74 replies to this topic

[Spleenslitta]

IraqiWalker, on 22 August 2015 - 11:53 PM, said:

1- Not threatened by the weapon, just don't see it being effective, because of how it functions

2- The -3 comes from how the ammo interacts with mech armor. Those shells, were effective against "old" armor. They do diddly against the new armor. If you are in a game where you use low tech units, from pre-unification era, the rifles do full damage to them. The whole point is that they used out-dated ammo, propellant, and materials.

Look at it this way:
If you use a musket against a kevlar vest, it won't be as effective as a modern .50 cal round. Hell, it won't be as effective as a .32

I'll guess we can only agree to disagree. I managed to make a Kit Fox with 4xMG and 1 of each small, medium and large ER laser work really well.
If i can make that work i should most certainly get a single Light rifle work really well alongside a mix of lasers too.

Why is that -3 damage completly locked? They changed all kinds of stats on other weapons so why not remove that -3 damage?
Quite frankly this is a modern PC game and the tabletop game is too poorly balanced to take all the stats there so seriously.

[IraqiWalker]

Spleenslitta, on 23 August 2015 - 12:05 AM, said:

I'll guess we can only agree to disagree. I managed to make a Kit Fox with 4xMG and 1 of each small, medium and large ER laser work really well.
If i can make that work i should most certainly get a single Light rifle work really well alongside a mix of lasers too.

Why is that -3 damage completly locked? They changed all kinds of stats on other weapons so why not remove that -3 damage?
Quite frankly this is a modern PC game and the tabletop game is too poorly balanced to take all the stats there so seriously.

We can disagree, that's not a problem. XD

However, Tabletop was balanced more than this game, because it allowed for asymmetrical balance. BV made matches more even, in many cases.

My problems with the weapon come from the ammo count, reduced damage, and the fact that it doesn't really help tonnage wise. A single AC 2 with 1 ton of ammo is going to yield better results than a light rifle with 3 tons of ammo, and the AC 2 will be the lighter option. Not to mention that the rifles have about 2/3rd the range of autocannons.

Even if we triple the ammo on the rifles, the ACs would still work better, and both systems end up costing a light mech about the same.

Even if we remove the -3 damage rule, the AC is still a better alternative for the tonnage. The largest rifle deals 9 damage (6 to a mech), while carrying 6 shouts per ton of ammo, and weighing in at 8 tons. Unless you triple the ammo, the AC 10 is still a better choice. If you remove the -3 damage rule, then you will need something to buff the AC 10 with, if you're keeping triple the ammo count. That's the only rifle that can be any kind of threat to an AC. Heavy Rifle vs. AC 10. without the -3 damage rule, and with triple the ammo. Anything short of that, and the AC is better.

So, I don't see them helping out lights, at all, especially since you'll end up spending as much, if not more tonnage, to get the same return as a regular AC, while still being shorter ranged, and with a slower projectile speed.

[Spleenslitta]

I'd say increasing ammo count per tonn and removing -3 damage is a given.
AC 10 has 20 shells in MWO instead of the original boardgames 10 shells so that's 200 potential damage.
So rifles having an ammo count that allows them to do about 200 damage per tonn sounds fair but still leaves rifles lacklustre.

AC should of course have faster firerate and range. What can rifles do to make the playing field more even?
There might be a way if the ammo count was increased even further to make the rifles light in that way but that again would not make sense.

In any case if i had a choice between a light rifle with 3 damage against mechs with good ammo count versus an AC2 i'd be tempted to pick the Light Rifle.

There are other things of course. You just gotta throw your brain into a brickwall to get it to work differently sometimes.
Works wonders for me.
- Longer range past optimal range? Kinda like the Gauss. AC would still be better at range of course but it would help somewhat.
- Better damage when shooting at point blank range? 90 meters for example.
- Lower heat than what the boardgame says?
- Better chance at criting unarmored components?
- Higher crit damage multiplier?
- Better chance at scoring multiple crits?

I'm out of ideas for the moment. I'll go eat and later i'll think of something....probably. I think better when i'm on the toilet you see.

[Spleenslitta]

Had another idea for rifles advantage over AC's and any weapon for that matter.
At point blank range it's capable of criting internal components through the armor.

The different rifle sizes has different range at which they are capable of criting through armor.
Further limitations on this ability other than having to be at close range is how many points of armor it can crit through.

