22 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

Lets talk: Mech-Mortar.

Quite frankly, I'm rather tired of MWO's basically simmilar games. It's either just brawling, just peekaboos from strikers close-range, skirmishers at mid-range, snipers from long-range, LRMs from LRM batteries.

What if we introduced Mech Mortar? It would have IDF but wouldn't have homing, so if you were hit by an IDF without homing, it should be much-deserved right? Unlike LRMs that need Locks to work with IDF, you have to know the right angle to fire and you could fire whenever but hitting a moving mech would be basically a skill-shot.

Mech Mortar would probably act like a shotgun from above, each shell dealing 5 damage doing 5/10/20/40 total, and the angle of firing is restricted that it cannot land a shell within 180m of it's user.

With an IDF but without homing, that can be fired at an area without visual or need of lock, it should quell passiveness right? Teams would be forced to act quickly and not just hide away.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 05 January 2019 - 05:17 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

Sometimes I wonder if you are actually a living breathing human of flesh and blood, or instead some type of ridiculous entity spawned by the spirits of the forum with some of your crazy *** ideas

[Y E O N N E]

I can already hear the rage of LRM boats getting hammered by IDF without even needing locks.

It's music.

[El Bandito]

How to aim it though? Specifically, how to aim it so that it will land just behind that wall where the enemy is hiding? Will it be like how you aim strikes, cause that wouldn't be enough.

[Anjian]

I have seen this idea popped up in other mech games. I first encountered such a weapon on Chromehounds long ago, where it was offered as a paid DLC. It was quite nasty and is literally like tossing short range grenades.

Something similar is on War Robots. Annoying with its splash AoE damage but not as nasty I've seen on Chromehounds. Hardly anyone plays it at the upper leagues. It only encourage camping in my observation.

Edited by Anjian, 05 January 2019 - 06:32 PM.

[Anjian]

El Bandito, on 05 January 2019 - 06:31 PM, said:

How to aim it though? Specifically, how to aim it so that it will land just behind that wall where the enemy is hiding? Will it be like how you aim strikes, cause that wouldn't be enough.

Range has to be determined automatically by the computer. All you need is a lock on the target, and you probably need either a spotter or a UAV if the target is not LOS, or persistent tracking to continue to track the target behind LOS. User controls the aim of the direction of the mortars or rockets.

Since there is a flight time, the player has to lead the target so the shells will land as he anticipates the target.

Similar system is on World of Warships since warships rely heavily on long range artillery fire.

Edited by Anjian, 05 January 2019 - 06:40 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Range doesn't have to be automated, just do like Tribes 2 or Battlezone did and make the user aim up to change range and angle. No locks, no guidance, no automated BS, just the user's reflexes and mechanical abilities.

Edited by Y E O N N E, 05 January 2019 - 06:40 PM.

[El Bandito]

Anjian, on 05 January 2019 - 06:38 PM, said:

Range has to be determined automatically by the computer. All you need is a lock on the target, and you probably need either a spotter or a UAV if the target is not LOS, or persistent tracking to continue to track the target behind LOS. User controls the aim of the direction of the mortars or rockets.

Since there is a flight time, the player has to lead the target so the shells will land as he anticipates the target.

Similar system is on World of Warships since warships rely heavily on long range artillery fire.

If you need a lock on the target then it's basically LRMs. There should be a way to lob the payload over the wall manually without needing lock on the target.

Y E O N N E, on 05 January 2019 - 06:40 PM, said:

Range doesn't have to be automated, just do like Tribes 2 or Battlezone did and make the user aim up to change range and angle. No locks, no guidance, no automated BS, just the user's reflexes and mechanical abilities.

I'll have to look at those games, but I'm sure it is feasible.

[Verilligo]

Y E O N N E, on 05 January 2019 - 06:40 PM, said:

Range doesn't have to be automated, just do like Tribes 2 or Battlezone did and make the user aim up to change range and angle. No locks, no guidance, no automated BS, just the user's reflexes and mechanical abilities.

Basically the Long Tom from MW4. It required a lot of skill to use and the results weren't always necessarily worth it, but damn it felt satisfying to lob an AoE over a hill and peg someone. The fact that a direct hit essentially paralyzed a player from making any kind of leg or torso adjustments and have his torso forcibly twisted aside for a few seconds was icing on the cake. I'd love to have something like that here in MWO, the indirect fire category could desperately use some additions with varying conditions/restrictions.

[Koniving]

The6thMessenger, on 05 January 2019 - 05:14 PM, said:

Lets talk: Mech-Mortar.

Quite frankly, I'm rather tired of MWO's basically simmilar games. It's either just brawling, just peekaboos from strikers close-range, skirmishers at mid-range, snipers from long-range, LRMs from LRM batteries.

What if we introduced Mech Mortar? It would have IDF but wouldn't have homing, so if you were hit by an IDF without homing, it should be much-deserved right? Unlike LRMs that need Locks to work with IDF, you have to know the right angle to fire and you could fire whenever but hitting a moving mech would be basically a skill-shot.

Mech Mortar would probably act like a shotgun from above, each shell dealing 5 damage doing 5/10/20/40 total, and the angle of firing is restricted that it cannot land a shell within 180m of it's user.

With an IDF but without homing, that can be fired at an area without visual or need of lock, it should quell passiveness right? Teams would be forced to act quickly and not just hide away.

Mech Mortars actually have "some degree of guidance." So they do "guide" toward the target. However AMS won't react to it, and in it not being a missile it can't turn corners or anything.

Mech Mortars are rated by how many shells they can lob within 10 seconds (or in some of the sarna explanations, it fires "several smaller shells" so a big shell that pulls what the LBX was supposed to be and fragments once it gets to a certain point? Either way, LRMs are rated by how many missiles they lob within a ten second period....so that definition needs some modifying. After all a Mech Mortar/8 with 10 tons only doing 16 damage in 10 seconds would be worthless in MWO.

