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Give Lore Damage/heat A Test Server Chance

Balance

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#1 Nightbird

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Posted 18 October 2017 - 07:16 PM

Currently MWO's weapon damage and heat values deviate significantly from Battletech lore. This was done with the best of intentions for balance reasons, however I wonder if more dramatic tweaks to other parameters (cooldown, duration, velocity, etc) can lead to fair trade-offs between IS and Clan tech, leading to a unique piloting experience for both sides. This is different from our current direction of forcing the same equipment stats and play styles onto both factions. Balance can be achieved within lore values. In other words, the goal is BOTH better game play balance than today & better lore adherence so we're not playing Rob the Robot Pilot instead of Battletech,

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.

Posted Image


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

Posted Image

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.


#2 Y E O N N E

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 05:31 AM

A shame this thread isn't getting more attention. The theory behind many of these changes is the same as what I use, just with slightly differing goals.

It might help if the font was set to the normal forum default and the proposed weapon values were placed in a table or a picture of a spreadsheet.

#3 Nightbird

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 05:38 AM

I'll put it into a spreadsheet tonight, thanks! Done

Edited by Nightbird, 19 October 2017 - 08:27 PM.


#4 Ibrandul Mike

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 06:06 AM

A table like this?

Medium Laser
TonsDMGHeatRangeMaxRangeCooldownDurationD/HDPSDPS/TonGHGroupVomitDMGVomitDPS
C-ERML1754008005,751,251,40113
(4,4T)
284
IS-ERML1553608002,500,8011,501,502
(6,6T)
309,00
C-HML11072705406,551,451,431,251,252
(3,3T)
303,80
IS-ML1532705402,801,001,671,321,322
(6, 6T)
307,90
C-MPL2743306602,700,801,75213
(4,8T)
288
IS-MPL2642206602,100,601,502,201,102
(6,12T)
3613,20

Edited by Ibrandul Mike, 19 October 2017 - 06:09 AM.


#5 Karl Streiger

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 06:15 AM

Especially with laser weapons you can tweak the hell out of them - you can adjust laser damage by the "duration" - heck you can give the Heavy Large Laser a "nomnial" damage of 32 points - as long as increase duration and heat by factor two as well.

But thumbs up for the shorter durations for weapons with longer ranges (BTW cycle time typo at the large laser table)

Edited by Karl Streiger, 19 October 2017 - 06:15 AM.


#6 Athom83

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 06:20 AM

"Lets make weapons like lore" in the title immediately into "lets not follow lore" into the suggestion... lol.

#7 Nightbird

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 06:44 AM

View PostIbrandul Mike, on 19 October 2017 - 06:06 AM, said:

A table like this?


Soo pretty!

Actually, using chrome and having issues with that table in terms of severe lag when it is displayed, weird! Working on it now, will post in screenshot form and post link.

Edited by Nightbird, 19 October 2017 - 02:31 PM.


#8 Paigan

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 07:02 AM

The TT values (which you mean with "lore" values, I guess) are designed for discrete 10-second rounds, meaning EVERY weapon, micro pulse laser or Gauss, has an exact refire cycle of 10.0 seconds.
Also, those values were designed with every weapon being instant hit, PPFLD (with the exception of missile spread).
Do you want those values, too?
Since MWO has doubled HP, the cooldown could be cut to 5.0 seconds, but still: do you want every single weapon to have the exact same cooldown of 5.0?

Or would you make small lasers fire faster than large lasers? If you still keep the same raw damage values as in TT, you are changing the DPS values compared to TT, even despite having the same raw damage number.

Some of the values incorporate special game mechanics, like pulse lasers being rather heavy but giving a -2 hit role modifier. How do you implement the -2 in MWO? Do you just skip it? Then you making the pulse lasers worse than they are in TT despite having the same values.

I hope those two examples show: It makes no sense to strictly transfer values devised for a turn based abstracted TT game mechanic into a real-time real-geometry game mechanic. The values would be the same, but the balance would be totally different.

Apart from that: Honestly, the TT values are just ridiculously crappy.
LRM-20 are just inferior to LRM-15.
cSPL are just utter crap compared to cERSL in 99% of all situations.
ACs are just extremely sucky lasers with explodable ammo because they are so ridiculously heavy. PGI balanced that out to some degree by giving ACs screen shake and lasers duration. ACs still rather suck, but it's a little bit better.

Those two aspects combined should make it clear for everyone:
Slavishly copy the TT values into MWO and you will end up with an extremely unbalanced, extremely weird, very very bad game.

#9 Lily from animove

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 07:12 AM

sure you can sue thes evalues, theres a load of other values you could tweak.
TT values would at leats eb a bit mroe consistent, PGi really created an illogical mess.

#10 VonBruinwald

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 07:24 AM

View PostPaigan, on 19 October 2017 - 07:02 AM, said:

Those two aspects combined should make it clear for everyone:
Slavishly copy the TT values into MWO and you will end up with an extremely unbalanced, extremely weird, very very bad game.


Alternatively, you could just remove the clans; balance achieved!

#11 Nightbird

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 07:41 AM

Well, let's compare the foolishly inferior IS-ERLL to the C-ERLL:

4xIS-ERLL vs 3xC-ERLL:
Clans have better range, D/H, and lower tonnage. Is it strictly superior? Well, it has less than half the DPS of the IS group and longer burn time, in a slugging match at range the Clan mech will be melted.


4xIS-ERLL vs 6xC-ERLL @ 85T BLR vs MAR-IIC
Clans now have a blistering 60 damage volley fire, however it costs them 24T to achieve this. It is also still inferior in DPS to the now lower weight IS group. But trading is what matters right? In a trade, assuming Clan is doing 30 dmg volley fire 0.5s apart to avoid GH, it takes 1.65s to do full 60dmg burn. 0.8 seconds into this trade, IS lasers have done 32 damage and Clan lasers only 20.9 damage. 1.6 seconds into this trade, IS lasers are ready to fire again before Clan lasers finished burning. Unless the Clan pilot can get his mech back to cover instantly, he will eat most or all of the next 32 damage IS alpha. What else? The MAD-IIC can boat 30DHS with this weapon group, it's DPS over time is much higher over the BLR. However, the BLR, with lower tonnage in weapons and DHS, can spend 12 more tons on the engine, resulting in a faster mech. Tell me, which ERLL build is superior? I don't know, it depends on the map and pilot. Are the two techs closer balanced, yet very unique, compared with what we have today?

#12 Kin3ticX

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:10 PM

Whats the point of lore damage and heat if you dont have lore health? BTW, the health has been doubled, quirked, and skill tree'd. Don't see anything about that in the TRO or Sarna do we? I mean, threads like this just blow my mind how people think that TT rules are some holy grail or something.

Not only that, PGI is already using way to many lore specs which is the lions share of the balance obstacle.

#13 Paigan

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:17 PM

View PostVonBruinwald, on 19 October 2017 - 07:24 AM, said:


Alternatively, you could just remove the clans; balance achieved!

Neither the idea of using TT values nor my answer has anything to do with IS<->Clans balance.

#14 FupDup

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:18 PM

12-heat ERLLs, particularly on the IS side, are an instant lolno.

#15 Shifty McSwift

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:34 PM

View PostIbrandul Mike, on 19 October 2017 - 06:06 AM, said:

A table like this?

Medium Laser
TonsDMGHeatRangeMaxRangeCooldownDurationD/HDPSDPS/TonGHGroupVomitDMGVomitDPS
C-ERML1754008005,751,251,40113
(4,4T)
284
IS-ERML1553608002,500,8011,501,502
(6,6T)
309,00
C-HML11072705406,551,451,431,251,252
(3,3T)
303,80
IS-ML1532705402,801,001,671,321,322
(6, 6T)
307,90
C-MPL2743306602,700,801,75213
(4,8T)
288
IS-MPL2642206602,100,601,502,201,102
(6,12T)
3613,20



I took note of those cooldowns, as they seem much more in line with the expectations I had with certain patches, though the c-erml cooldown seems very high... Is this some kind of secret hint at things to come? Or am I just reading into this too much.

#16 MadRover

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:42 PM

TT values are seemingly being the bane of this game. We need to break away from lore balancing and get some legit balancing. Just look at MW3/4 and yeah sure it wasn’t perfect but at least Gauss can beat ERLLs with PPCs, LPPCs, LGauss able to do the same and you pretty much needed some fall back weapons any way. Now I’m not saying we need MW3/4 balance but we need to break away from lore balance. It just doesn’t work.

