190 replies to this topic

[RedDragon]

Just comparing the weapons' stats won't tell you anything. The AC/2/5 are good at what they're supposed to be good at: delivering long range direct fire for virtually no heat. You want to equip a large laser instead? Then you have to equip heat-sinks to go along with it or it won't be of much use to you in the long run. In TT, at least in the 3025-era, every point of heat counts and you'd think twice before using a medium laser and risk shut-down or a negative hit-modifier instead of using th AC/5. The Marauder for example is a mech that can't use all of its energy-weapons simultaneously, but no matter how you combine them, the AC/5 always fits in for extra punch.
So for purpose of comparing lasers to ACs you have to calculate some heat-sinks in. And now a medium laser plus 2 heat-sinks drops in at 3 tons and 3 crits. And it doesn't have the range of a AC/5. Not to mention the possibility of critcal reactor and/or heat-sink hits. Suddenly you generate more heat than you can shake a stick at and are forced to use ballistics or don't fire at all.
In later time periods you have different types of ammo to upgrade your AC's and they can't be taken down by anti-missile-systems, two advantages also you shouldn't neglect.

Edited by RedDragon, 19 March 2012 - 04:50 AM.

[Cifu]

Seems great, some people notice the realism and Battletech are not good friends.

Again: i love the Battletech. But please ignore such things like "realistic ballistic". BT isn't fond to realism.

[Siilk]

I recommend you to join this thread. It's better to search the forum for the similar topics before starting a new one, try doing it next time.

[Kenyon Burguess]

yup, welcome to bad TT math and the nightmare of balancing a game. sounds like the devs are headed in the right direction with the DOT approach but i cant wait to hear about mech lab month.

[metro]

Merging sequence INITITATED!

come on folks, use the SEARCH tool....your killing me here!


Merge sequence complete.

[Zureal]

Sens the subject of "realism" in regards to ranges has been brought up, i thought i should throw this in from Total Warfair, P.36

For all you haters out there and those that seem to not be in the know.

A NOTE ON SCALE AND THE RULES

Classic BattleTech turns represent ten seconds of real time, while
each hex on a mapsheet represents thirty meters of a battlefi eld
(for the exception, see Aerospace Movement, p. 74). However,
players should note that such “real world” terms are abstractions
when applied to the board game. Classic BattleTech is a game, not
a detailed simulation. Therefore, the real world must take a back
seat to game play—for simplicity, length of play, space required
and simple enjoyment.

For example, while only a single ’Mech can occupy a hex, it does
not actually take up the entire hex. A 30-meter-wide hex off ers
plenty of room for a twelve-meter-tall ’Mech to move around
and avoid fi re. In real-world terms, another ’Mech could easily fi t
in that space as well. However, for ease of play, a ’Mech tactically
controls the hex it occupies even though it does not physically fi ll
that space. Therefore, only a single ’Mech is allowed in a hex.
Weapon ranges provide another example. Players will quickly
realize that the longest-range standard weapon in the game can
only hit targets out to thirty hexes (900 meters) from the attacker.
Real-world primary main battle tank weapons have operational
targeting ranges in excess of 4,000 meters. Because Classic
BattleTech mapsheets are only seventeen hexes long, recreating
real-world ranges on a table would require more than seven
mapsheets laid end to end, for a playing space greater than twelve
feet in length. Not many people have that type of table space, nor
would it provide players with any tactical maneuvering room.
Anywhere a player might move a unit on the map, an attacker
could hit that unit.
Finally, the abstractions of real-world factors such as fi ring
distance often can enhance the aesthetic of the game universe.
Classic BattleTech has always been about “in-your-face” combat,
which works best with closer ranges. Players are encouraged to
remember such abstractions and not get bogged down in realworld
mechanics and physics. Just enjoy the game!

[Belisarius1]

Victor, I don't know your background but you obviously come from league play. Did you play NBT's HC mod for any length of time? Low calibre ACs were very powerful in that mod, especially UACs.

What they did was give them back the TT damage per shot while retaining MW4's high recycle rates, and also gave them significant knockback. Not so much knock that a single UAC2 will stop you shooting back, but enough that you probably wouldn't want something like a dire wolf B to be interested in you for an extended period of time, much less a kraken-clone.

