188 replies to this topic

[Valdarion Silarius]

Pjwned, on 07 June 2017 - 04:01 PM, said:

A delayed shot would be 100x more annoying than a charged shot and would accomplish nothing that charged shots don't already.

I don't think it's even possible to suggest a worse idea.

And I don't think it's even possible to respond with such a dumber comment. Go look and see how MW:LL handles gauss rifles. No one in that game is crying how OP gauss rifles are with the instant point and click shots vs having a charge up time. Like someone said already in this thread, I would actually change my opinion about charge up times and be OK with gauss rifles, as long as the rifles held their charge when I was ready to fire at my opponent.

The charge up doesn't add anything unique to the game. It was a ridiculous idea from the start and it has nothing to do with how battletech gauss rifles work in the franchise. Like I said earlier, there are NO other mechwarrior games that have a gauss rifle charge up besides this one. I would be fine if the IS got PPC capacitors, since I'm pretty sure that is the only weapon system in the BT universe that requires a charge up before firing (correct me if I'm wrong here).

[Jiang Wei]

PPCcap charges up (basically like a reload) and fires when you pull the trigger. There is no manual chargeup... its exactly the same as other ppcs but it just has a longer cooldown and does more damage.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 06:25 AM, said:

and clearly they should add mechbows to the game. then that mechanic would make sense.

but on gauss its stupid.

Physics: It takes a while to charge the high-capacity high-voltage fast-discharge capacitors used by the coils.
MWO: Let's use the charge mechanic for gauss.

Frankly, I don't see the problem.

[Khobai]

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It takes a while to charge the high-capacity high-voltage fast-discharge capacitors used by the coils.

except from a realism standpoint that makes no sense either. gauss should precharge while its on cooldown.

you wouldnt design a gauss weapon that only charges after it reloads. youd design it to charge while reloading. so its ready to fire immediately after it reloads with no wait time.

the whole gauss chargeup mechanic makes no sense. its not fun either. and it doesnt balance gauss at all, all it does is increase the skill barrier to use gauss, but it doesnt balance it. its still a broken weapon that does insane damage for almost no heat at long range and synergizes perfectly with energy weapons.

Edited by Khobai, 10 June 2017 - 05:10 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 05:05 PM, said:

except from a realism standpoint that makes no sense either. gauss should precharge while its on cooldown.

you wouldnt design a gauss weapon that only charges after it reloads. youd design it to charge while reloading. so its ready to fire immediately after it reloads with no wait time..

Realistically, that depends on whether or not you are producing power at a rate that lets you do everything else you need to do and charge the weapon. You may be able to produce pragmatically infinite energy, but you can't necessarily do it all at once.

Conceptually, though, if I don't have to charge my PPCs or lasers then I shouldn't have to charge my Gauss. Also, lasers ought to be prone to explosion as well, for exactly the same reason.

That being said, in this game, I simply don't care. I find the charge mechanic fun, like driving a manual car instead of some point-and-click paddle shifter or snooze-inducing automatic.

[Khobai]

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Realistically, that depends on whether or not you are producing power at a rate that lets you do everything else you need to do and charge the weapon. You may be able to produce pragmatically infinite energy, but you can't necessarily do it all at once.

with a fusion reactor I dont think power production is the limiting factor.

reloading time is.

even a small fusion reactor thats a couple meters across could realistically generate 25-50 MW which is enough to power a large town or small city. a gauss rifle would only need a fraction of that power.

Edited by Khobai, 10 June 2017 - 05:26 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 05:20 PM, said:

with a fusion reactor I dont think power production is the limiting factor.

reloading time is.

It's the definition of power, my friend: energy over time. Power is the limiting factor. Fusion has a very high energy potential, but you still have to tap into that potential and that has its own limitations. Whether it's pulling electrons from the plasma soup or using the thermal energy to convert work into electricity, you can only do it so fast, thus limiting your power.

[Khobai]

Im not following your logic. it wouldnt make sense to have a fusion reactor if you couldnt fully utilize it. so obviously mechs are capable of transforming that fusion energy into useable power at a very fast rate.

its not like youre going to have a super advanced fusion reactor and then have an archaic steam engine and a bunch of low voltage wiring. the only reason to have a fusion reactor is if everything is designed to be able to put all that power to use.

so yeah im gonna have to call bullsh*t on gauss chargeup. mechs produce enough energy to power small cities. certainly it should be able to charge a gauss rifle in less than the time it takes it to reload.

Edited by Khobai, 10 June 2017 - 05:41 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 05:20 PM, said:

even a small fusion reactor thats a couple meters across could realistically generate 25-50 MW which is enough to power a large town or small city. a gauss rifle would only need a fraction of that power.

True, but the Gauss isn't the only thing running. We've got lasers and particle accelerators going, each of which is in the MegaWatt range all by itself (if not more), as well as locomotion for vehicles ranging between 20 and 100 tons using what are known to be rather inefficient fibers, considering the heat they throw off. And observe the rate at which all of these systems are energized and how even stacking multiples does nothing to slow them down.

IMHO, this game would be very interesting if we had to manage our power consumption. Setting priorities for systems, choosing a mix of weapons to gain high output for low consumption, etc.

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 05:34 PM, said:

Im not following your logic. it wouldnt make sense to have a fusion reactor if you couldnt fully utilize it. so obviously mechs are capable of transforming that fusion energy in useable power.

its not like youre going to have a super advanced fusion reactor and then have an archaic steam engine and a bunch of low voltage wire.

It makes sense if you want longevity. Why do you think USN submarines and aircraft carriers are nuclear? Longevity. And logistical simplicity.

Also, we have fusion reactors and archaic, gun-powder-driven slug-throwers. You'll have to try a little harder than that...

[Valhallan]

/sigh People in MW4 didn't complain much about gauss for 2 reasons, 1. most were piling into no heat no ammo servers so cppc (which was 15ppfld over there) is obviously better in that situation, 2. no GH which coupled with heatsinks not eating any crits so you could stuff as many as you want as long as you had the tonnage, meant the heat situation was much easier to handle. In that travesty of a situation yes cppc was generally better, with gauss only being used when the boatload of erppcs would cause shutdown/the mech you picked didnt have enough hardpoints so you might as well use the ballistics to fill in the tonnage. That situation was hardly the beacon of balance.

MWLL gauss doesn't have much complaints because they are stuck in STOCK LOADS not min-maxing super cheese. In addition they actually have BV in the form of C-Bill cost to deploy, so even if they do add mech-lab they can balance that way. WE don't have any such logistical balance.

Gauss charge prevents lights from being a joke to gauss users, yes skilled players can still work with it but it's still more difficult than if it was one press ez pzy.

Edited by Valhallan, 10 June 2017 - 05:55 PM.

[Johnny Z]

It would be better if it auto fired after charge up is done.

Edited by Johnny Z, 10 June 2017 - 06:22 PM.

[Khobai]

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Not sure if I missed something but nuclear powered ships are actually steam engines.

I doubt ships 1000 years in the future will still be using steam.

same with mechs. ive gotta think in 1000 years theyve found a better way than steam.

especially with FTL capability. since the energy cost to accelerate to the speed of light increases exponentially, let alone faster than the speed of light. at that point your civilization has pretty much mastered energy conversion. youre not going to be using something as primitive as steam anymore. at least the star league era lostech wouldnt be that primitive...

again i gotta think an FTL capable civilization can make a gauss rifle that can charge at the same time it reloads...

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Gauss charge prevents lights from being a joke to gauss users,

not really. if you shoot a light in the leg with dual gauss its still pretty screwed.

it might increase the skill ceiling to use gauss but it doesnt decrease its effectiveness vs lights. you just have to reach the higher skill ceiling where you can learn the charge timings, know when to start precharging, and practice hitting lights with it.

again the problem with chargeup is that it doesnt fix whats inherently unbalanced about gauss. it just makes gauss harder for players to use. but it doesnt balance it. players that are able to use it are still able to abuse it.

chargeup really didnt fix the problem with gauss. it makes no sense from a lore standpoint. nor is it a fun mechanic, its irritating more than anything. its just not a good mechanic and should be removed.

Edited by Khobai, 10 June 2017 - 06:45 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 06:30 PM, said:

I doubt ships 1000 years in the future will still be using steam.

same with mechs. ive gotta think in 1000 years theyve found a better way than steam.

especially with FTL capability. since the energy cost to accelerate to the speed of light increases exponentially, let alone faster than the speed of light. at that point your civilization has pretty much mastered energy conversion. youre not going to be using something as primitive as steam anymore. at least the star league era lostech wouldnt be that primitive...

again i gotta think an FTL capable civilization can make a gauss rifle that can charge at the same time it reloads...

This is BattleTech. They build things without fully understanding how they work. It's almost as bad as the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40,000. I mean, it takes decades to figure out how to manufacture smaller and larger versions of the LB-10X and adapt the ER tech to lasers?

I think I recall reading somewhere that fusion engines in BattleTech generate electricity by pulling electrons out of the plasma, though I could be mistaken. They might also use futuristic thermocouples to translate the thermal energy into electricity. There are still limitations to how fast you can perform either action, though, that is independent of how much energy is contained in your fuel. And I wouldn't necessarily call steam primitive, though. It's quite good at turning thermal energy into work, the worst losses occur when we try to turn work into electricity. Superconductors and advances in lubrication can help a lot, and I imagine they'd be quite good at it in the 31st century.

[Mister Glitchdragon]

Gauss is good! Charge-up keeps it from being used as an AC/15. It keeps Gauss out of the brawl, where there are plenty of higher dps options to choose from.

I don't get why so many people can't make the charge-up work. Do you even Skyrim, bro?

Players who practice and get competent with the Gauss charge-up are still a threat, even close in. But (as this thread makes pretty clear) there are a lot more players out there who can't do it than there are who can. I disagree with those who say this is bad balance. I think this is exactly how a good weapon system should be balanced: lots of better options for the casual user, but rewarding for those with the patience to practice and get the most out of it.

[Valhallan]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 06:30 PM, said:

not really. if you shoot a light in the leg with dual gauss its still pretty screwed.

it might increase the skill ceiling to use gauss but it doesnt decrease its effectiveness vs lights. you just have to reach the higher skill ceiling where you can learn the charge timings, know when to start precharging, and practice hitting lights with it.

again the problem with chargeup is that it doesnt fix whats inherently unbalanced about gauss. it just makes gauss harder for players to use. but it doesnt balance it. players that are able to use it are still able to abuse it.

chargeup really didnt fix the problem with gauss. it makes no sense from a lore standpoint. nor is it a fun mechanic, its irritating more than anything. its just not a good mechanic and should be removed.

And actually snapshotting that gauss when the light is near and flanking your rear is harder BECAUSE there is a charge, it it was point and click it would be even easier than laser sweeps. If i didn't have to lead with the ac20 lights knife fighting me would be a bloody joke.

It was never supposed to be a fun mechanic, the entire point of it was to make gauss hard to use because otherwise everyone would ignore AC's. In lore it was balanced with AVAILABILITY, it was damned hard to make and easy as hell to break. You want lore equipment & weapon stats? then we need lore logistics and availability, restricted units for purchase, full repair and rearm costs (i would support this but i know many would not). If you are not going to reproduce the situation in lore completely then it needs to take a back-seat to balance. That's why TT bothered to make a point system, BV (gauss is almost 2x an AC20 here), to try to balance games without fiddling with lore stats and costs.

[Mcgral18]

Jiang Wei, on 07 June 2017 - 04:33 PM, said:

Only people using gauss rifles anymore ARE the potatoes. Its no longer a competitive weapon.

Eh...what?

