87 replies to this topic

[Finn McShae]

Only been back for a few dozen drops but I have been really liking dual HPPcs for my MAD and WHMs.

And I cram a snubbie in wherever I can, usually over large lasers. I like the pinpoint over dot, and don't have TOO much trouble leading targets.

[Mystere]

Bombast, on 28 December 2017 - 06:27 AM, said:

What isn't possible is a 'ball' of lightning that kind of just mozzies around the battlefield, taking its sweet *** time getting anywhere.

<cough!> Project Marauder <cough!>

[Bombast]

Mystere, on 28 December 2017 - 08:35 AM, said:

<cough!> Project Marauder <cough!>

Wikipedia said:

The ultimate goal of the MARAUDER program was to accelerate highly dense toroids containing plasma to high speeds. Such a system could be used for “hypervelocity projectiles,” x-ray production, and electrical power amplification.

Plus, that thing fired donuts, not balls. That's entirely different.

[RoadblockXL]

Is this a troll post? Because...

[humpday alt]

Bush Hopper, on 28 December 2017 - 07:29 AM, said:

It is also about consistency. PPCs have a deadzone...and Gauss? They should have a 30m deadzone as well

No way. Its rail gun, any solid projectile being accelerated and X fps should have no min range.
Plus, what are you going to do if a freaking light comes around to whack you, they're already hard to hit with gauss up close, easier from a far....but if that sucker is running around up close...good night!

Also, snubs are great. They pair with autocannons well, most notably the dead left, right stacked ac20 dual snub MAD-3R. Or the WHM-6R. On a Bushwacker you run run 3-asrm6 + a sub, instead of the much heavier ac10 because, lets be real the ac10s rate of fire is negligible there since you go ahead and wait for your srms to come back off cooldown anyway.

Requiemking, on 27 December 2017 - 10:10 PM, said:

Khobai, why is it that every single suggestion of yours that I see seems to be hellbent on removing as much fun from MWO as possible. Remove Snubbies just because, remove RLs because you don't like them, make Scout mode as unfriendly to Lights as possible. I'm starting to think you hate fun or something.

For real.

[Alkabides]

Light ppc then?

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Tarogato, on 27 December 2017 - 08:02 PM, said:

Personally, I'd go with "distance fired under 90m translates to percent of damage that you deal to yourself instead of the enemy." So if you hit something at 45m, it deals 50% damage to the enemy, and 50% to you.

That's my interpretation on the lore, anyways.

I've been advocating for that for about a year now but you may be the first other person I have seen who supports this plan.

[Lightfoot]

PPCs do cause a heat surge on the target, but I do not think this is represented in MWO. I never checked.

Here is the BattleTech rundown on them though.

"The Particle Projector Cannon (or PPC) is an energy weapon, firing a concentrated stream of protons or ions at a target, with damage resulting from both thermal and kinetic energy. Despite being an energy weapon, it produces recoil. The lethality of the weapon rivals that of higher-caliber autocannons; just three shots from a PPC will vaporize nearly two tons of standard military-grade armor. Targets hit by multiple, simultaneous PPCs can also suffer electrical side-effects, such as overloaded computer systems or targeting sensors. The ion beam also extends to much farther ranges than autocannon fire, though PPCs generate large amounts of waste heat.

PPCs are equipped with a Field Inhibitor to prevent feedback which could damage the firing unit's electronic systems. This inhibitor degrades the performance of the weapon at close ranges of less than 90 meters. Particularly daring warriors have been known to disengage the inhibitor and risk damage to their own machine when a target is at close range."

Now in MechWarrior 3, they did scramble a mech's sensors for 2-3 seconds and caused about 3-4 heat spike. Been a long time since my mech was shot with MW3 PPCs, but we did note a small heat-spike.

Edited by Lightfoot, 28 December 2017 - 11:02 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

PPCs do cause a heat surge on the target,

nope they dont. its not a rule in battletech.

only flamers, plasma weapons, and inferno missiles cause heat surge

[Y E O N N E]

That's not what that particular line means. It means physical-type damage results from the beam hitting with great force (kinetic) and the immediate spot exploding outward as the beam excites the material (thermal). A standard laser is doing physical damage from thermal effects with no kinetic component.

