116 replies to this topic

[Deamhan]

The balance of weapons are pretty complex. The rate of fire for the ballistics are suppose to be faster and they generate less heat. This means that their dps should be higher. The offset to this is that they are heavier, take up more slots and weight more. Are they balanced? I don't know.

But the two problems I face when trying to load out my mech is weight and space. Now I run endo, ferrous, dbl hs and a std 315 engine and I try and max out my armor rating. So not much room for space and weight. I could drop the ferro to free up space but at the cost of protection. I can drop the switch out the engine to free up weight but at the cost to speed.

So the real question is, 'should they be balanced' and for that the answer should be no. Not exactly. The balance they need to focus on is between a mech's firepower, speed, armor, and heat efficiency all the while being restricted by weight.

If you have the hardpoint, room and weight, use a good ballistic. But if the space is shared between a ballistic or an energy, it may be better to go with using just one of the hardpoint instead of both. It all has to do with the balance between the mechs stats.

[Tranceraver]

Deamhan, on 11 January 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

But the two problems I face when trying to load out my mech is weight and space.

thats always been the fun with Mechwarrior do i go for survivability, speed, damage, a balance somewhere in that mix??? over balancing the game just destroys what made the game so much fun.... heck i used to love running in a daiashi with 3 ac/20s and 2 ac/10s it was big fat slow as hell and really not that hard to kill but if i hit u...... oh **** was coming off ur mech!

Edit: and as for the rate of fire on autocannons wait till the release the ultra versions and then clan versions(if they decide to release that content) they where made to address the short comings of big heavy slow firing cannons

Edited by Tranceraver, 11 January 2013 - 09:09 PM.

[Lightfoot]

ROFL!!

Ballistics are the OP weapon in MWO. Not subject to overheat or ammo shortage unless you plan to run out. And they do the best damage type for taking down mechs. If you can't aim them then what can you aim? I can't think of anything easier to hit with that doesn't have a lock-on.

[Valore]

Lightfoot, on 11 January 2013 - 09:32 PM, said:

ROFL!!

Ballistics are the OP weapon in MWO. Not subject to overheat or ammo shortage unless you plan to run out. And they do the best damage type for taking down mechs. If you can't aim them then what can you aim? I can't think of anything easier to hit with that doesn't have a lock-on.

Lasers.

[ConnorSinclair]

QuantumButler, on 11 January 2013 - 08:41 PM, said:

Dude smart people have known this since Closed Beta.

>Smart people

I figured this out from playing a week of the game,

I'm about to go '98 eminem on these forums.

[Doc Holliday]

Honestly, I think ballistics are fine with the exception of the MG. Sure they weigh a lot. But they do direct damage and are fairly low on heat. Sure lasers are lighter, but you will always run into heat issues unless you downsize them so much you're doing less than half as much damage as you'd be doing with ballistics. Take for example the double AC 20 cat build. I tried replicating that with ER PPCs (can't do it with regular PPCs as you'll run into issues with minimum range). Put 4 ER PPCs on my stalker to get that same 40 instant damage. So much heat. You can't fire them as frequently and you can't fit any other backup weaponry. You just never have enough crits and tonnage to fit enough heatsinks. Lasers do better with heat, but it's extremely difficult, bordering on impossible, to consistently get all the damage to hit one section on a moving target. With practice, you can take out a fast-moving light mech with one volley of double AC 20. One shot. Heck you could probably even do it with double AC 10's or one 20.That's utterly impossible to do with lasers.

[Ursh]

AC2 needs heat relief.

When I use 3 of them on my Dragon 5N, they're creating more heat than 12 dhs can compensate for while I'm running. That's absolutely ridiculous.

[Solomon Ward]

TruePoindexter, on 11 January 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

I would like to add an idea I've had for awhile for LBX... What if it was set so that the damage ramped up from 1 per pellet to 2 per pellet at longer range. E.G. an individual pellet would reach its maximum damage at 540m. From there it could ramp down to 0 at 2x range instead of the 3x range that other ballistics enjoy. This would make the weapon worth shooting at range but keep it from being too powerful in close combat. The actual numbers may need to be adjusted.

