171 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 22 September 2017 - 09:56 PM, said:

It is distinct. If the cooldown is shortened, it's more of a full-expose face-time weapon at extreme long, similar to the ERLL and unique among ballistics. UAC/2s are burst, standard Gauss is burst.

Think of it like this: Quad-LGauss on a Sleipnir would be comparable to quad-Gauss on a KDK-3, except the Sleipnir fires in smaller, but more frequent packets. So, there's your niche, and one you can't do with standard isGauss. It fits in with how Clan equipment seems to split the difference while IS are either this or that. If you want to go burst with IS, you take standard Gauss and ERLL. I've got one Rifleman set up to do that (it's a beast) and one set up to do the LGauss (it's a cub, but there's potential). Right now, the ERLL DRG-1C is still superior at the full-expose extreme-range thing even after the nerfs.

And really, having the charge around lets us give it that niche without it being OP. Charge is good. It keeps the skill ceiling on the Gauss rifles high, which keeps it viable.

Admittedly IS builds really do better with 'designed to face tank' stuff than Clans usually do, with a few exceptions.

I'm game with trying it. However your example does 1/2 the damage that the KDK 3 one does, but hopes the target will stay in view longer so it can catch up. That gamble rarely pays off and it's why I usually win with IS UAC5s vs IS RAC5 builds unless we're both standing in the open.

I'll support just about any change designed to bring the under-performing weapons that just came out up to snuff. Not a fan of niche-focused weapons but I get with gauss (and PPCs really) you need to tread lightly or they just invalidate other ballistics.

[panzer1b]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 September 2017 - 07:25 PM, said:

And no, you can't really combine it with lasers. There is no point. If you are adding lasers, you are going for a burst build over sustain. You need a fourth ERLL added to a build that would otherwise to 3x ERLL + Gauss, and in exchange you spend 32 tons on weapons instead of 30, you get level 1 ghost heat, and you get worse sustained DPS when you fall back on just the Gauss than you would had you taken normal Gauss. There's no synergy there.

Now from my experience, comboing gauss with energy (lasers right now since they killed gauss-ppc) is where gauss truly shines. While there are always exceptions, most mechs that can run gauss vomit actually GAIN both alfa strike and sustained DPS from the switch (from pure laser vomit). The reason is 2 fold, one, gauss rifles provide a steady sustained DPS (2.1 for LGR, 2.6 for GR, 4.3 for HGR) which is heat free (well not entirely but 1 point of heat per rifle is irrelevant for all intents and purposes) and can be used non-stop on EVERY map regardless of your current heat bar, and because of the way DHS scale in the engine. The second point is really the biggie, yes you gain DPS for every heatsink you add, but if you have 20 DHS, the 10 outside the engine are quite a bit less effective then those in the engine (unless PGI altered how HS work). In other words, you can run say 6 ERMLs with just the internal heatsinks, and its going to have more then half the DPS of the same thing with 10 additional HS.

As an example we will look at 2 chassises in particular, the stormcrow and the rifleman (just so we can see both clan and IS and these are mechs that are both sorta in the middle of the tonnage range and are similar to each other).

A fairly standard laser vomit stormcrow consists of 1ERLL and 6 ERML with 22 heatsinks, giving 53 alfa strike, 4.1 sustained DPS and 10.5 burst DPS (until heat is a problem). The gauss vomit crow uses 6 ERMLs and 2 DHS, as well as a GR. The ERMLs alone, provide 2.4 sustained DPS, which is then suplemented by the 2.6 DPS from the GR (which is basically heat-free and does not decrease the laser's DPS when it is used). In total, it has 57 alfa strike, 5 sustained DPS, and 11 burst DPS. On the clan side, skill permitting (it takes quite a bit more skill to use 2 dissimilar weapons together then just laser spam), gauss vomit is almost always superior to laser vomit in every category, comes with more alfa strike, more DPS, and also gives 15 PPFLD which cannot be spread or effectively shielded unlike the laser beam. Even on mechs like the hellbringer with no endo or ferro, gauss vomit is still a little bit superior even if it isnt as big of a difference.

