146 replies to this topic

[Hao Yu]

I would not mind having manufacturer-based differences in equipment quality and performance. It would certainly add more variance to the game.

[Scar]

No need to handle AC's - the smaller ones are not so powerful, the bigger ones are not so easy to hit with them. It's enough to handle them.

[Kartr]

WithSilentWings, on 12 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Kartr, I don't have the time to continue this argument but there are two major problems I have. First, you still appear to believe that having a small set of extremely different options makes for a more difficult decision... Let me try one more analogy here. When you're choosing weapons or any other aspect of your mech, you are making specific choices because of the niche (or lack thereof) that you want to fill. If I want to make a long-range artillery mech, why would I ever consider taking pulse lasers as primary weapons when I have access to LRM launchers? It's pretty black and white and so the decision is easy--there's no thought and no tinkering. LRM's are a clear choice for that niche. Now, what if there are 3 different brands of LRM launchers? One maybe locks quicker and holds the lock better but does less damage. Another may have a shorter flight time. Perhaps one is more agile and so can track faster targets easier... Suddenly there is REAL choice and some actual thought needs to go into the loadout. Essentially what you seem to continue arguing is that if you were to take a scout role in a lance, you'd have a tough time deciding on whether you'd want to use the Jenner or the Atlas, because by your logic they are very different and that should make the decision difficult...

You're entirely misrepresenting what I'm saying. I'm not arguing that within a niche there needs to be variety, I'm saying that weapons need to have distinct advantages and drawbacks.

LRM/s have 4 choices, each choice makes you choose between number of shots and total damage. If you pick LRM/20 you do the most damage if you hit, but you only have one chance to hit, pick 4 LRM5s and you have 4 chances to hit but you do the least amount of damage per hit. Now could LRMs have different firing rates, lock on time etc? Sure why not, because there is essentially only one type of LRM. Also the way they do damage is much more flexible since they do it per missile and the damage winds up striking multiple areas.

AC/s on the other hand are rather inflexible in how they do damage. Since they strike a single area on the 'Mech they have to be a burst fired in under a tenth of a second. In addition you also have multiple choices when it comes to how AC/s operate. You have your basic AC/s that fire a burst in under a tenth of a second, you have UAC/s that fire two separate bursts each under a tenth of a second, and eventually RAC/s which will fire more like a machinegun or gatling gun. Main point is that to do damage the way they do, AC/s, LB/X AC's and UAC/s have to fire bursts that are no more than a tenth of a second long, UAC/s firing twice per trigger pull or maybe just having half the cycle time of regular and LB/X AC's.

So getting back to your analogy, if I decide to make a long range 'Mech I have to choose between, LRMs, ER PPCs, Gauss Rifles and AC/2s. Each choice has its advantages and disadvantages, if LRM/s have the blend of pros/cons that I prefer then I have to choose between LRM/5s, 10s, 15s and 20s. Do I go for the maximum damage per shot (LRM/20) or as many shots as possible with lowest damage per shot (LRM/5s) or somewhere in the middle. So the choice isn't as cut and dried as you're implying and the mechanics of LRMs means you can do things like have a 5 tube LRM/20 that fires 4 shots spaced 2s apart or a 10 tube LRM/20 that fires 2 shots spaced anywhere from 9s apart down to 1s apart, or a 20 tube LRM/20 that fires 1 shot every 10s.

If you make a Medium range 'Mech you have to choose between, AC10/s and 5s, Large Lasers, PPCs, ER Large Lasers, and PPCs. AC/s are going to do less damage per ton and critical then the others, but since Lasers have a 1s duration there's the possibility they may damage more than one location. We don't know for sure how PPCs are going to work so I won't speculate on them. AC/s if they don't do their damage all in one location aren't going to be worth the lower damage to weight+critical ratios they suffer from. So if you do make AC/s fire a stream of shells that lasts longer than a tenth of a second, or take multiple individual shots such as 1 ever second, you're going to see your damage spread out even more on an enemy 'Mech making them that much less useful.

