Initiative Revamp...

[theCarthaginian]

... or, how to make fast mechs not suck.

Ok, we all know the type - the 7/11 mediummech, 5/8 heavy mech or 4/6+ assault mech. The ones that are mostly engine, so that they are viewed as sub-optimal in the current Meta.
Cicada
Dragon
Zeus
The ones that you only use when you don't have anything else to use, and only use as long as absolutely necessary. How can we make these designs more flexible and desirable?
The current 5-tier, weight-based initiative system lumps themin with their slower, more durable and more heavily-armed brethren. This provides no real incentive to retain these mechs once you get a similar weight chassis that devotes less free weight to engine size.

Since the HBS initiative scale general ly benefits faster mechs with a higher initiative, I would like to propose a somewhat more granular 8-stage system which gives these heavier the advantage based on the speed they paid for in weapon/armor tonage.

1.) Master Tactician
2.) Lights Mechs
3.) Fast Mediums
4.) Mediums
5.) Fast Heavies
5.) Heavies
7.) Fast Assaults
8.) Assaults
This would nerf Master Tactician a bit, but not too much IMO... and if it was too much, then you just increase the buff to two steps instead of one.
It would, unlike simply moving outlyers into the next higher/lower initiative category, preserve the advantages specific to lighter mechs, while giving the more maneuverable heavier designs an advantage over similar mass mechs with more weapons... a melee Dragon now can close distance on a Jagermech or Black Knight without getting shot to pieces on the way in. A Cicada can scout, but can still be out-scouted by a light... giving more utility for one without 'stealth-nerfing' the other.

 

[Spartakus]

Well, there is another possible lever to adjust to improve balancing: A mech's price in C-Bills. If there is nothing that can be done to bring a Dragon on par with a Thunderbolt the obvious solution is to make the Dragon significantly cheaper then the Thunderbolt. If the Dragon was half as expensive as the Thud, and slightly cheaper then the Shadow Hawk in the campaign I would propably field one.
Problem is that C-Bill prices for chassis are irrelevant in single player because you live completely off things you salvage anyway. And salvaging a piece of Atlas is just as expensive as salvaging a pice of Locust.

So we're back and reworking salvage. My proposal is to forego negotiating between money and salvage for negotiationg between money and a rebate for buying salvage. And then have the player buy every piece of equipment and every part of chassis from what remains on the battlefiled or for the regular price at the store.

Would solve the problems of non-existant scarcity and ridiculously low selling prices at the same time.

 

[theCarthaginian]

Ran two quick games by adjusting the weight classes in the chassisDefs to mimic the OP's system- Modded AI was used, both sides were AI controlled, both teams had the same AI role setup corresponding to the each teams opposing unit. Pilots with 6 Piloting or higher were used to ensure maximum advantage was available to the Fast Team. This also puts Paradise in the TDR/DGN to help balance out the tonnage disparity by giving them the worst shooter, the TDR CT LRM ammo was left in place. The DGN does do 10 more Melee DMG than the TDR and it did come in to play for both teams. I wanted to make sure the fast team took first strike vs both AI sides just reserving down to P1 and negating the whole thing so reserve was disabled. I also ran this twice, flipping teams so each had one game on each spawning side. In both screens the fast team is on top.

View attachment 507337 View attachment 507338

What I observed with the COM was the fast team just didn't have the firepower to drop that thing even when in both cases the COM moved in to the open in a bad position as the opening move. The Fast team COM died on the first round of fire in both games, where the Slow Team COM took 2 rounds when it was the first mover and lasted longer in to the game when it wasn't the very first unit to act.

This kind of pattern repeated itself across the match. Even with the Fast Team able to move first and both times cut the AC/10 off the ENF with concentrated shots the added armor, greater firepower and JJ capabilities of the Slow Team won out. The second match went much longer and came down to the two VNDs going crazy at each other, but on that match the Slow Team kept missing a lot of the large hit weapons in a row in previous rounds. Even then, it was easily in the VND-1R's favor, doubly so in that the 1R AI was needlessly overheating and could have just picked apart the 1AA at leisure as the 1AA's PPC was already lost.

A few rear shots did happen, maybe 3-4 fires, almost all of them on the JJ equipped side short of the TDR coming in to melee and letting the enemy DGN get a back shot on it.

I could run this test again with reserve enabled, but I feel that would just end up with both sides in Phase 1 most of the time.

