7 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

Okay, think about it, DPS weapons with cooldown reduction just straight up boosts their main thing -- DPS, this is the pulse lasers, some ACs. MGs get ROF bonus that straight up boost their DPS in lieu of cooldown.

Cooldown quirks work for DPS weapons, because those are something you stare down with anyways. But now what about alpha weapons? Yeah you could add CD quirk on an HPPC to put it down at 3s CD from 5, but the point of these weapons is that you make your shot count -- not make more shots. Simply shooting more means more chances of missing, and more chances taking hits.

So here's an idea for discussion, what if there's a new quirk +damage? Think about it, yeah that 1 LPL Locust could have -50% CD quirk, that make it fire twice as fast as if it has two LPLs. But that means it's more exposure because it makes more shots to compensate for lack of damage. If it deals more damage instead, means it's less exposed because it's more time behind cover, running, circling back.

Anyways, that's just a thought, something that can be done -- but probably shouldn't. Should we introduce damage-quirk on some mechs? Is it a massive can of worms? So what is your thought?

Edited by The6thMessenger, 08 May 2022 - 08:16 PM.

[caravann]

It kind of already is a thing with artemis that you upgrade the missiles to hit the target. This is a damage upgrade. But it cost in tonnage and the weapon itself is not a quirk. This could be said be the same as reducing the duration on laser, I think lasers is the closest to the concept of damage. Burning time is reduced which increase damage. Look at the goal with the quirk and you understand what the quirk is doing. Burning time is to increase damage by reducing the time to limit amount of time the laser hit outside the box. Artemis increase damage but in return makes the weapon available heavier and not the same as a quirk. Pulse lasers deals less damage as it already considered dealing higher damage by having a shorter burning time and cooldown. In battletech weapons are designated with + versions to increase damage.

Heavier weapons do exist and all that is needed is to add quirks to make the gun fire faster.

In your example Locust, what it carries at its size is of a flea. Tonnage is the source to what you can carry and with a fleafa you have space for a fully sized ppc and a light ppc (10ton) or a RAC2 with one ammo bin(9ton). A locust strangely has less tonnage but the question isn't if a weapon damage should be attributed and what weapon to be favored.

Weapon damage limit is needed since armor has a limitation on where you are allowed to put it. Rear armor isn't allowed to be put on a mech with front armor. Even now, in most cases the actual damage is 50% of the stats mentioned. A MRM40 deals only 20 damage in most cases. Pinpoint weapons are lucky in this regard that the game doesn't need to register multiple objects. Missiles are, let's say... ineffective in terms on how the game is working and you're in a constant uphill against ams and ecm.
The only way I could see it working is that you get 1 extra missile from a missile weapon. just like HSL +1 let you carry another laser weapon. In some cases a mech has missile slots for 8 missiles, archer center torso has support for 8 missiles but is only able to carry a weapon who takes up one slot at max 6 missiles.

Edited by caravann, 07 May 2022 - 04:25 AM.

[FupDup]

I remember somebody from Cauldron or in contact with them saying that direct damage quirks are not possible right now.

It would've been really cool for certain omnimech 8/8 sets to get 15 PPFLD ERPPCs, but alas it was not meant to be.

[caravann]

FupDup, on 07 May 2022 - 07:45 AM, said:

I remember somebody from Cauldron or in contact with them saying that direct damage quirks are not possible right now.

It would've been really cool for certain omnimech 8/8 sets to get 15 PPFLD ERPPCs, but alas it was not meant to be.

There's a way around it but only for ammo based weapons. Internal items like the jumpjets are part of the omnipart. Since weapons can't fire without a gun of the specific item and since no gun is placed in the hardpoint the extra gun is not active. The gun doesn't consume any ammo and not activated unless there's a gun in holder. There's always a way around it. Just not any static solutions. The extra damage need to be physical present in the game. It would needed a rewrite on every energy weapon to work for energy weapons. Ammo bins are verifications, is there any ammo left you are allowed to fire, if there aren't a gun equipped you can't fire with the ammo bin. The weapon won't consume any bullets but it works on the same premise of any gun using ammo. It can't fire the gun if there is no ammo in the ammo bin and it can't fire a gun who isn't equipped. The omnipod itself adds hardpoints, this is an invisible hardpoint we can't see and can't use without having a gun in the hardpoint able to use the ammo. That's why ammo won't be able to be equipped on mechs who don't have the gun for it.

That they can't do it is a white lie because they could use this to sell new omnipods or a new mech with the omnipod.

[feeWAIVER]

Thoose cool down quirks are generating heat per shot, and using the same amount of ammo for the same dmg.
A 25% dmg quirk will turn an AC20 into a magic AC25. Why would we want that?

Edited by feeWAIVER, 07 May 2022 - 04:39 PM.

[caravann]

feeWAIVER, on 07 May 2022 - 04:39 PM, said:

Thoose cool down quirks are generating heat per shot, and using the same amount of ammo for the same dmg.
A 25% dmg quirk will turn an AC20 into a magic AC25. Why would we want that?

You can have LRM30, MRM60 or a couple of guns together to create an AC40
The game is balanced on armor limitations. Pretty much already exceeding the allowed damage who was balanced by mechs having fixed guns part of the torso.
Nobody would use a couple of ac2's on a blackjack if it wasn't part of the mech. These changes is for solely mechs with very low amount of hard points.

The torso itself would be the only part of the mech given the buff. There's an example of it in lore: Marauder, blackjack.rifleman shared the same targeting system who made the marauder known for its accuracy. In battletech the marauder gained increased chance to hit the head. As mentioned before blackjack had AC2 because it could shoot off a flea from a mile away.

An example is your arms, in tabletop an arm mounted gun gets better accuracy. Arms have limitations and mechs with only arm mounted guns are limited to medium sized weapons even if the mech has the tonnage to carry heavier weapons.
Mechs with arm mounted guns are disliked and people hoard mechs with side torso hardpoints and many questions are asked why mechs have arms. You can't implement a buff on accuracy because you are the one who aim.

[foamyesque]

feeWAIVER, on 07 May 2022 - 04:39 PM, said:

Thoose cool down quirks are generating heat per shot, and using the same amount of ammo for the same dmg.
A 25% dmg quirk will turn an AC20 into a magic AC25. Why would we want that?

In principle, I suppose, to be able to strengthen the DPS of heat-gated weapons, but that can largely be done through heat quirks IMO.

It'd be kind of nifty to have HBSTech-style damage quirking, but I'm not sure that it's something that'd be easy to balance out, particularly given how strong the weapons in question already are in general.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Part of me actually doesn't like the idea of damage quirks, but I also think range quirks and somewhat cooldown quirks are a bit problematic. I'd much rather see different variants or brand new weapons that are restricted to certain mechs. Reason being is that range is somewhat important (less so than in the MW4 days where there was no damage drop off) in this game and trying to keep track of what mechs have what range quirks (or damage quirks) is more troublesome than keeping track of different variants (that are ideally different in some way in gameplay, whether it shows up in displays, audio, and/or visual cues) of existing weapons especially if there is some consistent themes across the board for different variants (for example similar visual cues for all weapons with +damage regardless of type).

However, the chances of us getting that are much less likely than a +damage quirk but :shrug: