62 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Gonzo007, on 26 April 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

hm, if thats true, they can keep that UAC to themself. Because..
The Ultra AC/20 is the largest bore Ultra-class autocannon. Like all Ultra autocannons, it is capable of twice the rate of fire of a standard autocannon, doubling its heat output and, potentially, its damage.
And what we gonna have in game? Crapper version of ac20, a something that deal less damage (a lot less damage) and probably have lots of restrictions (heat, price, weight and slots)

This is because AC/20 was never done right in this game.
What PGI gave us are "Rifles", aka single shot tank-like cannons. It states there that they were obsoleted because they were too slow and their damage couldn't compete against modern armor.

It is worth noting that the largest Inner Sphere Ac/20 I have seen vehicle or mech is 185mm, rated at 4 shots. The only Heavy Rifle I ever found in a book was 190mm, 1 shot and apparently required the mech to manually pull the bolt to ready it to fire again (back when Neuro-helmets weren't as dangerous and dumbed down with the degradation of technology over 300+ years of war) and did 9 damage.

So think about this. 185mm, 14 tons, 20 damage, crappy range. 190mm, 8 tons, 9 damage, better range than an AC/5. Why would Autocannons be superior then? Easy. A single shot against modernized armor was degraded by 3 points, so you did 6 damage. Meanwhile that Chemjet 185mm AC/20 does 4 shots of what amounts to 5 damage but has hefty recoil limiting the optimum range. There you have it. 190mm, 8 tons, better range but single shot with a long reload time to do 6 damage against military grade armor, or 14 tons, 185mm and 4 shots to do 20 damage with an automatic reloading mechanism?

AC/20 has variants ranging from 100 shots (Victor; Pontiac 100) to 4 shots at the smallest shot count (Chemjet Gun, 185mm). I do note that I'm only listing the autocannons I have found either in TROs, tech manuals and books that specifically state a size and shot count.
Atlas Deathgiver 100mm rated at 15 shots. King Crab's 120mm Deathgiver rated at 12 shots.
Crusher Super Heavy Cannon, 150mm rated at 10 shots.

Whirlwind/5; the biggest AC/5 I have found in the books, 120mm rated 3 shot.

Ballistic ranges:
MG: 12.5mm (vehicle) to 20-25mm (Mech). 2 damage per 10 seconds.
AC/2: 30mm (whirlwind/L Blackjack-1; 10 shot) through 80mm; unspecified. Various styles from burst to automatic. 2 damage in 10 seconds, notes that shots usually took either half a second to a full second to recycle and realign, and magazines took between 3 and 5 seconds to reload. Automatics had no reload time, but did not feed as quickly.
AC/5: 40mm through 120mm (3 at 1.67[rounded] damage) with 80mm being the most common. Various styles from burst to automatic. Firing times between individual shots typically were between 1 and 3 seconds, with lengthier reload times (heavier ammo).
AC/10: 80 to 120mm. 100mm is most common. Various styles from burst to automatic. Automatic is much more common. Typically fired twice as many shots as the AC/5. Better feeding mechanism.
AC/20: 30mm to 185mm for Inner Sphere mechs and tanks. Larger for ships. Typically finished its payload in 5 seconds or less.

Pontiac 100 was a special case; the Victor spent the ammunition within 2 seconds or less but had to reload manually with its left arm. This resulted in problems with the ammunition feed.

"The Victor's primary weapon is a Pontiac 100 Autocannon/20 in its right arm; though some models reported problems with the ammunition feed, this was not a common issue."

An important note: Remember that Sarna is written by the fans, and many a tabletop enthusiast will say "takes off this much armor in a single shot." What they mean is AC/20 does 20 damage in a single turn, and yes tabletop puts all damage onto one spot. However, it also explains:

Quote

An Autocannon is a type of rapid-firing, auto-loading direct-fire ballistic weapon, firing HEAP (High-Explosive Armor-Piercing) or kinetic rounds at targets in bursts. It is, basically, a giant "machine gun" that fires predominantly cased explosive shells though models firing saboted high velocity kinetic energy penetrators or caseless ordnance do exist. Among the earliest tank/BattleMech scale weaponry produced, autocannons produce far less heat than energy weapons, but are considerably bulkier and are dependent upon limited stores of ammunition.
Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor.^[1] The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors. Autocannon are grouped into the following loose damage

It later goes on to explain that the optimum ranges are due to recoil "and other factors."

