534 replies to this topic

[Indoorsman]

If instant travel, instant damage PPCs happened you would see MWO versions of this, minus the respawning:

[Terror Teddy]

Indoorsman, on 13 November 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

If instant travel, instant damage PPCs happened you would see MWO versions of this, minus the respawning:

Good point. The PPC's 'bolt' right now is damn slow though. It should go 'slightly' faster than the Gauss slug.

[Fiatsu]

Indoorsman, on 13 November 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

If instant travel, instant damage PPCs happened you would see MWO versions of this, minus the respawning:

It's worth a try for a week i say, then we'll see the full impact of insta PPC.

[Vassago Rain]

Indoorsman, on 13 November 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

If instant travel, instant damage PPCs happened you would see MWO versions of this, minus the respawning:

Because that'd be much worse than the iconic mechwarrior weapon being this useless, yes?

[Indoorsman]

Vassago Rain, on 13 November 2012 - 02:00 AM, said:

Because that'd be much worse than the iconic mechwarrior weapon being this useless, yes?

PPC aren't useless.

edit: why can't this game be as smooth/responsive as in that video :-o

Edited by Indoorsman, 13 November 2012 - 02:34 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Indoorsman, on 13 November 2012 - 02:29 AM, said:

PPC aren't useless.

Well, for being the most powerful IS energy weapon it's effectiveness is definitely subpar combined with MWO's heat dissipation system.

Im pretty sure the Aweseme was NOT designed shut down after firing it's PPC's 3 times in a row. The PPC on paper is perfectly fine as long as it is limiting itself to firing at 1/3 of possible fire rate.

And therein lies the problem. Personally I think Heatsinks needs a slight tweak to increase the dissipation at 0,02-0,05 per second or lowering the overall heat on energy weapons.

It is especially punishing on mechs DESIGNED to be energy boats - like the K2 Catapult that EVERYONE is spamming the designs twin PPC's...oh wait...

[BoomDog]

MustrumRidcully, on 12 November 2012 - 02:04 PM, said:

All the cover wouldn't be such a big issue in the table top. Because even at closer ranges, long range weapons have an advantage - the to-hit roll at 270m for a Medium Laser is much higher than for the Large Laser at 270m. One is at its long range, the other at it's close(?) range.

Without cone of fire or similar methods, it is impossible to replicate this effect in a real time game with mouse aiming. This is actually a factor I barely analyzed until now, and that does significantly affect how we must value range. Even if we took well balanced examples from the table top and transplanted them to MW:O dividing damag and heat by ROF, we would likely still need to tweak things.
One thing to do may be: The shorter a weapon's range, the higher it's ROF (lowering alpha potential and making it more difficult to aim precisely), and the slower it's projectile (for ballistics and PPC) or the longer it's beam duration (for lasers).

In my opinion, cone fire would be an amazing solution to the problem of using large energy weapons (except they'd still have to tweak the Gauss and the heat problem). As it stands, I won't even put a large laser on my mech because it uses 5 tons to gain 180 meters of effective range over 2 medium lasers.

Now, with cone of fire, they'd have to implement something like WoT where a circle represents the cone. Except MWO would have to use more than one circle to represent each weapon system a mech has. So the LL would have a smaller cone of fire than the ML. So at close range, the LL could be fired at specific parts more easily than the ML.

Of course, I'm just dreaming....lol.

Edited by BoomDog, 13 November 2012 - 06:32 AM.

[Random Numbers]

Since everyone keeps telling me that this is beta ... Why not add a second PPC that is hitscan for now and see the test results?
I can't imagine it would take more than 20 minutes to knock up a clone of the large laser and converting them into the PPC (Hitscan) and the ERPPC (Hitscan)

Edited by Random Numbers, 13 November 2012 - 06:28 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

BoomDog, on 13 November 2012 - 06:23 AM, said:

In my opinion, cone fire would be an amazing solution to the problem (except they'd still have to tweak the Gauss). As it stands, I won't even put a large laser on my mech because it uses 5 tons to gain 180 meters of effective range over 2 medium lasers.

Now, with cone of fire, they'd have to implement something like WoT where a circle represents the cone. Except MWO would have to use more than one circle to represent each weapon system a mech has. So the LL would have a smaller cone of fire than the ML. So at close range, the LL could be fired at specific parts more easily than the ML.

Of course, I'm just dreaming....lol.

Yes, I think that ship has sailed. We can be happy if they fix the ballistic convergence issues.

[Apoc1138]

BoomDog, on 13 November 2012 - 06:23 AM, said:

In my opinion, cone fire would be an amazing solution to the problem of using large energy weapons (except they'd still have to tweak the Gauss and the heat problem). As it stands, I won't even put a large laser on my mech because it uses 5 tons to gain 180 meters of effective range over 2 medium lasers.

Now, with cone of fire, they'd have to implement something like WoT where a circle represents the cone. Except MWO would have to use more than one circle to represent each weapon system a mech has. So the LL would have a smaller cone of fire than the ML. So at close range, the LL could be fired at specific parts more easily than the ML.

Of course, I'm just dreaming....lol.

some mechs are hardpoint limited so LL's make sense on larger heavier mechs... also it's a little short sighted to only think on the effective range... a large laser will continue to put out meaningful damage to around 600m where as a medium laser does 0 damage at 570m

every weapon has trade-offs and it depends on your play-style rather than trying to win by pure maths all the time, because I've tried the winning by maths game and actually I get much better damage output by trying loadouts that forum / math warriors tell me don't work

[Starmage21]

Abrahms, on 03 November 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

Here are a few basics to help understand why the Gauss, LRMs, SRM, and small laser are dominating. (TT means TabeTop - which are battletech rules)

Heatsinks are generally 1 heat dissipated over 10 seconds. Battletech had 1 second turns. MWO uses all of the damage and heat statistics from Battletech, except for a few changes.

LRM/SRM damage is doubled or more,
Large lasers got +1 dmg -1 heat (large pulse too)
PPC got -1 heat,
Medium and small laser got +1 heat.

May be a few other miscellaneous changes, or ninja buffs/nerfs, or additions of diminishing returns, but generally, these concepts hold. Generalizing is OK for now because Im going to illustrate an overall concept that shows why balance is off. Also, armor has been doubled.

MWO also roughly has tripled rate of fire. In Battletech, a PPC, Gauss, Small laser, and SRM all shot every 10 seconds.

Lets round rate of fire to 3.33 seconds. For example, the PPC is 3, and the Gauss is 4, but for simplicity I will use 3.33.

In Battletech, a PPC weighed 7 tons, and generated 10 heat. It also did 10 damage. So, 3x PPCs did 30 damage every 10 seconds, and weighed 21 tons + generated 30 heat. So, if a mech wanted to remain heat neutral, it needed 51 tons. Mechs dont have to be heat neutral, but its a good balance point because the more you stray from heat neutrality, the less efficient each PPC is, up to a point that is severely harms your DPS in a game with doubled armor.

Lets subtract 10 tons for engine heatsinks, its 41 tons for 3 heat neutral PPCs. You could then drop a few HSs to right slightly warm, and weight 37ish tons for 3 PPCs and fire very often.

In MWO, rate of fire has tripled. So, in each 10 second window, you can fire each PPC three times. So can basically every other weapon in the game. So, you now generate 90 heat in a 10 second window. MWO changed heat to 9, so now its 81 heat in MWO. + 21 tons = 102 tons for 3 heat neutral PPCs in MWO. Lets - 10 for the engine, thats roughly 90 tons for 3 heat neutral PPCs. Now of course you dont have to run heat neutral, but when you compare TT to MWO, the PPC weighs a little over DOUBLE what it did in TT for the same/similar proportions/effect.

The Gauss on the other hand only generates 1 heat. So, 2 gauss = 30 damage. Each gauss is 15 tons * 2 = 30 tons for weapons. Then add 4 tons of ammo for each gauss, so 8 tons + 30 = 38. Then 2 heatsinks is 40 tons for heat neutrality. -10 for the engine only brings it to 38 tons because heatsinks make of far less of the weapon platform's weight. In TT, 30 damage alpha from a PPC, or a Gauss with enough ammo to last all match, weighed about THE SAME​. However, in MWO, with tripled rate of fire, the Gauss can fire 3 times in the 10 second window just like the PPC, but now it only generates 1 heat * 2xgauss * 3xshots = 6 heat. The gauss platform just gained 4 tons in required heatsinks. Meaning, 44 tons for heat neutrality, again brought back to 38 by the engine HSs.

As you can see, two weapon systems that were fairly balanced in TT are now COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. The PPC is terrible, running at around 50% of its TT power, but the Gauss is working with maybe a 5% loss, which can be totally negated by engine HSs.

THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS. This is why there is no weapon diversity. This affects EVERY WEAPON in the game, however, by using a low heat vs high heat weapon, you can really see what tripling the ROF did to proportions. Heatsinks still weigh 1 ton, and still dissipate at 1 per 10 sec, just like tabletop, so for every point of heat a weapon generated it now weighs 2 more tons per point. When you only have limited weight for weapons, you want to maximize your damage for your respective role. You want to know a weapon's weight, its damage, its heat, so that you can make the most of that weight. TT was fairly balanced, MWO is not at all. The devs have known about this for months, as the Beta FORUMS were on fire about this. There were 20 page threads about it. They dont care, it keeps TRIAL mechs useless ovens so you buy a mech...

