Neutron Blasters

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 8:53 pm

I've found out the beauty of NB's just recently, seeing how easily they guaranteed my victories against Hetzer and Tarendelcymir.

I've also done some study, and found out that there's practically only TWO alternatives that let you fight AI teams twice your tonnage. One is Napalm titan, having pretty much nothing but them installed, blowing off enemies heating them up to 300 degree mark and then going KABOOM. This works especially well against large groups, since you'll also heat up others when one explodes amidst.

The other alternative is to go with NB's as your main weaponry. My test team having 5 Ghost Dragons (4 NB's each) showed that the poor AI had no chance at beating me, and the conditions were far from optimal for me, having to close in quite a few hexes under enemy fire to close in the distance. On top of it all, enemy jocks were elite level.

A natural question comes into mind : Aren't these two options a bit overpowered, then? I know they're balanced if you use them the way they're supposed to, ie. having one or at max two per titan, but going overboard with them certainly gives you an advantage.

The most frightening aspect these two alternatives sport is that they treat enemy tonnage in a twisted way, meaning the heavier titans you meet, the better you feel. A swarm of recons and lights is THE nightmare for these setups.

I haven't seen the actual table that describes the effects of NB other than knowing what are the chances to have them do their trick. If Larkin (or anyone else with the knowledge) would reveal that table, I could do a little propability study.. Just because currently it seems that the least amount of shots/firepower required to destroy a titan is either with NM or NB shots, especially since everyone loves heavily armored titans..

Please share your experience with NB's .. Are they really that powerful or have I just been lucky?

rosary · Post by **rosary** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 9:58 pm

NB's do have a downside. They do not work well against Android pilots. I have used this to my advantage at least once against Hetzer to his dismay.

NB's + Heavy Meson = A damaged life support via meson plus damaged pilot via NB. When it works its a very nice combo.

For teams of over 4 titans at least one should have some specialty weaponry (meson, NB, BRG). These make the rest of your team more effective or your enemies less so.

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 10:02 pm

Check the guide. Its in there. How would your napalm team fare against your neutron team ? Just curious. Since I play seldom and code often I appreciate input like this and I'm willing to do the necessary changes to balance things. Is the AI losing against your neutrons cause the jocks are dying or cause they are handicapped by unconsciousness or stun/dizzyness ?

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 4:20 am

To test things out, I created a new assault titan, called it Mind Flayer, having nothing but six NB's as armament.

My first attempt was against highest-ranking AI. I had five Mind Flayers in one team, other had six titans, mostly assaults. I managed to kill only three enemy titans before my own troops started to die off because of accumulated damage, so I conceded. I couldn't keep a very good firing rate because the whole neighborhood was on fire, and I was in the middle of it all. I did find out, though, that one of the enemy jocks resisted my attempts to kill it very well. It was a Grim Reaper, having Shield 1 and Life Support 6, but I'm not sure about the jock since I never got a green scan on him.

My second try was a polar setup against veteran AI's, otherwise identical to previous one. First two titans (Troll and Ravager, LS3 on both) were apparently run by replicants, since it only took like 10 shots to kill the jocks. I whacked at another Grim Reaper, this time piloted by an android, for quite some time before I realized it was going to do me no good. Its NB nearly killed off MY replicant pilot, though. After the fray ended, my NB-team had scored only a bit over half of the kills.

Based on this experiment, a shield doesn't help you much against NB other than keeping the CtH low, but a good LS is what really kills the NB effectiveness. (Just the way it is supposed to, right? ) A human jock running Gladiator (LS6, Shield 1) took quite a beating to bring down with NB's. I must have hit it like 40 times or so, missing another 40. Could have easily destroyed the titan in the same time frame with conventional weaponry.

So, the NB isn't really that unbalanced, I've just had quite a bit of luck at my opponent statistics when I've had a NB available. I'd still recommend having a few of them here and there, the meanest of titans can be brought down surprisingly fast if it's piloted by a replicant. This will also make selecting replicants as pilots for your team a real gamble, no matter how much better stats they might have at the start.

I rest my case.

PrinceCorrin · Post by **PrinceCorrin** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 5:27 am

I was using a testing an NB design. Had to modify it to become less NB dependant. A streak of bad luck allowed me to land only ONE shot the whole battle. NBs are just as much a gamble as Mesons.

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 1:09 pm

About the other weapon, the NMs, I will test it further but I *think* they might be just a little too powerful in the conditions stated above, titans crammed with them. In a test game I got a Fire Giant and just slaughtered the AI in a cool running titan. For some reason the AI wouldn't raise its shield while being heated to death (heat was yellow and red and shield was off, it went into a lake but left right away), and after a couple shutdowns and 3 ammo explosions it ejected. This is probably more an AI problem than with the NMs, but still I feel them too "choking" for the opponent. IMO their role should be to slow down rate of fire, not to *kill* opponents by heat. They are overpowered when used in large amounts exactly because of that, they can be used as a primary weapon. They should be a support weapon IMO.

