Posted 20 July 2021 - 02:10 PM
Ok, one of the things I do like about this round is the heavy large laser, the heat on them is a severe ouch, so this will definitely help.
Still want to see something done with flamers, they are still so wiry of a weapon. Would love to see the MW4 type Flamer in this game: it has the range of 150m, at least one damage, and reloads like lasers. If implemented, 90% cap would still be in effect, but you have a chance to miss the shot, whereas that isn't a threat now. Heat penalty could stay to prevent over boating, but since it generated 4 heat to own mech instead of just the 1 heat it does now, it wouldn't require exponential overheat. Also, it took 2 slots up instead of 1, apply that here, and no more head hard points, also, clans could do 12 plus flamers before in this game, but in mw4, 8 was the limit due to it taking another slot...and this was only doable on supernova. The only problem in mw4 if it was a pvp game, is that there was no heat cap of 90%, and since there would be here, it shouldn't be a problem. Heat damage could be 4.5 like it is now, and reload time could be like 4 seconds as it was in mw4, longer if to prevent overuse, 4 seconds would be the reload time of the current ER Large Laser. This approach would cause the flamer to only put a mech at 90% the moment it hits, but since it would be 4 seconds before firing again, that would cause the heat to fall off since its not constant like before. So even in previous flamers, it wasn't meant to be burning for so long, but actually reloaded.
Honestly, if I had these flamers, at least I could actually deal a fair damage amount while still causing heat...(especially since unlike ECM and AMS and NARCs, there is no reward for causing a flamer overheat, not even in the form of protection bonus) although it was 4 seconds to reload in mw4 mercenaries, here they could go with 8 seconds, which is longer than even NARCs in reload time. Also, if its heat was 4 to own mech instead of 1, it would force good shots or no payoff.
To me, this would bring the flamer into a true support weapon status, as right now, it is the support of support weapons like mg, it is the only weapon class that does damage that cannot stand alone when boated unlike literally all the other weapons, even er micro laser can be alone, and it's less tonnage.
I just did a test with 8 ER Medium lasers that would cause same heat to mech as proposed, and it gets your own mech up to 56% heat...but ER Medium Laser heat penalty is at 6 weapons, and with the flamer at 4, this would cause overheat to self, but at least it would be an even trade for heat and damage vs now where you get literally nothing. So to put someone at 90% in this case would mean shutting yourself down too, but flamer chain-fire would now be possible. Also, light mechs that used to overwhelm with flamers would be more hurt by this and would automatically prevent over boating since now heat would be 4 per flamer.
I want Flamers...not a Torcher or a Propane Torch...Every other weapon is easy enough to use and get results from, but not the flamer, you have to work for every shutdown, assuming you don't get blasted before you even get a chance to use it, and because it causes so much heat to self, main weapons don't really work with flamers, thus why many flamer builds only have mg or a few lasers or bigger ballistics because otherwise its much too hot.