97 replies to this topic

[Yeach]

Even lasers.
Make all weapons non-instantaneous to target.

Missiles (LRMs, SRMs) in MW3 and MW4 have travel time.
Gauss, PPCs, ACs also have some slight travel time.

The only missing weapon is lasers.
Return it back to MW2 where lasers require leading.

This would at least make shooting a skill, rather than point-and-click.
Lasers boats will have to have at least some skill to alpha-firing lasers.

I dont know but I keep thinking about X-Wing vs Tie-fighter where if you alpha-fire your quad lasers you had a chance of missing and sometimes it was better just to chain fire because of all the maneuvering.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

As against the MWLL way of DoT so you have to hold your aim on target? Do this for lasers and PPC's and frontload heat not damage.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

Seeing as how a laser is literally the speed of light... It would be silly if they didn't make it hit scan. Also, it adds a new gameplay element. Imagine someone how has a bunch of medium lasers and an AC20. The AC20 has to lead while the medium lasers do not. This prevents him/her from firing everything at the same time. Please don't make lasers have travel time... Who has ever heard of slow lasers?

[Listless Nomad]

Yeah - this isn't star wars. Lasers are instantaneous because...they are. Too often games do stupid things in the name of all important "balance". Life isn't balanced! Not everything in life can be solved with a rock paper scissors mentality. Things in life have pros and cons and sometimes the other team has better stuff. Adapt and overcome! Dont force every team to be the same so you don't have to try. If the other team is full of lazer boats - find ways to make your own weapns more effective or make them overheat. I want diversity - I want challenge. I dont want each house be the exact same with different skins. Don't break a fundamental tenet of physics because someone is upset that you don't have to lead with a laser....

Edited by Listless Nomad, 24 January 2012 - 12:56 PM.

[Nerts]

Lasers do have travel time, there's an entire 3x10^-6 seconds of lead to take into account for when firing at a target a kilometer away.

[TheRulesLawyer]

At the distances and velocities of the ballistic weapons have in game they would be hitscan for all practical purposes as well. Missiles are really the odd one out.

[Simbalikai]

Leading the target isn't the skill part of lasers IMO. The skill comes in when you have to keep the beam of light pointed at the same spot on a moving target for the duration for maximum damage. The question is how long should the duration of that beam of light be to control the difficulty level of using lasers. Is five tenths of a second right? or should it be 5 seconds? I tend to lean on the shorter amount of time side.

[MilitantMonk]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 24 January 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

As against the MWLL way of DoT so you have to hold your aim on target? Do this for lasers and PPC's and frontload heat not damage.

This! Think of how pulse lasers worked in MW3. That's how they should be down. They could have a stream of fire for about 1-2 seconds and if you keep them on the target the whole time you deal full damage. It avoids that whole 14 ER Sm Lasers on a Puma that'll run around jousting that was also in MW 3.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

Nerts, on 24 January 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

Lasers do have travel time, there's an entire 3x10^-6 seconds of lead to take into account for when firing at a target a kilometer away.

You do realize it take 2.5 seconds for the laser to hit the moon using your formula right? That's nearlly 400k kilometers away. At the range we'll be dealing with... It'* *** scan. (Apparently Hit scan and It's put too close gets edited... lol)

Edited by Agent CraZy DiP, 24 January 2012 - 01:30 PM.

[Treffies]

Listless Nomad, on 24 January 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

Too often games do stupid things in the name of all important "balance". Life isn't balanced!

Life also has a nasty habit of not being fun either, but I digress.

personally I like the "keep the laser on a target to do full damage" model. Smaller lasers have shorter duration, do less damage if your target can outrun your turn speed, heat management is important, etc.

[Nerts]

Agent CraZy DiP, on 24 January 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

You do realize it take 2.5 seconds for the laser to hit the moon using your formula right? That's nearlly 400k kilometers away. At the range we'll be dealing with... It'* *** scan. (Apparently Hit scan and It's put too close gets edited... lol)

Isn't the moon 385,000Km away? And yeah that was an estimate in my head so it's probably wrong, but yes, the point is it should be hit-scan.

[Listless Nomad]

Treffies, on 24 January 2012 - 01:39 PM, said:

Life also has a nasty habit of not being fun either, but I digress.

personally I like the "keep the laser on a target to do full damage" model. Smaller lasers have shorter duration, do less damage if your target can outrun your turn speed, heat management is important, etc.

