Battletech

[XavierMace]

I could take a look at swapping the AC's for PPC but the PPC's just don't seem effective to me every time I use them.

 

[Rifter]

FYI in case anyone cares the beta 1.02 Patch has solved alot of my lag/hitching issues, seems they are starting to get it fixed up.

 

[lupi]

Had that in my laptop with the nvidia gpu.

 

[Rifter]

I could take a look at swapping the AC's for PPC but the PPC's just don't seem effective to me every time I use them.

Because the PPC heat in this game is so far out of whack its just plain stupid. LL too. Basically only use ML for energy hardpoints. If you want to reach out and touch someone use LRM's or AC5's.

Example, the Awesome 8Q, with its 3 PPC's, which in TT could fire every turn(for a bunch of turns before needing to fire two, then back to all 3 for a bunch) if not moving, the 8Q was basically supposed to be a mobile turret. But in this game you can fire 3 once, then only 2 for rest of battle unless you spend a few turns doing nothing to drop the heat. So good job guys you have taken a Awesome 8Q, a 80 ton assault mech, and made its sustainable damage per turn less than a well equipped medium.

I get that Jordan Weisman wanted to buff AC and nerf lasers, i get that, he felt he made a mistake when he made the game originally. Thats all fine and dandy. But when you go so overboard on the changes to basically start nerfing stock designs to the point of being only as effective as mechs two weight classes lower than them you may have gone to far IMO.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

They've pretty much confirmed PPC and LL will be buffed. Early impression from dev was reduce PPC heat and LL needs significant tweak across the board. I still think MLs are a bit overrated since you can't guarantee the damage to one location, but ease of knockdowns and side hits sure helps.

 

[XavierMace]

Example, the Awesome 8Q, with its 3 PPC's, which in TT could fire every turn(for a bunch of turns before needing to fire two, then back to all 3 for a bunch) if not moving, the 8Q was basically supposed to be a mobile turret.

I never played the TT version but I think some people just assume things work the way in the digital version that they do in the TT. My brother played a LOT of MechWarrior online so that's been influencing his strategies as well. I also think there may be some hidden data that we aren't seeing as my build seems to be performing far better than it should. Admittedly most of that is due to the knock down mechanics. I don't have to put a dent in your armor, just knock you down 4 times and you're done. But the headshot rate of this build also seems to be quite high.

 

[Rifter]

I never played the TT version but I think some people just assume things work the way in the digital version that they do in the TT. My brother played a LOT of MechWarrior online so that's been influencing his strategies as well. I also think there may be some hidden data that we aren't seeing as my build seems to be performing far better than it should. Admittedly most of that is due to the knock down mechanics. I don't have to put a dent in your armor, just knock you down 4 times and you're done. But the headshot rate of this build also seems to be quite high.

I dont care if its exact TT values, im not one of those it has to be TT exactly people i was just using that as an example of what a assault mech should be capable of. They can make it whatever values work for their system to maintain a balance, my point was when there system has a 80 ton mech getting outperformed by a 50 ton mech in damage per turn maybe their system needs some work, and is not balanced correctly if its breaking stock designs.

If they were going to break PPC's this bad it would have been a very good idea to just not have the Awesome 8Q in game and instead have gone with the 8R.

 

[Midwayman]

FWIW PPCs aren't exactly the god of firepower per ton when you consider the heatsink load. The difference is you can project that damage a lot further than a medium running srms and ml.

 

[Rifter]

FWIW PPCs aren't exactly the god of firepower per ton when you consider the heatsink load. The difference is you can project that damage a lot further than a medium running srms and ml.

It does have range advantage over ML for sure, but if striking at range LRM is king.

The main issue IMO is not even so much the heat of PPC's although it is insane. Its the LRM's and stability, in this game LRM's just beat anything at all for long range meaning there really isnt a point to the long range AC's or PPC's especially when stability is taken into account. You can have one LRM boat max a stability bar in one volley and then the next shot from anything even a water pistol on that mech will knock it over, and once they are down they are as good as dead with the free called shots. Just have 2 boats and two brawlers and you are set, no problem knocking down 2 mechs a turn. I took a slightly different approach and run 2 brawlers one boat and one mixed support mech(my commanders) which has both some LRM's and direct fire close in weapons to be able to protect the boat if needed close in if anyone sneaks up on it, and i can still put two mechs on there backs a turn if i play my cards right.

