94 replies to this topic

[Kaptain]

Metus regem, on 29 June 2017 - 06:54 PM, said:

Im glad I was able to convince you, only thing is the LB-2X should be 1 or 2 crits, as the UAC/2 is 3 and the AC/2 is 1.

should

Oh I am aware. I made up a spread sheet a couple weeks ago of all the IS auto cannons and in notes next to lbx2 it says: "4 cirts?!? Why?!?)"

[MustrumRidcully]

I would support it, but so far, PGI has never altered critical slots or tonnage for any weapons in all the years this game has been around. So I wouldn't expect them to suddenly change their approach on this. You might be better off suggesting alternative ways to make the weapons worth this drawback.

[Andi Nagasia]

MustrumRidcully, on 30 June 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:

I would support it, but so far, PGI has never altered critical slots or tonnage for any weapons in all the years this game has been around. So I wouldn't expect them to suddenly change their approach on this. You might be better off suggesting alternative ways to make the weapons worth this drawback.

i hoping they make an exception with this, as i feel its the right thing to do, by both these weapons,
and from a programing standpoint its easier to reduce the Crits by 1 than it is to implement Crit Splitting,

[davoodoo]

Andi Nagasia, on 30 June 2017 - 06:05 PM, said:

i hoping they make an exception with this, as i feel its the right thing to do, by both these weapons,
and from a programing standpoint its easier to reduce the Crits by 1 than it is to implement Crit Splitting,

Yea sure it is, but then how hard exactly is implementing crit splitting?

i dont know in what language they program(probably c++) and how rest of the code looks, but tbh if i were to start fresh it wouldnt be that hard.
Evening maybe 2 for that feature.

Edited by davoodoo, 30 June 2017 - 06:33 PM.

[Ashnod]

implement crit splitting

[MustrumRidcully]

davoodoo, on 30 June 2017 - 06:32 PM, said:

Yea sure it is, but then how hard exactly is implementing crit splitting?

i dont know in what language they program(probably c++) and how rest of the code looks, but tbh if i were to start fresh it wouldnt be that hard.
Evening maybe 2 for that feature.

I don't think it would be that easy. An idea on how hard something is to adapt into an existing system is always to consider in what ways is it different than all the other items
An item that can have its crit split can behave like more than one item. Instead of being an item that fits into a single hit location, it can also fit into two. There are several combinations in how you can split it, at minium left arm and left torso and right arm and right torso (maybe also left torso and center torso or right torso and center torso). That might make it behave like 5 different weapons, basically, because each of the cases has a special scenario.

So, if you put this item in arm, it must also block crit slots in the adjacent torso if it doesn't fit.
That means for adding it to an arm, the game suddenly needs to check a second location whether it has sufficient space for this.
Once equipped, it must block those critical slots, and if you remove it, it must also free them again!
Depending on how the calculations work, the weight calculation must also not accidentally count the weapon twice because it is found in two locations.
All of this must also be communicated correctly in the User Interface, so that players have an idea of what is going to happen. Maybe sometimes they must even be given a choice whether to crit split a weapon or not.

And then, you also need to consider whether and how you also implement the drawbacks of a crit splitted weapon - the weapons movement range is suddenly no longer based on the arm, but on the torso. That means that the arm containing the weapon must suddenly be always arm locked, or otherwise be altered to obey these rules.


---

And remember ,they haven't even implemented ammo switching yet, which would have been the best way to implement ATMs...

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 01 July 2017 - 02:28 AM.

[Andi Nagasia]

@MustrumRidcully agreed,
which is why im advocating to reduce the Crit requirements for them to 10Crits,
i feel this would be the best way to help these weapons, in how many mechs can mount them,
if they are kept 11Crits im worried what kinds of buff they would need to make them Viable given the restriction,

[davoodoo]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 July 2017 - 02:26 AM, said:

I don't think it would be that easy. An idea on how hard something is to adapt into an existing system is always to consider in what ways is it different than all the other items
An item that can have its crit split can behave like more than one item. Instead of being an item that fits into a single hit location, it can also fit into two. There are several combinations in how you can split it, at minium left arm and left torso and right arm and right torso (maybe also left torso and center torso or right torso and center torso). That might make it behave like 5 different weapons, basically, because each of the cases has a special scenario.

