88 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Some additional charts.
The first two charts are based on "low" damage targets. That means that for example you often don't need more than 2 of the heavier ballistics to achieve the goal. The damage figure I would consider kinda realistic, the drawback is that the ballistic builds here usually have a lot of "waste" dissipation or heat capacity left over, meaning if these were mech builds, you could easily upgrade their damage output by adding a lighht energy weapon or maybe even a SRM.

For the number of heat sinks, it matters mostly how many weapons you have, and how long they are supposed to fire. The longer, the more sinks you tend to need. How many weapons you fire depends on what I call "damage volume"), basically - how much damage do I want the setup to deal at a minimum in the targeted time frame.
For ammo consumption, I need not just to consider how much ammo a weapon needs in one targeted engagement time frame, but also how many I expect to have. I describe this as the frequency. I tend to assume that if you have a high damage volume, you don't need quite such a high frequency - there are only 8 enemy mechs to kill, after all.



Chart 1 - Single Heat Sinks, Low Damage Volume, High Frequency
The first chart describes damage to tonnage efficiency based on single heat sinks (with 10 "free" engine heat sinks).
http://i883.photobuc...Frequency01.png


Chart 2 - Double Heat Sinks, Low Damage Volume, High Frequency
The second chart describes damage to tonnage efficiency based on double heat sinks (again with 10 "free" engine double heat sinks.)
http://i883.photobuc...Frequency01.png


Chart 3 - Single Heat Sinks, High Damage Volume, Low Frequency
The third chart describes damage to tonnage efficiency based on single heat sinks (with 10 "free" engine heat sinks), but this time, the damage requirements have been doubled. (Which means that at least starting at the 20 second duration mark, even most ballistics need to add a few heat sinks and it would no longer be feasible to add a medium laser or small laser to the build without negatively affecting its endurance.)
http://i883.photobuc...Frequency01.png


Chart 4 - Double Sinks, High Damage Volume, Low Frequency
The third chart describes damage to tonnage efficiency based on double heat sinks (with 10 "free" engine heat sinks), but this time, the damage requirements have been doubled. (Which means that at least starting at the 20 second duration mark, even most ballistics need to add a few heat sinks and it would no longer be feasible to add a medium laser or small laser to the build without negatively affecting its endurance.)
http://i883.photobuc...Frequency01.png




Additional Notes: I did observe some errors in the first chart I uploaded in this thread. I did calculate damage and heat inconsistently, and have fixed this now. (On the one side, I calculated the damage the weapon could deal if fired continuously, but the heat was based only on the amount of shots needed to achieve the minimum damage, regardless of the length of the time frame. I caught this as I was investigated another error that cropped up in the expansion of the sheets to account for more TET variations in parallel, which lead to bizarre results.)

[EmperorMyrf]

Asatruer, on 27 November 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:

I think the following is the key

As I understand it, the lasers would not be able to achieve full pin-point convergence past short range, what is meant by "short range" is a bit ambiguous (it could be short as in BattleTech's Short range, which would be 3hexes or 90m, or it could just be a vague short range) but my interpretation is that it at least means less than the optimal range of the weapon (270m in the case of the MLs). If we go with the possibly incorrect assumption that it is BattleTech's Short range of 90m, then the 6MLs in the RT of the -4P would only be able to get pinpoint accuracy at 90m, and the farther out from there the wider the gap between beam strike points.


edit: Ninja'ed by MustrumRidcully... how on earth did it take me 27 minutes to write the above?

It's the opposite. The convergence is tightest at an infinite distance, and farthest apart at a distance of 0m. So the closer your target is, the more spread your lasers will be on the target. If you fire at the minimum intersection range or further, then you will have perfect convergence. This is to ensure that larger weapons that operate at mid-long range are not hindered by the system, and that it doesn't ruin long range combat. The reason I chose 0.25 degrees is because that intersection happens at mid range.

