-NVA, some-SCR-builds, FANG, FLAME, DRG-1N, DRG-5N, some-MAD-builds, non-loyalty-SMN, VTR, STK, GAR, EXE, WHK, non-3-KDKs and yes, the PPFLD-KDK-3 (but not dakka-KDK-3).

It's not perfect, never said it was, but as you can see from that list it includes a hell of a lot of sad mechs. I withhold that it's a mildly intriguing idea, it's not terrible because you say so or because AS9 has a low torso-mounted AC20.

Edit: To be fair, it can be a terrible idea, but you haven't convinced me.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 18 February 2017 - 07:40 AM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

This would need some fine tuning, but in general I like this idea a lot, because:
1. It would help mechs that need help (those with low arm mouts)
2. It would give some incentive to make loadouts that are a bit more lore (like warhammer with PPC arms), or at least make those loadouts fare better. Just look at the Catapult K2 - if you go for PPCs there is now just no reason to actually use the arms, it's much better in every way to put PPCs in the torso and leave the arms empty...
3. It's logical and plausible - extremities loose heat faster than the main body, it applies to humans so it should apply to mechs as well. You know, physics, surface area that exchanges heat with the environment, it's all sound.
4. Giving an incentive to use arm mounts in cases where they're completely abandoned because a mech has enough torso mounts, it would extend the range of viable builds.

As to the fine tuning:
1. There should be a smaller bonus for stumpy arms that are closer to the torso overall (and thus almost always higher), like in case of Jagermechs or Catapults,
2. A bit bigger bonus should apply for shorter and humanoid arms with medium-height hardpoints
3. The biggest bonus should apply for long humanoid arms with low-mounted hardpoints, like the Cataphract or Nova.

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 18 February 2017 - 04:15 AM.

[Errinovar]

I think it is an interesting idea and could easily be justified if you made the bonus reflective of the number of actuators in the arms of the mechs in question. So for example a mech with only shoulder or upper arm actuator swouldn't receive a cooling bonus, but lower and hand actuators would give incremental bonuses for any weapons mounted in that arm (or just by chassis based on the average number of actuators per arm).

While there is no technical reason why it would work this way, on a meta level it would reduce the critical slot penalty that humanoid mechs have for things that have not been programmed to work as they should. Those actuators should allow mechs that have them to manipulate their arms in the same was a person can, so shots should be able to be made from shoulder height and even made at 90 degree angles or greater to the sides of the mechs that have those actuators. Currently humanoid mechs pay that critical slot tax and get little in return. Maybe this would kind of offset it.


Just my $0.02

Edit: I do think the bonus should be very minor.. like maybe 1% per lower arm and 1.5% per hand actuator.. so max 5% less heat from arm mounted weapons.

Edited by Errinovar, 18 February 2017 - 06:54 AM.

[Whiplash Wally]

Arm weapons generating less heat = unstoppable Nova

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Whiplash Wally, on 18 February 2017 - 06:36 AM, said:

Arm weapons generating less heat = unstoppable Nova

Nova has some quirks that can be taken away if needed. Besides, the build you're thinking about is not a joke only because Clan SPLs are so good.

[El Bandito]

Whiplash Wally, on 18 February 2017 - 06:36 AM, said:

Arm weapons generating less heat = unstoppable Nova

Remove its heat reduction quirks to compensate.

Ah dammit, ninjaed.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 February 2017 - 07:22 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 18 February 2017 - 04:12 AM, said:

Errinovar, on 18 February 2017 - 06:14 AM, said:

You both touch upon the same thing there, that high mounted arms may get undeserved benefits. I half-agree, half-unsure. Perhaps it would be a good idea to do that, on the other hand the mechs with high mounted cannon arms can't shield their STs with their arms so they have +1, -1 to some degree at least...

The biggest trouble in terms of effective geometry imo are the mechs that have great shielding arms and all their weapons high up in their torsos... they get the best of both worlds.