92 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

SpectreHD, on 08 August 2017 - 10:55 PM, said:

Would it be within PGI's coding ability to do this?

Hold mouse button for a very quick "charge" without expiration (like Gauss rifles) for slug. Quick click of the mouse for cluster?

no
how you switch doesn't matter, that you can switch stuff with different behaviour is already in-game (AMS, ECM)
the issue is that you need to have two weapons for the same "mount" and a LBX firing slug or cluster behave like two weapons

(that was the reason why it is twice as expensive in TT to begin with - you get two for the size of one but you pay for two...and in MWO you get one for the price of two
(i think this would be the most simple fix since 2012 but PGI is not able or willing to do this - I really would like to have just one reason not to do this - i only need one reason (but there is none - at least that don't include money sink) )

Edited by Karl Streiger, 09 August 2017 - 02:17 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Karl Streiger, on 09 August 2017 - 02:16 AM, said:

no
how you switch doesn't matter, that you can switch stuff with different behaviour is already in-game (AMS, ECM)
the issue is that you need to have two weapons for the same "mount" and a LBX firing slug or cluster behave like two weapons

(that was the reason why it is twice as expensive in TT to begin with - you get two for the size of one but you pay for two...and in MWO you get one for the price of two
(i think this would be the most simple fix since 2012 but PGI is not able or willing to do this - I really would like to have just one reason not to do this - i only need one reason (but there is none - at least that don't include money sink) )

Would the player be expected to carry BOTH ammo types or would everyone expect 1 ton to be 50/50 Pellet and Slug? It would seem a gimme if BOTH shot types were available and needed tons of each type to be carried, the added Salt that would generate would be quite extreme?

[Rovertoo]

Almond Brown, on 09 August 2017 - 07:09 AM, said:

Would the player be expected to carry BOTH ammo types or would everyone expect 1 ton to be 50/50 Pellet and Slug? It would seem a gimme if BOTH shot types were available and needed tons of each type to be carried, the added Salt that would generate would be quite extreme?

Id assume they would do something simple, add an 'ammo toggle' keybind that will switch applicable weapons like ECM switches modes. Press it once to switch to slug, again back to shrapnel. Same thing could work with ATMs, but with 3 options. But probably all use the same ammo for the sake of simplicity.

Balance wise though shrapnel shots would still need to be more powerful than they are now, I think just because adaptability is a great perk to pay for and all but having the choice to use a fancy shotgun that is arguably worse than slugs while still being able to use slugs is kind of not a choice at all.

Not saying I dont wub my shotguns tho

Edited by Rovertoo, 09 August 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

Lucifaust, on 08 August 2017 - 09:00 PM, said:

That's all well and good, but academic, lad... how on god's good earth would they incorporate splash damage into what we already know as LBX?

Give it a single, solid shell that goes *boom* when it's going to impact a target instead. PGI's "shotgun that sucks the further you get out" isn't how the weapon works at all. I'd even take a charge mode that disengaged the splash, thereby making the cluster mode easier to fire but finally giving us dual-mode LB-X. Tap to fire a flak round, charge-and-release to fire solid.

[Athom83]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 11:43 AM, said:

Give it a single, solid shell that goes *boom* when it's going to impact a target instead. PGI's "shotgun that sucks the further you get out" isn't how the weapon works at all. I'd even take a charge mode that disengaged the splash, thereby making the cluster mode easier to fire but finally giving us dual-mode LB-X. Tap to fire a flak round, charge-and-release to fire solid.

Like an airburst round.

[Lucifaust]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 11:43 AM, said:

Give it a single, solid shell that goes *boom* when it's going to impact a target instead. PGI's "shotgun that sucks the further you get out" isn't how the weapon works at all. I'd even take a charge mode that disengaged the splash, thereby making the cluster mode easier to fire but finally giving us dual-mode LB-X. Tap to fire a flak round, charge-and-release to fire solid.

Well that sounds harder to pull off than a simple lbx buff, and possibly deserving its own thread.

My beef with LBX is not how it works, but how impotent it is compared to other clan/IS ballistics.

[Lykaon]

Khobai, on 07 August 2017 - 09:37 PM, said:

Its supposed to be a direct upgrade to the AC20

although if you didnt want to make the AC20 obsolete, you could reverse the stats on the LB20X and AC20: give the AC20 the longer range and lower heat.

