42 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

Prototelis, on 23 August 2019 - 12:02 AM, said:

The problem is, for whatever reason, they don't revisit mechs and give them love to keep up with power creep.

Like if that spider had 60% energy cooldown (spitballing) to give it DPS to compete with the nominal 5-6 mpulse it would be awesome.

I know. It's so weird. Another lost opportunity in a sea of opportunities in MWO. *sigh*

[Prototelis]

This isn't an issue on the TT game if you're playing rules that allow customization without some sort of big *** tax.

And even then, this is IMO one of fundamental issues in battletech.

[Curccu]

FRAGTAST1C, on 22 August 2019 - 11:58 PM, said:

I'd definitely have bought the Spider 5V if I could carry 2 Snubnose PPCs. Instead, it's either 1 or 2 MPLs.

But SDR-5V 1xLPL actually pretty fun and can annoy slow assaults to death.

Prototelis, on 23 August 2019 - 12:02 AM, said:

Like if that spider had 60% energy cooldown (spitballing) to give it DPS to compete with the nominal 5-6 mpulse it would be awesome.

That kind of epic quirks can obsolete "good" mechs... If you got spider with 2MPLs but DPS is same as with 6MPL Wolfhound, but you can have it with 6 tons less = more heatsinks which would make it have superior sustained DPS also.

I think closest thing we ever had to that was Dragon 1N (50% CD for AC5 and was it 12,5% from module and I think we still had some skilltree cooldown 10%?), which was fun and it also had great weakness (shoot that arm off) but bad players who cannot aim cannot shoot that arm of and dragon was decided that it was OP and got nerfed and never seen again in battlefields.

[Prototelis]

So make it fragile? I dunno. When I think of completely pointless light mechs the spider is definitely the first thing that comes to mind.

[Verilligo]

Curccu, on 23 August 2019 - 04:14 AM, said:

That kind of epic quirks can obsolete "good" mechs... If you got spider with 2MPLs but DPS is same as with 6MPL Wolfhound, but you can have it with 6 tons less = more heatsinks which would make it have superior sustained DPS also.

I think closest thing we ever had to that was Dragon 1N (50% CD for AC5 and was it 12,5% from module and I think we still had some skilltree cooldown 10%?), which was fun and it also had great weakness (shoot that arm off) but bad players who cannot aim cannot shoot that arm of and dragon was decided that it was OP and got nerfed and never seen again in battlefields.

I see no problem with the Spider 2V gaining a superior DPS and sustain to the Wolfhound. That doesn't obsolete the Wolfhound, it means you have an alternative to the Wolfhound. You would still only be doing 12 damage at a time, rather than the 36 at a time of the Wolfhound. You have to stay exposed and stay on target to make effective use of the increased DPS and sustain while remaining at very close range. If you can do that, you absolutely deserve to do more DPS than the Wolfie, or at the very least the same DPS.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Curccu, on 23 August 2019 - 04:14 AM, said:

But SDR-5V 1xLPL actually pretty fun and can annoy slow assaults to death.

Come on, man. Given how the games pan out in QP and how weak a single LPL can be in FW, can you honestly have fun in that mech with that build? Besides, the Spider isn't a small mech. It is pretty tall and ends up being easy to hit.

[Curccu]

FRAGTAST1C, on 23 August 2019 - 08:33 AM, said:

Come on, man. Given how the games pan out in QP and how weak a single LPL can be in FW, can you honestly have fun in that mech with that build? Besides, the Spider isn't a small mech. It is pretty tall and ends up being easy to hit.

I didn't say it was carry a game mech... but fun and yes I have enjoyed some games in that and usually scored 300-700 dmg each game, sure if it's 1 minute stomp then there isn't much time to do damage.
Tallness is problem only if you use tall mech wrong, that spider is fast, super agile and jumpy

[Dee Eight]

Prototelis, on 22 August 2019 - 10:04 AM, said:

Machine gun arrays and light ACs would be awesome.

Machine gun arrays simply allowed for one to-hit roll and one hit-location roll for multiple machine guns. MWO already effectively has that with near perfect convergence of all weapons.

[Prototelis]

In MW4 they worked more like putting mo MGs in a smaller sized hardpoint with the same tonnage as 3 mgs.

I imagine they'd work the same here.

[FupDup]

Prototelis, on 24 August 2019 - 11:47 AM, said:

In MW4 they worked more like putting mo MGs in a smaller sized hardpoint with the same tonnage as 3 mgs.

I imagine they'd work the same here.

MW4 didn't have individual MGs. MG Arrays were the only MGs in that game.

In MWO, letting people pack 4 MGs into one hardpoint would be broken because it would let nearly any mech over 40-45 tons pack similar MG power as a Piranha but without the fragility of the Piranha. Individual MGs would have to get nerfed to account for hardpoint limitations being more or less thrown out the window, or MG Arrays would have to not actually do the same damage as X number of MGs (i.e. an MGA-4 would not do 4x the DPS of an individual MG).

Edited by FupDup, 24 August 2019 - 01:03 PM.

[Koniving]

FRAGTAST1C, on 22 August 2019 - 12:33 AM, said:

Why?! On top of that, they nerf certain mechs if they deem it to be too powerful?

Pretty much, no. They base the locatrions on canonical builds, but then arbitrarily throw numbers at it.

In the first mechs there was an obvious system. If a weapon was the largest possible size, you got 2 hardpoints instead of one, otherwise you got what they had for stock unless to create variety (as many mechs have similar builds but changed out the armor type or somesuch). The King Crab as a very quick example has only one tenable difference that could be reflected in MWO, the 000 and 0000's only difference is half a ton of armor and which armor type.
The canonical difference is the entire weaponset was changed out. Deathgiver 120mms (burst fire) swapped with a 100mm Imperator D fully automatic autocannon. Large Laser was swapped out with another brand that was easier to come by. Missile launcher was swapped out. with something classified as the same but was inferior. The sensor, communications and targeting systems were also changed to a lower grade as well, partly out of necessity and partly because they don't use it as a command mech due to its severely limited accurate ranges and vulnerabilities as a mech without Torso Twist.

