123 replies to this topic

[Solis Obscuri]

Pvt Dancer, on 10 April 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

Solaris rules though also don't translate very well, but that is my opinion. There is a reason why those rules just don't translate well for any other game but the one they were designed for, a dueling game.

Listen.... I would be fine with 5 second recycle time or 10 recycle time... I honestly don't care as long as the damage isn't nerfed as well. As is mentioned, WoTs has a heck of a lot longer recycle times and they have a /single/ weapon and the game works fine.

But if you have 10 weapons, you can have a shot a second and your only limiting factor is Heat... as it /should/ be. If you increase the recycle time, someone with a mech with 10 weapons (I am pretty sure there is a Hunchback with 8 Med Lasers for example) your not even using half of your lasers and still producing a non-stop stream of fire. You start getting into that dangerous area of halving damage and dealing with fractions, and you also start messing with heat. Reduced damage over a 5 second span also means your not hitting the same spot you were hitting 5 seconds ago unless both you and your target are not moving. This means now that yeah... an AC 20 isn't a threat to a mech, and that your honestly better off with a AC 10 or multiple Medium Lasers because it is the same packets of damage hitting. All your doing now is shooting...pellets. The weapon is nerfed.

I think the real people it effects with a 10 second recycle time are the mechs with 1 main weapon, something like a Stinger or Wasp (for example). With the heat sinks they have, there should never be an issue of overheating with a stock mech. With one main gun faster would be better, but if it means the damage is halved... you know what, I would take the 10 second recycle time for the full 5pts of damage.

End of the day, /this is/ what Beta is for, to fine tune this. The Devs are playing it now, but what they are playing may not what we will be playing in beta, just as what we play in beta may not be what is played on release.

I see no reason to speed up cycle times at the expense of damage or to decrease heat per shot. Just track heat and ammo strictly, don't increase the effectiveness of heat sinks (still just one points per 10s) and make the risk and consequences of overheating a serious deterrent - ammo explosions should be a very real and present danger, and should in most cases force a pilot ejection, and running hot should inflict significant movement and accuracy penalties.

Using something like this, and considering my example of the Hunchback above, the first volley would push the heat level up to 14 inflicting a penalty to movement and accuracy, and it would only have dropped to 10 by the time of the next small laser shot. When medium lasers would be ready to fire again at the five second mark, the heat levels would still be at 8, and the movement penalty would have decreased, though a small movement and accuracy penalties would remain. At the 7.5s mark, when the AC/20 would be ready to fire a second shot, the heat level would be back to 12, with the movement penalty slightly increased, and the accuracy penalty holding steady. The resulting heat build-up would risk a shutdown, and a slight chance of an ammo explosion, and next laser shot at the 10s mark would come at a significant penalty, as the 'mech would have a heat level of 17 and not only would accuracy and movement be impaired, the pilot would be suffering some distraction as well. That would push the heat to 24, incurring a substantial risk of shutdown, and doubling the chances of an ammo explosion. By the time we hit the 15s mark, and the next chance for an alpha strike comes around, the 'mech is back to 17 or 18, there are significant penalties to movement and accuracy, the pilot is slightly impaired, and firing that massive blast is going to push the heat up to at least 31 - forcing a shutdown, and seriously risking ammunition explosions and pilot injury.

At this point, the Hunchback pilot is pretty well hosed, and has probably spread or wasted a lot of shots due to penalties, and an opponent who watched their heat gauge instead of trying to cram out 121 damage in 15s may well be in a position to capitalize on the recklessness of his foe. Also consider that in the first 10s of combat, the more aggressive pilot put out 85 damage while risking shutdowns at least three times and ammo explosions twice, while a more conservative pilot could have still dished out 63-66 damage without suffering more than minor penalties to accuracy.

As for ballistics balance, an AC/10 is still going to do just 30 damage in the time a AC/20 does 40, and both are pretty similar weapon systems. Trying to use energy weapons in the same fashion as ballistics would lead to much higher heat build-up, forcing energy boats to either delay/chain fire their weapons, or spend significant periods of time with minimal offensive capabilities while they try to get their temperature back into a manageable range.

[Slyck]

BerryChunks, on 11 April 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

The other problem is halving the damage and doubling the speed. if you do that, sure, you're keeping the DPS the same, but overall the effect could actually be marginally worse than having original speed and damage, because at half the damage, you need to hit a specific body part a greater number of timings, andf what with convergance of weapons and all that, it's likely that your shots are going to spread out more, and so not be as effective as a good line up and shot with heavier hitting lasers at original speed.

