59 replies to this topic

[Ornonge]

Nicely written, and something to consider.

The Gauss cd seems a bit too high though, to still make it a viable choice, if you consider how small the maps are and how fast you can close the gap to be in range for other weapons. Around 6 seconds seems more reasonable, without me doing the math here, just personal feeling of a pilot : ) .

[Vapor Trail]

Kmieciu, on 09 November 2012 - 03:32 AM, said:

I doubt the Devs are going to introduce major changes to the weapons. Last patch we got heat reduction for AC20 (7->6). That alone reduced the weight of a heat neutral the weapon system (weapon+heatsinks) by 1,5 tonnes.
AC20 now needs 15 heat sinks to be heat neutral. So a Hunchback with AC20 and 8 DHS can shoot it non-stop. I like that.

This is because the Devs are taking the stance of "start with where we are, change a little bit, then take a couple of weeks of 'data' and see if we need to make another little tweak." That data should be telling them exactly what the math is: Gauss RoF is way too high.

Gauss is supposed to be good. This I agree with.

Gauss should NOT overshadow almost EVERY other weapon.
It's too good right now.

[Terror Teddy]

Kmieciu, on 09 November 2012 - 03:32 AM, said:

I doubt the Devs are going to introduce major changes to the weapons.

I hope not, we need tweaks that's all.

[Vapor Trail]

Of course, some tweaks are going to be larger than others.

Based off my work, balancing the Gauss is going to take a pretty substantial tweak to RoF. ~+3.5 seconds per shot to be precise.

Why? Because the Gauss is that much better than everything else right now. 3.75 DPS for a total investment of 18 tons + ammo.

A Small laser at max RoF puts out 1 DPS for an investment of 7.166 tons. 7.166 x 3.75 = ~ 26.8725. Therefore the Gauss is a better DPS producer (within the Small Laser's range) per ton than the Small Laser, untill you get more than 8 tons of ammo associated with the Gauss.

[Apoc1138]

just to point out the massive glaring flaw in your work... you talk about assigning ammo to ballistic weapons based on firing continuously for 160 seconds... so why add enough heatsinks to make a weapon totally heat neutral... surely for an energy weapon to be comparable it only also needs to fire for 160 seconds... it gets worse than that because an energy weapon can cooldown and keep firing indefinitely where as a ballistic weapon can't reload ammo (it's also totally pointless to make and AC/20 heat neutral when it can only fire for 160 seconds)

yes, energy weapons have a downside... HEAT
so do ballistic weapons... AMMO

you then just start using your invented DPSpT figure as if it's a cardinal unrefutable fact with no gameplay factors that balance it

go back and re-do all your calcs but with a DPSpT based on being able to fire constantly for 160 seconds before shutdown, rather than totally heat neutral... then try to assign a fair adjustment based on unlimited ammo vs. 160 seconds of ammo...

also bear in mind that we have 2.0 engine sinks and 1.4 DHS' instead of DHS' all round (I'd much prefer 1.8's all round personally as that seems closer to the figure the devs intended and gives assaults the boost they need and lights the nerf that was intended)

if anything a "popup" sniper with no ammo limit is just as or more dangerous than a pop up sniper with limit of 160 seconds... as long as he can keep range / cover when not firing

Edited by Apoc1138, 09 November 2012 - 06:33 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Apoc1138, on 09 November 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

yes, energy weapons have a downside... HEAT
so do ballistic weapons... AMMO

We also have the AC20 that has both. =P

[Apoc1138]

Terror Teddy, on 09 November 2012 - 06:36 AM, said:

We also have the AC20 that has both. =P

see above... why would you add enough heatsinks to your mech to make your AC/20 heat neutral if you only have ammo for 160 seconds... surely you'd remove a couple of heatsinks to add more ammo and accept the addition of non-penalising heat in the process... it's a total fallacy to expect all weapons to be heat neutral and then say that it's fine for ammo based weapons to only fire for 160 seconds

[Kmieciu]

When I tried the Gaussapult I took 7 tonnes of Gauss ammo and I never run out. (personal record: 7 kills)

When I tried the Hunchback I took 4 tonnes of Gauss and I never run out.