Very true - but the BT universe is balanced enough without needing to do trivial things like making the pilot have to lead with lasers. I'm taking about stuff I've seen in other games like taking away the M1 Garand from american teams because its semi auto and the germans didn't use a semi auto that much (original BF1942). It's stuff like that, that irks me. I enjoy fun too

I'm all for the full damage - full duration model as long as its not 5 seconds or something. I'd say 1 full second on a target would be enough for full damage.

[Strum Wealh]

Yeach, on 24 January 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

Even lasers.
Make all weapons non-instantaneous to target.

Missiles (LRMs, SRMs) in MW3 and MW4 have travel time.
Gauss, PPCs, ACs also have some slight travel time.

The only missing weapon is lasers.
Return it back to MW2 where lasers require leading.

This would at least make shooting a skill, rather than point-and-click.
Lasers boats will have to have at least some skill to alpha-firing lasers.

I dont know but I keep thinking about X-Wing vs Tie-fighter where if you alpha-fire your quad lasers you had a chance of missing and sometimes it was better just to chain fire because of all the maneuvering.

Nerts, on 24 January 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

Lasers do have travel time, there's an entire 3x10^-6 seconds of lead to take into account for when firing at a target a kilometer away.

Agent CraZy DiP, on 24 January 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

You do realize it take 2.5 seconds for the laser to hit the moon using your formula right? That's nearlly 400k kilometers away. At the range we'll be dealing with... It'* *** scan. (Apparently Hit scan and It's put too close gets edited... lol)

speed of light: 299,792,458 metres per second, or approximately 186,282 miles per second

1 light second = the distance light would travel in one second = 299,792,458 meters (299,792 kilometers or 186,282 miles)

"The distance between the Moon and the Earth varies from around 356,400 km to 406,700 km at the extreme perigees (closest) and apogees (farthest)."
406,700 kilometers = 1.35660518 light-seconds -> a beam from a laser on the Earth's surface would arrive at the Moon ~1.36 seconds after leaving the laser emitter.

Canon maximum range of an IS ER Large Laser is 570 meters (19 hexes, 1 hex = 30 meters).
570 meters = 1.90131534x10^(-6) light-seconds -> a beam from an IS ER Large Laser would arrive at the target at its maximum range 0.0000019 seconds after leaving the laser emitter.

Canon maximum range of an Clan ER Large Laser is 750 meters (25 hexes, 1 hex = 30 meters).
750 meters = 2.50173071x10^(-6) light-seconds -> a beam from an Clan ER Large Laser would arrive at the target at its maximum range 0.0000025 seconds after leaving the laser emitter.

Lasers do have a travel time... but their travel time is so short (less than one one-hundred-thousandth of one second) for BT combat distances (1000 meters or less) that they are, for all intents and purposes, instantaneously-striking ("hit-scan") weapons...

Edited by Strum Wealh, 24 January 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[flyingdebris]

if anyone's ever watched the show "league of super evil"

they make fun of slow lasers pretty well. An army general and a giant skull faced cyborg both have laser blasters pointed at each other within the same room. Both fire, both have enough time to watch the shot come at them, and dramtically step out of the way at the last moment like it was a game of dodgeball.



don't forget the quad laser

Edited by flyingdebris, 24 January 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

Strum Wealh, on 24 January 2012 - 03:27 PM, said:

speed of light: 299,792,458 metres per second, or approximately 186,282 miles per second

1 light second = the distance light would travel in one second = 299,792,458 meters (299,792 kilometers or 186,282 miles)

"The distance between the Moon and the Earth varies from around 356,400 km to 406,700 km at the extreme perigees (closest) and apogees (farthest)."
406,700 kilometers = 1.35660518 light-seconds -> a beam from a laser on the Earth's surface would arrive at the Moon ~1.36 seconds after leaving the laser emitter.

Canon maximum range of an IS ER Large Laser is 570 meters (19 hexes, 1 hex = 30 meters).
570 meters = 1.90131534x10^(-6) light-seconds -> a beam from an IS ER Large Laser would arrive at the target at its maximum range 0.0000019 seconds after leaving the laser emitter.