Indoorsman, on 27 November 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

Well, the image depicted for the hunchback shoulder grouping is a parallelogram. If you fire them all at once then yes you will have that problem. But say you break down the top 3 and the bottom 3 into 2 triangles, you're now more accurate. But yes that would still "spread" the damage, over time not space though :-p

I'd still say that it solves (well not solves, but lessens at least) the issue. The damage is spread either by time or space, which is the reason there are so many lasers on the 4P (and later the Nova and so on) as they need several of them to make sure they are doing some consistent damage.

Quote

IF an aiming nerf HAD to happen it would have to be random not anything predictable. IMO

introducing RNGs will rustle far too many jimmies. While it may be more effective, it probably won't be as fun.

Quote

Edit, and once again that wouldn't have the same effect across all weapons. Lasers would fare better than the others due to beam duration for making aiming adjustments.

True. But by having to drag the lasers from one section to the next, it's still spreading its damage around. Add this plus the fact that the target is typically moving/twisting and I think it's all there. The ACs and PPCs still benefit from putting all the hurt in one place, even if it is occasionally the wrong one. And since it's consistent, a skilled pilot will know how to correct his aim to compensate for the weapon location at short range. Again, same goes for lasers, but they have to maintain that location for the full beam duration in order to replicate that effect.

[Garth Erlam]

MustrumRidcully, on 25 November 2012 - 08:07 AM, said:

The hidden secret of this chart is the "crit efficiency"; of course. Just as an example: To have the Medium Lasers achieve the stated goal (200 damage in 20 seconds withoutoverheating), you need 6 medium lasers and 34 out-of-engine heat sinks... That's a lot. With DHS, it improves down to 14 DHS - which means 42 Crits. Finding 42 free crits for the DHS will not be an easy task. Better hope you got weapon hard points in your legs and head.

My Jenner and Cicada both have DHS, and the Jenner has 14 double heatsinks, so it is doable. Hell, my Cicada has 19!

(PS. Love the thread, thanks!)

[MustrumRidcully]

FYI: I uploaded a new version of the Excel Sheet to GoogleDrive for download: https://docs.google....Q3Q4NlVNbW9wTGs

[MustrumRidcully]

Garth Erlam, on 27 November 2012 - 12:44 PM, said:

My Jenner and Cicada both have DHS, and the Jenner has 14 double heatsinks, so it is doable. Hell, my Cicada has 19!

(PS. Love the thread, thanks!)

I hope you love the more comprehensive charts. One oft he unfortunate dangers of this thread is - when I make mistakes, no one will catch them. Except perhaps Vapor Trail?

But in the case of my example - I actually meant 14 out-of-engine DHS. That's 24 total. I doubt you'll manage that so easily...

I believe so far the highest I managed for any of my builds was 21 total DHS. (I believe that was with an engine rated higher than 250 though.)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 27 November 2012 - 01:08 PM.

[Indoorsman]

You have a working google docs version? Last I checked it was excel only which I don't have.

[Leprosyvirus]

Meh heat doesn't matter since guass rifles reign supreme still.

[MustrumRidcully]

Indoorsman, on 27 November 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

You have a working google docs version? Last I checked it was excel only which I don't have.

Sorry, whenever I try to import it into Google Docs, the chart simply breaks. There is one thing I may be able to try yet - currently I am using multiple sheets in one file, maybe that's wrecking things up for GoogleDocs.

Nope, didn't really work. Maybe you can try your luck with the broken sheet. It might fail due to all the Names I used, I don't know. Here is the link to the Google Doc version: https://docs.google....dVFOZVlkMVRhcXc

You could try and see if OpenOffice (that's free) can read the file these days.


EDIT: Fixed it. I set it to read only, you should be able to copy it for your own purposes - but I don't want someone accidentally (or intentionally) breaking it, that would not be very useful for you or others.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 27 November 2012 - 01:33 PM.

[GanglarToronto]

Stingz, on 25 November 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

It's pretty obvious to anyone that running DHS is always better, since the heat scale is too much for SHS. Triple fire rate and standard heat dissipation doesn't work too well.

These graphs show how badly DHS outclasses SHS.

Shouldn't it, though? Its an upgrade. Isn't that what an upgrade is? I don't understand this notion of making DHS the same as SHS. Might as well not even have DHS if everyone wants it nerfed all the time.