Maybe if the matches lasted 1 hour the PPC would have an advantage, but almost every match is decided in less than 10 minutes. You really don`t need unlimited ammo. What you really need is unlimited heat capacity = Gauss.

[Apoc1138]

Kmieciu, on 09 November 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:

When I tried the Gaussapult I took 7 tonnes of Gauss ammo and I never run out. (personal record: 7 kills)

When I tried the Hunchback I took 4 tonnes of Gauss and I never run out.

Maybe if the matches lasted 1 hour the PPC would have an advantage, but almost every match is decided in less than 10 minutes. You really don`t need unlimited ammo. What you really need is unlimited heat capacity = Gauss.

your not getting it... you don't need unlimited ammo, but you also don't need a weapon to be totally heat neutral

if you assign ammo based on the amount of time or damage you want to be putting out, you need to use the same amount of time or damage for energy weapons and not arbitrarily demand they fire indefinitely without adding any heat

your example is just a prime example of how gameplay factors and math rarely agree on the purity of the matter

[MustrumRidcully]

Apoc1138, on 09 November 2012 - 06:42 AM, said:

your not getting it... you don't need unlimited ammo, but you also don't need a weapon to be totally heat neutral

if you assign ammo based on the amount of time or damage you want to be putting out, you need to use the same amount of time or damage for energy weapons and not arbitrarily demand they fire indefinitely without adding any heat

your example is just a prime example of how gameplay factors and math rarely agree on the purity of the matter

I did such calculations as well. The results are still the same. And I gave mechs 180 seconds worth of ammo and required only being able to run for 20 seconds with your heat sinks. See my signature for details, but below is the chart for standard heat sinks.

My tables don't calculate the range drop off, though:
The table doesn't include the new LRM stats or the new AC20 heat value.


I also have one for "real" DHS (that means +2 to capacity, and +0.2 dissipation)

Spoiler

You can still observe the notable spikes of the Small and Medium Laser. (and, interestingly, also a small spike in the Large Laser, probably a result of all the buffs that it had received so far.)


Also, a cautionary tale: You cannot make any "endurance" based calculations just with a single weapon. You want to consider how much heat capacity a mech has, and if you grant a single weapon a heat capacity for itself of 30 + heat sinks, then you may be giving it way too much. My above calculations are based on weapon groupings of 4 to have a "reasonable" amount of weapons for a mech. (it's a bit much for some, and not so much for others...).
If you equip one weapon with enough heat sinks so it alone would overheat the mech in 20 seconds, adding a second weapon with the same number of heat sinks doesn't give you a 20 second duration anymore. The two have to "share" the heat capacity of the mech, and now they'll heat it up much faster.

The only benchmark that avoids this concern is basing it on heat neutrality, and the general rule is - If you want to stay the same amount of time and still add weapons, you need to add more heat sinks per weapon the more weapons you install, up to the maximum of the "heat neutral" number of heat sinks.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 09 November 2012 - 07:22 AM.

[John Norad]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 November 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

ALso, contrary to what PGI seems to think, heat neutral configs are not some evil boogeyman that make the game easy mode, and we will need to hammer this into them until they get it. A heat neutral config is not an optimal configuration - if you're heat neutral, that means you can shoot for an amount of time you never need, in exchange for losing damage in the short time that you really would have needed to kill an enemy before he kills you.

Exactly.
But not only that.
Even the TT is not about heat neutral configs. Take the standard Stalker for example. 2LL, 4ML, 2SRM6, 2LRM10, 20SHS. Heat neutral my rear.
But it is very usable. At least in the TT. It just has strong firepower on both long range and short range.
Now imagine this mech in MWO. In fact, we will get it implemented at one point.

