3
Please note all values are for illustrative purposes and should be properly refine tuned by testing and repeating! The best I could do is make it so when you compare any two weapon systems, IS or Clan, you will see strengths and weaknesses and a dramatically different play style required. (The magnitude of the difference may be off) Please judge this idea based on whether it offers any improvement (however small!) over what we have today. Lastly, something this drastic should only be tested on the TEST SERVER!
Ballistic Weapons:
IS vs Clan Gauss Technologies:
Innersphere engineers designed and built the Gauss Rifle for combat reliability when constantly fully charged and ready to fire. Clan engineers discovered that is possible to overcharge the railgun's coils by up to 25%, though holding this level of charge caused rapid deterioration in the weapon system. However, if the overcharging occurred in the brief moment before firing, reliability was not adversely affected. As a result, they were able to reduce the size and weight of the weapon significantly while propelling the slug at the same velocity, in exchange for the need to pre-charge before each shot. When the Innersphere attempted to duplicate this technology, the challenge was not the engineering but the pilots. The need to pre-charge resulted in the average ill-trained IS pilot performing much worse than with the regular Gauss Rifle, leading to the project being abandoned.
IS vs Clan AC Technologies:
How Innersphere and Clan engineers differed in their design of Autocannons started in the design of the ballistic shell. Innersphere specifications demanded projectiles that reached their optimal range in 360 milliseconds, whereas Clan specifications demanded 500 milliseconds . This led the IS to a shell design that used a greater percent of its mass for the propellant than the Clan equivalent. While the IS projectile enjoyed greater velocity as a result, the cost was that the kinetic component of the destructive damage is lost faster compared with the Clan projectile, which carried more of its damage potential in the warhead. This led to a shorter optimal range. In addition, more propellant meant a bigger bang and a need for a sturdier barrel for reliability, leading to heavier and bulkier weapons for the Innersphere.
IS vs Clan UAC Technologies:
While neither Innersphere nor Clan engineers were ever able to build an Ultra-Autocannon that did not jam, they took very different approaches to address the inherent issue of inaccuracy in this class of weapon. The rapid firing of shells through a spinning and/or hot barrel produced small random changes in flight paths that targeting computers had difficulty in compensating for. To ameliorate the problem, Innersphere engineers beefed up cooling systems and reinforced weapon stabilization around the goal that all projectiles land within 1 meter of the aimed target at optimal range. This led to larger and heavier weapons but the goal was achieved. The Clan engineers' approach was striking in that they didn't care about the spread at all. Zellbrigen demanded mechs that can dish out damage, and accuracy at range was entirely secondary to the ability to bring even more weapons. All fine tuning was done within the same weight envelope, leading to a much larger spread of up to 2 meters from the aimed target at optimal range and even more compact systems than before.
IS vs Clan LBX-AC Technologies:
Two changes in design specifications drove the differences between the IS and Clan 'shotgun' Autocannons from their regular AC version. The first was the 360 milliseconds time-to-optimal-range requirement was dropped by the Innersphere in favor of 500 milliseconds to make sufficient room in the shell for the sub-munitions. This resulted in a reduction in velocity when comparing the IS LBX-ACs with their regular counterparts, but was considered acceptable due to the spread nature of the weapon. The second is the clustering density specifications - how far the sub-munitions may spread by the time they reach optimal range. For the Innersphere, this was set to a circle of 3 meters2 times the AC class. In other words a class 5 LBX-AC was allowed to spread to a circle of size 15m2 (radius 2.19m) and a class 20 LBX-AC was allowed to spread to a circle of size 60m2 (radius 4.37m). The Clans on the other hand, in their pursuit of lighter and smaller weapons, set their density specifications to 4 meters2 times the AC class. In all versions of the weapon, the sub-munitions proved devastating when they breach through open armor and explode within the interior of a mech.
IS RAC Technologies:
Innersphere's attempt to create the fastest firing autocannon possible resulted in the Rotary autocannons. While these weapons are capable of shooting 3 times faster than Ultra autocannons, the problem of accuracy also multiplied in magnitude. Even with additional cooling and stabilization structures added, this wild bucking bull will send projectiles up to 3 meters from the intended target at optimal range. Realizing what more accuracy would cost in terms of tonnage and price, further refinements were stopped and marketing ensured advertisements focused only on the incredible damage potential of these weapon systems.
Google Doc: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing
Click on ballistic tab
All stats except for blue columns are dynamic formulas.