A simple fix would be having LBX class ballistics fire in bursts when using slug ammo (like the clan ACs do now)

An increase in velocity will help with accuracy to compensate for the damage spread and the capacity to be fired at greater ranges than conventional ACs.

So if you want pinpoint damage as an I.S. pilot you use a conventional AC.

If you want adaptability use the LBx. Target has armor...solid slug bursts,Target has open internals..cluster shot.

Now if only PGI can figure out how to switch ammo.

[Jun Watarase]

Given past history, its really doubtful PGI would be able to figure out how to make a LBX canister detonate before it hits the target.

How many years has it been since we told PGI in the beta that LBXs were awful and they are still awful now?

I mean sure, we can spend hundreds of man hours discussing how to make LBXs better but its all completely irrelevant unless you can convince PGI to put it in the code. Which isnt going happen because they dont play their game and have no idea how bad LBXs are.

And every "round table" is just a hug box. I dont think most competitive players even bother to try to talk sense into PGI anymore. I think most stopped trying around the time of the blackjack fiasco where PGI ignored them and buffed it even more.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 09 August 2017 - 03:05 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

Well that sounds harder to pull off than a simple lbx buff, and possibly deserving its own thread.

Mechanically, it's not too hard. Just a visual effect. Put the "BOOM" visual a bit before the actual impact point, random scatter damage around that point. Might mean you end up hitting someone else if they're nearby at the time.

[Snowbluff]

Jun Watarase, on 09 August 2017 - 03:03 PM, said:

Given past history, its really doubtful PGI would be able to figure out how to make a LBX canister detonate before it hits the target.

Simple solution:

Fake it. Give them that old razzle dazzle.


Fixed spread. All you need. If the spread is the same when it leaves the barrel as when it hits, it'll simulate the effect of having it be an airburst round. It's simple. Just zombify the MRM or LRM code, change the projectile, tighten the spread, then boom! LBX.

Edited by Snowbluff, 09 August 2017 - 04:06 PM.

[Lucifaust]

Jun Watarase, on 09 August 2017 - 03:03 PM, said:

Given past history, its really doubtful PGI would be able to figure out how to make a LBX canister detonate before it hits the target.

How many years has it been since we told PGI in the beta that LBXs were awful and they are still awful now?

I mean sure, we can spend hundreds of man hours discussing how to make LBXs better but its all completely irrelevant unless you can convince PGI to put it in the code. Which isnt going happen because they dont play their game and have no idea how bad LBXs are.

And every "round table" is just a hug box. I dont think most competitive players even bother to try to talk sense into PGI anymore. I think most stopped trying around the time of the blackjack fiasco where PGI ignored them and buffed it even more.

Well I guess there's no harm in trying to get PGI to consider LBX. I've got nothing to lose and we might just get a sorely needed lbx buff.

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 03:15 PM, said:

Mechanically, it's not too hard. Just a visual effect. Put the "BOOM" visual a bit before the actual impact point, random scatter damage around that point. Might mean you end up hitting someone else if they're nearby at the time.

I can see what you mean, but Is this actually desirable replacing LBX? Why not add it as a new weapon? I like your idea but I personally prefer, if I had to choose one or the other, to keep LBX mechanics as is. The shotgun is satisfying, just a little weak.

Snowbluff, on 09 August 2017 - 04:05 PM, said:

Simple solution:

Fake it. Give them that old razzle dazzle.


Fixed spread. All you need. If the spread is the same when it leaves the barrel as when it hits, it'll simulate the effect of having it be an airburst round. It's simple. Just zombify the MRM or LRM code, change the projectile, tighten the spread, then boom! LBX.

I don't want long-range ballistics srm though. If we remove spread, that's what lbx becomes. I just want a simple buff, nothing gamechanging or hard to implement and such suggestions distract from the actually possible lbx buff I propose.

[Khobai]

if LBX cant have ammo switching then cluster rounds just need +15% damage (1.15 damage per pellet) and crit multiplier increased from x2 to x2.5 or x3 so it takes considerably less pellets to crit out equipment. LBX is first and foremost a crit weapon, it should be better at that, as well as a little better at destroying armor.

targeting computer also needs to buff LBX velocity/crit chance and tighten its spread too. that way if you take both the lbx spread skill nodes and a targeting computer youd get a decent spread reduction (-10% from the skill nodes and another say -2% to -10% from the targeting computer depending what level you take).

and lastly LB20X probably needs to be 10 crits instead of 11

Edited by Khobai, 09 August 2017 - 04:22 PM.