Contrast with the Plasma Rifle that explicitly does thermal-type damage.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 28 December 2017 - 11:05 AM, said:

nope they dont. its not a rule in battletech.

only flamers, plasma weapons, and inferno missiles cause heat surge

Yeonne Greene, on 28 December 2017 - 11:09 AM, said:

That's not what that particular line means. It means physical-type damage results from the beam hitting with great force (kinetic) and the immediate spot exploding outward as the beam excites the material (thermal). A standard laser is doing physical damage from thermal effects with no kinetic component.

Contrast with the Plasma Rifle that explicitly does thermal-type damage.

You are both right. However,

"Targets hit by multiple, simultaneous PPCs can also suffer electrical side-effects, such as overloaded computer systems or targeting sensors."

Can we have have these, please, pretty please?

[Khobai]

PPCs caused HUD scrambling effects in other mechwarrior games. So theres precedent for it.

I see no reason why PPCs shouldnt be able to scramble HUDs in MWO too, but I think it should be a skill tree unlock.

Add two new skills to the weapon tree:
Scramble I - Your PPCs cause a HUD scrambling effect that lasts for 1 second.
Scramble II -Your PPCs cause a HUD scrambling effect that lasts for 2 seconds.

Also the counterskill of EMP Hardening should be added to the operations tree:
EMP Hardening I - Reduces the duration of HUD scrambling effects by 50%.
EMP Hardening II - Reduces the duration of HUD scrambling effects by 50%.

Adding scrambling would allow magnetic pulse warheads to be added to the game as well for both SRMs and LRMs.

Additionally, NARC beacons should explode for 6-8 points of damage when their duration expires. And they should cause a 2 second HUD scramble effect when they explode. That would help make NARC more worthwhile (kindve like a combination of homing pod, explosive pod, and haywire pod).

Lastly, PPCs fired inside their min range should also scramble the user. Heavy lasers should scramble the user as well (its in the lore that heavy laser's interfere with the firing mech's sensors).


HUD scramble should look similar to this (skip to 25 seconds) but it should also reset your sensor target and prevent you from targeting new enemies for the duration of the scramble. Unless you have EMP Hardening.





...and SNPPC should still be deleted

Edited by Khobai, 28 December 2017 - 12:41 PM.

[Bombast]

Lightfoot, on 28 December 2017 - 10:59 AM, said:

PPCs do cause a heat surge on the target, but I do not think this is represented in MWO. I never checked.

PPCs have never, as far as I know, caused heat surges on targeted mechs. The 'thermal' part of the PPCs damage is akin to a laser, not a Flamer.

[ANOM O MECH]

Dr Hobo, on 28 December 2017 - 02:33 AM, said:

Because my Vindicator 1AAC has a larger engine than my other 1AA and loses one heat sink. I might have to experiment more and see what i can come up with,but yeah at the moment,for me, SNPPCs are cooler to fire than my LPL Vindi.I suspect that's the general reason of why,either that,or the wonky heat system strikes again.

Then again too,I'm always moving with the SNPPC vindi because i want to get a better angle,and that allows me to snapshot much easier than i could with LPL or other PPC types.

If you like the pinpoint and favour weapons that behave like ballistics I can see why you'd like the snub.

If however you want to go for what is currently the best and most effective, you'll throw large lasers on instead. The duration is short enough and the weight, heat, ect make the LPL not worth taking anymore after losing the point of damage.

[ANOM O MECH]

Khobai, on 27 December 2017 - 07:55 PM, said:

PPC min range needs to be replaced with linear damage dropoff with an absolute minimum of 33% damage

So at 0m youd do 3.33 damage which would scale up linearly to 10 damage at 90m.

No weapon should have a zero damage deadzone.

either that or just remove the minrange entirely on all PPCs. and get rid of the SNPPC.

I would actually take a slightly different approach and remove ppc's and leave erppc's and snubs for the weight and crit slot savings.

If you were to remove one I am just thinking that having erppc's and ppc's at the same weight and crits, even if heat and range is different, is not enough of a differentiator to justify having both. I have never used ppc's in this game other than a handful of times (mostly the old trial Panther), and have never found a good enough reason to use them with their limitations over the erppc.