Now for IS, we will look at the rifleman (its a bit heavier but gauss on mechs lighter then 60t dont really work well). One laser build ive run, uses 6 ERML and 1 ERLL, and gives 39 alfa strike, 3.9 sustained DPS, and 9 burst DPS. The gauss build, is 6 ERML with 3 extra heatsinks and 1 GR. The 6 ERMLs, provide 2.6 sustained DPS, with teh gauss rifle doing 2.6 ontop of that (im not counting quirks which increase this) for a grand total of 45 alfa strike, 5.2 sustained DPS, and 9.7 burst. Even on IS side, gauss vomit is actually superior to laser vomit just like on clan side. And even if you swap to a light gauss, the DPS on the gauss vomit one would be 3 for the lasers (cause you get more HS due to saved tonnage), and 2.1 for the LGR, bringing it to 5.1 sustained DPS.

Pretty much, using gauss rifles alongside lighter weight energy (gauss rifles dont work that well with most large class lasers), is superior to pure energy in almost every mech that is a medium, heavy, or assault. Ofc on lighter mechs (or those few mechs that have virtually no podspace), using gauss (or any ballistics besides MGs) isnt gonna happen, but if you can afford to carry gauss, you will almost always gain DPS, alfa strike, or a combination of the 2 relative to a pure laser vomit mech. Then, alongside, you get 15 PPFLD, a weapon that can be used up to ~1km to good effect and spammed non-stop regardless of the map or what heat level you are at (flamers wont stop gauss), and since its a very fast projectile, makes a good anti-light weapon (cant count the number of times ive 1 shotted lolcusts from 500m with a single gauss rifle) that is effective against anything nomatter how agile or small it is with good skill and aim (just dont bring it when uve had too many beers).

Sustained DPS may not be that critical really, since both gauss vomit and laser vomit relies on alfa strikes and trading favorably with the enemy rather then facetanking and out DPSing someone, but there are enough situations where having 1-2 more sustained DPS can mean life or death (and its never a bad idea to have 1 heat-free gun when a 12 flamer nova rounds teh corner, saved my life countless times).

Anyways, as for teh LGR, i do agree it could use a teeny buff, but its nolonger completely worthless either and at least its fun, i use it, but i never take it when im trying to carry on any level whatsoever (obviously GR is still superior in every stat that matters). It does still work alongside energy though just like the GR and the HGR, and it has the same advantage the regular GR has, boosting your sustained DPS from a pure energy boat (and since it has stupid high range, is one of the best harassment weapons (if you dont wanna use AC2s).

Anyone that claims gauss is underpowered, should actually consider that gauss vomit is at this point in time, 100% superior to pure laser vomit, with the condition that you have the skills to actually hit the desired component/mech you want to as well as using the laser burn properly. The sole reason to even consider using pure laser vomit is when you lack the skill to use gauss (not everyone has aimbot like accuracy and can hit fast moving targets with good reliability), or when you are going for maximum survivability (if gauss rifles didnt explode, they would become the only thing anyone uses). That and ofc, not every mech has the hardpoints to do gauss vomit well (ideally 1 ballistic and 6 energy, with ballistic best in the arm).

Edited by panzer1b, 22 September 2017 - 11:16 PM.

[InvictusLee]

Blame MW4.
Thats why it exists in its current state.


The reason why it hasnt been improved is because russ is timid about tweaking the game.
He said so himself.

[Y E O N N E]

panzer1b, on 22 September 2017 - 11:06 PM, said:

Now from my experience, comboing gauss with energy (lasers right now since they killed gauss-ppc) is where gauss truly shines. While there are always exceptions, most mechs that can run gauss vomit actually GAIN both alfa strike and sustained DPS from the switch (from pure laser vomit). The reason is 2 fold, one, gauss rifles provide a steady sustained DPS (2.1 for LGR, 2.6 for GR, 4.3 for HGR) which is heat free (well not entirely but 1 point of heat per rifle is irrelevant for all intents and purposes) and can be used non-stop on EVERY map regardless of your current heat bar, and because of the way DHS scale in the engine. The second point is really the biggie, yes you gain DPS for every heatsink you add, but if you have 20 DHS, the 10 outside the engine are quite a bit less effective then those in the engine (unless PGI altered how HS work). In other words, you can run say 6 ERMLs with just the internal heatsinks, and its going to have more then half the DPS of the same thing with 10 additional HS.