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 2:37 am

Iceman,

I've seen again and again the power of NMs, if you just pack your titans to the gills with them. They're so cheap that I've refrained from using that tactics anymore. But it does exist.

I understand the dilemma with NMs, though.. In order to have any sense in installing them, they need to produce at least 1C heat per damage point, right? Otherwise you'd be better off shooting SRMs instead as their heating effect would be too minimal to notice. Yet it'd only take like 3 salvoes from 5 titans to make one enemy explode with 100% certainty. Flamer is nicely balanced since you can't afford your enemies blowing at YOUR face all the time.

How about if NMs were handled a little differently, meaning a NM hit could only heat up one spot once in a given time period? Heat flux is limited via a given area, this is a known physical fact. No matter how many missiles actually hit, only the first one would add heat, others just damage. So, at worst, you'd hit 9 places, creating 16.2C worth of heat.

Proper timing interval could be, say, 5 seconds, to let titans with Heat Reg A to have a bit of extra left for returned fire. This'd effectively cancel these two titans 'out of the battle', so to speak, other one busy heating the second. In this approach, adding extra NMs wouldn't profit you nearly as much.

Larkin, is such an extra timer too hard to implement? I could imagine quite a few other uses for that if it existed, in a form of new special effects..

Lyhrrus · Post by **Lyhrrus** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 3:16 am

Slap a shield 3 or better on a titan and NMs aren't as lethal (though certainly annoying). In teams, you should be able to have the other titans pick off your NMers 1 by 1, at least if you're playing a human opponent. I do admit though that an NM team is exceedingly dangerous. It seems to me though that NMs hit at higher rates than conventional missiles, though I'm probably mistaken.

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 12:20 pm

Originally posted by Jukka Mikkonen:
Iceman,

How about if NMs were handled a little differently, meaning a NM hit could only heat up one spot once in a given time period? Heat flux is limited via a given area, this is a known physical fact. No matter how many missiles actually hit, only the first one would add heat, others just damage. So, at worst, you'd hit 9 places, creating 16.2C worth of heat.

Proper timing interval could be, say, 5 seconds, to let titans with Heat Reg A to have a bit of extra left for returned fire. This'd effectively cancel these two titans 'out of the battle', so to speak, other one busy heating the second. In this approach, adding extra NMs wouldn't profit you nearly as much.

Larkin, is such an extra timer too hard to implement? I could imagine quite a few other uses for that if it existed, in a form of new special effects..

It wouldn't be too hard but slowing down the game cause an experienced player would of cause stagger his fire by attacking, wait on time 6 secs, attack, wait ....

But how about simplifying things and just use the rule on every attack. Hitting a location more than once in one attack will not add heat ? Oppinions ?

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 2:19 pm

I think you got it, Larkin.

Your idea has one drawback, though.. What is actually considered 'one attack'? Unless some sort of timeouts are in place, I'd just launch NM rack one, hit 'back', attack, launch NM rack two etc., all within the same second.

Things would certainly get interesting, if the timing interval actually depended on some skill checks.. Good ones would propably be DCS and/or defensives, if you have a shield. A successfull check would lenghten the heat invulnerability time somewhat. Also, a small fire icon could be drawn into the scan window (on yellow or green scan) to indicate that a certain body part is still sucking in the previous heat-up attack.

We have to keep in mind the problem here : A single titan with max two NMs wont make anyone explode on its own, but a pack of titans with a pack of NMs each most certainly will. Therefore we need to device a simple solution, how to impose an upper limit on how FAST a single titan can be heated up by external means.

If and since we want to avoid that 'fire-wait n seconds-fire' -scenario, you could also calculate the total heat buildup, but instead of applying it straight away, you'd heat up your target every second until the heat buildup has been used up. An upper limit on how many seconds the heating effect would stack into could also be used.

An example : Your two quad-NM14 titans hit one unfortunate target, doing 70 damage and 126C of heat. Quite excessive, indeed. By some formula "A", that specific target has a max heat influx of 4C/sec. That would amount to 32sec heat buildup, but let's say we've limited this to 10 seconds max by some formula "B". Thus over two thirds of the heat-up effect would be wasted.

Now all we need to device are those formulas A and B.

A would most certainly be based on target size (more area = more heat influx), external armor type modifiers and heat reg type. Heat reg A would suffer MORE because instead of getting cool air into the vents, it'd be sucking mostly blazing hot napalm gases. A shield could reduce this rating by keeping the flames away from the metal parts.

