Besides making all ACs cyclic completely defeats the purpose of having UACs and RACs in the game.
Not really, as those had higher rates of fire.
(IE you had the option of pushing an UAC to double rate - like the clan ones, and the rotaries similar but even higher rates)
Edit:
As for the books contradicting eachother, I have yet to read a series written by more than one author that did not (which includes Star Wars EU, Star Treck, Warhammer, and several others)
Has never stopped people from discussing them.
Basically, if you like long range, the clans will be more to your liking, they excel at long range, and damage over time. While IS excels at short range and fast blasts.
Also, it hasn't been mentioned here, but clans have proper ACs. The clan AC 20 fires 5 shells each dealing 4 damage, instead of 1 near-impossible shell that deals 20 (Yeah, I know the Cauldron Born had one that fired a single shell, but that's ONE case).
Shar Wolf, on 22 October 2014 - 08:04 AM, said:
There is even some debate on that - Koniving found some evidence that the CB was the one that fired a 4 round burst
(Next smallest if I remember being a 10 round burst)
Most hotly contested thing ever. It is the biggest caliber AC to exist, but that UAC/20's single shot status is exclusive to one fan-fiction, one author in a single book, and Sarna. I might also add that this same author is the one that made the alien birds that, well, "no one talks about." Peter L Rice.
Meanwhile the other two authors who used it have both consistently used two shots under standard fire (4 under ultra mode) to get the kind of 'results' that fit what 20 (40 for ultra) damage would do.
Now the reason I mention Sarna is well, it's a Wiki. The information is given by people volunteering to fluff it out. Sometimes this means fantastic and credible information. Sometimes this means seriously uncredible information and conjecture. For example the Thunder battlemech has a 120mm AC/20 that does "20 damage in a single shot", yet it still has 270 meters range, where the King Crab has its own 120mm AC/20 that requires 12 shots in fluff to do 20 damage. Meanwhile another mech, the Centurion, has an AC/10 that is also 120mm that requires 6 shots to do 10 damage, and the Whirlwind/5 AC/5 requires 3 shots to do 5 damage, and it too is 120mm. Now... 3 = 5, 6 = 10, 12 = 20. So how does 1=20 in the same caliber, without an increase in speed/range/accuracy?
It also happens that the Hunchback on Sarna is listed as a "single shot" when the correct wording should be "a single use." After all the Hunchback is quite implicitly stated, multiple times, to have a 5 round burst. It's even depicted in the MechCommander intro video! (Count it; 5 rounds).
Keep in mind, most ACs are tank-like cannons, but they still fired multiple shots.
Now an AC/2 is meant to be useful against infantry, light to heavy buildings, and lightly armored vehicles and mechs. It still manages to do 2 damage in 10 seconds (it's actually 2 damage in five seconds but chances are the pilot is using other weapons too and doing things like maneuvering, countering for recoil and reloading, can't constantly be firing). Would you have an anti-infantry weapon that you can use once every 5 to 10 seconds? Certainly not! This is why the Blackjack BJ-1's 30mm Whirlwind/L AC/2 is a 10 shot autofire (it is chain-fed), shots spaced out about half a second apart though there's other things going on to make sure it hits the same spot over and over. Meanwhile the BJ-1DC swapped the AC/2s for a different company's brand and type. This is a 40mm AC/2 of the burst-fire type, with each cassette carrying 8 shots and a 3 to 5 second delay in changing mags. Fewer shots to make 2 damage because the shots are bigger and nastier. The issue is with burst fire the recoil means a lot more, too.
This entry in Sarna is 100% credible.
Spoiler
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 classes:
Caliber is fluff for the size of the barrel that the shell or shells are fired from and no standard caliber has been set for any of the classes of Autocannon. Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each "round" or burst of fire. Probable exceptions are the 185 mm ChemJet GunAutocannon/20 mounted on the Demolisher combat vehicle and Monitor Surface vessel or the 203 mm Ultra Autocannon/20 on the Cauldron Born A BattleMech. [edit] Barrel Arrangement
All Rotary Autocannon are multiple-barrel arrangements.[4] Some standard, Light, and Ultra autocannons also use a multiple-barrel arrangement, but not as frequently.
Notice some standard ACs can have multiple barrel arrangements. Even light ACs. If it's a single shot, why would it need multiple barrels when it won't shoot faster... unless it does shoot faster, but has to pump out that many more bullets to get the damage?
This gun is the best example of my favorite Battletech AC/20, the Victor's Pontiac 100. The caliber is just 10mm too small, but that rapid fire followed by cassette exchanges... Rawr. Of course, on War Thunder penetration through enemy armor depends on taking your weapon's strength and finding points in the enemy's armor that is thin enough to penetrate.
