593 replies to this topic

[AlanEsh]

Dihm, on 05 April 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

A little thing I learned years ago, to follow the 6Ps, "Proper Planning Prevents **** Poor Performance".

Find yourself running out of ammo too often? Trade off some armor, some heat sinks, or some of those boated medium lasers for more ammo. MWO should be about making tough choices and trade-offs like this, not about getting a free ride (like MW4 "coolant").

Agreed, as long as dropping Ammo weapons for energy isn't the best answer.
i.e. If all of the "tough choices" land on ammo users, after a while there won't be many/any.

It's going to be difficult to come up with enough advantages for ballistics to outweigh their ammo supplies' tendency to blow up. I think it likely canon ammo numbers will be fudged for balance purposes. I guess they could just amp up the damage to insane amounts so their 2 minutes of continuous firing do the same damage that a full match of Medium Laser fire would do. ( ? )

[EDMW CSN]

Mechwarrior 2 autocannon ROF rates would be hilarious though. The UAC-20 is guaranteed to kill something within 5 seconds as long you can put the reticle on target.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 April 2012 - 10:59 AM.

[GDL Irishwarrior]

[EDMW]CSN, on 05 April 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

Mechwarrior 2 autocannon ROF rates would be hilarious though. The UAC-20 is guaranteed to kill something within 5 seconds as long you can put the reticle on target.

I love autocannons in MW2... I've been playing Ghost Bear's Legacy on my old Windows 98 computer, and my Stone Rhino with a pair of LB 5X ACs is essentially a game breaker... Long as I have them (and their 6 tons of ammo each!) in the torso that is - my arm-mounted ER PPCs get blown off by the average light 'Mech in about 5 seconds . I tried Ultra ACs too, but they're just plain ridiculous - by the time I can react to the enemy's death and take my finger off the rigger, I've blown through half my ammo supply

Edited by GDL Irishwarrior, 05 April 2012 - 11:07 AM.

[Dihm]

Angelicon, on 05 April 2012 - 10:52 AM, said:

Agreed, as long as dropping Ammo weapons for energy isn't the best answer.
i.e. If all of the "tough choices" land on ammo users, after a while there won't be many/any.

It's going to be difficult to come up with enough advantages for ballistics to outweigh their ammo supplies' tendency to blow up. I think it likely canon ammo numbers will be fudged for balance purposes. I guess they could just amp up the damage to insane amounts so their 2 minutes of continuous firing do the same damage that a full match of Medium Laser fire would do. ( ? )

There does need to be some sort of balancing factor for the added weight, the added risk of spectacular death, and the increased critical usage, this is true.

This is where I think you'll see advantage given to ballistics in the 'rock' they cause to an enemy mech when hit, spoiling their aim. That can be a pretty big advantage.

Also, a balanced heat scale will help too, since we know you can't just dump in unlimited numbers of heat sinks (if you have the tons) like you can in MW4. Heat sinks taking up limited critical slots will limit laser boating somewhat.

[rolling thunder]

Campaigns should definately have friendly resup points,mobile or otherwise.At least that way the missle boats will have a use.It also gives the commander of the units something else to worry about protecting during a fight.

[Mr Smiles]

The problem is something like this.

Each weapon has several balancing points: Weight, critical slots, damage output, heat output, ammunition capacity.

Damage output, heat output, and ammunition capacity are all balancing points weighted by how much armor a 'Mech can mount, how fast it can dissipate heat, and how often it can reload.

Change ANY of those 8 variables, and the entire system is thrown out of balance. Which is fine, if you're willing to rebalance the other variables. But why would you do that when you can just copy the tabletop, which more or less is already balanced?

For instance, increase the amount of damage armor can prevent. Suddenly, the PPC which is high-heat, high-damage, becomes high-heat, medium-damage. Underpowered.

Make heat dissipate faster, and suddenly all energy weapons go from damage equal to their heat to damage GREATER than their heat. Overpowered.

Ballistics and missile weapons have traditionally been balanced: high damage, low heat, low ammo. If you make them high damage, low heat, medium ammo, they're instantly better than equivalent energy weapons.

Like that, it's easy to see how changing ammunition rates from the tabletop is risky business. Even adding the ability to reload in the field creates the possibility of players going for ballistic-boats and ignoring all energy weapons. Goodbye, Black Knight. So for my money, I'd rather they keep as close to the tabletop as possible, no reload stations, no extra ammo...

...it's not like MWO matches are designed to last for as long as MW4 or MW3 missions/multiplayer. This might actually be one of the first times in MechWarrior history where tabletop balancing is the best suited for the game.

[osito]

I think the mechs will have enough ammo for the gameplay style the devs are aiming for. 12 vs 12 timed match. A noob spraying and praying may run out and be in some trouble, but a decent pilot/gunner should be fine. The enforcer has a large laser, ac10, and a small laser. A good player knows the mech only has 10 shots with the ac so they keep that for clear shots. With a little skill and patience you should be able to make it through with out running out. You should also look for mechs with some mix of weapons so if you run out you can still kill something.

