45 replies to this topic

[CloaknDagger]

I've been gone for a year or so and now that I've come back, I'm happy to see HAGs and Blazers and X-Pulses in the game now! They're fun and I like the variety.

But could we get even more please? Fundamentally, it's incredibly easy to add new weapons to the game, most stuff can be outright copy-pasted and just have the values tweaked, so it would be great to see lots of new weapons added to the game very quickly at next to no development cost.

Some options and obvious implementation styles are:

Clan
ER Pulse Lasers (Low duration ER Lasers)
Improved Heavy Lasers (Hot, Explosive, Low Duration Heavy lasers)
Capacitor ERPPC (Hotter, explosive, more damage)
Chemical Laser (IS lasers but ballistics)

Streak LRMs (Streaks with long range)
iATMs (Streaks but ATMs)

Protomech Autocannon (Short Range, Light Autocannon)
AP Gauss Rifle (Gauss Machinegun)

IS
Improved Heavy Gauss Rifle (No-dropoff HGR)
Hypervelocity Autocannons (Autocannons with RAC overheat) [Performance destroying smoke-effects optional]
Silver Bullet Gauss Rifle (Gauss LBX)
Light Autocannon (Short range, low velocity autocannon)
Magshot (Tiny, no charge Gauss Rifle)

Thunderbolt Missiles (Big Clan-trajectory LRMs)
Extended Range LRMs (Massive range LRMs)
Enhanced LRMs (Bigger, heavier, no minimum-range LRMs with Clan trajectory)

Capacitor PPCs (Hotter, explosive, more damage)
Bombast Laser (Gauss charge for a laser)
RISC Hyperlaser (Continuous laser with RAC overheat)


Retro Clan
Improved Large Laser, Large Pulse Laser, PPC (Clan size, IS weapon performance)
Enhanced ERPPC (No splash, but Inner Sphere weight and crits)
Improved SRMs (Inner Sphere weight and crits, extended range)

Retro IS
Rifles (High velocity, slow reload, low ammo capacity autocannons)

That's all stuff that could be implemented basically immediately with no need for new assets. A bit of copy-paste and all this stuff would be ready to go, not even requiring graphics like plasma weapons would need or such.

Edited by CloaknDagger, 03 January 2024 - 06:55 PM.

[Vite Ramen]

Magshot, AP gauss, and thunderbolt are coming.

There might also be some sort of clan continuous laser thing not derived from Battletech, but details are lacking.

[pbiggz]

More weapons would be cool, but more equipment will have a much more dramatic effect. We need lots of equipment, and armor, and we need PGI to make it do wacky weird ****, because right now all you can do is hope your hurt stick hurts more than their hurt stick.

[w0qj]

Hey, a warm welcome back to MWO!

Personally I'm in ga ga land with the new weapons, new maps, and even new Mechs (Stone Rhino, Crusader, etc.)

Do enjoying this brave new world of MWO

[Meep Meep]

I wouldn't mind a clan version of the lppc. IS definitely have the major ppc advantage for fitting out their entire line of mechs where clan really can only use ppc effectively either on specialized quirked mechs or ones with enough tonnage to boat sinks.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Kinda liked seeing swarm lrms in mechcommander 2, but I learned later they didn't follow the lore mechanics which I don't remember how they worked. That game also had Thunderbolts. Not really looking for large damage kinds of weapons personally. I'd be more interested in seeing those that have different mechanics. We don't have any kind of artillery shell or mortar weapon in the game. Maybe a good thing, maybe not. But if done right, it could add a new or interesting dynamic to the game rather than direct fire. But it'll probably get the LRM treatment here as "that requires no skill".

[Battlemaster56]

Lighter weapons for low tonnage mechs would be godsend for those mechs but we need to add more equipment and weapon upgrades be nice that would go a long way especially with new armor and structure types.

[LordNothing]

pbiggz, on 03 January 2024 - 09:11 PM, said:

More weapons would be cool, but more equipment will have a much more dramatic effect. We need lots of equipment, and armor, and we need PGI to make it do wacky weird ****, because right now all you can do is hope your hurt stick hurts more than their hurt stick.

why not have both?

you can start with more armor types, move on to ecm and ams alternatives (eg aecm or flare dispensers), bhp, and new consumable types.

for weapons my primary want list is more light ballistics to give lights build more variety than mg/sl back stabbers, and pocket assaults like the urbie. that means lacs, pacs, magshot, apgauss, vgl, etc.

Edited by LordNothing, 04 January 2024 - 04:19 PM.

[Heavy Money]

More weapons is cool, but a lot of these don't really add anything or would be redundant. Like Hypervelocity ACs just wouldn't be good in MWO. Cap PPCs and Rifles would inflate pinpoint alphas even more, which would be bad for the game, etc.

I'm really hoping for light ACs and protoACs though!

