532 replies to this topic

[Xerxys]

Technoviking, on 06 November 2012 - 12:50 PM, said:

I like how Garth says "I was able to fire my Jenner a lot without getting very hot, enough to kill an Atlas from behind!"

And the community starts grabbing rear armor values and damages. "I dispute your kill!"


You missed the part about where he was able to fire his jenner a lot and not get hot.

Apparently you missed the part where he said in 3 sec. In fact I didn't see a lot mentioned in that little tid-bit.

[MaddMaxx]

Teralitha, on 19 November 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

Add cone of fire..... really? While I can see how that would be the simplest fix to balance, it wouldn't make for a game of skill. And I expect mechwarrior to be a game of skill, not dice rolling.

Why is it that everyone is OKeyDokey with the game being Skill based, but are adamant about neutering the Heat aspect. As it stands, it is Managing your Mechs Heat + (a bunch of other ****) that makes the game require some skill as is.

The true Skill is controlling your Trigger finger ffs. Not being able to blast the **** out of the target every 3 seconds, just because...

Turn up the Heat, then we will see the cream rise top the top of the Skill chart... :/

[Windies]

MaddMaxx, on 20 November 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

Why is it that everyone is OKeyDokey with the game being Skill based, but are adamant about neutering the Heat aspect. As it stands, it is Managing your Mechs Heat + (a bunch of other ****) that makes the game require some skill as is.

The true Skill is controlling your Trigger finger ffs. Not being able to blast the **** out of the target every 3 seconds, just because...

Turn up the Heat, then we will see the cream rise top the top of the Skill chart... :/

I'm going to explain this for like the umpteenth time. It's not about making every weapon heat neutral. It's about balancing on a per weapon basis versus tonnage, damage, heat, ammo or lack of ammo.

I can't generalize for everyone, but when I discuss a heat neutral mech, I'm usually talking about 1 weapon versus another weapon. For instance 1 mech with 1 small laser versus 1 mech with 1 PPC. I'm not talking about making a heat neutral mech with 5 PPC's or some sort of alternative like that.

Try making a heat neutral mech with just 1 PPC. How many heatsinks does it take. Now try making one with 1 large laser, then 1 medium laser and so on. Take note of the disparity between the amount of heatsinks for that 1 weapon to become heat neutral. Take note of it's DPS, not just it's damage but the theoretical amount of damage it can put out per second and compare that to all the other weapons.

The argument is not about making mechs heat neutral, it's about the disparity between doing so using heat neutrality as a benchmark. It is why the Gauss is the go to ballistic and why medium and small lasers are the go to energy weapons. It's also about benchmarking the theoretical DPS caps for each weapon under the current heat system.

Something a lot of people don't realize is that even if you set heatsinks to dissipate say 0.2 or even 0.3 heat, due to the increased fire rate, weapons that generate a lot of heat would still overheat your mech because there is a finite cap to how much heat you can produce versus the time it takes to actually dissipate that heat. What it would do is bring in the usability of higher heat weapons because you would still have to excersize fire control, but the wait to cool down would be reduced. As for lower heat weapons, they are already spammable right now as is, increasing heat dissipation would have a negligible effect on them at best.

What is needed is to actually find a balance between damage produced, heat produced, cycle times, and heat dissipation. Something to remember is that heat produced != heat dissipation. Meaning that changing the heat produced by a weapon is not the same as changing the heat dissipated.

Edited by Windies, 20 November 2012 - 05:47 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Let's ignore range for a moment, but would you say that it's reasonable to have these two weapons together and treat them balanced?

Weapon A ) Fires every 3.33 seconds for 10 damage and 10 heat. It weighs 5 tons.
Weapon B ) fires every 3.33 seconds for 10 damage and 1 heat. It weighs 14 tons.

Under what assumption would you consider them balanced?

After 9 seconds, Weapon A will have produced 30 heat. It would cost you about 30 heat sinks to dissipate this fully. Let's say you don't need to compensate it fully - let's say you're happy with 50 %. That's 15 tons in heat sinks, for a total of 20 tons.

Weapon B will have produced 3 heat. That's about 3 heat sinks to fully dissipate. If you only go for 50 %, it's 1.5 tons, for a total of 15.5 or rather 16 tons, since oyu can't pack half heat sinks. Now it suddenly is, for the same DPS, 20 tons vs 16 tons.

But that's even assuming an unrealistic preposition - that you can get by with only equipping half the heat sinks all the time.