#17 kilgor

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:42 PM

If you look at the Solaris VII rule book, you will find that MWO basically went with those rules, which would be expected considering it's not the 10 second starnard Battletech per round rule. But, over time, PGI has deviated from the Solaris VII rules, which they had to because they won't implement the shutdown and ammo explosion part of the heat scale.

#18 Y E O N N E

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:44 PM

View PostShifty McSwift, on 19 October 2017 - 02:34 PM, said:


I took note of those cooldowns, as they seem much more in line with the expectations I had with certain patches, though the c-erml cooldown seems very high... Is this some kind of secret hint at things to come? Or am I just reading into this too much.


It's the direction the game should have been going for years now. Not necessarily exactly like that or even trying to use TT values at all in this way, but the trend of IS guns being less damaging but colder/faster/more precise vs. Clan guns being more damaging but hotter/slower/less precise is the intent. PGI has implied in the past that this was what they were going for, there is a tool-tip in the game that says Clan weapons take longer to deal the same amount of damage as their IS counterparts but, with the exceptions of the LPL and MPL, that has always been false. It remains false. So this concept is not actually being applied in the game at all. IS guns are simply garbage. Even the ones that look okay on paper are trash when you take all of the supporting equipment into account.

As long as PGI keeps nerfing IS gear every time they nerf Clan gear or buffing Clan gear every time they buff IS gear, we are never ever going to get out of this rut. And honestly, I don't know that they care. PGI seems content to allow Clans to run the field and that is a shame because I bet IS 'Mechs don't sell as well as Clan 'Mechs and I bet they would sell a lot better if people weren't convinced they would be overly difficult to run against the good Clan 'Mechs that clog every match. Everybody who actually matters wins if IS are actually a good option.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 19 October 2017 - 02:46 PM.


#19 Shifty McSwift

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 02:52 PM

View PostYeonne Greene, on 19 October 2017 - 02:44 PM, said:


It's the direction the game should have been going for years now. Not necessarily exactly like that or even trying to use TT values at all in this way, but the trend of IS guns being less damaging but colder/faster/more precise vs. Clan guns being more damaging but hotter/slower/less precise is the intent. PGI has implied in the past that this was what they were going for, there is a tool-tip in the game that says Clan weapons take longer to deal the same amount of damage as their IS counterparts but, with the exceptions of the LPL and MPL, that has always been false. It remains false. So this concept is not actually being applied in the game at all. IS guns are simply garbage. Even the ones that look okay on paper are trash when you take all of the supporting equipment into account.

As long as PGI keeps nerfing IS gear every time they nerf Clan gear or buffing Clan gear every time they buff IS gear, we are never ever going to get out of this rut. And honestly, I don't know that they care. PGI seems content to allow Clans to run the field and that is a shame because I bet IS 'Mechs don't sell as well as Clan 'Mechs and I bet they would sell a lot better if people weren't convinced they would be overly difficult to run against the good Clan 'Mechs that clog every match. Everybody who actually matters wins if IS are actually a good option.


Those cooldowns are good except for that difference between ISERML and CERML, surely that would need to be narrowed a bit (add .75 seconds to ISERML, and reduce clanerml by .5 seconds)? IDK, I would just want that pulse vs normal laser cooldown rate to be substantially distinct, and I think that near 2.5 seconds for medium pulse is perfect.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 19 October 2017 - 02:56 PM.


#20 Nightbird

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Posted 19 October 2017 - 04:13 PM

For the people that say lore values are difficult to balance, you're right. For the people that say lore values are impossible to balance, challenge accepted :)

Why?

1. There is value to following lore. A lot of players came, funded, and continue to fund this game because of Battletech. If they find Rob the Robotwarrior instead, they won't stay.

2. The bar is low. In MWO today IS stuff is strictly inferior to Clan stuff, despite their throwing all lore laser values out the door.

3. My goal is still balance, not lore over balance, but balance within lore. If you compare some of the weapon stats I put in there, however rough, IS weapons have some definite strengths over their Clan counterparts!


I've updated the first post with google docs and also a screenshot of the values. Sorry, should have done this earlier!





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