47 replies to this topic

[Drogum Nethar]

I never understood the reason for the extra 2 tons and same weight as a PPC for the LPL. Another example of why 35 yr old desktop board game rules need to be updated. The whole "we must adhere to canon" BS is a stupid response - the rules need to get updated. Hell when the rules were written there were barely any people with home computers. Time for a rules change to update for the times. Why can't i Have a 67 ton catapult? 68 ton? Arbitrary limits on 5 ton steps? The whole rules set is from the dark-ages of the 80"s and needs a refresh.

[Dauphni]

Or why not a 62 ton Catapult? I'd love to see the speed be determined by the engine size divided by actual tonnage, instead of maximum tonnage. It'd be even neater if that calculation took into account stuff like depleted ammo or missing limbs...

[De La Fresniere]

Uite Dauphni, on 10 February 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

Or why not a 62 ton Catapult? I'd love to see the speed be determined by the engine size divided by actual tonnage, instead of maximum tonnage. It'd be even neater if that calculation took into account stuff like depleted ammo or missing limbs...

I remember being enchanted to see that speed was determined by engine power and weight... and extremely puzzled when purposefully leaving a few tons out didn't yield any speed increase.

I suppose it's an artificial money sink. You want to spend tonnage to increase your speed? "Buy a bigger Engine, they're cheap!"

But who knows... the game is still very, very early in development. There's still some insanely dumb, basic things that haven't been looked at... for example, why does every mech have 2 extra points of armor that make you exceed weight just enough to make you waste 0.5 tons? And MGs and Flamers stayed useless for *months*. It's entirely possible a mech's speed will eventually depend on actual tonnage and not max tonnage.

[Stringburka]

MG's and flamers are still useless.

I don't think LPL's are though, and I don't agree at all with "redesign the rules that a lot of people know and love just for the sake of having minor increase in customization". And I don't even know those rules personally, just feel it's a stupid argument to make.

[EmperorMyrf]

The new patch certainly helped LPLs, and I think it's one step from being complete. I feel all that needs to be done now is to significantly reduce the beam length of all pulse lasers. LPLs and MPL could be down to 0.5s and SPLs could be down to 0.25s.

0.25 sounds like it's nearly instant, but it's bigger than it seems. A full speed stock hunchback can spread the beam across its body and then some assuming the firer doesn't change their aim or move.

[De La Fresniere]

Stringburka, on 10 February 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

MG's and flamers are still useless.

Didn't mean to imply they weren't, haha.

Just saying, they're absolutely not shy about leaving some fairly basic issues unresolved for several months, so any potential fix to any issue might be *years* away.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Drogum Nethar, on 09 February 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

I never understood the reason for the extra 2 tons and same weight as a PPC for the LPL. Another example of why 35 yr old desktop board game rules need to be updated. The whole "we must adhere to canon" BS is a stupid response - the rules need to get updated. Hell when the rules were written there were barely any people with home computers. Time for a rules change to update for the times. Why can't i Have a 67 ton catapult? 68 ton? Arbitrary limits on 5 ton steps? The whole rules set is from the dark-ages of the 80"s and needs a refresh.

-2 to hit modifier on your 2d6 attack roll in TT is a huge advantage. Enough so that for a mech with other long range weaponry (LRMs for example) I'd rather have a LPL than a PPC in TT especially if we're talking clan tech.

That being said, some BT rules could use a refresh but the game is fine as is IMO.

Edited by Narcissistic Martyr, 10 February 2013 - 01:52 PM.

[TheFlyingScotsman]

The difference in weight and heat cost for "1" more damage is a very misleading stat. The reason to take an LPL over an LL or an ERLL is to ensure that you deal full damage with the weapon in a shorter firing span. It might not seem like much, but the difference in damage you actually deal with an LPL can be substantially higher than an LL, simply because attacks that miss deal zero damage.

If you can't hit your target, no amount of damage dealing ability will help you.

Personally, I love LPLs, and I run a pair on my Centurion AL. I can get 4 tons from a downgrade, but I would do serious harm to my actual damage dealt in game. Non pulse lasers simply have a harder time with convergance, especially against moving targets, and doubly so against lights. The burst firing makes striking a single component infinitely easier. LLs are more likely to sweep across multipe components, making kills take much longer despite comparable damage.

LPL love!

:3

[Davers]

The two things that they pretty much CANNOT change is weight and crit slots, otherwise none of the stock mechs would add up anymore. That leaves things like range, beam duration, heat, damage, recycle rate, and 'extras' like increased crit chance or EMP effects to balance the weapons.

I think this is only one step towards balancing the large energy weapons. The LPL got a big boost this time, and it will take some time for it to be reevaluated. I think it's close, but there is still something missing. But the answer could be something that we aren't even thinking about, like how they made AC/Gauss better by changing the size of the round.

[Cybermech]

the rules have been changed many of times.
armor and weapons are the main thing to change.
this "pgi are keeping to TP" thing is absolutely wrong and have no idea why such thoughts would be going around

[TheFlyingScotsman]

Cybermech, on 10 February 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

the rules have been changed many of times.
armor and weapons are the main thing to change.
this "pgi are keeping to TP" thing is absolutely wrong and have no idea why such thoughts would be going around

Yep. Armor is slated to have different types with certain values. (Such as reflective or ablative.)

