190 replies to this topic

[Johannes Falkner]

The complexities of armoring a vehicle in the BT universe boggle the mind.

Your armor must prevent damage from:
Flamers - fusion plasma - effectively alpha and beta radiation
PPC - directed particle weapons (presumably also plasma based, but with an appreciable kinetic effect)
ACs - conventional (but advanced) ballistic projectiles (HEAT, HESH, APDS, etc.)
Missiles - Kinetic and HE based
Lasers - what do I need to say, laser
Melee Attacks - Tons of impact
Vibration - Walking, running, jumping, falling, etc.

Modern tank armor (chobham, etc.) uses armor quality steel (hard faced but with high ductility) sandwiched around ceramics/glass layers to protect against impact and HEAT type rounds. Similar armor would be suitable against BT ACs, missiles, melee and the general wear and tear of military ops. Flamers, PPCs and Lasers require additional layering, which actually decreases the armor's effectiveness. The more distinct layers there are the higher ratio of unsuitable layers to effective layers against any given attack. Flamers would need a very dense materiaal with some charge conductivity. PPCs would need a very impact resistant high temperature dense material capable of being charged to mitigate the PPC's electric charge. Lasers would best be defeated through reflective and thermally conductive materials.

There are a couple of forms of impregnated diamond that would do the job, it would just be unmachinable and very expensive to create (probably true even in the 31st century [and mankind is once again at war.]).

[Victor Morson]

Belisarius†, on 30 March 2012 - 04:53 PM, said:

That's thing though, MW4 already did that, and they were terrible because they had no rock. The niche you're chasing is suppression, and rock is a critical part of that whether it matches the physics or not.

I agree that it's a lot simpler than a 9 page thread would suggest, though.

Honestly my thoughts on the matter now are to make the AC/2 and AC/5 act almost identically to the RAC/2 and RAC/5, with just under half relative damage at increased ranges and the UAC/2 and UAC/5 to be just under. LBXs could have a slower rate of fire and drastically more rock. Granted that would make actual RACs pretty hard to balance when they show up, but my line of thinking is this:

* We won't see RACs for a very, very long time if ever - depending on a timeline jump.
* It's a niche that no other weapon would fill.

RACs were awesome support weapons in MW4, being the perfect balance of doing enough damage to be useful in their own right, and totally just ruining the day of your assault 'mechs and throwing their aim in every direction. The combination of rapid chip damage and hefty cockpit rock more or less worked out perfectly. While you'd obviously want to make some changes in terms of graphics, feedback, balance tweaks, etc. I'd like the MWO AC/2 and AC/5 to basically fill the same role - heavy suppression weapons, like what you're talking about.

They'd still need a damage boost, of course. Rock alone won't make the weapon. RAC/5s were capable of keeping up with bigger punch 'mechs, and if they weren't, I don't know if the rock alone would have saved them. But suppression seems to be the niche that most people are agreeing on that'd serve these weapons best.

[Belisarius1]

Did you ever actually play NBT Hardcore, Victor?

Not at the start, when it was broken as heck, but later on when they started to get it down. I honestly would model both RACs and AC's exactly the way HC did, with perhaps a slight nerf.

RACs were a little different to straight ACs because they did all their damage very quickly, and then jammed or at least had to stop. UACs fired slower - though still quite quickly - but could do so forever. UACs also had more rock than RACs.

Edited by Belisarius†, 31 March 2012 - 05:45 AM.

[Belisarius1]

From the BV thread.

Victor Morson, on 01 April 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

I kind of wish I had a chance to play HC to see the UAC2/5 with the buffs applied; they sound like they became the dominant design, which is sure to drastically change the whole dynamic of the game. It sounds like they were abit too extremely buffed, but it's a fine line to walk - do you know if there's a youtube video floating around of them? Would be neat to post in the AC thread.

I'll have a look around, but it was something you really had to feel shooting at you. You needed about 4 UAC5s chained in pairs to keep a heavy from accurately returning fire. The sweet spot for UAC2s was as high as 6+, so they were dedicated boat weapons. They were fairly difficult to keep focused on a single location, and while their DPS wasn't quite zomgwtfbroken, it was pretty damn scary. Their ranges also got a big buff in line with canon, up to 800m for UAC5s and 1200m for UAC2s.

The key culprit was a 4UAC5 timber wolf. It ran surprisingly hot for a laser-less 'mech and tended to have ammo problems, but it was fast and had enough damage in its ~80 volleys to drop you several times over if the pilot was good. If a horde of them came over a hill and your team was in the open it was pretty much gg. The big difference was that while RAC5s had much better burst dps, they eventually had to stop or jam, where UAC5s could just keep on rockin' until you died. RACs and UACs were different but both relevant, which I liked.

