97 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

MuonNeutrino, on 09 February 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

This doesn't stop boats. It just stops you from firing large numbers of *any* weapons at a time. Sure, it'd also knock out the PPC boats, but that'd be more in the way of collateral damage. The heat system doesn't care where your heat comes from - the 24 points of heat generated when that catapult fires its 6 SRM6s is the exact same as the 24 points of heat generated when a stock HBK-4SP fires its 4 mlas + 2 SRM6s. If you try to penalize the catapult for 'boating' by reducing heat capacity enough that firing that battery of SRMs causes issues, you do the exact same thing to a perfectly normal stock design like the 4SP.

There are two big benefits from boating

1) You take only the best weapon there is, so compared to a "balanced" loadout that also mixes weaker weapons, you get the most performance benefit.
2) ALl weapons fire at the same speed, with the same range - you can always alpha, allowing you to benefit from convergence. Meaning highest precision against your enemy.

Lowering the heat capacity can at least make the 2nd part more difficult, as a high heat weapon setup will bring you over the heat capacity. If you have the dissipation for it, you could still fire their weapons at their full DPS, but you must build ina delay between weapons. Meaning you don't benefit from convergence as much, and spread your damage more.

The only flaw is that not all weapons are so heat-intensive that this will work. A Gauss RIfle or a bunch of SRM6s will never spike as much in heat has a few Large Lasers or PPCs.

But there are other reasons why we could use a better dissipation, as the current system makes energy weapons more expensive than they "should" be, leading to people improving stock mechs by taking out guns and replacing them with heat sinks, leading overall to mechs having less weapons than typical for Battletech. (ANd I a not just talking about the weird weapon potpourri-of-weapon stock mechs here - I am talking about "canon" boats like the HBK 4P or the AWS-8Q).
And the high capacity also unduely benefits low-heat weapons, because you simply don't need to worry about dissipation - you have 40 or 50 heat capacity to use up before you worry about cooling off, likely you can fire 3-5 salvos and kill an enemy before heat ever turns into an issue.

[Xyroc]

We need to stop boats? Why? and for the record never built a 6 ppc stalker or 6 srm6 cat. They are both all or nothing mechs easy to beat you just have to know when and how to get your team to take them out.

[RedMercury]

The only way to stop boats is to remove customization, which I think is crap and not battletech anyway.

[Cantatta]

Battletech is all about trade-offs and there is no perfect build in any weight class or chassis variant. In competent hands, almost any weapon combo can be lethal. Boats have weaknesses, just like any other buiild. Get inside an LRM boats minimum range and he is useless. A PPC mech is more dangerous up close, but mechs that can boat PPCs tend to be heavy or assault, so they are slow and hard to maneuver.

I don't think there is any single mech/weapon-combo in this game that is seriously OP, at least not right now. Pilot skill accounts for a great deal, knowing the mech and weapons, the capabilities as well as the limitations. The 'best' build in the game is ***** when driven by an unskilled pilot. When driven by a skilled pilot, as a member of a team with some cohesion, they can be very effective, by comparison.

[Hedonism Robot]

To reduce boating they could simply add more heat depending on how many of the same weapon are fired within a windowed time. They do not have to make this coefficient huge or anything just minor enough so that optimized mechs use multiple weapon systems. Its not unbelievable either as having to fire 6 ppcs worth of energy at once or firing a salvo of 6 SRM 6's from a catapult simultaneously would put the mechs internal structures under additional stress.

[1453 R]

Planting six PPCs on a Stalker shouldn't be a thing. The Clans put four of them on an OmniMech of equivalent weight and it was bad enough, even when people expected ClOmnis to be terrifying. I should not have to worry about finding more firepower on a Succession Wars chassis than I do on a top-end OmniMech of the same weight.

I'm all for customization and piloting the 'Mech you want to pilot, but the "weapon potpourri" thing is not stock designers being idiots, it's stock designers having to work within constraints and towards goals the average MWO player doesn't even know about, let alone acknowledge. If you had to put together a Stalker that needed to be able to fight anywhere, from Caustic Valleys to Frozen Cities, and needed to not only be able to handle itself there but also be able to accomplish military objectives, you know what you wouldn't do? Put six LRM launchers or six PPCs on it, junk-all for other weapons, and then yell at your teammates if they didn't manage to stop something with a big autocannon or some pulse lasers from getting close to you and ripping your fifteen million C-bill Calliope-turret-wannabe to shreds.

