122 replies to this topic

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I think that this will again be part of the "balance" that PGI is intending to strike between TT and playability. One point to bear in mind is that most of the mechs shown so far have a reliance on ammo based weapons. There were relatively few mechs available at this period that were not and we may not see them available at launch. I think many people will want to get CASE fitted as soon as possible if they implement critical hits and ammo explosions properly.

[MaddMaxx]

Following TT rules in regards to Ammo would be good. Force players to ADD ammo if they wish to be trigger happy. Same with Heat. If done prpoerly, as it should be, it keeps the positives and the negatives of each weapons type in balance.

[Bernardo Sinibaldi]

I've just read an article on Autocannons in a copy of the old "Battle Technology" magazine. I won't quote the full article word for word but it does state that "BattleMech autocannon are rapid-fire weapons ranging from 40mm to 120mm" and that "shells are fed into the autocannon's firing chamber from a shell cassette, inaccurately labelled a "round". Battlemech AC ammunition inventories refer to the numbers of "rounds" - i.e. cassettes holding anywhere from 4 to 100 individual rounds or shells stored aboard. The number of shells in a cassette depends on the calibre of the shell and the design of the weapon." also, later it states that "Autocannons are classified by the number of cassette "rounds" which can be fired in 10-seconds, though this can be misleading since there are fewer shells in large-caliber cassette rounds than in smaller."

So, from this we can deduce that:

• Autocannons are rapid fire weapons rather than big shell launchers
  
• Each "round" of ammunition is really multiple shells
  
• The AC classification (20, 10, 5, 2) is dependent on rate of fire rather than calibre.
  
• An AC20 fires 20 "rounds" in 10 seconds, or 2 "rounds" a second. AC10s fire 1 round a second and so on.
  
• The number of shells per round varies based upon calibre

I'm not sure if this magazine is canon but it was certainly treated as such back in the early days of TT.

MaddMaxx, on 10 January 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

Following TT rules in regards to Ammo would be good. Force players to ADD ammo if they wish to be trigger happy. Same with Heat. If done prpoerly, as it should be, it keeps the positives and the negatives of each weapons type in balance.

Agreed. The big balancing factor with lasers is the heat. The balancing factor for ammo-dependent weapons is the fairly obvious dependency on ammunition. Removing either of those balancing factors would lead to munchkins.

Edited by Bernardo Sinibaldi, 10 January 2012 - 11:37 AM.

[Durant Carlyle]

Yes. One trigger-pull equals one cassette-round of multiple shells. That's the way the books and fluff describe the firing of autocannons. If PGI can do the animation of multi-firing like that, while still having the entire cassette-round hitting a single location on the target 'Mech, then great. If not, then they should stick to having the animation be one physical shell per trigger-pull like MW2 did it. As I said before, an autocannon shouldn't be able to spray damage onto multiple locations of a target with one cassette-round unless you're using Cluster ammo in an LB-X AC.

[Elizander]

I hope that they make the Autocannon more like a really huge machine gun instead of something that bursts all the damage in one go. I don't mind if they change the ammunition to reflect this. It could be as easy as dividing 1 shot into 20 little shots that deal the same damage.

[Black Sunder]

Keep it standard to BT ammunition loads. If people want more then they need to give up the space for it.

[EDMW CSN]

Elizander, on 11 January 2012 - 09:46 AM, said:

I hope that they make the Autocannon more like a really huge machine gun instead of something that bursts all the damage in one go. I don't mind if they change the ammunition to reflect this. It could be as easy as dividing 1 shot into 20 little shots that deal the same damage.

And lose the ability to chop off a target's limb with 1 shot which was the biggest selling point of AC-20s over 4 Medium lasers. Also this is an online pvp game, people will dodge your AC-20 peashooter until all 20 shots are scattered uselessly over the target mech.

A medium laser at least does 5 damage if it hits something rather than 1 damage.
Make rapid fire ACs optional if necessary but do not force it down upon players who want their 1 shot 1 big hurting ACs.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 11 January 2012 - 10:02 AM.

[Elizander]

[EDMW]CSN, on 11 January 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

And lose the ability to chop off a target's limb with 1 shot which was the biggest selling point of AC-20s over 4 Medium lasers. Also this is an online pvp game, people will dodge your AC-20 peashooter until all 20 shots are scattered uselessly over the target mech.

A medium laser at least does 5 damage if it hits something rather than 1 damage.
Make rapid fire ACs optional if necessary but do not force it down upon players who want their 1 shot 1 big hurting ACs.

We're not sure yet how they are going to make the weapons work. They could very well make lasers deal damage over time and it will spread anyway as you 'weld' the enemy mech. I am not assuming that we will get the same accuracy/system that we had in MW4.

This is also how they depicted the Atlas AC20 in the teaser video back in 2009 so there is a chance that it will be made this way for MWO.

[Xavier Truscott]

The only real reason that ammo loads seem small is because we have traditionally had deathmatch style games in previous versions as the mainstay of online play. When you only have 5 shots in your hunchback and you manage to hit with 3 out of the five, you have pretty much crippled or destroyed the average light or medium mech which you would likely be facing, and possibly engaged and damaged another. When you only have 1 life to worry about, i would imagine that getting 1 kill per match would be average. You have more then enough ammo in your basic mechs to successfully engage and destroy a single mech in any engagement and generally have backup weapons to use should you end up in a more prolonged engagement.

Ammo and heat are serious tactical considerations in any battletech engagement, and should be kept that way. MW4 payloads may have helped with the single player game, but made some configs ridiculous in multiplayer.

[Fyrwulf]

Keep in mind the BT autocannons are just really souped up modern autocannons. The Gauss Rifle is the BT equivalent of a tank's main gun

EDIT: By my math the AC/20 can fire 8 rounds per second (480 rounds per minute) and the AC/2 can fire 20 rounds per second (1,200 rounds per minute). Something to think about is that the Ultra AC can fire twice as fast and the Rotary AC can fire six times as fast. Of course that's balanced by the fact that you run out of ammunition however many times as fast.

Edited by Fyrwulf, 11 January 2012 - 12:45 PM.

[Lycan]

I vote for sticking with TT ammo/ton.

As has been mentioned, if you want more, free up some space for it.

Also, ammo explosions and jettisoning should be included.

While you should have to state how much of your total ammo is "specialty" ammo, you should (if not already able to) be able to switch from standard ammo to the specialty type in mid-fight, as long as you brought some along of course.

[Sturmbb]

TT ammo for me too , i feel we are going to see alot of laser boats out there though but thats fine let the people who know how to manage ammo shine.

[Solis Obscuri]

VYCanis, on 03 January 2012 - 03:03 PM, said:

canon ammo loads depend entirely upon what the rates of fire are going to be, and how much you want to divide up that damage to prevent how really easy it was to core out enemies with a single ac20 strike. Remember, TT-wise 1 ton of ammo for an ac20 was technically enough to last for 5 turns or 50 seconds worth of combat where you are consistently using that weapon. However in real time 5 shots at any decent ROF are gone in no time at all. And considering the atlas's ac20 in the trailer, and how most BT ACs are described as firing multiple shots per ammo unit, it would make sense that AC ammo counts are adjusted accordingly, rather than taken painfully literally.

What about the Solaris VII TT rules that break rounds down to 2.5 seconds? I think we'd need to operate from something closer to that for a video game, because if every weapon takes 10s to cycle, what's my incentive to waste 16 tons for 10 shots from an AC/20 when I can just get four medium lasers and eight heat sinks instead, save four tons of weight, have equal damage, and never run out of ammo or risk an ammo explosion?

I'm thinking to be worthwhile autocannons need to cycle faster than lasers and PPCs, though hopefully not at the crazy ammo wasting MW2 rate (which was necessary in that game, because lasers cycled so damn fast!) Pulse lasers should also cycle faster. I'm not as sure about the balance of PPCs to lasers, though - I'm tempted to say a similar cycle time, since PPCs are effectively heavier than large lasers for the amount of damage they deliver. I'm not as sure about the Gauss rifle, though - it does require ammo, but its got twice the range of a PPC and produces almost no heat, so I'm tempted to think the rate of fire should be similar to a PPC. Pulse lasers should cycle fairly quickly, like autocannons, and be offset by rapid heat build-up (instead of being made into horrible little peashooters like in MW4!)

Geist Null, on 03 January 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

i'm really hoping the ammo sticks to canon and that you are required 1 ton of ammo per weapon and not able to run 10 machine guns off 1 ton. thats an engineering nightmare.

I've always assumed that's why all ballistic weapons are so ridiculously heavy - much of the weight must be tied up in the automated ammo feed system. How else do you make a .50 cal weigh a half ton?

Datum, on 03 January 2012 - 08:36 PM, said:

Basically this. 50 seconds of firing for 1 ton of ammo is plenty good for an AC-20, and makes sense. In MW2 they took it way too literally and effectively made autocannons useless without a good 6 tons of ammo. Missiles are just fine, however.

Well, the MW2 issue was that targetting spheres made it necessary to waste a lot of shots taking the arms off most mechs before you could get to anything vulnerable. Guided missles were ungodly effective. I think MW2: Mercs was a more effective and balanced implementation of both weapons.

[EDMW]CSN, on 04 January 2012 - 02:43 AM, said:

I found MW3 handling ACs and their loads pretty adequately. While not the boom I pull AC-20 trigger and ya dead in 2 seconds MW2 fast but fast enough to still rattle players and the damage was terrifying enough.

MW3 hands down had my favorite addressing of weapon systems (especially pulse lasers, PPCs, autocannons, and SRMs), and I would love it if this game went with something similar. Autocannon burst could be really effective, but the recoil made them a bit tricky, so you had to stabilize your shot and work against that recoil to prevent spreading the damage from the burst all over. I also really liked the changes to the PPC from MW2, and way SRMs tried to track targets, but in eratic loopy swarms, instead of being dumb-fired rockets. Lasers finally had a reasonable cycle time, and pulse lasers were cool, too, having a long firing time that pretty much guaranteed you'd hit something, but made it hard to deliver all the damage to one sector on any moving target. The only weapon change I didn't love was the Gauss rifle - it was sort of like a green version of a PPC bolt, and it didn't seem like it travelled as fast as it should. Really, the only things I DIDN'T like were the lack of DFA and the coolant flush... well, the preponderance of Anihilators got a bit annoying, too...

MaddMaxx, on 10 January 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

Following TT rules in regards to Ammo would be good. Force players to ADD ammo if they wish to be trigger happy. Same with Heat. If done prpoerly, as it should be, it keeps the positives and the negatives of each weapons type in balance.

Having proper heat management is ought to be really important. I hope it's made significant enough that sprinting around being trigger-happy isn't the sole winning technique. Forcing players to

Bernardo Sinibaldi, on 10 January 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

I've just read an article on Autocannons in a copy of the old "Battle Technology" magazine. I won't quote the full article word for word but it does state that "BattleMech autocannon are rapid-fire weapons ranging from 40mm to 120mm" and that "shells are fed into the autocannon's firing chamber from a shell cassette, inaccurately labelled a "round". Battlemech AC ammunition inventories refer to the numbers of "rounds" - i.e. cassettes holding anywhere from 4 to 100 individual rounds or shells stored aboard. The number of shells in a cassette depends on the calibre of the shell and the design of the weapon." also, later it states that "Autocannons are classified by the number of cassette "rounds" which can be fired in 10-seconds, though this can be misleading since there are fewer shells in large-caliber cassette rounds than in smaller." So, from this we can deduce that:

• Autocannons are rapid fire weapons rather than big shell launchers
  
• Each "round" of ammunition is really multiple shells
  
• The AC classification (20, 10, 5, 2) is dependent on rate of fire rather than calibre.
  
• An AC20 fires 20 "rounds" in 10 seconds, or 2 "rounds" a second. AC10s fire 1 round a second and so on.
  
• The number of shells per round varies based upon calibre

I'm not sure if this magazine is canon but it was certainly treated as such back in the early days of TT. Agreed. The big balancing factor with lasers is the heat. The balancing factor for ammo-dependent weapons is the fairly obvious dependency on ammunition. Removing either of those balancing factors would lead to munchkins.

I agree with some of this. Pulling from sarna:

"Different manufacturers and models of autocannons have different calibers (25mm-203mm) and rates of fire. Due to this, autocannons are grouped into generic "classes" of autocannons with common damage ratings, with Autocannon/5s usually having a long range with a small to moderate damage level.

An example of the rating system: the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon is a 150mm weapon firing ten shells per "shot", while the Chemjet Gun is a 185mm weapon firing much slower, but causing higher damage. Despite their differences, both are classified as Autocannon/20s due to their damage output."

So autocannon rating is based both on weapon caliber, and by rate of fire, not just variance in rate of fire. So while an AC/20 could use the same ammo as an AC/5 and just fire 4x as fast, it could also fire at the same rate with shells 4x as powerful. Extrapolating, if a GM Whirlwind AC/5 fires 3-shot burst of 120mm shells, an AC/10 might be a gun that fires 6-round burts of 120mm shells, or 5-round burst of 150mm shells, or maybe even a very small burst of 185mm shells.

I do like the ammo "cassette" explanation - it does make sense, in the context that a burst of AC fire consumes a full cassette, and then has to cycle to load the next casette. I'm not sure I agree about the ten rounds in ten seconds part, and I think the real intent is more likely that the burst occurs over a < 1s interval, then a few seconds are required to reload the next cassette. Also, I wish I had a copy of the Solaris VII rules, as I suspect they show a much shorter firing time, and probably a shorter reload time, than 10s.

In the practical context of a video game, though, I'm mostly used to getting ammo that's rated by AC size, not by caliber. Still, it could be an interesting addition to make both ammo and ACs have their own calibers - it could also be handy, from a supply standpoint, to get your unit autocannons of common caliber (say, AC/5s, AC/10s, and AC/20s that fire 120mm shells in respective 3, 6 and 12-shot bursts) and simplify inventory management for the unit. It might be more work than its worth from a design standpoint, however.

Fyrwulf, on 11 January 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

By my math the AC/20 can fire 8 rounds per second (480 rounds per minute) and the AC/2 can fire 20 rounds per second (1,200 rounds per minute). Something to think about is that the Ultra AC can fire twice as fast and the Rotary AC can fire six times as fast. Of course that's balanced by the fact that you run out of ammunition however many times as fast.

By your math based on what data?

[Tatius Pryde]

Remember Ammo is a money sink too. so having it a little skewed from the TT might be in order for it to fit gameplay-wise.

Unless ammo is free, then it depends on damage/ammo count vs lasers.

[Paralax]

Stone Profit, on 03 January 2012 - 01:14 PM, said:

So, I was thinking, In MW 4 mechs had more ammunition per ton than they would in the TT game, something like double or more. Are they going to do that in MWO? or is 20 shots for your AC/5 enough? and what about mixed ammunition, like 1 ton standard AC ammo and 1 ton cluster for LBX autocannon and you can switch? or are we gonna be stuck with cluster ammo if we want an LBX like we were in MW 4? and selective rate of fire for ultras. Does this even matter to anyone like it does to me? just seems like one of the thinks that would make the game more in depth and realistic IMO

Starting Just Normal loads.....then Maybe Streaks and as the game goes on.. I'd like Infernos if balanced right, Swarm adn other loads would be nice anything more special... would be pointless

[Yeach]

Lycan, on 11 January 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

I vote for sticking with TT ammo/ton.

As has been mentioned, if you want more, free up some space for it.

What is TT ammo / ton?
Doe it also assume that all weapons fire at TT (10 secs) rates?

What really sucked in MW3 was that you could run out of ammo really quick with the quick autocannon fire rates. (oh and lag)
It didnt feel right that to have adequate ammo for a 4vs4 fight was 20 rounds or 4 tons of ammo for the UAC20.

MW4 at least had recycle time considerations when taking in consideration the amount of ammo per ton you were given.

[Lycan]

Yeach, on 11 January 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

What is TT ammo / ton?
Doe it also assume that all weapons fire at TT (10 secs) rates?

What really sucked in MW3 was that you could run out of ammo really quick with the quick autocannon fire rates. (oh and lag)
It didnt feel right that to have adequate ammo for a 4vs4 fight was 20 rounds or 4 tons of ammo for the UAC20.

MW4 at least had recycle time considerations when taking in consideration the amount of ammo per ton you were given.

TT ammo/ton is dependant on the weapon system you're using.

And as far as I know, yes it does assume that all weapons are firing at TT rates.

While it does suck to run out of ammo (which has happened to me and is why I tend to prefer energy based weapons), if I do/did have to use an ammo dependant weapon, I wouldn't be firing it off like it was a Call of Duty G36.

[Fyrwulf]

Solis Obscuri, on 11 January 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

By your math based on what data?

You know what, going back over the data is so contradictory I'm giving up. It makes no sense that you should have a fixed 10 sec firing time, when in fact these cassettes are probably really complex magazines that are fed by really complex autoloaders. There's absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to squeeze off a short burst, especially when the entire idea of automatic weapons is that you have control over how many rounds you actually fire.

I think as a baseline the AC/20 should be firing a round every two seconds (a bit better than the 127mm gun on the Flight III DDG-51 destroyers) and that the AC/2 should be firing at four rounds per second (about what a 40mm Bushmaster naval gun does). Stands to reason than an AC/5 would then fire at two rounds per second and the AC/10 would fire a round every second. Ultra ACs would double that fire rate and Rotary ACs would fire six times as fast as conventional ACs.

[Bernardo Sinibaldi]

Solis Obscuri, on 11 January 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

So autocannon rating is based both on weapon caliber, and by rate of fire, not just variance in rate of fire. So while an AC/20 could use the same ammo as an AC/5 and just fire 4x as fast, it could also fire at the same rate with shells 4x as powerful. Extrapolating, if a GM Whirlwind AC/5 fires 3-shot burst of 120mm shells, an AC/10 might be a gun that fires 6-round burts of 120mm shells, or 5-round burst of 150mm shells, or maybe even a very small burst of 185mm shells.

I do like the ammo "cassette" explanation - it does make sense, in the context that a burst of AC fire consumes a full cassette, and then has to cycle to load the next casette. I'm not sure I agree about the ten rounds in ten seconds part, and I think the real intent is more likely that the burst occurs over a < 1s interval, then a few seconds are required to reload the next cassette. Also, I wish I had a copy of the Solaris VII rules, as I suspect they show a much shorter firing time, and probably a shorter reload time, than 10s.

In the practical context of a video game, though, I'm mostly used to getting ammo that's rated by AC size, not by caliber. Still, it could be an interesting addition to make both ammo and ACs have their own calibers - it could also be handy, from a supply standpoint, to get your unit autocannons of common caliber (say, AC/5s, AC/10s, and AC/20s that fire 120mm shells in respective 3, 6 and 12-shot bursts) and simplify inventory management for the unit. It might be more work than its worth from a design standpoint, however.

Good point with regards to the exchanging of the cassettes - I'd missed that in my initial analysis of the article. Practical rate of fire, including cassette change, is as I asserted but theoretical rpm is going to be far higher to account for the magazine change.

The text was from an old article (late 80s / early 90s?) so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the fluff has moved on. It was from a semi-official source though so I think it has some weight.

I actually like the sound of the inventory management aspects of autocannon rounds but you're perfectly right - that does add a layer of complexity that may not bring much to the table.

I've got the Solaris rules somewhere at home so I'll have a root around in there and see what it says. Just out of interest of course, I'm sure the devs have this well covered (as with most things to be honest).

[Dlardrageth]

There is a rather straightforward way to skip the whole "too little ammo for 20 minutes" issue somewhat. Ammo reload. BT does have vehicles for that, heck, you don't even have to call up the MFB a la MW3 for that, a smaller scale might do. Granted, there might be a realism issue on how long a reload would/should take (ammo cassette system should keep that down tho). But in theory you could have the option to either call up for or call in to an ammo carrier which could refill you. Will take you out of the battle for a minute or something and thus give yet anopther advantage to energy weapon users, though.

And then there's the additional issue, what if the "perma-respawn" faction gets their way? How that affects ammo consumption. As you basically get an unlimited number of targets due to constant respawning which sort of calls for unlimited ammo as well (bleh, but had to be mentioned ).

And yeah, there's also to consider the whole customization matter. Depending on how (un-)limited it will become, there needs to remain some incentive to spend an extra ton/slot for more ammo. Or 2 or 3. Without, of course, rendering ballistic weapons the red-headed step kin of energy weapons (again). Not sure if tweaking heat dissipation rates alone might suffice for that one.

Edited by Dlardrageth, 12 January 2012 - 03:51 AM.