So, if you put this item in arm, it must also block crit slots in the adjacent torso if it doesn't fit.
That means for adding it to an arm, the game suddenly needs to check a second location whether it has sufficient space for this.
Once equipped, it must block those critical slots, and if you remove it, it must also free them again!
Depending on how the calculations work, the weight calculation must also not accidentally count the weapon twice because it is found in two locations.
All of this must also be communicated correctly in the User Interface, so that players have an idea of what is going to happen. Maybe sometimes they must even be given a choice whether to crit split a weapon or not.

And then, you also need to consider whether and how you also implement the drawbacks of a crit splitted weapon - the weapons movement range is suddenly no longer based on the arm, but on the torso. That means that the arm containing the weapon must suddenly be always arm locked, or otherwise be altered to obey these rules.


---

And remember ,they haven't even implemented ammo switching yet, which would have been the best way to implement ATMs...

All this stuff might be a problem for student who tries to figure it out for the first time.
But pgi arent bunch of students, they are ppl who went through university and have years of experience in that industry and are expected to have knowledge to deal with it.

Also lets not forget they already have basics of that system, endo steel and ferro fibrous is basically crit sharing without limits on location.

Ammo switching is actually be more complicated starting from balance standpoint, then going through ammo types(universal ammo?) going through ui indicators, ammo effects(not a problem for lbx though) another variables for extra ammo types.
But in most basic form it shouldnt be big problem either. 2 functions for lbx fire, 1 which fires regular ac which they must have, another for cluster rounds which they also must have, after ctrl c and ctrl v you just need to code in switch. Question remains whether they even want lb10x which fires ac rounds.

Edited by davoodoo, 01 July 2017 - 10:13 AM.

[Top Leliel]

davoodoo, on 01 July 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

Also lets not forget they already have basics of that system, endo steel and ferro fibrous is basically crit sharing without limits on location.

Exactly. They can do this. In fact, they should do this, because they are being paid money to develop this game.

[Andi Nagasia]

davoodoo, on 01 July 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

All this stuff might be a problem for student who tries to figure it out for the first time.
But pgi arent bunch of students, they are ppl who went through university and have years of experience in that industry and are expected to have knowledge to deal with it.

Also lets not forget they already have basics of that system, endo steel and ferro fibrous is basically crit sharing without limits on location.

Top Leliel, on 01 July 2017 - 10:02 AM, said:

Exactly. They can do this. In fact, they should do this, because they are being paid money to develop this game.

im ganna assume nether of you are Programmers,

their can be many problems with this,
i dont know all the problems they experience with their Version of CryEngine,
but as such let me infer with my Programing Knowledge

i dont think this would be an easy copy past Dynamic Crits from Endo into HGauss or LBX20,
you have to make sure those Crits are adjacent(Component wise) to each other, as per TT Rules and Lore,
mount it in your LA you cant have the the Dynamic Crits going to your RA,

also with the LBX20(if its mounted in your STs) you can move point into your CT Arms or Legs,
so you can have a LFE, LBX20 in your LT, and the over flow Crits in your LL, which also has destruction Rules,
where if you lose your leg the LBX20 no longer works, which also has to be programed in,

programing isnt as easy as you would think,
not to mention MWO is built on Cry3, which is a 6 year old Engine, thats been heavily modified,

[davoodoo]