Let's say you're equipped actually 2 of these weapons, on a typical mech.
That's 40 tons for Weapon A (50 % rule), 30 tons for heat sinks. Let's subtract the 10 you "have" to take due to the engine rules, so it's 30 tons for Weapon A.
For Weapon B, you need to pack 31 tons, 3 for the heat sinks. So that's 31 tons vs 30 tons for the same DPS. Almost equal. But, we only equipped 50 % of the heat sinks necessary to compensate the heat, so how long until we overheat?

Well, Weapon B will never overheat - the engine heat sinks put us already over the required alue.
Weapon A will overheat - how fast? 30 heat sinks means a heat capacity of 60. We produce about 60 heat every 10 seconds and dissipate 30 in that time, so we're now at 30 heat net generation per 10 seconds. That means with weapon A, we will overheat in 20 seconds.

Does that sound balanced?
(Same DPS, 30 tons with Weapon A sustainable for 20 seconds, 31 tons infinitely sustainable)


What would happen if we took 3 weapons?
3 of Weapon A: 45 tons for heat sinks, 15 tons for weapons. 60 tons total, -10 engine Sinks, 50 total.
3 of Weapon B: 4.5 for heat sinks, 42 tons for weapons, 46.5 tons total, -10 engine sinks, 42 tons total.
Now Weapon B already has a weight advantage.

How long will Weapon A last? 45 heat sinks equal a capacity of 75. It produces 90 heat every 10 seconds and dissipate 45, so we're now at 45 net heat generation per 10 seconds. That means with Weapon A, we will over heat in ~17 seconds. That's suddenly 3 second less!
Weapon B hasn't changed, still not overheating.

Does this sound balanced?
(Same DPS, 50 tons for Weapon A, sustainble for 17 seconds, 42 tons for Weapon B, sustainable forever?)


But let's say we thing 42 tons for a weapon system is too much.
Instead, we add 2 of Weapon B and 1 of Weapon A. And don't add any more heat sinks. So now we're at
28 tons Weapon B, 5 tons Weapon A, no heat sinks, 33 tons.
We produce 33 heat per 10 seconds, and dissipate 10. That's 23 net generation, that's about 17 seconds before we shut down.

So now, by combining two of B and 1 of A, we have the same DPS and the same endurance as we had with 3 Weapons of Weapon or B...

Does this sound balanced?
(Same DPS, 50 tons for Weapon A, sustainble for 17 seconds; 42 tons for Weapon B, sustainable forever;33 tons for Weapon A + 2 x Weapon B, sustainable for 17 seconds)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 20 November 2012 - 05:46 AM.

[Xerxys]

Mister Zeus, on 07 November 2012 - 09:13 PM, said:

Play Solaris VII and realize that PGI didn't do anything wrong at all. Fire discipline will give you the CBT heat balance you want, but if you want to ride the redline like you have to in MWO if you are in a brawl, then read the Solaris VII rules, understand that they introduce different fire rates and four 2.5 second turns instead of one 10 second round like CBT, and that it adds a hell of a lot of viability to some of the weapons that are generally overlooked in CBT.

The AC/5 in Solaris VII is dead 'ard, for example, because it can fire more often than a PPC and for much less heat. It is a weapon that lets you continue to attack your enemy while their main guns are reloading or they are trying to seek cover and cool down. This gives you plenty of reasons to take another look at some of the old mech designs and see them in a glorious new light. I highly recommend checking Solaris VII out and getting a new perspective on CBT that has quietly influenced the Mechwarrior franchises for years.

This still doesn't address PGI's lack of heat dissipation. I don't give a sailing **** what the damage of the energy weapons I'm using is so long as it gets better as I use heavier weapons. The issue that is killing energy based weapons is the lack of heat dissipation. I don't care how much heat I'm able to rack up before overheating either, I plum don't give a ****. I want that heat to dissipate in accordance with the rate I'm firing my weapons. It really isn't too much to ask for. DHS are a great way to add heat dissipation to a mech that is running out of available tonnage, but has the critical room to handle it. SHS are best for when you have the tonnage, but not enough room to make the DHS a viable option.Fire discipline will only get you so far when you're using an energy only variant and being forced to drop to lower damage weapons to make up for a ***** move on the part of PGI is beyond all measure of stupid. Fire discipline should work to keep you from overheating your mech due to constant alpha strikes, but greater heat dissipation should allow for more constant game play (increasing this fun factor everyone is screaming about).

[Reoh]

While I agree with the meat of your argument, I can't help but feel the garnishing surrounding it detracted from what would otherwise have been a good point. Incidentally PPC's are being looked at (particularly referencing heat and projectile speed), as admitted by the most recent dev post on weapon balancing.

Edited by Reoh, 20 November 2012 - 06:21 AM.

[Xerxys]

Mister Zeus, on 08 November 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

Yes, the Shadow Hawk is a deadly mech and in Solaris VII rules it puts those extra heat sinks to good use.

For anyone running into problems with the Awesome, all I can say is that with the current 1.4 heat sinks my energy monster with 2 ERPPCs, 3 Large Lasers, and 17 DHS manages to run quite cool. I pace my fire and can lay down a fairly constant stream of ERPPC fire until the enemy closes, then I switch to the Large Lasers.

You don't have to mount as many weapons as a mech can carry and fire them all at once. If you try to do that, don't use the largest weapons. It's that obvious. Trying to be an ERPPC boat is going to obviously overheat you after some time firing on target, try mounting only 2 ERPPCs and backup weapons. With the quick refire rate I'm sure you will only notice a difference when you do your initial alpha strike, otherwise, you can keep a barrage of fire on target and keep heat in check.

In other words, completely gimp your mech to make up for this lack of heat dissipation. Good answer! The max heat capacity and the rate if dissipation are two completely different animals. Regardless of any weapon to heat sink ratio you're going to accumulate heat through rapid firing and some mechs are meant to spam fire their medium lasers. The heat builds up and instead of adding more threshold, it should and needs to be dissipation.

[MWHawke]

Windies, on 20 November 2012 - 05:44 AM, said:

I'm going to explain this for like the umpteenth time. It's not about making every weapon heat neutral. It's about balancing on a per weapon basis versus tonnage, damage, heat, ammo or lack of ammo.

I can't generalize for everyone, but when I discuss a heat neutral mech, I'm usually talking about 1 weapon versus another weapon. For instance 1 mech with 1 small laser versus 1 mech with 1 PPC. I'm not talking about making a heat neutral mech with 5 PPC's or some sort of alternative like that.

Try making a heat neutral mech with just 1 PPC. How many heatsinks does it take. Now try making one with 1 large laser, then 1 medium laser and so on. Take note of the disparity between the amount of heatsinks for that 1 weapon to become heat neutral. Take note of it's DPS, not just it's damage but the theoretical amount of damage it can put out per second and compare that to all the other weapons.

The argument is not about making mechs heat neutral, it's about the disparity between doing so using heat neutrality as a benchmark. It is why the Gauss is the go to ballistic and why medium and small lasers are the go to energy weapons. It's also about benchmarking the theoretical DPS caps for each weapon under the current heat system.

Something a lot of people don't realize is that even if you set heatsinks to dissipate say 0.2 or even 0.3 heat, due to the increased fire rate, weapons that generate a lot of heat would still overheat your mech because there is a finite cap to how much heat you can produce versus the time it takes to actually dissipate that heat. What it would do is bring in the usability of higher heat weapons because you would still have to excersize fire control, but the wait to cool down would be reduced. As for lower heat weapons, they are already spammable right now as is, increasing heat dissipation would have a negligible effect on them at best.

What is needed is to actually find a balance between damage produced, heat produced, cycle times, and heat dissipation. Something to remember is that heat produced != heat dissipation. Meaning that changing the heat produced by a weapon is not the same as changing the heat dissipated.

Don't forget to count in weight and slots of the weapon.

[Anastasius]

Table Top = Turn based.

Mechwarrior Online = FPS/SIM shooter

TT does not translate well to a shooter. The only game that came close was MPBT:3025.

[Windies]

MWHawke, on 20 November 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Don't forget to count in weight and slots of the weapon.

There's A LOT to calculate when it comes to weapon balancing. My post was meant to differentiate between heat dissipation and heat capacity and how it affects high heat weapons so much more than low heat weapons that really do not create large spikes of heat that need to then be dissipated.

[Xerxys]

Alexa Steel, on 19 November 2012 - 04:31 AM, said:

What a bunch of nonesense, of course heat needs tweaking, nobody is denying that but not to the degree many want it to be. TRIPLE the heat dissipation? Are you mad? I could hold the trigger in ALL of my mechs and I would NEVER overheat.

The ROF was changed while the heat stayed the same, so what? Stop comparing the TT with the video game, they cant be compared. The game is BASED on the TT not modeled AFTER the TT.

The whole system works quite well, not perfect but to the point actual skill is needed so the piloted fusion reactor does not shutdown. <= and this is how its supposed to be.

"The ROF was changed while the heat stayed the same, so what?" I've seen some stupidity on these forums, but I think this one tops them all. The so what here is that mechs are overheating WAY to fast and the only answer to this was going to be the DHS. Anything less than double is a waste of money, critical slots and it still doesn't fix the fact that heat isn't running the way it should. The whole system works quite well for anyone running a missile boat or ballistics in such number that heat isn't truly an issue. One third of the ballistics, missiles, energy setup is missing because of this lack of proper heat dissipation. I'll stop comparing the TT game with this one when they stop using TT mech variants, weapons, weapon damage, weapon heat cost, ammo needs and all the other **** they grabbed directly from the TT game. Adjustments need to be made, and I understand this, but to cripple an entire weapon configuration/mech variations with this crap is George Bush Jr. kinda dumb!

Edited by Xerxys, 20 November 2012 - 07:13 AM.

[Alexa Steel]

Xerxys, on 20 November 2012 - 07:11 AM, said:

"The ROF was changed while the heat stayed the same, so what?" I've seen some stupidity on these forums, but I think this one tops them all. The so what here is that mechs are overheating WAY to fast and the only answer to this was going to be the DHS. Anything less than double is a waste of money, critical slots and it still doesn't fix the fact that heat isn't running the way it should. The whole system works quite well for anyone running a missile boat or ballistics in such number that heat isn't truly an issue. One third of the ballistics, missiles, energy setup is missing because of this lack of proper heat dissipation. I'll stop comparing the TT game with this one when they stop using TT mech variants, weapons, weapon damage, weapon heat cost, ammo needs and all the other **** they grabbed directly from the TT game. Adjustments need to be made, and I understand this, but to cripple an entire weapon configuration/mech variations with this crap is George Bush Jr. kinda dumb!

Sir, I run ONLY energy builds and I have no rpoblems at all, because I adapted to the heat value of MWO. You are complaining about how numbers COULD be. There is NO drawback for using energy weapons WHATSOEVER, the only thing that is not worth it is boating, wich is a stupid and skilless idea to begin with.

Every complain about heat usually has to do with this: but the design would work much more effecient in the BTU, that does not matter. If it does not hinders energy setups to be viable weapon systems and they are, ask any HBK S/Sp, Raven 2X, or CN9-Al pilot, than it is ok. Because it works, it might not work as YOU expect it to work. But alot of people can make the setups work.

In fact I personally saw MORE energy setups than anything else these past days and all of them used for great effect, I see how energy weapons clearly are not a viable weapon system.

Tweaking is need, no question about that, but just complaining about DHS because they do not work like in the BTU is silly. They are for the most part an substantial upgrade, BUT they do not work on all Chassis.

I for one can testify that my DHS builds run MUCH cooler than before, wich I consider an upgrade.

Edited by Alexa Steel, 20 November 2012 - 07:28 AM.

[Jason1138]

if the OP strips the armor off his awesome to match TT armor amounts, he'll have more room for heat sinks

try that

[Valaska]

3035 was a ROUGH translation of the table top AT BEST and people laud its "canonicity" a little too much,

[Windies]

Alexa Steel, on 20 November 2012 - 07:24 AM, said:

Sir, I run ONLY energy builds and I have no rpoblems at all, because I adapted to the heat value of MWO. You are complaining about how numbers COULD be. There is NO drawback for using energy weapons WHATSOEVER, the only thing that is not worth it is boating, wich is a stupid and skilless idea to begin with.

Every complain about heat usually has to do with this: but the design would work much more effecient in the BTU, that does not matter. If it does not hinders energy setups to be viable weapon systems and they are, ask any HBK S/Sp, Raven 2X, or CN9-Al pilot.

In fact I personally saw MORE energy setups than anything else these past days and all of them used for great effect, I see how energy weapons clearly are not a viable weapon system.

I can only speak for myself, but the notion that all complaints about heat are because people want to boat is a bit short sighted. I would be happy running 2 PPC's without needing about 54 heat sinks to actually keep them cool. Versus my Hunchback 4P with 5 small lasers and 4 medium lasers and 28 heatsinksor so, able to do more damage per shot and more dps than those 2 overheating PPC's.

I would actually say the current system promotes boating of lower heat weapons.

[Alexa Steel]

Windies, on 20 November 2012 - 07:36 AM, said:

I can only speak for myself, but the notion that all complaints about heat are because people want to boat is a bit short sighted. I would be happy running 2 PPC's without needing about 54 heat sinks to actually keep them cool. Versus my Hunchback 4P with 5 small lasers and 4 medium lasers and 28 heatsinksor so, able to do more damage per shot and more dps than those 2 overheating PPC's.

I would actually say the current system promotes boating of lower heat weapons.

Valid counter point.

But I also must protest, because that was not my notion that I wanted to promote. What I did want to promote however is this:

People, usually old MW or TT crowd, seem to complain about value not being as they "should" be. Thats my problem right there, the "should". How do you know it "should" be? Dont you mean, how you you are used to it being? Or rather how you want it to be?

My personal experience shows alot of working energy builds, high heat weapons or not, both used by me and against me.

Now I understand personal experience is a shaky argument at best, but still.

I dont want to discredit someone point of view because they think something should be different from what I think. Iam protesting because it works quite good and I never had problems with it and do not understand the problems others have, or at least seem to have.

To the point were some of the statements are just silly all together, like: 2 Medium Lasers overheat my Centurion... really?

Edited by Alexa Steel, 20 November 2012 - 07:45 AM.

[zorak ramone]

Xerxys, on 20 November 2012 - 02:08 AM, said:

What's fun about overheating constantly? What's fun about having 3 critical slots taken up to get a 40% increase to your head dissipation? The problem is simple here. PGI screwed the pooch when they cut fire times down by a third and and then doubled armor, but refuses to change anything else so make it work as a sim. What they should have done is cut fire rate, damage, armor, and heat cost, and heat dissipated by 2/3. Then triple the rate of heat dissipation and amount of ammo. Right here you have just converted those pesky TT numbers into a system working on a roughly 3 second timer. From this point here they could have fine-tuned every aspect of the game for play as a FPS simulator and most of this bickering would have been avoided.

This is exactly right. Unfortunately, this has been posted many times before both in closed and open beta. I'm just going to re-post something from much earlier in this thread that was also posted in closed beta:

===============

Helmer, on 05 November 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

When developing MWO PGI started with the exact TableTop stats . As someone who has been testing since the early Friends and Family stages, I felt that the game (with a 1 - 1 TT translation) was simply not fun.
Small lasers on a fast moving 'mech was an instant win button, LRMs were grossly ineffective, and Autocannons were next to useless.

Well then, they obviously did it wrong.

There is a way to translate CBT relative weapons balance into a real-time game with varying recycle times and differing weapons mechanics.

What you do is you is for each weapon you pick a recycle time you want it to have and then proportionally reduce damage and heat. For example, in CBT a PPC does 10 damage and 10 heat in a 10 second time period. If you want to give it a recycle of 5, you give it 5 damage, and 5 heat. You can also simulate damage spread and ranged weapon accuracy by tweaking recycle times:
-Give weapons with small damage packets in CBT shorter new recycle times (and therefore lower damage/shot)
-Give weapons with longer ranges longer recycle times (and therefore higher damage/shot)
-Give longer ranged lasers shorter beam durations than short range lasers
-Give pulse lasers even shorter beam durations

Following these guidelines, you get something that looks like this:

Wpn______Dmg___Ht____Cool__Spt___DPS____HPS_____HS____DHS____Ammo__DPS/Tton_DPS/Tton-DHS__Range
SL_______0.6___0.2___2.00____X___0.30___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.00____0.200____0.300_______1
SPL______0.6___0.4___2.00____X___0.30___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.00____0.100____0.150_______1
MPL______1.8___1.2___3.00____X___0.60___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.00____0.100____0.150_______2
ML_______1.5___0.9___3.00____X___0.50___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.00____0.125____0.200_______3
LPL______4.5___4.5___5.00____X___0.90___0.90___9.00___4.50___0.00____0.056____0.078_______3
AC20____12.0___4.2___6.00____9___2.00___0.70___7.00___3.50___2.78____0.084____0.099_______3
SRM6_____4.8___1.6___4.00___42___1.20___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.89____0.152____0.204_______3
SRM4_____3.2___1.2___4.00___63___0.80___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.60____0.143____0.195_______3
SRM2_____1.6___0.8___4.00__125___0.40___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.121____0.174_______3
SSRM2____1.6___0.8___4.00__125___0.40___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.105____0.143_______3
LL_______4.0___4.0___5.00____X___0.80___0.80___8.00___4.00___0.00____0.062____0.089_______5
AC10_____5.0___1.5___5.00___20___1.00___0.30___3.00___1.50___1.50____0.061____0.067_______5
ERLL_____4.8___7.2___6.00____X___0.80___1.20__12.00___6.00___0.00____0.047____0.073_______6
PPC______6.0___6.0___6.00____X___1.00___1.00__10.00___5.00___0.00____0.059____0.083_______6
AC5______2.0___0.4___4.00___50___0.50___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.75____0.051____0.054_______6
LBX10____5.0___1.0___5.00___20___1.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.069____0.074_______6
UAC5_____2.0___0.4___2.00___50___1.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.080____0.087_______7
GR______12.0___0.8___8.00___10___1.50___0.10___1.00___0.50___1.88____0.084____0.086_______7
LRM20___12.0___3.6___6.00___10___2.00___0.60___6.00___3.00___2.50____0.108____0.129_______7
LRM15____9.0___3.0___6.00___14___1.50___0.50___5.00___2.50___1.79____0.109____0.133_______7
LRM10____6.0___2.4___6.00___20___1.00___0.40___4.00___2.00___1.25____0.098____0.121_______7
LRM5_____3.0___1.2___6.00___40___0.50___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.63____0.108____0.138_______7
ERPPC____8.0__12.0___8.00____X___1.00___1.50__15.00___7.50___0.00____0.045____0.069_______8
AC2______0.6___0.3___3.00__150___0.20___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.33____0.027____0.029_______8

HS and DHS are the heat sinks and double-heat sinks (2.0 DHS) required for heat neutrality, and ammo is tons of ammo required for 2.5 minutes of continuous fire. DPS/TTon is the DPS per total tonnage (base+HS/DHS+ammo). Multiply Range by 90m to get approximate weapon range (its just a sorting variable for simplification). Note that this is without doubling armor/ton like they have in MWO. Also note that DPS = CBT damage and HPS = CBT heat. If you want to go with a double armor environment, you just double the damage values, and you change nothing about relative weapons balance and give numbers closer to what we have now.

Wpn______Dmg___Ht____Cool__Spt___DPS___HPS_____HS_____DHS____Ammo__PS/Tton__DPS/Tton-DHS___Range
SL_______1.2___0.2___2.00____X___0.60___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.00____0.400____0.600_______1
SPL______1.2___0.4___2.00____X___0.60___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.00____0.200____0.300_______1
MPL______3.6___1.2___3.00____X___1.20___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.00____0.200____0.300_______2
ML_______3.0___0.9___3.00____X___1.00___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.00____0.250____0.400_______3
LPL______9.0___4.5___5.00____X___1.80___0.90___9.00___4.50___0.00____0.113____0.157_______3
AC20____24.0___4.2___6.00____9___4.00___0.70___7.00___3.50___2.78____0.168____0.197_______3
SRM6_____9.6___1.6___4.00___42___2.40___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.89____0.304____0.407_______3
SRM4_____6.4___1.2___4.00___63___1.60___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.60____0.286____0.391_______3
SRM2_____3.2___0.8___4.00__125___0.80___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.242____0.348_______3
SSRM2____3.2___0.8___4.00__125___0.80___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.211____0.286_______3
LL_______8.0___4.0___5.00____X___1.60___0.80___8.00___4.00___0.00____0.123____0.178_______5
AC10____10.0___1.5___5.00___20___2.00___0.30___3.00___1.50___1.50____0.121____0.133_______5
ERLL_____9.6___7.2___6.00____X___1.60___1.20__12.00___6.00___0.00____0.094____0.145_______6
PPC_____12.0___6.0___6.00____X___2.00___1.00__10.00___5.00___0.00____0.118____0.167_______6
AC5______4.0___0.4___4.00___50___1.00___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.75____0.103____0.108_______6
LBX10___10.0___1.0___5.00___20___2.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.138____0.148_______6
UAC5_____4.0___0.4___2.00___50___2.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.160____0.174_______7
GR______24.0___0.8___8.00___10___3.00___0.10___1.00___0.50___1.88____0.168____0.173_______7
LRM20___24.0___3.6___6.00___10___4.00___0.60___6.00___3.00___2.50____0.216____0.258_______7
LRM15___18.0___3.0___6.00___14___3.00___0.50___5.00___2.50___1.79____0.218____0.266_______7
LRM10___12.0___2.4___6.00___20___2.00___0.40___4.00___2.00___1.25____0.195____0.242_______7
LRM5_____6.0___1.2___6.00___40___1.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.63____0.216____0.276_______7
ERPPC___16.0__12.0___8.00____X___2.00___1.50__15.00___7.50___0.00____0.091____0.138_______8
AC2______1.2___0.3___3.00__150___0.40___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.33____0.055____0.059_______8

=========

So there you go. I've just translated CBT relative weapons balance exactly into MWO while avoiding the issues mentioned (SL death machines, worthless ACs). So yes, it can be done.

Now, of course, CBT weapons balance wasn't exactly perfect (although its much better than what MWO has now), but this serves at least as a good starting point. And yes, I also have done all of the analyses for balance in CBT, and what needs to be fixed, and I can post it if challenged.

==========================

Now, to preempt the whole "CBT wasn't balanced, this isn't balanced" replies that are certain to follow, I also did a balance analysis, developed a model based on CBT, and then tweaked stats to get them in line with the model. In short, if you look at CBT weapons stats, there is a linear relationship (R-squared ~ 0.75) between damage efficiency and range. If you use the range bracket system, the slope of the line is -0.031, meaning that damage efficiency (DPS/TTon) should go down by 0.031 as range bracket increases. I also included penalties for energy and pulse weapons (due to the advantages of being an energy weapon and accuracy of pulse wapons), and bonuses for missiles, high-RoF weapons, and LBX ACs (due to their tendency to spread damage). I can go into the details more if anyone cares, but here's what I came up with:

Wpn______Dmg___Ht___Cool___Spt___DPS____HPS____HS____DHS_____Ammo__DPS/Tton__DPS/Tton-DHS___Range
SL_______1.2___0.8___2.00____X___0.60___0.42___2.10___1.05___0.00____0.231____0.387_______1
SPL______1.4___0.8___2.00____X___0.70___0.42___2.10___1.05___0.00____0.226____0.341_______1
ERSL_____1.8___1.5___3.00____X___0.60___0.50___2.50___1.25___0.00____0.200____0.343_______2
MPL______3.6___3.0___3.00____X___1.20___1.00___5.00___2.50___0.00____0.171____0.267_______3
ML_______3.0___2.6___3.00____X___1.00___0.85___4.25___2.13___0.00____0.190____0.320_______3
UAC20___28.8___9.6___3.00____9___9.60___3.20__16.00___8.00___5.56____0.263____0.336_______3
SRM6_____9.6___4.8___4.00___42___2.40___1.20___6.00___3.00___0.89____0.243____0.348_______3
SRM4_____6.4___3.2___4.00___63___1.60___0.80___4.00___2.00___0.60____0.243____0.348_______3
SRM2_____3.2___1.6___4.00__125___0.80___0.40___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.242____0.348_______3
SSRM2____3.2___1.6___4.00__125___0.80___0.40___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.211____0.286_______3
SSRM4____6.4___3.2___4.00___63___1.60___0.80___4.00___2.00___0.60____0.211____0.286_______3
SSRM6____9.6___4.8___4.00___42___2.40___1.20___6.00___3.00___0.89____0.211____0.286_______3
AC20____28.8___6.0___6.00____9___4.80___1.00___5.00___2.50___2.78____0.220____0.249_______4
LBX20___33.6___4.8___6.00____9___5.60___0.80___4.00___2.00___2.78____0.270____0.298_______4
ERML_____4.0___4.8___4.00____X___1.00___1.20___6.00___3.00___0.00____0.143____0.250_______4
LPL_____10.0___9.5___5.00____X___2.00___1.90___9.50___4.75___0.00____0.121____0.170_______5
LL_______9.0___7.0___5.00____X___1.80___1.40___7.00___3.50___0.00____0.150____0.212_______5
UAC10___14.0___3.0___2.50___20___5.60___1.20___6.00___3.00___3.00____0.255____0.295_______5
MRM10____8.0___4.0___4.00___60___2.00___1.00___5.00___2.50___0.63____0.232____0.327_______5
MRM20___16.0___6.4___4.00___30___4.00___1.60___8.00___4.00___1.25____0.246____0.327_______5
MRM30___24.0__10.4___4.00___20___6.00___2.60__13.00___6.50___1.88____0.241____0.327_______5
MRM40___32.0__16.0___4.00___15___8.00___4.00__20.00__10.00___2.50____0.232____0.327_______5
AC10____14.0___2.0___5.00___20___2.80___0.40___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.181____0.193_______6
ERLL____10.8__14.4___6.00____X___1.80___2.40__12.00___6.00___0.00____0.106____0.164_______6
PPC_____12.0__12.0___6.00____X___2.00___2.00__10.00___5.00___0.00____0.118____0.167_______6
LBX10___16.0___1.0___5.00___20___3.20___0.20___1.00___0.50___1.50____0.237____0.246_______6
HGR_____36.8___3.2___8.00____5___4.60___0.40___2.00___1.00___3.75____0.194____0.202_______6
UAC5_____5.3___1.1___1.75___58___3.00___0.60___3.00___1.50___1.48____0.223____0.250_______7
GR______24.0___1.6___8.00___10___3.00___0.20___1.00___0.50___1.88____0.168____0.173_______7
LRM20___24.0___7.2___6.00___10___4.00___1.20___6.00___3.00___2.50____0.216____0.258_______7
LRM15___18.0___6.6___6.00___14___3.00___1.10___5.50___2.75___1.79____0.210____0.260_______7
LRM10___12.0___3.6___6.00___20___2.00___0.60___3.00___1.50___1.25____0.216____0.258_______7
LRM5_____6.0___3.0___6.00___40___1.00___0.50___2.50___1.25___0.63____0.195____0.258_______7
AC5______5.3___0.5___3.50___58___1.50___0.15___0.75___0.38___0.74____0.158____0.165_______8
LBX5_____6.3___0.4___3.50___58___1.80___0.10___0.50___0.25___0.74____0.195____0.200_______8
ERPPC___16.0__24.0___8.00____X___2.00___3.00__15.00___7.50___0.00____0.091____0.138_______8
UAC2_____2.1___0.5___1.50__150___1.40___0.30___1.50___0.75___0.67____0.153____0.166_______9
LGR_____12.8___1.6___8.00___20___1.60___0.20___1.00___0.50___0.94____0.115____0.119_______9
AC2______2.1___0.3___3.00__150___0.70___0.10___0.50___0.25___0.33____0.102____0.106_______10
LBX2_____2.7___0.2___3.00__150___0.90___0.05___0.25___0.13___0.33____0.137____0.139_______10