Edited by Heavy Money, 04 January 2024 - 04:19 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Yeah we have heavy weapons up the wazoo. We need some new weapons that target the light and medium class of mechs.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 04 January 2024 - 08:34 AM, said:

I wouldn't mind a clan version of the lppc. IS definitely have the major ppc advantage for fitting out their entire line of mechs where clan really can only use ppc effectively either on specialized quirked mechs or ones with enough tonnage to boat sinks.

only thing i could find in lore is the support ppc. its a battle armor weapon that exists in both tech bases. its a 2-damage ppc that weighs a quarter ton. fill a piranha up with those and watch the fireworks, and the is could have them too. i looked to see if there was a protomech version but didnt see anything. take is lppc, give it splash (5+1+1 sounds nice) and call it a pppc.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Meep Meep, on 04 January 2024 - 04:33 PM, said:

Yeah we have heavy weapons up the wazoo. We need some new weapons that target the light and medium class of mechs.

Like LordNothing mentioned, there really isn't much in lore that helps. Honestly I think the thing that might help is actually having different versions of the weapons for each weight class because that sort of what ghost heat does at this point, keep the better weapons from getting boated on the heavier mechs so that they can stay good for lighter mechs. Or at least that's what it feels like for LPPCs, Snubs, and medium lasers (ish, medium lasers feel weak now thanks to power creep, or at least too hot for what they are).

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 04 January 2024 - 05:36 PM, said:

Like LordNothing mentioned, there really isn't much in lore that helps. Honestly I think the thing that might help is actually having different versions of the weapons for each weight class because that sort of what ghost heat does at this point, keep the better weapons from getting boated on the heavier mechs so that they can stay good for lighter mechs. Or at least that's what it feels like for LPPCs, Snubs, and medium lasers (ish, medium lasers feel weak now thanks to power creep, or at least too hot for what they are).

you could do all that with quirks. simply giving light-intended weapons intrinsic deficiencies and then quirking them away for lights. there should be a heavier weapon that does the job better when you have tonnage to burn. lower range, carefully selected gh limits, burst fire. there are lots of ways to make it work, and if you accidentally create a new brawl meta, good.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 04 January 2024 - 07:09 PM, said:

you could do all that with quirks.

You could, but it is just messier than just saying "hey the medium laser that lights mount is different from what assaults mount" that way big guns can also be different for lights because the tonnage investment is more problematic for them.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Well, IS Omnis should be on the list as long as we're talking equipment. People been asking for those for some time. Could be interesting.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

TheCaptainJZ, on 04 January 2024 - 09:16 PM, said:

Well, IS Omnis should be on the list as long as we're talking equipment. People been asking for those for some time. Could be interesting.

It won't, imagine the worst omnis on the Clan side, now make them worse. TBH, how Clan omnis are implemented just was not a good move. Cool idea, but IMO it creates more problems than it solves.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 04 January 2024 - 10:00 PM.

[Alex Morgaine]

well, the centurian is a good proof of concept for a shield that mechs with hand actuators could equip, adding different armor types would also be just text editing, you could kinda avoid needing 3D designs and still add partial wings to enhance jump range, and using transparency you could... I dunno maybe even try playing with predator mode with advanced stealth equipment off the top of my head.

[Hawk819]

My Wish is for the following:

Plasma Rifle - Inner Sphere
Plasma Cannon - Clan

ER Pulse*
Streak LRM*
Clan RAC*

* denotes weapons with the same mechanics that are currently in game.

Light Autocannons
MMLs

Equipment side

Artemis V
Watchdog CEWS
Angel ECM Suite
Triple Strength Myomer
Advance Command Computer (Slave Unit) For Mediums, Lights and Heavies
Super Charger Mk. 1 through 7
Coolant Pods
Compact Heat Sinks
Improved Jump Jets for Clan and IS

Armor

Compact Armor
Re-Enforced Armor
Heavy Armor
Reflective Armor
Reactive Armor

Edited by Hawk819, 05 January 2024 - 08:24 AM.

[pbiggz]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 04 January 2024 - 09:59 PM, said:

It won't, imagine the worst omnis on the Clan side, now make them worse. TBH, how Clan omnis are implemented just was not a good move. Cool idea, but IMO it creates more problems than it solves.

We have discussed it in other threads, but IS omnis are cool, and PGI should be perfectly willing to make any changes they need to make those mechs fun to run. For example, despite it technically not being TT compatible, giving IS omnis XL engines with clan behaviour (surviving a 1 torso loss) should be perfectly fine. The defining feature of an IS engine isnt that it explodes more easily, and giving it durability in a setting where its fixed isn't going to spoil the game, or shake me out of my suspended disbelief. I know a certain forum user/battletech purist would have a meltdown if they did this, but that's a price im willing to pay.

Edited by pbiggz, 05 January 2024 - 08:34 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

pbiggz, on 05 January 2024 - 08:33 AM, said:

We have discussed it in other threads, but IS omnis are cool, and PGI should be perfectly willing to make any changes they need to make those mechs fun to run. For example, despite it technically not being TT compatible, giving IS omnis XL engines with clan behaviour (surviving a 1 torso loss) should be perfectly fine. The defining feature of an IS engine isnt that it explodes more easily, and giving it durability in a setting where its fixed isn't going to spoil the game, or shake me out of my suspended disbelief. I know a certain forum user/battletech purist would have a meltdown if they did this, but that's a price im willing to pay.

Well there is the XL issue, but there are also the Owens and Strider which both have SHS by default.

That said I've argued the iXL should not have the side torso death just in general for years because engine balance is honestly one of the sources of balance issues between the tech bases. The problem is without engineering support, LFE and STD engines both become just engines you use to fit specific weapons in the torso section at that point.