[Asatruer]

EmperorMyrf, on 27 November 2012 - 12:37 PM, said:

It's the opposite. The convergence is tightest at an infinite distance, and farthest apart at a distance of 0m. So the closer your target is, the more spread your lasers will be on the target. If you fire at the minimum intersection range or further, then you will have perfect convergence. This is to ensure that larger weapons that operate at mid-long range are not hindered by the system, and that it doesn't ruin long range combat. The reason I chose 0.25 degrees is because that intersection happens at mid range.

I must have read or interpreted something wrong... let me see...

EmperorMyrf, on 27 November 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

I don't think that convergence should be removed from the game, which apparently a lot of people are trying to push for. I just feel that it needs to be limited at short range so that smaller weapons can't have their naturally high efficiencies exploited.

I see what I read wrong, I misread the emphasized text as "limited to short range". I think I made the mistake because I could not imagine you were trying to say that weapons should be more pinpoint accurate at their longer ranges then at their shorter ranges, but I see now, and after logically thinking about what limiting the amount of degrees the weapons could adjust their aim by, that you are indeed suggesting weapons be more accurate at the extremes of their range then at the shorter ends of their range.

I am not really sure what to think about that, other than a vague apprehension. On the one hand it does not hamper the ability to pinpoint accurately shoot a reasonably small amount of larger weapons in their expected long range stand-off or sniper combat role, but on the other hand, it makes shooting what are intended to be more up close weapons more effective at the longer end of their weapon range than the shorter end. This last one I do not really like as I already find the effective ranges of weapons a bit on the high side, and it means that a Small Laser boating Jenner could get up in the grill of a Medium Laser boating Awesome at the range of 90m and be able to do more accurate damage, while the Awesome is doing less accurate damage. While there is something to be said about the benefits of the shotgun approach against lights, I think it is not the best trade-off.

Indoorsman, on 27 November 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

Edit, and once again that wouldn't have the same effect across all weapons. Lasers would fare better than the others due to beam duration for making aiming adjustments.

EmperorMyrf, on 27 November 2012 - 12:37 PM, said:

True. But by having to drag the lasers from one section to the next, it's still spreading its damage around. Add this plus the fact that the target is typically moving/twisting and I think it's all there. The ACs and PPCs still benefit from putting all the hurt in one place, even if it is occasionally the wrong one. And since it's consistent, a skilled pilot will know how to correct his aim to compensate for the weapon location at short range. Again, same goes for lasers, but they have to maintain that location for the full beam duration in order to replicate that effect.

In theory it does have the potential to more negatively effect the boating of projectile weapons, but in practice, there are not really any chassis that can boat projectile weapons as they tend to be larger and more heavy than small and medium lasers, and mechs have less ballistic hardpoints. The only mechs with truely sizable numbers of ballistic hardpoints (at the moment) are a Cataphract and Cicada variant, of which the Cataphract's arm mounted hardpoints, I assume, gets around the lesser degree of movement due to the various arm actuators, and the Cicada does not really have the tonnage available to carry anything other than a crazy amount of MG. Even if MGs got a DPS buff to be closer to being on-par with Small Lasers, their constant fire nature gains the same sort of advantage to aim adjusting that the laser beams have, so they really would not be more disadvantaged.

There is also the issue of point of origin on the shooting mech, the ballistic hardpoints have a tendency to shoot their rounds from the exact same spot, even when there are three mounted in the location in question. A HBk-4G shoots all three MGs out of the same point that it shoots its one AC/20, similarly the Centurion and Dragon variants do the same with their arm mounted ballistics. If a HBK-4G could break all the rules of the game and cram three AC/20s into its RT, they would all hit the same spot even with a more limited angle of adjustment.

Looking at mechs with weapons in more diverse locations, say the Awesome's two side torsos, it would be a lot harder for them to get a laser in each side torso to hit a close mech in the same spot, then it would for a HBK-4P firing two MLs from the RT, or even a Catapult doing the same from the side torsos. In the end, wide mechs would feel the nerf a lot more than narrow mechs, or mechs that have their weapons in one location.