They intend to make the LBX/10 a critical hit weapon - which is an awesome decision.
Prefer it over your idea.It´s a shotgun !

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 09 January 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

I'm starting work on it right now.  Paul already mentioned in Command Chair.
http://mwomercs.com/...apon-balancing/

MG will become the first critical hit weapon. The LBX will get the same treatment as well.

It will be given a huge critical hit multiplier similar to what it does in TT rules.

So against armor the MachineGun will remain useless (but fun to use dammit!).  But as soon as armor is gone and it starts tearing into 'flesh' it will be given a big critical hit damage multiplier.

It will literally rip apart the insides of a unprotected component.

Hope you like it.


Release Date : January 29th 2013 or so.

My only gripe with ACs is just the ammunition per ton
They doubled armor but didn´t double ammunition.


And the jam chance of the UAC/5 is a tad to high

Edited by Solomon Ward, 12 January 2013 - 12:45 AM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

why are we arguing this over, garth showed up, a rare appearence and has said i agree and the devs will probebrly act on it. if gauss and ac20 cq owning wasn't enough we'll see more 4xultraac5 and 3x ac10 boaters now. hope everyone likes it.

[Malora Sidewinder]

I could never fully agree with DPS arguments, as i think DPS is actually almost made fully irrelevant by pilot skill.
with an atlas running 2 medium pulse, 2 large lasers, and a single gauss, i would average probably 600 damage per game, with 1100+ happening a few times.

DPS says that my atlas is horrible. but yet since i'm actually a very good player, i compensate and take out people with much higher dps.

you could make the argument that i'd do even better with a stronger build with higher dps.
i'd disagree. i'd say that my build rewards skillful player at a much higher level than builds with higher dps, which reward only minimally.

[Zakie Chan]

Its not about better or worse. It is a matter of honor.


Landing an ac/20 round on a 3L trying to circle jerk you is a magical experience.

[Yokaiko]

Korochun, on 11 January 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

Or just have it fire a solid slug that explodes into shrapnel in proximity to targets, with some bonus damage if you hit it right on (like 3 damage for a solid hit/10 pellets?).

'cause in the fluff that's what LBX actually does.

Yeah, all of the range on the LBX is useless because of the come, unless the come is the size of an assault at 500m no one is going to use the LBX....unless you give it slug ammo and then its going to be a choice at least.

Dual LBX set ups can work, but you have to be inside 50m to do any medium damage.

[Yokaiko]

Zakie Chan, on 12 January 2013 - 01:09 AM, said:

Its not about better or worse. It is a matter of honor.


Landing an ac/20 round on a 3L trying to circle jerk you is a magical experience.

Yes, AC20 to the grill makes me very very happy.

[MustrumRidcully]

If you want to do math... You'll still just at a starting point.

Consider for example - how much damage do you need to deal to destroy an enemy mech? What kind of weapon loadouts are possible with existing weapons and how fast can they reach the required damage?
It's not enough to consider just weapon weight, you also need to consider heat sink weights, free engine heat sinks, ammo cost, and how many enemies you wish to engage.


Here is one example of doing it. It doesn'T yet to all of what would be necessary in my opinion. I still haven't calculated the synergy potential of mixing a low number of energy weapons combined with ballistic or missile weapons. And I am ont acutally looking for the fastest way to kill an enemy - just the lightest way, basically, within a certain time, damage goal constraint and overall number of engagements.

MustrumRidcully, on 08 December 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

The Long Part

Methodology
The charts below are assembled based on the known weapon properties like rate of fire, damage per shot, ammo requirements, ammo per ton and so on. The underlying spreadsheet was made in Excel, but has been exported to GoogleDocs and can be viewed online. (To edit it and put in your own figures, you can download it or export it as your own document.)

