13 replies to this topic

[WinnieTheWhor]

Arguable, the flamer is the most overpowered weapon in the game when used correctly. It can totally disable a mech if used long enough. This is understandably avoidable because it promotes play that makes the game not fun.

HOWEVER. The flamer should do one thing, even if it doesn't overheat an enemy mech: detonate their ammunition. Fire makes ammo explode, it's kind of how ballistics work (excluding the gauss). If I heat that portion of your mech to a certain point, it should get a higher and higher chance to detonate the ammunition in that portion.

Let's break it down to a way to actually make this viable. I propose ammo takes damage from the flamer despite any external armor. If the ammo is in a area with heat sinks, the flamer has to deal enough damage that would normally destroy that heat sink, then deals damage to the ammo. The flamer will however will not do any damage to external or internal armor, it will only damage ammunition and heat sinks.

You make the flamer, instead of generating heat on your mech, damage and destroy your heat sinks and ammunition. Double heat sinks have 50% more HP, because they absorb 50% more heat. Heat sinks in the engine have 20% more HP and cannot be destroyed, but only disabled. They enable as fast as they would dissipate the heat they would normally absorb. This will prevent you from preventing a mech from permanently useless unless you're actually standing there flaming them with a LOT of flamers.

Basically: If a player is flaming you, you dissipateheat substantially slower, instead of generating heat.

If a player is flaming you, and you have ammunition, you are liable to have some or all of your ammo destroyed, and take damage to your internals. The gauss would be immune to this, because it's ammo cannot explode.

If a player is flaming you, and you have lasers, you can still prevent overheating if you're good at managing your heat. The exception to this is if you've been flamed for an extended period of time (20+ seconds for one flamer, reduced for each one) and you have many heat sinks disabled. Potentially, if your heat is high enough and you've been flamed long enough, your heat should not dissipate.

If a player is flaming you, and you have double heat sinks, it takes 50% longer for the effects of the flamer to be visible. Unless it's a Hunchback with 9 flamers, then you're gonna be sitting around for a while while he turns off all your heat sinks, but can't kill you unless you have a lot of ammo in your torsos.

Please post comments. I'd love to see a dev response on if anything like this has been tested internally. My favorite way to play tabletop mechwarrior was as a jenner or fast light mech with flamers and small lasers, and disable larger mechs.

Thanks,

[Karl Streiger]

While no is simple a strong word, here some text.

At first the ammunition storrage.. it is even with the black hole magic - (moving AC 20 shells through the shoulder of the Centurion) - not acceptable that any heat hitting the armor of a Mech will cause a heat spike to its internals.

I may accept it when the armor is gone and the fire is burning in the guts of a Mech.

I can accept that the Flammer will disable all heatsinks in the location and both location next to this. you are pointing at.
If this location is the torso - only 50% of the reactor heatsinks may be effected.

- the flammer is acctual just venting heat/plasma from your fusion reactor - with the development of vehicular flammers or heavy flammers you should be able to get - inferno gel for your flammer resulting in a longer burn duration.
That will increase the efficencie of your flammer at all.

However to have a workable flammer - it must become more easy to shut down a Mech, or at least heat should cause more negative effects on your Mech (slower movement, problems to aim at a target etc.)

[Helvetica]

I'd like to see ammo for flamers much like machine guns. and make them a little better.

[ValdnadHartagga]

There is in-universe precedent for ammunition exploding when exposed to too much heat, so I would be down for it. However, I think it should be pretty hard to do - otherwise we'll have flamer-trolls everywhere. Sustained heat on the exact location of ammo storage (multiple flamers' worth for a very long time - you should never be able to cook someone's ammo with a single flamer), and any heat accrued from a flamer can be dissipated as normal 'Mech heat. The target basically needs to be shut down (from heat) and then cooked for a long while before anything goes boom. Think of an extended heat-induced shutdown on Caustic, where it takes much longer than normal to start back up due to the severity of the heat - that would be the time to try to ignite the ammo.

[Stringburka]

Flamers will get increased critical damage, so the use you aim for will be the use they have. Though with no armor piercing, it seems.