Ahhh, but see ... because MW:O will be using player skill to determin hit location rather then a dice roll shots are probably going to land closer together. So any adjustments that spread the damage around without detracting from players skills is actually a good thing, and 5 second 1/2 damage 1/2 heat weapons is one of those things.

[BerryChunks]

Slyck, on 11 April 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

Ahhh, but see ... because MW:O will be using player skill to determin hit location rather then a dice roll shots are probably going to land closer together. So any adjustments that spread the damage around without detracting from players skills is actually a good thing, and 5 second 1/2 damage 1/2 heat weapons is one of those things.

convergence requires that you wait and track target. If you fire too soon, you get scatter, if you fire too late, you lose your DPS, and then a longer cycle time actually would improve your damage per second if you wait overly long.

[Slyck]

Convergence is only one element to help disperse the damage, but when watching the game play video you can see the convergence in effect and it happens pretty quickly. So I don't think that convergence alone is going to be enough to disperse the damage as much as dice rolls do in TT.

[Kudzu]

Slyck, on 11 April 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

Ahhh, but see ... because MW:O will be using player skill to determin hit location rather then a dice roll shots are probably going to land closer together.

One of the reasons I'd rather have seen them go with a cone of fire randomization effect.

In the TT you also suffered from a higher miss occurrence (around 25-70% or so on average, assuming target numbers of 6-9) along side of a statistical hit chart-- this made fights last longer which is a very good thing. All these people pushing for a faster cycle time that would aggravate the effect-- if you shoot faster and hit more all you end up with is a Call of Duty game with Battletech skins.

Edited by Kudzu, 11 April 2012 - 02:25 PM.

[Kanatta Jing]

I appreciate the 10 second timer damage.

It has a nice power curve of 2 DPS for the AC20, 1 DPS for the PPC and 0.5 DPS for the Medium Laser.

But it might be more fun to fire the Medium Laser once ever 2 seconds for 1 damage rather then waiting a full 10 seconds before firing.

[Strum Wealh]

As we see from Dev Blog 06, the Devs are going with the TT-listed values for Armor Points per ton, so it seems not-unreasonable to think that they would also use the TT-listed damage values as well, in order to maintain the overall armor/durability-to-damage balance.

The TT-listed damage values represent damage dealt during one 10-second period (the stated duration of one TT turn).
As such, we already know the canonical average damage per second (DPS) of most direct-fire weapons.
AC-20: 20 damage per turn -> 2.0 damage per second
PPC: 10 damage per turn -> 1.0 damage per second
Medium Laser: 5 damage per turn -> 0.5 damage per second

Personally, I would prefer to see most (but not all) weapons have faster recycle times, with appropriate per-salvo damage such the average damage per second matches that implied by the TT-listed damage value, and that the overall amount of damage dealt over a 10-second period of continuous, sustained fire would be equal to the TT-listed per-turn damage.

As an example, I would prefer to see all ACs fire bursts of shells approximately one second in duration, spaced by one-second cool-downs, for seven seconds, with three seconds to replace the spent magazine/clip.
That is:
t = 0.0 to 1.0: firing
t = 1.0 to 2.0: cool-down
t = 2.0 to 3.0: firing
t = 3.0 to 4.0: cool-down
t = 4.0 to 5.0: firing
t = 5.0 to 6.0: cool-down
t = 6.0 to 7.0: firing
t = 7.0 to 10.0: cool-down, replace magazine/clip
t = 10.0 to 11.0: firing
t = 11.0 to 12.0: cool-down
t = 12.0 to 13.0: firing
t = 13.0 to 14.0: cool-down
t = 14.0 to 15.0: firing
t = 15.0 to 16.0: cool-down
t = 16.0 to 17.0: firing
t = 17.0 to 20.0: cool-down, replace magazine/clip
And so on and so forth...

As there would be four 1-second-long bursts per 10-second period, the TT-listed damage would be divided by four.
In this example, the AC-20 would fire four 1-second, 5.00-damage bursts during a 10-second period of sustained, continuous fire.
This would equate to a total output of 20.00 units of damage per 10-second period - the TT-listed value.
The same would work for AC-10s (four 1-second, 2.50-damage bursts), AC-5s (four 1-second, 1.25-damage bursts), and AC-2s (four 1-second, 0.50-damage bursts).