Even with a hardcoded init advantage, these units are still subpar due to the massive loss of tonnage. It's not worth the cost of complicating the initiative system to accommodate units that would still be at a disadvantage in the end. All this does is add an extra layer of inconsistent complexity in to one of the more elegant and easy to grasp systems HBS created.

No one system is going to be perfect and I'm not saying the current setup is. The goal should be to both minimize the gap between the best and worst but also be easy and consistent to learn and track in top of the other combat rules and mechanics. The 8 phase system undoes the simplicity of 1 phase per class + MTac, makes the gap worse as new tech comes in to play and isn't even consistent on the Light end of the scale. On top of this, it doesn't even help level the playing field between similar units that differ in engine size within the same tonnage. I don't see where this becomes a net positive worth changing out the current scale. It's still a better choice to just keep using the 35/55/75t units you've probably already salvaged vs moving to a heavier but less capable chassis.

This still does not simulate an 8-step initiative, so it was really just a moot point.

 

[Amechwarrior]

This still does not simulate an 8-step initiative, so it was really just a moot point.

Yes it does. Light is in P5 (MTac), 1AA and CRB in P4 (modded to lights weight class), 1R and ENF in P3, DGN in P2 and TDR P1 (modded to Assault class). Arclight was used in the COM on both ends to minimize the impact of the light which wasn't really a focus of the test and saves me from having to edit the lights phase. Other considerations were that no one was an excellent Gunner to give advantage to the fast team and add one more notch against the ENFs low ammo.

This exactly matches the flow in your OP for stages 2 through 6. Aside, you used 5 twice and skipped 6.

Anyone could also setup any other test within 5 total phases by altering the weight class of the unit's chassisDef. You could give this a play test and see if the results are worth it.

If you have any suggested tests let me know.

 

[theCarthaginian]

Yes it does. Light is in P5 (MTac), 1AA and CRB in P4 (modded to lights weight class), 1R and ENF in P3, DGN in P2 and TDR P1 (modded to Assault class). Arclight was used in the COM on both ends to minimize the impact of the light which wasn't really a focus of the test and saves me from having to edit the lights phase. Other considerations were that no one was an excellent Gunner to give advantage to the fast team and add one more notch against the ENFs low ammo.

This exactly matches the flow in your OP for stages 2 through 6. Aside, you used 5 twice and skipped 6.

Anyone could also setup any other test within 5 total phases by altering the weight class of the unit's chassisDef. You could give this a play test and see if the results are worth it.

If you have any suggested tests let me know.

Ok - base concerns:
1.) The AI is suboptimal in and of itself as to maintaining a long-range engagement style. It does not extend or trade distance for time. It will not use sprints to continually open range with a fast unit, maintain evasion, and wear down ammo supply or overheat an opponent.
The AI does not understand the military tactic of 'engage to disengage.'
2.) The AI does not understand LOS games either. In fact, it moves only to maintain LOS in order to fire, not interrupting LOS to prevent return fire. It tries to achieve firing solutions rather than deny them... completely killing the purpose of an actual skirmisher role (Zeus, Cicada).
3.) The AI does not view melee as a primary attack style (Dragon, Charger) and does not coordinate approaches to make this work. It views this as a secondary attack, even though equipment exists to allow primarily melee mechs.

While I realize these are AI limitations that cannot be overcome in this version of the game, it will nonetheless mean that any test using AI vs AI to test for faults in an new initiative system meant to enable these very behaviors is moot...

the AI doesn't recognize the advantages as existing to take advantage of them.

So, yeah, that's my concern in a nutshell.

 

[Jade_Rook]

I think any AI vs AI match can provide some insights. It isn't perfect, but it provides a reasonable data point. We just need to understand the limitations of that form of testing and look for ways to work astound those weaknesses.

Personally, I think the 1AA is a fairly weak mech. It sacrifices way too much armor for its extra speed. It is like the SHD-2D dropping 5 tons of armor for an SRM 2 and a medium laser (okay, not quite that bad). It would be better dropping the PPC to a large laser and keeping 2 more tons of armor.

The other match ups are reasonable, but I might give the fast team some other boost since their heavy weighs 5 tons less.


Overall, I think speed and range are undervalued in this iteration of BT. I'm still thinking on adjustments I would make for that.

