259 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

Nightbird, on 08 July 2018 - 06:59 PM, said:

PPCs are stream beam weapons. MWO changed them to PPFLD like ACs but half weight PPFLD with no drop was hard to balance so PGI had to add all sorts of penalties.

The charge up time as proposed is compensation for a very short burn. If we keep PPFLD it can still work with velocity and cooldown tweaks.

AncientRaig, on 09 July 2018 - 12:19 AM, said:

PPCs, at least in the games, have always been presented as PPFLD weapons that fire a bolt of charged particles. From as far back as MW2 they've been shown like this. While the sarna page describes them as a "stream", I've always heard them described elsewhere as basically firing something visually similar to ball lightning.

My main concern with charge up is that PPCs are already fairly hard to aim weapons with unstable hitreg. The actual "projectile" fired by the PPC is a lot smaller than the visual effect. Adding a charge up time just makes them harder to use than they already can be.

Project Marauder -- If you can find any information on it.

Edited by Mystere, 09 July 2018 - 07:31 AM.

[Nightbird]

Mystere, on 09 July 2018 - 07:30 AM, said:

Project Marauder -- If you can find any information on it.

I can't find anything. I see something about a cursed Black Marauder

[Y E O N N E]

Mystere, on 09 July 2018 - 07:30 AM, said:

Project Marauder -- If you can find any information on it.

PPCs have more in common with the LHC than MARAUDER, which is itself more akin to the BT Plasma Rifle.

[Y E O N N E]

AncientRaig, on 09 July 2018 - 12:19 AM, said:

PPCs, at least in the games, have always been presented as PPFLD weapons that fire a bolt of charged particles. From as far back as MW2 they've been shown like this. While the sarna page describes them as a "stream", I've always heard them described elsewhere as basically firing something visually similar to ball lightning.

The games were wrong.

Every canonical artistic rendering that I've seen outside the games depicts a beam with a helix around it and the 3150 Tech Manual describes it as a "bolt"...and a bolt and a beam are indistinguishable at sufficient velocities. Since the entire weapon is inspired by scientific particle accelerators, which move charged particles at significant percentages of the speed of light, we can safely declare it a beam.

Quote

My main concern with charge up is that PPCs are already fairly hard to aim weapons with unstable hitreg. The actual "projectile" fired by the PPC is a lot smaller than the visual effect. Adding a charge up time just makes them harder to use than they already can be.

It's a hit-scan weapon under Nightbird's paradigm; basically ultra-short duration laser with very high heat and EMP effects.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 09 July 2018 - 08:09 PM.

[Nightbird]

PPC charge up should give a visual effect similar but different (due to copyright) from this:

Edited by Nightbird, 09 July 2018 - 08:47 PM.

[MischiefSC]

I am in favor of any change that involves my getting to have warships for arms. If I can mount the Daedalus and Prometheus I'll go with whatever balance setup you want.

SDF 1 was SDF FUN.

[Nightbird]

Worth pointing out the second and third GIFs are from Macross, which means they are PPCs! (Capital ship class) They have the helix along with the telltale charge glow.

Edited by Nightbird, 10 July 2018 - 03:36 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

Nightbird, on 10 July 2018 - 03:36 PM, said:

Worth pointing out the second and third GIFs are from Macross, which means they are PPCs! (Capital ship class) They have the helix along with the telltale charge glow.

Do you know which Mechwarrior Battletech game correctly gave them their charge-up and tell-tale glow.... MechAssault!

Honestly, I've been a fan of transferring the charge up mechanic from Gauss to PPC for a while now. It makes more sense (PPC Capacitors are always charged for the purpose of gauss explosions), I'm sure many Clanners will cry foul to this suggestion given the advent of Heavy Gauss but clanners will still have superiority on the PPC side to counter balance.

[Y E O N N E]

VonBruinwald, on 10 July 2018 - 04:16 PM, said:

Do you know which Mechwarrior Battletech game correctly gave them their charge-up and tell-tale glow.... MechAssault!

Yes, but then they also made the PPCs into target-homing comets, so I award MechAssault no points.

[AncientRaig]

While yeah the PPC technically fires a "stream", it only fires that stream for a very short period. Less than a second really. While it is technically a stream of particles, the visual effect is more akin to ball lightning with an elongated tail at the end.

