164 replies to this topic

[Durandal]

While I would like to see such a difference in stats in theory, in practice you would be talking about ridiculous amounts of work that would have to go into balancing each version to make sure that they were kept in line with other equippables. In practice, for a game this size, I honestly see that becoming more trouble than it's worth...which is sad, but also reasonable when you think about the sheer number of weapons that exist in the BattleTech universe. Start multiplying those by several developers EACH and you'll be spending hours deciding on what outfits to use before each battle.

[verybad]

It can be done in a manner similiar to Team Fortress 2 where slightly different stats might lead to a benefit in some locations/situations, and penalties in others (eg slightly more heat and damage, but a slower rate of fire, slightly longer range, but a bit less damage. Others might have a slight chance of jammiong, but a rate of fire. Stuff like that, and it doesn't have to be a huge difference, just enough to make things interesting.

[Victor Morson]

TeaL3af, on 17 April 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

Not for EVERY manufacturer. Checking sarna there are 11 different PPC brands, bit excessive. I'd say just have the stock PPC simply called "PPC" and then if the devs can think of an interesting variant that make sense in terms of gameplay mechanics they add in a Manufacturer specific version. So you might end up with 3 or 4 versions of each gun, but not one for every single manufacturer. That would just be needlessly complex.

EDIT: Also, variants should be "different enough" to justify creating them. +5% range, -5% damage on a laser doesn't matter at all and will rarely change the outcome of a fight. I'd rather see stuff like +20% range, -10% damage, +1 ton weight or other extreme things like that for lasers. ACs are easier to do because of their nature, you have single shot, double shot, triple shot etc.

One interesting concept would be to make the versions available to you through normal purchasable channels linked directly to your faction loyalty; i.e. if you are a loyal Combine pilot, you'll have access to autocannons that are made by Combine companies.

It'd be a neat way to subtly add more differences to the factions without a large enough 'mech library to restrict chassis entirely.

[TheRulesLawyer]

I think that they will have a hard enough time getting the weapon balance right without having to deal with multiple versions of each weapon. Its a neat idea, just not a practical one I think.

[Armored Yokai]

over heating ppc lol (donall ppc?)

[CARNAGE MK2]

it would certainly be more realistic. i mean different manufacturers are going to make the same things a little differently, so the end product will differ slightly. it would also offer the chance to have higher quality weapons, versus cheaper, less effective ones.

[DiGiTGOD]

Voted yes, but only an "after launch" type thing.

For those who say they don't want it to delay the game, remember, this game is going to be built iteratively... Therefore things can and, if they want to keep people interested in the game long term, will be added as time goes on.

What I'd like to see is that certain "stock" weapons are of an unlimited supply, however, special varieties are released as a sort of "Anniversary" edition. I'm sure that balancing is an issue, but we're not talking 100's of variations every week. Eventually, there will be lots of variants, that have been balanced over a period of time. The process should be similar to new Mech variants...

I also think that colouring of the weapons should also come into at that point. I want to be able to put together an "Anniversary Edition Atlas" with a certain "Brand" of weapon... That would be awesome.

This means that cost, stock levels (i.e. there are only 100,000 produced), availability (only to certain factions, etc.), could be brought into play, which I think is an interesting twist... there could "Sales" on certain types of PPC.

Again, don't vote no just because you don't want it to delay the release of the game!!!!! I think I can safely say that if that was the question, EVERYONE would vote no!!!!

[SideSt3p]

That would be hell to properly database in an effecient manner. As well as the pure amount of work it would require to keep everything balanced and up-to-date.

While the idea is cool, I just feel it'd be a lot of work. I'll be happy with whatever PGI gives us when it comes out

[Leetskeet]

Yes. It's more programming and work, sure, I understand that. I'm not going to be disappointed that it doesn't happen, but this is certainly the kind of thing that will give the game longevity.

With how the fluff is about each AC class having vastly varying sizes, to the point of the Marauder having something like a 150mm autocannon that's in the AC/5 class, I don't see why people would vote no for purely tabletop reasons unless they're still in the 10 second recycle time and "A PPC DOES 10 DAMAGE IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW THE DAMAGE DELIVERY MAY BE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT" boat.

So you want an AC/10, except you have to choose between 3 or 4 different models. That deepens the customization immensely and gives the battlefield a lot of variety.


1. Single Shot - 3 second recycle time - 5 damage/shell - Near pinpoint accuracy
2. Triple Burst(over .5 seconds) - 2.5 second recycle time - 1.5 damage/shell - Very small shot deviation
3. 10 Shot Burst(over .5 second) - 2.5 second recycle time - 0.425 damage/shell - Small shot deviation

Don't freak out about numbers, it's just to conceptualize the idea. You have a single shot that does the highest damage per second if you can keep it on target but punishes you the most for missing, and then you have two other burst models that do less damage but can still do a large portion of their damage even if a shell or two misses. Or you could have the burst models do more damage per second if you manage to land all shells on target consistently. It's just a ton more variety and if they did it right you wouldn't have people swamping to a single manufacturer's weapon because it's the best one. They could all have they specific niches, but still function completely as an AC/10.

[SweeperGroup]

i voted no because I would rather see a wider variety of mechs than a variety in the weapons. so i would rather them spend the time making new mechs than dealing with coding and balancing slight variety in the weapons

Edited by SweeperGroup, 17 April 2012 - 02:07 PM.

