15 replies to this topic

[Yombie]

Lets have a discussion and start brainstorming new ideas for internals and the various possibilities and futures of it.

I don't mind criticisms or critiques, add your own ideas or even just add your approval to ones you like, anything is welcome, nothing is discouraged (so at least input "something").


I'll start with a few ideas I had:

(A few of these ideas are based on rebel variants, which is an idea I am suggesting under the "suggestions" section of the forums.)


1. Advanced Munitions/Caseless rounds - Reduce heat generation from weapons by a %. (You could possibly split this up into two items and offer one for primary, and the other for secondary, depending on whether or not this would be too over powered.)

2. Floating Barrel (for guns) - Offers a reduction on recoil and weapon spread based on %. (with addition heat generation to balance if this is too OP) [That KLA suddenly becomes a sniper rifle]

3. Coolant Injectors - Offers a flat reduction on jet pack consumption. (flying only)

4. Afterburner - Offers 1.5x movement distance for all dodges. (air or ground)

5. Overdrive - Offers ability to interrupt a dodge with another dodge, however at the cost of twice the fuel, also increases boost speed on ground only.

6. Safety Override - Upon hitting 5-10% health or less, your mech resets the heat guage, gains invincibility and can fight for 2-5 more seconds before dying. (Once you hit 5-10% health you cannot undo the self destruct mechanism.)

7. Smuggled Payload - Upon death, your mech explodes in a large radius (size of heat grenade) damaging all enemies caught in the explosion.

8. Modified Thrusters - Give up the ability to fly for double ground boost speed, and better fuel consumption except when dodging.

9. Advanced Item Fusor - After 2-3 consecutive kills, regenerate empty item slots in the order in which they were used.

10. Modified Servos - Increase maximum turning radius.

11. Improvised Heat Sinks - When you overheat, the duration stays the same, however when the automatic systems flush your heat, the guage only cools down to half, allowing you to shoot sooner, however at the expense of having half your bar full of heat.  (too wordy, can someone rephrase_)

12. Modified Pilot Limiter - When you get 5 kills consecutively without dying, you regain 100% health in 10 seconds.

[Coboxite]

The only ones I take issue with is six(Not fair at all for the players getting hit with it), seven(This was in the game but removed due to being unfair to the wining party), eleven(Would be completely broken on Incinerator), and twelve(Would be broken on C class mechs). The rest seem fine for the most part.

Edited by Coboxite, June 26 2014 - 08:25 PM.

[Yombie]

Coboxite, on June 26 2014 - 08:24 PM, said:

The only ones I take issue with is six(Not fair at all for the players getting hit with it), seven(This was in the game but removed due to being unfair to the wining party), eleven(Would be completely broken on Incinerator), and twelve(Would be broken on C class mechs). The rest seem fine for the most part.

6. You could raise the % in which it activates, effectively lowering the maximum life of the pilot who chooses it, effectively it gives them one last chance to get that kill, for the players who enjoy being on the front lines.

7. You could have the damage be based upon the total life of the mech, so that A mechs deal less damage than C mechs during explosions, you could also scale the explosion radius to match, this would offset the OP nature of it by adding the additional requirement of being in close enough proximity to the enemy during your death to actually do damage.

11. Would only allow Incinerator to fire off a secondary or two after cooldown, his primary would still need to wind up and generate heat. Making this one cost 2 slots would probably be enough to offset it's advantages over having something else on the incinerator, also the fact that it actually makes his heat grenade item worse is also a balancing factor.

12. Is not that broken, it'd only be broken on skilled pilots, because if there was a C mech totally kicking butt and building up a killing spree, then the other team would almost be forced to gang up on him, also the fact that it requires kills and not assists should make it a risk vs reward internal.

Thanks for the input, it really helped me hone the above suggestions.

[obliviondoll]

Many games have incorporated abilities/equipment/perks which act as some form of self-destruct mechanism after a player dies. In the majority of cases, they're seen as "cheap" and "unfair" because they're hard/impossible to counter and often give inexperienced players the equivalent of a free kill. Very few games have balanced such abilities effectively.

The best example I can think of is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, with the "Final Vengeance" perk that's available to Assault Marines and Raptors. There are a lot of drawbacks - without actively TRYING to get killed by it, a player with full health will simply not take enough damage to die. The blast radius is comparable to a normal grenade, ANYONE can avoid 90% of the damage with a single dodge, and most can avoid the blast entirely. There's a delay long enough to let a player in a braced firing position unbrace and dodge before the blast. The game also uses directional indicators for grenades and other explosives, and this includes an exploding corpse. Part of the reason this balance works is that the perk is available exclusively to the game's melee-focused class, and instead of  acting as a direct-damage "weapon" the perk functions more like an area-denial tool. The best use for it is in point capturing gameplay where a Final Vengeance user can drop onto a capture point while the enemy is trying to secure it. While they're alive, their melee attacks are a threat, and when they die, the explosion will force a further delay before the point can be (re)claimed.

Because Hawken is mostly based on ranged combat, I can't really see the same balance mechanics working, but similar principles could be used. Blast radius would need to be approximately the same range as a C-class mech's dodge distance, and the damage wouldn't be sufficient to kill even the most fragile A-class mech from full health. With an arming delay after you die, and with both visual and audio cues to alert enemies to the impending explosion, it wouldn't be a reliable tool for killing enemies - or even finishing off an opponent who killed you, but it could be used as an effective area denial tool. It would also make 99% of players choose to bring something else instead because it "sucks" (read: doesn't get kills for you)

And now for something completely different...