[Y E O N N E]

AncientRaig, on 10 July 2018 - 07:22 PM, said:

While yeah the PPC technically fires a "stream", it only fires that stream for a very short period. Less than a second really. While it is technically a stream of particles, the visual effect is more akin to ball lightning with an elongated tail at the end.

No it isn't, it's a stream of particles moving at 99.9+% the speed of light, giving it the appearance of a beam. You won't see it travel, all you'll see is a scan line and the end results.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 11 July 2018 - 11:26 AM.

[MischiefSC]

I have 0 issue with a hitscan PPC with tiny duration.

I actually suggested that years ago in the Great PPC Balance War.

[Nightbird]

The IS ERPPC and C-ERPPC would be pretty hard to balance but at least they would serve their roles.

Today, they're basically mid range weapons, shooting them at 1000 meters results in a lot of misses in trades against ERLL against a pilot that exploits the travel time.

Edited by Nightbird, 12 July 2018 - 12:13 PM.

[Nightbird]

@mischief at which duration do you think lasers become lightsabers? Give a reasonable duration for HML and HLL and I'll work backwards. This will likely result in reduced DPS for lasers across the board for balance.

A small DPS reduction*

[MischiefSC]

Nightbird, on 12 July 2018 - 11:55 AM, said:

@mischief at which duration do you think lasers become lightsabers? Give a reasonable duration for HML and HLL and I'll work backwards. This will likely result in reduced DPS for lasers across the board for balance.

A small DPS reduction*

I don't consider myself enough of an expert to make a qualified statement. I would say anything over 1.4 starts to feel crappy. I would point you more toward Yeonne or Quicksilver (if he still posted). 2 seconds is... yeah, it's not that the concept is bad - it just comes back to 'fun to play'.

Honestly I'd also like to see some different concepts - for example, what if pulse lasers worked like RACs but instead of a 'jam bar' it's essentially how much consecutive fire they can do before they have to cool off. You hold the trigger down, they're shooting until they hit their heat cap. Give them a better overall DPS if you can manage to keep them cool.

Then balance ALL other lasers down in duration while increasing heat a bit. This makes pulse lasers a dedicated DPS weapon (but a bit cooler or at least more heat-manageable) with lasers a better overall poke weapon (while being hotter).

Also those cooldowns are so long. Maybe it would be fine. I would be happy to give it a test.

[Nightbird]

I re-tuned the laser duration and also cooldown (DPS) due to another comment (lasers too powerful). Obviously very rough, and all lasers ended up taking a DPS/ton nerf because they are so high compared with ballistic weapons. Cooldowns for medium lasers look bad but their dps/ton and alpha damage/ton are still extremely high.

The balancing is not easy, but now if you compare the following there is some give and take

14 tons: IS-LPL + 7 DHS versus IS AC10 + 2 Tons ammo
4 tons: 4 C-ERML versus 1 C-HLL versus 4 HML
5 tons: 1 C-ERML + 1 C-HLL versus 1 IS-LL


There is a cascade effect if we want to move C-ERML back to 1 DPS, because then what about C-HLL which has the same range at 4 tons and the IS-LL at 5 tons, etc etc etc.

Edited by Nightbird, 12 July 2018 - 05:23 PM.

[dante245]

Agreed. All of it.

[Chados]

Yeonne Greene, on 09 July 2018 - 08:09 PM, said:

The games were wrong.

Every canonical artistic rendering that I've seen outside the games depicts a beam with a helix around it and the 3150 Tech Manual describes it as a "bolt"...and a bolt and a beam are indistinguishable at sufficient velocities. Since the entire weapon is inspired by scientific particle accelerators, which move charged particles at significant percentages of the speed of light, we can safely declare it a beam.

[/size][/left]

It's a hit-scan weapon under Nightbird's paradigm; basically ultra-short duration laser with very high heat and EMP effects.

Precisely. In Multiplayer Online Battletech waaaaay back in the early 1990s that is how PPCs were presented. They’re particle beam cannons. Kind of like a heavy large laser works now, which is why in all the MW games they don’t work that way, I suspect.

[Nightbird]

Checking in, are the new laser values too low?

I'm guessing yes, but how would you move lasers such that a few medium lasers are not strictly superior to their same range large laser counterparts?

[Koruthaiolos]

Hey dude,

Agreed with EVERYTHING that you're saying, which is why I'm so sure that it will be ignored.

I'd like to add that weapon convergence needs to be removed for all torso mounted weapons.