[wwiiogre]

Mobile Field Bases are not available in this timeline. So this option is dead on arrival. Defending a real base with a real mech bay, or a drop ship with a real mech bay would be different. But the reload times are actually already in canon and take some real time. First you need a specially designed vehicle a cargo loader. It also has to have the exact ammo needed in 1 ton slots. Or you need another mech with hands to load it for you. Note there is a mishap chance to reload during combat with a chance the ammo explodes damaging your mech and the cargo hauler or the other mech manually loading the ammo. It takes three table top turns to use the cargo loader and five turns to have another mech with hands load your ammo. So roughly 30 seconds for a loader to load 1 ton of ammo and 50 seconds for another mech to do it. Note double these times or more for no chance of explosions. So in a mission where you are defending a base or a dropship that has a bay then I don't see why this cannot be done other than the time it takes the dev's to draw the animations. I imagine this will not be available at launch for this game but could be coming in the future. I would love to see this. That way as part of the mission planning for the current battle each mech pilot could assign x amount of consumables to the drop ship or base and if they don't use them they get them back if the enemy did not destroy or capture them. Yep you put your goodies on the map and someone might want to take them or blow them up. Ahhhhh, but that is the immersion of the TT experience that would really translate over well to the sim pc game I hope this will be.

Chris

[CaveMan]

Mr. Smiles, on 05 April 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

The problem is something like this.

...

I couldn't have said it better. Autocannons and missiles already have balance factors built in that make up for ammunition-dependency. There's no need to go mucking with the rules.

If there's a real problem with lag making autocannons un-usable, the solution is in changing how hits are detected, not how much ammo ACs have available (because players with low ping times are then going to be able to spam those AC/20 shots and do vastly more damage).

[Grithis]

In a 12v12 no respawn match, you should have enough ammo to get by. If not, then you're wasting shots or didn't pack enough ammo to begin with. 15 shots for your SRM6? Fine. 5 shots for your AC20? Not fine.

[CaveMan]

Grithis, on 05 April 2012 - 11:31 AM, said:

In a 12v12 no respawn match, you should have enough ammo to get by. If not, then you're wasting shots or didn't pack enough ammo to begin with. 15 shots for your SRM6? Fine. 5 shots for your AC20? Not fine.

Right, although now that I think about it, respawns are going to mess up ammunition counts if they're part of the match. The 'Mech with only energy weapons can continue to fight as long as it's not destroyed, but the 'Mech relying on missiles might run out after destroying one opponent, and then be stuck with empty ammo bays after the enemy respawns. So what do you do in that situation? Self-destruct and wait to respawn so you your ammo restocked? Or keep fighting with only your backup lasers so you don't wreck your kill:death ratio?

(Obviously if there are no respawns, problem averted!)

[Aegis Kleais]

Voted "When Out, get more at base".

I'm of the belief that you shouldn't be able to do repairs in a game, but you should be able to get ammo. HOWEVER.

The cost of in-battle resupply should be SIGNIFICANTLY higher than an out of game "refill". Like 4-5x more expensive. Maybe even have a "max number of refills/game" set to 1 by default. That way when you're out, you can pull off the front lines to get more, but it's expensive and the last time you can do so for that game. After that, you're all out.

To maximize how much ammo you get, part of a ammo-dependent config should include adding more tons of ammo to it's loadout. That way, a 2xLRM20 with 240 missiles each could (for 4 tons) have 720 rounds each (and your single reload, in effect, gets you more than the default 240)

Edited by Aegis Kleaisâ„¢, 05 April 2012 - 11:37 AM.

[Major Tom]

I need more ammo hard points!

[Jonas]

I feel that if your out your out. The Mechs that we have as of now are not Omni's and most have weapons on a arm and the ammo in a torso bin. So I would assume it would take time to re arm/load a ammo bin. The game is supposed to be 1 to 1 time scale so even with the fastest pit crew your looking at 10 to 15 minutes for A/C, longer for LRM's and SRM's. Now in the TT game I did in a few cases ( notably the wolverine ) had clips that would allow faster reloads in the field. In short having a MFB would be cool but in a match that is going to take less than 20/30 minutes to complete it would be pointless. Now if they allow mods to make ammo switch out quicker ( like a clip style bin kinda like the ammo system used in the Matrix mech suites ) then I could see it being doable in the field. But if the bins are apart of the mech and you have to load through a port then it is going to take to much time in a match. Anyway that is my take on the idea.

I do poss this question, will the ammo be closer to the TT style ( 1 ton = 10 rounds "A/C-20" ) or are they going more of the MW4 route where every thing seem to have more shots per ton ?