Light Rifle - 60 meters and capable of criting components through 10 points of armor.
Medium - 90 meters and 20 armorpoints.
Heavy - 120 meters and 30 armorpoints.

If the target is outside the pointblank range or has more armor than the rifle is capable of criting through then it cannot do it.
The amount of range and armorpoints it's capable of criting through needs adjustments but you get the general idea.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 24 August 2015 - 10:39 AM.

[NUJRSYDEVIL]

This thread is nostalgic. Carrying two Arrow IV missiles and one shotting opponents in MW4:Mercs

I would like to see the SSRMs that light you on fire.

[Nik Reaper]

NUJRSYDEVIL, on 24 August 2015 - 11:25 AM, said:

This thread is nostalgic. Carrying two Arrow IV missiles and one shotting opponents in MW4:Mercs

I would like to see the SSRMs that light you on fire.

Ah, good ol' inferno rounds... just like a flamer , a nightmare to balance, not enough heat = not worth using and too much heat = shutdown -> stunlock and noone wants that....

[Mr Hunter]

Just give me a rac5 so the shadowhawk finally has an ac5 worth the damn weight, or a quad light ac5 king crab so I have the tonnage to support them.
Also as far is the Ammo code nonsense goes, you have pts the whole reason for the pts is so if you break the game on pts we can tell you before you destroy live, my idea is to wipe the code, and build a new one from ground zero and if there is any bugs or otherwise the pts community will find them.

Edited by B8hunter, 24 August 2015 - 03:20 PM.

[Lugin]

It's also worth pointing out that all three rifle classes had been phased out of service in favor of the AC/2(2300) and AC/5(2250) long before the Mackie ever walked(2439). The AC/10 (2460) cemented this even before the AC/20 was introduced(2500).

While there are reports of Periphery units using rifles, no IS power used them after autocannon were introduced, until the Jihad and desperation brought them back for a while.

[IraqiWalker]

Spleenslitta, on 24 August 2015 - 09:27 AM, said:

I'd say increasing ammo count per tonn and removing -3 damage is a given.
AC 10 has 20 shells in MWO instead of the original boardgames 10 shells so that's 200 potential damage.
So rifles having an ammo count that allows them to do about 200 damage per tonn sounds fair but still leaves rifles lacklustre.

AC should of course have faster firerate and range. What can rifles do to make the playing field more even?
There might be a way if the ammo count was increased even further to make the rifles light in that way but that again would not make sense.

In any case if i had a choice between a light rifle with 3 damage against mechs with good ammo count versus an AC2 i'd be tempted to pick the Light Rifle.

There are other things of course. You just gotta throw your brain into a brickwall to get it to work differently sometimes.
Works wonders for me.
- Longer range past optimal range? Kinda like the Gauss. AC would still be better at range of course but it would help somewhat.
- Better damage when shooting at point blank range? 90 meters for example.
- Lower heat than what the boardgame says?
- Better chance at criting unarmored components?
- Higher crit damage multiplier?
- Better chance at scoring multiple crits?

I'm out of ideas for the moment. I'll go eat and later i'll think of something....probably. I think better when i'm on the toilet you see.

Spleenslitta, on 24 August 2015 - 10:35 AM, said:

Had another idea for rifles advantage over AC's and any weapon for that matter.
At point blank range it's capable of criting internal components through the armor.

The different rifle sizes has different range at which they are capable of criting through armor.
Further limitations on this ability other than having to be at close range is how many points of armor it can crit through.

Light Rifle - 60 meters and capable of criting components through 10 points of armor.
Medium - 90 meters and 20 armorpoints.
Heavy - 120 meters and 30 armorpoints.

If the target is outside the pointblank range or has more armor than the rifle is capable of criting through then it cannot do it.
The amount of range and armorpoints it's capable of criting through needs adjustments but you get the general idea.

The funny thing is that even if all of these are implemented, they still won't address the original problem of the light mechs lacking something between the MG, and AC 2. For the tonnage, the AC 2 far outclasses the rifles.

AC 2 + 2 tons ammo = 150 damage at far longer ranges, with faster projectiles while weighing less than any of the rifles if they tried to pack similar damage potential.


Btw, the rifles canonically had slower projectile speed, and they used HE rounds, instead of the HEAP rounds used by most ACs. The ammo is the reason they deal terrible damage to mech armor.

It literally makes no sense why they would have through armor criticals when their shells are designed to detonate on the surface of what they hit, not inside it.