The variations between canons, ACs, etc. on War Thunder or any tank game are perfect examples of why there are variants and different kinds of ACs in Battletech. Everything from burst fire to auto-fire. ACs are intended to be cold enough to run with standard heatsinks, and are the most primitive weapons in a battlemech's arsenal short of the single shot Rifles.
Also to note: 203mm, Cauldron Born's UAC/20. Next biggest size in 3050 is the Inner Sphere's Chemjet Gun, 185mm, a 4 shot cannon on the Bulldog. Hunchback holds the next biggest at 180mm, a 5 shot. The 10 shot AC/20 is the 150mm Crusher Super Heavy Cannon, mounted on a tank. 120mm is the King Crab's 12 shot burst fire AC/20. The claws close when the cassettes are being exchanged. 100mm is the Atlas D and D-DC's Deathgiver, a 16 shot autofire DPS AC/20. [Note: This kind of fire not only creates lots of diversity between weapons, manufacturers, etc., but it also makes their missiles viable without having to be spam factories.
The single shot Heavy Rifle is 190mm. Does 9 damage, but against military grade armor it deals 6 damage.
A Chemjet gun's individual shell does 5 damage and is 185mm. But while the Heavy Rifle is a single shot, slow reload, the AC/20 is an automatic reloading weapon, able to pump out shots quite rapidly. In about the same time the Heavy Rifle, which is based on old Earth tanks and the mech has to manually put in the next slug as if it were a sniper rifle, can churn out a shot and reload, the Chemjet Gun can churn out 4 shots and swap out the empty cartridge to load the next cassette [magazine] of 4 shots.
Another fun thing, a Heavy Rifle has twice the range of an AC/20... this is because of the lack of recoil; though it is still hindered as the pilot has to aim a hand-held weapon (if not for how awkward that is, the effective range would be at least twice even that!)
Consider this: An Atlas D has a far-fire rapid reload maxilauncher; that is an LRM-20 with 5 tubes, that spams out 5 missiles every 2.5 seconds. Would you even put something like that on when an AC/20 fires 20 damage in a single shot? No. Also for a bullet that large to have so little distance is physically impossible, as a bullet that large is like trying to kill someone with a baseball thrown lazily from a disinterested child. That's about the same distance and relatively the same scale we're looking at. The smaller it is, the less force it takes; but with the force it can go really fast. The bigger it is, the more force it takes, and thus the farther it will go and the faster it must go.
On a side note: An AC/20 in BT produces at maximum 20 damage within 5 seconds.
An AC/5 can be the same caliber as an AC/20, as most AC/5s are 40mm to 120mm [AC/20s range from 80 to 203mm and the most common AC/5s and AC/20s are between 100 and 120mm].
This means it must have the same number of bullets and the same amount of damage, unless they were different sizes, and even then, nothing else explains the difference or why a bigger bullet has less range. However take a look at LRMs. When you pack in an LRM-20 with LRM-20 ammo, you get "6 ammo." But you have 120 missiles. LRM-10 ammo gives you "12" ammo, but you still have 120 missiles.
You pack an AC/20 with AC/20 ammo, you have "5 ammo." But depending on the type, caliber and brand of AC/20 you could have anything from 500 shots to 2 shots per 'ammo', as it is a loose weapon damage rating that is actually a classification for how many uses you have for the weapon, not the individual amount of ammo you have.
It's all a simplification, as it's been mentioned if they published books covering every single weapon variant, they would need a 500 page book on Medium lasers alone; of which there are 44 unique variants and 60+ total variants of standard Inner Sphere medium lasers, before getting into Clan ER ML, MPL, etc.
Now, what's the difference between an AC/5 and an Ultra AC/5?
Ultra AC/5s have an 'ultra-mode' that allows them to fire twice as fast for the possibility of jamming. (Depending on the ruleset, some ACs [the belt-fed sorts] can do this as well but their jamming chance is significantly higher, where Ultras are designed to be able to do this; they also have a % chance to jam over the entire firing cycle, not per bullet like MWO. So if the jam chance was 14%, and the Ultra fired 50 bullets on standard and 100 bullets on ultra mode, then there's about 7 to 14 points where it could jam during the faster rate to churn out 100 shots, depending on how its implemented in real time). The extra ton in Ultra ACs versus standard IS ACs is in a dual-chamber loading mechanism.
What's the difference between an AC/5 and a RAC/5?
An RAC/5 have a larger and more efficient loading mechanism and multiple barrels to allow it to fire up to 6 times as fast (where a normal AC/5 has one or more barrels though even if it could fire this fast it'd melt the barrel(s)!), with a huge risk of jamming.
Note: MWO's current AC/20 does 60 damage in 8 seconds.
Battletech's AC/20 does 20 damage in 5 to 10 seconds.
