27 replies to this topic

[Bless_O_Blee]

Anyone have ideas how PGI could implement the long tom cannon if they wanted to? I think if we had Artillery pieces it would make the game really interesting. I understand we have the artillery and airstrike skills but I mean how badass would it be to have a big artillery mech?

Maybe make it so only one player per team can have a long tom or something?

YOU CALLED DOWN THE THUNDER! NOW REAP THE WHIRLWIND!

Edited by Hawk Eye Gouge, 16 January 2018 - 09:22 AM.

[Daggett]

As if lurms would not promote that 'sit back and relax until backstabbed by a light mech' playstyle well enough...

But if i'm allowed to brawl and one-shot people in cqc with long-tom then... gimme!
(but give it only to me, i don't want to get one-shotted)

Edited by Daggett, 16 January 2018 - 09:33 AM.

[Bud Crue]

There are videos on you tube which illustrate exactlly how PGI implemented the Long Tom once upon a time. It wasn’t via a “big artillery mech”, it was a nuclear strike from the sky, and it for all intent and purposes killed the CW mode for much of the player population. I fear that if PGI tried the Long Tom again, be it in faction play or QP, it would be just as disasterous the second time as it was the first, even if they plopped it on a mech.

[Daggett]

Bud Crue, on 16 January 2018 - 09:31 AM, said:

There are videos on you tube which illustrate exactlly how PGI implemented the Long Tom once upon a time. It wasn’t via a “big artillery mech”, it was a nuclear strike from the sky, and it for all intent and purposes killed the CW mode for much of the player population. I fear that if PGI tried the Long Tom again, be it in faction play or QP, it would be just as disasterous the second time as it was the first, even if they plopped it on a mech.

Ahh i forgot (probably because i'm not a FP player). That long-tom design was hilariously dumb but at least brought us a great B33F video:

Edited by Daggett, 16 January 2018 - 09:43 AM.

[Metus regem]

As others have said, PGI put in Long Tom, or rather they put in what amounts to this:




What the Long Tom really is (at least in TT [table top]) is more akin to what we have for artillery strike consumables....

Mech mounted versions would be useless in MWO due to the fact that they are designed to hit targets kilometers away and have an accuracy measured in 30m increments... that's not so bad since they do damage to a 90m diameter area....

[Bombast]

I can think of one way to implement them.

[justcallme A S H]

We had Long Tom once. Back in FP3.0 patch, the patch that broke Faction Play forever.

It caused 1,000s of players to leave, decimated units to pieces and overall broke MWO like no other patch.

The funny part is It took Russ 10 months to admit it was bad and remove it because it was his pet idea to make the game amazing... No idea how some arbitrary nuke is amazing...


Let's NEVER speak of it again.

[Leone]

The real sad thing is, I'd've loved to've gone up against the Long Tom more, but once it dropped on a planet CW would die off there. I think it made for a tough mechanic to fight against, but my unit always had the long tom on our side if we had it at all.

Never really got to try an beat a match with a long tom handicap, cuz no one wanted to fight there.

That said it was alot more'n it needed to be. They could've just gone with a large artillery barrage and it'da been better'n it was. Reasonable almost. Instead we got mech melting Davy Crocketts.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 16 January 2018 - 10:13 AM.

[Water Bear]

Daggett, on 16 January 2018 - 09:40 AM, said:

Ahh i forgot (probably because i'm not a FP player). That long-tom design was hilariously dumb but at least brought us a great B33F video:

That video was fantastic. Truly amazing.

On a more serious note, I cannot believe they actually put that in the game.

[Metus regem]

Water Bear, on 16 January 2018 - 10:27 AM, said:

That video was fantastic. Truly amazing.

On a more serious note, I cannot believe they actually put that in the game.

Neither could the player base.....

[Big Tin Man]

What is sad about Long Tom is that it had potential to be a good addition to FP. If only they made it that it was a player called consumable only usable by the person who took command, and it was a direct LOS call, like a consumable. Automatic damage from the sky finger was awful.

The nerfed damage version of it was probably just about right, as an Arty+. The original version with Tsar Bomba levels of firepower made FP awful.

[Hit the Deck]

I'm a friend of artilleries!





...on a battlemech, that is (yes it's not happening here).

[Khobai]

ARROW IV would make far more sense to implement

since both IS and clans can use it

longtom would be unfair since its IS only. longtom would also require special coding for barrel pitch which I believe is beyond PGI's ability.


ARROWIV could be easily implemented as a hard wired weapon system on specific mechs like the catapult-3 and naga and perhaps the thunderhawk. it would have to be hard wired onto those mechs though because of crit splitting not existing. But it makes sense to limit artillery class weapons to only certain mechs anyway.

ARROWIV could just work like a big LRM with splash damage. It would have a minimum range of several hundred meters. And it would require the target be tagged to have any reasonable chance of directly hitting.

Implementing ARROWIV would also allow Thunderbolt LRMs to be implemented fairly easily.

Edited by Khobai, 16 January 2018 - 12:05 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 16 January 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

longtom would be unfair since its IS only

Actually the Clans do have Long Toms - There's just no Clan Long Tom. Both IS and Clans use the 'Star league' model. So technically, it would actually be the most fair.