This obviously gave small UACs a much higher DPS than they had in the TT, and a chorus of NBT vets are probably already pounding on their keyboards to tell you they were horribly overpowered. They were very strong, but just because NBT may have overdone it doesn't mean the idea isn't sound. A UAC5 gave nearly as much dps as a PPC, but that damage was spread across multiple locations and required you to be exposed to deal it.

I would turn their knock and damage down from HC's, but I feel the intention is good. High fire rates and high knock at good range gives the small ACs an essential role in both target suppression and target softening, without usurping any of the other weapons.

Edited by Belisarius†, 19 March 2012 - 08:27 PM.

[Outlaw2]

Belisarius†, on 19 March 2012 - 08:25 PM, said:

Victor, I don't know your background but you obviously come from league play. Did you play NBT's HC mod for any length of time? Low calibre ACs were very powerful in that mod, especially UACs.

What they did was give them back the TT damage per shot while retaining MW4's high recycle rates, and also gave them significant knockback. Not so much knock that a single UAC2 will stop you shooting back, but enough that you probably wouldn't want something like a dire wolf B to be interested in you for an extended period of time, much less a kraken-clone.

This obviously gave small UACs a much higher DPS than they had in the TT, and a chorus of NBT vets are probably already pounding on their keyboards to tell you they were horribly overpowered. They were very strong, but just because NBT may have overdone it doesn't mean the idea isn't sound. A UAC5 gave nearly as much dps as a PPC, but that damage was spread across multiple locations and required you to be exposed to deal it.

I would turn their knock and damage down from HC's, but I feel the intention is good. High fire rates and high knock at good range gives the small ACs an essential role in both target suppression and target softening, without usurping any of the other weapons.

THEY WERE HORRIBLY OVERPOWERED

But I agree somewhere in between the vanilla values and HC's lies the perfect low caliber AC.

[Hayashi]

Strum Wealh, on 16 March 2012 - 01:09 PM, said:

Actually, the Standard AC-5 does have the same range-brackets as the Standard PPC - that's part of what makes the main armaments of the Marauder work so well.
Moreover, it's the same set of range brackets used by the LB-X AC-10, the UAC-10, the LAC-2 the RAC-2, and the Heavy PPC.

----------



One thing that could help the lighter weapons (if the Devs might consider such a detail, if they haven't already) is having the weight of the weapons themselves affect the convergence speed, with the mass of the weapons acting as a modifier to the BattleMechs' base tracking speed.

Under this scheme, lightweight weapons (and lightweight clusters of weapons) could track faster and be brought to bear more quickly than heavier weapons (and heavier clusters of weapons).
This, combined with the generally longer ranges, would allow the lighter ACs (and lighter weapons in general) to be generally better for taking hastily-aimed pop-shots and for maintaining a higher hit-rate against faster targets and/or targets at range, while heavier, harder-hitting weapons (heavier ACs, Gauss Rifles) would need more time to be aimed optimally - a noticeable disadvantage against faster targets at greater distances, but generally negated when the targets are slower and/or closer.

Even in the case of weapons with similar ranges and different weights (say, Standard AC-5 vs LB-X AC-10), the former would still have the advantage of faster convergence and, as a result, this be better-able to deal with fast targets and far-away targets (in addition to carrying more ammo per ton and leaving additional weight for additional weapons/armor/ammo/equipment/heat sinks/engine upgrades/etc.).
The balancing disadvantage, of course, is still low damage-per-salvo and lower maximum-damage-output-per-unit-time (though, the potential for an increased hit rate may partially make up for that).

Thus, the lower-caliber ACs have additional worthwhile advantages (better tracking and lower convergence times) in addition to their traditional strengths (longer ranges, more ammo per ton, very low heat production, less bulk, and (ideally) higher muzzle velocities) and their traditional weaknesses (low damage per ton, low damage per second, and low damage per shot) versus the larger-bore ACs and the Gauss Rifles.

Your thoughts?

I agree with the convergence idea stated here. The smaller ACs, if they can be made to converge very quickly, can definitely use this as an advantage, especially as arm mounted weapons. Since we're stuck with 2 reticles let the maximum convergence speed be limited by the convergence speed of the slowest weapon in the set. Also, let the arm weapons converge faster than the torso weapons, as I assume arm weapons are meant to swing arcs more often and torso weapons more for alphaing and all that crap.

Therefore, there will be an incentive for people to put AC/2 and AC/5 as support weapons on the their arms to deal with long range sniping as and when needed (which brings their range capabilities to full potential), and also makes use of their high rate of fire to constantly harass the enemy Mech when circle strafing and whatnot. However, I cannot agree with making the convergence speed based on weight. We should make the convergence speed based on role. High damage per shot weapons with low rate of fire, like PPCs, AC/20s and LRM/20s should all converge slowly. Low damage per shot weapons with high rate of fire, like Small Lasers, Machine Guns, AC/2, AC/5 and SRM2 should converge very quickly. The convergence speed can be listed in the weapon stats in the Mechlab, and as this concept was never introduced in canon BT, we can use this to balance out the uselessness of the low damage per shot weapons WITHOUT INTERFERING WITH CANON. While this post is on AC/2, I'm sure most will agree with me that SRM2 and Small Lasers generally suffer from the exact same weakness.

Gabriel Amarell, on 20 March 2012 - 12:05 AM, said:

Like many of you I’ve loaded up Mechwarrior 4 and been playing through it again: 1 because I like it, even with all its flaws it’s still a fun title, and 2 not as “training” per-se for MWO but as a way of getting back into mech piloting in general. While doing this I noticed something that I never noticed before, when your mech is being knocked around by enemy weapons fire it makes targeting really problematic. In MW4 it doesn’t seem to make any difference what kind of weapon it is, they all seem to have at least some degrees of knockback. Now, by knockback, I mean that being hit by a weapon causes your mech’s torso to turn and pitch away from where it was pointed prior to the weapons impact, consequently forcing you to readjust the angle to get the retackle back on target.

When I noticed how troublesome it was when used against me I decided to see if it might hamper the cpu generated opponents and sure enough it does. I loaded up Large X-Pulse lasers because they fire rapidly (2.25 sec recycle) and have decent damage per shot (7 dmg/shot) figuring the amount of damage might translate into how much knockback the weapon has. I took my Large X-Pulse toting Awesome for a spin to test my theory and the result was better than I had expected.

Set on chain fire with 4 of the weapons (and 24 heat sinks) I was able to pepper the enemies continuously and it interfered with their targeting significantly. The results got me thinking if I were to take a defensive role in MWO (assuming knockback is similar to MW 4) it might be worth it to load up weapons that fire rapidly and have decent knockback rather than going for the most “powerful” weapons.

It seems to me that knockback effect and the resultant interference with targeting might really be useful in a defensive role, and perhaps in the scout role, if the AC-2/AC-5 were relatively rapid fire with decent knockback they might really let a pilot utilizing them hamper the effectiveness of an opponent, and doing this might partially offset their glairing deficiencies. I would still argue that the AC-2/AC-5 need to be made smaller and lighter, or they need to fire more rapidly, but that’s another topic.

If Energy weapons (PPC not withstanding) had no knockback, and ballistic/missile weapons did, and if knockback truly interfered with targeting as much as it did in MW 4 it could add a defensive element to the game that I think would be great. I know Piranha has already announced knockback, but I for one hope that ballistic weapons really knock you around and make it hard to stay on target, I think it would add weight to some of the smaller weapons that are not traditionally very useful (small AC’s SRM-2, LRM-5?)

Also, I would like the concept from this other thread to be used here as well - knockback. If these weapons (except small lasers) caused knockback when they hit the opponent 'Mech they'd have a purpose beyond damage. Forcing the other 'Mech's alpha to miss is extremely useful, and for a high rate of fire weapon, it's easily possible to make this kind of harassment a strategic advantage, even if their damage was never increased. Leaving the ammunition as it is will discourage nonstop plinking of an enemy Mech so it never actually gets to shoot straight, which is in itself a problem. Small lasers are unable to knockback, as it's ridiculous for a laser to have knockback in the first place; however, small lasers are only 0.5 tons, and grouping enough of them will do some damage over time while circle strafing, especially against lighter Mechs, while producing very little heat.

Lastly, I would like to advocate that missiles in flight can be shot down if they collide with any other missiles/bullets/small lasers. This would allow for small lasers and machine guns to be used as a sort of manual AMS. It wouldn't be 100% effective since no player can aim that fast to shoot down every single missile from a volley of 20 of them... but that would make sense in reality, and give these weapons an additional use. Especially for the otherwise crappy LBX-AC/2, which can act as a veritable flak cannon of sorts. However, of all the suggestions this is necessarily the hardest to achieve, I'm not sure if it's possible given the current game engine. But that's up to the game devs to decide.

Tl;dr we can make them useful by giving them non-canon additional tactical uses, which make them worth mounting even without modifying canon stats.