It's still among the best Ballistic weapons

Jiang Wei, on 07 June 2017 - 10:39 PM, said:

Quote from that topic: "Might explain why so many higher-ELO players have started using Gauss again... hmmm"


See PGI? The charge up nerf might as well be reverted. The only people who are handicapped by the nerf are those not using a macro cheat. Thats isnt fair to purists now is it.

What kind of Potato needs a Macro to use the Gauss?
All it does is reduce your ability to adapt to the target

Mystere, on 09 June 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

Ahem! Can that still be called a gauss rifle?

Gauss Rifles, pre charge, had 1200 M/s, BTW

They were essentially swapped with 2 KM/s PPCs (which went to 1500?)

[Khobai]

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And actually snapshotting that gauss when the light is near and flanking your rear is harder BECAUSE there is a charge

you just restated exactly what I said

its harder but its not less effective.

the skill ceiling is higher. but its still a broken weapon if you reach that skill ceiling.

chargeup doesnt balance the fact its 15 damage for 1 heat and long range. all it does is limit the number of players that can use it by raising the skill ceiling. but its still broken for those who can use it effectively and abuse its potential.

Quote

Only people using gauss rifles anymore ARE the potatoes. Its no longer a competitive weapon.

yes youre right. doing 50 damage from across the map and killing most mechs in 2-3 alphas is potatoish. that is completely not a viable or competitive way to play.

Edited by Khobai, 10 June 2017 - 08:02 PM.

[Mystere]

Mcgral18, on 10 June 2017 - 07:55 PM, said:

What kind of Potato needs a Macro to use the Gauss?
All it does is reduce your ability to adapt to the target

Ahem! Not all macros are created equal.

Mcgral18, on 10 June 2017 - 07:55 PM, said:

Gauss Rifles, pre charge, had 1200 M/s, BTW

They were essentially swapped with 2 KM/s PPCs (which went to 1500?)

I was referring to the splash damage someone wanted:

Coolant, on 08 June 2017 - 03:41 PM, said:

As someone who doesn't use Gauss, I say make the charge up time twice as long and half the projectile speed and reduce the damage and spread it.

Edited by Mystere, 10 June 2017 - 08:04 PM.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 07:58 PM, said:

you just restated exactly what I said

its harder but its not less effective.

the skill ceiling is higher. but its still a broken weapon if you reach that skill ceiling.

chargeup doesnt balance the fact its 15 damage for 1 heat and long range. all it does is limit the number of players that can use it by raising the skill ceiling. but its still broken for those who can use it effectively and abuse its potential.

You mean to say skill FLOOR, not ceiling. Skill floor is the barrier of entry or the minimum amount of skill needed to be effective with something. Skill ceiling refers to the maximum potential you have for improvement relative to the floor.

With that being said, the Gauss Rifle's skill ceiling is also raised by the charge-up because good players can distinguish themselves with stuff like charging up the shot before exposing themselves so that they can still pop it off almost instantly.

[Valhallan]

Khobai, on 10 June 2017 - 07:58 PM, said:

you just restated exactly what I said

its harder but its not less effective.

the skill ceiling is higher. but its still a broken weapon if you reach that skill ceiling.

Nope, the skill req is higher because another skill is added in, you don't just need aiming you need to learn to predict, charging is effectively a lead-time in that situation. That means counterplay is available (meaning effectivity is lessened, just like how twisting is the counterplay for lazers) for the light because he does have a chance to avoid your shot even if you have l33t aiming skills as long as he outpredicts you and your gauss will end up whiffing because you charged and he reversed his circle, crossing you again when your gauss went on cd.

What charge doesn't do is make gauss less effective at ranged sniping for skilled players. Or less effective against average/slow mechs in brawl. But for allowing quick maneuverable lights to have a shot at CQC? yes it does make it less effective.

Also, never said that it makes Gauss ok, it still is really good as you said. Just that there is no reason to remove the charge, which primarily helps lights.

Edited by Valhallan, 10 June 2017 - 08:29 PM.