Edited by Asatruer, 27 November 2012 - 03:15 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

GanglarToronto, on 27 November 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

Shouldn't it, though? Its an upgrade. Isn't that what an upgrade is? I don't understand this notion of making DHS the same as SHS. Might as well not even have DHS if everyone wants it nerfed all the time.

It depends. Can it serve a purpose other than as an upgrade? If we can find an implementation that would give it a purpose, making it better for one type of build than another, then it would be reasonable.

It definitely as an upgrade in the table top. The table top was full of power creep, to be blunt. That may have worked for it or not, but there is a risk that it could hurt gameplay. You see what happens when Streak Cats outperform a bit - people don't like it. And this is what will invariably happen if we keep all the Tech Level 2/3/Clan power creep in. The game will get faster, as people can equip more weapons and weapons deal more damage. And it might turn out that people really liked the current pace of combat (in fact, polls on the forums indicate so, but they may not be very representative), and this could stand directly in the way.

[EmperorMyrf]

Asatruer, on 27 November 2012 - 03:13 PM, said:

I am not really sure what to think about that, other than a vague apprehension. On the one hand it does not hamper the ability to pinpoint accurately shoot a reasonably small amount of larger weapons in their expected long range stand-off or sniper combat role, but on the other hand, it makes shooting what are intended to be more up close weapons more effective at the longer end of their weapon range than the shorter end. This last one I do not really like as I already find the effective ranges of weapons a bit on the high side, and it means that a Small Laser boating Jenner could get up in the grill of a Medium Laser boating Awesome at the range of 90m and be able to do more accurate damage, while the Awesome is doing less accurate damage. While there is something to be said about the benefits of the shotgun approach against lights, I think it is not the best trade-off.

Not necessarily. This is why I included the Angular Room value, as it is directly related to how difficult it is to stay on target with the lasers. If we were to take the 4P again, yes it would have a tighter convergence at range, but the difficulty to hit all in the same section still increases with range. Although at the same time, the Aim Error gets higher at short ranges because there's less room for the lasers to center themselves. I'm inclined to think that the increase in Aim Error is not going to hinder a mechs ability to shoot at short range, but that could simply be a confirmation bias. At any rate, if you're aiming center mass, you're going to hit something good regardless.

Honestly I really just wish I could test out the different angles to see which one (if any) is the best. As of now this is all speculation.

[MustrumRidcully]

EmperorMyrf, on 27 November 2012 - 03:33 PM, said:

Honestly I really just wish I could test out the different angles to see which one (if any) is the best. As of now this is all speculation.

The problem of all MMOs - you cannot just mod the value yourself and test it.

There is now a gameplay balance discussion thread in the feedback forums of the new patch. It seems all balance discussions will be merged there. I hope that means something good...

Anyway, here is one approach on tweaking values:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1499602

http://i883.photobuc...difiedStats.png

This is my take on revising the energy and ballistic weapon stats. (The LB10 X-AC is unmodified, except the ammo/ton value. That makes it seem outperform, right now, but I think that might be okay, considering its cluster ammunition flaw.)

The above stats lead to this efficiency profile:



My goal was to have the efficiency of weapons steadily drop with range, but hopefully not have a drop that's too steep. And to have balance between ballistcs and energy weapons under double heat sinks only. Under Single Heat Sinks, ballistics still reign supreme.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 27 November 2012 - 11:32 PM.

[Suskis]

Kobura, on 25 November 2012 - 09:02 AM, said:

It also shows that the gauss is almost, almost balanced, the only painful item is the extreme long-range snapshot-damage compared to its' competitors, the PPC and ERPPC.

The problem with Gauss is that it starts as an imbalanced weapon from tabletop game. They should rise its minimum range and reduce its rate of fire. If it's considered a heavy hitting sniper weapon, it makes no sense to have them fire like normal autocannons.

