I am posting with the philosophy that every weapon should be competative, regardless of its lore or comparative capabilities in previous incarnations of mechwarrior/TT. If the weapon is in this game, my suggestions are pointed at bringing it up to a level that will validate its use on the field given its canonical critical and tonnage mounting requirements, while simultaneously adhering to MWO's current hardpoint restrictions and ammunition counts.
Some of my suggestions would lead to weapons becoming wildly overpowered in other games/incarnations, but due to relevant constraints in MWO, such as hardpoint limitations, or the low dissipation rate, I am quite sure they will lead to no serious imbalances in this game.
I will identify each weapon that needs an increase in performance to be competative, provide a suggestion as to how to improve its handling, as well as a brief argument for why this is the best way to increase its performance and why the change I suggest will not lead to other imbalances.
Machine Guns:
This weapon needs to do at least triple its current damage to be viable, and probably quadruple to be competative.
Why this is the best change: Making this weapon better against internals is a fun idea, but is useless in MWO. Hardpoints are too precious to waste on weapons that are only good at the last 1/5 of a fight, and at that aren't even good at finishing, only wrecking the internal parts/weapons instead of outright destroying the section like any normal weapon would do.
Why its not overpowered: Lets assume we triple the damage, that will put its dps at 1.2, which is 0.2 higher than the small laser. Yes, the MG generates no heat, but it has a range of 90m, meaning it has to be used at the same range as small lasers, it needs ammo which actually runs out pretty fast when you're using several of these together, and (most importantly) no mech can currently mount more than 4. This puts the absolute dps cap on MGs at 4.8, which is still below the AC20, and only a smidge above the rest of the ballistics category. However, the handling is also extremely important, MGs have travel time, spread, and must be held on target
constantly in order to achieve this dps, which makes it very difficult to apply, while other weapons have the incredible benefit of lining up single shots to apply their damage to single locations.
Comparatively, a light mech with 6 small lasers has little trouble with heat, 6dps, and the benefit of only needing to aim at the right spot once every few seconds instead of constantly. Thus, unless we get mechs with 8+ ballistic hardpoints, tripling the dps of machine guns will not lead to any balance problems.
Flame Throwers:
Change mechanics from heat application, to reduction in heat dissipation. Change from continuous application to intermitent.
Flame Throwers will never be useful when they apply less heat to their target than they give to the user, you'll waste your own slots mounting them and your own heat firing them, that could've been used for anything else. Instead, cause mechs hit with flamers to suffer reductions to their heat dissipation capacity over a period of time. The reduction would be proportionate to the number of flamers you were hit with during that time, but it can't be directly proportionate. It can't be directly, linearly proportionate because one flamer has to do a useful amount of reduction, but it can't be the case that multiple flamers totally negate a mech's heat dissipation capacity.
The change from continuous to intermitent also helps solve some other issues with flamers (such as their visual annoyance), and allows the implimentation of sweet special effects, such as the glow from lasers being applied to flamers but with some fire eminating from the struck location as well.
The fundamental gameplay benefit, currently, flamers are no good because you generate more heat than you give, and you can't program flamers to allow them to force shutdown on enemy mechs because then you get flamer hoardes that overheat and overload people without any way to respond or avoid them. The reduction of dissipation mechanic allows you to make flamers a penalty to the user in the early part of a fight, but be a long-term benefit by reducing their opponents ability to dissipate heat. The numbers of course would be balanced around this, but the idea is that if you doing fast striker runs, flamers would be useless to you, but if you're going toe-to-toe with someone for the full duration of time it takes to down a mech at point blank range, then flamers would be a seroius benefit to you because you'll be able to fire alot more than your opponent once you get half way into the battle because he's having more heat trouble than you are.
This also shouldn't become overpowered so long as the benefits are to only to longer engagements, well coordinated teams focusing fire will never reach the useful engagement time for the flamer's reduction effects to kick in (unless they shoot side targets, which actual encourages more strategy for firing at 'off' targets). Furthermore, the change in their firing behavior to intermitent sprays means the flamer visual won't be obscuring the battlefield for teams that build to use it properly, and it could also be changed to a discharged gel with travel time instead of a magic hitscan weapon as it is now.
