78 replies to this topic

[wolf74]

As I was Type Cro, Point to the Fasa Solaris which I was typing about (Here a Like for Cro post)
What I was typing (Good thing I copy it to Note Pad before click Post, The 1st post did not go through)
You would have to look at the Solaris Rule Book to give you a Window in which the weapon can fire again. These fire windows can be use to help Balance some of the weapons (I.S. Basic Weapons list)
Delay 0 (2.5-4.99sec) M.G., AC/2, Anti-Missile
Delay 1 (5-7.49sec) Flamer, M-laser, S-Laser, S-Pulse, AC/5, AC/10, U-AC/5, SRM
Delay 2 (7.5-9.99sec) L-Laser, M-Pulse, AC/20, Gauss, LRM
Delay 3 (10-12.49sec) ER-LL, PPC, ER PPC, L-Pulse

Weapons Like M.G. & Flamer You have to brake down in to Burst, The Play aka the 2pt of damage is about 12 to 24 Rounds of Ammo. (See M.G. VS Infantry in the rule books) these weapon will fire a Burst than go into a Cooldown/Reload state for a Very short time and be ready to fire another burst. I suggest a burst be some where between 1-2 sec long and the Cooldown/Reload 0.25-0.75. This also Could have a strong effect on the Heat Cycle system

CBT 1 Turn = 10sec (Bulk of most games) Heat cycle 1/10
Solaris VII 1 Turn = 2.5sec Heat cycle 1/ 2.5sec

The Heat cycles Formula is 10/Heat Cycle Time = Heat Cycle Time Scale (TIC)
The Heat Cycle Time = How long does it take 1 NON-Double Heat Sink to remove 1 heat

Walking: 1Heat Per cycle
Running: 2 Heat Per Cycle
JumpJets: 3Heat Per Cycle or #Jump Jets Heat Per Cycle Which Ever is greater
Weapons Heat = CBT heat X TIC
Engine Hit 1st/2st; 5/10 heat per cycle (I think the 20/40 in the Solaris book was a mathematical typo)
A Heat Sink Remove its normal Heat Point(s) per (TIC) SHS=1 DSH=2
The Overheat Chart we all know and love on the side of our Mech sheets = Number value X (TIC)

[Yeach]

UncleKulikov, on 02 November 2011 - 08:43 AM, said:

Remember that weapons that fire faster have an advantage since it's easier to draw a bead with them, and faster cycle rates reduce the punishment for missing.

Faster firing with lower damage and hence focusing on the target also means that you are exposing yourself to more return fire.
If you have a high damage, long recycle weapons ie MW3/4 PPC, you can take a shot, duck into cover and take another shot when the weapon has recharge. Alternatively (which I have done) is take a shot, torso twist chassis to expose undamaged armor or less vulnerable armor and twist back to take a shot improving your survivability by not exposing the same armor all the time.

Anyways nobody seem to want to use the third option of larger weapons having faster recycle time so I will explain why the 3rd option might make sense.
AC2/AC5 have been pretty much less useful as compared to AC10/AC20 in MW3/MW4. In MW4 they had to be update with more damage and knock added for them to make them even worthwhile.
They have much faster recycle times but at the consequence of having less damage. (see above statement about survivability)

If they did high concentrated damage (relatively) but fire at slower rate, ie for AC5 instead of 1.25 dmg every 2.5 seconds, doing 5 dmg every 10 secs would give you a better and fit the BT damage table making them much more useful IMO.
And then alternatively the AC20 if it did 5 dmg every 2.5 seconds (with knock ) instead of 20 dmg every 10 secs would still make the AC20 deadly at close range and still fit the BT damage table.

[TheRulesLawyer]

metaphysic, on 02 November 2011 - 09:04 AM, said:

If you played any previous mechwarrior games, you would know that alpha strikes make up at least 75% of all mech combat.

DPS is not a useful measure of a weapon's effectiveness in MW games.

That's a whole 'nother arguement. See the weapon convergence thread for that one. Alpha strikes need to be neutered for MWO to work well.

[Yeach]

TheRulesLawyer, on 02 November 2011 - 10:45 AM, said:

That's a whole 'nother arguement. See the weapon convergence thread for that one. Alpha strikes need to be neutered for MWO to work well.