 

[Amechwarrior]

Ok - base concerns:
1.) The AI is suboptimal in and of itself as to maintaining a long-range engagement style. It does not extend or trade distance for time. It will not use sprints to continually open range with a fast unit, maintain evasion, and wear down ammo supply or overheat an opponent.
The AI does not understand the military tactic of 'engage to disengage.'
2.) The AI does not understand LOS games either. In fact, it moves only to maintain LOS in order to fire, not interrupting LOS to prevent return fire. It tries to achieve firing solutions rather than deny them... completely killing the purpose of an actual skirmisher role (Zeus, Cicada).
3.) The AI does not view melee as a primary attack style (Dragon, Charger) and does not coordinate approaches to make this work. It views this as a secondary attack, even though equipment exists to allow primarily melee mechs.

While I realize these are AI limitations that cannot be overcome in this version of the game, it will nonetheless mean that any test using AI vs AI to test for faults in an new initiative system meant to enable these very behaviors is moot...

the AI doesn't recognize the advantages as existing to take advantage of them.

So, yeah, that's my concern in a nutshell.

The AI is suboptimal but that's why both of them are AI controlled. This is also with my modded AI that let's the snipers do as you describe. That's why the two VND-1Rs have so little damage at the end of the match. Both teams kept them out of LoS. The CRB and ENF were both set to sniper as well but everything here has similar direct fire range profiles. This was a deliberate choice for both balance and to show this isn't an issue, as both sides are focusing on the one target they each have within LoS or Sensor Lock. The added firepower, armor and jumping maneuverability (ENF and both VNDs love to jump to perches) was more than enough to overcome the init advantage the Fast Team had.

How about this:

PvP or AIvAI

4x BNC-3E or 3M any combo
Vs
4x BNC-3S

Any map. BNC-3E/M team get 1 phase bonus per OP system.

Does anyone really think the 3S team is going to lose here?

What I'm getting at is the examples for the OP end up relying on the Fast Team just being better tactically than the slow team. Given equally skilled players in both ends, the one that doesn't waste an extra 10%+ on engine size is going to win every time. The system doesn't help suboptimal engine weights and to balance these out would require more than just adding initiative phases.

 

[theCarthaginian]

The AI is suboptimal but that's why both of them are AI controlled. This is also with my modded AI that let's the snipers do as you describe. That's why the two VND-1Rs have so little damage at the end of the match. Both teams kept them out of LoS. The CRB and ENF were both set to sniper as well but everything here has similar direct fire range profiles. This was a deliberate choice for both balance and to show this isn't an issue, as both sides are focusing on the one target they each have within LoS or Sensor Lock. The added firepower, armor and jumping maneuverability (ENF and both VNDs love to jump to perches) was more than enough to overcome the init advantage the Fast Team had.

How about this:

PvP or AIvAI

4x BNC-3E or 3M any combo
Vs
4x BNC-3S

Any map. BNC-3E/M team get 1 phase bonus per OP system.

Does anyone really think the 3S team is going to lose here?

What I'm getting at is the examples for the OP end up relying on the Fast Team just being better tactically than the slow team. Given equally skilled players in both ends, the one that doesn't waste an extra 10%+ on engine size is going to win every time. The system doesn't help suboptimal engine weights and to balance these out would require more than just adding initiative phases.

1.) Unless you actually have the initiative are up to run 8 phases, you won't actually get the correct effect - remember that you are also not giving the benefit of Master Tactician correctly your way, either. You are kludging together something and choosing teams that are designed to maximize the problems.
To actually test the theory, you'd have to have a typically mixed lance - the fast mechs as part of a balanced team, working in conjunction with mechs that can accentuate strengths and mitigate weaknesses.
Your tests are additionally leaving out the effects of morale abilities.

In short - no kludges will work.

 

[Amechwarrior]

1.) Unless you actually have the initiative are up to run 8 phases, you won't actually get the correct effect - remember that you are also not giving the benefit of Master Tactician correctly your way, either. You are kludging together something and choosing teams that are designed to maximize the problems.
To actually test the theory, you'd have to have a typically mixed lance - the fast mechs as part of a balanced team, working in conjunction with mechs that can accentuate strengths and mitigate weaknesses.
Your tests are additionally leaving out the effects of morale abilities.

In short - no kludges will work.

Explain to me how this would work any differently in a skirmish match with your full 8 phases? The units in play have the exact same order they would in the 8 phase system. This also ignores my other test with the BNCs which would only ever require 2 phases to test out if no MTac pilots are used.