Farm to a mech as fast as you can, and exploit the low heat weapons. Gauss, and small lasers. Missiles are powerful too because they are medium to low heat and have had damage doubled with improved tracking. My Atlas DDC with 1xLRM20 and 2xLRM15 + 2k ammo and enough heatsinks to fire all day just melts mechs. Can 4 shot an assault mech if he doesnt have an AMS umbrella.

I just want to reply to the general overall math of the Original Post because OP and perhaps just about everyone on this board probably doesnt remember it, if they ever played it at all:

There was a game box set: SOLARIS VII which had the battlemech arenas. The dueling rules in that box set very closely resemble how all of the mechwarrior games actually played out. Tabletop turn time was reduced to 3 seconds, but heat scales still only operated on the 10-second turn. It drastically affected gameplay in a way that almost EXACTLY matches what we're seeing in MWO.

http://www.sarna.net..._The_Game_World

[Vapor Trail]

Apoc1138, on 13 November 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

every weapon has trade-offs and it depends on your play-style rather than trying to win by pure maths all the time, because I've tried the winning by maths game and actually I get much better damage output by trying loadouts that forum / math warriors tell me don't work

Big difference between "won't work" and "not optimum."

In another thread you posted you typically do a certain amount of damage with a dual PPC mech.
600 damage with 2 PPCs and 22 heat sinks IIRC.
That's 26 tons invested, with 10 .2 DHS in the engine.

I'll tell you that it's not an optimum build. And that for the same tonnage invested,engagement time, etc., it's actually better to run a single Gauss and a single PPC. Your damage per salvo goes up. Your average DPS goes up. The attention you have to pay to heat management problems go down.


15 tons for the Gauss, 7 tons for PPC, 4 tons of ammo, total of 26 tons.

Firing them both (9 heat + 1 heat) at a heat neutral rate of fire gives you 10 heat / 2 heat per second = 5 seconds per salvo.
25 damage per salvo ==> 25damage / 5 seconds = 5 DPS.


Two PPCs with 22 DHS (10 *.2 + 12 * .14) = 3.68 HdR. 18 heat /3.68 ht/sec = 4.89 seconds per salvo.
20 damage per salvo ==> 20 damage / 4.89sec = 4.09 DPS.

See what I mean about the difference between "won't work" and "not optimal?"
Yes, your PPC mech shoots. Not arguing that. And if shot well it can do significant damage, and apparently you can shoot it well.

But, the fact remains that by swapping out ONE weapon, for the same tonnage, on the same mech(lets say, a K2 build, which would probably be pretty strong for the PPC version, and is probably the optimal chassis for the Gauss/PPC) you can improve the performance appreciably.

So why don't you see more of these?

Because the GaussKitty build is only 10 tons heavier than the build above, but maxing the PPC's RoF requires a minimum of 7 more DHS, so GaussKitty is only 3 tons heavier. The GaussKitty's DPS maxes out at .5 DPS higher than the Gauss/PPC. The GaussKitty's load is more compact, rarely requiring expansion into the arms, which allows you to free up armor tonnage for other purposes (like that extra 3 tons) without compromising function through avoidable attrition (losing your arm in a GaussKitty doesn't affect the weapons, losing the heat sink that's probably in the arm when you've got a PPC on board affects your mech's weapons quite a bit).

That's probably the source of most of the reasons. I personally like having symmetrical weapons loads, but that's an aesthetic choice, rather than a functional one.

Edited by Vapor Trail, 13 November 2012 - 08:00 AM.

[Vapor Trail]

Starmage21, on 13 November 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

I just want to reply to the general overall math of the Original Post because OP and perhaps just about everyone on this board probably doesnt remember it, if they ever played it at all:

There was a game box set: SOLARIS VII which had the battlemech arenas. The dueling rules in that box set very closely resemble how all of the mechwarrior games actually played out. Tabletop turn time was reduced to 3 seconds, but heat scales still only operated on the 10-second turn. It drastically affected gameplay in a way that almost EXACTLY matches what we're seeing in MWO.

http://www.sarna.net..._The_Game_World

We've covered this territory. Mustrum's shown that the rules (don't have them, so I can't personnaly confirm) that a Medium Laser in the Solaris rules, is roughly equivalent in power, within it's range, to a PPC.

So basically, Solaris rules are broken in such a way that favors close range, high intensity combat... exactly what you'd expect from a simulation of two mechs going at it in an enclosed arena.

MWO is going (I hope) to be tweaked so that no one range of engagement is significantly favored over the others.

[Starmage21]

Vapor Trail, on 13 November 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

We've covered this territory. Mustrum's shown that the rules (don't have them, so I can't personnaly confirm) that a Medium Laser in the Solaris rules, is roughly equivalent in power, within it's range, to a PPC.

So basically, Solaris rules are broken in such a way that favors close range, high intensity combat... exactly what you'd expect from a simulation of two mechs going at it in an enclosed arena.

