42 replies to this topic

[Corison]

Oh the books, were they throw out everything that makes sense or was based on any rule for the sake of very bad writing? Got it. No wonder your presentation makes zero sense.

[Krellek]

Corison, on 29 January 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

Oh the books, were they throw out everything that makes sense or was based on any rule for the sake of very bad writing? Got it. No wonder your presentation makes zero sense.

mmmmk

Just so we are on the same page here, we are discussing PGI's interpretation and subsequent implementation of MG's and flamers.

You're basing your argument on core TT rule's where as I am basing my argument on dozens of battletech books.

PGI cannot and will not go word for word with the various pieces of equipment in relation to prior table top (or for that matter pc platform releases) rules / rule sets. They have said as much. They are using everything previously published while trying to stay as true as possible.

In my opinion there are some things that are better addressed by absorbing how they were envisioned by the various battletech authors over the decades. The utility use of MG's and flamers fall under that category. Both are non essential mech equipment that were used in particular circumstances.

At no point is having a flamer or MG dealing excess damage in any form a believable mechanic. A flamer is meant to mitigate the damage output of the targeted mech where as a machine gun is meant to rip apart the interior of exposed mechs (mech on mech).

I am not here to argue what a rule or math mechanic for a game made decades ago says. I am looking at the broad scope of what PGI is using for its source material and trying to come up with a way to explain why they would treat flamers and MG's the way they are.

Edited by Krellek, 29 January 2013 - 04:33 PM.

[Corison]

Krellek, on 29 January 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

I am not here to argue what a rule or math mechanic for a game made decades ago says. I am looking at the broad scope of what PGI is using for its source material and trying to come up with a way to explain why they would treat flamers and MG's the way they are.

That works, I found most of the books very poorly written and enjoyed the TT game a great deal. So I can see why we have very different views on how it should work.

[Krellek]

Corison, on 29 January 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

That works, I found most of the books very poorly written and enjoyed the TT game a great deal. So I can see why we have very different views on how it should work.

Cheers

[Koniving]

Got some new flamer vids up! The Trollbuchet! Note: Screenshot used for the thumbnail is my Trebuchet, as screen-shot by Lordred not even twenty minutes ago. Taken from his spider.



More to be placed here shortly.

Edited by Koniving, 01 March 2013 - 10:42 PM.

[Koniving]

Ialdabaoth, on 02 March 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

Here's the best way to fix flamers:

1. Make trees flammable. A flamer that hits a tree automatically lights it on fire.

2. Trees that are on fire spew smoke in a 30 meter radius around the tree. The smoke disrupts visual and IR sensor modes.

3. Trees within 30 meters of a tree that is on fire have a 5% per second chance of igniting; trees which are on fire have a 5% per second chance of going out.

This is what flamers are for in the TT game, and there is nothing sweeter than lighting a forest on fire and then advancing under cover of the smoke.

Cool as that would be, all of that is defeated by the fact that trees exist on client side only. And none of that has much effect that can't be done by simply having ECM. O.o; Nor does it fix anything about flamers. The issue with flamers is that without using a certain trick (blatantly obvious by how my flamers are set up), flamers generate too much heat to be viable for their PGI-specified intended use.

[Cifrer]

Looking at flamers in the mechlab right now, it generates 0.6 heat, does 0.4 damage, and 0.2 heat damage. Wouldn't it make them more useful if they just flipped the heat gen and the heat damage around?

[Koniving]

My thoughts exactly Cifrer. Or at the very least make them about equal. Of course the heat generation on you can be negated by chainfiring a pair of flamers.

[LiegeOfThePit]

Flamers and MG's are mainly used right now as Crit hitters. Every heat sink weapon, Ammo and so on has Health and if criticaly hit, will be destroyed.

[Corison]

"Crit" hitter weapons is a fairly poor concept in this game. Its simply to easy to destroy the entire section, wasting time on weapons to take out components makes zero sense.

Lets see.. I can add 2 tons for MG's and Ammo and do garbage.. or I can add 2 more ML's which may be enough to take out the entire section.. Yep, good design there.

[Koniving]

New one on flamers. 517 damage in less than 1 minute.



Secret to how flamers work for me, ninja-stealth added to this.
Note, the damage dealt by the flamers using this method is significantly reduces but maximizes the 'blinding' factor and keeps you from shutting down.

Edited by Koniving, 11 March 2013 - 11:04 AM.

[LiegeOfThePit]

Corison, on 03 March 2013 - 08:17 PM, said:

"Crit" hitter weapons is a fairly poor concept in this game. Its simply to easy to destroy the entire section, wasting time on weapons to take out components makes zero sense.

Lets see.. I can add 2 tons for MG's and Ammo and do garbage.. or I can add 2 more ML's which may be enough to take out the entire section.. Yep, good design there.

Not only can it destroy weapons it can destroy engine so lets see two machine gun agains a mech and most of the bullets hit the center torso and the engine takes up most of the slots so for every bullet there's a chance it will crit. So add, what a 70% chance it will hit the engine for every critical hit and there's a 58% chance that the bullet will have a critical hit, not much, right? Now times that by every bullet you hit that mech with. Odds are you will eventually destroy its engine and it won't take that long. So yep, good design there.