[Spleenslitta]

IraqiWalker, on 24 August 2015 - 07:13 PM, said:

The funny thing is that even if all of these are implemented, they still won't address the original problem of the light mechs lacking something between the MG, and AC 2. For the tonnage, the AC 2 far outclasses the rifles.

AC 2 + 2 tons ammo = 150 damage at far longer ranges, with faster projectiles while weighing less than any of the rifles if they tried to pack similar damage potential.


Btw, the rifles canonically had slower projectile speed, and they used HE rounds, instead of the HEAP rounds used by most ACs. The ammo is the reason they deal terrible damage to mech armor.

It literally makes no sense why they would have through armor criticals when their shells are designed to detonate on the surface of what they hit, not inside it.

Well. I'm just tossing ideas out. And the light rifle weighs 3 tonns + ammo and the AC2 weighs 6 tonns + ammo.
The light rifle can compete when it comes to weight as long as the ammo situation is fixed.
If the Light rifle had 67 shells per tonn of ammo (201 damage potential) it would be ahead of the AC 2 in damage potential per ammo tonn

As for range, projectile speed, firerate and everything else.....as long as the rifles gain a special trait and have the -3 damage removed they would be able to compete.
If it had better crit rate, higher crit multiplier and a better chance at criting multiple components that would be a significant trait i'd say.

Much lower heat per damage point than the AC's would also help somewhat.
How about splash damage? If it hits multiple mech sections it doesn't do full damage per section but for example.-
Light rifle hits a mech in CT and LT. Rather than splitting the damage into half the damage per section is lowered to 2 damage instead of 1.5.
Not to mention if both sections are unarmored the rifle shell gets a chance to crit components in both sections.

Had yet another idea. Light rifles have increased chance to crit 1 component.
Medium rifles have increased chance to crit both 1 and 2 components and the heavy can increased chances with all 1,2 and 3 components.

I'd say a light rifle should be capable of competing with 2-3 MG's on how fast they crit components.
You can't just ignore this idea Walker because it truly puts the rifles on equal grounds with AC's.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 24 August 2015 - 10:38 PM.

[Spleenslitta]

I've thought about this all day at work. What i said in the above post sounds kinda hostile at the end towards IraqiWalker...which was most certainly not intended.
Text is not the best form of communication. That's my excuse anyhow.

But i also have some additional ideas for how to improve the Rifles in addition to the stuff i wrotte in post #70.

Rifle improvements.....i got no idea which one to pick.-
1) Rifles get additional damage towards internal structure when there is no armor in addition to better crit stuff.
The rifle shells seems to more about high explosives than armorpiercing power so it would make sense.

2) Get even more shells per tonn of ammo. This will indirectly make the rifles lighter. But this goes completly against the lore.
But then again PGI has doubled the ammo count on the AC10 and made completly new mech variants just for MWO so altering the lore a bit ain't no big deal.

3) In the lore at Sarna it says that rifles lacked stopping power in comparison to AC.
Says nothing about velocity, but there is nothing that says that velocity is so low that it lead to penalties on accuracy.
So maybe lower velocity than AC's but not to the point that it gets inaccurate.
Maybe the heavier the rifle the greater the velocity because the biggest rifles has the longest range.


Onwards to the explanation on how i think crit chance should be in comparison to MG's.
Let's say there is a huge box filled with 10000 internal components.
If 2 or 3 MG's and a single light rifle fired constantly at that box for 10 minutes they should have destroyed somewhat the same amount of components.
This means the rifles should have a very good chance at criting single components. Maybe even as much as 60% or even 80%.
Hard to tell without knowing the exact firerate of the Rifles.

If done right then the AC10 can remove an Atlas sidetorso in 4 shots (ok. it skips 2 internal structure points) and the arm along with it.
But the Heavy Rifle could have better chance to crit 3 components inside the sidetorso with every shot.
If Rifles does additional internal structural damage it could tear off that sidetorso within 2-3 shots but firerate would be lower than the AC10 of course.

[IraqiWalker]

Spleenslitta, on 24 August 2015 - 10:06 PM, said:

Well. I'm just tossing ideas out. And the light rifle weighs 3 tonns + ammo and the AC2 weighs 6 tonns + ammo.
The light rifle can compete when it comes to weight as long as the ammo situation is fixed.
If the Light rifle had 67 shells per tonn of ammo (201 damage potential) it would be ahead of the AC 2 in damage potential per ammo tonn

As for range, projectile speed, firerate and everything else.....as long as the rifles gain a special trait and have the -3 damage removed they would be able to compete.
If it had better crit rate, higher crit multiplier and a better chance at criting multiple components that would be a significant trait i'd say.