So the TT isn't all about heat neutral mechs. And MWO increases RoF and thus heat by a factor of around 2-2.5 while retaining the heat dissipation of the TT.
To be anywhere near the TT, Single Heat Sinks in MWO would have to be at 2.0! With Double Heat Sinks on top.
And let me repeat, even the TT is not all about heat neutral.

So to be very honest, I can't understand all this 'oh noes! heat neutral!' naysaying.

Highly increased RoF and the resulting fast gameplay and potentially short rounds is the real issue. All just to please the impatient modern pew pew gaming crowd.
To curb this, they make heat an overly important, hindering and, at least for new players, very irritating factor.

That's like trying to manage overpopulation by reducing food production..
It's nonsensical.
If they don't want short matches, but higher RoF, they should reduce damage per shot, not heat.

This whole balance nightmare just makes stock SHS designs inferior and non fun, because they were designed for double the current heat dissipation.

[Apoc1138]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 November 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

I did such calculations as well. The results are still the same. And I gave mechs 180 seconds worth of ammo and required only being able to run for 20 seconds with your heat sinks. See my signature for details, but below is the chart for standard heat sinks.

My tables don't calculate the range drop off, though:
The table doesn't include the new LRM stats or the new AC20 heat value.

I like your charts more... yes there is a difference between ammo weapons and energy weapons, I would expect there to be, but it isn't anywhere near as drastic as vapour trails... if you combined both your work it would be a step in the right direction... but ultimately meaningless without server telemetry to draw upon

for example... you don't make the gauss the best weapon in the game... not by a long shot

the thing is, everyone that's using charts and graphs to explain why "this game is no fun"... well if you clearly enjoy spending hours making charts and graphs... do you really have a leg to stand on in telling everyone else what "fun" is ?

Edited by Apoc1138, 09 November 2012 - 07:24 AM.

[Vapor Trail]

Apoc1138, on 09 November 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

just to point out the massive glaring flaw in your work... you talk about assigning ammo to ballistic weapons based on firing continuously for 160 seconds... so why add enough heatsinks to make a weapon totally heat neutral... surely for an energy weapon to be comparable it only also needs to fire for 160 seconds... it gets worse than that because an energy weapon can cooldown and keep firing indefinitely where as a ballistic weapon can't reload ammo (it's also totally pointless to make and AC/20 heat neutral when it can only fire for 160 seconds)

yes, energy weapons have a downside... HEAT
so do ballistic weapons... AMMO

you then just start using your invented DPSpT figure as if it's a cardinal unrefutable fact with no gameplay factors that balance it

go back and re-do all your calcs but with a DPSpT based on being able to fire constantly for 160 seconds before shutdown, rather than totally heat neutral... then try to assign a fair adjustment based on unlimited ammo vs. 160 seconds of ammo...

also bear in mind that we have 2.0 engine sinks and 1.4 DHS' instead of DHS' all round (I'd much prefer 1.8's all round personally as that seems closer to the figure the devs intended and gives assaults the boost they need and lights the nerf that was intended)

if anything a "popup" sniper with no ammo limit is just as or more dangerous than a pop up sniper with limit of 160 seconds... as long as he can keep range / cover when not firing

So are you admitting the problem exists and are just quibbling about the scale of how I'm illustrating it?

OK.
Lets do one.

DPSpT based on 160 sec of fire at Max RoF for an ERPPC.

Lets see.

160 seconds of ERPPC fire. 53.333 shots. Call it 53.

13 heat per shot * 53 shots = 689 heat.