MWO's AC/5 does 30 damage in 10 seconds.
Battletech's AC/5 does 5 damage in 5 to 10 seconds.
MWO's RAC/5 would do 180 damage in 10 seconds.
Battletech's RAC/5 would do 30 damage in 5 to 10 seconds.
Our AC/5 in MWO is essentially a BT RAC/5.
MWO's Ultra 20 is essentially an RAC/20! (120 damage in 10 seconds. 20 * 6.)
Consider this: MWO's Atlas has 608 armor stock, and 312 structure for a total of 920 health.
Battletech's Atlas has 304 armor stock and 153 structure for a total of 457 health.
Yet Battletech's Atlas lives longer against everything in BT than MWO's Atlas against everything in MWO. Think about that. There's something horrifically wrong here. (And it's not just pinpoint aiming, Tabletop suffers from that in relation to Battletech books; TT has amazing pinpoint for its weapons, 2 to 100 shots in one location? Yep. The fancy standard Gauss Rifle that rapid-fires 15 slugs as opposed to the typical 1-to-2 slugs all in one place? Yep. All because the weapons are treated in summary; a conclusion that assumes all weapons are the same for the purpose of simplifying the action and progressing the battle.)
It's the damage in a single shot. Yes ACs are rapid fire. Yes they puke bullets and tank rounds. No, they don't do their rated damage per shot, it's defined as a damage rating over a unit of time.
Also note you can 'split fire' your ACs. Divide half the damage between two targets. It's a canon rule during the FASA days, and obviously that wouldn't be the case with single shot ACs.
(Amazon does not like direct linking to pictures.)
LocationSitting on a 12x multiplier and voting for Terra Therma
Posted 22 October 2014 - 09:19 AM
Quote
As for the books contradicting eachother, I have yet to read a series written by more than one author that did not
Fair point but it doesn't change the fact that a single heavy projectile will always have massively better penetration characteristics than a spamming multiple light-weight projectiles.
I know it's silly to expect realism in the BTU but TANSTAFL for frak's sake. TANSTAFL!
Even if you solve the mechanical problem of loading and unloading 80 - 120mm shells from the breach-face fast enough to achieve assault rifle like cyclic rates, you still have to dissipate all that mechanical energy.
You're telling me that rather than finding the blueprints for some old 21st century field gun and slapping it in the shoulder of a HBK, that the IS was some how able to maintain a ready supply of magi-tech anti tank guns? Come on guys, we're talking about the military engineers who forgot that compartmentalized magazines were a good thing.
There have been a lot of changes since you've been away for sure. Some of the more outstanding to me are listed below:
1. If you ever purchased MC, you'll see a shiny new CN9-AH in your stable.
2. If you ever purchased a pre-order package, you'll also see an AS7-S.
3. LRMs- LRMs have sped up considerably since you've been away. You still have time to get to cover, but not as much as you did before the buff. It's not back to LRMaggeddon levels, but they are fast.
4. SRMs- SRM hit registration is great right now. If you like medium mechs, SRM loadouts rule the medium weight class.
5. Lasers - Before yesterday, laser hit registration was off for fast moving high ping targets. Russ mentioned in a post yesterday there was a fix included in the latest patch, so they should be working better.
6. Reward system - C-Bill earning got a major rework yesterday. Encourage you to read the patch notes from yesterday.
7. Nov 4th patch - There is an IS quirk pass coming in the next patch, so don't be too anxious to run out and purchase clan mechs. If you have a full stable of IS mechs, I'd wait until after the next patch.
8. KING CRAB is Coming! If you ever purchased a top tier package (Founders, Phoenix, etc), you'll receive a shiny new King Crab in Dec.
Lots of changes, so as Koniving encouraged you, read the patch notes.
And if you left before the Gauss mechanic changed, there is a charge time now for that weapon. You have to press and hold the fire button until it charges, then releasing the fire button fires the weapon.
Thank you all for summary of changes, seems things will be changing for the better soon, will be nice when they add community warefare.
When can I join Jade Falcon and pilot a Timber Wolf with Jump jets against some freebirths?
Any word on removing Ghost Heat or at least documenting it well in game? Ghost heat is just so not intuitive and not newbie friendly. Those of us who read the forums know about it but they should get rid of it and make the overall heat threshold to shutdown lower like heatsinks +10 instead of what it is now. If they aren't going to remove it a big warning should pop up when you build a mech with too many weapons of the same type that would trigger ghost heat explaining that you will generate ghost heat with this configuration are you sure you want to do so.
Would be nice if they remove the Gaus Bow mechanic. I am not playing Skyrim. Should have the capacitors to stay charge and just one trigger pull please.
Edited by Athena Pryde, 22 October 2014 - 09:49 AM.