Energy Weapons:
Hot and Cold Superconductivity
The fusion reactors in modern mechs can generate extraordinary amounts of power, easily capable of melting a mech be it your enemy's or your own. To harness such power safely, all energy weapons systems utilize superconducting materials to ensure as little resistence to power flow as possible. Space and weight do create some limitations, for example the best absolute zero superconductor components operate at temperatures of <30 Kelvin (<-243 Celsius). Maintaining this temperature requires such cooling capabilities that usage is effectively limited to battleship class weapons. Mech class energy weapons instead utilize components that operate in the cold and hot superconductivity temperature ranges (-100C to -50C for cold, -50C to 0C for hot, with slight variations).
Despite the low resistences of superconductors, weapons will rapidly heat up when fired. The typical firing cycle starts at the system's lower operating temperature limit and stops when the upper limit is reached. At this point, the system is cooled until the starting temperature is reached and the cycle can repeat. Any mechwarriors overriding this process will find that channeling power through components after they lose superconductivity due to high temperature is a sure-fire way of creating a pile of molten slag in their mech.
Cold components have slightly less resistence than hot components, allowing greater total energy to be output with each firing cycle and with less waste heat. This comes at the expense of a greater temperature differentual with the mech's coolant, requiring more work by the cascade heat pumps to transfer heat away from the weapon. This can be remedied with beefier cooling systems or simply a longer wait between firing cycles. Both Innersphere and Clan engineers utilize both hot and cold superconducting components in their energy weapon designs, however Clans appear to have an easier time utilizing colder designs due to having a more sophisticated mech temperature management system.
Laser Beam Quality and Intensity
Weaponized laser systems in general use free-electron gain media due to the high-powered nature of the application. While it is desired for laser beams to be intense and long ranged, these are actually contradictory goals in laser design. A more powerful beam is created by channeling more power, which also create distortions that result in worse beam divergence and a shorter optimal range. A quality collimated beam with a longer range is achieved by channelling less power over a longer period, which also results in a less intense beam.
Whether Beam Quality or Intensity is prioritized, in conjunction with whether Hot or Cold Superconductors are used, determine most differences in performance characteristics between Innersphere and Clan laser systems. For example, IS-ML and C-HML systems use cold superconductors with intense beams. IS-SPL and C-LPL use hot superconductors with intense beams. IS-ERML and C-ERLL uses hot superconductors with collimated beams. No IS laser uses cold superconductors with collimated beams, however several Clan weapons do such as the C-ERML. As of the time of this writing, Innersphere engineers have not figured out very long range quality beam technology, leading to a less than optimal fusion of hot superconductors and intense beam technology to produce the IS-ERLL.
Energy Draw:
To limit alphas, both IS and Clan mechs utilize a standardized power delivery system/capacitor that provides enough power to energy weapons to deal up to 32 damage within a 0.5 second period. Beyond that, the mech's power delivery systems are overtaxed and generate 1 extra heat to provide power for each additional damage. Any combination of energy weapons may be used. Gauss counts as an energy weapon in this regard as it draws a lot of energy. A large array of energy based weapons may be fired in groups to avoid this limitation. Remove ghost heat for all energy and Gauss systems.
Google doc: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing
All stats except for blue columns are dynamic formulas.
IS vs Clan Heat Capacity:
Innersphere and Clan heat dissipation systems differ in that Clan systems are able to isolate heat from the rest of the mech as it is removed from hot equipment and circulated to heatsinks. This allows the rest of the mech to operate within a narrow ideal temperature band. On the other hand, IS heat circulation systems are unable to keep all the heat contained, allowing some of it to bleed into the entire mech eventually heating up every beam of structure, plate of armor, and piece of equipment in the mech. While this has the positive benefit of allowing the entire mech itself to store some heat, increasing total heat capacity by (Mech Tonnage/4), the wide swings in expected operating temperature have some very serious consequences. Every piece of equipment manufactured by the Innersphere have to be built to accommodate this temperature range without failing. The only way to do this is to make them bulkier, with pockets of open space left so that when thermal expansion takes place, it fills the free spaces instead of creating pressure that would form cracks or outright destroy the equipment. This is especially evident in the bulk of light weight Innersphere Endo-Steel structure and Ferro Fibrous armor technologies, which are very susceptible to thermal expansion.
Double Heat Sinks:
IS DHS is 3 slots and having the same performance as Clan DHS makes things hard to balance. Suggest changing IS DHS Dissipation to 0.19 and Clan DHS Dissipation to 0.175. (Currently 1.5 for both) Why buff? Because lore weapons are hotter than MWO values, please see below. With 10% coolrun, IS DHS is 0.209, Clan DHS is 0.1925, both around the lore value of 2 per 10 seconds.
If I missed any critical stats columns, please let me know. Feedback is welcome! Just list any two weapons where one is 'superior' to the other and I'll take a look.
Poll: https://mwomercs.com...-server-chance/
Edited by Nightbird, 12 July 2018 - 05:02 PM.