Do alpha strikes need to be neutered?
I think they are a valid tactic though the consequence should have been more severe in MW4.

[Helmer]

Not only should hear levels be monitored and cause issues at higher levels but heat "spikes" could as well. The more heat introduced in a given anount of time ( half or full second ) could cause considerable strain on heat sinks or the reactor core. Causing damage or knocking sinks offline temporarily .
Kinda like a humans matabilism. If you're constantly feeding it small amount of food , it takes care of it quickly . Dump alot on it at once and it takes longer to burn through .

You'd want to keep the polling period short , as there are mechs that are designed to generate heat quickly yet take care of it quickly as well ( 3 PPC Awesome) . It would promote waiting half a second between shots instead of pinpoint Alpha striking.

[mbt201188]

Damage should be determined by many different factors. Speed, stopping power, wind resistance, weapon size etc.

[Helmer]

Heat*

Posting from iPhone , will adjust when I get home.

Sorry!

[VYCanis]

alpha striking is a valid tactic. within reason.

however when alpha strikes and endlessly chainfiring LRMs are the only competitive options. well, you got a game balance problem

Parts of the problem.

MW4, aside from location destruction, and wrecking legs, had very little in the way of serious consequences for damage.

--Your heatsinks were untouchable. you could be missing both side torsos, both arms, a leg, and still have all your HS still counting.
-Your ammo was untouchable, no matter how much you packed in there, it never posed a hazard, ditto for packing on gauss rifles.
-Engine crits, never factored in, especially notable in that as the majority of clan mechs carry XLs, they technically ought to be disabled by taking out both side torsos, (though in a real time enviro, i'd personally just err in favor of just packing on more reactor bleeding past the 3 engine crit limit as death by side torso would be too easy.)
-Gyro damage never factored in.
-Fall damage never factored in
-Heavy weapons were powerful, everything else reduced to popgun weapons.
-With all this, it made critseeker weapons like srms sort of lose their role, since the only thing that mattered was raw damage, as there was no clear difference between armor and internals.

When they tried to rebalance everything after they pretty much tore out the guts of the damage system, its no wonder the game ended up all wonky.

[MagnusEffect]

Bad poll.

Weapons should have their own characteristics based on what type they are, not how big they are. The reasoning in previous MW games is kind of silly especially in terms of the autocannons.

Energy:

Lasers: all sizes have same firing rate, what varies is range, damage, and heat generated. Better range = less heat & damage efficiency (meaning shorter range lasers give you better damage for the weight, but longer range lasers have the advantage of well.. longer range)

Pulse Lasers: similar to lasers, but near-autocannon rate of fire. Drawback is more weight and slightly worse heat management.

PPCs: BIG damage, long range, slow reload. THE POPTART KING. you know the drill

Missiles:

LRMs: Splash damage, long range, slower reload based on size; MWLL did a pretty good job

SRMs: again, MWLL did a pretty good job

Ballistics:

Machine guns: short "effective range", very fast rate of fire

Autocannons: meant for sustained fire, NOT POPTARTING. faster rate of fire than anything but machine guns. slightly slower as the gun gets bigger. AC/20s should still be waay faster firing than lasers. AC/20 should also EASILY have the best DPS in the game. make it something to be FEARED.

LBX Autocannons: giant shotguns with appropriate rate of fire

Gauss Rifle: the gun that is a laser essentially. like a PPC but far less heat and with ammo concerns

So I guess sort of like MWLL, but I think the big guns should deal MASSIVE damage. I want to see severed limbs on smaller mechs after a single volley! (be sure to counter that with making aiming harder of course )

[TheRulesLawyer]

Yeach, on 03 November 2011 - 05:03 AM, said:

Do alpha strikes need to be neutered?
I think they are a valid tactic though the consequence should have been more severe in MW4.

Absolutely. Firing all your weapons at once and having them hit the same location is game breaking. It makes it way too easy to core a location.

[UncleKulikov]

Recoil would significantly reduce the effectiveness of alpha striking.

[Kumakichi]

I'd like to see more varied recycle times.