Solaris-style deathmatching is all well and good, but I maintain that the real solution to stopping overspecialized boats is to introduce enough alternative game modes and maps that you need to be able to handle just as wide a variety of situations as an actual soldier would. Furthermore, incentivize playing the "Any" selector with a C-bill boost post-match - say, 15% additional money for having played a random gametype match rather than specifically selecting Assault so that your 6 PPC Stalker can boost your K/D ratio some more.

Because really...the Splattercat A1 is an unfortunate side effect of LRMs getting their guts ripped out, but every time I see a big, beautiful Stalker carrying nothing but PPCs, or massive LRM launchers and a few small lasers, I just die a little inside. That 'Mech could be doing so much more if its pilot only let it. BLAAAAAHHH.....

Edited by 1453 R, 09 February 2013 - 10:02 AM.

[HiplyRustic]

Torpedo, that is all.



I do own a boat, I'll admit it. I have a 5ML/5SMR6 stalker that comes out once in a while after I have taken an SRMCat to the face.

Edited by HiplyRustic, 09 February 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

1453 R, on 09 February 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

Because really...the Splattercat A1 is an unfortunate side effect of LRMs getting their guts ripped out, but every time I see a big, beautiful Stalker carrying nothing but PPCs, or massive LRM launchers and a few small lasers, I just die a little inside. That 'Mech could be doing so much more if its pilot only let it. BLAAAAAHHH.....

The Splatcat exists almost exactly in canon as the Butterbee, the only difference being the swapping of two launchers for a pair of MLAS due to using the C4 rather than the A1 chassis (a mech I've seen replicated in game to boot). And carrying huge LRM launchers but a smaller laser compliment on a Stalker isn't even boating, it's just up-scaling a CPLT-C4.

A quick skim through Sarna shows a bunch of examples of mechs centric around 'boating' a single weapon, so I'm not really sure where the 'purist' hatred of them comes from.

As for the 'real military applications' thing...most modern MBTs 'boat' a HEAP-firing gun.

[Grumbling Coot]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 February 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

Trst me Heat sinks are NOT working up to TT standards. My Pretty Baby with 2 PPCs and 2 SRM6(28 heat running) and 21 Dubs(42 Heat disipation TT) should never even come close to overheating on Caustic Valley, Alpha Striking in the Cauldron! But I can overheat in Ice Colony! A Thug fires the same payload nonstp on 16 Dubs TT. Funny thing is it did it since it's introduction back in the 80s.

Maybe they should also change cool downs so that every weapon can only fire once every ten seconds. Oooh! and then they could get rid of the maps we're using and put our mechs on little hex boards where we're only allowed to move in discrete steps...

Or (just a thought) you could not fire quite as often when you're running hot.

[Chou Senwan]

My suggestion, which no one would ever go for, is to Force Chainfire. As in, if you have 6 weapons, you have to shoot them one at a time.

[Joseph Mallan]

Grumbling Coot, on 09 February 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

Maybe they should also change cool downs so that every weapon can only fire once every ten seconds. Oooh! and then they could get rid of the maps we're using and put our mechs on little hex boards where we're only allowed to move in discrete steps...

Or (just a thought) you could not fire quite as often when you're running hot.

A turn is 10 seconds So between the moving a single shot of your weapons and cooldown 10 seconds. Why is that so hard to fathom.Now that time was pulled out of thin air to give an idea of what a turn was.
So a turn should be, the length of time it takes to fire your weapon Plus recycle (LRM20 4.75 seconds) sinks shouls take 5 seconds while you recycle. Tada 6 second turn complete. Forgot to compensate for lasers beam duration.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 February 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[Redmond Spiderhammer]

I hate to say it, as I find some boats as frustrating as the next guy, but boats are part of battletech.. always have been. A number of chassis are designed around boating principles. There really shouldn't be any effort made to curtail the ability to boat, as much as it sucks sometimes. You just have to remember that a boat is a one trick pony that excels at one thing and do your best to tackle it where its weak.. I know.. easier said than done. Boating only magnifies poor weapon balance, fix the core balance issue and the boating causes less imbalance.

