The Weapons Ranges Thread

[(TLL) Heretic]

Assuming that LRMs have a 1000m range, and knowing that they are maximum long range of 21 Hexes in CBT I did a quick comparison of CBT vs MWLL weapons ranges the results are listed below, the first number is the range as per CBT (assuming 1000m is 21 map hexes), the second number is the maximum long range for that weapon in CBT in hexes and the 3rd number is the current MWLL range of the weapon as per the MWLL Wiki.

As can be observed many weapons reach much further in CBT than they do in MWLL, although I don't not want this to turn into a Clan  Large Lasers is OP debate (that's an issue of the heat capacity of 'mechs being double what it is in CBT and not an issue of range), I thought this comparison might be helpful in any discussion about weapon balance.

I'd like to start the debate by pointing folks to the Class 5, 10 & 20 Autocannons.....
 

LRM          1000M    (21Hex)   (MWLL 1000m)
ELRM          1810M    (38H)    (MWLL 1500m)

MRM          715m    (15h)    (MWLL 800m)

SRM          430m    (9H)    (MWLL 350m)
Streak SRM       430m    (9H)    (MWLL 350m)
Clan Streak SRM    570m    (12H)    (MWLL 350m)

Medium Laser       430m    (9H)    (MWLL 500m)
ER Medium Laser    570m    (12H)    (MWLL 600m)
Clan ER Medium       715m   (15H)    (MWLL 700m)

Large Laser       715m    (15H)    (MWLL 700m)
ER Large Laser       905m    (19H)    (MWLL 800m)
Clan ER Large       1190m    (2125H)    (MWLL 900m)

PPC          857m    (18H)    (MWLL 700m)
IS ERPPC       1095m    (23H)    (MWLL 900m)
Clan ERPPC       1095m    (23H)    (MWLL 900m)

Medium Pulse Laser    286m    (6H)    (MWLL 400m)
Clan Medium Pulse     571m    (12H)    (MWLL 400m)
Large Pulse Laser    470m    (10H)   (MWLL 600m)
Clan Large Pulse     952m    (20H)    (MWLL 600m)

Flamer          143m    (3H)    (MWLL 110m)

AC2          1143m   (24H)   (MWLL 1200m)
UAC2          1190m   (25H)   (MWLL 1200m)
Clan UAC2       1286m    (27H)   (MWLL 1200m)
LB-2X          1286m   (27H)   (MWLL 1000m)
Clan LB-2X       1429m    (30H)   (MWLL 1000m)

AC5          857m    (18H)   (MWLL 800m)   
UAC5          952m    (20H)   (MWLL 800m)   
ClanUAC5       1000m    (21H)   (MWLL 800m)   
LB-5X          1000m    (21H)   (MWLL 800m)   
Clan LB-5X       1142m   (24H)   (MWLL 800m)   

AC10          714m   (15H)   (MWLL 550m)
UAC10          857m   (18H)   (MWLL 550m)
Clan UAC10       857m   (18H)   (MWLL 550m)
LB-10X          857m   (18H)   (MWLL 700m)
Clan LB-10X       857m   (18H)   (MWLL 700m)

AC20          429m   (9H)   (MWLL 350m)
UAC20          476m   (10H)   (MWLL 350m)
Clan UAC20       571m   (12H)   (MWLL 350m)
LB-20X          571m   (12H)   (MWLL 450m)
Clan LB-20X       571m   (12H)   (MWLL 450m)

RAC2          857m   (18H)   (MWLL 800m)
Clan RAC2       857m   (18H)   (MWLL N/A)

RAC5          714m   (15H)   (MWLL 500m)
Clan RAC5       714m   (15H)   (MWLL N/A)

Light Gauss       1190m   (25H)   (MWLL 1200m)
Gauss          1048m   (22H)   (MWLL 900m)
Clan Gauss       1048m   (22H)   (MWLL 900m)
Heavy Gauss*       952m   (20H)    (MWLL 700m)

*damage drops to 2/3 of a Gauss rifles damage at long range*

Arrow IV 8 Maps!
LongTom 30 Maps!

EDIT: Typo

[HAARP]

Clan ER Large laser is 25 hexes.

Other than that, nice work. I'd really love to see the proper weapon ranges implemented!