Spoiler

The efficiency calculation is based on the idea of equipping a mech with only one type of weapon and determining its damage output and its weight cost. To determine the number of weapons, heat sinks and ammo the mech needs, certain target numbers for engagement length (it must be able to fire at least that long), engagement damage (it must deal at least this amount of damage in that time), and number of engagements (it must hold enough ammo to last through this number of engagements of the specified length and targeted damage.)

I consider the special double heat sink rules (different values for in-engine heat sinks and out-of-engine heat sinks).

Step 1) Determine how many weapons would be required to achieve the targeted damage goal in the targeted engagement time.
Step 2) Determine how much heat sinks would be required to let the mech last through the targeted engagement time, firing all equipped weapons constantly
Step 3) Determine how much ammo would be needed for the required number of engagements and the above constraints.
Step 4) Determine the total weight of the weapons, heat sinks and ammo. For this, we account also that there will be engine heat sinks (in my calculations, I assume a 250 rated engine for 10 engine heat sinks.)
Step 5) Determine the actual damage the weapons will put out in the targeted engagement time. (This will often be more than the minimum damage.)
Step 6) Divide Total Damage by Weight to determine the efficiency.

The targeted engagement times I used for these calculations are 15 seconds, 20 seconds and 30 seconds. 15 seconds seems to me at the low end - something more typical for a sniper-like engagements. In such engagements, heat will be less of a problem, but you will need more such engagements to actually destroy something. 20 to 30 second seem to be reasonably estimates for a brawl engagement where either one side is killed after the duration, or the sides retreat again.

I have created basically 6 Targeted Engagement Time Scenarios - two for each time interval, with different damage target numbers. One set of damage target numbers is designed around a relatively high DPS value that can likely be only sustained by heavy to assault mech chassises, while the second set of damage target numbers is designed around a lower DPS, suitable for light to medium mechs. WIthin 3 targeted engagement time for low or high DPS, I also put the targeted number of engagements so that thte total damage output should be the same (and also the total ammo consumptions.)

The rationale here is: If you want to beat an equally skilled or possibly even better skilled opponent, your best chance to do so is to ensure that you deliver more damage than he does during the engagements. The values I picked seemed "doable" by sufficient number of weapons that it made sense to use them.

Things I do not model
The different firing behavior between ballistic, lasers, ppcs and guided and unguided missiles could be interesting to analyze. For now, I treat them all as equal. It is possible add special weapon performance modifiers based on this.

I also don't model range here. Instead, I've sorted weapons by range - ideally, if everythnig was balanced, the efficiency should reduce proportional with range.

Things I model implicitely - at least a bit
Some people may point out that the rate of fire of a weapon can change a lot about how powerful it is, even if technically, the output of two weapons may be the same.
I model this implicitely - I actually calculate the number of shots you can fire in the targeted time frame, starting from the first second - that means weapons already have dealt their base damage on 0 seconds (so if I'd made an efficiency model based on a TET of 0, it would actually result in a non-zero efficiency.) It also means that the damage may be "cut off" - if the weapon would have made a shot on second 21 but I track only 20 seconds, it only gets those shots. By tendency, this would give weapons with a low rate of fire but equal DPS a small advantage (but beware, it also affects their heat).

The Charts and the Observations
I provide charts for the damage efficiency first. The efficiency value is a bit abstract, however - so there are additional charts that simply describe the weight in tons that would be required for this weapon. This should give you an idea how much tonnage you need to actually invest to make your mech work well.

High Damage (Suitable for Heavy to Assault Mech Chassis)


As a general note - we tend to see a somewhat downwards sloping efficiency with range, though it is only a weak trend. That is something we want to see, as longer range is an advantage that my efficiency calculation itself doesn't track, so instead it must be represented by a low efficiency value in the chart. The exact angle of the slope that we'd need is something that would still need some analysis (If I had an answer for that already, I would have worked range in the efficiency calculation itself, and the efficiency curve should be parallel to the x-axis.)