A quick glimpse at sarna can show there's nothing canonical about the hardpoint layout.

Though entries like Mech Mortar and MRMs will point out remnants of a softpoint system (which is meaningless in MWO; there's no time penalties for changing out equipment nor urgency in doing so).
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/MRM-10
"The MRM-10 is the lightest and smallest MRM launcher. It was designed to easily be swapped in for an SRM-6."
Basically meaning you had less of a time penalty for that swap in an emergency or very limited time before an attack.

[Prototelis]

FupDup, on 24 August 2019 - 01:01 PM, said:

In MWO, letting people pack 4 MGs into one hardpoint would be broken because it would let nearly any mech over 40-45 tons pack similar MG power as a Piranha but without the fragility of the Piranha.

Not if the arrays weighed as much as all the MGs put together and they only gave them to IS. Either way, they could definitely be tweaked to work for hardpoint starved mechs.

I don't exactly give a **** about TT numbers or board game lore.

Edited by Prototelis, 24 August 2019 - 01:08 PM.

[Koniving]

For someone else:
http://www.sarna.net...chine_Gun_Array

One, the arrays weighed 0.5 tons + the MGs put into it.
Two, both sides had it.
Three,6 ballistic hardpoints, 6 arrays, 4 MGs per array.
15 tons, 24 MGs, 2.4 damage per 0.1 seconds or 24 damage per second in MWO's stats with no heat, no way of governing it, and we'd have to nerf MGs in order to nerf the array...
So that poor ******* only carrying 2 gets screwed.

Edited by Koniving, 24 August 2019 - 01:11 PM.

[FupDup]

Prototelis, on 24 August 2019 - 01:05 PM, said:

Not if the arrays weighed as much as all the MGs put together and they only gave them to IS. Either way, they could definitely be tweaked to work for hardpoint starved mechs.

I don't exactly give a **** about TT numbers or board game lore.

The tonnage/slot rules (that PGI will always follow) for MG Arrays is that you add up all the tonnage/slots of between 2-4 MGs then you add an extra normal MG's worth of tonnage and 1 slot (i.e. +0.5 for IS and +0.25 for Clan). So, the IS MGA-4 is 2.5 tons and 5 slots while the Clan MGA-4 is 1.25 tons and 5 slots.

That doesn't fix the issue. The Piranha's power is kept in check by its fragility. Giving access to up to 16 MGs to many mediums, heavies, and assaults would more likely than not cause more rounds of global MG nerfs just like the Piranha's release did. It's similar to the trade-off of dealing with low Ghost Heat limits on certain weapons so that the individual guns can be stronger, rather than having a higher cap but weaker individual guns.

That's why on the first page I suggested that MG Arrays would just be an add-on item that reduce/remove the spread of all MGs attached to it and give a range boost (you still need individual hardpoints for each MG). Basically Artemis for MGs.

Edited by FupDup, 24 August 2019 - 01:19 PM.

[Prototelis]

Artemis for MGs? lol. That really helps a locust 1v.

Pass.

[FupDup]

Prototelis, on 24 August 2019 - 01:40 PM, said:

Artemis for MGs? lol. That really helps a locust 1v.

Pass.

There are more mechs in the game than the LCT-1V. We have to account for all of them when figuring out how to implement a new gun. Stuff like 12 MG + MRM30 Bushwackers and 12 MG + 3 ML Vulcans running around would pretty quickly invoke another MG nerf from PGI. This should be obvious based on precedent.

MG power directly correlates to how strictly hardpoints are limited. More hardpoints = weaker individual guns. Clan MGs got nerfed because the PIR-1 pushed the MG hardpoint limit way up. I'd rather have guns be individually more usable than let us pack huge quantities of guns that are individually weaker.

It's a can of worms that is probably best left unopened. There are other NuTech™ items that allow us to pack more usable ballistic firepower on low-tonnage mechs (LACs, Magshots, AP Gauss, Proto ACs) that have far less potential to cause collateral damage nerfs.

[Prototelis]

lol. Names a slow mech thats too scary with a short range weapon.

[FupDup]

Prototelis, on 24 August 2019 - 03:43 PM, said:

lol. Names a slow mech thats too scary with a short range weapon.

You mean the hypothetical Bushwacker I mentioned? That build would be using a pretty normal sized engine around 250iah (assuming 5 tons of ammo for the MGs). The Vulcan could pack a 280 engine with the same ammo load. Those are just the first ones that popped into my head; I imagine that mechs like the Roughneck would be pretty nasty.

I don't understand how you can't see how this would cause PGI to nerf MGs across the board. This would be an exact repeat of the Piranha release, except the mechs wouldn't have tissue paper armor this time.

Edited by FupDup, 24 August 2019 - 04:15 PM.

[Prototelis]

I don't understand how you can't see MG arrays could be tweaked to work alongside normal MG boating via base stats and quirks.

[FupDup]

Prototelis, on 24 August 2019 - 04:34 PM, said:

I don't understand how you can't see MG arrays could be tweaked to work alongside normal MG boating via base stats and quirks.

As I said on the first page, pretty much the only way to avoid global MG nerfs would be for arrays to have their damage made weaker than the same number of non-array MGs, like for example an array of 4 MGs would have to be weaker than 4 individual MGs. You okay with an MGA-4 only doing as much damage as 3ish separate MGs?