593 replies to this topic

[Volthorne]

Zakatak, on 06 May 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

You have the decency to say sorry, which alot of people don't. Appreciated.

My final opinion:

• Ammo trucks are available in matches larger then 8v8.
  
• They explode with enough power to destroy nearby mechs when damaged.
  
• A mech can call them over during the match to reload.
  
• The mech must shut down for 30 seconds for each ton of ammunition added.
  
• It can carry 5 tons of ammunition, and there are 3 of them in total.
  
• Ammo is taken out of the players mech lab. If a player requests for 1 ton of LRM-15 ammo, an LRM-15 will be removed from their stock.
  
• They also have "fire hoses" that can spray coolant fluid.

A number of reasons this is a terrible idea.

1) Ammo trucks would allow ballistics munchkins to kill everyone solo. Yes, even a company of nothing but Atlas'. Or Daishis.

2) Calling over an ammo truck would allow someone to go find all 3 and use them as portable TNT, or for greifers, eliminate ALL the spare ammo.

3) Ammo will MOST LIKELY be factored in cost-wise as an after-action expense. Why would you even be allowed to purchase a mass quantity of ammo as a Lone Wolf or House player? Mercs might get away with it, but those other two are getting screwed.

Edited by Volthorne, 06 May 2012 - 01:23 PM.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Volthorne, I hate to say this, but, the more you say reloading isnt viable, the more you advocate saying they should do away with ammo based weapons and make pure energy weapons only for the game. Every way we have all suggested it COULD be incorporated is a WAY it could be done, not HOW it MUST be done. Sad truth is, if you want ammo based mechs, and the match begins to turtle, your ammo users will quickly run dry and become dead weight w/out a reload of some sort. sad sad truth.

[Sassori]

Here is another reason why I am against the ammo truck idea.

I have a 60 ton mech, I load it out with two gauss rifles with one ton of ammo per gauss rifle. I stand back and snipe snipe snipe and kill people and when I am out of ammo, I pull back (I am already keeping distance) and in 30 seconds I am reloaded and can go back to snipe snipe sniping without any problem at all. That's a policy that'll make the game all Gauss Rifle and AC 2's sniping away and reloading.

Given that a BattleMech has to heavily armor it's ammo or else a machine gun from an infantry would be able to set it off in most cases (Missiles, auto cannons, machine guns), it also means that the armor must be removed in order to get at the ammo bins. This takes hours, heavy machinery, and is generally complicated. We're talking tons of ammo being moved in the space of seconds and being loaded up. I'm pretty sure it takes more than 30 seconds to reload a modern day tank if it's fired all it's ammo.

EDIT:

Now why take ammo weapons over energy? Easy: Heat and Damage per hard point. An AC-20 puts out more damage faster than any other weapon in the game, at least more reliably. Once we get into UAC's and Rotaries and medium missile launchers the balance will shift but that's a ways down the road.

An Auto-Cannon runs cool without needing criticals for heat sinks, it only uses up one hard point rather than multiple energy hard points, and while it has ammo, it's a very good weapon. When it runs out, it's out, that's the balance aspect.

Edited by Christopher Dayson, 06 May 2012 - 01:31 PM.

[Volthorne]

Rejarial Galatan, on 06 May 2012 - 01:28 PM, said:

Volthorne, I hate to say this, but, the more you say reloading isnt viable, the more you advocate saying they should do away with ammo based weapons and make pure energy weapons only for the game. Every way we have all suggested it COULD be incorporated is a WAY it could be done, not HOW it MUST be done. Sad truth is, if you want ammo based mechs, and the match begins to turtle, your ammo users will quickly run dry and become dead weight w/out a reload of some sort. sad sad truth.

WRONG. I LOVE ammo based weapons. They add a sense of realism, and force strategic thinking. in fact, I PLAN on running a CPLT-C2 upon launch. I PLAN on removing two of those MLas so that I can shed a bit of armor as well and slot in x2 LRM-20's instead of LRM-15's. Hell, I could shed all 4 MLas and not lose any armor for the same effect. But you know what? I'd love to see you try and shoot at my team when I run dry and start being up in your face with my ramming/DFAs. And you know what? I'll probably be the kiss of death to you at that point, due to you not being able to land any hits on my team from my actions.

AND CAN YOU PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS RELEVANT, STOP SAYING "RELOAD"! THE CORRECT TERM IS "REARM"!

[Rejarial Galatan]

Conversely Dayson, theres a reason to NOT pack ammo based weapons. The ammo has this nasty tendancy to explode in a mech. Not counting Gauss rounds, inert slugs. Any weapon that has chemically propelled ammo, is running the risk of severe internal damage to it when its magazine is breached. Its why Carriers today have ammo stored in places and armored to the point where god forbid it DOES catch fire and go boom, it does as minimal dmg to the ship as possible. C.A.S.E. is the mech equiv to this real life idea, but the risk is there. Energy weapons kinda negate this, but with their own risks

Actually Volthorne, if your gonna gripe at me for my terms, and reload IS correct, given some weapons use CLIPS, I could gripe on your terms of noob or munchkin, but, I dont do i? Volthorne I am wiling to bet you WILL come to a moment where your sweating cuz your down to your final missile or bullet and have full armor, but cant reload. Join us, on this side of the fence, we got cookies and milk!

[Rejarial Galatan]

I will give you ONE concession. An Atlas Chassis is an Atlas Chassis, BUT, given that, it should NEVER see the light of day as a microtransaction and according to PGI, it wont.