Please do not conflate Clan Gauss-vomit with IS Gauss-vomit. IS Gauss-vomit leans on a single Gauss rifle, two or three large lasers, and a bunch of ERML to run hot, run slow, and still do less damage than the 72 points of the baseline MCII-DS, which isn't even the most potent build. The less hot variations on the IS IS Gauss-vomit (i.e. 6x ERML + 2x Gauss on a MAL-2P or 3x ERLL + Gauss) don't do appreciably more damage than a pure laser boat, if they do at all, and typically have matching sustained output to pure laser builds of similar size and quality.

The Light Gauss exacerbates this problem, rather than helps it. Because it does roughly 50% the damage of a single Gauss Rifle, but still consumes 80% of the weight, you can't really use it as an augment the way you can cGauss. You end up having to spend more weight in energy weapons, which makes the build both hotter and heavier still, than if you had just taken a single normal Gauss to keep a competitive amount of firepower. As an example, a pair of LGauss saves six tons over a pair of Gauss, but on something like a WHM-6R you end up losing 4 points on your alpha over the twin Gauss + 4x ERML build , your total sustainable output is lower, and the only thing you get is increased max DPS from the two additional under-cooled ERML. And the real kicker is that if you are using LGauss at low mid-range like that, you are wasting potential because there are much better options you've passed up. The LGauss is long range, and at long range there's nothing for it to pair up with that doesn't pair better with standard Gauss.

Clan vomit works as well as it does entirely due to superior damage per-ton-ratio on all of the weapons.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 23 September 2017 - 12:07 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Clan vomit works as well as it does entirely due to superior damage per-ton-ratio on all of the weapons.

well Clan gauss needs to be nerfed for exactly that reason, its 3 whole tons lighter.

Ive been saying for a while that clan gauss needs to be in between an IS light gauss and an IS standard gauss

Clan gauss should be 12 damage, 3.25+0.5 cooldown, 750m range

So it would do less damage than IS gauss but fire faster, have less chargeup time, and have better range, and weigh less.

IS std gauss = 15 damage, 5.00+0.75 cooldown, 660m/1320m range
Clan std gauss = 12 damage, 3.25+0.5 cooldown, 750m/1500m range (12 shots/ton)
IS lgt gauss = 10 damage, 3.25+0.5 cooldown, 810m/1620m range, +33% ammo per ton (20 shots/ton)
IS hvy gauss = 22 damage, 6.00+1.0 cooldown, 570m/1140m range (no reticle shake but ghost heat limit of 1)

That would balance all gauss rifles.

but also I would give PPCs and light gauss a ghost heat limit of 3 instead of 2

while hvy PPCs and std gauss would still have a ghost heat limit of 2

and hvy gauss would have a ghost heat limit of 1

Edited by Khobai, 23 September 2017 - 12:42 AM.

[Steel Claws]

Wintersdark, on 20 September 2017 - 08:18 PM, said:

Indeed. Ultimately, 14+ tons per LGR with ammo is just way too hefty an investment for 8 damage.

The standard answer of course is that while the LGR needs ammo, lasers/whatever need DHS... But those DHS are needed by basically all your other weaponry anyways. And if you go ammo light, with ballistic cooldown quirks and hope to play a sustained DPs game, it's pretty hard to fire enough to warrant that without running out of ammo.

The LGR could be good - or at least better - if you could actually utilize that range advantage vs other ballistics, but most maps? You're not doing any damage of note outside 600m unless your opponent lets you.

Yeah agreed. Not enough bang for the weight Basically gauss should be about 1 damage per ton. It should be in the 10-12 damage range.

[panzer1b]

Yeonne Greene, on 22 September 2017 - 11:42 PM, said:

Please do not conflate Clan Gauss-vomit with IS Gauss-vomit. IS Gauss-vomit leans on a single Gauss rifle, two or three large lasers, and a bunch of ERML to run hot, run slow, and still do less damage than the 72 points of the baseline MCII-DS, which isn't even the most potent build. The less hot variations on the IS IS Gauss-vomit (i.e. 6x ERML + 2x Gauss on a MAL-2P or 3x ERLL + Gauss) don't do appreciably more damage than a pure laser boat, if they do at all, and typically have matching sustained output to pure laser builds of similar size and quality.

Actually if you read my entire post, i used BOTH clan and IS to make my claims, and while its not as powerful on IS (since your alfa strike regardless of build is generally limited to 50-60 depending on weight class), it is still superior to at least SOME variations of laser vomit in every category that matters (burst and sustained DPS, as well as alfa strike).

And yeah, obviously it doesnt really work well alongside ERLLs (i never claimed it did) since ERLLs are too heavy and are actually a far better sniping weapon then gauss will ever be (maybee LGR aside, non of the gauss rifles really make sense to be used past 800m or so since you have no way to guarantee a hit on the mech let alone focusing damage on a ST or CT or something specific). If you are going for pure range, ive found 3-6 ERLLs to be vastly superior to any ballistics or even ERPPCs (the latter has even less velocity then a GR), but if you are playing mid range, there are many situations where having a GR alongside ERMLs is far better then just putting all of your tonnage into HS.

Anyways, one more mathy thing (if anyone even cares), right now with 0 heatsinks on the mech, clan ERMLs do 2.2 sustained DPS, and a GR does 2.6 sustained DPS. Put those together, and you have a total sustained DPS of ~4.8 (maybee 4.7 since the GR isnt 100% heat free).

In order to get the same DPS with DHS, you need to add 17 heatsinks to the mech which gives a total of 27 heatsinks and 4.8 DPS. Since a single clan gauss weighs 15t (12t weapon, 3t ammo just so you dont run out too quickly), you have 2 more tons to play with, and you use far less slots in the process allowing you to use endo/ferro.

On IS side its even worse, since you are crit limited in the number of DHS you can bring, and ~21DHS is the absolute maximum you can realistically have on most mechs, meaning your DPS cap (using ERMLs as the basis, obviously if you use more efficient guns this isnt true) is 3.9, and there is no way to really increase this unless you add a GR to the equation. Its a little bit less efficient then clan tech, but the same idea stands, you get a 2.6 DPS increase atop of the base 10 HS 2.1 DPS a IS mech would have with 6 ERMLs, which is 4.7 DPS, and is already above the maximum DPS you could achieve by boating DHS. This even compared favorably with LPLs, which would give ~5 DPS with teh same 21 DHS. For a LPL boat, you can drop 3 LPLs, get a free gauss rifle (18t on IS with ammo), and 3 more tons leftover. Its not always superior, but if the mech has a ROF quirk for ballistics, the DPS you gain more then offsets the DPS you loose from LPLs.

And finally, i never said LGR was perfect, it is still a subpar weapon and im pretty sure everyone is aware of that (biggest issue personally is how little PPFLD it does, 15 is at least fairly decent on normal ones), but it does have its uses, and it isnt as bad as things like LRMs or micro lasers or even RACs are right now. That and its got some range over the regular GR, so for those sadistically inclined to annoy people that are beyond 1km, there you go (although id still consider it a joke for sniping when compared to ERLLs).

[Y E O N N E]

panzer1b, on 23 September 2017 - 10:31 AM, said:

On IS side its even worse, since you are crit limited in the number of DHS you can bring, and ~21DHS is the absolute maximum you can realistically have on most mechs, meaning your DPS cap (using ERMLs as the basis, obviously if you use more efficient guns this isnt true) is 3.9, and there is no way to really increase this unless you add a GR to the equation. Its a little bit less efficient then clan tech, but the same idea stands, you get a 2.6 DPS increase atop of the base 10 HS 2.1 DPS a IS mech would have with 6 ERMLs, which is 4.7 DPS, and is already above the maximum DPS you could achieve by boating DHS. This even compared favorably with LPLs, which would give ~5 DPS with teh same 21 DHS. For a LPL boat, you can drop 3 LPLs, get a free gauss rifle (18t on IS with ammo), and 3 more tons leftover. Its not always superior, but if the mech has a ROF quirk for ballistics, the DPS you gain more then offsets the DPS you loose from LPLs.

How many heatsinks you can fit depends on how heavy the 'Mech is and what your engine cap is (i.e. BLR-3M can comfortably run 22). And it doesn't do you any good to try to compare builds that you wouldn't (or couldn't) actually use. So, here, let me show you the actual game:

A Banshee 3M can fit your aforementioned 21 DHS, and with a trio of LPL and five ERML on an LFE 375 the sustained DPS is still 4.50 and the 'Mech runs at 63.9 kph.

On a BNC-3S with 5x ERML + 1x LL + 1x Gauss with 20x DHS on an LFE 35, the max sustained DPS is 4.84. We've finally cracked the heat efficiency, but...we are slower, we have worse weapon synergy, and our alpha strike is essentially identical. We can go higher on the alpha and maintain 4.60 sustained DPS, but we still have all the other drawbacks.

And then there's Grasshopper vomit vs. Warhammer Gauss-vomit.

My point, here, is not that you don't get any efficiency advantage out of IS Gauss-vomit at all. My point is that you don't get enough of one for it to be worth the associated costs. It's not a hefty enough punch advantage to be worth losing the speed and pointability of pure lasers, which is why you never see IS Gauss vomit being run competitively and you rarely see it in quick play.

When we convert to Lgauss on any of those builds and make adjustments, we only really gain lower alpha strikes, worse cold-firing DPS from the LGauss, and inferior heat efficiency for the entire package because trading 7 damage for 3 tons is a very bad trade when you already are or are near being slot-locked.

TL;DR: I am very familiar with how the concept of Gauss-vomit works. It doesn't work well enough with pure IS laser vomit to be worth using, though. I mean, sure, all of us here can up good numbers with IS Gauss and Gauss vomit, and I just came out of several very successful matches with twin LGauss, but I have no doubt that I was being carried by the team because of the low output on those LGauss.

And we shouldn't balancing equipment around quirks, it should be the other way around. That was kind of my point about how only something like a RFL-3C or JM6-S with 10-15% cool-down to ballistics is worth running LGauss on. Too many guns are crappy except when used on those well-quirked chassis. How about we stop keeping said guns gimped just because those chassis have quirks that would make them OP and, instead, just change the quirks?

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 23 September 2017 - 12:14 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 23 September 2017 - 12:11 PM, said:

How many heatsinks you can fit depends on how heavy the 'Mech is and what your engine cap is (i.e. BLR-3M can comfortably run 22). And it doesn't do you any good to try to compare builds that you wouldn't (or couldn't) actually use. So, here, let me show you the actual game:

A Banshee 3M can fit your aforementioned 21 DHS, and with a trio of LPL and five ERML on an LFE 375 the sustained DPS is still 4.50 and the 'Mech runs at 63.9 kph.

On a BNC-3S with 5x ERML + 1x LL + 1x Gauss with 20x DHS on an LFE 35, the max sustained DPS is 4.84. We've finally cracked the heat efficiency, but...we are slower, we have worse weapon synergy, and our alpha strike is essentially identical. We can go higher on the alpha and maintain 4.60 sustained DPS, but we still have all the other drawbacks.

And then there's Grasshopper vomit vs. Warhammer Gauss-vomit.

My point, here, is not that you don't get any efficiency advantage out of IS Gauss-vomit at all. My point is that you don't get enough of one for it to be worth the associated costs. It's not a hefty enough punch advantage to be worth losing the speed and pointability of pure lasers, which is why you never see IS Gauss vomit being run competitively and you rarely see it in quick play.

When we convert to Lgauss on any of those builds and make adjustments, we only really gain lower alpha strikes, worse cold-firing DPS from the LGauss, and inferior heat efficiency for the entire package because trading 7 damage for 3 tons is a very bad trade when you already are or are near being slot-locked.

