351 replies to this topic

[Rhinehart]

Rejarial Galatan, on 30 April 2012 - 07:11 PM, said:

Rinehart how do you figure that firing a PPC inside the minimum range will melt it into useless slag? By that logic, before the PPC beam gets to 90 meters lets say, the first shot destroys the weapon. Minimum range is how long it takes the beam to come to full power and cohesion in flight, nothing says you cant fire point blank, your gonna do less dmg, nothing else.

It's mentioned in a great many of the Battletech novels that deal with units using IS 3025 Tech. Basically the PPC produces a huge amount of static feedback that gets vented along with the beam (something like the back blast from a bazooka). Inner Sphere PPCs could only deal with this feedback at a range of greater than 90 meters. Inside this range there were inhibitors that didn't allow a mechwarrior to fire the PPC because of feedback damage. A pilot in an emergency could override the inihibitors but the feedback generated basically melted the enitire weapons circuitry into slag, leaving you with a big metal club.

Extended Range PPCs didn't just refer to extending the maximum range of the PPC. Better static dumping gear allowed the minimum range to be extended to point blank as well, thus benefitting the entire range envelope.

Once again, I love to see folk throwing around ER PPCs and Gauss Rifles in these discussions. This is rare tech in this time period available only to elite Mercenary units (and then usually only some of their units, not all.) and the most well equipped house units. Start thinking in terms of 3025 tech because that's likely what we'll start with.

[Ravn]

Prosperity Park, on 30 April 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

The theory is you have a reserve of cool fluid sitting in an auxillary pod, and you dump the hot fluid in lieu of cool fluid.

I get that, but if you can afford the weight and space of an aux pod of coolant... why not just build in 2 more heat sinks in the first place?

[Rejarial Galatan]

well, uh, its 3049, techs been updated, and not exactly all that rare now, atleast for the houses with the design and funding abilities.

Ravn, on 30 April 2012 - 07:53 PM, said:

I get that, but if you can afford the weight and space of an aux pod of coolant... why not just build in 2 more heat sinks in the first place?

because in an emergency situation where its cool NOW or die, well, 2 more sinks are like puttin a ton of ice on the sun.. not gonna do squat.

[Ramien]

Orzorn, on 30 April 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

I think he meant heat sinks actually taking damage from excessive heat. I understand the placement rules, of course, but there aren't rules dealing with excessive heat damaging them, at least not in Total Warfare. I do not have tacOPs, but I wouldn't doubt that they would have an advanced rule in there dealing with heat over a certain cap dealing damage to heatsinks and reducing their heat dissipation by some amount. That make sense to me.

It sounded to me just more like some lucky crits to the sinks. I haven't read the novels in decades, though, so I could be a bit off in my interpretation.

[Orzorn]

Rhinehart, on 30 April 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

Once again, I love to see folk throwing around ER PPCs and Gauss Rifles in these discussions. This is rare tech in this time period available only to elite Mercenary units (and then usually only some of their units, not all.) and the most well equipped house units. Start thinking in terms of 3025 tech because that's likely what we'll start with.

Which is why I suggested, and hope, that we'll see minimum range implemented on PPCs. This could really help reduce PPC boating (and also make the Awesome actually need support mechs to keep it from getting swarmed with only a small laser to defend itself), and also go that much further to making Clan tech (when they appear) that much more terrifying to deal with.

[Ramien]

Rejarial Galatan, on 30 April 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

well, uh, its 3049, techs been updated, and not exactly all that rare now, atleast for the houses with the design and funding abilities.


because in an emergency situation where its cool NOW or die, well, 2 more sinks are like puttin a ton of ice on the sun.. not gonna do squat.

The two heat sinks are more like control rods in a nuclear reactor. Have them there in the first place, and you might avoid that emergency situation (at least regarding heat).

[Ravn]

Rejarial Galatan, on 30 April 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

because in an emergency situation where its cool NOW or die, well, 2 more sinks are like puttin a ton of ice on the sun.. not gonna do squat.

Coolent isn't actually cold. It's a heat highway from the inside of your mech to the air outside. Replacing the coolent when your mech is at its heat capacity will have null impact. Coolent is most efficient when it's hot, thereby making your heat sinks hot and you radiate heat. That new coolent will heat up in a flash without much impact on the system as a whole. That's why you see this no where in any coolant system ever built for anything. I do have a background in this. I have a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering and I'm a Maintenance Officer for fighter jets in the Air Force.

Edited by Ravn, 30 April 2012 - 08:07 PM.