Short range 'Mech you have to choose from, AC/20 variants, Medium Lasers, Large Pulse lasers, Medium Pulse lasers, ER Medium Lasers and the SRMs. Personally I feel that SRMs are worthless because of their damage spread coupled with their other drawbacks, maybe that will change with lasers having a duration and possibly wandering across the target. The advantages and disadvantages of Medium Lasers vs the AC/20 have been pointed out many many times. If the AC/20 doesn't deliver all its damage to one location then its one advantage over the Medium Laser is completely gone and you will never see anyone use the AC/20. If the AC/20 doesn't fire all its rounds in less than a tenth of a second it wont do all its damage to a single location.

Summed up, if you make AC/s, especially the heavier ones, fire their rounds over the entire 10s period, or in bursts over the ten second period they won't all land on the same spot and won't be worth the weight/criticals. This means by making AC/s have varied shot lengths or fire multiple shots to do their damage you will see everyone switch to lasers or PPCs because of the higher damage per ton/critical cost.

WithSilentWings, on 12 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

My other issue... You are trying to push the AC's so they are more like the fluff, but then completely disregard some VERY important details. First--like many have stated, and I can attest to this--the fiction VERY FREQUENTLY mentions autocannons "stitching" across mechs and vehicles, picking them apart. This gives me a picture similar to the GAU-8 in the A10 Thunderbolt II, which we can all agree has at least what you can consider a noteworthy spread. Thus, the ONLY hint we have that these guns should fire in a laser-like instant with laser-like accuracy, is the fact that in a simplified and generalized tabletop game (they are ALL like this. If you spend ANY time with ANY tabletop game you will find things that don't make sense because they are easier and take less time) the AC does damage to only one location.

My argument has nothing to do with making it more like the fluff. My argument is entirely about making them worthwhile weapons in the game. The fact that the official fluff supports my point is nice but ultimately irrelevant, just like the artistic license used by authors to describe events is irrelevant.

The RACs should fire just like the GAU-8 because they're rotary autocannons, which is essentially what the GAU-8 is. In this day and age a "rotary autocannon" would be referred to as a gatling gun. The AC should fire like the three shot burst setting on an M-16, that mimics the effects on target and if the "magazine" is only 3 shots big then it would have to pull ammo from the bin to reload the magazine before firing, just like we see in TT.

Secondly I have never said that AC/s should strike the targets in "laser like instant" nor have I said they should have "laser like accuracy." In fact quite the opposite, I have said that they will travel much slower than lasers and that their spread could be up to as much as 3.5meters. The only thing I have pointed out and backed up with the math, is that if AC/s don't fire their full burst in under a tenth of a second then they will not all strike the same area.

WithSilentWings, on 12 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Consider the autocannon's size, the rounds it's firing, and the horribly unstable platform it's being fired from. Seriously, if a 50 ton mech like the Hunchback fired a 150mm cannon 10 times in less than half a second, it would be laying on it's back afterward.

Honestly this is the case with pretty much every AC on every 'Mech no matter how many rounds they fire per burst. Its even worse when you consider the kick that your Gauss rifles would have.

What we know for certain is that AC/s fire multiple shots per burst, we know all the damage is taken on one location and firing doesn't knock 'Mechs over or even significantly stress the frame.

From that and disregarding the fluffed calibers and round counts, we can know that bursts have to be of incredibly short duration, the calibers, velocities, and round counts are all going to be related. Larger caliber lower velocity and same round count, larger caliber same velocity lower round count. Smaller caliber higher velocity and same round count, smaller caliber, same velocity and higher round count.

WithSilentWings, on 12 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

You need to consider that especially at range, the angle at which each round is fired will have a huge effect on it's point of impact. An AC20 at it's max range of roughly 300m even if it fires at an absurd rate (let's say nearly 20 rounds per quarter-second like the GAU-8) any movement, turning, aiming, etc will lead to the rounds walking even at this crazy rate of fire. You would need to stand still, have some sort of weapon-specific stability system in place, have the weapon near or below your center of gravity, and have an immobile target to expect to hit in even the same vicinity considering the barrel lenght, round size and velocities we're talking about.

Which is why I am saying that the burst duration has to be below a tenth of a second. If you look at Ivan Whakinov's post about the revolver cannon and its similarities to the AC and/or read this page on Wikipedia you can see that its not impossible to imagine them firing bursts with a duration of 3 hundreths of a second. At these rates the recoil and relative movements of your 'Mech and the Enemy 'Mech would be negligable.

