67 replies to this topic

[Greyhart]

Lordhammer, on 07 July 2017 - 01:38 AM, said:

Any of these solutions seems too complicated thus would not be selected. It needs to be simple, easy to understand, and effective. Energy Draw system had all of that but it was wrong in 1 simple aspect. It tried to pass the extra heat as a penalty for exceeding the treshold which is silly.

Imo what Energy Draw should have done is that if you try to use more than your maximum energy capacity you shut down without firing as a catastrophic failure; as it would in real life. This is both realistic and effective, and there is no way around it. Best benefit of it is that you dont need to be mindful of it in the game, its just something you have to think about when you create your mech. Just sort your weapon groups so one group dont use more than your max capacity, or you have to chainfire them. Ofc mechlab UI has to be very obvious about warnings if you pass the treshold.

I like the idea but I don't think it would work like that in real life. The reality is that the system would prioritise certain systems. See elite dangerous, you can run a set up that draws more in total than the power plant produces, but you also set priorities. So when you deploy your weapons (thereby exceeding power productions) certain modules turn off, i.e. repair module, FTL drive.

What you would have is the system would stop powering up lasers and moving ammo. see my suggestion

Greyhart, on 05 July 2017 - 04:08 AM, said:

Ok random thought here.

If each weapon drew a set amount of energy during cooldown (power back up / reload) and your reactor produced a set amount of energy.

So say it produced 10 energy.

A ML uses 2 energy to power back up (cooldown)

If you fired 6 ML 5 would recharge and the 6th wouldn't recharge until after the first 5.

add into the weapon panel a button to take the weapon offline to allow for each one to be managed.

So a gauss rifle might take 10 energy to recharge. nothing else recharges until the gauss is fully recharged.

Could be interesting.

But I think the solution is in adjoining armour taking some of the damage not just one component.

You could do a simple interface change to allow you to priorities which weapons draw first.

[Baba Yogi]

what i

Greyhart, on 07 July 2017 - 01:55 AM, said:

I like the idea but I don't think it would work like that in real life. The reality is that the system would prioritise certain systems. See elite dangerous, you can run a set up that draws more in total than the power plant produces, but you also set priorities. So when you deploy your weapons (thereby exceeding power productions) certain modules turn off, i.e. repair module, FTL drive.

What you would have is the system would stop powering up lasers and moving ammo. see my suggestion

Ok let me rephrase that and say "more realistic" than out of nowhere heat. Aside from semantics, it would fix the entire ghost heat issue without interfering with gameplay itself. As there is no benefit to pushing the treshold yet losing much, noone would make their build exceeding it. Problem solved with very easy to understand mechanic. Instead of being mindful of ghost heat in both mechlab and inside of the game(which the limit itself changes from weapon group to weapon group) you only have to be mindful while making a new build. That is it. No catch, easier to understand for a newbie than ghost heat while fixing the problems of ghost heat.

[Brain Cancer]

There's plenty that can be done to kill ghost heat.

Start with an actual heatscale. Heat should slow down a 'Mech, make it harder to twist and turn, make targeting twitchier, damage (not autoexplode) ammo.

Once you have an actual heatscale, chuck ghost heat in the trash where it belongs.

Then we can get to things like actually making your gyros matter. Ghost heat is just a mechanic that appeals to Paul's desire for arcane, incomprehensible mechanics.

[Requiemking]

Brain Cancer, on 07 July 2017 - 04:17 AM, said:

There's plenty that can be done to kill ghost heat.

Start with an actual heatscale. Heat should slow down a 'Mech, make it harder to twist and turn, make targeting twitchier, damage (not autoexplode) ammo.

Once you have an actual heatscale, chuck ghost heat in the trash where it belongs.

Then we can get to things like actually making your gyros matter. Ghost heat is just a mechanic that appeals to Paul's desire for arcane, incomprehensible mechanics.

Only way I could support this is if it was Scarecrow's system. Otherwise, no.

[Brain Cancer]

Literally who?

[Reno Blade]

Insanity09, on 06 July 2017 - 08:42 PM, said:

Ok, I get that people don't like ghost heat. I agree that it is a bit of a kludge method, with several inherent problems.

However, I also see that it was an effort by PGI to improve (read: increase) TTK by limiting, or at least punishing massive weapon boating alphas. A worthy cause.

(puts on fire retardant suit)

I was not around for the ED fiasco (or so it seems to have been), but I gather it was an effort to do the same thing in a slightly different way. Instead of punishing boaters with extra heat, you simply don't allow massive alphas by inserting a system where each weapon requires a certain amount of power, and a mech, with a given power plant (engine), can only supply so much at a time, thus limiting the number of weapons that could be used (fired) simultaneously. People would need to use multiple weapon groups, and possibly just not be able to alpha with every single weapon they are carrying.


That was the basic idea, yes?

So, if I've got the essence of the method correct, I would be happy if somebody with direct knowledge of why and how the ED system was DoA could enlighten me. I am curious, but minimal invective would be preferred.