Athena Pryde, on 22 October 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:
Thank you all for summary of changes, seems things will be changing for the better soon, will be nice when they add community warefare.
When can I join Jade Falcon and pilot a Timber Wolf with Jump jets against some freebirths?
Any word on removing Ghost Heat or at least documenting it well in game? Ghost heat is just so not intuitive and not newbie friendly. Those of us who read the forums know about it but they should get rid of it and make the overall heat threshold to shutdown lower like heatsinks +10 instead of what it is now. If they aren't going to remove it a big warning should pop up when you build a mech with too many weapons of the same type that would trigger ghost heat explaining that you will generate ghost heat with this configuration are you sure you want to do so.
Would be nice if they remove the Gaus Bow mechanic. I am not playing Skyrim. Should have the capacitors to stay charge and just one trigger pull please.
Go to your profile and change factions.
As for Timberwolves, they are still available as a collection/ A La Carte from the website, and they will be hitting for C-Bills in November, I believe.
Documentation is still spotty, however, with the new UI, they have warnings in the mechlab that tell you what's going on wrong with your mech (including Ghost Heat) So now EVERYONE knows the Ghost heat limits. They still don't know how much extra heat is generated, but at least they know the design is ghost heating.
As for Gauss, that is, in my opinion, the best modification they have made in this game. Hands down. Gauss used to be a ridiculous weapon before they added the charge mechanic. Everyone was slapping it on whatever mech could field it, because it was just too good at all ranges. With charge, it suffers in close range brawls, but it's still an excellent long range weapon.
It takes a bit to get used to it, but it works just fine. Another tip for it: If you are having problems with figuring out when it's ready, assign the Gauss rifle to all your empty weapon groups, when Gauss is charged, it's group lights up with a green light on your cross hairs, and with it being on multiple groups, you'll get proper, and very visible warning that you are fully charged.
Go take a look at the trial Hunchback, and trial stalker. Both have ghost heat, and the mechlab shows you a warning for them.
Edited by IraqiWalker, 22 October 2014 - 10:04 AM.
LocationNAIS College of Military Science OCS courses
Posted 22 October 2014 - 10:06 AM
IraqiWalker, on 22 October 2014 - 09:53 AM, said:
With charge, it suffers in close range brawls, but it's still an excellent long range weapon.
Tell that to the poor Locust on the OpFor I shot in the back on Mining at under 100m with my War Hawk, in the castle....
Seeing that little bug go squish was worth it!
Jeffrey Wilder, on 22 October 2014 - 06:32 AM, said:
I thought you were referring to eyes.
My eyes are always moist. If they're not, something is wrong. That means that things that "make my eyes moist" are as exciting as watching grass wither in the summer sun.
Debating buying Timberwolf for cash since it was my favorite in previous games. What does changing your faction do? Community Warfare isn't in yet though?
I was fine using the Gaus in my Stalker Misery but it really feels like I'm playing Skyrim charging it up like the Skyrim bow mechanics. Mildly annoying to sync it with the large lasers.
I think the Gaus should just have a longer cycle time like it did in other Mech warrior Games like 7 or 8 seconds. Gaus bow is annoying and just dumb. Longer cycle time makes it great for sniping but bad if someone is right next to you and you need to fire again right now.
LocationNAIS College of Military Science OCS courses
Posted 24 October 2014 - 10:13 AM
Athena Pryde, on 24 October 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:
@IraqiWalker
Thank you.
Debating buying Timberwolf for cash since it was my favorite in previous games. What does changing your faction do? Community Warfare isn't in yet though?
I was fine using the Gaus in my Stalker Misery but it really feels like I'm playing Skyrim charging it up like the Skyrim bow mechanics. Mildly annoying to sync it with the large lasers.
I think the Gaus should just have a longer cycle time like it did in other Mech warrior Games like 7 or 8 seconds. Gaus bow is annoying and just dumb. Longer cycle time makes it great for sniping but bad if someone is right next to you and you need to fire again right now.
I'd hold off on buying the Timber Wolf for cash, in just about a month it will be out for c-bills anyways, so save your money, use that MC for XP to GXP to level them up.
Also remember that now all S pods contain jump-jets so a lot of old builds for the Timber Wolf do not work as well as they used too, and people seem to be losing their minds over that.
I'd hold off on buying the Timber Wolf for cash, in just about a month it will be out for c-bills anyways, so save your money, use that MC for XP to GXP to level them up.
Also remember that now all S pods contain jump-jets so a lot of old builds for the Timber Wolf do not work as well as they used too, and people seem to be losing their minds over that.
Inflexible fools if you ask me. It only cost them 5 slots. If they crammed it that much with LRM ammo/4xLRM15s+artemis, they were doing it wrong in the first place.
2
HlynkaCG, on 22 October 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:
