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#41 MechaBattler

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Posted 11 May 2018 - 04:49 PM

Is it weird that I kinda want to mimic MWO's hit scan lasers?

#42 Koniving

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Posted 11 May 2018 - 05:02 PM

View PostMechaBattler, on 11 May 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

Is it weird that I kinda want to mimic MWO's hit scan lasers?

Not really.

Its hard to mimic them in Battletech though changing the duration of the laser beams might be feasible.

Canonically...
Your every day lasers came in two varieties before pulse lasers even existed in Battletech (written 1 year before they added pulse lasers to the game). (This specific source got de-canonized after being canon for 22 years, mostly due to it being out of date with changes to lore in the 1990s and the flamboyant use of Harmony Gold-sensitive Unseen on...almost literally every other page, but its effectively still true.)

These were:
Star Wars style lasers... 0.1 to 0.2 second "pulses".
and
Star Trek style lasers... 1 to 2 second "sustained beams".

It took several pulses to compare to a sustained beam. Both of these are canon in 1985-1986 (with the game originally debuting in 1984 as BattleDroids). 1987 "Pulse Lasers" were added as a separate weapon, described as "laser machine guns."

Can you see the difference between standard (sustained) lasers and pulse (machine gun) lasers here?
Or here?
Sad I can't find a good example from MW3, as I think it had the best depiction. From behind it looks like one pulsing beam, from the side you can see 'laser bullets'. The best of both worlds, even better pulse lasers were DPS weapons which took longer to get their damage out, but in turn are only slightly hotter than standard lasers (and due to their over time nature, the heat is mitigated by time so as to not be punishing). It was, in effect, a literal laser machine gun.

So if you think regular lasers as assault rifles (long beam) and battle rifles (pulse firing standard lasers)...
then you can think of pulse lasers as submachine guns.
(Bet their range and the pulse laser accuracy bonus might make more sense now, too).

Edited by Koniving, 11 May 2018 - 05:12 PM.


#43 Burke IV

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 01:27 AM

Speaking of unique mechs, i came across a black knight named reynard. I cant swear to it but i think it was one of the random assassinate missions aswell. Shame he couldnt be salvaged.

#44 Metus regem

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 05:16 AM

View PostBurke IV, on 12 May 2018 - 01:27 AM, said:

Speaking of unique mechs, i came across a black knight named reynard. I cant swear to it but i think it was one of the random assassinate missions aswell. Shame he couldnt be salvaged.


It's a big, Reynard is the pilot, he is used by the player about half way through the story... the DEV team admitted that his profile is bugged at the moment, allowing him to be an OpFor pilot when he shouldn't be... still I like the idea of names pilots every so often.

#45 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 07:15 AM

View PostMetus regem, on 12 May 2018 - 05:16 AM, said:



Any ideas on the issue I'm having, where a modified weapon works in a new game, but on an existing game it ignores the modified weapon that's already in my inventory?

Its really halting testing.
Also got a copy of your Beta Json weapon files?

#46 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 07:23 AM

And while waiting on an answer / help with that (starting to wonder if there's some invalidation thingy I need to do like Elder Scrolls/Fallout, or if it "remembers" weapon stats in the save file because having to do a new game over and over to test weapon settings is really frustrating...)...

Have you ever made a lance with a couple of fresh mechwarriors that you don't care about just to throw them in Locusts and try them out?


Its made me realize something. Despite how incredibly low this difficulty setting was for this mission, 2 Locusts (even with the LRM support of an LRM-30 Wolverine and twin LRM-5, AC/5 Dragon)...don't stand a chance against 6 light mechs even with an initially winning lead. It was going south really fast... and half the opfor was Locusts.

In order to get away with a 20 ton, 25 ton only light lance... we'd need either 4 or fewer enemies or more mechs to pull it off. I think its a shame they have purchase info for vehicles, but you can't buy/use vehicles without modding it... and man it'd be nice to have more machines.

#47 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 07:38 AM

Well this is new... I just saw a Shadowhawk 2D attack one Locust, kill it... attack another Locust, damage it... and attack a Dragon...

There's only one SHK on the enemy team and it just attacked 3 targets. What kind of multi-target skill is he using and can I get it?

#48 Burke IV

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 08:08 AM

Cant help feeling there is something vaguely monty python about reynard....

As for the multi target you can attack 3 aswell A B C

Edited by Burke IV, 12 May 2018 - 08:08 AM.


#49 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 08:14 AM

View PostBurke IV, on 12 May 2018 - 08:08 AM, said:

Cant help feeling there is something vaguely monty python about reynard....

As for the multi target you can attack 3 aswell A B C

Is there a level up to do it? It hasn't given me a chance to target a C before or is it that I never thought to try it?

Well I'll be damned....

#50 Metus regem

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 08:20 AM

View PostKoniving, on 12 May 2018 - 07:15 AM, said:

Any ideas on the issue I'm having, where a modified weapon works in a new game, but on an existing game it ignores the modified weapon that's already in my inventory?

Its really halting testing.
Also got a copy of your Beta Json weapon files?


/shrug

No idea why that's happening to you...