Finally, the amount of heat reduction can be balanced to make it only useful on the right mechs at the right times, and no mech will ever be completely taken off the battlefield due to being hit with flamers, only slowed down. Thus, preventing them from becoming overpowered.
NARC:
Let it broadcast on its own without LOS, let it give LRMs a different bonus than TAG/Artemis, or let it counter ECM. Probably buff the time it lasts.
Currently, you have to maintain LOS to use NARC, just as you do TAG/Artemis. If you use TAG/Artemis, you already have a clustering bonus that puts almost every missile into contact with slow mechs. You can't hit slow/assault mechs with more than all the missiles, and you can't hit light mechs with tighter clustering because their speed is making the missiles miss. So more clustering than the TAG/Artemis combo is nearly useless, and TAG is superior in every way. NARC must give a benifit different from TAG if it is to be worth taking onto the battlefield.
Here there are alot of options, any of the 3 above would be fantastic ways to make NARC useful, especially if it came with a 30 second timer instead of the measly 10s timer it had at inception.
If we do the first, let it broadcast position without LOS, it becomes a fantastic scout tool for keeping tabs on enemies and seting up LRM boats without having to stay in the danger zone. LRMs still have hardcounters of terrain, AMS, and ECM, and they would still be only as dangerous as they were before, this just gives our scout the opportunity to bug out so long as he makes a good shot. Definitely not overpowered, and extremely useful for scouting and teamwork.
If we do the second, give LRMs a different bonus than TAG/Artemis, such as turn-speed, or final approach velocity, then we have another reason to use NARC over the T/A combo, because now those LRMs are going to be doing more damage against faster mechs that are mitigating volleys in virtue of their speed. This option as the most potential for becoming overpowered, but again, this will only buff NARC against the fast targets which are already the hardest ones to hit, and have the most opportunity to return to cover against LRMs. So piloting skill makes and breaks this weapon, not broken mechanics.
If we do the third, let it broadcast over ECM, we have a major game-changer. I do not want to diverge into the ECM debate too much here, but this would certainly given NARC a role as it would be the only way to ping targets consistently when they are under cover. It would be a heavier, riskier, and more skill intensive way to paint than TAG, but it would have the benefit of working under the 180m cloaking field and being the only non-ECM hard counter to ECM, which would instantly secure its viability on the field.
And lastly, given the limited ammo/ton, the effects of each shot have to last a fair amount of time. 10 seconds isn't enough time to for anyone to respond and take advantage of its effects. Especially LRMs, which take a few seconds to target, a few seconds to lock, and another half-dozen for their LRMs to traverse the field. My thought is 30s is about right, but of course this can be throttled for balance.
The rest of my suggestions will be for weapons that are underperforming, but to a less extent than the three before. It still seems apparent to me that these weapons need buffs to be worth mounting, but the buffs will tend to be less extreme, and are sometimes meant to give the weapon a better defined role isntead of outright making it better.
SRM 2 & 4:
Better rate of fire.
The SRM6 is amazing, one of the best weapons in the game. But the burst damage it provides at close range is its strength. The SRM2 and SRM4 do not have the advantage of hitting so hard in such a short time, yet they are also eclipsed in dps due to having long cycle times themselves. Now, they should definitely not out-dps the SRM6 because they cost less to mount, both in terms of crits and tons, but they are currently so far outclassed that not even the light mechs that could take them ever do over the SSRM2 or SRM6.
Reduce the cycle time of the SRM4 to 3 seconds (from 3.75) and the cycle time of the SRM2 to 2 seconds (from 3.25). Now all the SRMs have the same damage:heat ratios, but the lighter launchers sacrifice alpha strike for better dps:crit and dps:ton ratios.
The end result is that the SRM2 will have 2/3 the dps of the SRM6, be twice as hard to apply due to needing to line up two shots, but will require half the crits and 1/3 the tonnage.
