108 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Shroomicide, on 12 December 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

If RoF was lowered without anything else, trial mechs would have a much rougher time. A new person is going to think their mech is made for firing its weapons as soon as it can in the heat of a battle. This will just lead to even more shutdown kills.

Not to mention Ballistic weapons which have almost no heat restrictions. An AC20 cat or a Gauss Cataphract could literally kill an Atlas in 4-5 hits. As it stands, AC20s and Gauss rifles have a recycle time of 4 seconds. They can already murder medium mechs easily, and if not for RoF, would kill a Hunchback coming around a corner before it could retreat. Also? SRM 6 Catapults. Recycle time of 4, and that's 90 damage per shot. They could kill an Atlas in roughly 4-5 shots at a distance, given random distribution, and in only 2-3 at close range.

Energy weapons would also just run much hotter. Sure, they could dish out more damage quickly, but that wouldn't help the heat efficiency. They would have to run from battle every few seconds to recharge their heat. Any given ballistic/missile build doesn't have to do that. At the very least they don't have to do it often.

However, I do like the idea of 2.0 DHS. You can read any of my previous posts for my reasoning on this.

I believe with "Lowering ROF" he meant lowering the rate of fire, as in firing more slowly. So an AC/20 might fire only every 6 seconds.

I have dug out Mechwarrior 4 again, and I found the fire rates there a tad bit low sometimes. THere are weapons with 6 to 7 second recycle times. But they aren't married to damage per shot values from the table top in MW4 - weapons deal the damage and heat they need to deal for their weight, range and cycle time. You could keep the current cycle times in MW:O, and just lower the damage and heat per shot so the overall damage is still the same as the table top stats was over a 10 second turn (with exceptions and divergence wherever weapons were or are imbalances. The AC/2 for example was never balanced for its weight - it would need to be an AC/4, e.g twice the damage output, to justify its weight.)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 12 December 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[Raeven]

MW4 screwed the pooch when it came to spreading weapon damage over 10 seconds. No-one used anything but the heavy hitting weapons, because smalls and mediums were useless and wasted space.

It was and is a terrible idea. Keep to the SVII mechanics. They make for a stronger game.

[HighTest]

I think the damage values currently in use are pretty close. Just give the big mechs some ability to cool some of the bigger weapons. Otherwise everyone will just load up on medium lasers and SRMs like they seem to do now. Between crappy 1.4x DHS and ECS, seems most people have foregone any long-range weaponry for brawler stuff lately. Unless you're one of the poor suckers using the high-heat trial mechs right now.

[Zyllos]

HighTest, on 12 December 2012 - 11:08 AM, said:

Not to nitpick, but:
4 MLAS @ 3.0s would allow for 4 shots in 10 seconds, so produces 64 heat, or 6.4 (fire at 0,3,6,9s)
4 MLAS @ 6.0s would allow for 2 shots in 10 seconds, so produces 32 heat, or 3.2 (fire at 0,6s)

Either way, that does make sense, and it would increase the relative heat efficiency of every mech in the game if you changed the recycle rate (RoF) for all weapons across the board.

I guess my question is -- would that be any fun? Some people like to ride that thin line between high heat and overheat. Plus if you slow down the RoF too much, even basic combat might be too much "OK I'm in position, when the heck do I get to fire?"

As far as range goes, again, that makes it interesting. The varied ranges of weapons is what dictates your engagement strategy -- LRM/snipe from afar vs. up-close brawling, etc. If everything had the same range and different damages, people would only pick the weapons that had the best damage/heat ratio. Might get a tad boring, no?

Part of the problem with range is that the maps aren't quite big enough and radar is short range and based on line of sight. Usually by the time you can spot the enemy mechs, they're barreling straight at you (since they are headed to your base, which is generally behind you), so you only have time for a couple of long-range salvos maybe before they're on top of you. I think that's largely why most custom builds are focusing on close-range weaponry, because ultimately most battles degrade into circling and brawling. (Plus relative heat efficiencies of smaller weapons are better since DHS aren't 2.0x, so bigger weapons suffer). 2.0x DHS, bigger maps and/or a semi-intelligent radar might help this quite a bit.