So PGI might have it lob 8 shells within 4 seconds? Or a spread of 8 shells. Either way each one does 2 damage.

Already we have a problem, how MWO has front loaded all the firepower makes this difficult to make useful without seriously diminishing its DPS, or oversaturating the firing rate to the point of spam to make it worth something (like LRMs).

You also get 4 uses per ton of the Mech Mortar/8, so 8 shells per use, that's 32 shells per ton at 2 damage/shell.

So serious lack of ammo is the second issue.

I welcome anyone else to add additional issues. Don't get me wrong I want Mech Mortars and Rifles in the game.
But PGI's already shot itself in the foot in such a way that it couldn't be made useful without drastically changing what other weapons have become thanks to PGI ignoring the fluff in favor of their design direction.

Edited by Koniving, 05 January 2019 - 07:13 PM.

[LordNothing]

more stuff is good.

[Kaeb Odellas]

I imagine PGI would have to add a separate reticle just for

Y E O N N E, on 05 January 2019 - 06:00 PM, said:

I can already hear the rage of LRM boats getting hammered by IDF without even needing locks.

It's music.

Why would such an ability have to be reserved for mech mortars? I'd love to be able to lob unguided LRMs in a ballistic trajectory over cover. It would be better than the current system where dumbfire LRMs just land at the point your reticle points to, which is pretty much unusable unless your target never moves.

[Trevor Devalis]

I agree, LRMs would be more interesting this way. Maybe make them have a direct fire mode and an indirect fire mode. Maybe the IDF would look like some of the grenade trajectories from other games. An arced dotted line that changes the higher or lower you raise your reticle, with an area effect circle.

Edited by Trevor Devalis, 05 January 2019 - 07:49 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Kaeb Odellas, on 05 January 2019 - 07:40 PM, said:

Why would such an ability have to be reserved for mech mortars? I'd love to be able to lob unguided LRMs in a ballistic trajectory over cover. It would be better than the current system where dumbfire LRMs just land at the point your reticle points to, which is pretty much unusable unless your target never moves.

Because mortars explode with an AoE and LRMs do not. That's not what LRMs do.

[Koniving]

Trevor Devalis, on 05 January 2019 - 07:46 PM, said:

I agree, LRMs would be more interesting this way. Maybe make them have a direct fire mode and an indirect fire mode. Maybe the IDF would look like some of the grenade trajectories from other games. An arced dotted line that changes the higher or lower you raise your reticle, with an area effect circle.

They do.
The deciding factor is distance to target.
The slight issue is while they can be dumbfired over cover, it relies on whether or not you can "see" where you want it to try to hit with your reticle. You can, so long as you can see the final destination, have them go up and over obstacles in between just fine. If you want them to hit an enemy standing behind cover, there's a trick for that too. But that's a bit harder, what you do is you aim the reticle at the ground behind the actual target's hiding spot, and if they are tall enough, the missiles will hit them on the way down to the intended destination.

Sadly dumbfiring LRMs in general is pretty unpopular, and when you do land good shots you get the "How are you locking me I have ECM I have stealth armor and I'm 873 meters away you ******* cheating sack of ****!"
God I love that response. Of course the reason is simple "you're standing still behind a building."
But if we tell them that they might learn and stop doing it... So instead, "I unlocked some skillz."

(You can actually fire your LRMs in two different directions at once if you wanted...)

[Anjian]

El Bandito, on 05 January 2019 - 07:00 PM, said:

If you need a lock on the target then it's basically LRMs. There should be a way to lob the payload over the wall manually without needing lock on the target.

The mortars will have an AOE effect, and they are unguided. The target reticle lock is only for ranging, but where you want to angle or direct the mortars is manual and up to you. If the mortars rely completely on lock on for aim and direction, you won't hit anything because lock on cannot anticipate or lead the target where it is going. When you fire the mortars, the target won't be there when they arrive. Its the leading and anticipating the target that's the skill investment on weapons with ballistic arcs.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Y E O N N E, on 05 January 2019 - 08:15 PM, said:

Because mortars explode with an AoE and LRMs do not. That's not what LRMs do.

I don't need them to do AoE damage. Fishing for direct hits is fine, especially if they're clumped up.

[FupDup]

It's basically just the same firing mechanic as the Long Tom from Mechwarrior 4.

[Y E O N N E]

Kaeb Odellas, on 05 January 2019 - 08:42 PM, said:

I don't need them to do AoE damage. Fishing for direct hits is fine, especially if they're clumped up.

We're still going to get music, though, because doing that is going to be a lot of wasted ammo and have less impact than IDF dumbfire for AoE shells. The screaming from LRM boats as shells detonate around them and their missiles all but completely uselessly dive into the ground on the other end will be amazing.

And, not that I give a damn about lore, but aren't LRMs not supposed to be able to do IDF without a lock anyway?

Edited by Y E O N N E, 05 January 2019 - 09:24 PM.

[50 50]

Y E O N N E, on 05 January 2019 - 09:23 PM, said:

And, not that I give a damn about lore, but aren't LRMs not supposed to be able to do IDF without a lock anyway?

Something like that.
However, if LRMs as a weapon did not have an indirect option and did not lock on it creates room for thunder LRMs as an indirect weapon and streak LRMs for a lock on so we then have 3 different options.
Mech mortars provide another option, possibly as a ballistic?
There are also weapons like the Arrow IV and I believe the Thumper Artillery that could be mounted on mechs to give additional options.

I like the idea of indirect weapons having the firing arc in the HUD with some slightly different mechanics to how the weapons are then used.

How much of an impact it might have on the game play.... don't know.... it could shake things up and give some new tactical options.