Canon maximum range of an Clan ER Large Laser is 750 meters (25 hexes, 1 hex = 30 meters).
750 meters = 2.50173071x10^(-6) light-seconds -> a beam from an Clan ER Large Laser would arrive at the target at its maximum range 0.0000025 seconds after leaving the laser emitter.

Lasers do have a travel time... but their travel time is so short (less than one one-hundred-thousandth of one second) for BT combat distances (1000 meters or less) that they are, for all intents and purposes, instantaneously-striking ("hit-scan") weapons...

What he said...

[Listless Nomad]

flyingdebris, on 24 January 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

if anyone's ever watched the show "league of super evil"

they make fun of slow lasers pretty well. An army general and a giant skull faced cyborg both have laser blasters pointed at each other within the same room. Both fire, both have enough time to watch the shot come at them, and dramtically step out of the way at the last moment like it was a game of dodgeball.



don't forget the quad laser

This video clearly shows that 1 PPC is superior to 4 small lasers.

[Strum Wealh]

TheRulesLawyer, on 24 January 2012 - 01:03 PM, said:

At the distances and velocities of the ballistic weapons have in game they would be hitscan for all practical purposes as well. Missiles are really the odd one out.

Just because I went ahead and did it for lasers:

Gauss Rifles fire 113.398kg (0.125t) nickel-ferrous slugs at very high (consistently described as "hypersonic") velocities.
If G.R. slugs are hypersonic, that means they have a muzzle velocity of at least Mach 5.0 (1,710 meters per second).

Canon maximum range of a Gauss Rifle (both IS and Clan) is 660 meters (22 hexes, 1 hex = 30 meters).
If we treat the GR slug as a ballistic projectile fired horizontally with a max range of 660 meters (the slug hits the ground at that distance) no/negligible effects from crosswinds and such (and otherwise mostly ignoring IRL ballistics ), the time-to-target for a GR slug would be something on the order of 0.38 seconds.

If we assume other solid projectiles (AC shells, missiles, and such) are at least supersonic (Mach 1.2; 410 m/s or 1,345.14 ft/sec) they would have approximately the following times-to-target (based on canon ranges):
AC-2 (range: 720 meters): 1.75609756 seconds
AC-5 (range: 540 meters): 1.31707317 seconds
AC-10 (range: 450 meters): 1.09756098 seconds
AC-20 (range: 270 meters): 0.658536585 seconds
LRM (range: 630 meters): 1.53658537 seconds
MRM: (range: 450 meters): 1.09756098 seconds
SRM (range: 270 meters): 0.658536585 seconds
(The above can be increased by ~52% if one wants to assume low trans-sonic velocities (Mach 0.8; 270 m/s or 885.82 ft/sec) rather than low supersonic velocities (410 m/s).)

As a point of reference, some of the fastest 'Mechs are the Locust (36 m/s) and the Fire Moth (60 m/s with MASC, 45 m/s otherwise), with most heavies and assaults falling in the 15 m/s to 24 m/s range.

So...
1.) Will the Devs implement environmental effects (wind, lack of atmosphere, different gravity values on different planets) in such a way that they can affect weapons ranges?
2.) How often will one be shooting at a 'Mech that is running at full speed orthogonal to one's facing?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 24 January 2012 - 05:18 PM.

[Listless Nomad]

Wow Strum - thats a lot of work there. Thanks for putting it out.

[Zakatak]

Okay, so, a Large Laser goes 700m, and it moves at 299'792'460m/s...

...so .000000233 seconds? Ya, lets go ahead and factor that into the game. Everything else in the MW series has some form of travel-time so what's wrong with how things already are?

[Graphite]

Strum Wealh, on 24 January 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

If we assume other solid projectiles (AC shells, missiles, and such) are at least supersonic (Mach 1.2; 410 m/s or 1,345.14 ft/sec) they would have approximately the following times-to-target (based on canon ranges):
AC-2 (range: 720 meters): 1.75609756 seconds
AC-5 (range: 540 meters): 1.31707317 seconds
AC-10 (range: 450 meters): 1.09756098 seconds
AC-20 (range: 270 meters): 0.658536585 seconds

That's a slow muzzle velocity. Current ballistic weaponry is much faster.

I think we can just approximate lasers to "as fast as possible" No-one will ever know...