66 replies to this topic

[miSs]

What would be the best way to judge your 'Mech's combat effectiveness? How would you summarize with a single numerical value how dangerous your 'Mech is? How would you summarize with a non-numerical value?


Post away and answer below!

[Battalia]

So Battle Value in a nut shell, right? Well, when you add customization into the mix, you really just need to play it like lego.

Give every Weapon a value depending on the damage and range and heat generated.
Give every Chassis a value depending on how much room it has to load weapons, and armor.
Give the engines a multiplication value. So increasing the engine size add X1.05 value and decreasing is .95 etc
Give the pilot a multiplication value, with 4/4 bieng 0 and decreasing with 5 and up and increasing with 3 and below. A 0/0 pilot should have a high value.

That pretty much sums it up. The only thing that can go wrong with that value is unbalanced numbers.

With a non-numerical description of power I would cheat a little and use the above numerical value to determine the non-numerical description

Create a chart for each class of 'Mech with something like

Light: (from low to high battle value)
Decoy
Scout
Harasser
in-fighter
Brawler

Another option for a non-numerical description would be to total up the potential damage in each range and use the highest to form the description.

Long Range Support (long)
Well Rounded (even amounts in all catagories)
Pit Fighter (close range)
Assault (mid range)
Spear Head (mid to long range)

[RoundTop]

Single numerical value you need only look at battle value (v2) in CBT for your baseline. Then modify as needed. (You almost made me break NDA Sophie)

Non, numerical I like the chart you had for each mech, showing speed, armor, heat efficiency, and the different ranged firepowers. I know that is hard to automate though, since it doesn't take into account bracket firing, without some weird code, but it is a quick visual representation.

[blazeblades]

I would say on a scale of 1 to 10 then my own mechs would be a 9 or 10 on a scale of "your just joking" to "can I fofeit?" then it would be "can I forfiet?"

[Busukaba]

What number would I use to quantify how dangerous my 'Mech is? Walking Speed: 7 or higher. If I'm piloting it, you're dying from it. At least that's how it went in TT. I used to be better in Medium and heavy 'Mech but I really got attached to he Spider, Jenner, Locust, etc.. and began to play them all the time. It got so bad that a couple years ago the guys I ply with made a house rule that I couldn't have more than one Jenner or Spider on my side. I'm assuming the question is specifically about me and not generalized because using Walking Speed 7 as a quantifier for how dangerous your 'Mech is excluded like 70% of the Mechs out there from being dangerous in any way.

Non-numerical is tougher. The game is basically running on numbers so it's tough to come up with a summary on what I think makes a 'Mech dangerous. I guess I'd have to say the correlation to speed, firepower and heat. Lets face it, if you're moving 8/12/8, you're not packing a lot of weapons or heat sinks. You're not going to be able to fire all your weapons unless you're mounting machine guns when jumping without overheating. Sure, you're OK for a couple rounds, but you do not want to incur movement penalties in a fast little guy like that. So really, I look at whether or not I can fire all weapons with little or no heat buildup when going flank/running speed. Guess it's still kind of a number, though since it's a blending of speed and the ratio of heat generated to heat sinks.

[Modred189]

Depends.
If you mean in-game, then a nice little three way pie chart. A circle with three sections, one for weapons, one for armor and one for heat. Weapons would take into account ammo and destroyed weapons. Armor would include lost limbs and IS/IC damage. Heat would include current heat level, approximate next round heat level (to account for lost weapons) and engine damage. Each section starts green and goes to yellow, orange, red and then black as things deteriorate.

If you mean in the mech bay- Then take the crazy circle graphs you guys have been using for the mech bios. The math needs to be more polished or explained, but I like those a lot.

[Trebov]

Ideally, you would assign a value to weapons based on effectiveness. Not always the case, since you can outfit a much smaller mech than the Awesome with 3 PPCs, and come out with the same battle value, despite the fact that it has paper for armor and no heatsinks.

No no, you have to take into consideration three main points:

Speed
Armor
Weapons

Obviously, Lights are low on the second two, but have plenty of speed. The heavier you go, the more the opposite is true. If I remember the TT game well enough, Armor tended to carry a little more weight (ha) when it came to Battle Value than some weapons. Its why the Orion was a popular choice: maxed armor on a 75 tonner meant he could stand against most Assaults and not care. Had a decently high BV too.