[Cifu]

Hayashi, on 20 March 2012 - 03:13 AM, said:

Also, I would like the concept from this other thread to be used here as well - knockback. If these weapons (except small lasers) caused knockback when they hit the opponent 'Mech they'd have a purpose beyond damage. Forcing the other 'Mech's alpha to miss is extremely useful, and for a high rate of fire weapon, it's easily possible to make this kind of harassment a strategic advantage, even if their damage was never increased. Leaving the ammunition as it is will discourage nonstop plinking of an enemy Mech so it never actually gets to shoot straight, which is in itself a problem. Small lasers are unable to knockback, as it's ridiculous for a laser to have knockback in the first place; however, small lasers are only 0.5 tons, and grouping enough of them will do some damage over time while circle strafing, especially against lighter Mechs, while producing very little heat.

Just a note:

Even if there is no knockback on lasers, there is an another thing which maybe need to be calculated: the vanishing armor weight.
It's coming from the novellas, but have some background:
A tons of armor means 16 point of "HP", so if someone lost lots of armor, that's means the mech balance can be change suddenly...
Same true about when an arm destroyed, for example...

Edited by Cifu, 20 March 2012 - 11:23 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Then their are those that say you can have "knocking" in - but not enough to stop you aiming as then it's not "fun". Personally i think - where are your team mates? I like the idea of a Blackjack (even better a Jagermech) playing a tattoo with their AC's. After all the energy boats get their say when the ammo runs out (in a minute or two) if their still alive.

[MaddMaxx]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 20 March 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

Then their are those that say you can have "knocking" in - but not enough to stop you aiming as then it's not "fun". Personally i think - where are your team mates? I like the idea of a Blackjack (even better a Jagermech) playing a tattoo with their AC's. After all the energy boats get their say when the ammo runs out (in a minute or two) if their still alive.

Knock is fine, as in "Whoa, that was big!" as opposed to continuous knock (can't even respond to the shooter) from 500+ m, can be problematic.

[Pht]

Victor Morson, on 16 March 2012 - 01:13 AM, said:

I.. uh.. what do I say to this? Yeah, the 'mechs in CBT are the same 'mechs in MW and.. what are you trying to say? Of course they share a canon base, it doesn't mean any of their systems of gameplay are the same.

Honestly I have to agree that you've kind of de-railed, but I think "gone off the rails" might be more accurate;...

I was responding to outlaw's post in which he brought the topic up.

Quote

... ACs have been pretty bad in table top, and terrible in all but one MechWarrior game (due to the inclusion of aircraft and infantry, which ACs were given a non-canon buff to damaging).

AC's weren't' bad in the TT, or the lore. Just in the lopsided MW games where the AC's other factors simply don't come into play.

Quote

Yeah, exactly what I'm saying. To be honest we've started turning TACs off even in our Megamek games, as they add nothing but a random chance of the game ending to a single bad dice throw.

So a heavy gauss or a heavy large laser or a heavy PPC or clan ERPPC should never, ever, ever, be allowed to punch a hole in armor?

Quote

In a MW title such randomization is even further a bad idea.

If you think I'd advocated for counter intuitive randomization that renders skill pointless, or anything like that, you clearly missed the point of the articles linked or simply didn't bother to read them.

Quote

The light ACs weigh far too much to make them favorable to weapons like the Gauss Rifle,

The gauss rifle and the AC 2's and 5's don't even have the same job on the battlefield.

Why are you trying to compare apples to oranges?

Quote

However just due to the nature of it - realtime vs turn based, strategy vs sim, etc. it IS nebulous.

---

Sharing a common universe and concepts doesn't really change that? It's impossible to straight port gameplay from one part of the BTU to another without changing it to represent the basic idea.

It isn't. Which can be demonstrated.

---

Straw man. I haven't proposed this, which you'd know, if you'd actually read through the articles linked.

=Outlaw=, on 16 March 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

Well this is going nowhere...

So, you can make a blunt claim, and than ... simply refuse to back it up or engage in any meaningful discussion?

Quote

It also seems anybody saying something is wrong in the Mechwarrior games gets a reflexive response that everything is fine if they followed BTU/parent game, with no basis in past MW games.

And you know the response was "reflexive" ... how?

"With no basis..."

Quote

Where can we validly go to to define the Battletech Universe, and from within that definition, what it is like to pilot a BattleMech in combat? There are three different sources that are usually appealed to.