I saved an unmodified copy of all the streaming folder on my desktop before I started tweaking files... I'll see what I can do later.

#51 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 08:26 AM

What I'm doing is modifying the stock AC/5 in this case, then loading my game. Got no problems if I modify the stock AC/2 and start a new game to jump into my Blackjack. But if I load a game after modifying the stock 0 AC/5, I'm not getting any changes to it.

#52 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 10:51 AM

Something I've noticed.

If you're unable to move, you're considered destroyed. Two legs... or if you're a vehicle and your motivator (wheels/tracks/etc) is destroyed, the vehicle automatically just explodes. So now I know why vehicles just explode for no other apparent reason when it isn't health.

#53 evilauthor

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 12:39 PM

View PostKoniving, on 11 May 2018 - 02:48 PM, said:

Flamer:
Base TT: 2 damage OR 2 heat damage.
HBS: 5 damage + 10 "Heat Damage" on the enemy.
....has an ammo capacity? Its 6.
Generates ZERO heat?
HBS translated to TT: 1 damage + 2 heat to enemy.

(Fun note: Support weapons are called "Anti-Personnel" weapons in the code.)


Slight nit. While Damage in HBS is multiplied by 5 from TT values, Heat is multiplied by 3, not 5, from TT values. You can see this in the game's heat sinks. Single Heat Sinks reduce 3 heat per turn each, and DHS does 6 heat per turn each. In TT, those values would be 1 and 2 respectively.

So the HBS Flamer's 10 heat "damage" would be 3.3333(repeating) on the TT scale, not 2.Given TT's love of "simplicity", this heat value would likely be rounded up or down..

#54 Koniving

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 01:55 PM

View Postevilauthor, on 12 May 2018 - 12:39 PM, said:


Slight nit. While Damage in HBS is multiplied by 5 from TT values, Heat is multiplied by 3, not 5, from TT values. You can see this in the game's heat sinks. Single Heat Sinks reduce 3 heat per turn each, and DHS does 6 heat per turn each. In TT, those values would be 1 and 2 respectively.

So the HBS Flamer's 10 heat "damage" would be 3.3333(repeating) on the TT scale, not 2.Given TT's love of "simplicity", this heat value would likely be rounded up or down..

I'm aware of this, but...
AC/2 in HBS does 5 heat (1x5). AC/5 does 5 heat (1x5). AC/10 does 15 heat (3x5). AC/20 does 25 (7x5?...Here its 5x5) Large laser does 30 (8x5? Nope, 6x5). ML does 10 heat (3x5? Nope, 2x5)... The list goes on, but for the most part heat generated is times five.

Heatsinks are somewhat inferior to allow heat to matter as opposed to being heat neutral. To counter it some hotter/more frequently used weapons like lasers are made a little colder.

#55 Brain Cancer

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 02:05 PM

View PostBurke IV, on 11 May 2018 - 11:44 AM, said:

A Little note on LRMs and stab, as far as i can tell its impossible to knock a mech over in a single volly of missiles no matter how big that volly gets, at least in the late campaign game. 4xLRM15 with like +1 or i forget misc ++ is the largest i have tryed. 2xLRM20 with +2 stab wont do it either.


That's correct. You can push a target to maximum instability in one barrage, but it always takes a second hit afterwards to knock them over. Something like LRM 30-40 with stability damage bonuses is probably all you really need for a single target to stagger it, followed by someone else giving it so much as a love tap with an AC/SRM/dinky LRM/PPC/whatever stab damage.

#56 Hemholtz

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Posted 12 May 2018 - 10:46 PM

View PostBrain Cancer, on 12 May 2018 - 02:05 PM, said:

That's correct. You can push a target to maximum instability in one barrage, but it always takes a second hit afterwards to knock them over. Something like LRM 30-40 with stability damage bonuses is probably all you really need for a single target to stagger it, followed by someone else giving it so much as a love tap with an AC/SRM/dinky LRM/PPC/whatever stab damage.


So what's the stab damage needed to fill 1 of those small bar? or fill all the bars?
-- been trying to calculate and a LRM35 kintaro with no stab bonus can't fill it...

Also, think there will be a mech pack in the future?
Kinda missing the Marauder, phoenix hawk, warhammer, archer etc....

Edited by Hemholtz, 12 May 2018 - 10:49 PM.


#57 Signal27

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Posted 13 May 2018 - 03:31 PM

View PostKoniving, on 05 May 2018 - 04:48 PM, said:

LRMs and SRMs do modest damage, but are pretty inferior to medium lasers. Stacking multiple launchers can help you do "stability damage" which basically if you stack on enough hits before they move, you can knock 'em over.

But in truth, missiles are kind of a joke. If you have a hit percentage for missiles of 65%, that's per missile so each missile individually has a 65% chance to hit... A number of them are gonna miss....every time.

Consider that damage and armor is up by 5x. So something with 300 armor in TT has 1,500 armor in HBS BT. So each LRM should do 5 damage... but they do 4 damage and often do only 2 damage due to glancing blows.