TL;DR: I am very familiar with how the concept of Gauss-vomit works. It doesn't work well enough with pure IS laser vomit to be worth using, though. I mean, sure, all of us here can up good numbers with IS Gauss and Gauss vomit, and I just came out of several very successful matches with twin LGauss, but I have no doubt that I was being carried by the team because of the low output on those LGauss.

And we shouldn't balancing equipment around quirks, it should be the other way around. That was kind of my point about how only something like a RFL-3C or JM6-S with 10-15% cool-down to ballistics is worth running LGauss on. Too many guns are crappy except when used on those well-quirked chassis. How about we stop keeping said guns gimped just because those chassis have quirks that would make them OP and, instead, just change the quirks?

I get where the math is going and as a change it's got the advantage of being a scaled perk - as in it works on smaller mechs, like say a Hunchie or even an Enforcer with 1 or 2 and on bigger mechs with 4.

I would also be good with it getting a GH bump with PPCs, so while the Clans can have 2 erppcs on a poptart that do 20 ppfld and 10pts spread, IS can (with slightly inferior cooling and significantly more tonnage invested and a higher skillcap for syncing PPC + Gauss) sync 2 erppcs and a light Gauss without GH foe 27 PPFLD. It would have better DPS but literally 2x the total tonnage investments as cerppc. IS also doesn't have a high mount energy + ballistic mech that could exploit that to the degree the SMN and HBK IIC can.

Edited by MischiefSC, 23 September 2017 - 12:46 PM.

[Ruar]

I think going lighter would be better than changing the damage numbers. The problem is it doesn't do enough damage for the weight. So change the weight and leave the damage alone.

I know, that would require PGI to actually move away from TT numbers. it's what needs to happen. They've strayed far enough from TT on other items I don't understand why they cling to some things as if that somehow justifies to them they are still staying true to lore. They aren't and haven't been. Just build a durn game that is balanced and has it's roots in BT. Stop sacrificing gameplay so Russ can keep claiming he's a purist.

[Dogstar]

Personally I think significantly increasing the velocity (for all gauss weapons) would help with those long range shots for your average players. Since they increased the ERPPC velocity I've gotten a lot more accurate with it and that has the same 'sniper' vibe as the gauss weapons.

That said I haven't actually used the LGR, simply because it's stats tell me it's going to be poor at best.

However I have used the normal gauss rifle on a stealth armour Ghillie build and, as a sniper weapon, the gauss rifle lacks punch - I'm often told, as the last survivor in the match, what a waste of space a sniper is.

You shouldn't have to back a gauss rifle up with lasers to make it worthwhile, it should be good enough on it's own. They need a velocity buff to make it better at long range, to have a better damage drop off rate at range, and to have a good secondary effect so that people who have been hit by a gauss rifle are worried about being hit again,

TLDR - better accuracy and damage at range is needed

Edited by Dogstar, 23 September 2017 - 11:47 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Dogstar, on 23 September 2017 - 11:46 PM, said:

You shouldn't have to back a gauss rifle up with lasers to make it worthwhile, it should be good enough on it's own.

All this would do is make Gauss vomit stronger.....

The Gauss suffers the same way a single PPC does, they are supposed to have some oomph but because of the way this game works making these single weapons stronger just makes them even stronger when boated. The only way this would ever change is by rethinking weapons and heat in a serious way (like halved dissipation/capacity/armor/structure).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 September 2017 - 06:27 AM.

[VXJaeger]

Damagewise LGR is bad weapon, but RFL-3N makes it worth using and even fun. In other mechs...meh.
I'd give it a little dmg boost 8->10 or remove charge time, and leave it there.

Edited by VXJaeger, 25 September 2017 - 11:49 PM.

[The Basilisk]

The easyest solution would be to just get rid of chargetime.
DPS and weight to dmg ratio would still by abyssmal for light gauss but now the ability to react fast in combination with its high range and projectile speed would actually give it some snipe and fade abilitys.

[The Basilisk]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 September 2017 - 06:26 AM, said:

All this would do is make Gauss vomit stronger.....

The Gauss suffers the same way a single PPC does, they are supposed to have some oomph but because of the way this game works making these single weapons stronger just makes them even stronger when boated. The only way this would ever change is by rethinking weapons and heat in a serious way (like halved dissipation/capacity/armor/structure).