PPCs (along with Gauss Rifles and all missile launchers), by contrast, would/should (IMO) be slower-firing weapons, dealing all of their potential damage in a single salvo, and being able to launch such a salvo every ~7-10 seconds.

Finally, while Standard Lasers appear (from the gameplay videos) to be implemented as damage-over-duration-of-beam (DoDoB) weapons, I would personally prefer to see all Standard Lasers fire beams of 1-second in duration with 1-second cool-downs in a similar manner to that outlined for the ACs.
That is:
t = 0.0 to 1.0: firing
t = 1.0 to 2.0: cool-down
t = 2.0 to 3.0: firing
t = 3.0 to 4.0: cool-down
t = 4.0 to 5.0: firing
t = 5.0 to 6.0: cool-down
t = 6.0 to 7.0: firing
t = 7.0 to 8.0: cool-down
t = 8.0 to 9.0: firing
t = 9.0 to 10.0: cool-down
t = 10.0 to 11.0: firing
t = 11.0 to 12.0: cool-down
t = 12.0 to 13.0: firing
t = 13.0 to 14.0: cool-down
t = 14.0 to 15.0: firing
t = 15.0 to 16.0: cool-down
t = 16.0 to 17.0: firing
t = 17.0 to 18.0: cool-down
t = 18.0 to 19.0: firing
t = 19.0 to 20.0: cool-down
And so on and so forth...

As there would be five 1-second-duration beams per 10-second period, the TT-listed damage would be divided by five.
In this example, the Medium would fire five 1-second, 1.00-damage beams during a 10-second period of sustained, continuous fire.
This would equate to a total output of 5.00 units of damage per 10-second period - the TT-listed value.
The same would work for Small Lasers (five 1-second, 0.60-damage beams), Large Lasers (five 1-second, 1.60-damage beams), ER Lasers (five 1-second, same-as-standard-lasers'-damage beams), and Binary Laser Cannons (five 1-second, 2.40-damage beams).

IMO, Pulse Lasers should work similarly to Standard Lasers, but should fire five 1-second bursts of ~10 pulses (rather than a 1-second continuous beam) with 1-second cool-downs per 10-second period, with the TT-listed per-turn damage divided evenly among the bursts to determine the per-burst damage, and the per-burst damage divided evenly among the pulses to determine the per-pulse damage.

Your thoughts?

[Oswin Aurelius]

William Petersen, on 10 April 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

And your sly attempt to equate action to sim did not go unnoticed. Simulators have action, but they are not "action games". Thay are simulators.

Looking at the genres of video games, Mechwarrior: Online is best defined as both a Tactical First-Person Shooter and a Vehicle Simulation game.

"A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games.

Tactical shooters are designed for realism. It is not unusual for players to be killed with a single bullet, and thus players must be more cautious than in other shooter games. The emphasis is on realistic modeling of weapons, and power-ups are often more limited than in other action games. This restrains the individual heroism seen in other shooter games, and thus tactics become more important.Overall, the style of play is typically slower than other action games."

"Vehicle simulation games allow players to drive or fly a vehicle. This vehicle can resemble a real one, or a vehicle from the game designer's imagination. This includes vehicles in the air, on the ground, over water, or even in space. Different vehicle simulations can involve a variety of goals, including racing, combat, or simply the experience of driving a vehicle. These games normally allow the player to experience action from the visual perspective of the pilot or driver. Although "racing games are often sold in the sports category," Rollings and Adams argue that "from a design standpoint, they really belong in ... vehicle simulations"."

Edited by Oswin Aurelius, 11 April 2012 - 05:23 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

Strum Wealh, on 11 April 2012 - 04:07 PM, said:

As we see from Dev Blog 06, the Devs are going with the TT-listed values for Armor Points per ton, so it seems not-unreasonable to think that they would also use the TT-listed damage values as well, in order to maintain the overall armor/durability-to-damage balance. The TT-listed damage values represent damage dealt during one 10-second period (the stated duration of one TT turn). As such, we already know the canonical average damage per second (DPS) of most direct-fire weapons. AC-20: 20 damage per turn -> 2.0 damage per second PPC: 10 damage per turn -> 1.0 damage per second Medium Laser: 5 damage per turn -> 0.5 damage per second Personally, I would prefer to see most (but not all) weapons have faster recycle times, with appropriate per-salvo damage such the average damage per second matches that implied by the TT-listed damage value, and that the overall amount of damage dealt over a 10-second period of continuous, sustained fire would be equal to the TT-listed per-turn damage. As an example, I would prefer to see all ACs fire bursts of shells approximately one second in duration, spaced by one-second cool-downs, for seven seconds, with three seconds to replace the spent magazine/clip. That is: t = 0.0 to 1.0: firing t = 1.0 to 2.0: cool-down t = 2.0 to 3.0: firing t = 3.0 to 4.0: cool-down t = 4.0 to 5.0: firing t = 5.0 to 6.0: cool-down t = 6.0 to 7.0: firing t = 7.0 to 10.0: cool-down, replace magazine/clip t = 10.0 to 11.0: firing t = 11.0 to 12.0: cool-down t = 12.0 to 13.0: firing t = 13.0 to 14.0: cool-down t = 14.0 to 15.0: firing t = 15.0 to 16.0: cool-down t = 16.0 to 17.0: firing t = 17.0 to 20.0: cool-down, replace magazine/clip And so on and so forth... As there would be four 1-second-long bursts per 10-second period, the TT-listed damage would be divided by four. In this example, the AC-20 would fire four 1-second, 5.00-damage bursts during a 10-second period of sustained, continuous fire. This would equate to a total output of 20.00 units of damage per 10-second period - the TT-listed value. The same would work for AC-10s (four 1-second, 2.50-damage bursts), AC-5s (four 1-second, 1.25-damage bursts), and AC-2s (four 1-second, 0.50-damage bursts). PPCs (along with Gauss Rifles and all missile launchers), by contrast, would/should (IMO) be slower-firing weapons, dealing all of their potential damage in a single salvo, and being able to launch such a salvo every ~7-10 seconds. Finally, while Standard Lasers appear (from the gameplay videos) to be implemented as damage-over-duration-of-beam (DoDoB) weapons, I would personally prefer to see all Standard Lasers fire beams of 1-second in duration with 1-second cool-downs in a similar manner to that outlined for the ACs. That is: t = 0.0 to 1.0: firing t = 1.0 to 2.0: cool-down t = 2.0 to 3.0: firing t = 3.0 to 4.0: cool-down t = 4.0 to 5.0: firing t = 5.0 to 6.0: cool-down t = 6.0 to 7.0: firing t = 7.0 to 8.0: cool-down t = 8.0 to 9.0: firing t = 9.0 to 10.0: cool-down t = 10.0 to 11.0: firing t = 11.0 to 12.0: cool-down t = 12.0 to 13.0: firing t = 13.0 to 14.0: cool-down t = 14.0 to 15.0: firing t = 15.0 to 16.0: cool-down t = 16.0 to 17.0: firing t = 17.0 to 18.0: cool-down t = 18.0 to 19.0: firing t = 19.0 to 20.0: cool-down And so on and so forth... As there would be five 1-second-duration beams per 10-second period, the TT-listed damage would be divided by five. In this example, the Medium would fire five 1-second, 1.00-damage beams during a 10-second period of sustained, continuous fire. This would equate to a total output of 5.00 units of damage per 10-second period - the TT-listed value. The same would work for Small Lasers (five 1-second, 0.60-damage beams), Large Lasers (five 1-second, 1.60-damage beams), ER Lasers (five 1-second, same-as-standard-lasers'-damage beams), and Binary Laser Cannons (five 1-second, 2.40-damage beams). IMO, Pulse Lasers should work similarly to Standard Lasers, but should fire five 1-second bursts of ~10 pulses (rather than a 1-second continuous beam) with 1-second cool-downs per 10-second period, with the TT-listed per-turn damage divided evenly among the bursts to determine the per-burst damage, and the per-burst damage divided evenly among the pulses to determine the per-pulse damage. Your thoughts?

Honestly? It sounds awful. I don't really think I'd want to bother with trying to group 0.6-5 points of damage at a time in the same location over and over with any of these weapon systems, especially if I had the option of delivering it all at once with a PPC, Gauss, or missile rack. At least, that's the way I felt about pulse lasers in MW4, and from the sound of it, that's how pretty much every AC and Laser would work. I don't think I'd bother playing. Waiting 10s at a time would be better than this.