[Ratpoison]

They're very situational. I run 2 LPLs, 2 MLAS, and 2 SSRM2s on my Centurion CN9-AL and play it as a bug killer. So far it's been very effective. The LPLs are great at killing bugs. If you build with them and use them to that end, you might find use of them. Otherwise, they're honestly too heavy to be worth using.

[Stringburka]

Davers, on 10 February 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

The two things that they pretty much CANNOT change is weight and crit slots, otherwise none of the stock mechs would add up anymore. That leaves things like range, beam duration, heat, damage, recycle rate, and 'extras' like increased crit chance or EMP effects to balance the weapons.

Add to that that they avoid changing range, damage (and to some extent heat) due to cannon reasons (but do if really needed) and changes that are most likely to be seen are beam duration and recycle rate (and "extras").
Beam duration of .25/.5/.5 for the S/M/L pulse lasers seem a good fit, if they really need a boost. MPL's are the strongest as is, which is logical since they're based on regular medlasses and those are excellent.

Cybermech, on 10 February 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

the rules have been changed many of times.
armor and weapons are the main thing to change.
this "pgi are keeping to TP" thing is absolutely wrong and have no idea why such thoughts would be going around

It's not "pgi are keeping to CBT", it's more "pgi tries to keep to CBT where other methods can be used to circumvent an issue, not breaking CBT rules unless they firmly believe it'll improve gameplay enough to offset the loss of traditionalists".
In other words, if X is unbalanced and that can be solved either by breaking CBT rules or by not breaking CBT rules they'll usually not break the CBT rules.

[Noruka]

the problem is that its rarely worth the extra 2 weight per laser and added heat over the large laser. Ya the shorter beam is better but its not worth ~150 range, 2 tons and the added heat sinks with the 2 ton of extra weight you can have with a LL over a LPL. 1 damage isnt worth all those negatives, even with the shorter beam time.

The only type of mech i can see using it without getting laughed at would be a short range assault that just has extra weight and is an all medium range brawler (~270). Other than that its a waste

[Ravennus]

Davers, on 10 February 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

The two things that they pretty much CANNOT change is weight and crit slots, otherwise none of the stock mechs would add up anymore.

I keep reading this.... over and over and over....

Yet, I have never once read a proper explanation.
I'm sorry... but can someone enlighten me as to why the stock mechs need to be EXACTLY like the TT stock mechs?

Heck, there are already examples of stock mechs being different than TT. Namely, mechs that had rear-facing weaponry either lost it outright or had it switched to the front.
So we already have a precedence.


Personally, I like the LPL now. My only suggestion would be that they should be 6 tons, and not 7.
That would be a nice sweet spot between the LLAS and the PPC.

Heaven forbid they one day fix the wacky convergence and hit detection issues with PPCs. Once that happens, the Large Pulse Laser will be largely ignored again.

[Dark Baron]

I would love to use pulse lasers but unfortunately I just can't justify their use in any of my builds because the LL is just superior in every way except for 1 point of damage. The weight alone is what keeps them out of my builds, more so than the heat ever did. For that 1 extra point of damage, your sacrificing 150m off their base range, extra heat, although now not as much, and 2 extra tons. Those 2 extra tons start adding up very quickly when you're putting multiples on a mech. That's extra ammo, extra heat sinks, extra armor, extra engine, I just always manage to find something more important my build needs than a few extra points of damage they provide and always end up sticking with LLs

[Flapdrol]

The damage/heat is better than normal large lasers, the dps is also better. So it's a space saver, but with a big weight and range disadvantage.

[Dark Baron]

TheFlyingScotsman, on 10 February 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

The difference in weight and heat cost for "1" more damage is a very misleading stat. The reason to take an LPL over an LL or an ERLL is to ensure that you deal full damage with the weapon in a shorter firing span. It might not seem like much, but the difference in damage you actually deal with an LPL can be substantially higher than an LL, simply because attacks that miss deal zero damage.

If you can't hit your target, no amount of damage dealing ability will help you.

Personally, I love LPLs, and I run a pair on my Centurion AL. I can get 4 tons from a downgrade, but I would do serious harm to my actual damage dealt in game. Non pulse lasers simply have a harder time with convergance, especially against moving targets, and doubly so against lights. The burst firing makes striking a single component infinitely easier. LLs are more likely to sweep across multipe components, making kills take much longer despite comparable damage.

LPL love!

:3

I keep hearing this over and over and I've never noticed it. So I just went in and did a test run on my DRG-5N and put bother a LL and an LPL on the left arm and bound them both to the same key to test it and, quite frankly, they both have the same burst duration. IDK why people keep saying the LPL has a shorter firing span, but when you fire them both together, you'll notice that they do not have a shorter firing span than the LL.

[Stringburka]

I think they keep saying that because all official info we have is saying that. Not at home so can't research right now, but are you 100% sure on this? In that case it's a bug - SL, LPL and MPL should have .75 sec duration, ML and LL should have 1 sec duration and SPL should have .5 sec duration.

[Rippthrough]

Anony Mouse, on 09 February 2013 - 05:49 AM, said:

Dont forget standard PPC have a 90M minimum range, no good in a knife fight. Also don't LPLs recycle faster?

90m is the minimum they do full damage at, they still do respectable damage below that. I'd take a PPC over the LPL's every time, more range, better alpha, no beam duration for the same weight.
To me LPL's need to be the same weight as a large laser and make the heat and range the tradeoff.