Not sure what the answer is but i think they will likely nerf LRMs and buff PPC's/LL.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Not sure what the answer is but i think they will likely nerf LRMs and buff PPC's/LL.

The answer is to nerf the stability/knockdown mechanic. Make it be more an instance check with fewer lasting modifiers, with the modifiers clearing by simply standing still, or moving at normal speed on the mech's next turn (i.e. the only way they carry over is if you continue sprinting, or use jump jets).

And as stated, greatly change the knockdown check to be a factor of the initial impact, with negative modifiers for having sprinted/used jump jets, loss of large amount of armor (relative to tonnage of mech), loss of limb, was knocked down the previous round (and just got up), and a very small modifier for having received previous impacts that round, and modifiers for the piloting skill. Don't have a scale that simply continues to build up until it reaches 100% (and only drops by performing a certain action).

 

[shortylickens]

Just downloaded a 791 meg patch. Maybe more fixes?

 

[Merad]

Because the PPC heat in this game is so far out of whack its just plain stupid. LL too. Basically only use ML for energy hardpoints. If you want to reach out and touch someone use LRM's or AC5's.

As much as I love the game (already played 40+ hours I think) some things are seriously out of whack. I’ve been using a Centurion as my missile boat and finally got a Trebuchet. Well, crap. The Centurion in game is a better missile boat in EVERY way than the Treb. The only thing going for the Treb is a bigger engine, but the smaller engine in the Cent means it has about 5 extra tons to work with. Maps are so small that the speed is irrelevant especially since the Cent can mount JJ’s and 50% more armor, and the hardpoint layouts make the Treb pretty pointless unless you’re doing a stock only play through (which I may do next game).

 

[XavierMace]

I dont care if its exact TT values, im not one of those it has to be TT exactly people i was just using that as an example of what a assault mech should be capable of. They can make it whatever values work for their system to maintain a balance, my point was when there system has a 80 ton mech getting outperformed by a 50 ton mech in damage per turn maybe their system needs some work, and is not balanced correctly if its breaking stock designs.

If they were going to break PPC's this bad it would have been a very good idea to just not have the Awesome 8Q in game and instead have gone with the 8R.

I wasn't referring to you specifically. I've seen several people on other forums arguing about builds/mechanics in the digital game based on their TT experience assuming it's the same.

 

[lupi]

Just downloaded a 791 meg patch. Maybe more fixes?

Seems to be worse. Installed of the program just going invisible, it actually locked my screen so I couldn't alt-tab out to task manager and kill it, had to do a reboot.

 

[lupi]

Did some troubleshooting. Upgrading my desktop ton windows 10. Kept the gpu drivers that came with it even though they were about a half year old. Crashed pretty quick. Updated to latest official driver's. Ran the game and things seemed fine, kept it on for a couple hours while I went out. Came back and it was still running. Crashed about 5 minutes into playing some more. Have now updated to the most recent optional drivers and will see in a bit how they do. If it still crashes may dropped resolution and then try it out.

Just upgraded to the

 

[Fallen Kell]

I havn't crashed since I realized I had to simply close everything else before playing the game. As stated before it is a memory thing for me at least. I'm using some pretty old drivers for Nvidia, 375.95, but these are rock stable for my 670 GTX on Win7 64bit.

 

[lupi]

Looks like I got it stable with the latest AMD driver and playing in windowed mode (think full screen may work at a reduced rez too). Can't play native resolution in windowed though as you loose some of the UI off the screen.

 

[Midwayman]

The answer is to nerf the stability/knockdown mechanic. Make it be more an instance check with fewer lasting modifiers, with the modifiers clearing by simply standing still, or moving at normal speed on the mech's next turn (i.e. the only way they carry over is if you continue sprinting, or use jump jets).

And as stated, greatly change the knockdown check to be a factor of the initial impact, with negative modifiers for having sprinted/used jump jets, loss of large amount of armor (relative to tonnage of mech), loss of limb, was knocked down the previous round (and just got up), and a very small modifier for having received previous impacts that round, and modifiers for the piloting skill. Don't have a scale that simply continues to build up until it reaches 100% (and only drops by performing a certain action).

Yah, once you start getting mechs heavy enough to put out 30+ lrms in a turn it get really stupid. It doesn't even feel like its a roll, that its an automatic knockdown. You'd think if you have a 9 pilot they would be practically impossible to knock over short of a leg loss.