[wwiiogre]

Why should ammo cost more during a game if you already own it? I will stock up on ammo if I have a mech that is ammo dependent. I will go to the big box ammo store and get a discount for quantity and then make sure it goes to where I am fighting. Meaning my mech is important to the companies chances of winning a battle. We got to the battle somehow so some ammo should be allowed to be taken. Now finding a friend with a mech with hands or buying a cargo hauler/loader would be the only way to make it happen. Or if you are defending a base or riding in a neutral Dropship I am sure there should be a cost for them to do the loading, especially under fire since that is hazardous duty. The cost of the ammo could be part of the contract (canon TT) if you can get a good contract like that. Otherwise you better ship it in, which costs cbills for shipping if you don't have your own dropship, etc. Which taking a drop ship on jumps to new systems costs money to the Jump Ship. Etc. just will be up to the Dev's how much of the back story costs they want to put into the game to make this a really deep immersion rp game or more of a sim with easy back micromagagement handled without thought. I myself would love the micromanagement parts of the game and an Army wins campaigns thru logistics. Tactics and strategy merely allow you to win skirmishes and battles. Not having food or bullets can cost you the war.

So there can be reloads in combat, it is part of the game. TT has rules for it. Mobie Field Bases are not available until 3059 developed by Fed Suns and Lyrans and the Coyotes in 3060. But Dropships, Cargo Haulers, and Real Bases with Mech Bays or Factories with facilities can do reloads. Talking civilians into loading a mech during combat would probably cost you real cbills for the danger involved and if you didn't bring your own ammo then it would cost you what every they were willing to make you pay for it. I would love this to be ingame. Cause it would make missions much more fun and immersive. Rotating units off a line to reload. Forcing teams to play different. Making matches a little bit longer and much more in depth. But it would also make the above reload units and the ammo depots vulnerable targets that scout mechs could find and either steal or destroy. If you had to put ammo you bought down on a planet with a chance you may have it destroyed as a casualty of a battle, how much would you put down? Knowing you may not need it but one shot from a scout mech could destroy lots of cbills worth of loot, or possibly have your ammo stolen by the enemy or used by the enemy if the depot is captured.

Oh the possibilities

chris

Jonas tabletop reload times are short 30 seconds and 50 seconds with chance of explosion more for no chance to explode.

chris

[PhelanKerensky]

I think you should be able to attempt to withdraw in order to resupply. This will lead to more strategy and tactics being employed by units who attempt to cover their colleagues retreat out of battle. Lets not forget that some mechs are totally ammo based, and such mechs would withdraw to resupply assuming the mission allows for this.

A real battle situation would involve a supply line (which needs to be protected) and which as you move further into battle becomes more and more tenuous and therefore open to attack. this all allows for really good strategy and tactics. For example you send in the Recon mechs up close and fast to tempt the ammo based mechs to open fire, while setting an ambush to the supply line with your other mechs. Once out of ammo they withdraw, being harrassed by the Recon Mechs, pushing them straight into the ambush.

These are all interesting and legitimate tactics that would serve to make the game more real.

So, lets allow resupply, and hence allow more thought to dominate who wins the battle.

[Orzorn]

I voted you should be able to rearm. However, I believe it should be dependent on the game mode. Some game modes lend themselves to longer fights, and using an ammunition heavy mech, or one that is heavily dependent on ammo to do its job (like a Catapult), might put you at a disadvantage.

[That Guy]

ammunition resupply should vary with mission types. some missions you will have access to those kinds of assets, some you wont

[SweetJackal]

With how mechs are built in the mechlab Energy Weapons don't have a straight up advantage.

The concept of energy weapons was that the larger the weapon the more damage and range it had. This came at the cost of heat and meant no flexibility or trade off. The idea was that Large Laser was better than a Medium in every way but cost you heat. The problem was that the Medium Laser had a better ratios when comparing performance to heat, under TT rules you could swap out a Large Laser for a pair of Mediums and get better damage for less tonnage. This isn't a problem in MWO as mechs are limited not just by crit slots and tonnage but also by hardpoints. So to do that same swap MWO would cost 2 Energy Harpoints while using a Large Laser would cost one.

This prevents the big problem of Laser Boating that has been used as an alternative to making ammo dependent mechs while creating comparible firepower.

The second change is that Lasers aren't going to be up front damage like they have been in the past but rather have a cycle time and will deal their rated damage over that cycle. This shifts an advantage to ammo dependent weapons as all of them would be dealing their damage up front then having a refire cycle. Ammo makes them bursty.

The trade off of using energy weapons has always been giving up specialization for terrain for general purpose weapons. Ammo dependent weapons make bigger trade offs to gain clear advantages in certain situations and terrain by giving up strength in others. Having those strengths and weaknesses means you can exploit your own mech for your edge.

[AlanEsh]

Mr. Smiles, on 05 April 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Change ANY of those 8 variables, and the entire system is thrown out of balance. Which is fine, if you're willing to rebalance the other variables. But why would you do that when you can just copy the tabletop, which more or less is already balanced?

Because I am totally unconvinced that Table Top numbers are going to work in this game.

I'll shut up -- this is all going to come down to Beta testing. If the AC10 is getting totally outclassed by the longer range, unlimited ammo PPC, then i'm sure they'll adjust.