[MustrumRidcully]

Suskis, on 28 November 2012 - 12:29 AM, said:

The problem with Gauss is that it starts as an imbalanced weapon from tabletop game. They should rise its minimum range and reduce its rate of fire. If it's considered a heavy hitting sniper weapon, it makes no sense to have them fire like normal autocannons.

It already has the lowest rate of fire among all the ballistic weapons. I don't think the Gauss Rifle needs any changes, other weapons need them to bring them on the level of the Gauss. Heck, the Gauss Rifle isn't even the best weapon around anymore. The main reason the Gauss Cat is so popular is because you can only equip 2 Ballistic weapons on the Gauss Cat. While another weapon may be more damage/tonnage efficient, you cannot achieve the same DPS, and the tonnage you have "spare" cannot really be used to improve your build in any other manner anymore. Adding more or bigger lasers for example would make it much hotter, requiring more heat sinks and requires armoring the ears better (either to house the guns or to house the heat sinks). The Ultra AC/5 always used to be better than the Gauss Rifle (but was underestimated by many), the problem was the jamming mechanism they added. (And now it may actually holding it down again, if Vapor Trails estimates on its jamming durations are correct.)

With the Cataphract, you see that people try the AC/5s and Ultra AC/5s with new eager - because those weapons were always great, there just wasn't a mech platform suited for them.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 28 November 2012 - 02:10 AM.

[Antarius]

EmperorMyrf, on 27 November 2012 - 07:10 AM, said:

Yell at me if I'm still not clear, I have a hard time explaining things sometimes

NOW I UNDERSTAND IT... oh only yell if i dont...

now i even get it with a little hangover, so should be cristal clear.
A good idea, but it would make ppc-awsomes and gauss-cats weaker too, dont know if this is good or bad. (because of the torsomounted weapons)
Otherwise they sniper weapons, should be that much of a issue.

[Asatruer]

MustrumRidcully, on 28 November 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

With the Cataphract, you see that people try the AC/5s and Ultra AC/5s with new eager - because those weapons were always great, there just wasn't a mech platform suited for them.

Back in closed beta I personally did much better with two UAC/5 on my -K5 than I did with the Gauss, but that was before jamming was added. After jamming, and becoming a Founder, I found two UAC/5s on my founder's Atlas worked better for me than one Gauss, even without resorting to an AHK script to unjam. Since Open beta, I just have not been able to play my Atlas as well anymore, and I have not been able to figure out why, so I was hoping that the Cataphract would do the trick. With the Cataphract arm movement nerf, I probably just should go back to the -K2...

[Sniper061]

I would like to see one or two things happen.

First, I would like the option to put a SHS on my DHS mech. Sometimes you have an extra ton to spare but not the slots for a DHS. Just because you've upgraded doesn't mean your tech can't pull one out of the trash bin and fit it for you.


Second, since the first may not be possible due to programming constraints, I would like to see DHS slot usage reduced to two slots. It is a *double* heatsink afterall, not a triple. I just do not feel that the increase we are receiving is enough to justify three slots being used.

[Indoorsman]

Sniper061, on 28 November 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

I would like to see DHS slot usage reduced to two slots. It is a *double* heatsink afterall

I've said this before and people go on about how only clan DHS can be 2 slots. To them I said clain DHS could be REAL DHS, w/a 2.0 dissipation rate :-p

Despite the downsides, they're still better than SHS on an Atlas. Would definately be interesting to see em only take 2 slots though.

[MustrumRidcully]

Indoorsman, on 28 November 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

I've said this before and people go on about how only clan DHS can be 2 slots. To them I said clain DHS could be REAL DHS, w/a 2.0 dissipation rate :-p

Despite the downsides, they're still better than SHS on an Atlas. Would definately be interesting to see em only take 2 slots though.

Lowering Crit points at least seems something that wouldn't hurt any stock configs and could work. I would still be in favor of just making them true DHS.

OR, rather even more preferable, but even harder to implement and unlikely to happen, make SHS and DHS have suited for different roles. Say, Single HeatS Sinks optimally suited for powerful alpha strikes builds but slow recovery times, and Double Heat Sinks better suited for sustained damage, or vice versa.