Andi Nagasia, on 01 July 2017 - 10:13 AM, said:

im ganna assume nether of you are Programmers,

their can be many problems with this,
i dont know all the problems they experience with their Version of CryEngine,
but as such let me infer with my Programing Knowledge

i dont think this would be an easy copy past Dynamic Crits from Endo into HGauss or LBX20,
you have to make sure those Crits are adjacent(Component wise) to each other, as per TT Rules and Lore,
mount it in your LA you cant have the the Dynamic Crits going to your RA,

also with the LBX20(if its mounted in your STs) you can move point into your CT Arms or Legs,
so you can have a LFE, LBX20 in your LT, and the over flow Crits in your LL, which also has destruction Rules,
where if you lose your leg the LBX20 no longer works, which also has to be programed in,

programing isnt as easy as you would think,
not to mention MWO is built on Cry3, which is a 6 year old Engine, thats been heavily modified,

No one said copy endo...

But since endo can already detect whether there are empty slots and assign them, means they can code that in.

Whats left? location? tt rules
only nearby locations max 2 locations per weapon.
ac20, uac20, lb20x can go into adjacent arm, side torso or ct, while heavy gauss can only go into ct.
Side torso will default into ct unless theres something there blocking it otherwise it will go into arm
Arm must always go to st so no problem here, put exception if you cant write algorithm for it.
You can manipulate location by putting stuff in dynamic slots just as with endo to save on extra coding.

I mean yeah, it only need to look at those locations excluding everything else.
1st year students learn how to solve such problems.

Now you can have fun with how accurate to tt rules you want to be.
1)it got crits in both locations.
-you can go so far as accurate implementation of crits, if shared gets crit it goes to weapon, or
-you can simply ignore those slots as uncritable such as endo and just go with xl coding to enforce disabling weapon after shared location is destroyed.

2)weapon arcs, if you share crits you get most restrictive arc.
-you can ignore that completely.
-you can go easy way and lock arms to torso if its shared, already have that function just enforce it in this situation.
-you can do it accurately and lock arms side movement making them into effectively kgc arms.

Imo either option for 1 and 2 would be fine with me.

Also yeah, i dont know what problems they might have with cryengine but neither does you, there might be problem or there might be none.
So instead of defaulting to problems, ill just assume theres none as this is what evidence or its lack shows.

Edited by davoodoo, 01 July 2017 - 10:36 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

Kaptain, on 29 June 2017 - 02:23 PM, said:

So zero slot LBX2s ?

As much as I dislike the idea of changing BT values if they can't fix the ammo code (because in Russ's own words they lost the programmer who knows how) I would like to see the slot and tonnage values for LBXs reduced. This is esp true of the 20. Another option would be to include a free ton of ammo for every LBX but the 20 would still need a slot reduction.

This shouldn't even be an issue at this point.

It's been years since the LB-10X was introduced into MWO. You could literally have rebuilt the ammo system (heck, the entire construction system) from scratch twice over at this point.

And should have. Issues like these only grow worse with time and will continue to damage the game until properly redone, rather than kludging solutions. We have a "construction system" that's barely been altered since beta, and at the fundamental level, not really at all since the OmniMech system.

Although I CAN think of a kludge for this one using existing coding.

If it was a chassis-specific hardcoded hardpoint system, it'd allow for things like a proper Nightstar-9S as the LB-20X went into a dynamic ballistic hardpoint that went "fill arm first, then torso, fire weapon on torso crosshair" and -always- fired on the torso crosshair regardless of whether the hardpoint used the ST crits or not. It'd mean the LB-20X hardpoint would still have it's limited arc of fire regardless of whether you had an LB-20X, a HGauss, or a machine gun- you could model smaller weapons as a "shoulder" mount on the arm stub or something.