Now, if you're curious what these weapons would look like in TT (since I'm changing things that weren't balanced in TT), here you go:

Wpn___Range___Dmg___Ht
SL______1.0___3.0___2.1
SPL_____1.0___3.5___2.1
ERSL____2.0___3.0___2.5
MPL_____3.0___6.0___5.0
ML______3.0___5.0___4.3
UAC20___3.0__24.0___8.0
SRM6____3.0__12.0___6.0
SRM4____3.0___8.0___4.0
SRM2____3.0___4.0___2.0
SSRM2___3.0___4.0___2.0
SSRM4___3.0___8.0___4.0
SSRM6___3.0__12.0___6.0
AC20____4.0__24.0___5.0
LBX20___4.0__28.0___4.0
ERML____4.0___5.0___6.0
LPL_____5.0__10.0___9.5
LL______5.0___9.0___7.0
UAC10___5.0__14.0___3.0
MRM10___5.0__10.0___5.0
MRM20___5.0__20.0___8.0
MRM30___5.0__30.0__13.0
MRM40___5.0__40.0__20.0
AC10____6.0__14.0___2.0
ERLL____6.0___9.0__12.0
PPC_____6.0__10.0__10.0
LBX10___6.0__16.0___1.0
HGR_____6.0__23.0___2.0
UAC5____7.0___7.5___1.5
GR______7.0__15.0___1.0
LRM20___7.0__20.0___6.0
LRM15___7.0__15.0___5.5
LRM10___7.0__10.0___3.0
LRM5____7.0___5.0___2.5
AC5_____8.0___7.5___0.8
LBX5____8.0___9.0___0.5
ERPPC___8.0__10.0__15.0
UAC2____9.0___3.5___0.8
LGR_____9.0___8.0___1.0
AC2____10.0___3.5___0.5
LBX2___10.0___4.5___0.3


So there you go. Not only is it possible to perfectly translate CBT relative weapons balance into a real-time mech game (these stats were developed on the assumption that we would be using MWO's engine in its entirety), but its also possible to develop a model for weapons balance and modify the CBT stats slightly to bring things in line with that model.

Edited by zorak ramone, 20 November 2012 - 08:01 AM.

[Cleverbird]

I wonder... does the 40K community go through this as well, every single time a new Warhammer 40K titles is released?

Instead of whining about this not being an exact copy of the TT (how would turn based combat even translate to a FPS/SIM?), be happy there's a new Mechwarrior game

[Alexa Steel]

There were some that complained, but they were a really small minority. So to answer your question, nope.

[MrPenguin]

Cleverbird, on 20 November 2012 - 08:02 AM, said:

I wonder... does the 40K community go through this as well, every single time a new Warhammer 40K titles is released?

Pretty much.

Edited by MrPenguin, 20 November 2012 - 08:06 AM.