[eZZip]

Strum Wealh, on 11 April 2012 - 04:07 PM, said:

The TT-listed damage values represent damage dealt during one 10-second period (the stated duration of one TT turn).
As such, we already know the canonical average damage per second (DPS) of most direct-fire weapons.
AC-20: 20 damage per turn -> 2.0 damage per second
PPC: 10 damage per turn -> 1.0 damage per second
Medium Laser: 5 damage per turn -> 0.5 damage per second

...

As an example, I would prefer to see all ACs fire bursts of shells approximately one second in duration, spaced by one-second cool-downs, for seven seconds, with three seconds to replace the spent magazine/clip.

One of the problems with making weapons fire the way you have suggested is that you are then deviating from tabletop in a different way (that is also poor for an online game): the damage is more spread out when it would not have been in the tabletop game. An AC/20 should do 20 damage to one location, but if it is difficult to do so and damage is not concentrated, then you end up with a short-range LRM-20 that is worse than just boating lasers and adding heat sinks.

Two weapons having the same damage per second but different rates of fire are not the same. A slower rate of fire with higher damage per shot is usually preferable, since it allows you to stay in cover longer (fire once, go back in cover, peek again in ~8 s) in addition to a few other advantages, while the weapon with a fast rate of fire and low damage per shot has only two advantages: more forgiving aim and less "wasted" damage if you were to finish off an enemy that was already near death. Being more forgiving on aim is only good for players that are pretty bad (just hitting a target will probably be easy), and the other advantage is very situational and usually does not have much impact, anyway.

I'm all for having faster rates of fire with many of the weapons, but the recycle times should be at least a few seconds (probably more) for the non-rapid firing weapons.

[Sassori]

Personally I don't mind reducing the fire time down to even 2.5 seconds, so long as it's the same fire cycle/rate for /all/ weapons so that they're on equal footing.

An AC 20 should put 20 points of damage into a single spot. That is what makes them /worth/ the weight/crit slots. If you scatter that damage they are absolute /garbage/. An Automatic (self loading) Cannon aka a big slug. Rotary Autocanon is the machine gun of AC's. LB-X's are grapeshot but still fire in single booms.

Those single booms are absolutely necessary to maintain the feel of the IP and to say otherwise is just foolishness imho.

A Medium Laser /also/ needs to burn it's damage into a single location. I'd rather instead of pinpoint accuracy we had individual firing rings for each weapon that we had to track where it will likely hit on the target. That would make an 'alpha' less devastating when you're talking 6-8 medium lasers as well.

As for the lasers scoring like they are in the vid I don't mind that visual since the latter half of the burn could just be cosmetic and the initial pulse is all that really matters.

This idea that PPC's and Gauss should fire slower than an AC 20... well, then better boost their damage to match their suddenly gimp status. Gauss are heavy, PPC's generate tons of heat for their light weight, crit, and damage. Make them fire slower than everything else and they get a lot less useful.

Personally I'd like to see heat spike on a per weapon basis and then bleed down based on still functional heat sinks so that if an awesome does alpha all 3 ppc's they immediately go into shutdown, which, will reduce PPC's coring out single locations in one volley as well. More damage to go around.

[Belisarius1]

=Outlaw=, on 10 April 2012 - 09:24 AM, said:

Weapons with a higher damage per hit tend to be better than weapons with lower damage per hit (even with a fast recycle timie to compensate). It becomes a pain to balance weapons with very different recycle times.

I think standardizing recycle time with damage per hit is a good idea to start off with. 10 second "recycle time" is what the TT uses buts thats too slow in a PC game. I would half it to 5 seconds. So for AC20 its 10 damage per 5secs. PPC 5 per 5secs. ML 2.5 per 5secs...and so on. Of course these are just values to begin with. Later testing can adjust values up and down depending on whats warranted.

You posted this a while ago, but I'll chime in. I actually strongly disagree. I don't think ease of balance should ever be a priority, because invariably games are easier to balance when they have less factors, and invariably games with less factors are less interesting. You can't start discarding things just because they make the balance team's job harder... at least not till you can prove they're impossible to balance.

In this case you're sacrificing something I'd consider to be very important in differentiating weapons, and making an entire class of direct fire suppression weapons impossible. Having that niche in the game makes for interesting situations and choices. A unified recycle time causes everything to play the same; in this case, as a kind of middle-ground alpha.