Why its not overpowered: If we could mount unlimited weapons, this would make SRM2s crazy awesome, but again, with no mech able to exceed 6 missile hardpoints, and those that actually use them all on SRMs going with SRM6s for the increased dps (and far more importantly, the burst damage), no build will become overpowered with this change, we will just see some lights and mediums actually opting for the SRM2 and 4 over the SSRM2 and SRM6 due to superior dps against larger targets compared to the SSRM2 (at the cost of manual aiming), and crit/weight savings over the SRM6.
Fluff justification for the SRM2 having a much faster reload than the SSRM2, the SSRM launchers have to feed the target lock to each missile after its loaded into the launch tube, making all SSRM launchers take longer to be ready to fire. (This is also a good excuse to use when the inevitable SSRM4&6 show up)
Small Pulse Laser:
Reduce cooldown to 2s (from 2.25) and heat to 2.5 (from 3).
Why this is the best change: We can't make this weapon flat out better than the medium laser because then every light would have it, and the medium laser is the staple energy weapon we like to balance our energy selection around. So this change doesn't let the small pulse laser beat the medium laser at anything. It brings its dps and heat efficiency up to 96% as good as the medium laser, but still suffers from only having a 90m range (1/3 the mlas). The reason this is needed is because the mlas currently outperforms the small pulse laser in dps and heat efficiency by such a huge margin that the beam duration benefit of the small pulse laser is never worth while. Currently the mlas has 18% better dps and 25% better heat efficiency, meaning any lost dps due to needing to stay on target an extra 1/2 second is almost always made up for with better total damage on good shots, and being able to shoot far more often with the vastly better heat efficiency. Sliding those efficiencies up for the small pulse laser makes it a much more viable choice as the sacrifice in dps and heat efficiency will not be nearly as harsh for the relatively small benefit in firing duration.
Why its not overpowered: The mlas will still give better dps, heat efficiency, and range. Only people expecting to shoot at lights at point blank range will seriously consider the small pulse laser over the nearly omnipresent -and still more versatile- medium laser.
ER Large Laser & ER PPC:
Reduce heat (already planned)
Yes, these weapons should be less heat efficient than their non ER counterparts. But the disparity is too high, especially with MWO being very brawl-centric, with engagement ranges rarely staying beyond 500m for more than a single shot.
However, the ERPPC will not have to be reduced as much to be useful because it has no minimum range. So just a point for the ERPPC should work, while the ERLL might have to go down a point and a half to be competative (8.5 heat to the non-ER LL at 7).
Why its not overpowered: Again, engagement ranges rarely stay beyond 500m, so mounting for that range is hard to justify when you spend 95% of your time inside 300m where heat efficiency is key.
LRM 5 & 10:
Reduce cycle times.
Similar reasoning to the SRMs, but compounded for LRMs due to AMS and damage spread. No one uses these because LRMs are nice to boat, and we have limited hardpoints that can best be served with lighter SRMs and SSRMs. For mechs that mount just one LRM as a support option instead of boating it, the lighter models of LRMs have to be appealing, and the easiest way to do that is to increase their rof. I would suggest 3.25 seconds for the LRM10 (from 3.75), and 2.5 seconds for the LRM5 (from 3.25).
This would increase their maximum dps, but still leave it behind the LRM15 and 20. They would remain less heat efficient as well, and would actually require more heat sinks to cool due to their better rate of fire. But the dps increase will make them more viable as support weapons being used solo or in pairs, instead of the current situation where mechs go all LRM 15 or 20 or none.
Why its not overpowered: Boats would still be far more head and dps efficient to use 4 15s or 20s instead of 6 5s, so we're not affecting the boating scene at all. All we're doing is allowing mechs who want to have just one or two small launchers for support while they run to their optimal engagement range to be a smidge more effective than they currently are. Currently the LRM 5 and 10 are extinct, giving them just a bit of a niche to fill might put them on the field from time to time. Finally, even though this suggestion would make it vaible for some mechs to mount a pair of LRM 5s and have as much dps as a single LRM20, it would be spread out by so much that anyone mounting AMS would be able to chew up all of their smaller packets of missiles instead of the larger single volley from larger launchers and full boats.
Edited by ExAstris, 10 January 2013 - 11:26 AM.
2
CmndoBrndo, on 08 January 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:
), but this contribution should be noted.