[Solis Obscuri]

Kartr, on 11 April 2012 - 08:50 PM, said:

Exactly!
An AC/20 with 1 ton of ammo takes up 15 tons and 11 criticals, has 5 shots and generates 7 heat, worries about ammo explosions.
4 Medium Lasers and 5 HS takes up 9 tons and 9 criticals, has unlimited shots and generates 7 heat, doesn't have to worry about ammo explosions.
Also with 4 medium lasers if you get a critted and one of your lasers gets knocked out you still have three firing for 15 damage and you're generating 4 heat. If your AC/20 gets critted then you're doing 0 damage with it.

Each medium laser produces 3 heat on firing, so 4 of them produce almost double the heat of an AC/20.

Strum Wealh, on 11 April 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

Actually, we do know (or, rather, have a reasonable estimate of) the duration of an Atlas' Medium Laser beam - it seems, from the GDC gameplay video, to be around 1 second in duration, with the damage being dealt across that duration.
Also, looking at the indicator bars in the lower-right corner and when the lasers fire (0:00-0:08), it seems they have a recycle rate (end of previous salvo to beginning of next salvo) of ~2-2.5 seconds.

In the same video (0:18-0:24), the Hunchback's AC-20 seems to fire a single shell and recycle every ~3 seconds.
The Atlas' LRM-20 in the same video (0:37-0:42) seems to show a recycle time on the order of ~2.5 seconds.

OTHO, the S7 dueling rules seem to dictate (for IS weapons):
Small Laser: 5 seconds (two cycles/turns)
Medium Laser: 5 seconds
Large Laser: 7.5 seconds (three cycles/turns)
ER Large Laser: 10 seconds (four cycles/turns)
Small Pulse Laser: 5 seconds
Medium Pulse Laser: 7.5 seconds
Large Pulse Laser: 10 seconds
PPC: 10 seconds
ER-PPC: 10 seconds
Fusion Flamer: 5 seconds
Vehicle Flamer: 5 seconds

SRMs (all): 5 seconds
LRMs (all): 7.5 seconds
Narc: 7.5 seconds

Machine Gun: 2.5 seconds (one cycle/turn)
AC-2: 2.5 seconds
AC-5: 5 seconds
AC-10: 5 seconds
AC-20: 7.5 seconds
LB-X AC-10: 5 seconds
Ultra AC-5: 5 seconds
Gauss Rifle: 7.5 seconds

All weapons deal full damage per cycle/turn (2.5-second interval).
Each weapon's heat generation is 4x the standard rate (full standard heat per cycle/turn).
Heat sinks take effect every cycle/turn.
A single jump could last four cycles/turns (10-second interval).

Personally, I feel that the S7 times could work, but that the damage should be changed to reflect the CBT per-turn/per-second values; going by the S7 rules, IMO, would lead to several weapons (particularly Small and Medium Lasers (and their ilk) and SRMs, both alone and in clusters) having dramatically higher damage-over-time capability than they should (and subsequently skewing the armor/durability-versus-firepower/damage balance a bit too heavily in favor of the latter).

Your thoughts?

I think the DPS of energy weapons will be offset by rapid heat build-up, and if heat effect rules are strict enough, using them at thier peak cycle rate will be very difficult unless your 'mech is extremely heavily equipped with heat sinks (something on the order of double the quantity required to run cool on 10s TT turns). See my post here:

Solis Obscuri, on 11 April 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

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.

[Kartr]

Solis Obscuri, on 12 April 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

Each medium laser produces 3 heat on firing, so 4 of them produce almost double the heat of an AC/20.

I know that, the point was if you remove an AC/20 (7 heat) and replace it with 4 medium lasers (12 heat) and 5 heat sinks (-5 heat) you wind up with 20 pts of damage and 7 heat (12-5=7). Your net damage and net heat haven't changed, what has changed though is that you've freed up 6 tons and 2 criticals assuming that the AC/20 only had 1 ton of ammo. If the AC/20 had more then 1 ton of ammo you've freed up additional tonnage and criticals equal to the total tons of AC/20 ammo -1.