Oops, ya, I forgot about delta T = 0.0s.

I understand the reasoning why having the RoF faster because 6.0s might seem too long (I say equip more weapons and don't them all at the same time, stagger them).

But, the only things you can change without modifying SHS to make SHS and trial mechs balanced to DHS and custom mechs is either lower the RoF or decrease the heat.

[HighTest]

I don't know that you actually need to / want to balance trial mechs to the custom ones, as, otherwise, why strive to ever own a mech of your own? (Yes, sure, camos and pilot skills count. But that's not my point.)

I just the think choices for the trial mechs this month weren't very well thought out. 4 mechs with heat efficiency under 0.92? That could easily have been fixed with a better selection of mechs.

In fact, I encourage PGI to always have one mech with <1 efficiency rating to teach people about heat management. Just not all 4. Different roles would be nice too -- maybe scout, ranged, skirmisher, brawler or something like that. Mix up lasers with LRMS with ACs with SRMs. This way new players can try to figure out their preferred play style, strengths and weaknesses.

[Zyllos]

Making trial mechs more balanced with customized mechs will not take away from custom mechs. The only time this will happen is if trial mechs are actually better performing than customs, which is most likely not going to happen because customization means change in weaponry, loadouts, ect and that changes the whole build.

[MustrumRidcully]

There are good stock configurations, but there are rarely any that are extremely min/maxed. And you will almost always have something you will like to change and suite better to your playstyle. Some may find a decent mechs till too hot or too cool, some may find its weapon positioning bad, and some want to turn a mech with a mixed weapon loadout into one focused for one range category. There is always something to tinker. And if it's just that you find that you could lower your leg armor a bit, or put your ammo in your legs.

Besides, many stock mechs are still using single heat sinks, so there are upgrades to consider your mech still hasn't gotten yet.

You could give someone the mech that you consider perfect and he'd probably tweak something.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 12 December 2012 - 01:51 PM.

[Shroomicide]

MustrumRidcully, on 12 December 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

I believe with "Lowering ROF" he meant lowering the rate of fire, as in firing more slowly. So an AC/20 might fire only every 6 seconds.

Ah, sorry, my mistake. That was polite of you to assume it WAS a mistake as opposed to accusing me of idiocy, hah.

I would agree with that then, particularly if it was slightly more for ballistics than energy weapons, assuming the same heat sinks. Some ballistics to me feel like they aren't meant to be fired constantly, and while I'm just as big a fan of them as the next person, they do have high DPS in a concentrated area.

Edit: As for SRM 6 Cats, they operate perfectly fine without Artemis. They seem to be meant for ambushing, and if a light/medium mech runs into one within roughly 90 meters, they die in one shot assuming the Cat pilot is quick on the trigger.

Edited by Shroomicide, 12 December 2012 - 07:44 PM.

[Theodor Kling]

Shroomicide, on 12 December 2012 - 07:39 PM, said:

Edit: As for SRM 6 Cats, they operate perfectly fine without Artemis. They seem to be meant for ambushing, and if a light/medium mech runs into one within roughly 90 meters, they die in one shot assuming the Cat pilot is quick on the trigger.

Oh yeah SRM cats can be extremely deadly in the right hands. I recently made the mistake of underestimating a mixed SRM/LRM cat because i got used to my COM-2D no being hit by SRMs and Ballistics... well that pilot knew what he was doing and got me in two salvos, both well aimed and hitting me with all SRMs he fired. If they actually hit you , SRM-Cats are quite dangerous

Tweaking the rate of fire for some ballistics seems nice though. Maybe take advantage of the advanced TT rules here: Lower general rof, but allow faster firering at the risk of jamming/capacitor explosion. So if you realy need the DPS you switch to fast mode, but you gotta live with the risk of damaging/disabling your weapon.Just like you can fire your lasers real realy fast.. but have to live with the heat.