Yes the boating thing is a problem...but not because you can fit multiple weapons in a chassis but rather because weapons can be made to function as one big, single weapon instead of beeing discrete weapon systems with inndividual targeting and firing propertys.

Give convergence time for lasers, charge up and alignment time for PPCs, and alignment time and cone of fire for ACs.
SRMs should be sight track missiles (at least thats how they are described in the original rules and novels) flieing as whirling cloude of missiles and LRMs should function likewise...no indirect fire (TAG was developed for Arrow IV Artillery anyways not for lrms).

[Khobai]

the problem with boating is we need something better than ghost heat. ghost heat still has too many loopholes that are allowing 100+ damage alphas without any consequences.

instead of abandoning energy draw completely, PGI shouldve just fixed the things people didnt like about energy draw. like how ridiculously convoluted it was. and how it overly punished assault mechs by capping their firepower at the same point as lights.

even if they just overly simplified energy draw and turned it into a hard limit that made it physically impossible to fire more than 40 damage worth of weapons simultaneously within 0.5 seconds of eachother, that would be far superior to what we have now. a hard limit like that would be very simple to implement, very easy for players to understand, and it would integrate fine with the current heat system.

the only rule youd have to remember is you cant fire more than 40 damage of weapons at once, if you try to, a portion of your weapons will physically not fire based on predetermined priorities. And 0.5 seconds after you fire your weapons the hard limit would reset.

40 damage should be plenty. theres no reason the game should allow 100+ damage alphas. or 70 damage laser vomits. Allowing that garbage in the first place is where PGI went wrong.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 01:41 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The Basilisk, on 25 September 2017 - 11:45 PM, said:

Yes the boating thing is a problem...but not because you can fit multiple weapons in a chassis but rather because weapons can be made to function as one big, single weapon instead of beeing discrete weapon systems with inndividual targeting and firing propertys.

Give convergence time for lasers, charge up and alignment time for PPCs, and alignment time and cone of fire for ACs.

That's both stupid and completely lacks understanding of why boating is used in the first place.

Giving alignment time to everything doesn't change the fact I'm still going to specialize (which is what your real problem is) and so is the reason why boating is often more powerful than mixing similar weapons (because they don't synergize well).

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 01:21 AM, said:

the problem with boating is we need something better than ghost heat. ghost heat still has too many loopholes that are allowing 100+ damage alphas without any consequences.

Loopholes are the reason we see mixed builds with ghost heat, or did you miss why ED failed to actually bring in build diversity? Also, what normal build is throwing out 100+ damage alphas? The MCII-DS which is probably the best assault in the game is only throwing out 80 for the actual competitive build. That said, remember these mechs have always been around, but the Gauss/PPC mechs kept them in check so obviously it isn't always about raw damage (it's almost like different types of damage require different levels of alphas to be good........).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 06:51 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 September 2017 - 06:49 AM, said:

That's both stupid and completely lacks understanding of why boating is used in the first place.

Giving alignment time to everything doesn't change the fact I'm still going to specialize (which is what your real problem is) and so is the reason why boating is often more powerful than mixing similar weapons (because they don't synergize well).


Loopholes are the reason we see mixed builds with ghost heat, or did you miss why ED failed to actually bring in build diversity? Also, what normal build is throwing out 100+ damage alphas? The MCII-DS which is probably the best assault in the game is only throwing out 80 for the actual competitive build. That said, remember these mechs have always been around, but the Gauss/PPC mechs kept them in check so obviously it isn't always about raw damage (it's almost like different types of damage require different levels of alphas to be good........).

An 80 damage alpha is already pretty broken with precision. 80 damage in ATMs is problematic - 80 damage in gaussvomit is out of scope vs anything that isn't hitscan. Especially at 500-600m.

64 is extremely powerful. As much as IS mechs are considered weak IS v IS fights are a pretty good experience. While laservomit is strong it's not so much stronger that it dominates ballistic or even SRM builds. Since most laservomit stuff is only good at sub-400, you're well within push for 300m brawl. Even 10s and 20s ballistics can hang and lower mounts are less critical. Erlls are strong but it's still not the same gap.