So I think for variety and diversity, it really would make much more sense to kill off the ppc instead of the snub.

By the way you are speaking in absolutes however I am not sure you will think any of that matters. Where you a big fan of plain jane ppc's in other games?

[Khobai]

Quote

By the way you are speaking in absolutes however I am not sure you will think any of that matters. Where you a big fan of plain jane ppc's in other games?

the other games didnt have all the weird PPCs

usually it was just PPCs and ERPPCs

and the PPCs had no min range

I dont think there needs to be 5 different PPCs... because it forces all of them to be overspecialized in order to prevent any of them from being obsolete... and too many overspecialized options can be just as boring as not enough options.

Id rather just have like 3 solid PPC types, instead of a bunch of overspecialized flaky PPCs.

Edited by Khobai, 28 December 2017 - 12:55 PM.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 28 December 2017 - 12:04 PM, said:

PPCs caused HUD scrambling effects in other mechwarrior games. So theres precedent for it.

I see no reason why PPCs shouldnt be able to scramble HUDs in MWO too, but I think it should be a skill tree unlock.

Why should it be a skill tree unlock? You're just disadvantaging new players. Given your previous position on the latter, I am quite surprised by this.

Khobai, on 28 December 2017 - 12:04 PM, said:

...and SNPPC should still be deleted

No. Instead, you should learn how to have fun with SNPPCs.

[panzer1b]

PPCs aint that bad, but there are 3 things going against them. First of all, they are heavier AND take up more slots then lasers, making them inefficient from the start at dealing raw damage. Second, they are projectile weapons which regardless of player skill, puts limitations on what can be effectiveley engaged by them, since even the best players have difficulty nailing a single component beyond mid range with them and a target that randomly changes direction can evade the entire blast. Finally, they are extremely restricted by ghost heat, and at least in my opinion, 20 PPFLD isnt enough to even justify their use over lasers (which can get 50+ pinpoint damage even if its inst instantaneously applied).

Because of all that, the ONLY PPC i use seriously is the HPPC on a handful of mechs that are heavily quirked for PPCs. The HPPC is unique in that it allows 30 PPFLD which is about the least id consider worth bothering with since 30 points of damage delived twice to 1 ST will open it up on most mechs, while 20 PPFLD requires at least 3 consequtive hits to do any meaningful damage (compared to a laser alfa that will 2 shot the entire ST reliably).

All the rest suck, especially snubs which are terrible weapons vs the LPL (hitscan PPFLD with better heat management and but 1 more ton, well not "technically" PPFLD but 0.6s burn time may as well be). The regular PPC just doesnt deliver alfa strike needed, and the LPPC is a joke (any mech that has tonnage issues and cant fit regulars might as well bring 6 MLs and do 10 times better). Only use ive found for LPPCs is when i want a energy autocannon, and thats 7 of them on chainfire, hardly a effective or dangerous build, just alot of funny...

Edited by panzer1b, 28 December 2017 - 01:53 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Why should it be a skill tree unlock? You're just disadvantaging new players. Given your previous position on the latter, I am quite surprised by this.

new players are already heavily disadvantaged by not having any of the cooling skills in the skill tree. lack of scrambling on their PPCs is the least of their concerns. I doubt most new players even use PPCs.

and the reason why it should require a skill unlock is because its a really good ability. you shouldnt get it for free. just like you dont get reduced laser duration for free.

Quote

All the rest suck, especially snubs which are terrible weapons vs the LPL

exactly my point lol

but Im fairly certain the regular PPC and HPPC can be saved by removing their min range, reducing the heat on the regular PPC at least, and giving them the ability to scramble HUDs/disrupt sensors.

LPPC im not so sure can be saved (LPPC could possibly be saved by adding PPC capacitors). And SNPPC im pretty sure cant be saved unless you make it into a non-canon weapon like an energy LBX which is ridiculous lol.

Edited by Khobai, 28 December 2017 - 02:59 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 28 December 2017 - 02:52 PM, said:

And SNPPC im pretty sure cant be saved.

I don't think its fair to say 'they can't be saved' while refusing to even consider changes that could save them.

Edited by Bombast, 28 December 2017 - 03:09 PM.