Quote

Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor.^[1] The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors. Autocannon are grouped into loose damage classes.

You could take "loose damage classes" to mean that there is some play and flexibility there as well.

I don't have a collection of UACs, but it should be noted that the only LBX of the 2-rating I found is mentioned as 20mm.

The only UACs I do have specifically mentioned are between 80mm and the highest is 203mm (belongs exclusively to the Cauldron Born).

To mention it for the chart above, UACs did single or double the damage in a time slot so UAC/2 does 2 or 4.
UAC/5 does 5 or 10.
UAC/10 does 10 or 20.
UAC/20 does 20 or 40 in ten seconds.

In MWO however, here's the weapon chart before the recent AC/2 nerf.

Spoiler

AC/2, 38 damage in 10 seconds.
UAC/2, 78 damage in 10 seconds. (2 extra compared to double since there's a failure to fire the last shot in one case at the cutoff point. Otherwise both would be up by 2 more on top of this.) (UAC/2 in TT does 4 damage in 10 seconds.)
RAC/2, 228 damage in 10 seconds. (RAC/2 in TT does 12 damage in 10 seconds)
Flamer, 7 damage in ten seconds.
MG, 10 damage in 10 seconds. (All 3 of these are supposed to do 2 damage in 10 seconds).
Small laser 12 damage in 10 seconds. (3 damage in 10 seconds)
AC/5, 30 damage in 10 seconds. (5 damage in 10 seconds)
UAC/5, 65 damage in 10 seconds. (UAC/5 would do 10 damage in 10 seconds in TT.)
RAC/5, 205 damage in 10 seconds exactly. (RAC/5 would do 30 damage in 10 seconds in TT).
Medium laser, 10 damage in 10 seconds ( 5 damage in 10 seconds)
AC/10, 50 damage in 10 seconds (10 damage in 10 seconds).
UAC/10, 100 damage in 10 seconds (perfectly timed to fire all shots). (UAC/10 would do 20 damage in 10 seconds in TT.)
PPC, 30 damage in 10 seconds (10 damage in 10 seconds).
Gauss Rifle, 30 damage in 10 seconds (15 damage in 10 seconds).
Large Laser, 27 damage in 10 seconds (8 damage in 10 seconds).
LPL, 31.8 damage in 10 seconds (9 damage in 10 seconds).
AC/20, 60 damage in 10 seconds (20 damage in 10 seconds)
UAC/20, 140 damage in 10 seconds. (UAC/20 would do 40 damage in 10 seconds in TT. The Hunchback II-C Clan mech sporting twin UAC/20s would do a total of 80 damage in a single turn. In the only lore source I've found so far, it's described that each UAC/20 requires firing 6 shots to do 20 damage, and can double its firing speed to pump out 12 damage in the same time frame [at risk of jamming] to churn out 40 damage.)

Note that while the AC/20 does 60 damage in 10 seconds time, the UAC/20 does 140 damage in 10 seconds time. Paul just decided to spread it more with some lore but fail to apply lore to the rest of the autocannons.

Paul's decided "5 shot" UAC/20 actually follows the Hunchback 4G's Tomodzuru 180mm AC/20, which was confirmed from the Mechcommander development team to have been stated as to them for the purpose of making their introduction video to be a "5 shot burst." 20 / 5 = 4 damage per shot in 1999.

Count the shots from the Hunchback before the pilot ejects.