Heat cap is 30 + x.
Heat dissipation is .1x
Total heat is 795
Total time 160 seconds

So

"Heat in mech" + "heat dissipated per sec" * "Total Time (in sec)" = "Total Heat"

(30+ x) + (.1x (160)) = 689

(30 + x) - 795 = - .1x (160)
-659 + x = - 16x
-659 = - 17x

x = 38.7647

ERPPC DPSpT
DPS at Max RoF: 3.3333

7 + 38.7647 = 45.7647

3.3333/45.7647 = .072829

---

ERPPC Heat maxed @ "time = to CBBal" DPSpT
.072829

ERPPC Heat Neutral @ Max RoF DPSpT =
3.333 / 50.333 = .066225

Difference in Heat neutral DPSpT and "time = to CBBal" DPSpT
.006604

Gauss Heat Neutral DPSpT @ Max RoF, CBBal of 160 seconds:
15 / 4 = 3.75 DPS

160/4 =40 Shots
40/10 = 4 tons ammo.

2.5 tons heat sinks

15+2.5+4 = 21.5 tons.

3.75/21.5 = .17442

Difference in Gauss DPSpT, Heat Neutral, CBBal 160 seconds; and ERPPC's DPSpT figures:

.17442 - .072829 = .101591
.17442 - .066225 = .108195

Well, visual representation.



At this scale the difference is about six pixels... so move the top (horizontal) line of the ERPPC up about six pixels.
If you need a scale, that's exactly the difference between the Large Laser, and the Medium Pulse Laser.

Edited by Vapor Trail, 09 November 2012 - 07:34 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Apoc1138, on 09 November 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

I like your charts more... yes there is a difference between ammo weapons and energy weapons, I would expect there to be, but it isn't anywhere near as drastic as vapour trails... if you combined both your work it would be a step in the right direction... but ultimately meaningless without server telemetry to draw upon

for example... you don't make the gauss the best weapon in the game... not by a long shot

Interesting, isn't it?

It should serve as a reminder that not everything is determined by DPS vs tonnage, of course.

For example, the Ultra AC/5 would out DPS the Gauss Rifle and be more weight efficient. But why may people still prefer the Gauss (even if we assume jamming wouldn'T exist) - the reason for this is the lower rate of fire of the Gauss. Now, at first one might say "WTF! Low ROF is good? What are you smoking, Mustrum!" But well, it is if you can still deliver a lot of punch per shot. This is ideal for sniping and precise aiming. Trying to aim a rapid firing gun constantly at the enemy to hit his weak spots is difficult, if not impossible, and it also lowers your defensive options - you can't afford to get into cover or at least turn your other side to the enemy fire - you must stay focused on the enemy.

I'll worry seriously about this aspect of game balance once the other stats are "in line"..

Quote

the thing is, everyone that's using charts and graphs to explain why "this game is no fun"... well if you clearly enjoy spending hours making charts and graphs... do you really have a leg to stand on in telling everyone else what "fun" is ?

Of course I have - You know I can have fun making charts to prove that a game isn't fun. That should tell you a lot about my low requirements for fun.

[SilvaDraconis]

Balistics were intended to have higher DPS in general. Its balanced by the limitation of ammo load availability and the risk of having internal damage to a location containing that ammo.

[Apoc1138]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 November 2012 - 07:30 AM, said:

For example, the Ultra AC/5 would out DPS the Gauss Rifle and be more weight efficient. But why may people still prefer the Gauss (even if we assume jamming wouldn'T exist) - the reason for this is the lower rate of fire of the Gauss. Now, at first one might say "WTF! Low ROF is good? What are you smoking, Mustrum!" But well, it is if you can still deliver a lot of punch per shot. This is ideal for sniping and precise aiming. Trying to aim a rapid firing gun constantly at the enemy to hit his weak spots is difficult, if not impossible, and it also lowers your defensive options - you can't afford to get into cover or at least turn your other side to the enemy fire - you must stay focused on the enemy.