[KingLeerUK]

MWLL is not CBT.
 
The rules governing a turn-based board game with hit calculations based on chance do not necessarily apply well to a first person shooter/simulation.

[HAARP]

I'm sorry Leer, but I don't think the standard excuse counts this time

[Taemien]

I have to say the ranges in MWLL just feel right. Though I wouldn't mind seeing AC2s and Flamers get a slight boost as well as the Tag (but I'll wait and see what the new Tag changes are).

[(TLL) Heretic]

MWLL is not CBT.
 
The rules governing a turn-based board game with hit calculations based on chance do not necessarily apply well to a first person shooter/simulation.

There's no issue of anything other than range here, how weapons handle is a seperate issue surely?

For example, Laser fire over a set amount of time in MWLL and cause heat, both are limiters to that weapons performance, both work but only 1 is from the boardgame rules, any increase or decrease in range would be balanced by changing those parameters appropriately (and they change from patch to patch anyways)......

The issues are purely range based....The RAC5 for example is 500m in MWLL but if we translate from CBT Hex values it's 715m.  Would 200m extra make the RAC5 a gamebraeker? I don't think so.

Some weapons match their CBT values pretty well, so you can't tell me that this is not the basis for MWLLs values also.  It's the areas where those values are off (like the Autocannons class 5-20s and some other weapons) that lead to debate.

[=KoS=Zeus]

The Vulture Prime would be a very attractive (albeit hot running) machine if the Large Pulse Lasers reached out to 952m instead of 600m.

Of course, clan tech is broken as F*** so I support the devs not giving the clan weapons ALL of their ridiculous little advantages over the IS. The mainstay that must never change is clan LRMs losing minimum range. If that every happened then MWLL would have an accurate translation of CBT in that clan LRMs are incredibly OP.

[Brainwright]

Not to mention that the listed ranges are often a bit fuzzy.  All of the autocannons reach farther than the ranges listed.

MWLL is not CBT.
 
The rules governing a turn-based board game with hit calculations based on chance do not necessarily apply well to a first person shooter/simulation.

Well, they can.  You just have to build them correctly.  It's more a matter of building the behavior of the weapon to match the statistics the rules of the game generate rather than trying to match the actual rules.

Though I don't think anyone wants the ridiculousness of clan tech properly represented.  Yeesh.

[Serious Table]

I'm sorry Leer, but I don't think the standard excuse counts this time

It absolutely does.  The balancing of a weapon on a board game where the dice rules all is incredibly different from a FPS Simulator where ones chance to hit is based entirely on the player's ability to aim.  To think otherwise is silly, in my opinion.  The mechanics are entirely different, the budgets governing a weapon's design is entirely different, and the only "random chance" you have on a weapon such as the Clan ER Large Laser is really lag.  The rest is dependent entirely on player skill.

When things are based on twitch combat versus a dice roll, balancing for a happy medium between the way-skilled players and those who are less-skilled becomes very very tricky.

[HAARP]

I'm sorry Leer, but I don't think the standard excuse counts this time

It absolutely does.  The balancing of a weapon on a board game where the dice rules all is incredibly different from a FPS Simulator where ones chance to hit is based entirely on the player's ability to aim.  To think otherwise is silly, in my opinion.  The mechanics are entirely different, the budgets governing a weapon's design is entirely different, and the only "random chance" you have on a weapon such as the Clan ER Large Laser is really lag.  The rest is dependent entirely on player skill.

When things are based on twitch combat versus a dice roll, balancing for a happy medium between the way-skilled players and those who are less-skilled becomes very very tricky.

You missed the point of how balance in CBT works and now resort to the "ololol its the dice" stance. You didn't understand the point of this thread
(no offense intended)

[(TLL)Siilk]

 I think that large bore ACs' strict range regulation in 0.3.0 is purely matter of 0.2.0 ACs being able to hit a target far away their max range. While I understand devs' concern in this matter, I think such ACs' behaviour is far from being OP, as much skill is required to hit even a stationary target with such ACs at long distances. I'd be glad to see large bore ACs getting some of their pre-0.3.0 "undocumented" range back, at least 20-30% more than they have now.