I know you wrote this up at release, and your appraisal of missiles could very well be valid in the early game. But let me tell you, in the late game (I've beaten the main storyline and have continued to play past that to the point where I regularly do 5-skull difficulty missions) knockdown is a pretty damn important thing to pay attention to, if not THE one and only thing that's going to get you through taking on two lances of fully-maintained assault mechs at once. I am not exaggerating - that's what you will regularly go up against in the most difficult missions.

The name of the game, at least in how I play and design late-game mechs, is to put a mech on its back as soon as possible. And THEN you try to kill it while it's on the ground. So damage becomes a secondary concern while a mech is still on its feet in the late game, and it's all about maximizing stability damage. Once it's on the ground, almost all weapons (including missiles) will have nearly a 95% chance to hit no matter how far away you are, or if the target is behind cover, and most importantly of all you will freely be able to make a called shot. And that's when you lay into a mech's center torso with everything you have, and missiles are just as good as anything at doing damage when you are allowed to make a called shot. Especially if you've boosted a mechwarrior's tactics skill to give them better chances at landing those called shots. Morale Precise Shots are just icing on the cake when you think you can take out a standing mech in one alpha strike.

#58 Signal27

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Posted 13 May 2018 - 03:45 PM

View PostHemholtz, on 12 May 2018 - 10:46 PM, said:


So what's the stab damage needed to fill 1 of those small bar? or fill all the bars?
-- been trying to calculate and a LRM35 kintaro with no stab bonus can't fill it...

Also, think there will be a mech pack in the future?
Kinda missing the Marauder, phoenix hawk, warhammer, archer etc....


By observing how my own weapons are working on mechs, I think it is 100 stability damage to fill all bars. Therefor, each bar represents 20 stability damage.

Also, keep in mind that even if you do over 100 stability damage in a single attack, a mech will never immediately be knocked down. It will always go "Unsteady" first even if you take it from 0 stability damage and fill up all 5 bars in one attack. After that, you can do a single point of stability damage, and it will then be knocked down - provided the mech doesn't take its turn and stabilize itself before you're able to shoot it again.

So in sum: A mech will always need to be "unsteady" first before you can knock it down. And I can't emphasize enough how important knockdown becomes as the game becomes more difficult - see my previous post above.

Edited by Signal27, 13 May 2018 - 03:49 PM.


#59 evilauthor

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Posted 13 May 2018 - 04:25 PM

View PostKoniving, on 12 May 2018 - 01:55 PM, said:

I'm aware of this, but...
AC/2 in HBS does 5 heat (1x5). AC/5 does 5 heat (1x5). AC/10 does 15 heat (3x5). AC/20 does 25 (7x5?...Here its 5x5) Large laser does 30 (8x5? Nope, 6x5). ML does 10 heat (3x5? Nope, 2x5)... The list goes on, but for the most part heat generated is times five.


I'm pretty sure the AC/5 does the same heat as the Medium Laser in HB Battletech. I only realized this when trying to minimize heat generation by turning weapons on and off and noticed that the AC/5 was generating about the same heat as the Medium Laser. When I actually looked at the weapon stats, the AC/5 and Medium Laser had the same heat values.

Hang, on. Starting up the game so I can see what the ACTUAL values are, and we have...

Heat Sink: -3 heat/turn
AC/2: 5 heat
AC/5: 10 heat
AC/10: 15 heat
AC/20: 25 heat
L Laser: 30 heat
M Laser: 10 heat
S Laser: 5 heat
PPC: 40 heat
LRM-5: 6 heat
LRM-10: 12 heat
LRM-15: 15 heat
LRM-20: 18 heat
SRM-2: 6 heat
SRM-4: 8 heat
SRM-6: 14 heat

Because heat sinks in HBS only sink 3 heat each, you can read that to mean either the heat sinks were nerfed compared to the weapons so that they sink less heat than in TT, or the weapons are generating MORE heat than their TT values.

I prefer to use heat sinks as the standard for evaluating heat generation. Or to put it another way, "How many heat sinks do I need to compensate for the heat generated by this weapon?" Because "how many heat sinks" directly translates into "how many tons".

In TT Battletech, you need ONE heat sink to remove all the heat generated by an AC/5. In HBS, you need 3 and a third, effectively 4. In effect, this makes ACs and energy weapons run hotter than their TT counterparts. Even the AC/2 needs more than one heat sink to be heat neutral.

But if you look at the missile weapons and divide their heat by 3, you get EXACTLY the TT heat values for those weapons.

So if you translate "how much heat does this weapon generate?" as "how many heat sinks do I need to cool this weapon?", then the HBS heat values multiply the TT values by a factor of 3, NOT 5.

#60 Signal27

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Posted 13 May 2018 - 04:28 PM

View PostKoniving, on 12 May 2018 - 07:38 AM, said:

Well this is new... I just saw a Shadowhawk 2D attack one Locust, kill it... attack another Locust, damage it... and attack a Dragon...

There's only one SHK on the enemy team and it just attacked 3 targets. What kind of multi-target skill is he using and can I get it?


It's one of the special abilities you can get in the Gunnery skill line, called "Multi Target."





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