New Sub-Forums

LOL I think maybe "toast" is a little strong...but sniping isn't about moving as much as close to medium range is. Sniping is about "ghost" dancing and yeah...settling in for good aim at the right moment.

So, I just tested the minimum range idea for the ERLg laser and it had no effect...no damage changes observed within the minimum range. The script does work on PPC's, but apparently not lasers.
All I can do at this point is raise the damage a little.

Herbie I noticed you like to favor the Lasers. You did really well in that game on the Villa map! You got a lot of great hits and your lag shooting is getting better...and your ability to catch someone when their movement decreases their lag is also getting better. I know I get plenty of misses and my lag shooting is far from perfect.

After reviewing this thread again I realize that your issue with the ERlg lasers in single-player probably are being caused by the difficulty level created by the "damage over time" characteristic, which is a new thing with my mod. Originally laser damage was always instantaneous. If you shoot something that is standing still you will see the damage is what it's supposed to be, but if your target is moving you might only get partial damage. To me this is something that you will get better at with practice. In multiplayer the issue isn't as bad, as I believe there is a slightly different physics in multiplayer. When you find someone's lag point the "damage over time" doesn't seem to be as much of an issue as it is in single-player. It took some getting used to for me as well and I'm still not great at it. I don't always get good damage when I try to snipe er large in single-player either. But, I see it as a challenge. I would encourage you to find interest in other weapons as well. As a fellow guitarist I'm betting that you can only agree that you can't let yourself get "stuck" on only one thing. Challenging your comfort zone is the only path to improvement.
I know the crazy builds we were using in that last game yesterday seemed like overkill, and yeah they were. Honestly, even with a non-modded version of 'Mech3 there may be some "boats" that would piss you off even more. This is how multiplayer was back when the game was popular, in case you weren't a part of it. C5 was ballistics only, and this was my peeve-scenario...I HATED it. Dual UltraAC 20's were a BITCH. And there were A LOT of guys who were 10 times better than me piloting a tricked out Avatar...manuevering a thousand times better than me in my strider! Back when 'Mech3 was the only mech game in town you had NO CHOICE but to get better or get yer ass kicked. The veterans were relentless.


Getting back on point, in the old days before the mod using ER lg lasers in "energy only" games was unheard of in multiplayer because the Medium lasers in groups were always so much more damaging. 2 Er medium lasers equaled more than 1.5 times the damage of 1 Er large laser originally. In my mod I have attempted to make them more equal. Where in Vengeance the damages of mediums were exactly half that of the larges I did not agree with this, especially when you look at the canon damage values. So, I made the compromise and met them half way, or roughly half way, because while I recognize that a "medium" weapon should be half the damage of a "large", I also value the idea that groups of smaller weapons should be more palatable, and sometimes strategically sound. And this is probably why they made them that way in canon. Smaller mechs can't always load as many big weapons, so what fun is there in having smaller mechs if they can't be powerful too? Weapon "balance" can't be only about being relative to other weapons. It also has to be about the big picture, and Battletech has MANY subtle aspects to that bigger picture.

Believe me, Stoney and I had our fair share of bad games in our early days of multiplayer. I know the frustration of not understanding how some guys can do certain things in 'Mech 3. But I learned. It took time and persistence, but I learned. And that magic we spoke about earlier in the thread that you and I both have an appreciation for only gets better as you get better as a player. That's just another great thing about this game.

As to your suggestions about ammo vs non-ammo based weapons, well, I'm only willing to go so far when it comes to creative license vs canon with my mod, and having messed around with the ammo per tons in previous iterations of the mod I've gone back to canon for the most part. I'm sure you know as well as I do that adding ammo to the most powerful weapons in the game would be out of balance. Ammo shortage is an integral part of Battlemech lore that should not be compromised. 'Mech3 multiplayer games can be set to "unlimited ammo" though, if you think you can convice us But, be warned, you might like that even less!

I am going to give more thought to the flamer situation though. Flamers were always a one shot kill even before the mod. Well, flamer boats I should say. I kept them because they were actually popular in multiplayer back then. But, nowadays there are barely any vets left from the old days who would bother setting up a rig to play. I already tweaked them since 2.0...maybe one more time, or maybe make them into a different weapon. I'll have to think about it.

I think you missed my point. Why would I be able to hold my own in one scenario and fall flat on my face in a different one when I'm using the same mech? Only one thing changed. Weapon loadout. I have no control over what mech or what weapon everyone uses so I can't set up to counter and with the variety of mechs and weapons it would be impossible to predict.
When ammo becomes a moot point and you balance for ammo loads the weapon becomes over compensated. Ammo loads don't play a big enough roll in on line short games or respawns but the weapon are balanced (heat, weight, criticals, etc) to include ammo.

In my opinion, if flamers are able to be exploited then there's a balance issue with them. This applies to all other weapons as well. Since there's no way to limit weapons other than weight, criticals, and heat, it stands to reason that something is not quite right.

I'm not trying to cause a mutiny or irritate you. I'm just giving my opinion... I can be pretty hard headed... I think maybe you can too

While I'm on this subject, I'd like to add some of my own balance problems with a different game. Homeworld II. Balance issues have always plagued the game. We gave up trying to balance by using our own skills and I decided to make a spread sheet to balance every aspect without human tweaking. I found the balance between every variable and when one variable was changed all others would change automatically. In order for this approach to work every weapon variable needs to be included. The good news is, MW3 has way fewer variables than HWII. Something to think about...

We especially tagged each other here at the part I started at on the video. It took me a long time to get lag shooting down back in the day. New guys online are lucky because most Mechs for our cable/dsl connections are only needing to be led by about 1 Mech when they are running at full speed on the X Axis in front of you.

Here's my bad day against Flamers