EDIT: also AC2s lol. Hello obsolescence, how are you today?

I know you suggested varying them later, but I really think it needs to be there from the start. Going from a 5s recycle to a suppression weapon is an enormous change. You'd have to completely rebalance the game again anyway, so you may as well do it properly the first time.

Edited by Belisarius†, 11 April 2012 - 08:07 PM.

[Pvt Dancer]

Slyck, on 11 April 2012 - 07:50 AM, said:

Why is it that you are so adamant about the per shot damage of weapons? The whole one-shot-one-hit per turn model was really just a simplification for PnP TT play and exactly the kind of thing we can do away with in a realtime sim.

Less damage per shot will help mitigate the fact that FPS skills generally means a better grouping of hits. And we can do away with one-shot-kills, which is fine in a game where we control multiple mechs but is a huge pain when we're knocked out of a 20 minute match in the first 5 minutes.

Then tell me... what is the difference between a AC 20 and Four Medium Lasers? Do you understand why the AC 20 exists in the game?

When you remove the threat of massed damage to a single location in a single packet, you change the game and the dynamics between Inner Structor, Armor, and weapon damage. You apparently think this is for the better, I feel it is for the worse.

[Slyck]

Christopher Dayson, on 11 April 2012 - 06:32 PM, said:

An AC 20 should put 20 points of damage into a single spot. That is what makes them /worth/ the weight/crit slots. If you scatter that damage they are absolute /garbage/.

Not to single one person out but this is the sentiment that I need to argue against. This was true in TT where individual weapon hits were dispersed all over a mech by a random dice roll. This is far Far FAR from the case in a real time sim where weapon groups and player aim is going to land multiple weapon hits in the same few locations over and over again (never nearly the spread you'll get from missiles). Game play elements need to be introduced to make this harder to do or we're going to see the same failures we've seen in the previous MW series.

Convergence, separated reticules and lasers doing DoT are a few of these elements we already know about, reduced damage-per-shot/recycle times is another one that looks like it would make a lot of sense. Now I don't think we have to disperse the damage all across the spectrum but I think some adjustment is appropriate. This is how I'd like to see the weapons; (Note my numbers include a global %20 damage nerf simply because I'm afraid the game will play too fast as is)

AC 20: 3 round burst within .75 seconds, 4 damage per round, total cycle time 7.5 seconds
PPC: 1 second stream doing 8 points, cycle time 10 seconds
Gause Rifle: single shot, 8 damage, cycle time 6.6 seconds
M. Laser: 2 seconds stream doing 2 damage, cycle time 5 seconds

The AC still has twice the DPS as the PPC and 4x the med laser and it can still take a mechs head off with a good shot and a little luck. Good players will still be able to group the damage, but now it will take skill.

[Sassori]

No. That's really all I have to say to this. No. It doesn't make sense at all, it's not thematic and it totally screws with the fundamentals of BattleTech. Once you start changing damage/heat/cycle ratio's you're not playing BattleTech anymore and it devalues some weapons drastically and it increases the value of others exponentially.

If you're standing still enough to take an AC 20 to the head in the first place? You deserve to frikken /die/. Period.

[Slyck]

How is not thematic? It holds true to the description of all the weapons in cannon. Each still has the exact same balances relative to the others and to its own heat that it had before.

The same "fundamental", that you are holding on to so dearly, that allowed an AC20 to one-shot someone also meant that it did it 1 in every 36 hits whether they were moving or not. As a matter of fact moving had nothing to do with it at all at that point.

Edited by Slyck, 11 April 2012 - 09:23 PM.

[Pvt Dancer]

Sooo... what is the difference between a AC 20 and 4 Medium lasers? I will answer that for you... 10 tons, some heat that will not matter if using double heat sinks (+5 heat), 6 critical slots, an extra ton+crit slot for every ton of 5 shots you do not use, the chance to blow up or have your torso cored with CASE, oh, and the ability to never run out of said ammo.

Your right, there is no use what-so-ever for any weapon to do more than 5pts of damage to a single location... no one should use a large laser, AC 20 or 10, a PPC or a Gauss because they should not do more than 5 points of damage to a single location over a stream of 10 seconds because they should be broken down to recycle faster than 10 seconds. In fact, your a fool to use said weapon in that system... Oh, but the lack of a random placement system makes up for it... the hell it does. Even with a sniper rifle in Modern War, your not hitting a hit box (head) every time. Pin point accuracy in a FPS is a fallacy. If I can fire 4 medium lasers and have all 4 of them hit the head at 60 meters, I will be shocked and dismayed.