MWO is going (I hope) to be tweaked so that no one range of engagement is significantly favored over the others.

Actually under Solaris VII, you could fire a medium laser 3 times, dealing 15 damage (if you hit), and generating 15 heat. PPCs had special rules IIRC and could only fire once every 3 rounds.

[Apoc1138]

Vapor Trail, on 13 November 2012 - 07:38 AM, said:

Two PPCs with 22 DHS (10 *.2 + 12 * .14) = 3.68 HdR. 18 heat /3.68 ht/sec = 4.89 seconds per salvo.
20 damage per salvo ==> 20 damage / 4.89sec = 4.09 DPS.

But, the fact remains that by swapping out ONE weapon, for the same tonnage, on the same mech(lets say, a K2 build, which would probably be pretty strong for the PPC version, and is probably the optimal chassis for the Gauss/PPC) you can improve the performance appreciably.

you're arbitrarily increasing the time between shots for no decent reason... my actual DPS with 2 PPC's whilst I am engaging a target is 6.66DPS... plus both my PPC's are arm mounted meaning I get greater elevation and lateral movement... firing 1 arm PPC and one torso gauss would be a nightmare, plus you are slowing down the PPC to gauss rate of fire thus removing one of it's advantages

to fit 1 gauss I would need to remove 3 DHS', then remove another 5 tons from somewhere to fit the gauss, and then find space and tonnage to fit ammo for the gauss

as long as I can kill a gausscat without shutting down, it doesn't matter where my heat bar is as long as it's below 100%... I am then maneuvering for the next target so I'm cooling down anyway, not because I need to but because I just am because I don't have anything in front of me to shoot at

[Undead Bane]

BumP

Edited by Undead Bane, 13 November 2012 - 09:38 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

Terror Teddy, on 13 November 2012 - 01:49 AM, said:

Good point. The PPC's 'bolt' right now is damn slow though. It should go 'slightly' faster than the Gauss slug.

The Gauss and PPC(s) have the same speed = 1200, so that is in-fact an incorrect statement. If the Gauss is not considered slow than nor can the PPC be considered slow. Graphical perception cannot be used to argue Balance...

[MustrumRidcully]

Apoc1138, on 13 November 2012 - 08:41 AM, said:

you're arbitrarily increasing the time between shots for no decent reason... my actual DPS with 2 PPC's whilst I am engaging a target is 6.66DPS...

For how long? I could probably tell you, but I am not in the mood for math right now. Maybe later/tomorrow.
But it's the thing - if you actualyl manage to kill your target in that short time frame, you manage to avoid the drawbacks of your build - but... The Gauss Rifle guy doesn't have that drawback and achieves the same effect.

Heck, the AC/10 guy (if there was anyone anywhere in the game using an AC/10 where he could have a Gauss Rifle) would achieve the same effect without your drawback.

Assuming you are really a good player (and I think you are, because you experience success), and assuming ELO ratings or whatever for the match-maker will ever be implemented, you will start fighting people of your skill level sooner or later - and then suddenly not having that drawback will matter significantly to you, and you're build will change.

I am not such a skilled player, I think. That's why I use my math warrior skills to rig the odds in my favor by finding the optimum builds. Except then I am getting bored and build Ghetto K2 mechs (A C1 pretending to be a stock K2 with 2 PPCs. I have yet to hear complaints that my Medium Laser hardpoints shouldn't be able fit a massive weapon like the PPC)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 13 November 2012 - 11:31 AM.

[MechWarrior849305]

I just want reply (question) maybe off-topic, but close to heat dissipation problem. I have my G-Kitty build with 1 gauss and 2 MLas, have 10 HS (standard) onboard. And today I tried to shoot constantly only one of MLas, staying at base (it was forest colony to say). Maybe my math is bad, but... First 3-4 shots shown exactly 0% of heat, not even blinked. But after those 4 shots heat started to grow constantly (without drawbacks between shots I mean). Yeah, heat is apparently has to accumulate somewhere in chassis, but heatsinks... For example, if You fire two MLas at once, and stop shooting (heat will rise up), then heat will steady go down. But when You fire constantly, then that means, that HS don't work at all while shooting. Am I mistaken?

Edited by DuoAngel, 13 November 2012 - 12:05 PM.

[Apoc1138]

MustrumRidcully, on 13 November 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

For how long? I could probably tell you, but I am not in the mood for math right now. Maybe later/tomorrow. But it's the thing - if you actualyl manage to kill your target in that short time frame, you manage to avoid the drawbacks of your build - but...

I can do 8 full salvos, that's 160 points of damage... right around the time mr. gauss is lining up his 2nd shot I'm hitting him in the face and ducking in to cover... chances are he's stood still... I pop out and we hit each other again and I get 2 shots in and then behind cover again... see where this is going?

with emp effects they are going to be savage