First, there are the previous MechWarrior video games. Positively, these are useful as examples of how others have tried to implement what it is like to pilot a BTU BattleMech in video game format.

...

Where there are concepts in the Story source, those which are necessary to achieve a MW game, that are not implemented in the TT source, one can look to the MW video games and see if these concepts had any in-game expression and use those translations for comparison as a help for making a new translation.

I have an odd way of saying that an MW video game should be done without any reference to previous MW video games.

LordDeathStrike, on 19 March 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

... and in battle tech you cant see more then 1200 meters (thats the most advanced sensors) 1000 meters normally,

Not so.

You can shoot at anthing you can see under the LOS rules.

[Black Sunder]

Justa note here but AC2s and AC5s were very accurate weapons at long range. The others were not so much.

[Victor Morson]

Pht, on 20 March 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

AC's weren't' bad in the TT, or the lore. Just in the lopsided MW games where the AC's other factors simply don't come into play.

... and that is where it all went horribly wrong. Yeah the novels and fluff writers don't seem to realize it but outside of AA, they were baaaaad in the table top. 'mechs like the Dragon were a complete and total joke, as a single AC/5 took so much out of the 'mech it had to be the primary weapon. Even 'mechs trying to boat them like the Jagermech are a complete joke compared to anything else in it's weight class, even with UACs.

In fact, I'd argue as bad as they are, UAC 2/5s at least in MechWarrior games don't jam completely at random when firing in Ultra mode, being dead for the rest of the match. I mean what a way to kick a weapon while it's down: At least you can unjam RACs in mid-battle.

Long story short, until RACs came along, AC2s and 5s were outright terrible in tabletop, and AC/10s have always been questionable. Sometimes you have to live with them if you pull them in a random army, but you'd never want to chose 'mechs that center around them on purpose.

[Karl Streiger]

@Victor Morson
after reading your last post - i realized that this whole argue come down to one simple fact:
different players have different styles.

me for my part like all ACs maybe not from the point of performance - but from style
What kind of player am I?
I like in TT intro tech most because only there you have the feeling that you have armored units - i have no problem when it last some dozen turns till the first kill is achived.
My problem with TW era games it is that there is to much action - i win the battle before it starts with the choice of my units - not with supreme tactics.
The first usage of the RAC 5 in a game resulting in the effect that a RAC Centurion was able to out manouever a Vulture and destroyed him with a single burst of 6 shots in the back - something that were hardly possible with its normal AC 10 loadout.

So: when a MWO battle should last some minutes before the first kill happen everything would be nice - in my opinion

[Victor Morson]

Karl Streiger, on 20 March 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

@Victor Morson
after reading your last post - i realized that this whole argue come down to one simple fact:
different players have different styles.

I agree with that more than you realize; I'm not saying you should play the game in the style I'd like, at all. Actually I'm championing the very concept of letting people play with different styles by wanting them to be viable. I would love it if someone that prefers AC2s & 5s could make a viable 'mech in MWO that would, through some method or advantage, have a great role to play in the game. It's why I started the thread.. and the kicker is, I'm not even a big fan of ACs in general. I'm far more likely to lean towards playing a missile boat personally. I just hate the idea of there being weak weapons, with a handful of unfortunate players trying to make them work but always being left in the dust during games because they simply.. don't.

One look at the Dragon's use in CBT tournaments and you'll see what I mean; until the Grand Dragon variant came along, nobody would touch it and if they were forced to, it'd fail terribly with the lowest stats out there. There's a reason 'mechs like the Awesome sporting an array of PPCs are far superior to 'mechs like the Zeus, despite being 5 tons lighter. I'd love to see both have a use.

Karl Streiger, on 20 March 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

me for my part like all ACs maybe not from the point of performance - but from style
What kind of player am I?
I like in TT intro tech most because only there you have the feeling that you have armored units - i have no problem when it last some dozen turns till the first kill is achived.
My problem with TW era games it is that there is to much action - i win the battle before it starts with the choice of my units - not with supreme tactics.
The first usage of the RAC 5 in a game resulting in the effect that a RAC Centurion was able to out manouever a Vulture and destroyed him with a single burst of 6 shots in the back - something that were hardly possible with its normal AC 10 loadout.