UAC5's are absolutely brilliant for brawling though, they really make a mess of peoples faces up close (where a gauss user also has difficulty staying calm and consistently hitting CT anyway)

on my PPC build... I have a choice between a single gauss... or 2 PPC's 3.75 DPS, or 6.66DPS (15 vs. 20 as a single hit)... heat isn't an issue because I'm sniping / ducking back for LRM fire / moving in to position and I can fire 7 straight salvos without overheating anway (21 seconds TET to use your terminology)... I can also be firing LRM's or adding in medium laser damage on cooldown as well... I am also consistently stripping CT armour for targets that my lance mates can close in on and finish off

I don;t like lasers as they paint their damage all over, and UAC5's are great for brawling but as you rightly say not so great for sniping due to also spreading their damage all over if you get too trigger happy

I don't think the heat system needs a massive overhaul... there have been numerous plausible reasons why gauss should have the TT min range added back in... but I'm not sure that that wouldn't unfairly penalise single gauss users just to nerf dual gauss users

Edited by Apoc1138, 09 November 2012 - 07:42 AM.

[buckX]

I'm not sure why you think it is a problem for light and medium lasers to be high up, and even surpassing ballistics for damage/ton. Damage/ton, after accounting for heatsinks and ammo, is the measure of a weapon's potency along with range and firing characteristics. A small laser should do more damage/ton than an AC5. Why? Because it has a 90m range, and a 180m max range. An AC5 has a 540m range, and a 1620m max range. That's worth something.

Additionally, I would keep in mind that you aren't tracking crits. Energy weapon are much more crit hungry to make viable, and I think you would quickly find the numbers of crits your projections assume aren't found in any mech.

Edited by buckX, 09 November 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Apoc1138, on 09 November 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

UAC5's are absolutely brilliant for brawling though, they really make a mess of peoples faces up close (where a gauss user also has difficulty staying calm and consistently hitting CT anyway)

I agree that they're pretty awesome (or should I say atlas here?) in a brawl. A brawl may require a lot more considerations of the trade-offs - being able to nail shots at close range is great - but being able to constantly keep the enemy under fire is also great. Finding the right balance will probably require some experimentation and self-awareness.

[MustrumRidcully]

buckX, on 09 November 2012 - 07:36 AM, said:

I'm not sure why you think it is a problem for light and medium lasers to be high up, and even surpassing ballistics for damage/ton. Damage/ton, after accounting for heatsinks and ammo, is the measure of a weapon's potency along with range and firing characteristics. A small laser should do more damage/ton than an AC5. Why? Because it has a 90m range, and a 180m max range. An AC5 has a 540m range, and a 1620m max range. That's worth something.

It is generally true that we want longer range weapons to have a lower efficiency. But the value of range is different between the table top game and its to-hit rules and M:WO and its mouse aiming.

As TargetLoc illustrated (either here or somewhere else) - in the TT, a few hexes more range could alter your hit probability by a considerable margin. In the table top, the only effect of range is a damage drop off -but it happens much later than in the table top. (270m wasn't the "optimal" ML range - it was the max range. At which there was a low hit percentage, and a LL would have a great hit chance). Basically, in the TT, a Large Laser dealt 50 % more damage at the Medium Lasers max range, becaus it hit so much better.

[John Norad]

I'd like to add that imho, balancing is more about intuition than charts.
Charts are helpful to get the big picture, but they're not the be-all and end-all. And sometimes they can even be misleading. Especially if they don't contain ALL relevant factors.

For example on the tabletop, the AC20 is so feared because it could behead a mech with one shot, it would punch a hole in all but the strongest armor, leaving you prone to critical hits on that location, thus possibly an ammo explosion, and it would cripple light mechs instantly. Almost the same applies to clan ERPPCs and the Gauss rifle.

All this can not be found in simple damage/ton/heat charts.

Damage distribution on MWO lasers is another example, just like possible jamming of the UAC. Range can be very important, but this importance is hard to measure, because it depends on other factors like map design and pace.

You either have to integrate all those little factors that range from ease of use to looks into charts, or you have to compile thorough lists of weighted advantages and disadvatages.

What I want to say is, always take charts as a clue but not as the holy grail.
And trust your gut feeling.

Edited by John Norad, 09 November 2012 - 07:55 AM.