74 replies to this topic

[Kousagi]

OP, Your math is a tad off.

A stock atlas ( atleast my founders) has 28 points on its rear CT, so double that means 56 points of armor. A full alpha of 6 med pulse lasers does 36 damage. We'll assume that all that damage is done to the rear CT. 6 med pulse lasers also generate 30 heat, all mechs Base heat thresh hold is 34 + heat sinks addons, I might be wrong on that, but i do remember that being the test numbers, can't find that thread now.

So, a Jenner with 6 med pulse lasers will be running a XL245-250 depending on how much armor ya want, and it will also have endo to fit that in, but you will only have 12 heat sinks. So we make them double, that brings the mechs thresh hold for heat to 58, if each was counted as true 2.0's. The mech also bleeds 2.4 heat per sec.

So first shot is 30 heat for 36 damage. 20 points left on CT rear, 30 heat on mech. so 3 sec CD on lasers with a .75 fire time, So that means 9 heat bled in the amount of time for the lasers to be allowed to fire again. So mech is at 21 heat, assuming you are sitting still. 2nd shot puts CT at 0 armor and 16 points in to internal. spikes mech to 51 heat, 7 points from shutdown. To be able to fire again you will have to wait 9.5 sec's, which would put you perfectly at 58 heat. Which that 3rd alpha would not kill the atlas. 4 alphas would be needed for a dead atlas, which at that point you are playing with fire, and have a 12.5 sec CD on your lasers, unless you want to risk the shutdown and maybe blow up.

In short, Its not doing what you think it does. Its already way past the 3 sec mark...

Edited by Kousagi, 19 November 2012 - 07:13 AM.

[Sadato]

Kurayami, on 19 November 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

the reason behind dhs nerf is prevention of heat neutral laser mech builds\extensive boating. i don't see any problems with that.

Exactly, but the DHS are not the problem with laserboating, the problem is that the lasers themselves deal too much damage so PGI nerfed them.

My argument is that they balanced the wrong stat by increasing heat when the damage should have been addressed.

[Kurayami]

structure is 1/2 of ap so that will be 42 total hp on part against 36 alpha or did i missed something?

Sadato yes they are. but putting real 2.0 would also buff lights\meds and lrms. with current borked heat system it is kinda complicated.

Edited by Kurayami, 19 November 2012 - 07:19 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

It is true that medium and small lasers are extremely weight/damage efficient. I figured this out back when I wrote my large "Current State of Weapon Balance" thread (a bit to my surprise, I didn't expect Smalls and Mediums to be particular strong, just vastly better than LLs or PPCs - I didn't expect them to outperform even Gauss Rifles or Ultra ACs that don't jam). Large Lasers and PPCs become viable with Double Heat SInks (at least with 0.2 Dissipation Sinks like we have in the engines now). INcreasing the heat of medium and small lasers will not help as much as simply lowering their damage output - that way, you need more weapons for the same damage output, which really seems to b ethe only way to balance their efficieny.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 19 November 2012 - 07:19 AM.

[Sadato]

Kousagi, on 19 November 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

OP, Your math is a tad off.

A stock atlas ( atleast my founders) has 28 points on its rear CT, so double that means 56 points of armor. A full alpha of 6 med pulse lasers does 36 damage. We'll assume that all that damage is done to the rear CT. 6 med pulse lasers also generate 30 heat, all mechs Base heat thresh hold is 34 + heat sinks addons, I might be wrong on that, but i do remember that being the test numbers, can't find that thread now.

So, a Jenner with 6 med pulse lasers will be running a XL245-250 depending on how much armor ya want, and it will also have endo to fit that in, but you will only have 12 heat sinks. So we make them double, that brings the mechs thresh hold for heat to 58, if each was counted as true 2.0's. The mech also bleeds 2.4 heat per sec.

So first shot is 30 heat for 36 damage. 20 points left on CT rear, 30 heat on mech. so 3 sec CD on lasers with a .75 fire time, So that means 9 heat bled in the amount of time for the lasers to be allowed to fire again. So mech is at 21 heat, assuming you are sitting still. 2nd shot puts CT at 0 armor and 16 points in to internal. spikes mech to 51 heat, 7 points from shutdown. To be able to fire again you will have to wait 9.5 sec's, which would put you perfectly at 58 heat. Which that 3rd alpha would not kill the atlas. 4 alphas would be needed for a dead atlas, which at that point you are playing with fir

e, and have a 12.5 sec CD on your lasers, unless you want to risk the shutdown and maybe blow up.

In short, Its not doing what you think it does. Its already way past the 3 sec mark...