RACs are great weapons. AC/10s are questionably decent (They have a niche but I tend to not prefer them) but there's no arguing here about RACs. If MWO was set anywhere near RACs this would still be a thread, though, because that just further pushes the usefulness of AC/UAC/LBX 2 and 5 further down.

I think it's actually pretty apparent that RACs were basically invented to "fix" autocannons without retconning them in the table top. Most lackluster 'mechs centered around AC2s and 5s got a RAC upgraded version, turning them from sub-par/terrible into really awesome top tier stuff. RACs have been good in TT and MW games in the past. Honestly I'm half of the thought that AC/UAC 2 and 5 should be made to fill a similar role, since we won't be seeing RACs for a very long time.

Karl Streiger, on 20 March 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

So: when a MWO battle should last some minutes before the first kill happen everything would be nice - in my opinion

Again, we're in major agreement. I miss the days of digging into hills, trading shots. My favorite time playing MechWarrior 4 far and away were the early League days when the drop weights were heavier and nobody figured out how to speed their 'mechs up, and you could end up in an hour long skirmish and end the match with surviving 'mechs. There was real tension to hanging onto your best stuff, trying to avoid getting blown up, in those games. I think the reduced overall speed and need to armor your 'mechs due to the return of crits should honestly fix that, though - I expect MWO matches in general to take a lot more time to play than previous games and turn into crazed brawls less often from the footage we've seen so far.

In short I think we're in agreement about most everything. I would love to see low-caliber ACs buffed so those who view them as their style can have a chance of being competitive in the game as well.

Edited by Victor Morson, 21 March 2012 - 12:32 AM.

[docmorningstar]

It will come down to mission type alot, I think....

I also think that tweaking the AC class weapons so that they deliver damage very consistently over distance vs PPCs or Lasers will be a good way to balance them. I really don't like messing with the 'basic' canon specifications (like tonnage or heat) but we can fiddle them a bit. So I think the place to make them 'better' is in their intangibles. Like knock back, projectile velocity, 'fire modes' , etc.

AC type weapons:
Fire HEAT (like) ammunition, where damage is not dependent on range. If it hits the target, it does its damage. All damage is done in one location. Has greater or lesser 'knock back' depending on caliber. Include 'burst fire' for the light ACs (fire a 10 or 5 shot cassette very, very quickly with a long recharge between shots) OR 'single shot' - keep DPS the same (note - 'bursting' should be less accurate, which would make it less useful at VL range, but it would increase the alpha potential of a light AC mech when in close). Very high velocity for the light guns, much lower for the big ones.

Missile weapons: HE type ammunition (or inferno, maybe), where damage is not dependent on range. Accuracy is dependent on range, and they have a maximum powered flight envelope (note - should allow us to 'shoot' at longer range targets, but the missiles become unpowered ballistic at ranges longer than long). That would let something like a catapult shoot at 2x range 'stationary' targets in sort of a bombardment mode...just a thought. accuracy would be OK at extra-range if the target wasn't moving (IE, once they cross long range they stop tracking at all). Lots of knock back while they are hitting.

LRM: pretty dumb, but some small degree of tracking ability (or you would never hit your target). So-so flight speed
SRM: really dumb, tiny bit of tracking ability (only so many degrees per second turn rate) but really fast flight speed
SSRM: really smart, much higher tracking ability, really fast flight speed

Laser weapons: nonlinear fall off in damage due to range (say 80% @max range and 20% at max+short). No knockback. Also gives 'glare' around the beam (blind the enemy) glare occurs in inverse proportion to damage (the beam is dispersing, so more of it ends up in the enemies eyes). Lasers do damage over time, so need to hold beam on target.

PPC: somewhere between lasers and ACs. Does all its damage on hitting, but has a non-linear fall off in damage. Does less damage 'in close' No blinding effect.

Gauss Rifle: Does all damage in one chunk. Has a linear fall off in damage potential (its a solid chunk of material...so its damage is directly related to it's speed). make it do something like 100% damage at 0 range, 80% at LR, and 60% at 2x LR.

[Pht]

Victor Morson, on 20 March 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

... and that is where it all went horribly wrong. Yeah the novels and fluff writers don't seem to realize it but outside of AA, they were baaaaad in the table top. 'mechs like the Dragon were a complete and total joke, as a single AC/5 took so much out of the 'mech it had to be the primary weapon. Even 'mechs trying to boat them like the Jagermech are a complete joke compared to anything else in it's weight class, even with UACs.

They weren't "baaaad." They have a different job besides killing stuff at long range. Or short range, for that matter.