B could use movement as a factor, meaning a dodging target would also shove off some of that Napalm goop before it gets a chance to even burn. Non-sticky external surfaces would also help drastically. Teflon, anyone?

Does this approach seem simple enough?

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 2:27 pm

Originally posted by Jukka Mikkonen:
I think you got it, Larkin.

Your idea has one drawback, though.. What is actually considered 'one attack'? Unless some sort of timeouts are in place, I'd just launch NM rack one, hit 'back', attack, launch NM rack two etc., all within the same second.

Its as easy as that. One attack is the firing of one rack. If all missiles go in seperate places = heat buildup as we have it now. If all hit one place = just 1.8C buildup. I think its a good compromise and will reduce overall heat.

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 2:47 pm

Yeah Jukka, I've also seen the power of NMs again and again, but I just thought the timing was right again to say something about NMs. I really like your ideas, but they're way too complex. Larkin's solution is simple and elegant, as always, and I fully agree with it. It does take the sting out of all-NMs, yet it doesn't hamper them completely. Let's see how it works.

Larkin, any chance of we testing this and GMs in a v1.4 beta?

About GMs BTW, as you said, there are 2 options to make the new GMs work:
option a) reduce damage per missile and keep rack size GM3/6 @3dpm
option b) reduce rack size and keep damage per missile GM2/4 @4dpm

option a) offers higher maximum damage and is slightly more efficient against high level flares
option b) offers more impact and is slightly more efficient against low level flares

I'd probably go for option b), for its impact, though option a) would probably be easier to implement.
I'd also revert the ECMs' GM mod to their former values (decrease 5%) for the simple reason that heavier titans are the ones that usually have ECM. GMs are more of a threat to lighter titans than to heavier ones, so a balance there should also be obtained.

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 3:00 pm

No, v1.4 will not get the changes.

I'm still unsure that even while reducing damage the GM aren't to deadly with the new rules but without further tweaking. Even harder if I reduce ECM protection. The new syste makes flares a MUST against GMs, otherwise your dead meat. Titans like the Tentakel would deal about 100p per volley with superior accuracy. As good as your idea was, Iceman - its needs serious tweaking.

I'm just adding BMT modifiers for damaged actuators. Actuators are the element which create a titans speed. You buy them together with the chassis, therefore the speed is given there. Damage to them should have affected speed from the beginning of ToS, curious that I had not noticed.

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 3:22 pm

Larkin,

Have to disagree with that NM solution of yours. You'd effectively reduce the heat buildup of NM's, that's true, but the problem remains as it was. HOW TO MAINTAIN NM'S USEFULLNESS WITHOUT ONE BEING ABLE TO ABUSE THEM.

Having just one or two NMs would have even less of an impact as it is now. Not very desirable. Even with current rules, NMs are an either-or decision : either you have some or none, just one won't make a difference worth squat.

And Iceman,

I think you're overestimating the calculation needs for my approach. Forest fires, movement, shields etc. currently have an effect on heat reduction every second, so adding yet another modifier due to NM fire doesn't seem much to me. Flamers could also be included.

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 3:34 pm

I disagree with you also. But I don't have the time nor energy to discuss every detail of ToS in depth. Can we assume that a NM 14 rack will hit about 7 locations average ? This will half heat, right. Harder to abuse it as you need double number of racks to get the old effect, right ?

I do NOT think that NMs are only usefull if you can shutdown the opponent in one volley. They are also usefull to reduce fire rate and make those ammunition titans think twice to fire to heat red.

I also like the idea that the new system does favor a new tactic against NM enemies. Normally you try to display the biggest silhouette to diversify hit locations. Against NMs its better to show just one side to reduce heat.

Thanks for your input Jukka, even if I didn't follow you to the end.

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 4:58 pm

Originally posted by Larkin [Vicious Byte]:
No, v1.4 will not get the changes.

I'm still unsure that even while reducing damage the GM aren't to deadly with the new rules but without further tweaking. Even harder if I reduce ECM protection. The new syste makes flares a MUST against GMs, otherwise your dead meat. Titans like the Tentakel would deal about 100p per volley with superior accuracy. As good as your idea was, Iceman - its needs serious tweaking.

I'm just adding BMT modifiers for damaged actuators. Actuators are the element which create a titans speed. You buy them together with the chassis, therefore the speed is given there. Damage to them should have affected speed from the beginning of ToS, curious that I had not noticed.

about v1.4, so how are you gonna test these?

about GMs, a quad AC20 deals 80 damage every 22secs, in 4x20 packages. The Tentakel deals 100 all spread out, evry *28* secs. And there's no stopping the AC slugs, like flares do to GMs.

about actuators, I already had pointed that out to you way way back, but back then you said that if titans could not move properly the game wouldn't be fun... <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 5:06 pm

Originally posted by Jukka Mikkonen:

Having just one or two NMs would have even less of an impact as it is now. Not very desirable. Even with current rules, NMs are an either-or decision : either you have some or none, just one won't make a difference worth squat.