Notable here is how bad Flamer, Machine Gun and the ER PPC is. THe PPC, ER Large Laser, Large Pulse Laser and Small Pulse Laser also stick out as weak weapons.

The Medium Pulse Laser should be better than the Medium Laser, since it has an even shorter range, but here the question may be - is it perhaps the Medium Laser that needs a nerf? The Laser generates a lot of heat per point of damage, but it also deals a lot of damage per ton. IT may be wise to adjust his damage (and heat) down, to justify his low weight.

The Small Laser looks extreme efficient. It may be questionable whether this is ever aconcern - in the end, even the most extreme laser boats from canon don't seem to carry much more than 12 lasers (The Nova), so we may never have to fear a small laser boat.

The AC/10 is weaker than the Large Laser in shorter engagements - this may warrant a buff for the AC/10, since it seems to be its ballistic brother.

The Ultra Auto-Cannon numbers are weird. I put in the weapon twice, once trying to use its single shot mode and fire rate, and once trying to use its double shot mode, which also brings with itself jamming. THere is some margin for error in this, since the jamming mechanics are not well documented and analyzed yet - but it seems all wrong to me. Assuming the weapon could be fired without jamming in single shot mode (it cannot), shouldn't it fire just as fast as the regular AC/5 and thus be a little less efficient than the AC/5 (since its heavier?), and shouldn it not gain in the double shot mode?

The Gauss Rifle doesn't seem as great as it sometimes perceived. I believe a big factor in the favoritism of the Gauss Rifle was that there was only one mech that could field 2 of the larger ballistic weapons - the Catapult K2. And the Gauss Rifle still has the highest DPS of all available mechs, and the highest alpha strike damage, and still allow an XL Engine. The AC/20 high crit slot requirements make it less attractive for these purposes, and it's low range doesn't help it either. With the Cataphract we now have a mech that can field other ballistic weapon combinations, for example Quad AC/5 - this opens up new opportunities, and at least allows to surpass the Dual Gauss Rifle's damage output (even if not its alpha strike capability.)

The missiles seem to operate in an entirely different playing field. Is this warranted? Maybe, they tend to spread their damage, and some of them have unique locking mechanics. Still, it seems a bit off, and one wonders if adjustments aren't necessary.


Low Damage (Suitable for Low to Medium Mech Chassis)

The Medium Laser and SMall Laser once again stick out among the ballistic and energy weapons as extremely efficient. Very few weapons can compete here, and it overall seems as if as a light or medium mech, medium or smalls should make out the most out of your weapon arsenal. It may be noticeable here that the Medium Laser has the same efficiency for all targeted engagement times - that basically means that the build required for these "TETs" doesn't actually need any extra heat sinks - its engine double heat sinks are sufficient.



High Damage Weight Requirements

It's notable that you can achieve a lot of damage with little weight. It should be obvious that the low figures for the engagment time fo 15 second is primarily possible with the engine heat sinks.
It is notable again how little you need for a good damage output with medium or small lasers, and how much you need for PPCs, Pulse LAsers and ER Lasers. The heat is really costly.

Maybe as a tip to understand some figures - when a weapon does have the same weight requirement for every targeted engagement time, it probably needs no additional heat sinks to avoid overheating in the targeted engagement time. I set the targeted engagement number and the targeted engagement durations so that the same amount of ammo and damage would be achieved after all engagements - based on the assumptions that you still need to bring the same damage potential to defeat your opponents, whether you do it with 15 second potshots or 30 second brawls.