The light with MTac was done vs altering the lights phase manually to minimize the impact of the COM-1B+pilot in this test, as they are not a variable we are trying to test. Both sides got the same light unit/pilot and I intentionally went with a bad shot w/Sensor Lock to let it serve as a scout.

Again, I offer other tests that could be run to shine more light on the issue. Maybe replace the Heavies and Lights with BNCs, so we end up with still only 4 phases needed and get the same affect. This might allow most phase disparity between the teams and narrow down chassis discrepancies as the BNCs are very similar in loadouts besides the engine swaps and related tonnage gains.

Also, the initial test mimics how the AI Lances are generated, with one Heavy, two Meds and a Light to simulate the kind of typical enemy drop you would see in a mid level contract.

Edit: I don't see why adding in morale powers makes a difference? If we are going to theorize from the players side in a career/campaign then we go right back to the "The player probably already has a lighter unit that does the job better and thus no reason to even salvage these units"

In the end, we are making so many special cases "must be mixed lance, must be with morale, can't be XYZ" that it becomes not even an even match.

If the initiative system truly helps a faster unit vs a slower one of the same tonnage, then we would expect them to do better vs without the init bump. This is where my proposed BNC test comes in to play. I don't think the results would change much vs stock and modded init phases.

 

[Amechwarrior]

To break this down another way:

45t PHX-1 vs VND-1R - 10.5 payload disparity for 45m walking movement (costs 23.3% total mass)
60t DGN-1N vs RFL-3N - 8.5t payload disparity for 20m walking movement (costs 14.7% total mass)
80t VTR-9S vs AWS-8Q - 15t payload disparity for 25m walking movement (costs 18.7% total mass)
95t BNC-3E vs BNC-3S - 29.5t payload disparity for 25m walking movement (costs 31% total mass)

There is anywhere from 15 to 30 percent loss of payload for what amounts to at best just shy of 2 extra movement dots on open terrain, given it takes 25m to cover one 24m space dot (you can google the old thread for confirming this) and it's just not worth it with map sizes so small and penalties for using JJ so minimal.

Even at the worst JJ weights, Assault JJ are still a better choice than moving faster over hard terrain. Forest for example costs 1.25 the normal amount so we get:

BNC-3E = 4 dots of movement and 2 Pips
BNC-3S w JJ = 5 dots of Jump movement and 3 Pips



To show this in game here is a PNT's walking movement (same as BNC-3E) vs where a HGN has jumped from the exact same spot in the turn before. The slower but JJ equipped unit is more mobile than the fast one in basically any harsh terrain by being able to ignore the terrain entirely.

The BNC-3S also saved 23.5t after adding on 3 JJ at 2t per jet. I think we can see which option is the superior one even with a free init phase.

This is a massive disparity that one init phase can't solve at any tonnage breakdown and all it does do is force a rebalance of knockdown/MTac/morale/XL units/etc.

In the end, there still isn't any reason to salvage or use them as long as the map sizes, terrain design masks and costs of JJ are in the combat game.

To offer some positive suggestions this is what would be needed:

Increase the penalty for jumping, be it more heat, lower to hit, whatever.
Increase the mobility of 5/8+ units to TT scale now that the AI is slightly more aware of slower units in a Lance, this was scaled back due to grouping issues before we got beta access to normalize movement.
Lower the costs of terrain masks, either whole or based on some kind of total speed scale.

These are the kinds of changes needed to let ground movement become in par with JJ to allow the over-engined designs be more competitive with units of the same tonnage at lower speed.

 

[Corraidhin]

How about giving the fast large engined mechs additional evasion pips. This would mimic gunners leading their shots incorrectly due to the unexpected speed.

Faster mechs would take less damage whilst closing, unless the OpFor concentrates fire/scans on it. The current initiative setup would still work fine though.

Note the bonus evasion only comes from ground movement, not JJs.

 

[Amechwarrior]

How about giving the fast large engined mechs additional evasion pips. This would mimic gunners leading their shots incorrectly due to the unexpected speed.

Faster mechs would take less damage whilst closing, unless the OpFor concentrates fire/scans on it. The current initiative setup would still work fine though.

Note the bonus evasion only comes from ground movement, not JJs.