[Bytemeister]

Ammo doesn't explode until your mech is hot enough for an emergency shutdown. Flamers take a long time to get a mech hot enough to shut it down. I don't think the flamer should do extra damage to ammo for this reason specifically. I do like the idea of the flamer disabling the heatsinks in the area it hits, although this is not quite canon, as the heatsinks on a mech are able to vent heat into an enviroment that is hotter than the mech. Perhaps the flamers should have a dazzle effect if the pilot is using heat or night vision.

Edited by Bytemeister, 11 February 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[Stringburka]

Flamers frakking up heatvision sounds like an excellent balancing mechanic, actually. Makes them fantastic defensive weapons for quick 'mechs.

Edited by Stringburka, 11 February 2013 - 06:50 AM.

[CancR]

Flamers are good. They work as intended; Great for shutting down mechs and keeping them out of the game.

No buff needed.

[General Taskeen]

Any time someone uses a Flamer against me, I ignore them or just destroy them. Easy, working as intended. No Buff needed.

Edited by General Taskeen, 11 February 2013 - 08:27 AM.

[sC4r]

CancR, on 11 February 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

Flamers are good. They work as intended; Great for shutting down mechs and keeping them out of the game.

No buff needed.

video or it didnt happen

[Stringburka]

CancR, on 11 February 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

Flamers are good. They work as intended; Great for shutting down mechs and keeping them out of the game.

No buff needed.

No, they're not. They cause 3 times as much heat to the 'mech using them as the victim, they deal piddly damage and are just in general crappy. The only times you want to use them is when the opponent is already shut down, and in those cases instead of like 4 flamers (which is needed to be even noticeable) you could just have 4 Mlas and deal 20 damage.

They're crap, the dev's agree on that, and they are going to get a buff.

[CancR]

Stringburka, on 11 February 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

No, they're not. They cause 3 times as much heat to the 'mech using them as the victim, they deal piddly damage and are just in general crappy. The only times you want to use them is when the opponent is already shut down, and in those cases instead of like 4 flamers (which is needed to be even noticeable) you could just have 4 Mlas and deal 20 damage.

They're crap, the dev's agree on that, and they are going to get a buff.

So what you are telling me is everyone who never played battletech or any other mech warrior game think they need buffed.

Flamers do in fact keep mechs out of the game if used by a skill pilot (Which might be why so many people think they need buffing)

Flamers shouldn't be comparable to a ML or any other weapon, because it's not its job to be a killer weapon that destroys mechs, its a weapon that destroys mechs, its a weapon you take because you want to shut an enemy down.

[Gaan Cathal]

There's already a light-mech scale viable energy weapon, can we sort out a ballistic option before adding a second?

[Stringburka]

CancR, on 11 February 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

So what you are telling me is everyone who never played battletech or any other mech warrior game think they need buffed.

Uhm, no. I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you that flamers in THIS game is worse than nearly all other weapons by a wide margin - the only weapons they can compare to are machine guns, which also suck. I'd add SPL to the list but they're not crappy weapons as much as they're competing with MedLasses which are amazing weapons. MWO isn't battletech, MW4 isn't battletech nor MWO, and MWLL isn't MWO, battletech, or MW4. All the games work differently and have different balance, even though they're based on the same base rules.

CancR, on 11 February 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Flamers do in fact keep mechs out of the game if used by a skill pilot (Which might be why so many people think they need buffing)

So show me the build you're using it with, then. Because they cause .2 heat per second, according to the info available, which means five of them give the opponents the same heat as them spamming a single medlas. Meanwhile they cause three times as much to the one using them.

CancR, on 11 February 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Flamers shouldn't be comparable to a ML or any other weapon, because it's not its job to be a killer weapon that destroys mechs, its a weapon that destroys mechs, its a weapon you take because you want to shut an enemy down.

Unfortunately it takes more time to shut them down with flamers than to simply kill them, and if you kill them you get the bonus of them not getting up the second you release the trigger. Even if you smack on 5 flamers on a build you'll just give out enough heat to equal what a standard 250 engines, nothing added, cool down. So even with a 5-crit 5-hardpoint 5-ton investment you ain't going to keep anything down.