59 replies to this topic

[Admiral-Dan]

Jun Watarase, on 11 October 2017 - 11:55 AM, said:

MW4 had stackpoling, the end result was that when players were on low health, they would rush enemy mechs and hug them so that their death explosion would damage the enemy. Short of killing an enemy before they got close to you, there was basically nothing you could do to stop it. It was a terrible mechanic.

Why waiting till you are on low health? You can use a light as suicide bomber and run in the middle of the enemy to overheat. That give “Light Rush” a total new definition. I’m sure there are enough trolls out there to turn MWO in a big clown festival with that feature.

Edited by AlphaEtOmega, 11 October 2017 - 05:23 PM.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Of course the explosion should be propotional to the mass of mech.

[Johnny Z]

Low damage mech explosions would be excellent.

[Bombast]

Teer Kerensky, on 11 October 2017 - 05:59 PM, said:

Of course the explosion should be propotional to the mass of mech.

Shouldn't it be the mass of the engine?

[Dogstar]

I hadn't considered some of the sneakier aspects - you guys are such a bunch of innovators!

The current 'pfft' of a mech kill is definitely underwhelming - it would work for a headshot as there wouldn't be much to see in that case but when the CT (or ST for IS mechs) is taken out and the engine goes then there should definitely be more of a visual effect!

[Lily from animove]

generally no, but ammo explosions should be a bit more kaboomish, with maybe Missiles even going straying for some single ones.

[Vellron2005]

I vote YAY.

BUT..

Make the exploding reactor an extra added feature of an engine.. one that increases weight and cost. (Like artemis for instance), and the explosion damage dependent on engine size - the bigger the engine, the bigger the boom, the more the damage and the range up to max level like arty for XL400.

That way, an enemy does not know if you are gonna go boom or not, and neither do your teammates. Would perhaps discourage lights face hugging assaults..

OR

Flip this on its head - make all the engines go boom by default, and you have to pay more and use more weight for c.a.s.e. protected engines?

Edited by Vellron2005, 12 October 2017 - 02:06 AM.

[Dogstar]

Vellron2005, on 12 October 2017 - 02:00 AM, said:

the bigger the engine, the bigger the boom, the more the damage and the range up to max level like arty for XL400.

This part I really like as it would stop suicidal lights as they generally have smaller engines so doing something like 5 or 6 points to all enemies within 30m would not be a desirable outcome for a light and 12-15 points for a heavy/assault would not be that significant.

Also any damage from an exploding engine should be spread evenly over any victims so it would be more like 1-2 pts per location for light/medium explosions, and 3-4 for heavies/assaults.

That way we could retain some aspect of the explosion without it being OP or a trolling tool.

[PurpleNinja]

I can see the abuse from a kilometer away.
But PGI could make something like the Hearthstone brawl, a separate queue with insane rules like this for a weekend.

[Athom83]

Teer Kerensky, on 11 October 2017 - 05:59 PM, said:

Of course the explosion should be propotional to the mass of mech.

No, in proportion to the rating of the engine. Bigger engines make bigger boom. Edit; Didn't see that someone else already posted that. Still, I stand by it.

Edited by Athom83, 12 October 2017 - 07:00 AM.

[Koniving]

BT stackpoling rules... have it as an area of effect explosion, triggered not by heat... but by engine damage and chance.

Currently while engines have health, we cannot effectively destroy engines properly.

There's also the area of effect explosions from ammo explosions.

However.. there's nothing nuclear about these explosions or of the MW4 setup.

[Dogstar]

Also, note that everyone was condemning Rocket Launchers as the suicide trolls weapon of choice - but I've yet to see anyone run a RL suicide light so I'm dubious that people would deliberately suicide to get the effect of a single arty strike

[Bishop Steiner]

Dogstar, on 11 October 2017 - 05:42 AM, said:

For me one of the enjoyable parts of the early novels was the exploding mechs, which is also known as Stackpoling thanks the that authors overuse of it.

If your mech dies from overheating do you think it should explode doing the equivalent of an artillery strike to nearby mechs? Some people already launch an arty or air strike at their own location if they know they're going to die surrounded by enemies so it wouldn't be any different than that just not requiring you to use an arty strike (but maybe it could cost you 40K from your match winnings to balance it)

Or are you a killjoy with no love for exploding robots?

Stackpoling rarely happened even in the early novels.

[Khobai]

stackpoling adds absolutely nothing beneficial to the game

and while im fine with people being able to suicide, the last thing we need is even more players deliberately suiciding their mechs

[gregsolidus]

It was dumb then and it's dumb now.

[Jman5]

Whenever people talk about features like this they always imagine them doing the exploding on the opponent, or their teammate blasting the other side. They don't seem to consider what it will be like to constantly be on the receiving end of this feature.

The commando humping your leg, you desperately trying to create distance until someone blasts him for an easy kill and he explodes in your face. Or the guy who hits override and just facehugs you until he self-detonates. Or the guy on your team who gets killed and explodes all around you and the rest of your team ruining the match in one fell swoop.

I'm all for a more visually impressive death, but leave the damage out of it.


If you guys really want to your stackpoling, just save an artillery strike and drop one at your feet right before your die.

[Lily from animove]

Koniving, on 12 October 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

BT stackpoling rules... have it as an area of effect explosion, triggered not by heat... but by engine damage and chance.

Currently while engines have health, we cannot effectively destroy engines properly.

There's also the area of effect explosions from ammo explosions.

However.. there's nothing nuclear about these explosions or of the MW4 setup.

with destructable engines by damage the assaults would be in a very new imbalance as most smaller mechs don't have enough internal HP to die from engine damage-. But imagine your assaults blowing off at 50% CT health due to engine damage crit seekers.

[Black Ivan]

Please no. I have seen what this can be used for in Star Trek Online enough

[Koniving]

Lily from animove, on 13 October 2017 - 12:17 AM, said:

with destructable engines by damage the assaults would be in a very new imbalance as most smaller mechs don't have enough internal HP to die from engine damage-. But imagine your assaults blowing off at 50% CT health due to engine damage crit seekers.

Yep.

In my hypothetical Battletech to Real Time Simulation thread....
Many of the issues of first person shooters was addressed by noting that tabletop is a summary, and given this, the hitbox system is also a summary. Thus, a sub-hitbox system for sub-sections. For example take your typical Atlas. Current system? 11 hitboxes and very broad, general areas. New system? Divide each body part into 4 to 8 subsections.

Someone just did a 100 damage alpha on your left torso? Welp they aimed for your upper left torso as they peeked up to give you that ray of insta-death. Worse yet, you got an XL engine. ....Laugh at them. Sure, they destroyed THAT section of your left front torso and no doubt they burned through that spot of the rear, too. Congratulations, they destroyed 10.75 points of armor and assuming the inner structure is only divided by 4 hitboxes, an additional 10.5 points of structure. (This is assuming PGI's double armor structure, otherwise they only destroyed 5 something points of each for that 100 damage blast. Oh, and probably your LRM launcher).

Point is by having a subsection system, alpha strikes become meaningless. Furthermore, you can set it up so that you can remove chance rolls for critical hits in favor of a system where you physically have to aim for the weapon, ammo, or equipment you want to destroy. You'd pack the engine under the heaviest armor. And if they wanna go for it, more power to them but their target square is a lot smaller than what people are used to in MWO. Know what its like aiming for moderately sized head hitboxes in MWO? Imagine if all the subsections were around the size of the largest head hitbox. And you wanna destroy that specific component.

[Mechteric]

Neg