Having a specific job other than smashing the crud out of everything at long range for a certain ratio of damage vs weight and heat does not make a weapon "bad."

This kind of thinking reduces weapons balance to a whack-a-mole game, where anything that doesn't play the same game (in this case, killing stuff quickly for not much investment) gets bumped up to be more damaging ... and anything that is noticably better at that game gets whacked down to match all the rest, because after all, we don't want to see only that weapon.

About the dragon: yes, it could have been better... to which I say ... so what. Not all 'mechs have to fall into a small range of performance ability to be "good." In fact, sometimes the guys that maintain the lore even make "bad" mechs (they've actually said they do... apparently it's harder than one might think).

Edited by Pht, 21 March 2012 - 11:53 AM.

[Victor Morson]

Pht, on 21 March 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

They weren't "baaaad." They have a different job besides killing stuff at long range. Or short range, for that matter.

Having a specific job other than smashing the crud out of everything at long range for a certain ratio of damage vs weight and heat does not make a weapon "bad."

In a game with the specific goal if destroying the other guy's stuff, unfortunately, yes it does. There are weapons that exist for alternate purpose in real life, of course - take something like an Anti-Material Rifle (not that it wouldn't obliterate infantry in a pinch) - but that's not the issue here. In most TT situations your objective is "destroy the other guy" so any weapon that's not good at destroying the other guy has a problem.

This gets worse when we talk about T2 and compare these guns to things like ER Large Lasers.

There are just plain weapons with better damage, range, reliability and sometimes lack of ammo reliance. There are no pros to the TT/previous MW AC2/5 in all models (including UAC, LBX) except RAC. It's not like these weapons alone can find crits; someone plugging at you with an ER Large is looking for crits just as hard, except they're doing a ton of damage at the same time. The custom AC ammo can help make them not quite as awful, but ultimately I'd still never voluntarily take an AC2 or 5.

You can look up info about their use in tournaments and Leagues, both for TT or any version of the game (sans Living Legends, again, where they have a successful role as anti-aircraft, infantry, and light armor) and you'll see this isn't based on conjecture. They are just plain terrible weapons for their weight and size.

Pht, on 21 March 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

This kind of thinking reduces weapons balance to a whack-a-mole game, where anything that doesn't play the same game (in this case, killing stuff quickly for not much investment) gets bumped up to be more damaging ... and anything that is noticably better at that game gets whacked down to match all the rest, because after all, we don't want to see only that weapon.

The problem is they are playing the same game. You can defend the idea of having an underpowered weapon all you'd like, but at the end of the day when you pop up and are spraying lightly damaging weapons at a guy who pops up for 1 second and blows half your armor off then pops back down, you're pretty screwed.

Unless ACs have some sort of serious advantage over their TT/previous games counter-parts, that's exactly what will happen. I've run into enough AC boats to know - including pilots who insist how effective they are and try to defend them in a similar vein only to have them die inflicting lots of hits, and almost no damage compared to the guy who brought Gauss and Lasers.

Pht, on 21 March 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

About the dragon: yes, it could have been better... to which I say ... so what. Not all 'mechs have to fall into a small range of performance ability to be "good." In fact, sometimes the guys that maintain the lore even make "bad" mechs (they've actually said they do... apparently it's harder than one might think).

If there's a Battle Value setup, then yes, bad 'mechs have a role. If the Dragon is a terrible 'mech but only takes as much resources to bring into the game as a good 45 tonner, then maybe it's got a place in the game after all. However if this isn't accounted for, ton for ton there is zero reason you'll ever want to pilot the stock Dragon; I guarantee in this situation you'll only see Grand Dragons. The Dragon vs Grand Dragon comparison is pretty much dead-on the perfect example of the drawbacks of AC/5s - it's just a huge improvement and all they really did was tear off the AC/5.

As far as lore.. I hate to say but in a game environment, we're not talking about written characters. Even if someone gets really attached to their Commando and it has a terrible weapons configuration, they're not going keep driving a bad 'mech over and over into a fight. They're either going to upgrade it's configuration as fast as possible to something good and strip off the bad weapons, or they're going to switch to a better 'mech right away.

You have to remember to the players, it's a virtual, non-existent walking tank. To written characters it's a family heirloom that their life depends on and they've been training to drive since they were a child. It's not remotely comparable.. and in the later fiction when they return to mass producing 'mechs, even that aspect is lost.