How to make Ballistics work well

[Tech Enthusiast]

So, I am kinda at a loss on how to make Balistics work for Mia.
Given she has all balistics based skills, I keep trying to outfit mechs to suit her. But whatever I do, she always feels like a useless addition to the star. While everyone else is easily getting gold status on damage done every mission, she more often than not goes bronze or silver at best.

I realize damage done is not the most important, as less damage at the correct spots (focused) could easily outdo a more damage setup. Yet,...
...when it comes to kills, she is at about 1/3rd of the xp gained, so very few kills as well.

While missiles are great at sniping annoying stuff from afar and do great damage up close,... all things energy based just seems to be the clear winner in about every category. It is easy to do a lot of damage and very easy to snipe cockpits or other parts.

Basically:
Is the balance THIS off, or is there a way to make balistiscs work better? Like I don't claim to be great at building mech setups at all. Just hit me with something that works, or even better: A general rule of thumb for balistics.

Example:
For energy weapons it is clear that PPCs are for sniping, Pulse lasers are for making sure your damage lands where you want it to and normal lasers are for ton efficient damage.
How do the various balistic weapons compare?

[Alpha2518]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από talemore:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Axeface:

Each engine should have a built in capacitor that can only supply so much power, energy weapons should eat up this power like crazy. A few energy weapons, no problem, but at some point you reach a plateau and drawing too much power reduces the damage of all energy weapons fired at that time.
Weather could also be something that could neuter lasers.

It is how it works in the game.

You don't shutdown mech. You just deplete available energy.

Well more so your on a fusion engine and you're shutting down to keep from exploading.

[Geeves]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Lloyd_Marshall:

Really? Because I have a hard time tagging the cockpits even from point blank (I like my brawler lazerboats). Could it be that I'm doing it wrong? Also does anyone know how to explain damage settings? I know what Alpha and DPS are but when I arm my mechs with any ballistic weapons those always look worse than if I used lasers and missiles. I want to use the big boomsticks and curb stomp some spheroids.

It takes practice. Run some easy sim missions and target different locations on the "head" for each mech. Its never the entire head, only where the pilot sits. For example on the Atlas the pilot sits in the left eye, so target that (right side of the head from your perspective). And some mechs are easier to hit the head than others. Highlander, Awesome, Hunchback, Atlas, Marauder, Centurion, Kintaro all have pretty big hitboxes for the head.

Also, never try to headshot from point blank range. You need at least a little distance to account for weapon convergence.

Its largely the same as MWO so check out the inner sphere pdf in the first post here: https://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/274181-hitbox-localization-2/

Bit more forgiving here than MWO, but you can see there that some mechs have giant hitboxes, and others are just stupid small.

[talemore]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Alpha2518:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από talemore:

It is how it works in the game.

You don't shutdown mech. You just deplete available energy.

Well more so your on a fusion engine and you're shutting down to keep from exploading.

The whole mechanic is based on energy.

Heatsinks only help to reduce the overheating by going above the generator's normal capacity.

You don't shutdown since clan fusion engine is working within normal metric

This is a lot better to explained in Battletech or tabletop where a mech is becoming heat neutral it doesn’t shut down after firing.

But these "turns" is what happening when you have depleted the energy.

[zarthemad]

Step 1) Research solid slug UACs
Step 2) Equip UAC solid Slugs, have 3+ tons of ammo per weapon
Step 3) get within 200m, and fan fire the UACs till they jam
Step 4) shoot secondary systems till UAC's unjam

Advanced:
Step 1a) pilot Mia directly and fock Jaden and his trasy skill set

[Atlessa]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Lloyd_Marshall:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mr.Kill:

Ballistics take up too tonnage to be useful until you get assault or heavy mechs. Once you have a timber wolf you can stack dual LBX AC10s with plenty of ammo. Otherwise we'll have to wait and see if they'll give us RACs (i.e innersphere mission DLC pack or something) or other great ballistics or maybe buffs to ballistics.

I was very disappointed the Clans didn't have my mega gattling gun. My Mech 5 builds with a Jagermech and RAC 2s are montrous and fun.

Bushdakka FTW (triple RAC2s shred everything that doesn't know how to twist)

[talemore]

The main thing there aren't many mechs early on who are Ballistic mechs and you got Kit Fox with side torso mounted cannon.

Kit Fox can carry up to an UAC10 cannon mounted in right side torso + 4 ER small laser.

Yet it doesn't hold a candle against nova with ( 2 AMS, 1 ER Large laser, 12 ER small laser) but kitfox is 2x cheaper to buy and deals 50 firepower vs nova 100 in firepower meaning that kit Fox isn't that far off when It comes bang for the bucks as a nova cost 2 millions and a kit Fox only cost 1 million.

[Shuriker]

Warhawk UAC-20-SLDx2 and Dire Wolf UAC-10-SLDx4 are amazing builds for Mia, but yeah, in early-mid game Nova with 12(or 14) ERSML is overshining other mechs/builds.

[Dustreaper]

The maps are to much close quarters the reason in mercs it worked is because some things were up to 2km away soo lrm's actually increased your dps by a lot in the downtime.

[Bovril Brigadier]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Lloyd_Marshall:

I was very disappointed the Clans didn't have my mega gattling gun. My Mech 5 builds with a Jagermech and RAC 2s are montrous and fun.

Cause RAC's are much later in timeline and see deployment with IS first? Also the Bane was only just announced for MWO so there's that to look forward to if it gets ported to this game.

[Axeface]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από talemore:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Axeface:

Each engine should have a built in capacitor that can only supply so much power, energy weapons should eat up this power like crazy. A few energy weapons, no problem, but at some point you reach a plateau and drawing too much power reduces the damage of all energy weapons fired at that time.
Weather could also be something that could neuter lasers.

It is how it works in the game.

You don't shutdown mech. You just deplete available energy.

What do you mean? Im talking about a mechanic that reduces the DAMAGE your laser boating can achieve while at the same time adding variety to mech chassis and other drawbacks like temporary reduced power for movement/sensors etc if you boat. Its entirely different to heat which my suggestion would exist in unison with.
Of course it wouldnt just be a mechanic to control laser spam, its would be an entire power management system.

[Geeves]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Axeface:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από talemore:

It is how it works in the game.

You don't shutdown mech. You just deplete available energy.

What do you mean? Im talking about a mechanic that reduces the DAMAGE your laser boating can achieve while at the same time adding variety to mech chassis and other drawbacks like temporary reduced power for movement/sensors etc if you boat. Its entirely different to heat which my suggestion would exist in unison with.
Of course it wouldnt just be a mechanic to control laser spam, its would be an entire power management system.

In tabletop heat does all those things except damage.

[Alpha2518]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από talemore:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Alpha2518:

Well more so your on a fusion engine and you're shutting down to keep from exploading.

The whole mechanic is based on energy.

Heatsinks only help to reduce the overheating by going above the generator's normal capacity.

You don't shutdown since clan fusion engine is working within normal metric

This is a lot better to explained in Battletech or tabletop where a mech is becoming heat neutral it doesn’t shut down after firing.

But these "turns" is what happening when you have depleted the energy.

And I play the tabletop and it says on the heat scale where if you are at 30 heat or higher on the record sheet the mech shuts down. On the extended scale under the advanced rules I think its 50 heat before shut down. That is also what happens in every other Mechwarrior game when you overheat, your mech shuts down and you can also ovveride that shut down at the risk of your Mech Exploading.

That's also how Mia dies because she purposefully overloads her fusion reactor core to blow herself up as bondsref. And she accomplishes that by heating it up beyond the point of no return. Kai Allard Liao does the same thing at Tycross IIRC when he has his future wife overload the fusion engine by disengaging the safety mechanisms so the reactor can overheat and blow up the Falcons that he lures in close after he loses all other weapons on his Mech. I think that is also in Lethal Heritage or the book that immediately follows it.

[talemore]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Alpha2518:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από talemore:

The whole mechanic is based on energy.

Heatsinks only help to reduce the overheating by going above the generator's normal capacity.

You don't shutdown since clan fusion engine is working within normal metric

This is a lot better to explained in Battletech or tabletop where a mech is becoming heat neutral it doesn’t shut down after firing.

But these "turns" is what happening when you have depleted the energy.