Actually I stated that you can't core an atlas in two shots, unless you start taking crits into account.

So it's unlikely. But possible.

Edit: also your armour value on the back is already doubled. You don't need to double it again.

Edited by Sadato, 19 November 2012 - 07:23 AM.

[MWHawke]

zhajin, on 19 November 2012 - 06:09 AM, said:

After reading over your post im wondering if the real problem with lasers is weight. Their damage to weight ratio of small and mediums is matched only by srms which obviously spread and are harder to hit with. Thus ligths and mediums can pack them in and still manage plenty of heatsinks and a big xl engine. perhapse a small increase in weight would help with the balance. I know its not TT cannon but again with the firing rate changes MWO needs to move away from cannon in some areas.

Pre DHS a jenner with 6 small lasers was pretty effective in the right hands, but had limitations. Now with DHS and endo, that same jenner can run with mediums, not only gaining alpha but range as well. We see similar results with many of the medium mechs. However most of the assault and heavy builds did not benefit nearly as much from DHS and Endo, nor do most rely heavily on small and medium lasers for their effectiveness. This is mostly because DHS and Endo do not help much when your limits are crit slots and hardpoints, as is the case with most assaults.

This is because the freaking DHS OUTSIDE of the engine is only working at 1.4 efficiency. Remove that cap and the heavies will be on a more level playing field.

[PhigNewtenz]

Great post. Solid like. One comment:

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 04:56 AM, said:

So, one Atlas cored in 3.75 seconds means nerf Double Heat Sinks or Medium Pulse Lasers right?

Laying two complete MPL bursts on a target takes 4.5 seconds:

0.75 seconds for burst one
3.00 seconds for recycle
0.75 seconds for burst two

[Attalward]

I agree i would ike tosee a small damage reduction on teh smaller lasers.

[Kousagi]

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:

Actually I stated that you can't core an atlas in two shots, unless you start taking crits into account.

So it's unlikely. But possible.

Crits do not do extra damage... Crits only damage internal stuff. So no, 2 shots will never core a atlas, crits or not. With 6 med pulses, you need 4 shots to kill a stock atlas through its rear CT.

Really, that jenner setup is very bad in my book. Its slow, and its weapon payload puts it in the red way too fast. It might be ok for hit and run on big mechs, but anything as fast/faster then it, will eat it for lunch.

Edited by Kousagi, 19 November 2012 - 07:27 AM.

[Sadato]

PhigNewtenz, on 19 November 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

Great post. Solid like. One comment:



Laying two complete MPL bursts on a target takes 4.5 seconds:

0.75 seconds for burst one
3.00 seconds for recycle
0.75 seconds for burst two

Excellent point, and I will edit my post! Many thanks for the correction!

Also thanks for your comments Mustrum, I have been an avid reader of your threads.

[Sayyid]

Easy fix...

Remove two laser hard points from the Jenner, so it only has 4 laser hard points.

Problem solved.

[Sadato]

Kousagi, on 19 November 2012 - 07:26 AM, said:

Crits do not do extra damage... Crits only damage internal stuff. So no, 2 shots will never core a atlas, crits or not. With 6 med pulses, you need 4 shots to kill a stock atlas through its rear CT.

Really, that jenner setup is very bad in my book. Its slow, and its weapon payload puts it in the red way too fast. It might be ok for hit and run on big mechs, but anything as fast/faster then it, will eat it for lunch.

I may be wrong (and I hope someone can assist here) but I believe the engine itself is a component and has its own health values.

[PhigNewtenz]

Attalward, on 19 November 2012 - 07:25 AM, said:

I agree i would ike tosee a small damage reduction on teh smaller lasers.

Large Lasers already have a better damage-to-heat ratio than medium lasers. Reducing medium laser damage will make this even more upside-down.

Yes, this is partially balanced by the fact that large lasers are significantly heavier, but only for people who's build is weight-limited and not critical-slot limited.

Sayyid, on 19 November 2012 - 07:30 AM, said:

Easy fix...

Remove two laser hard points from the Jenner, so it only has 4 laser hard points.

Problem solved.

Then everyone will run the JR7-D. Remove two MPLs: reduces burst damage by 12. Add two SRM4s: increase burst damage by 20.

Even if you drop the 4 MPLs to MLs to free up weight for ammo, you end up with a load out that is lighter, does more damage, and produces significantly less heat.

The primary weakness of SRMs is that they can't be pinpoint targeted. This isn't an issue when you're talking about coring an Atlas from behind. It's rear CT is approximately the size of the broadside of a barn, and moves just as slowly.

Edited by PhigNewtenz, 19 November 2012 - 02:42 PM.