I can see a number of ways to implement such a system that would be easily understood and sensible and, yes, limit alpha style damage. I could also see a way that a few extra pieces of gear could be used (capacitors) to boost short term firing capabilities (allowing an alpha from time to time). In fact, weren't there PPC capacitors actually in the game? (BTech, not MWO).

Shifty McSwift, on 07 July 2017 - 12:00 AM, said:

I wasn't here for the energy draw test, so I am unsure.

Someone mentioned in another post, or perhaps it was this one, the idea of gyros, while firing ballistics an missiles your gyros go berserk once you pass a threshold, which could be interesting. But to go further with that idea, have a power pool for energy weapons that drains whenever an evergy weapon is fired and restores itself over time, the idea being that it forcefully limits alpha firing.

But really, this is just another ghost heat system under a different name or style. At the end of the day the ghost heat numbers may be off, but it stops people doing certain things dead in their tracks.

Morderian, on 07 July 2017 - 12:28 AM, said:

Did not see energy draw too as i did take a break but after all i read about it i can see why it failed.

Instead of energy draw it was a complex ghostheat thing while they could have done it easier understand and simple to use, for example:

Every mech has 100 points of energy and they regenerate all 0,5 seconds.

Every weapon draws from the energy when fired if you dont have enough you cant fire the weapon.

Examples for the energy cost of the guns:

Gauss 60
Med Laser 20
Med Pulse 25
PPC 33 (assuming we cant quirk the awesome)
ER PPC 40
LL 30
etc.

advantages:
- you can cut down alphas and PPFLD to a large decree and can kick out GH too
- rather easy to understand for a newbie
- enough value place for balance without a need to go into 0,X values
- no need to go into any kind of minus energy values

funnily that is stuff that was discussed years ago already

I think people just did not want the power nerf so ED was not accepted by more than a handful of PTS testers and everyone else QQed it to death.

recap of Energy draw:
- energy cap 30
- energ reg 20/sec
each point over the 30 would be 1 heat extra

right side of the minimap was the energy bar where you could see the level and speed of the energy

weapon draw value were based on damage first.
weapon precision increased/decreased it by roughly these factors:
- ppfld weapons 1 to 1.2x and gauss even up to 1.5
- beam weapons 0.9 to 1.0
- missiles /lbx because of spread 0.5 to 0.75
- cUACs because of burst 0.9 to 1.0

but because the draw vale was no longer 1:1 to damage, people were saying the system was confusing again.
uac spam was very heat neutral and energy neutral, so dps dakka boat was basically the problem child not really affected by ED.

personally, i was really looking forward to ED and am still dissapointed it got paused indefinitely.

[Insanity09]

Both ghost heat and ED are addressing the underlying problem of low TTK. High alpha, high ppfld magnifies this trouble.

So, if I understood the one comment that seemed to mention what the problems were with the ED system as implemented...

ED did not replace ghost heat, it just made it even more complicated, by not making it apparent what was happening and why.
Yeah, that was the wrong way to implement it.


I'd just add another little bar to the mech HUD, one that functioned basically like the jump jet fuel bar. You have a certain amount of energy, firing weapons reduces that bar, and a large number of weapons firing at once would drain the bar.

The size of the bar, your energy reservoir, would be primarily determined by your engine size. You could add optional equipment (capacitors and so forth) to improve your available energy.
If you don't have enough energy to fire your weapon, it simply doesn't fire (alternatively, you could shut down, the weapon(s) might fire, but at reduced effectiveness, lots of options here).
The bar would recharge at a rate mostly determined by your engine size, but also by usage. Moving or continually firing would slow the bar recharge down by a certain amount.
Each weapon would, as suggested by folks above, have a certain energy requirement to fire (its draw).
There could be branches of the skill tree designed to improve your energy system (total reserve and recharge rate) in a number of ways (probably plugged into operations?)

Theoretically, that seems simple enough to me.

I could never understand why ED was so hated, but I wasn't envisioning it as ghost heat 2.0.

(Edit: imo, as a side benefit of a real ED system, lighter mechs, which tend to have larger engines compared to their weapon load outs, might become more viable.)

Edited by Insanity09, 07 July 2017 - 09:32 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

Screw energy draw. We already have legit options here.

Heat and stability.

Heat should decrease crosshair stability/mess with sensitivity (targeting penalty), along with the other effects on the heat scale. You want low-heat weapons to matter? Add stability from Harebrained.

Taking a lot of hits? Stability bar goes down. Firing off a lot of ballistics? Stability goes down (but not nearly as much as getting hit). Moving? Max stability drops depending on speed until you slow/stop. Stability too low? Crosshair jitter as you're no longer a stable firing platform. Stability gone? Fall over while your bar recovers to (current max) standing up. Gyro damage? Max stability drops permanently (until the next game, of course). Dead gyro? 1 stability, so you'll be a mobility kill and firing some weapons/getting hit will flop you on your butt again and your aim will be swaying like a drunkard.

Ghost heat is just plain balance voodoo-hoodoo.