[UncleKulikov]

Kartr, on 16 April 2012 - 07:47 PM, said:

No such thing as a semi auto AC. Unless you count the Heavy/Medium/Light Cannons.

Full auto is the RAC

Burst is the basic AC and the UAC though the UAC fires two bursts in the amount of time it takes an AC to fire and reload.

As is set up so far. But why not have actual variants within each? The RAC is a multi barreled autocannon, so it's more than fully automatic. Why wouldn't they make an autocannon that fired as long as the trigger was held down (bradley .75 caliber cannon)? And why not have one that fired single rounds, for better long ranged accuracy? The UAC is plain weird, and far off.

[DiGiTGOD]

SweeperGroup, on 17 April 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

i voted no because I would rather see a wider variety of mechs than a variety in the weapons. so i would rather them spend the time making new mechs than dealing with coding and balancing slight variety in the weapons

They would still need to balance the mech, speed/heat/hardpoints....

[Kedma]

I think, if they allowed moding.. The weapons would take care of them selfs.. allow us to add/change weapons types, grades, ammo, cooldown timers, ect ect.. let the designers focus on Mech development.. and maps.. <<< ! I for one, dont want to play on the same battle field forever..

[Victor Morson]

SideSt3p, on 17 April 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

That would be hell to properly database in an effecient manner. As well as the pure amount of work it would require to keep everything balanced and up-to-date.

While the idea is cool, I just feel it'd be a lot of work. I'll be happy with whatever PGI gives us when it comes out

I think everyone is vastly overestimating the amount of work required to do something like this code wise. Really it pretty much amounts to:

Gun: Medium Laser
Company: Generic (No Effect)

Gun: Medium Laser
Company: General Motors (+5% heat, +3% range)

Which also means, if guns are balanced by companies (rather than individually):

Gun: ER Large Laser
Company: General Motors (+5% heat, +3% range)

Basically just setting up a generic X company has Y advantages system, it'd be pretty easy to adjust multiple versions very quickly.

Not saying it'll happen by any means, but it'd be really cool to see put it in at some point. It's not the nightmare of manually recreating a gun every single time, provided they have an even halfway optimized database system setup.

EDIT: General Motors is an actual company in BattleTech. PGI should totally roll with it and get product placement. They produce the Martell Medium Laser.

Edited by Victor Morson, 17 April 2012 - 02:47 PM.

[DiGiTGOD]

Victor Morson, on 17 April 2012 - 02:44 PM, said:

I think everyone is vastly overestimating the amount of work required to do something like this code wise. Really it pretty much amounts to:
......

I totally agree, I wonder how many of those saying it's hard to code are actually programmers themselves, and had exposure to decent, large scale developments?

It seems they have a decent team, with decent separation of roles (the last interview showed that they have at least 1 person dedicated to DB).

I'm not a games developer, but I am developer with the above exposure. Yes, it requires a lot of thought. Yes, it will require coding and possibly some new data models. This isn't the hard part, the hard part (I would imagine at least) is making sure it doesn't make the game unbalanced (i.e. making these "Golden Bullets" I keep hearing about). That is something where time would need to be spent, but once that methodology is sorted, it's mostly sorted for all variants. Even if it is the settings of each attribute (damage/sec, heat/sec, etc.) for each new gun, they would be created when the gun is.

Not saying that it is, or if it should happen, but "takes too much time" shouldn't be a stopping point in my opinion. "Prioritise new maps" and "we new mech's first" are valid, but tweaking an existing mech to get the little extra punch is what may appeal to the more "hardcore" of players.

The reason I like the idea of "Special" varieties is that it keeps you engaged.... "Ooo, there's a new PPC out, must give that a try", or "All I've had is crap from General Motors, go with X".... maybe a new bred of "Mech Weapons Salesman" will emerge!

<notgoingtohappen>
And just a thought on the modding. Maybe when your corps take over a planet with a factory, you can create your own weapon based on that factories resources, then sell that to other corps for C-Bills to fund your war efforts.... that would be cool...
</notgoingtohappen>

^^ if you don't now what the "<> </>" are then you're no where near qualified to talk about development efforts. hehehe

[AceTimberwolf]

I like the idea of having different manufacturers. Getting into different C-bill thresholds but maybe not being able to afford some from better manufacturers brings a variety we could use

[lashropa]

Hell yes! I love this idea

[Psydotek]

Yes please. It's been discussed in other threads and I'd love to see this as a way of adding variety without introducing imbalance.

[Malkenson]

Yes, but only after release, and after plenty of "core" Mechs are already in the game...

[Ghosth]

Kedma, on 17 April 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

I think, if they allowed moding.. The weapons would take care of them selfs.. allow us to add/change weapons types, grades, ammo, cooldown timers, ect ect.. let the designers focus on Mech development.. and maps.. <<< ! I for one, dont want to play on the same battle field forever..

Would love to see them release a map editor once this goes live. Then its just a matter of running maps through a vetting process so they can be checked for balance, gameplay etc. It takes a lot less time to look over 10 maps once a month and ok them for release than it does to make 10 maps from scratch. If you give players the tools they will do the work for you, and love doing it. And with that back to the original thread.