[Corruptor]

Combat effectivness is not only damge done by weapons. Many factors need to be to consider. Speed of mech, range of weapons, firing rate, armor (durability), heat effiency and much more i can't say ad hoc. I'm not that familar with the original BattleTach Rules but i guess all factors comes together in the BattleValue. Maybe the only values which doesn't matter is the amount of tons.

MW4 did use colored bars for : firepower, armor, speed, heat effiency, relative heat effiency. That's simple and fast to determine.

As non-numerical the hexagon on the introducing pictures of the mechs are an good idea.
Also nice would be a comparison with two overlaying hexagons of two different mech configurations for figuring out where has the one mech the best peak and where the other.

[Pentex]

I dont know, the thought of trying to put a numerical value on ones "combat effectiveness" seems to be nothing more then a way to stroke the players ego, A way to try to make a player feel good about what hes put together. Making a combat assessment seems more useful but I dont see how you can quantify that. I look at the opposing mechs weight, ability to soak heat, armor, and weapons loadout. Then simply compare his ability to fight with his weapons loadouts at the various ranges with his heat soaking ability vs. mine at the same ranges.
It takes just a minute or two longer to make this simple assessment in your head then it does to compare some numerical system that represents your battle effectiveness. I understand the need to make players somehow feel empowered, just a little bit grander in there games then in life. But Im sure the likes of jack the ripper, and jeffrey dahmer had those needs too....among others..but thats another conversation. Now Im not saying the next serial killer is among us, but I am saying unless you can find a way to accurately reflect a combat effective numerical representation to include but not be limited to the above factors I will continue to just ignore them.
Now for the dahmers and rippers who are among us ::smacks them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper:: NO........NO NO NO NO ::shakes finger at them:: ..... BAAAAD.

Follow the money trail, and the truth will reveal itself.

[DarkSpade]

Single number? Can't do it. I'd want a number 1 though 10 for speed, armor, and fire power. Might even be nice to have the ranges broken up.

If we're talking about some kind of quick summery from a mouse over, I like that hex chart thing you've got in the previews.

[Karyudo]

I would have to agree with Battlevalues. At least if your numbers are digital Battletech, it makes sense to use an existing formula if people like it.

The charts are nice, though if you just want to use words I would go with a trait based tag-line...like a weapon name in Diablo. "Light Speed-demon" might be a Jenner, "Light, Support" might be a Commando. Have to keep it short, but could be informative in few words.

[Swiftfire]

Current weapon potential x current armour value x max speed for a numerical value. Scale a letter grade accordingly.

[BrotherCliff]

Why not use the battle value system that already exist in the PnP game?

[Wildstorm]

I don't think a single number can do it justice. I'd like to see something along the lines of:

30/40/15 ... 2.5 turns ... 10 tons ... 6 hex

The first group is alpha strike damage at long/medium/short.
Next is turns to completely recover from hottest alpha strike.
Tonnage of armor.
Running speed of Mech.

From those values I can decide what kind of threat a Mech represents to me. Class isn't that important as it will impact the others due to engine size, weapon loading, etc.

[Ascendant]

I don't see any reason not to use BV2 as a baseline for absolute values.

For damage, a filled line graph showing maximum damage output at various ranges is usually helpful, especially if overlaid with a second line showing the heat buildup assuming all those weapons are fired.

Other graphs showing absolute speed, armor, and pilot/gunnery values would also be helpful.

[EliasAvenal]

First of all let me just say that its great to hear from the Devs again! (smile) Hope that ya'll had a great Thanksgiving Holiday!

In terms of a numerical value assessment on the combat effective of my 'mechs, I would say that the CBT BV 2.0 system works pretty well. Sure, its not perfect; what system is? For me, BV 2.0 is a functional, moderately refined methodology that's already seen two iterations of review and revision.

For those that aren't familiar, the BV 2.0 system is detailed in the CBT-RB TechManual. The basics of it is that the total BV of a build is the sum of a defensive value and an offensive value. The defensive value takes into consideration factors such as armor, engine type, internal structure, gyro, tonnage, defensive equipment, and the location of explosive ammo and other critical. The offensive value tracks details such as heat sinks, movement, weapons and offensive equipment, excess ammunition, etc.