Strum Wealh, on 26 April 2014 - 04:27 PM, said:

Actually, the Rotary ACs had four separate ROF settings (with a progressively increasing likelihood of jamming for each mode), versus the UACs' two settings - RACs could fire in standard-ROF mode (fired a single shell per TT turn, 0% chance of jamming), double-ROF mode (fired two shells per TT turn, 2.78% chance of jamming (roll result of 2)), quad-ROF mode (fired four shells per TT turn, 8.33% chance of jamming (roll result of 3 or below)), or hex-ROF mode (fired six shells per TT turn, 16.67% chance of jamming (roll result of 4 or below)).

I'll give you that because truth is I haven't been studying RACs. Been sticking in the 2900s to 3052 era for my tech research on autocannons to make a case for them.

Edited by Koniving, 26 April 2014 - 05:00 PM.

[Featherwood]

Odanan, on 23 April 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

That's a very clever solution for balancing! It might work.
I'm impressed.

Surely it is good solution, it had been proved by MW3 in 2000AD ;D
Regarding Clan Mechs restrictions: I believe Ferro-Fibrous armour cries for review. It's very arguable upgrade which rarely pays its value in crit space. After all it's just shooter game and PGI has already altered lots of TT rules to suit MWO's reality. Armour cap increase seems logical bonus to FF, IMO.

Edit: Regarding LBX accuracy decrease - I'd prefer to have small cooldown increase when firing solid slugs, rather to miss more frequently - 1:1 balance is okay, but I don't stand any idea of ClanTech to become inferior to IS Tech in MWO.

Edited by Featherwood, 26 April 2014 - 04:43 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Koniving, on 26 April 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

I'll give you that because truth is I haven't been studying RACs. Been sticking in the 2900s to 3052 era for my tech research on autocannons to make a case for them.

Fair enough.

Though, the funny thing about MWO Clan UACs being burst fire & MWO Clan LB-X slug mode being single shells is that it's actually the reverse of what is described in BattleTech's "Multiple Targets" rules (described on page 100 of Tactical Operations).

• "Rather than firing at a single target, any type of autocannon can be “walked” across two targets close to one another. An LB-X autocannon firing a cluster shot and Ultra and Rotary autocannons firing at multiple targets are a special case."
  
• "Determine the to-hit number for both targets and make separate to-hit rolls against each target, using the higher (more difficult) of the to-hit numbers and adding a +1 modifier for firing at multiple targets with a single shot...If the to-hit roll succeeds, the target is struck by a single hit that inflicts damage equal to half the normal damage done by the weapon (rounded down)."
  
• "For an LB-X autocannon firing a cluster shot, make a single to-hit roll against the highest to-hit number plus 1. If all damage is applied to the first target after a roll on the Cluster Hit Table, then no additional damage is applied to the second target. However, if some of the damage missed the target, use that “missed” Damage Value as the new number to roll on the Cluster Hit Table to determine what damage struck the second target."
  
• "For Ultra and Rotary autocannons, make a single to-hit roll against the highest to-hit number plus 1. Then determine whether the designated number of shots fired hit a target. If only one shot hit, it will strike one of the targets - determined at random - with a single shot that does full damage. If two, four or six shots hit, one, two or three shots will strike each target at full damage. If three or five shots hit, one or two shots will strike each target; randomly determine where the other shot lands."

By that description, we get the following:

• All Standard, Light, and Hypervelocity autocannons fire all of their munitions in multi-shell bursts per "unit of ammunition", and said bursts can be "walked" across multiple (exactly two, in TT) adjacent targets; doing so successfully results in half on one salvo's rated damage being dealt to each target.
  
• All LB-X autocannons in slug mode fire in multi-shell bursts per "unit of ammunition", and said bursts can be "walked" across multiple (exactly two, in TT) adjacent targets; doing so successfully results in half on one salvo's rated damage being dealt to each target.
  
• All LB-X autocannons firing in cluster mode fire a single cluster shell per "unit of ammunition" that can spread to hit multiple (exactly two, in TT) adjacent targets.
  
• All Ultra and Rotary autocannons fire a singular large shell per "unit of ammunition", where the multi-shell firing modes (double-ROF for the UACs, double/quad/hex-ROF for the RACs) allow multiple shells to strike each target; each impact results in one salvo's full rated damage being dealt to each target.