This may also suggest that these builds will be able to sustain their fire even longer than the targeted engagement time, which can be very handy if you cannot retreat in time - or allow you to add just one or two twons of extra weight for a side weapon.
Low Damage Weight Requirements

The low damage figure is really low -with smalls or mediums it's extremely trival to achieve and doesn't need many additional heat sinks. It seems very unwise to take much larger weapons, the jump is too extremle. The "Gauss Raven" doesn't look like such a great idea here - and it's questionable that the range advantage is that great in practice.
Contrasting Low and High Damage Weight Requirements





One observation I take from this is - being heavy isn't all that attractive damage-wise - you can already deal a lot of damage with low weight weapons. Maybe that#s a reason why Mediums remain so popular? It'S not just the lag shield, the light mechs can only use the ligher weapons, bu the lighter weapons are much more efficient and you can get powerful damage builds out of them, allowing you to fight enemies above your weight class.

General Conclusion

Ballistics look relatively good, though some could need a little help. Energy weapons seem to be in extremes - the Large Laser now looks good, but the medium and small laser too good, while the ER Large Laser, the pulse lasers and the PPCs need help.

MG and Flamer are extremely weak, so it's no surprise we don't really see them anymore on the battlefield.

If you didn't see any big surprises here and all knew this already and wonder what's all the fuss and charts are about - remember that these are charts based on mathematical properties. They are not anecdotical data or server statistics. But if they seem to fit what you already observed - the methodology may be sound.

If you look at this:




You will notice that Medium Laser are basically the most efficient weapon you can possibly equip. Thanks to free engine (double) heat sinks, you need very little for them. But as you go up in range, you will see that ballistic weapons look far better. Basically, once you star tusing weapons with a range of 540m or more, Auto-Cannons are superior. And if you consider even longer engagement times, the difference changes even more in favor of the Auto-Cannons. (The damage/weight efficiency charts describe this better, as I contrast different engagement durations here):

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 12 January 2013 - 04:44 AM.

[ArmandTulsen]

Zakie Chan, on 12 January 2013 - 01:09 AM, said:

Its not about better or worse. It is a matter of honor.


Landing an ac/20 round on a 3L trying to circle jerk you is a magical experience.

Best feeling in the game used to be coring a jenner with the AC/20 who's circle jerking. Now it's the 3L's turn.

[MustrumRidcully]

I think the real felt imbalance is due to the Medium Laser. It's also the likely reason why we didn'T get DHS 2.0 - the Devs feared what lights and mediums could do with Medium Lasers then. But they completely missed that this significant benefit would only apply tot he Medium Laser, and other weapons (not even its closest neighbors, the medium or large pulse laser) would benefit like that.

[Blue Boutique]

Ursh, on 11 January 2013 - 11:47 PM, said:

AC2 needs heat relief.

When I use 3 of them on my Dragon 5N, they're creating more heat than 12 dhs can compensate for while I'm running. That's absolutely ridiculous.

I've got a 3 Ac/2 Hunchback setup and manage the heat just fine. If the heat gets too high, reduce firing three cannons to two or just make sure you're hitting instead of wasting ammo.

Edited by Blue Boutique, 12 January 2013 - 05:13 AM.

[Craftyman]

rgreat, on 11 January 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

Also UAC jam mechanics need to be redone.
Simple random chance to jam (high one) make it completely unpredictable and unpractical to use in double shots, as it effectively do LESS DPS that way.

We need something better, like ultra-autocannon overheat level, where chance of jam raise from 0 to 100%, as long as you shooting non stop, but it get back down to 0% after you allow UAC5 to cool down.

Even simpler just have your jam chance be directly related to your heat with 50% chance at 100% heat and 0% jam at 0% heat.

And i agree completely with the op NOONE uses ac/5s or 2s because they are far too much weight for too little gain

Edited by Craftyman, 12 January 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[SVK Puskin]

It is only matter of practise and i like my LB 10-X AC.

[kilgor]

The only ballistic weapon I primarily use is the Gauss Rifle, but I tend to be on the other end of multiple UAC/5 combos, so I will add, that making changes would be fine as long as the bullets hitting us doesn't obscure our view so much. Since the UAC/5 has a high rate of fire, the constant visual obscurity from getting hit makes it hard to target and fight back. But, then again I feel that short of hitting us directly in the cockpit, I don't see why any shot from any weapon hit should obscure our vision.