Clans high mounts, great cooling and huge direct fire alpha potential is it's own thing. I'm not going to say it's a problem because I'm not advocating nerfing direct fire or lasers or the like. However the normalizing of IS and Clan direct fire probably needs a comparable normalizing of the relative range, velocity and DPS of non-energy weapons similar to the IS weapon balance sphere.

Faster missiles with a bit longer range and tighter grouping, possibly better cooldown, the recommended velocity buff for ballistics, etc.

I'm loving my 6ml, 60mrm MAD in QP. It's a divergence from the same ol same ol and if I pick my targets well it's a good build vs other IS builds. However the moment gaussvomit shows up or ranged clan laservomit there's no balance, no parity or even close to parity. Not in the sense of a "counter" balance factor but just flat out superior.

Would like a fix for that without trying to break direct fire.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 26 September 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

An 80 damage alpha is already pretty broken with precision.

The question is whether or not that would be considered broken with Gauss/PPC since the MCII would also be a decent non-hero Gauss/PPC mech had it not been nerfed.

MischiefSC, on 26 September 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

64 is extremely powerful.

Is it though? The reason we had laesr vomit take over in the assault class was because there was no good PPC/Gauss mech that could replace the KDK-3 after it got nerfed, the MCII probably would've done just that. So the question is, would a 64 damage Gauss vomit compete with PPC/Gauss? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Sorry but burst damage HAS to have higher damage potential for the heat compared to PPFLD to make up for the inherent inaccuracies of it. I generally think 50% more damage than that of PPFLD is a good starting point depending on the inaccuracy level. There is a reason laser vomit wasn't near as common during the PPFLD era and it is because it just didn't do enough damage to justify the exposure or inaccuracy (it also means you can't poptart, since lasers and poptarts just don't go together unfortunately).

Remove the ghost heat link on Gauss/PPCs and you'll see many things return back to Gauss/PPCs (Night Gyrs will certainly return to it). The MCII is the only question (do you go Gauss/PPCs, or Gauss vomit).

MischiefSC, on 26 September 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

As much as IS mechs are considered weak IS v IS fights are a pretty good experience. While laservomit is strong it's not so much stronger that it dominates ballistic or even SRM builds. Since most laservomit stuff is only good at sub-400, you're well within push for 300m brawl. Even 10s and 20s ballistics can hang and lower mounts are less critical. Erlls are strong but it's still not the same gap.

I'm willing to bet that dakka rushes are still the best in the IS, there just isn't as much experience with it because IS vs IS is not something you see. Either way I almost guarantee the IS is not as balanced as you seem to think.

MischiefSC, on 26 September 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

I'm loving my 6ml, 60mrm MAD in QP. It's a divergence from the same ol same ol and if I pick my targets well it's a good build vs other IS builds. However the moment gaussvomit shows up or ranged clan laservomit there's no balance, no parity or even close to parity. Not in the sense of a "counter" balance factor but just flat out superior.

There was a counter, it got nerfed, not to mention the problem with bringing in tech base balance into a different discussion.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 07:55 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Loopholes are the reason we see mixed builds with ghost heat, or did you miss why ED failed to actually bring in build diversity?

uh no. you dont see mixed builds at all with ghost heat

you see weapons that are as similar or as complementary as possible without being linked in the same ghost heat group

mixing large lasers with medium lasers is NOT a mixed build. laser/gauss isnt really a mixed build either because of how much laser/gauss complement eachother. they go together naturally.

mixed builds are builds that unnaturally combine dissimilar weapons in an awkward fashion. like an Atlas with SRMs, autocannons, and lasers is a mixed build.

if you want to encourage mixed builds then quirks need to stop rewarding people for boating. also there should just be a hard limit of 40 damage for how many weapons you can fire at once. if you try to fire more weapons than that, some of your weapons will physically not fire. the 40 damage limit would reset every 0.5 seconds. And maybe raise that limit above 40 for mechs that use mixed builds, to encourage more mixed builds.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 08:43 AM.