[Andi Nagasia]

@davoodoo
just noting that their are alot of thing to consider,
Mixed code= where you have different Code Types accessing each other(Java/C++)
Parented Code= where you have Code accessing code in a file above it(Leg getting blown off reducing Speed)
Item Oriented Code= where you have Code accessing code in a localized Object(UAC looking in mech for Ammo),
and many many more,

the problem with coding is that a simple change can lead to huge problems,
(change AC2s to not have Ghost heat, suddenly mechs dont have LAActuators)

you can have 2000 lines of code, and a single misplaced ( , ) can break it,
some times the Program tells you where the problem is, some time it doesnt,
Programing can be a nightmare, especially if your working with someone elses Code,

[Monkey Lover]

Anyone even used the IS lbx20? it's such trash with the std/st requirements. I hadn't even used it haha

[davoodoo]

Andi Nagasia, on 01 July 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

@davoodoo
just noting that their are alot of thing to consider,
Mixed code= where you have different Code Types accessing each other(Java/C++)
Parented Code= where you have Code accessing code in a file above it(Leg getting blown off reducing Speed)
Item Oriented Code= where you have Code accessing code in a localized Object(UAC looking in mech for Ammo),
and many many more,

the problem with coding is that a simple change can lead to huge problems,
(change AC2s to not have Ghost heat, suddenly mechs dont have LAActuators)

you can have 2000 lines of code, and a single misplaced ( , ) can break it,
some times the Program tells you where the problem is, some time it doesnt,
Programing can be a nightmare, especially if your working with someone elses Code,

Which ive always been taught
mixed code=avoid like fire if you want to make sense of it later

then parented code? its matter of builder alone unless we decide on crits, sure they might have made it more complicated than required, but what of it, if they can overcomplicate stuff, it still means they can do it.
item oriented code might apply, but then your example is bad as again, its matter of mech builder, once its assembled code running during match doesnt change.

Yes, bugs are problem in programming. Should we avoid any changes cause bugs may occur? or should we expect pgi to fix them?

Edited by davoodoo, 01 July 2017 - 10:52 AM.

[Andi Nagasia]

Ether or, something would need to happen, Crit Splitting, or a Crit reduction,
both LBX20 and HGauss will see limited use if forced to take a Standard Engine,

[davoodoo]

hgauss would actually be used by some of my assault builds which are already more crit starved than tonnage starved.

its crap not because its 11 slots, but because it got less range than medium pulse laser. Strapping a bomb to your side will never work in brawl, it needs to be decent at the very least medium range.

Edited by davoodoo, 01 July 2017 - 01:51 PM.

[Andi Nagasia]

davoodoo, on 01 July 2017 - 12:29 PM, said:

hgauss would actually be used by some of my assault builds which are already more crit starved than tonnage starved.

its crap not because its 11 slots, but because it got less range than medium pulse laser. Strapping a bomb to your side will never work in brawl, it needs to be decent at the very least medium range.

i would love to use HGauss in more builds, same as the LBX20, too large to take on most things,

[Kaptain]

Andi Nagasia, on 01 July 2017 - 05:07 PM, said:

i would love to use HGauss in more builds, same as the LBX20, too large to take on most things,

We are on the same page with the LBX20. The only mechs I see using a single LBX20 are jumping mechs who currently have a AC20 in the arm. Mounting the LBX20 in an arm is impossible atm.

I recently started playing around with HGR.
Maruader: 300std, HGR+4 tons, 5xMLs, ES, an extra DHS. I think 10 slots on the HGR would be completely reasonable. This would allow A LFE300 saving 4.5 tons that I could use to increase limb armor and add ammo. Not game breaking at all. The added ammo is really needed as the optimal range is so short and the chance for explosion is high.

On a mauler with 2 of them the ability to mount a LFE would allow for slightly better back up lasers and/or additional ammo. Again, completely reasonable given the other trade offs of the HGR.

Edited by Kaptain, 01 July 2017 - 05:34 PM.

[Khobai]

Im not convinced the heavy gauss needs to be 10 crits on order to be good

I would like to test heavy gauss with 180m optimum range increased to 270m and 810m max range decreased to 690m

with the reticle shake removed