I think you're overestimating the calculation needs for my approach. Forest fires, movement, shields etc. currently have an effect on heat reduction every second, so adding yet another modifier due to NM fire doesn't seem much to me. Flamers could also be included.

NMs will become a 'pack weapon'?! If you want to reduce enemy fire, they'll work fine on their own without being over-"choking". If you want to kill, concentrate fire from several NM titans.

It's not the mod that's complex, it's all the situations that can be created around it. If there's a simpler solution that can have a similar effect...

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 5:20 pm

Originally posted by THE Iceman:

about v1.4, so how are you gonna test these?

about GMs, a quad AC20 deals 80 damage every 22secs, in 4x20 packages. The Tentakel deals 100 all spread out, evry *28* secs. And there's no stopping the AC slugs, like flares do to GMs.

about actuators, I already had pointed that out to you way way back, but back then you said that if titans could not move properly the game wouldn't be fun... <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Will be tested with v2.0 beta. Will you agree that the Tentakel will deal its damage with greater accuracy ? AC20 will have range 8 in WS so its a bit harder to get all shots into your target. A jock with a GM skill of 70% will hit much more often with the Tentakel than a cannon guy with 70% and AC20 (standard map setup).

I have a great idea Iceman : how about you coding ToS 3.0 and me logging our discussion and showing you how much good ideas I had you constantly ignored till you sell them as yours <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> ?

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 6:37 pm

Oookay, I couldn't guess this'd heat up the discussion this far.. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

I see your point, Larkin, in being majorly concerned about abusive use of NMs in general. I had just hoped to have some sense in installing a NM here and there, but outright halving their heat effect is quite a drastic and very much undesirable move IMNSHO. That's why I proposed that heat cap system of mine.

Some maths using current rules : Your enemy sports 3 AC12s plus a LL and no shield, and manages to put himself into red, say 108C. I'd assume it'd have heat reg from 7 to A, as this is at least a heavy titan. So you'd fire your two NM14s at him, scoring 20 pts of damage and 36C heat, totaling to 144C. Ouch?

Not quite. Just after 10-15 seconds or so, he'd be back to yellow, avoiding ammo explosion checks, his AC's not even recycled for another shot. He'd only have to refrain from using his LL against you b/c of your NMs. Considering the sacrifices you've made to install 2 NM14s plus ammo, I'd be tempted to say their leverage is somewhat limited. In fact, even if all missiles hit the target, you'd only incur a +2.4C/sec average heat input. A drag, yes, but can be handled by most heat regs. Not excactly what you'd expect of 2 NM14s, as this'd be their 'optimal case'.

And for Iceman.. The addition of smoke ability for smaller ACs must be quite recent? Nice, but a smoke screen usually won't cover you from a hilltop sniper. Since you can't shoot him, or at least you'd have slim chances, you'd hope for something that'd make his shooting at you a lot more difficult, yes? A chaff missile would cover this spot excactly. Blind his electronics and rush for cover while it lasts. This system would resemble flares except that you'd use it offensively!

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 6:37 pm

Oookay, I couldn't guess this'd heat up the discussion this far.. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

I see your point, Larkin, in being majorly concerned about abusive use of NMs in general. I had just hoped to have some sense in installing a NM here and there, but outright halving their heat effect is quite a drastic and very much undesirable move IMNSHO. That's why I proposed that heat cap system of mine.

Some maths using current rules : Your enemy sports 3 AC12s plus a LL and no shield, and manages to put himself into red, say 108C. I'd assume it'd have heat reg from 7 to A, as this is at least a heavy titan. So you'd fire your two NM14s at him, scoring 20 pts of damage and 36C heat, totaling to 144C. Ouch?

Not quite. Just after 10-15 seconds or so, he'd be back to yellow, avoiding ammo explosion checks, his AC's not even recycled for another shot. He'd only have to refrain from using his LL against you b/c of your NMs. Considering the sacrifices you've made to install 2 NM14s plus ammo, I'd be tempted to say their leverage is somewhat limited. In fact, even if all missiles hit the target, you'd only incur a +2.4C/sec average heat input. A drag, yes, but can be handled by most heat regs. Not excactly what you'd expect of 2 NM14s, as this'd be their 'optimal case'.

And for Iceman.. The addition of smoke ability for smaller ACs must be quite recent? Nice, but a smoke screen usually won't cover you from a hilltop sniper. Since you can't shoot him, or at least you'd have slim chances, you'd hope for something that'd make his shooting at you a lot more difficult, yes? A chaff missile would cover this spot excactly. Blind his electronics and rush for cover while it lasts. This system would resemble flares except that you'd use it offensively!