[xInVicTuSx]

... I will be blunt here,
fapp nah.
Large Pulse Laser    470m    (10H)   (MWLL 600m)
Clan Large Pulse     952m    (20H)    (MWLL 600m)
 
ER Large Laser       905m    (19H)    (MWLL 800m)
Clan ER Large       1190m    (2125H)    (MWLL 900m)
 

That is enough to make me stop playing this game, or at least play it much less, there will be no reason to use ACs or Missiles at all, just a lazor war if that happens. There are some slight adjustments that could be made according to this table i would support, but this insane stuff? Hell no.

The mainstay that must never change is clan LRMs losing minimum range. If that every happened then MWLL would have an accurate translation of CBT in that clan LRMs are incredibly OP.

Why does this bother everyone so much? IS have MRM, clan needs a counter.
Now I could see how directly straight flying could be annoying, but halving the minimum range with a much smaller arc or quicker turning arc for clan would be really nice , it would make their LRM's on mechs like the Cougar prime, and Madcat prime more attractive, while not buffing stuff like the Vulture LRM boat at all, its still a stupid idea to get that close in a pure missile boat. The SRM boat Vulture still has a short lifespan at close range and the refire can be cycled perfectly on those and the heat is very manageable, trying to do the same in a LRM boat would be unwieldy and silly, not to mention futile against anything smaller than a bushwacker.
Heck you could have the larger missile racks spray at first then all gather and arc kind of like MRM do but more pronounced to prevent all of the missiles hitting at close range.
PPCs and Gauss dont have minimum range in this, why should clan lrms?

There are fine lines when it comes to ranges I recognize that, but I think a slight adjustment to Clan LRM should be made to make their jack of all trades designs more workable. Slight adjustments is the deal, when CERLBL got buffed to 900m it was annoying but understandable and I like that they are pretty much better in every way to the IS one now. But 1190m? HELL no.

[HAARP]

I already talked about this before, but Clan LRMs should lose their minimum range.

Why? Because a lot of Clan mechs were designed with that in mind.

- Timber Wolf Prime - it is a terrible machine for matches. Could it hammer down with its LRMs at close range, it would be feared the way it's supposed to
- Mad Dog Prime - Needs to alternate between Laser and LRM fire up close. In MWLL it has only the Pulsers to rely on, and that overheats the machine tremendously. I try to like it, i really do. But it doesn't work.
- Cougar Prime - intended to alternate between LRMs and Pulsers at all ranges to avoid overheating. It can't use the Pulser at range because the range is decreased and can't use the LRMs up close. Overheats and unpopular.

Yes, I think Clan Pulser ranges are ridiculous in CBT. They need a 1/4 reduction. But what's done is done, and if we were to fix this many variants would lose a lot of efficiency. And if you touch my Primes hell will break loose >:|


And for those still thinking it's all about the dice:
That's not what CBT is about. CBT balances between a lot of factors, many of which CAN be ported into a real-time environment:
Damage, range, heat, tonnage, crit space and yes, chance to hit
Then come sub-factors like
Ammo capacity, minimum range, chances to jam, number of missiles/pellets hitting, etc.

This is what balance is about, and what Heretic is suggesting here is to implement better balance between range and heat (although all other aspects really need tweaking aswell)
Heat needs fixing anyway. I might make a thread about this in a few hours.

PS: Invictus, don't worry. We wouldn't have to take the ranges LITERAL, but a slight adaptation is needed.

[Cujo]

Why does this bother everyone so much? IS have MRM, clan needs a counter.

yea, no.  I'm gunna disagree with your line of thought because you're comparing 2 very different missile systems, one of which DOES NOT LOCK ON!  Personally I think the ranges all feel about right to me.  So long as ranges are scaled properly, they still function as their intended designs.  And I think that's roughly what we've got.  Basically what can happen is if you get these ridiculously long range weapons, you have to put a restriction on maps to limit wide open spaces because then you focus the game to very long range and make large bore auto-cannons and some other weapons useless, and I'm strongly opposed to limiting our map potential because certain terrain types will SO INCREDIBLY favor long range, that it's just stupid.  What I think we have now is a pretty good balance as far as range goes.

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

Giving clan weapons even MORE range is bad idea IMO.  Beyond that I don't see the benefit to game play by implementing those ranges beyond the approximate ranges we have now.