Furthermore you no longer have to worry about ammo explosions, and if you take a critical hit that knocks out a weapon you still have 3 others doing 15 damage with a net heat of 4. If the AC/20 gets hit you've lost the entire weapon and are doing 0 damage.

[Arcqueid]

Ok in MW4 the rotary Gatling ac2 and ac5 did less damage per hit but over a long amount of time. I think it was 1.25 (rg-ac2) and 2.75 (rg-ac5) respectively. So for instance the the LBX-ac10 fired like a shot gun rather than the ac-10 that fired single subsequent rounds over 0.25 seconds. The retaliative impact was more of a cone than point for the LBX auto cannon verses the rotary ac's and normal ac's. I am not sure if that will help but the idea of 5 rounds from a rapid fire 200mm cannon scares me. They would have to be like the casing less rounds that are fired by electrical impulse. Say like a phalanx system. It would make more since for reload and fire duration.

[Johannes Falkner]

For RACs I would just have them start with a few rounds at slower refire speed and then crank up the pain, with tracers. So it sounds like bang, bang, bangbangbang, brr, BRRRRRAP! You have like 1/2 a second to realize the pain you are about to receive...

[Corbon Zackery]

I just want to point out the fact that a AC/2 is not worthless

I the Battle tech board game a ER L laser:

1-7 Short/ 8-14 Med/ 15-21 long

A Basic AC 2:
1-8 Short/ 9-16 Med/ 17-24 Long 3 hex Advantage:

Ultra AC 2:
1-8 Short/ 9-17 Med/ 18-25 Long 4 hex Advantage:

LBX AC 2:
1-9 Short/ 10-18 Med/ 19-27 Long 6 hex Advantage:

The AC 2 is one of the longest firing weapons in BattleTech. Used correctly you get the same effect as a SRM Launcher its used to get that crit on a ammo location a gyro hit.

6 hexes is about the size of a small lake on one hex board.

[Kartr]

Corbon Zackery, on 12 April 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

I just want to point out the fact that a AC/2 is not worthless

I the Battle tech board game a ER L laser:

1-7 Short/ 8-14 Med/ 15-21 long

A Basic AC 2:
1-8 Short/ 9-16 Med/ 17-24 Long 3 hex Advantage:

Ultra AC 2:
1-8 Short/ 9-17 Med/ 18-25 Long 4 hex Advantage:

LBX AC 2:
1-9 Short/ 10-18 Med/ 19-27 Long 6 hex Advantage:

The AC 2 is one of the longest firing weapons in BattleTech. Used correctly you get the same effect as a SRM Launcher its used to get that crit on a ammo location a gyro hit.

6 hexes is about the size of a small lake on one hex board.

See people keep saying that SRMs are crit seekers, I don't get how that works. Would you mind explaining that for me?

[Johannes Falkner]

Kartr, on 12 April 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

See people keep saying that SRMs are crit seekers, I don't get how that works. Would you mind explaining that for me?

SRMs fire multiple missiles and so get multiple hits. SRMs are one of the most shot/ton and shot/crit efficient weapons. They are more crit efficient than lasers and LRMs and way more crit efficient than ballistics and more weight efficient than LRMs, lasers and balistic weapons (except the MG which is range starved).

In TT there is a potential for Through Armor Critical (TAC) hits. So each time you hit a mech and roll for damage location you might get a critical hit chance. It is a relatively low chance (1/36 or <3%) so the more hits you make, the more you maximize the chance for TACs. Also in TT each internal structure hit gets a critical chance. Hitting the Head is also a 1/36 chance. Given the low head armor values, two damage hits from SRMs are a real danger when fired in bulk, and each head hit causes pilot damage and a consciousness check that increases in difficulty until pilot death.

You may also see LB-X ACs and Silver Bullet Gauss Rifles come up as crit seekers. LB-X cluster ammo fires a number of submunitions equal to its rating (LB-10X AC = 10 munitions). Each point of damage (Munition) is assigned to a hit location independently, similar to SRMs. Against LB-20Xs most (heavy and assault) mechs will statistically fall to cluster hit criticals and head shots before succumbing to damage.

[Sug]

Johannes Falkner, on 12 April 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

In TT there is a potential for Through Armor Critical (TAC) hits.

Is that when you role double 1's for hit location? Never heard it called that before.

[Johannes Falkner]

Sug, on 12 April 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

Is that when you role double 1's for hit location? Never heard it called that before.

Yes

[Kartr]

Johannes Falkner, on 12 April 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

SRMs fire multiple missiles and so get multiple hits. SRMs are one of the most shot/ton and shot/crit efficient weapons. They are more crit efficient than lasers and LRMs and way more crit efficient than ballistics and more weight efficient than LRMs, lasers and balistic weapons (except the MG which is range starved).

In TT there is a potential for Through Armor Critical (TAC) hits. So each time you hit a mech and roll for damage location you might get a critical hit chance. It is a relatively low chance (1/36 or <3%) so the more hits you make, the more you maximize the chance for TACs. Also in TT each internal structure hit gets a critical chance. Hitting the Head is also a 1/36 chance. Given the low head armor values, two damage hits from SRMs are a real danger when fired in bulk, and each head hit causes pilot damage and a consciousness check that increases in difficulty until pilot death.

You may also see LB-X ACs and Silver Bullet Gauss Rifles come up as crit seekers. LB-X cluster ammo fires a number of submunitions equal to its rating (LB-10X AC = 10 munitions). Each point of damage (Munition) is assigned to a hit location independently, similar to SRMs. Against LB-20Xs most (heavy and assault) mechs will statistically fall to cluster hit criticals and head shots before succumbing to damage.

Thanks I only started playing TT last Christmas and only have a couple games under my belt. I did read through the entire Revised Master Rules, but there's a lot of information in their to keep track of.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

The problem is that TACs were an important part of the Pro side of weapon balance which has never been modelled in the PC games. I just wish that PGI would put them in.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I agree - TACs are a required balancing element. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for mopping up the forum tears from people who got TAC'd in their ammo box on the first hit.

A TAC happens in 2.77% of all hits. The number of times you see that pop up is greatly increased when you have thousands of people playing, and wouldn't be uncommon at all.

[Siilk]

Corbon Zackery, on 12 April 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

I just want to point out the fact that a AC/2 is not worthless

I the Battle tech board game a ER L laser:

1-7 Short/ 8-14 Med/ 15-21 long

A Basic AC 2:
1-8 Short/ 9-16 Med/ 17-24 Long 3 hex Advantage:

Ultra AC 2:
1-8 Short/ 9-17 Med/ 18-25 Long 4 hex Advantage:

LBX AC 2:
1-9 Short/ 10-18 Med/ 19-27 Long 6 hex Advantage:

The AC 2 is one of the longest firing weapons in BattleTech. Used correctly you get the same effect as a SRM Launcher its used to get that crit on a ammo location a gyro hit.

6 hexes is about the size of a small lake on one hex board.

You are leaving out heat, size and weight of those weapons out of the equation. As was stated numerous times on the forum, AC2 is way bigger and heavier than LLs and the heatsinks that are required to fire them with no fear of overheat. The fact that you can have roughly two times more firepower with LLs and have no ammo limitations at the cons of small range disadvantage(which would be even smaller in case of ER LLs) is the main reason why AC2 family is, in fact, inferior here.

[Johannes Falkner]

Thomas Hogarth, on 13 April 2012 - 01:23 AM, said:

I agree - TACs are a required balancing element. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for mopping up the forum tears from people who got TAC'd in their ammo box on the first hit.

A TAC happens in 2.77% of all hits. The number of times you see that pop up is greatly increased when you have thousands of people playing, and wouldn't be uncommon at all.

To solve this I would add a (small) number of hitpoints to criticals like ammo and limit the amount of damage a TAC could inflict to lower the probability while maintaining the mechanic.

Siilk, on 13 April 2012 - 01:24 AM, said:

You are leaving out heat, size and weight of those weapons out of the equation. As was stated numerous times on the forum, AC2 is way bigger and heavier than LLs and the heatsinks that are required to fire them with no fear of overheat. The fact that you can have roughly two times more firepower with LLs and have no ammo limitations at the cons of small range disadvantage(which would be even smaller in case of ER LLs) is the main reason why AC2 family is, in fact, inferior here.