[Snowbluff]

Lucifaust, on 09 August 2017 - 04:13 PM, said:

I don't want long-range ballistics srm though. If we remove spread, that's what lbx becomes. I just want a simple buff, nothing gamechanging or hard to implement and such suggestions distract from the actually possible lbx buff I propose.

Without this change, buffing it properly will be very difficult. Any change would be relying on RNG to hit the target, which is asking a lot.

And it wouldn't be long range SRM. I would want the spread to be reasonably tight, so a probably aimed hit will strike the same component at max range. I said MRM, which as far as I know flight straight after being fired. So what you have will be a BALLASTIC, not a missile, because it will perform consistently over range, and have the DPS inherent with the current fire rate.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I've coded airburst LBX rounds into games before. They aren't difficult really.

You just take a normal slug round, rather than having it do its traces for hit detection at shorter ranges and have it only do damage directly when it hits you set it up to trace in a cone infront of it (or a sphere around it if you wanted it like that) then have that cone of detection have a certain distance, lets say 100m.

Do detections on how far the slug is from the gun much like LRMs do for their dud rounds, if the shell hits something under 100m then it just acts like a normal shell with no differences, out past 100m it activates its detection cone. When it detects a mech (or possibly just anything blocking its path) then tell it to detonate.

When it detonates it actually just makes the visual FX of a directional explosion then it spawns a number of LBX pellets and fires them forward or in the direction of the target. So basically the shell itself is armed with an LBX20 and that LBX20 is set to fire upon detection of an enemy.


If we were doing it for MWO instead of it being an anti air weapon similar to flak rounds, it could easily just have a single line of trace or a very small cone so that it just only ever triggers right infront of whatever you fired at rather than having any aspects of auto aiming.


I'm mostly just assuming here that PGI just doesn't want to code in things like ammo swapping or proximity rounds on LBX. There's not much new they'd have to do at all. They already have guns that fire regular shells, those shells already make traces to see enemies and do damage, all that would change is that the trace length increases and instead of doing damage it deletes itself and spawns multiple smaller shells.

Ammo swapping is just a simple switch and some logic statements in practice.

Basic proximity weapons shown at 37-40 seconds in this video here:


Note that the game I coded them into only uses a single core for processing, simulates a full physics engine, is much older than cryengine, and the shells are doing full traces around themselves rather than a simple line and many are flying and are in the air at once. They're shown taking down infantry NPCs. Also I'd like to note that the LBX I coded in have 3 different types of ammo, Pellets like the MWO shotguns, airburst as shown for anti air or anti infantry, and slug rounds for high pin point damage.

[Lucifaust]

Dakota1000, on 09 August 2017 - 04:34 PM, said:

I've coded airburst LBX rounds into games before. They aren't difficult really.

You just take a normal slug round, rather than having it do its traces for hit detection at shorter ranges and have it only do damage directly when it hits you set it up to trace in a cone infront of it (or a sphere around it if you wanted it like that) then have that cone of detection have a certain distance, lets say 100m.

Do detections on how far the slug is from the gun much like LRMs do for their dud rounds, if the shell hits something under 100m then it just acts like a normal shell with no differences, out past 100m it activates its detection cone. When it detects a mech (or possibly just anything blocking its path) then tell it to detonate.

When it detonates it actually just makes the visual FX of a directional explosion then it spawns a number of LBX pellets and fires them forward or in the direction of the target. So basically the shell itself is armed with an LBX20 and that LBX20 is set to fire upon detection of an enemy.


If we were doing it for MWO instead of it being an anti air weapon similar to flak rounds, it could easily just have a single line of trace or a very small cone so that it just only ever triggers right infront of whatever you fired at rather than having any aspects of auto aiming.


I'm mostly just assuming here that PGI just doesn't want to code in things like ammo swapping or proximity rounds on LBX. There's not much new they'd have to do at all. They already have guns that fire regular shells, those shells already make traces to see enemies and do damage, all that would change is that the trace length increases and instead of doing damage it deletes itself and spawns multiple smaller shells.