[Joseph Mallan]

1453 R, on 09 February 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

Planting six PPCs on a Stalker shouldn't be a thing. The Clans put four of them on an OmniMech of equivalent weight and it was bad enough, even when people expected ClOmnis to be terrifying. I should not have to worry about finding more firepower on a Succession Wars chassis than I do on a top-end OmniMech of the same weight.

You won't, Clan weapons are lighter so we will still be able to mount more and they are also 50% more powerful. so a Brace of 4 CERPPCs are quite more powerful and you should be ready for that increase of leatality.

[Redmond Spiderhammer]

Chou Senwan, on 09 February 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

My suggestion, which no one would ever go for, is to Force Chainfire. As in, if you have 6 weapons, you have to shoot them one at a time.

well they could 'encourage' chain fire by adding a small heat multiplier for group firing based on the number of weapons in the group. I wouldnt be in favor of only allowing chain fire

[MacSquizzy]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 February 2013 - 07:46 AM, said:

Bane
THE Boating pinicle.

Sarna.net said:

This long-range, direct-fire support 'Mech is armed with ten Ultra Autocannon/2s. This weapon has one of the longest ranges in the Clan arsenal, so the Bane can stand back at extreme range and pepper an enemy unit with impunity. Four tons of ammunition keep the 'Mech well-supplied.

This made me laugh - four tons of ammo on ten AC/2s, let alone UAC/2s, would last about 15 seconds of continuous fire in MWO.

Edited by Caelen Rivers, 09 February 2013 - 10:48 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Caelen Rivers, on 09 February 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

[/size][/font][/color]

This made me laugh - four tons of ammo on ten AC/2s, let alone UAC/2s, would last about 15 seconds of continuous fire in MWO.[/color]

Drop one AC then...

[Chou Senwan]

Encouragement could work. Like have 2 heat bars. One is current total temperature, and one is the 'safe heat addition' limit. Your mech only shuts down when the total heat gets too high, but if you spike too much heat at once, the mech's HUD goes out and all your firing groups are scrambled.

And there could be a small alert, like a Red bar surrounding your firing group at the bottom right if you've selected so many weapons that they'll short you out if you fire them all at once.

[Commander Kobold]

Cantatta, on 09 February 2013 - 09:43 AM, said:

The 'best' build in the game is ***** when driven by an unskilled pilot.

False, I made an alt account just to build an SRM 6 cat (for venting after i get stomped too many time ) I let my friend who has never touched/heard of the mech warrior franchise before and with little to no teaching (i told him about the max range ect) he was able to get 3 kills in one match with little to no effort on his part.

Caelen Rivers, on 09 February 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

[/size][/font]

This made me laugh - four tons of ammo on ten AC/2s, let alone UAC/2s, would last about 15 seconds of continuous fire in MWO.

(providing your aim is good) thats 20 damage to one area in (possible) machinegun fire...that's more terrifying than ssrm 6s ._.

[TwigTech]

I don't see the problem with boats. They've always been in battletech, and always been in past Mechwarrior titles. PPC boats always overheat, and if you can get within that 90 meter range they're next to useless. Same goes for LRM boats - I run a LRM Stalker right now, and I'm absolutely helpless when anything bigger than a Spider gets inside my missile range. I get knocked down by speedy Centurions more than any other mech.

Balanced mechs give me a bigger run for my money. A Large Laser / SRM / AC20 Atlas is much more terrifying than any PPC Stalker I've confronted. My most successful mechs are mixed builds, and my boats all invariably have a hard counter that I acknowledge and accept as a balancing factor. Instead of trying to nerf boats, come into the battle knowing what mechs you can engage and which ones you can't handle. Exploit the weaknesses of their weaponry, be patient, and the battle's usually your's.

Edited by TwigTech, 09 February 2013 - 11:06 AM.

[Commander Kobold]

Gaan Cathal, on 09 February 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

As for the 'real military applications' thing...most modern MBTs 'boat' a HEAP-firing gun.

I don't think you can be considered boating when you only have 2-3 different weapons.

Edited by Omni 13, 09 February 2013 - 11:09 AM.