BUT to say an Atlas is the same as a KIngCrab is apple to peach.

[Destructo]

i feel that if you can afford an MFB , then you should be able to drop it into the mission., if it gets destroyed, then your screwed, if you need more ammo, remove a ton of ammo or so, and i agree with the fact that mercs should pay for every single shell , after all , its not free to make, so nobodys going to give it away, NOW, if you jump into a battle , with no MFB, and you didnt give up some armour or weapons for ammo, and you dropped in short ,then realistically, that just it, you dropped in short better hope you get a head shot, IRL if you were a mech pilot, and you jumped 5 miles down from your dropship, how the heck are you going to instantly create ammo on the fly, , , unless your merc commander was smart, and dropped in an mfb into your drop zone, , , but then again , you better hide it well, , the enemy scouts would chew it up, make the MFB expensive, and players have to load it up PRE drop, if oyur in a huge battle, and you drop in 4 ammo boats, and forget to put ammo in the mfb for mech # 4, then he cant reload there, , furthermore, once an ammo supply is empty on the MFB< keeping in mind that you PAID for all your ammo on your mech and the mfb. > then you gotta battle it out, withought your ammo resupply, just like it would be IRL. only option that makes any realistic sence, once your out of ammo, and have no ressuply vehicle, you better hope that small laser you added gets a headshot........... i know if i run a caty, itll be standing far enough back to not need as much armor, and thus, will have much much more ammo,,,,, supposing that i was able to afford to load er up, .... good idea to keep a spare set of lasers equiped,,,just in case. . . . woud hate to have to eject into a poisonous environment with battlemechs around, because you got chewed by that jenner packed with small lasers because you ran out of arrows or lrms while he ran circles around you......

[Sassori]

Rejarial Galatan, on 06 May 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

Conversely Dayson, theres a reason to NOT pack ammo based weapons. The ammo has this nasty tendancy to explode in a mech. Not counting Gauss rounds, inert slugs. Any weapon that has chemically propelled ammo, is running the risk of severe internal damage to it when its magazine is breached. Its why Carriers today have ammo stored in places and armored to the point where god forbid it DOES catch fire and go boom, it does as minimal dmg to the ship as possible. C.A.S.E. is the mech equiv to this real life idea, but the risk is there. Energy weapons kinda negate this, but with their own risks

*SNIP*

Yes, there are many reasons for and against each weapon type. LRM's don't do well at close range within 180 meters, SRM's can't go further than 270 meters, both go boom when shot or heat, energy weapons build up tons of heat and require a lot of space and additional weight to keep cool, conversely they don't use ammo. Autocannons are big and heavy, but generate small amounts of heat comparatively and use up less hard points for comparable offense.

Give and take. None of them are the hands down best. This creates diversity and balance.

In the end something might work great for you, but not work great for me, those are playstyle differences. Just because something fits your play style better doesn't mean the other thing needs to be buffed or changed.

[Volthorne]

Rejarial Galatan, on 06 May 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

Actually Volthorne, if your gonna gripe at me for my terms, and reload IS correct, given some weapons use CLIPS, I could gripe on your terms of noob or munchkin, but, I dont do i? Volthorne I am wiling to bet you WILL come to a moment where your sweating cuz your down to your final missile or bullet and have full armor, but cant reload. Join us, on this side of the fence, we got cookies and milk!

Nope, you're still wrong on the terms. Reload would apply to any ballistic/missile weapon when you put new rounds/magazines into your weapon (from the supply you carry), after having fired. Rearm specifically applies to acquiring a new supply off ammo, in this case it would be loading more ammo into the bins.
I even marked the two terms differently so you wouldn't get confused as to which goes with which definition.

The only time I'll be sweating is if it comes down to a 1v1, or if I have little armor left, and can't afford to take any more damage. I'm a veteran player of many, MANY RPGs/FPS games where every bullet counts, and I always play on the hardest or second hardest setting (the only exception here is for P&P games like DnD). If you want to see tense situations, try doing that for years. No, CoD is not included in my resume.

Edited by Volthorne, 06 May 2012 - 02:08 PM.

[Deathz Jester]

I personally like ammo weapons, especially when I see someone shutting down with their "LULZ I'M PILOTING A NOVA CAT WITH NO AMMOZ"

meanwhile i have time to close range and fill him full of gauss rounds.


I'll take the chance of running out of ammo, if it means I can fire more often and not shutdown.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Volthorne, I find one thing in your recent post I can applaud you for, IF I read the initals correctly. No call of duty to your name? applause for you. Look, reload/rearm gonna be honest, they are interchageable in a rush, they are basically the same thing, get off the samantics bus..

[Naberius]

I could see a forward supply base being a commander option actually. Something they spend money on to bring to the fight replacing other kits they might have brought instead, especially for something that would either need to be guarded or hopefully well hidden. Someone mentioned above making it cost a bit more in the field to resupply and that's a good idea too. That way it's on the CO to determine if he/she thinks the fight will last long enough to warrant changing his kit out. That said, I'm a Stalker driver if I'm looking at the higher end of the weight classes. My ammo concerns tend to be a bit different.

[Steel Talon]

Ammo prices are not an issue, u get taxed after battle ends for ammo loaded to your mech

[Karl Streiger]

With a drop limit the idea of a MBT isn't that bad. For example in MC you could take a mech less for a MBT.
When the team decide to take a MBT or 2 of them they may start with 11 or 10 mechs vs 12 enemy units of the other team.