[Kousagi]

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

I may be wrong (and I hope someone can assist here) but I believe the engine itself is a component and has its own health values.

It does, but currently its not counted to kill the engine itself, same with many other parts of the mech. The only part of the crit system in right now is for knocking out weapons/ammo/heatsinks. I know they said they want to add in for actuators but not heard anything about engine kills off it.

As I know per TT rules engine hits do hurt it, cause you to slow down, have less heatsinks from it, causes heat build up and can kill it if it takes 3 hits, but as far as i know its not currently in MWO, unless they ninja'ed it in.

[BoomDog]

I would like to see some variety in mechs and their loadouts.

So far though, it's too easy to optimize mechs in very specific ways.

I also think another problem is that it appears (could be wrong) that torso twist speed is also linked to the speed of the mech. I'm of the opinion that it should be a set amount based on mech class.

Edited by BoomDog, 19 November 2012 - 07:48 AM.

[Sayyid]

PhigNewtenz, on 19 November 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

Then everyone will run the JR7-D. Remove two MPLs: reduces burst damage by 12. Add two SRM4s: increase burst damage by 20.

Even if you drop the 4 MPLs to MLs to free up weight for ammo, you end up with a load out that is lighter, does more damage, and produces significantly less heat.

The primary weakness of SRMs is that they can't be pinpoint targeted. This isn't an issue when you're talking about coring an Atlas from behind. It's rear CT is approximately the size of the broadside of a barn, and moves just a slowly.

This really isnt as bad as the 6 MPL Jenner you see now. At least the 2 SRM4s will run out of ammo.

[PhigNewtenz]

Fair point.

Just tossed together a quick build. The Cliff's notes are:

4 x ML
2 x SRM4
200 rounds SRM ammo (25 shots)
270XL for 125 kph w/out skils
13 DHS
233/238 armor

40 Alpha Strike
22 Alpha Strike Heat
10.33 DPS


It won't run out of ammo anytime soon, has decent speed, and enough armor to weather some pain. It also deals decent damage out to 270 meters.

Never discount the JR7-D...





Edit 1: Just noticed that I didn't add any jump jets in. It depends on play style, but I would probably drop some armor or a DHS to fit them in.

Edited by PhigNewtenz, 19 November 2012 - 07:56 AM.

[Teralitha]

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 07:13 AM, said:

My argument is that they balanced the wrong stat by increasing heat when the damage should have been addressed.

This was suggested to them long ago in closed beta and they ignored it. Apparently their internal testers had a different opinion which trumps any regular beta testers ideas no matter how intelligent the regular beta testers ideas are.

As for your suggested heat/damage numbers, think of the laser boats we have, and how it would affect them... The laser hunchie would be heat nuetral, doing 18 damage with 9 small lasers, which is how much the deadly 6 small laser jenner does now. 9 medium lasers would do 36 damage. The damage itself would be reasonable, but being able to fire it off heat nuetral would not. Of course, the hunchback varients in general can carry alot of firepower for their size already. They can pack a bigger punch than any dragon varient, which is sad really...

The suggestion of changing a damage number to a fraction is pretty much impossible for this dev team because it means they would have to do a bunch of recoding.... and they dont like recoding something they already created, no matter how flawed it is....

Edited by Teralitha, 19 November 2012 - 08:11 AM.

[SpiralRazor]

MWHawke, on 19 November 2012 - 05:00 AM, said:

Umm.. why start another post on DHS and lasers?

because we can, and the Heat issue still remains....an issue.

Teralitha, on 19 November 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

This was suggested to them long ago in closed beta and they ignored it. Apparently their internal testers had a different opinion which trumps any regular beta testers ideas no matter how intelligent the regular beta testers ideas are.

Well, after some of the early debacles I would have fired all of the "internal testers"....those dudes are nothing but money sinks and incompetent to boot.

[Sadato]

Kousagi, on 19 November 2012 - 07:39 AM, said:

It does, but currently its not counted to kill the engine itself, same with many other parts of the mech. The only part of the crit system in right now is for knocking out weapons/ammo/heatsinks. I know they said they want to add in for actuators but not heard anything about engine kills off it.

As I know per TT rules engine hits do hurt it, cause you to slow down, have less heatsinks from it, causes heat build up and can kill it if it takes 3 hits, but as far as i know its not currently in MWO, unless they ninja'ed it in.

Thanks for the info, and would be interesting to know if this is the reason that people have been exploding quickly after loosing their CT armour and not due to a laggy paperdoll.

Edited by Sadato, 19 November 2012 - 08:17 AM.