[Rhinehart]

It's 3049 mean some tech upgrades have come into production but if you are at all familier with the history these upgrades were no where near in general deployment. Only Elite House units (I.E. those with high priority for funding and equipment-Think the mech equivalent of the Seals) had general access to this equipment and then on a first available basis. Only the most elite and rich Mercenary units such as Wolf's Dragoons and those that had discovered Star league era equipment like Snord's irregulars had anything like this. Note I didn't mention the Kell Hounds or The Gray Death Legion because guess what? as elite as they were they didn't even have general acces to this kind of gear yet.

[Tuborn]

Ravn, on 30 April 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

Completely agree. It makes zero engineering sense to flush coolant. If you spit out hot fluid... your mech is still hot! It doesn't magically reduce the temperature of your mech.

Edit: Boil a pot of water. Dump out the pot of water and press pot against face.

Edit 2: Don't do that.



But only when that whole torso/arm fails. These were the one of the first things to be shot off in the novels.

You gota love common sense.

[Rejarial Galatan]

To quote a red headed guy: I reject your reality and substitute my own! As to dump the pot of boiling water and then placing pot on face, he kinda didnt say how quick to do so XD

[Ravn]

What were we talking about again...? Oh ya, the economics of energy vs ballistics, lol

[Kraktzor]

I remember, back oh so many years ago, when me and my school chums first discovered TT BT. We would look at the stock mechs and play them for fun in random battles, then we got into modding some of them, then we got into sratch building our own. At first, none of us could understand why so few of the stock mechs could actually fire all of their weapons without overheating. Didn't make sense to us at first, after all, don't you want to kill the enemy as fast as you can? To do that quickly would require ALL your weapons right? Because of this we always built our mechs with two primary factors (though order varied between all of us); put as much armour on it as you can, then make sure it has enough Heat Sinks to fire all its guns. Our mechs sometimes seemed a little undergunned compared to many of the stocks (if you campared just number of weapons mounted) but they all ran cold.
Then I had an idea. I looked at the weapons loadout of several different mechs (both Clan and IS) and noticed something. I took this (what at first I thought was just a coincidence) and sratch built my own mech using the TT rules. This large (95 Ton assault if I recall) didn't have the Heat Sinks to fire all its guns (which got me laughed at at first). However it had just enough Heat Sinks (both added and integral) to fire all of its Long range weapons or its medium range weapons or its short range weapons. Buy simply cycling the weapons I used based on my opponents range I ran cool all the time (barring damage and excessive amounts of Flamers anyway) and wasted almost every one I fought, at first. After a couple matches of this we all caught on, and gained a new respect for the stock variants, since the whole MUST ALPHA ALWAYS AND NOW!! mentality faded from us when actual tactics got introduced. This, from what I noticed all those years ago, is how the Mechs are actually built, so Heat management is very important, and this also gives credence to the thought of (as mentioned earlier) the different food groups of weapons; Energy; Ballistic; and Missiles. If I keep my loadout good then I should be able to fire more of the lower heat weapons (ballistic/missile) then the Energy, and simply adjust the different weapons for what I wish to fire at what range.

....umm, sorry for the text wall

[Kreisel]

I agree the coolant flushing isn't something that makes a lot of sense, it just seems like a bad system. And really only makes sense to... temporarily reduce heat... but lose you ability to dissipate it in the long run by doing so. which just seems like a bad idea.

Some of the previous games had some weird quirks to how they handled heat, like the ability to build mechs that could chain fire PCC's and generate no heat but the second you alpha strike with them you blow up every single time...

People need to remember were talking about a game here, one with giant walking robots, in a near constant stat of war with Iron fisted empires that treat lower Castes like dirt. Realism is NOT the goal. Fun is, balance is, because balance promotes fun and variety.

We really need to think about this in practical game terms, in terms of fun and balanced incentives to build a variety of diffrent designs. Because that how the Devs are thinking and that's how we WANT and need them to be thinking.

I've heard a lot from different players demanding different aspects of the game to be really harsh or punishingly demanding, almost unplayable for all but the most careful and exacting of players. That's not the way to promote a fun, balanced game.

Heat needs to be balanced in a way it's a concern, not where new players are going to pick stock mech designs walk out on the field and blow themselves up in two seconds flat. Lots of stock designs are run very hot in the TT, Heck they even made things like triple strength moymer which worked better when the Mech was running hot. A lot of the talk I'm hearing about high heat being debilitating is waaaaay too harsh.