Edited by Bombast, 16 January 2018 - 12:07 PM.

[Metus regem]

Khobai, on 16 January 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

ARROW IV would make far more sense to implement

since both IS and clans can use it

longtom would be unfair since its IS only. longtom would also require special coding for barrel pitch which I believe is beyond PGI's ability.


ARROWIV could be easily implemented as a hard wired weapon system on specific mechs like the catapult-3 and naga and perhaps the thunderhawk. it would have to be hard wired onto those mechs though because of crit splitting not existing. But it makes sense to limit artillery class weapons to only certain mechs anyway.

ARROWIV could just work like a big LRM with splash damage. It would have a minimum range of several hundred meters. And it would require the target be tagged to have any reasonable chance of directly hitting.

Implementing ARROWIV would also allow Thunderbolt LRMs to be implemented fairly easily.

That minimum range only applies when fired as indirect... they do have a direct fire mode for targets closer than 17 hexes (521M)....

[Khobai]

Quote

That minimum range only applies when fired as indirect... they do have a direct fire mode for targets closer than 17 hexes (521M)....

for balance purposes it would need a minimum range of several hundreds meters in MWO

otherwise you could just dumbfire the thing into enemy mechs at close range. that would be stupid.

you would need at least a 300m-400m minimum range probably. unlimited max range though.

Edited by Khobai, 16 January 2018 - 12:14 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 16 January 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

like I said ARROWIV would be better. since theres actually clan and IS versions of it.

No, you said it would be unfair because only the IS can use it. Which is incorrect - Not only can IS and Clans use the Long Tom, but they use the same one.

Seems pretty fair to me. Unlike Arrow IV, where there's the usual tech discrepancy.

EDIT: As for coding, that's actually pretty easy - Any mech that runs a Long Tom must put at least some of it in the arm. They also lose the usage of actuators. So just link all regular weapons to the torso aim, and use the vertical arm aim for the Long Tom barrel.

Easy.

Edited by Bombast, 16 January 2018 - 12:17 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

No, you said it would be unfair because only the IS can use it. Which is incorrect - Not only can IS and Clans use the Long Tom, but they use the same one.

show me a clan mech that exists in MWO that uses long tom. there isnt one.

you are completely wrong.

some of the older star league mechs might use them, but clans cant use those mechs in MWO. And because the game has no crit-splitting, longtom would have to be a hardwired weapon system too. PGI isnt going to code in crit splitting ever. So hardwiring it to specific mechs is the only way you could do it.

But like I said long tom also requires all kinds of special coding to independently control the barrel pitch. ARROWIV can just use existing missile code.

ARROWIV is the only artillery weapon that can be reasonably added to the game. Theres both omnimechs and IS mechs that use ARROWIV. All it would require is adding the Naga and the Catapult-C3 variant. ARROWIV could then be hardwired into those mechs and couldnt be removed to get around the crit-splitting issue. And they would be the only two mechs that can use ARROWIV.

ARROWIV weapon meshes are huge too. Its not the kindve thing every mech could accomodate. So it makes sense to limit it only to specific mechs. It also significantly reduces the amount of work required to get it into the game.

If you want to get mech-based artillery weapons into the game in the shortest timeframe possible with the least amount of work required, ARROWIV is the way to go. All it would require is them adding the Naga, one new variant of the Catapult. Two weapon meshes. An ARROWIV projectile with some particle effects. And some XML coding.

Edited by Khobai, 16 January 2018 - 12:28 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 16 January 2018 - 12:16 PM, said:

show me a clan mech that exists in MWO that uses long tom. there isnt one.

you are completely wrong.

I already showed you the TechManual Tactical Operations that says Clans have access to Long Toms. I am right.

EDIT: Sorry, Tactical Operations. My bad.

Edited by Bombast, 16 January 2018 - 12:20 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I already showed you the TechManual Tactical Operations that says Clans have access to Long Toms. I am right.

EDIT: Sorry, Tactical Operations. My bad.

youre not right. because none of the star league mechs that have long toms can be used by clans in MWO. unless they start allowing clans to use IS mechs, but IS players will shut that down immediately.

ive explained this already. THERE IS NO CRIT SPLITTING IN THE GAME. which means long toms have to be hardwired to specific mechs. Namely the mechs that have longtoms in their stock configurations. Which clans dont have any of.

you cannot simply stick a longtom on a kodiak or direwolf for example, because it takes up 15 crit slots. The only way PGI could make it work is if they hardwired the weapon onto mechs that are SUPPOSED to have longtoms. Because it doesnt make sense to hardwire a weapon system onto a mech that isnt suppose to use that weapon.

but theres also a myriad of other problems with the longtom like the fact it requires special coding for barrel pitch. And they would have to add dynamic crit splitting. Its simply not going to happen.

But clans actually have a recent omnimech that uses ARROWIV on its stock config. The Naga. Thats why ARROWIV makes so much more sense.

Edited by Khobai, 16 January 2018 - 12:41 PM.