[VYCanis]

What if weapons that pack considerable recoil when fired actually counted towards the requisite amount of force necessary to potentially make your mech fall over. Especially when moving.

If you are alpha-ing triple gauss rifles, that is a tremendous amount of recoil.

(and for the physics challenged, yes, gauss rifles DO have recoil, there is no discussion, go read a science book if you don't believe me.)

I could easily imagine that suddenly taking a bunch of hard weapon impacts during or immediately firing such a gauss barrage could topple a mech more easily than if it had simply fired one gauss..

[canned wolf]

I'm probably in the minority here, but I think the damage systems from previous games should be pretty much scrapped.

The descriptions in the books say that the AC categories are simplifications. Do we want those short cuts anymore? What if in the market you had a category for AC/10's with 20 different weapons varying ranges accuracy and rates of fire with generally the same damage output? Same with all the other weapons. You could implement stats like reliability and consistency. Maybe you're broke and you need a replacement for an AC that was blown apart in your last fight, so you go with a cheap generic that does decent damage but has crappy reliability and jams all the time. Or an experimental model that has amazing range but really expensive ammo, or a tendency to blow up. Think Borderlands here. There are hundreds of planets with hundreds of manufacturers. You could even have supply shortages of specific ammo types when certain planets are contested. This would give an advantage to having older reliable weapons because they would likely have alot of sources for ammo and parts.

Mechwarrior has suffered in the past from being sterile. Lasers are lasers, AC's are AC's. Give the game personality. Put so many different weapons and pieces of equipment out there that you're unlikely to see two mechs which even resemble each other.

Edited by canned wolf, 03 November 2011 - 03:12 PM.

[MagnusEffect]

honestly, alpha strikes are WAAAAY overused in the mechwarrior franchise. i'm not saying they should not exist, but the toll it takes on mechs GIVING them has been incredibly downplayed in every game, ESPECIALLY IN LARGER MECHS. mech electrical and mechanical systems are VERY complicated things. we are talking about enough powerhungry subsystems to fill a small warship or a badass full sized bomber. when you fire EVERY weapon in a mech, that is cycling a MASSIVE surge of energy and power. try turning on every light, every appliance in a large office building at the same time. does anyone know what happens if a large neighborhood decided to all flush their toilets at the same time? **** BREAKS!

heat in ALL previous games has been pussified.

alpha striking is essentially the mech version of giving yourself an e.n.e.m.a... an e.n.e.m.a of bullets. (cursed language filter... can't say *****?) it is not and should NEVER be a primary method of attack. It is a last ditch effort, a final desperate leave-all-defenses-aside uppercut to your foe... one that is hopefully lethal if not immediately fatal... or at least you hope it will be.

...and then comes the heat wave. think pressure cooker.

anything less is wimp-sauce in my book. real mechwarriors fight naked, afterall

Edited by MagnusEffect, 03 November 2011 - 03:33 PM.

[MaddMaxx]

Gotta go with Magnus on this. HEAT is the overriding factor that makes all Mech's, based on weight, even ton for ton, on the field of battle.

The little guy can't pack the true ALPHA but he also can fire his/her weapon load-out at a much increased rate while moving at substantially faster speeds.

As we move up through the weight classes, the Mediums and Heavies can carry more ALPHA capabilities but that also bring with it morr HEAT unless specifically designed to be heat tolerant. In MW terms that means more HS's and thus less weaponry, thus by default less ALPHA ability.

Then you have the Bruisers. They can have both maximum ALPHA potential and enough HS's to prevent an immediate systems shut down but can also stand about, taking some come back fire, while waiting for the system to cool enough to accommodate another ALPHA.

It is well understood that today's twitch based warriors prefer the Point, Click, you Die, game play style but real BattleMech Pilots understands that in order to truly survive the battlefields of the 31st century, one must be one with one Mech and not simply blow ones self up by clicking on all the FIRE buttons at once because it looks really cool.

Weapons fire rates should be based on the HEAT they generate and how well you Mech deals with that HEAT. Yes the ATLAS is King but HEAT is the evil shiny (my precious) bit that causes pilots to blow themselves to hell for no apparent reason

[Qin]

Thing is not that the weapon produces a damage during those 10 seconds it also produces heat.