For UAC2s, they tended to be boated by big, static, turret assaults, either 6 on a deimos or 8(?) on the dire. 6+ gave enough rock that it was hard to place shots at long range no matter what you were in, and that was where you most often had to fight it. The ultimate composition for max tonnage drops was usually 3-4x UAC2 dire, 2-3x alpha dire, and 1x scout. The UACs gave zoning, suppression and good chip damage, while the alphas punched holes for the UACs to find. Even without alpha backup, all three UAC dires focusing a target would usually crit or kill before it could get back behind cover.

I never considered them broken enough to ruin the game, but they were abusively good. You could beat an all-UAC team with a lot of good, poptart alphas and reasonable cover to minimise chip damage, but even then it felt like you had to work harder than they did. If they opted to camp a big-*** flat plain with UAC2s, there was pretty much nothing you could do except bring UACs of your own or hope they let you into range. That was exacerbated by the fact that almost all the good UAC boats just happened to carry LAMS, so you couldn't even take advantage of the open spaces to missile boat them down. Isn't it funny, all these unintentionally crazy design decisions you find in hindsight?

Personally, I'd leave the rock and rof around where it was in HC but turn the damage down maybe 20% to make them more suppression oriented. Thinking about it, the extra range was also a key factor. I don't remember exactly what it was in mercs, but if I had to give a number I'd say "too damn short".

Edited by Belisarius†, 01 April 2012 - 04:09 PM.

[Ravana]

Quote

There are a couple of forms of impregnated diamond that would do the job, it would just be unmachinable and very expensive to create (probably true even in the 31st century [and mankind is once again at war.]).

Actually Battletech Ferro-fibrous is as follows.

"Ferro-fibrous armor adds a weave of diamond fibers to the outer steel layer itself. This is quite the trick because steel is a combination of iron and carbon, would normally mean the diamond weave, which is pure carbon, would dissolve into the iron component of the steel. The techniques used to keep the diamond from melting into the iron component results in bulkier but lighter armor."

[Johannes Falkner]

Ravana, on 01 April 2012 - 06:57 PM, said:

Actually Battletech Ferro-fibrous is as follows.

"Ferro-fibrous armor adds a weave of diamond fibers to the outer steel layer itself. This is quite the trick because steel is a combination of iron and carbon, would normally mean the diamond weave, which is pure carbon, would dissolve into the iron component of the steel. The techniques used to keep the diamond from melting into the iron component results in bulkier but lighter armor."

I know the FF description, but I was talking IRL.

[RedHairDave]

why not just super fast firing? one ton of ammo is lots of shells. most of the time way to many to use in a fight, so use more.

[DarkendMoon]

I think you all are forgetting the recycle time of the lighter ACs. The AC2 was able to pump out the rounds super fast in the other games. Unless something changed that I do not know about. I don't' have a beta key after all. I remember loading 4 AC2s on a mauler in the older games and ripping people appart before they got near me.

Please don't tell me they broke the AC2

[Karl Streiger]

DarkendMoon, on 11 July 2012 - 11:27 PM, said:

Please don't tell me they broke the AC2

based on some "leak" informations, dunno if they are valid. It looks like that the AC 2 has a higher v0 and a higher rof.

[Johnny Kerensky]

You could balance it with the rate of fire and maybe a deteriation of accuracy over time and by that I mean low caliber higher rate of fire and much less deteriation of accuracy over time than higher caliber weapons.

[Spleenslitta]

I don't know if this has been mentioned since i didn't have the courage to read all 10 pages. I hope this thread isn't a zombie rearing it's rotten head out it's grave....

Firerate is being discussed. Which is the best way to judge how high the firerate should be?
In my opinion it should be something like this. An AC 2 weighs 6+1 ton for it's ammo which is equal to the PPC / ER PPC weight.
The ER PPC makes the best comparison since it's range is 690 Meters which almost the same as the AC 2's 730 meters.

Let's say the dev's fire both an ER PPC and an AC 2 at the same time. If things are balanced properly the AC 2 should shoot off 6 shots just a little faster than the ER PPC manages to recharge for another shot.
Why should it be like this? Because then the AC 2 would do 12 points of damage for one recycle time of an ER PPC which causes 10 points of damage in one single shot.

The constant aiming of the AC 2 equals out the ER PPC's heat problem that makes the mech sluggish to move.
The spread out damage and 2 extra points of damage of the AC 2 equals out the ER PPC's pinpoint damage.

Because as you all know aiming can sometimes prevent you from maneuvering to the fullest of your abilities unless your gaming skills are downright godlike.
And the more you maneuver the more inaccurate you tend to get.

What do you think? It would put the AC 2 on somewhat equal ground with the ER PPC. But when heat is taken into the equation and it's affects on maneuvering....