Lasers have been balanced by being made into dots, it will require increased skill to hold them on target, especially with ballistics knocking you around. We have yet to see how they will balance PPC. The Dev's have already stated they are leery about putting a minimal range on anything but missiles because it difficult to fit into a game in a way that makes a lot of sense. The have complete flexibility to toy with recycle times since there is no cannon on this and it was arbitrarily set in other games, but there is no need to hold by this, and the Devs have indicated they are willing to change the amount of damage weapons do.

There is every indication the Devs are attempting to balance the weapons in and of themselves. Rather than trying to rely on heat alone. I think they want to avoid frustrating designs where players can't shoot all the weapons on stock versions of many mechs, because it means running too hot. spending a lot of time letting a weapon just sit there unused because it would overheat you, isn't really fun. Sure we should be able to make designs where we use certain weapons for certain situations and lay off the others to save heat, but the average new player is going to want to shoot the every weapon he can as often as he can as long as the target is in his sights and in range. Heck, isn't that one of the rules of Zellbringer, if you can shoot it you have to?

[Ravn]

Kreisel, on 30 April 2012 - 08:19 PM, said:

Heck, isn't that one of the rules of Zellbringer, if you can shoot it you have to?

Depends on the clan. Snow ravens are bound to use weapons that will bring down a mech with as much of it salvageable as possible.

Edit: Waste not, Want not!

Edited by Ravn, 30 April 2012 - 08:22 PM.

[Orzorn]

Getting back on topic, although I think that tangent was something that needed to be discussed:
I think part of why, in the past, energy weapons had some dominance over ballistics was that ballistics didn't get access to something that made them unique. Ammo types. In the concept art for the hunchback, we see that it is packing HEAP rounds. I would definitely love to see other ammunition types. I do not have TacOPs, so I can't find them all, but looking at Sarna, I can find caseless rounds (3055), and precision rounds (3062), both of which are pretty far out from right now, although I could swear we have other ammunition that is available as of 3049.

At the very least, let LB-X autocannons actually use both cluster and normal AC rounds. That was a big part of their advantage, but no other Mechwarrior game actually allowed them to do so.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Ok, lets look at the economy of Energy and Ballistics. Energy weapons travel at light speed, minimal leading needed to hit what your aiming for. Ballistics: Travel as fast as the rounds propellant system, chemical or magnetic can shove it out the end of the barrel, after that, frictions slowing it down and gravity is PULLING it down. Energy weapons are not affected by friction OR gravity, unless some blackhole settles on the field, then yer all screwed anyway. But, in terms of the above, energys gonna win out. BUT, they are hot, pure and simple. MOST ballistics, are cooler <temp wise>. NOW, also consider that MOST energy weapons when destroyed will not remove huge chunks of the mech, ammo stores in a mech, if detonated will. Its all a pick your poison thing. What is YOUR preference. Load what YOU want based on WHO YOU ARE, and what YOU want from your fight/experience. Not what Rejarial or Kraktzor or Helmer or any other player wants. We are all individuals and well, we think differently, want diff things. Yes, I know, I just spouted commonsense rhetoric yadda yadda blah blah

[Ravn]

Right, so you are willing to pay for that ammo even tho you know you can use an equivalent energy weapon for free?

[Rejarial Galatan]

Ravn, on 30 April 2012 - 08:25 PM, said:

Right, so you are willing to pay for that ammo even tho you know you can use an equivalent energy weapon for free?

uh who is that meant for? cuz if me, I use energy with MAYBE a gauss rifle for back up with 20 rounds at most for the "oh dear god, make room cuz here comes rej' kinda moments, the kind not even a coolant flush can avoid lol

[Yeach]

Back on topic
AC10 vs PPC
AC10
1 x AC10 = 1 x 200k
2 x AC10 ammo = 2 x 6k
3 x heatsinks = 3 x 2k
= 218k

PPC
1 x PPC = 1 x 200k
10 x heatsinks = 10 x 2k
= 210k

PPC beats AC10 in terms of cost here

My opinion AC10 needs a trim in cost in both weapon and in ammo.
IMO ammunition should be cheaper than heatsinks.

Edited by Yeach, 30 April 2012 - 08:34 PM.

[Ravn]

Rejarial Galatan, on 30 April 2012 - 08:29 PM, said:

uh who is that meant for? cuz if me, I use energy with MAYBE a gauss rifle for back up with 20 rounds at most for the "oh dear god, make room cuz here comes rej' kinda moments, the kind not even a coolant flush can avoid lol

The Original post was the economy of the cost of ammo. Not the economy of heat. My question was directed at Orzon, but you sneaked a post in while i was typing.