I would favor a fast recycle time while keeping the heat the same. So you can fire your medium laser 2 times in 10s or even 4 times but you will pay the price in heat and the time needed to cool down again. Or you pretty much run the risk to blow your mechs ammo bins withing a few seconds if your trigger happy.

[Eegxeta]

Weapon recycle time should depend on the weapon ballistic should have relatively short recycles while missiles would have long recycle times. Beam weapons recycle should be based on how much energy a mech can produce at any given time. How fast an ammoed weapon loads should depend on the size of the ammo, how odd the shape, and how is it fired. A gauess rifle should take longer to recycle than a Autocannon (I'm not going to explain why it would be hard and take too long you should look it up it is really interesting). Also the more a Weapon heats up the slower it recycles till it just stops and has to cool down.

Edited by Eegxeta, 03 November 2011 - 07:32 PM.

[Yeach]

MagnusEffect, on 03 November 2011 - 01:55 PM, said:

Bad poll.

Weapons should have their own characteristics based on what type they are, not how big they are. The reasoning in previous MW games is kind of silly especially in terms of the autocannons.

Energy:

Lasers: all sizes have same firing rate, what varies is range, damage, and heat generated. Better range = less heat & damage efficiency (meaning shorter range lasers give you better damage for the weight, but longer range lasers have the advantage of well.. longer range)

Pulse Lasers: similar to lasers, but near-autocannon rate of fire. Drawback is more weight and slightly worse heat management.

PPCs: BIG damage, long range, slow reload. THE POPTART KING. you know the drill

Missiles:

LRMs: Splash damage, long range, slower reload based on size; MWLL did a pretty good job

SRMs: again, MWLL did a pretty good job

Ballistics:

Machine guns: short "effective range", very fast rate of fire

Autocannons: meant for sustained fire, NOT POPTARTING. faster rate of fire than anything but machine guns. slightly slower as the gun gets bigger. AC/20s should still be waay faster firing than lasers. AC/20 should also EASILY have the best DPS in the game. make it something to be FEARED.

LBX Autocannons: giant shotguns with appropriate rate of fire

Gauss Rifle: the gun that is a laser essentially. like a PPC but far less heat and with ammo concerns

So I guess sort of like MWLL, but I think the big guns should deal MASSIVE damage. I want to see severed limbs on smaller mechs after a single volley! (be sure to counter that with making aiming harder of course )

Not a bad summary.
For Mechcommander the advantages of autocannons over beam weapons were faster rate of fire at the expense of bulk and limited ammo.

[VYCanis]

i rather fell in love with the MWO podcast idea that was put forward in the early episodes

assuming you get different manufacturers/models and such as canned wolf said, you would naturally have different models of the same weapon class exploring different roles and useful to different playstyles.

So, to use the podcast example. lets say you have a light mech, like say, a locust or wasp or whatever dinky 20 tonner you have in mind. Your main gun is pretty much a piddly little medium laser.

Now considering you only have 1, and that is your main damage dealing weapon, chances are you will probably want a model that has its damage as high as possible and assuming that damage gets divided over time, duration as short as possible. At the expense of range, running super hot, having a potentially high price, slower recycle rate, but hopefully still reliable. Considering you gotta eek every ounce of performance outta this thing and you only have 1, you have to really go for broke to get any sort of meaningful punch.

Conversely if you mech has like a whole lot of medium lasers, or just has a few as filler weapons to fire while a bigger gun is recycling. you probably don't want overclocked slow firing heat hog medium lasers, you might want something that runs a bit cooler and recycles faster, while being more willing to sacrifice reliability since you've got lasers to spare

Ditto for ACs. Slow firing heavy hitting ACs would be great for fighting assaults, since you can concentrate damage more easily and those big slow mechs aren't gonna dodge anything. But against fast smaller mechs you can easily find your opponent practically dancing around your slow recycling attacks. But if say you had an AC that traded caliber for rate of fire, suddenly those light mechs aren't dancing so good no more, but conversely, you find yourself spreading damage around on assaults and thus at a disadvantage towards them.

Edited by VYCanis, 17 January 2012 - 10:38 PM.