Ammo swapping is just a simple switch and some logic statements in practice.

Basic proximity weapons shown at 37-40 seconds in this video here:


Note that the game I coded them into only uses a single core for processing, simulates a full physics engine, is much older than cryengine, and the shells are doing full traces around themselves rather than a simple line and many are flying and are in the air at once. They're shown taking down infantry NPCs. Also I'd like to note that the LBX I coded in have 3 different types of ammo, Pellets like the MWO shotguns, airburst as shown for anti air or anti infantry, and slug rounds for high pin point damage.

Yep, its certainly possible, but its pulling teeth to get anything done around here according ro what ive heard in this thread. I personally have faith in mwo to sort its stuff out eventually, but you should be on pgi's staff. Seems like you could really help in buffing LBX and maybe even fixing it.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Lucifaust, on 09 August 2017 - 06:42 PM, said:

Yep, its certainly possible, but its pulling teeth to get anything done around here according ro what ive heard in this thread. I personally have faith in mwo to sort its stuff out eventually, but you should be on pgi's staff. Seems like you could really help in buffing LBX and maybe even fixing it.

To be honest, anyone could help in buffing LBX, all you have to do is open up an XML file and change the damage per pellet from 1 to 1.5 or whatever and you've done it. I'm confident that they have the man power and coding power to get it done whenever they want and test it within a single day of work, its just that they don't really want to. PGI is excessively cautious in all they do that relates to buffing.

[Lucifaust]

Snowbluff, on 09 August 2017 - 04:20 PM, said:

Without this change, buffing it properly will be very difficult. Any change would be relying on RNG to hit the target, which is asking a e long range SRM. I would want the spread to be reasonably tight, so a probably aimed hit will strike the same component at max range. I said MRM, which as far as I know flight straight after being fired. So what you have will be a BALLASTIC, not a missile, because it will perform consistently over range, and have the DPS inherent with the current fire rate.

A simple LBX stat increase in a spreadsheet is not difficult to do. Let me be more clear.

I am not calling for a radical change to LBX mechanics at this time. This threads purpose is to raise awareness about the weakness of current LBX in general in order to eventually convince devs to buff it and make it a viable weapon choice esp for competitive players. I'm not opposed to deep changes in how they work, but right now I just want devs to show LBX some love.

Edited by Lucifaust, 09 August 2017 - 06:50 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Straight up damage increase has it's own issues. It means you get an ever nastier close-combat weapon while barely changing the issue that at ranges past 300m or so, LB-X rapidly lose the ability to do coherent damage to anything.

This is especially sad for the LB-5X and -10X, honestly. Both should be able to put all of their pellets into a dead-center target at their maximum effective range, as all LB-X should. And that takes something besides a shotgun.

Besides, HAG's and M-pods are actual shotgun weapons, neither of which we have yet. Did I mention M-pods showed up in 3064?

[Lucifaust]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 07:11 PM, said:

Straight up damage increase has it's own issues. It means you get an ever nastier close-combat weapon while barely changing the issue that at ranges past 300m or so, LB-X rapidly lose the ability to do coherent damage to anything.

This is especially sad for the LB-5X and -10X, honestly. Both should be able to put all of their pellets into a dead-center target at their maximum effective range, as all LB-X should. And that takes something besides a shotgun.
Besides, HAG's and M-pods are actual shotgun weapons, neither of which we have yet. Did I mention M-pods showed up in 3064?

In a galaxy spanning setting such as that which mwo takes place in, I'm sure there's plenty of tech we aren't seeing.

If you remove LBX spread and just make it linear, it becomes a lesser AC with some crit properties, and we lose even more variety in types of weapons to carry. I want to increase variety by leaving major LBX characteristics alone, and simply improving it via (reasonable) direct buff. Maybe they can add other tech with your idea, maybe an alternate LBX type to choose, like AC and UAC. I'm all for that.

[Snowbluff]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 07:11 PM, said:

Besides, HAG's and M-pods are actual shotgun weapons, neither of which we have yet. Did I mention M-pods showed up in 3064?

I always figured a HAG fires sequentially and a Silver bullet fired in a spread. Like a UAC versus an LBX.