 

[XavierMace]

Yah, once you start getting mechs heavy enough to put out 30+ lrms in a turn it get really stupid. It doesn't even feel like its a roll, that its an automatic knockdown. You'd think if you have a 9 pilot they would be practically impossible to knock over short of a leg loss.

Yeah, that's been the general point I've been making with my build. It will knock down one of your mechs (minimum) every turn. It's horrifically OP. PPC's etc are a single shot so either hit or miss. LRM's are a volley, so you get partial hits which makes it far superior against fast enemies. 60% hit chance is enough to get pretty much anything to at least 70% instability. That makes the speed of the lighter mechs useless as that's enough to take out it's evasive buffs at which point one of the other mechs will put it in it's grave.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Having played a lot more this weekend, I think the following changes need to be made:

1) Visual range should be tweaked such that size of vehicle/Mech is part of the calculation (something big is going to be seen earlier than something small), as well as the sensors of the various Mechs (i.e. creating a more scout roll which has sensors to detect/allow targeting of enemies at longer ranges, with boosts for certain equipment like targeting computers (although I believe some of that equipment came in during the 3057+ rules), etc.).

2) Heat needs to be tweaked across the various weapon systems. Heatsinks changed in a 1:3 ratio (TT to video game rules). Most missile systems remained at that heat, but projectiles and energy weapons did not and are closer to 1:4 or 1:5 ratio. This is part of the reason we are seeing so many missile dominant loadouts (that and how they cut into the evasion bonus of a mech due to sheer number of rolls that occur).

3) Stability needs to change to more like I previously described.

4) Energy weapons need some changes. This kind of goes into both 1 and 2 above. Most of the entire game is spent at medium laser range because visually, that is about where things get spotted (well just beyond it). This negates the reason for large lasers entirely, and seriously debuffs PPCs (seriously, almost what good is there to shoot 450+ when you can only see just over 300). Heat is off the scale for these weapons. I understand that there is some balancing that needs to be made to make it so that a range of weapons are useful for their purpose, but aside from the medium laser, and in some cases a PPC, most of these weapons are useless.


I think they are working on number 4 from what I have read, which partially affects my number 2 depending on how they fix it. If they tackle number 3 (which there is some grumblings about), I think long term, we are in a good place. And maybe consider them allowing for number 2 to be edited/modded (would require everyone to play using same mod, or allow for end users to run their own match instances where people could join the game).

 

[Fallen Kell]

Doing some number crunching, damage per adjusted ton (where "adjusted ton" is the weight of the weapon+1 ton ammo+heatsinks to dissipate heat generated), the best weapons are:
1) Machine Gun at 10
2) Small Laser at 8
3) SRMs (all) at 5.33
4) Medium Laser at 5
5) LRM20 at 4.7
6) LRM15 at 4.6
7) AC20 and Gauss at 4.1666
8) LRM5 and LRM10 at 4

Rounding up the bottom of all the weapons are the PPC at 2.38, Large Laser at 2.66, and AC2 at 2.77.

Obviously things like range need to be accounted for as well, but once you do, you quickly see why SRMs, LRMs, and Medium Lasers seem to be the weapons of choice.

 

[lupi]

Went to play last night, windowed with vsync on and half native rez, mission was to take out 2 commandos and display crashed right after I took the first one out.

 

[XavierMace]

Doing some number crunching, damage per adjusted ton (where "adjusted ton" is the weight of the weapon+1 ton ammo+heatsinks to dissipate heat generated), the best weapons are:
1) Machine Gun at 10
2) Small Laser at 8
3) SRMs (all) at 5.33
4) Medium Laser at 5
5) LRM20 at 4.7
6) LRM15 at 4.6
7) AC20 and Gauss at 4.1666
8) LRM5 and LRM10 at 4

Rounding up the bottom of all the weapons are the PPC at 2.38, Large Laser at 2.66, and AC2 at 2.77.

Obviously things like range need to be accounted for as well, but once you do, you quickly see why SRMs, LRMs, and Medium Lasers seem to be the weapons of choice.

It just gets worse when you start factoring hit percentages into the damage calculations.

 

[lupi]

Another patch day, anyone with problems have experience yet?

 

[Rifter]

Another patch day, anyone with problems have experience yet?

Only thing i noticed was it fixed the perma stuck High/Low spirits on pilots. Performance otherwise is the same as 1.02 for me.