Some tweaking will not doubt have to be made to transfer this system into MWT. Imho, I believe there are some great 'bones' to build upon here.

A non-numerical judgement of combat effectiveness to me screams 'Dragoons Rating'. Now everyone, calm down, I can practically hear the incandescent raging and screaming from my living room. The original intent of the 'Dragoons Rating' is to quantify the trustworthiness and professionalism of a merc unit via attributes like completed missions, support points, transportation assets, leadership, expertise, etc. Some of these ideas don't transfer at all. Others, like completed matches, leadership, expertise, rage quits, possible cooperation with other players, I feel would be great indicators to track and can definitely give the wider community at large an idea as to whom they'd want on their 'side'. That was the intent, if not the function, of a 'Dragoons Rating'

Call it something else if it makes it more palatable, Community Rating, Combat Rating, Honor Rating, what have you. I for one would really like some way to track the play performance, beyond just raw combat power, of my fellow players.

[EmperorMyrf]

Ah I love math! Though if such a value is implemented I hope it is only seen server-side for matchmaking.

Things to be assumed:

-Speed, armor, and weapon effectiveness all have equal weight in the value.
-Each 3 values will be scaled 1-1000.
-Values will be averaged.
-Some predetermined constant scores for aux equipment (CASE, BAP, etc) are added right to the score, producing the final value.

Things to be included:

-Speed
Walking speed *100. Annihilator would get a 200, while a spider would get an 800.

-Armor
(Armor Tonnage / 2) * 100. Atlas would get a 950, and would be the maximum score almost. A Flea would get a 150

-Weapon Effectiveness
Slightly more complex. Formula would be:

Scaling_Factor * Alpha_Damage * [(Alpha_Damage * Heat Sinks) / Alpha_Heat]

First Alpha_Damage is the maximum firepower of the mech, the fraction after it is how long the mech can sustain fire. A scaling factor is needed so that 1000 Firepower is difficult to reach, I'd suggest 0.75. A Jenner-F would get a 250, and an Awesome-8Q would get an 737.

-Equipment
As previously mentioned, some sort of value would need to be made (by the devs) to be added to the score. Maybe even a small multiplier instead a constant, like 1.05 or something. Up in the air on that.

Things to not be included:
-XL Engine
Because the advantages of XL is reflected in at least one of the other above categories.

-Manufacturer Bonuses
Same as above, will be reflected in above values.


Examples:
JR7-F: (700 + 350 + 250)/3 = 433
AWS-8Q: (300 + 750 + 737)/3 = 596

I don't feel that BV is a good idea. It's a good way to measure the worth of a mech's items, but it doesn't measure how effectively it can use them.

[Xentax]

I think a system very much like BV works, though you'd have to tweak it to account for synergy factors in MW:T.

For multiple values, I think you could break it down into a couple key stats, speed/armor/firepower:
- Total armor points (you call this 'armor factor' already from what I can tell)
- Speed (run/walk/jump again is very easy to pick up)
- Total damage, with a note on max heat vs. heat dissipation.

Ideally you could see a breakdown of short/med/long - perhaps a % of the total damage that is available at each range.

Another basic damage stat might be max damage vs. the max *theoretical* of a max of that tonnage. MWO's doing something similar but doesn't account for the Mech's tonnage.

[Geistnull]

i'd like 3 numbers.

BV
damage in a turn
heat in a alpha strike

[RonasAlabar]

A lot of really good points have been covered. It's hard to develop a quick and easy way to assess a 'Mech's potential; I know for the more seasoned of us here we just need to look at its loadout to know what it can do. But I understand you're also trying to cater to the not-so-seasoned, so...

It's next to impossible to put just a 'rating' number on a given chassis, like a player in a sports game. There are so many different factors to consider; it isn't an average of ratings like the aforementioned player's speed, acceleration, shot power, etc. A radar would be nice, but then again there's such a huge range of rating from a Jenner to an Atlas you'd be hard-pressed to stay with a consistent display through every unit.

I'd be happy with:
MP, heat sinks, tons of armour
Weapons list (with locations and ammo, and I guess damage and heat for each)

Nothing fancy. Give the newbie enough info to piece together the unit's capabilities.I realise this is isn't really a rating, but you're going to have a rough go trying to distill everything a 'Mech is into a rating, or a 'potentiality assessment'. I think a quick little vitals readout would do just fine.