Alternate thruster layout: This internal system would replace the 180 spin function with a backwards dodge.

Feedback and reasons why this is a great/terrible idea would be much appreciated.

[Terr_]

I'd like to see more 1x1 internals which come with both an advantage and a disadvantage. They offer much more tactically-interesting tradeoffs and decisions, their downsides help ensure a fair playing-field, and they are easier to balance because developers have more ways to tweak them.

Here's how I'd rewrite the original 12 items:

• Caseless rounds:  Worse heat generation, Improved reload time. (In real life, caseless rounds mean MORE heat, not less!)
  
  
• Floating Barrel:  Better random spread, Worse fire-rate. (Barrel vibrations have to be dampened between shots.)
  
  
• Dense Fuel: Larger effective fuel pool, Worse fuel-regeneration. (Harder to synthesize in the field.)
  
  
• Afterburner: Better dodge distance, Worse fuel efficiency. (Fairly straightforward.)
  
  
• Ducted Jets:  Dodges can be redirected midway through to "fake out" opponents. Uses additional fuel when triggered.
  
  
• Thermal Safety Override: You never go into an overheated state, but heat beyond your maximum causes self-damage. (Watch out for heat-charges, they can damage you.)
  
  
• Smuggled Payload: Slightly after death, a series of mines appear in your wreckage, Increases time to respawn by a small amount.
  
  
• Fixed thruster nozzles: Better forward boost speed, Reduced sideways dodge distance. (Original seemed a bit too specialized/powerful)
  
  
• Advanced Item Fusor: (I don't see a good way to explain or balance this one.)
  
  
• Additional Gyros: Improved turning rate, Longer dodge-cooldown.
  
  
• Hacked Coolant Protocol: Overheat recovery is faster, but some heat remains in bar. (This one looks pretty Incinerator-specific, and we should be careful not to make it too powerful as complement to the PPA. Is never triggered if you have Thermal Safety Override.)
  
  
• Modified Pilot Limiter: (I can't think of a good way to make this one realistic, and I'm not sure it'd be that useful compared to a per-kill device.)

Some of these will be pointless (or counterproductive) in certain situations, but as long as their effects are relatively predictable and flow naturally from their rules, I think that's fine.

For example, Floating Barrel won't help if you are firing a gun which has perfect accuracy, and Afterburner might be coded in a way that harms Infiltrator cloak since it uses fuel.

Edited by Terr_, July 15 2014 - 12:24 PM.

[Meraple]

fuzzy bunny

[Terr_]

Intriguing. Care to elucidate, dear chap_

[PizzaFromMoon]

Self destruct.

An internal that lets you self destruct wich will deal a fear amount of damage to the enemy around you.

Edited by PizzaFromMoon, July 25 2014 - 09:39 AM.

[mmm_yep]

PizzaFromMoon, on July 25 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

Self destruct.

An internal that lets you self destruct wich will deal a fear amount of damage to the enemy around you.

I think I saw someone else mention this. Apparently it was experimented with early on but it got abused somehow and wasn't promoting the gameplay Hawken was about. Maybe one of the veterans can expand on that.

Edited by mmm_yep, July 25 2014 - 04:50 PM.

[PizzaFromMoon]

i cant see it being abused in anyway.., i cant see how someone would abuse it. I mean if you want use it you would fly right into the enemy nest and self destruct, thus causing YOU to die but only dealing a fear amount of damage to 1 or 2 mechs. that seems just about balanced to me.

i was thinking it to be used as a last option. when you have low HP and you have no way of escaping, you could get close to the enemy and just self destruct leaving with a bang.

i do see a problem tho, that you could abuse this in a trollish way by self destructing just when you are about to get killed causing the guy who is killing you to not to get a kill. but i also see a solution to this, basically the player who dealt the most damage to the "self destructing mech" would get the kill, or maybe an assist. but maybe its just to complicated and has to many issues to be seen as a good internal to add. i can understand this.

[Terr_]

PizzaFromMoon, on July 26 2014 - 01:36 AM, said:

i cant see it being abused in anyway.., i cant see how someone would abuse it.

Self-destruct mechanics tend to always be either (A) useless or (B) exploited in certain situations.

In particular, any situation where respawn/travel time means you can push the enemy back through life-by-life attrition. I can also see Infiltrators boosting along while cloaked as a significant risk.

Edited by Terr_, July 28 2014 - 09:20 AM.

[GaryFlyAndTheGirls]

paintball internal
allows you to color enemies that you shoot

[Silk_Sk]

Emergency Aid internal.
Any mechs you destroy while below 20% health drop higher yield repair orbs.

Basic: +10% (2 blocks)
Regular: +20% (3 blocks)
Advanced: +30% (4 blocks)

And yes, this would stack with repair kit, but there wouldn't be enough room for the advanced versions. No, it would not affect dropped repair charges.

Edited by Silk_Sk, August 16 2014 - 11:49 AM.

[ZeroSteelfist]

obliviondoll, on July 15 2014 - 03:19 AM, said:

Alternate thruster layout: This internal system would replace the 180 spin function with a backwards dodge.

I would love an option to have a reverse dodge, even at half the normal distance since the thrusters are not really configured to move the mech that way efficiently.

Edited by ZeroSteelfist, September 16 2014 - 08:17 PM.

[PepeKenobi]

__an internal to have radar available during repairs

just to bring in something "new"

[AlphaPanzer01]

Well, I do think that no.4 is the best idea of all internals. However, I do think that the internal should only activated when a mech is flying, it'll burn more fuel for better climb rate and air speed.