That might help, but only as part of a larger package. Remember, it needs to be impactful enough to make a player want to salvage/equip that chassis over others. In SP, we are always outnumbered and Evasion isn't permanent and also not as much of a factor once Gunnery gets over 6 or so. I don't think it would be enough as the choice becomes
"Take a unit that can't kill as fast, but gets hit less
Vs.
Take a unit that kills faster, thus not taking as much fire and finishing the mission quicker"

With our current mission structure choice B is the clear winner unless you are purposefully avoiding the easy route.

 

[ObLoM]

From a multiplayer perspective. The arclight change proposed here would be beyond broken. An arclight catapult C4 going before lights would be just insanely crazy. I think the initiative stystem as it is now works relatively well and has sufficient nuance without being overly complex. Going to more phases will also slow down multiplayer games a LOT, which, for a game that already plays rather slowly even with 60 sec timers, is not very desirable.

 

[Amechwarrior]

From a multiplayer perspective. The arclight change proposed here would be beyond broken. An arclight catapult C4 going before lights would be just insanely crazy. I think the initiative stystem as it is now works relatively well and has sufficient nuance without being overly complex. Going to more phases will also slow down multiplayer games a LOT, which, for a game that already plays rather slowly even with 60 sec timers, is not very desirable.

I don't think that's how the OP works. The #1 for MTac is just for Lights + MTac, not everyone. The OP mentioned MTac would reduce your unit's Phase by one or maybe two depending on playtesting. So a CPLT + MTac would only ever move equally to a CN9-A or SHD-2H at best.

Here's a hypothetical for a PvP setup:

In the OPs system, would you ever take a fast Heavy (moves a Phase before slow Heavy but after slow Medium, in this case all 50 and 55t stock units are slow med) like any QKD or a DGN over any slow Medium if unit costs were comparable?

What if the fast Heavies were slightly less or more than the slow Mediums?

 

[ObLoM]

I don't think that's how the OP works. The #1 for MTac is just for Lights + MTac, not everyone. The OP mentioned MTac would reduce your unit's Phase by one or maybe two depending on playtesting. So a CPLT + MTac would only ever move equally to a CN9-A or SHD-2H at best.

Here's a hypothetical for a PvP setup:

In the OPs system, would you ever take a fast Heavy (moves a Phase before slow Heavy but after slow Medium, in this case all 50 and 55t stock units are slow med) like any QKD or a DGN over any slow Medium if unit costs were comparable?

What if the fast Heavies were slightly less or more than the slow Mediums?

Ah I think the bullet point list at the start confused me there.

I'm not sure - it would need play testing. But what this will definitely do is make the gap between heavy and medium much larger, which will lead to things like knockdowns not mattering (i.e. you can't take advantage of it) for light mediums vs any heavy. So a KD'd Vindicator, for example, cannot be exploited by any heavy mech (it'll go in the heavy med phase instead of light med).

 

[DocDesastro]

Using speed, causes issues with other chassis as well. No one wants a light that only goes last.

This is exactly, what the Urbanmech is, isn't it? Well, lore-wise this is a mech for militias so second-line or even third-line troops. Cheap, can garrison a place, does not need much training, cannon-fodder or meat-shield in a real fight. Basically, a walking turret. I have no qualms about this thing going slow or last. Any mechcommander worth its salt should be able to compare battleworthyness to costs and then decide. Why glorify a rather 'meh' design by buffing it? Yes, it is cheap. Yes, it has a big gun. But do not expect it to last in a prolonged fight. Militia mech: either overwhelm them with superior numbers or stall the enemy until real troops arrive or you are VERY desperate. And: it is way more sluggish than even the slowest medium mech I can think of. Why should it go before it I dare ask?

 

[Timaeus]

This is exactly, what the Urbanmech is, isn't it? Well, lore-wise this is a mech for militias so second-line or even third-line troops. Cheap, can garrison a place, does not need much training, cannon-fodder or meat-shield in a real fight. Basically, a walking turret. I have no qualms about this thing going slow or last. Any mechcommander worth its salt should be able to compare battleworthyness to costs and then decide. Why glorify a rather 'meh' design by buffing it? Yes, it is cheap. Yes, it has a big gun. But do not expect it to last in a prolonged fight. Militia mech: either overwhelm them with superior numbers or stall the enemy until real troops arrive or you are VERY desperate. And: it is way more sluggish than even the slowest medium mech I can think of. Why should it go before it I dare ask?

I mean the Panther (definitely), and Raven count too. It's not just the Urbanmech here. Plus a few others that aren't in the game like the Valkyrie and Firebee.

 

[DocDesastro]

Ah...thanks for clarification.