Edited by LiegeOfThePit, 20 August 2013 - 08:27 PM.

[BookWyrm]

Flamers are the only weapon that is perfect for that night after you just went out with your buddies, but came home without a guy or gal and are home playing MWO; or maybe your day is finished and you just want to tell those darn kids to get off your lawn. Now is your time, show 'em what you think of them. As ineffectual as it may be, that single person that you overheat and shame into submission will remember it forever.

[Koniving]

Truth be told... the flamers are pretty worthless other than they cause lag on slower computers and make it harder for the enemies to aim at you. For that they are awesome to use. For their intended purpose they are worthless, as they can't even slow down the cooling of a stock mech with 10 SHS.

[BookWyrm]

Koniving, on 20 August 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

Truth be told... the flamers are pretty worthless other than they cause lag on slower computers and make it harder for the enemies to aim at you. For that they are awesome to use. For their intended purpose they are worthless, as they can't even slow down the cooling of a stock mech with 10 SHS.

Yeah well, we can wish, hope, and try at least. The truth is the lava in Mordor (Terra Therma) is probably more effective than a flamer.

Edited by BookWyrm, 20 August 2013 - 10:50 PM.

[Koniving]

BookWyrm, on 20 August 2013 - 10:49 PM, said:

Yeah well, we can wish, hope, and try at least. The truth is the lava in Mordor (Terra Therma) is probably more effective than a flamer.

Very true.


Still, they can be fun to use.

Edited by Koniving, 20 August 2013 - 11:00 PM.

[BookWyrm]

Koniving, on 01 March 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

Got some new flamer vids up! The Trollbuchet! Note: Screenshot used for the thumbnail is my Trebuchet, as screen-shot by Lordred not even twenty minutes ago. Taken from his spider.



More to be placed here shortly.

[Koniving]

I miss when Betty would tell me I was targeted. It would have been so easy to set it as an option to toggle on and off. Ahh.. Back when MGs did 0.4 damage per second, and 0.04 damage per bullet with "almost" no crits and no bonus damage.

Edited by Koniving, 20 August 2013 - 11:23 PM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Flamers ARE fun. I had a HBK-4P with like 4 flamers on it. Trolololololol.

With flamers adding heat to other mechs (I think this has been implemented), one could build a troll spotter with a couple flamers and a Beagle. Overheat an enemy assault/heavy, Beagle keeps it spotted even if it's overheated/shutdown, and let the friendly LRMs rain down.

Especially on large, hot maps, where a lone PUG assault mech could easily get separated from the pack. Easy troll food...

[Koniving]

The trouble is, Rabbi, you can't heat up anyone. Their capacities are too high. You're adding heat to them at a rate of 0.2 per second. You're adding heat to yourself at a rate of 0.6 per second. You'll never heat them faster. Worse, even a trial mech on Terra Therma can sink the heat you're adding faster than you can put it on them with four flamers. So let's pick up 6.

For example 6 flamers: 1.2 heat per second.
They sink 1.0 heat per second with 10 standard heatsinks. Great. Now you have to make them reach 40 heat to shut them down.

Let's say you have 27 DHS + 6 flamers.
You have a capacity of 30 base + 10*2 engine DHS + 17*1.4 chassis DHS = 73.8
You cool at a rate of 73.8 - 30 base = 43.8/10 seconds divided by 10 = 4.38/sec.
That's without unlocks.

You're generating 3.6 heat. You should be able to sink this no problem and be heat neutral. But before punishments applied to any other mech... before Paul even named the heat penalty system... It applied to flamers in closed beta. After running it for a while, you gradually overheat as that 0.6 heat per flamer turns into 1.2 heat /sec, 2.4/sec, 3.6/sec, 4.8/sec, etc.

Worse, it now generates 1 heat/sec to you. Which means it now generates 0.5 heat/sec to them. Okay 6 flamers at 6 heat/sec to you... now can't even be sunken with 4.38/sec cooling and 27 DHS.
Meanwhile you deal 0.5 heat/sec to them, so with 6 it's 3 heat to them.

Okay you might have a chance with 6 flamers. It...just isn't gonna happen though. You might make 'em hit 40, sure.

But the average assault? Has 16 DHS minimum.
You have a capacity of 30 base + 10*2 engine DHS + 6*1.4 chassis DHS = 58.4 + 20% elite heat containment = 70.08.
You cool at a rate of 58.4 - 30 base = 28.4/10 seconds divided by 10 = 2.84/sec + 15% elite cool run = 3.266/sec.
That's with unlocks for just 16. This guy does almost better than you without unlocks, and he's only got 16 DHS. You have 27 and no other weapons.

What really sucks is even with 27 DHS and 1 flamer, you'll still overheat. They won't.

Oh and don't forget... You can't even overheat a mech even if it were really possible.

There's a hard lock at 90%, just like lava. Can't overheat a mech to the point of shutdown because it "isn't fun."