You are forgetting stationary targets. Hey,that's defended by a turret, no problem.
Or, try assaulting a position defended by AC/2 turrets with clear lines of fire...

[Moosehead]

Ivan Whackinov, on 12 April 2012 - 03:46 AM, said:

This is my vote for how to design an AC/20 that approximately obeys the TT game rules - a short barreled revolver cannon firing EFP rounds at low velocity (~1000fps) in very fast (~.03 second) bursts, after which a long period of time is taken to reload the individual chambers of the revolver cannon. At that rate of fire the recoil from the first round would barely have time to shift the point of aim before the last round was fired, and even with a 200kph lateral speed differential between shooter and target, the spread from first shot to last would only cover about 1.5 meters - small enough spread that we could conceivably assume all shots would hit the same area on a 'mech.

how about the stubby barrel AC/20 being simple tubes that fire Explosively Formed Projectiles,Metalstorm style??


that would explain shorter range, yet high damage in one area from multiple 'rounds'

each 'round' would have x# of EFPs. You pull the trigger,dakka-dakka-dakka, out they fly, fraction of a second between each EFP leaving the tube.

the casing ejects and reloads from magazine, ready for next pull.

But EFPs are fast movers, nearly hypersonic, over 5000fps, so should have more theoretical range than other AC.

Fire Control should be the issue to give it the TT short range. It goes a long way, but hard to aim accurately

Edited by Moosehead, 13 April 2012 - 10:08 AM.

[UncleKulikov]

Johannes Falkner, on 10 April 2012 - 09:59 PM, said:

Thankfully the RAC-20 does not exist...

Your comments exemplify a design paradigm that will have a large number of people rage quitting and leaving the game. Remember that this is not TT. Your accuracy and the location you hit will no longer be random (ie you will not hit arms/legs as often). This means players will have a much higher liklihood of coring targets. If you have weapons like an AC/20 that do a single massive alpha strike to and allow the firer to return to cover and hide for the next ten seconds, avoiding return fire from the target (hereafter known as the victim), you will destroy the fun for most gamers.

Imagine these scenes:

• You come around a corner and find yourself face to face with a Hunchback. *flash*
  
  
  Anything guaranteed death for 20 tonners and 25 tonners without full armor forward, highly probable death for most other lights and lighly armored mediums (Clints and such) (Urban mech has 1 structure left and dies to the Hunchback's lasers).
  Hunchback retreats around corner while you pick yourself up off of the ground.
  
• It's THAT map again.
  
  
  The Hunchback (Atlas/whatever else) always parks mostly behind the building with just their AC and arm showing and a firelane down the alley (good tactics on his part...). To get to objective X you have to go by/through the *******, but he can peek from behind cover and cripple you and prevent all meaningful return fire, sigh, should have brought my *insert mech here*, but the cover sucks going that way.

How many times will this happen before you quit?

LRM fire can arc over structures. You can peek around a corner to spot him and avoid return fire and then call down the rain.

Destroy the cover he's using.

Use jump jets to get up on the buildings and either fly over him or mark for missiles or laser him from above.

Use a different approach or flank him.

Also in terms of damage the GDC video is useful. It shows the jenner taking an AC20 round and not taking significant damage near the end. There is also a scene of 2 hunchbacks slamming each other with AC20 rounds, and the damage isn't as significant as in tabletop.

Edited by UncleKulikov, 13 April 2012 - 09:58 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

UncleKulikov, on 13 April 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

Also in terms of damage the GDC video is useful. It shows the jenner taking an AC20 round and not taking significant damage near the end. There is also a scene of 2 hunchbacks slamming each other with AC20 rounds, and the damage isn't as significant as in tabletop.

Which makes me wonder if they've increased the amount of ammo. The whole point of the Hunchback is doing a lot of damage in one shot from ambush. You would never see a Hunchback pilot running around in the open like that normally, he'd be shot down by longer ranged mechs - and he could never catch or outmanouver a Jenner. Hopefully it wasn't what were going to see in the game.