You see what I did there? I devaluated half of the mechs in Battletech to be nothing but medium laser boats. There would be no point what-so-ever to take a AC 20, because it doesn't do what it is suppose to do, deliver 20pts of damage to a single location... if I want a bunch of small packets, I will get a LBX 20, because /that/ is what it is suppose to do.

Edited by Pvt Dancer, 12 April 2012 - 10:38 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

For those Ballistics that should fire in salvo's there is another option. What if we took Sturm's idea, sped up the firing cycle between 2 - 4X (left over is Reload) and then let the computer do the work. If the first shell launched hits the target, the remaining damage is applied incrementally auto-magically. Consider it the best of both worlds. We get to hear and see(graphic) the boom - boom -boom while applying damage to the place we aimed at.

The AC10-5-2 all get to spit there ammo (graphically) but as the slugs land the one behind automatically gets its damage applied to determine damage for that clip. Something like this perhaps.

AC10 - 2 slugs, each is 5 pts. Hit with first, (second applies auto)
AC 5 - 5 slugs, each is 1 pts. Hit with first, (second applies auto), third hits (4th & 5th auto applies)
AC 2 - 4 slugs, each is .5 pts. Hit with first, (all apply)

The AC20 is a single slug as best we know so it is a hit or miss weapon, and its range is the determining factor on how accurate you want to be with it. Sure it can go farther that Max range, but can you hit anything reliably while using it that way, that is what the 10-5-2 are made for.

Lasers are all about Burn -On times. Easily tweaked in Beta and going forward as new Tech arrives.

Canon #'s are best for Balance. As noted the Dev have set armor @16. Everything will revolve around that base.

PLEASE, please make sure HEAT is done right! Affect a lot of systems, if even nominally) just to remind Pilots that it is a real threat to their performance.

Some ideas might be to take the Heat Scale Sheet noted above and lose the first 5 levels and run with a 25 points pain system. Any movement Penalties can be assessed easily by %. Accuracy Penalties could affect convergence settings/times (baseline) and then tweak those until @-15%
the Mech would shut down anyways.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 12 April 2012 - 11:16 AM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Just so I'm clear about things... You guys in favor of the 10 second thing are proposing that the damage of a weapon be consistent to the TT values over 10 seconds. So that either the gun is fired once every 10 seconds or that the damage over 10 seconds of firing is equal to what TT states.

Lets just take an AC 2 into consideration for this...

...most of us who have played MW2,3,4 or LL immediately consider this as a more rapid fire weapon. SO immediately 10 second recycle timer on this weapon makes it pretty much the biggest waste of 7 tons a player could ever consider. Alternatively, the gun still retains being a fast fire weapon, but keep the damage ratio of 2 damage total after 10 seconds of accumulated fire. Hell, I don't know whats worse! Same scenario, but apply to to an SRM2, or MG, or Small Laser. Suddenly (well maybe not the small laser since its so light and ammo-independant) are laughably worthless. I'll take the few extra tons of armor or heatsinks, thanks.

The point being is that this doesn't translate into a real time game. The damage total should be constant, but other things to consider like rate of fire need to be completely independent of the 10 second turn of the TT. In past MechWarrior games, smaller arms such as the SRM2, Mgun, and AC2/5 made up for their small damage total by a fast recycle rate. Even in the gameplay trailer the lasers seemed to have a pretty quick recycle timer, on par with past MW titles. The AC2's still retain their TT damage of 2 damage, but they fire quickly so they don't have the brute force of an AC20 or other large arms, but make up for their worth through good damage over time on target.

Edit: Was ganna type out some scenario contrasting AC2's against an AC20 with AC2's or any other should be fast fire weapon limited by the 10 second turn timer/per damage, but if you can't see any flaws in such a system -- no amount of argument can convince you.

Edited by mwhighlander, 12 April 2012 - 12:09 PM.

[verybad]

People are voting for a ten second recycle for every weapon?

That is...disturbing. It shows an unimaginative view of the way battletech, even on TT works.

People are away that the TT game is meant to show what happens in a ten second frame of action, not that everything that happens in that frame of action happens all at once right?

Edited by verybad, 12 April 2012 - 12:17 PM.