And I play the tabletop and it says on the heat scale where if you are at 30 heat or higher on the record sheet the mech shuts down. On the extended scale under the advanced rules I think its 50 heat before shut down. That is also what happens in every other Mechwarrior game when you overheat, your mech shuts down and you can also ovveride that shut down at the risk of your Mech Exploading.

That's also how Mia dies because she purposefully overloads her fusion reactor core to blow herself up as bondsref. And she accomplishes that by heating it up beyond the point of no return. Kai Allard Liao does the same thing at Tycross IIRC when he has his future wife overload the fusion engine by disengaging the safety mechanisms so the reactor can overheat and blow up the Falcons that he lures in close after he loses all other weapons on his Mech. I think that is also in Lethal Heritage or the book that immediately follows it.

I don't think I wished to read spoiler about people dying.

Your mech gets a +4 penalty when moving.. That is energy.

And turns in live action is when you depleted your energy. So you get to use fist attack for free and nothing else than moving around.

Which is why turns or shutdowns as they work in clans are how a turn for a mech ends. Then you can 1/2 energy bar and reserve your action to the next round.

[Ninjafroggie]

the whole "reactor output" thing is already accounted for. Lore wise, the mech's fusion core is capable of making more power than the mech could ever use, the problem is as power demand increases, the reactor has to compensate by increasing output, which is where the heat comes from and is the reason why balistics and missiles generate so much less heat than energy weapons. The only thing a bigger engine rating gets you is a higher baseline output without having to 'overrev' and generate more heat than the built in engine shielding can handle on its own. In theory a mech like a timberwolf for example COULD still go 86kph on a 200 rated engine, but the heat output would be like constantly holding down the trigger on a half dozen ermlas because the engine doesnt have enough built in insulation and shielding to handle that level of baseline output without getting hot, let alone have enough spare heat to fight with. Bigger engine ratings arent like with combustion engines, where there's no replacement for displacement, no fusion cores are all basically the same size and design, the only thing that really changes is the quality of materials going into their construction. Bigger rated engines include advanced materials and thicker shielding, which increases weight and cost but allows the fusion reaction to maintain a higher baseline power output without excess heat bleed.

[talemore]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Ninjafroggie:

the whole "reactor output" thing is already accounted for. Lore wise, the mech's fusion core is capable of making more power than the mech could ever use, the problem is as power demand increases, the reactor has to compensate by increasing output, which is where the heat comes from and is the reason why balistics and missiles generate so much less heat than energy weapons. The only thing a bigger engine rating gets you is a higher baseline output without having to 'overrev' and generate more heat than the built in engine shielding can handle on its own. In theory a mech like a timberwolf for example COULD still go 86kph on a 200 rated engine, but the heat output would be like constantly holding down the trigger on a half dozen ermlas because the engine doesnt have enough built in insulation and shielding to handle that level of baseline output without getting hot, let alone have enough spare heat to fight with. Bigger engine ratings arent like with combustion engines, where there's no replacement for displacement, no fusion cores are all basically the same size and design, the only thing that really changes is the quality of materials going into their construction. Bigger rated engines include advanced materials and thicker shielding, which increases weight and cost but allows the fusion reaction to maintain a higher baseline power output without excess heat bleed.

Interesting that we never seen this concept before.

I could make slower mechs faster at expense of depleting my reserves of firepower.

To create a nuclear explosion is easier than to make the energy effective in use of devices.

If we knew how to make it, we would have the cheapest energy in the world by creating nuclear reactions. The costs of creating nuclear reactions would be less than heating up water to make a turbine moving.

That is like you said that energy doesn’t mean that the energy weapons becomes stronger because you add energy to the weapon.

Energy that is wasted isn't possible to obtain by technical limitations. You waste energy every time you don't use the energy to the max heat capacity.

Heat cooling is the recharge time it takes for the mech to recharge the energy battery. As it need to cool down the mech to prevent critical failure.

It's like short circuit when using too much energy at once. The mechs safety shuts it down from the user control to prevent damage.

You can drive and move around but you have no access to the weapon systems as the AI in the mech prevent you from human error.

Then the question is that what would it take to make a mech nuclear explode when in override?

Any damage at all into the mech's engine compartment? Or will it be randomly happening.