Much lower heat per damage point than the AC's would also help somewhat.
How about splash damage? If it hits multiple mech sections it doesn't do full damage per section but for example.-
Light rifle hits a mech in CT and LT. Rather than splitting the damage into half the damage per section is lowered to 2 damage instead of 1.5.
Not to mention if both sections are unarmored the rifle shell gets a chance to crit components in both sections.

Had yet another idea. Light rifles have increased chance to crit 1 component.
Medium rifles have increased chance to crit both 1 and 2 components and the heavy can increased chances with all 1,2 and 3 components.

I'd say a light rifle should be capable of competing with 2-3 MG's on how fast they crit components.
You can't just ignore this idea Walker because it truly puts the rifles on equal grounds with AC's.

Spleenslitta, on 25 August 2015 - 08:06 AM, said:

I've thought about this all day at work. What i said in the above post sounds kinda hostile at the end towards IraqiWalker...which was most certainly not intended.
Text is not the best form of communication. That's my excuse anyhow.

But i also have some additional ideas for how to improve the Rifles in addition to the stuff i wrotte in post #70.

Rifle improvements.....i got no idea which one to pick.-
1) Rifles get additional damage towards internal structure when there is no armor in addition to better crit stuff.
The rifle shells seems to more about high explosives than armorpiercing power so it would make sense.

2) Get even more shells per tonn of ammo. This will indirectly make the rifles lighter. But this goes completly against the lore.
But then again PGI has doubled the ammo count on the AC10 and made completly new mech variants just for MWO so altering the lore a bit ain't no big deal.

3) In the lore at Sarna it says that rifles lacked stopping power in comparison to AC.
Says nothing about velocity, but there is nothing that says that velocity is so low that it lead to penalties on accuracy.
So maybe lower velocity than AC's but not to the point that it gets inaccurate.
Maybe the heavier the rifle the greater the velocity because the biggest rifles has the longest range.


Onwards to the explanation on how i think crit chance should be in comparison to MG's.
Let's say there is a huge box filled with 10000 internal components.
If 2 or 3 MG's and a single light rifle fired constantly at that box for 10 minutes they should have destroyed somewhat the same amount of components.
This means the rifles should have a very good chance at criting single components. Maybe even as much as 60% or even 80%.
Hard to tell without knowing the exact firerate of the Rifles.

If done right then the AC10 can remove an Atlas sidetorso in 4 shots (ok. it skips 2 internal structure points) and the arm along with it.
But the Heavy Rifle could have better chance to crit 3 components inside the sidetorso with every shot.
If Rifles does additional internal structural damage it could tear off that sidetorso within 2-3 shots but firerate would be lower than the AC10 of course.

Don't worry, I didn't take it as hostile at all. Text is a terrible medium, as you have said.

In the end, we're not getting mech rifles, are we? We're getting something entirely different. quadruple ammo, increased damage, and many other buffs, just to introduce the weapon, might as well make up our own at that point.

Which is not something I'm averse to, but at the same time, I don't think light mechs should have a ballistic weapon between the AC 2 and MGs. That's my personal opinion though. It also does fit with how light mechs were used, built, and designed in lore. Very few were ever meant to use a big AC weapon. They mainly relied on energy, and missile weapons. The large damage potential of big ballistic weapons was left for bigger, and slower mechs, while the faster lights were mopping up infantry, and backstabbing other mechs. Both activities relied on using light weight weapons, and minimal exposure, and noise.

I think MGs should be made worthwhile. SRMs, too. Those are the options light mechs should be using if they want to be mobile. If they want more firepower, they need to be slow. Look at the Hollander. Someone wanted to put a Gauss Rifle on a light, they made it slow.

So what we really need is making the lighter weapons actually decent. For example, when was the last time you've seen a solo AC 2 on a mech? If anyone is using an AC 2, they have at least 2 or more of them.

Because the weapon is terrible.

Many of your ideas for making Rifles viable are good, and they might work, but I see them as making a new weapon. There is a reason the weapon was near extinct in lore, and we had ACs.

[Spleenslitta]

IraqiWalker, on 26 August 2015 - 03:44 AM, said:

Don't worry, I didn't take it as hostile at all. Text is a terrible medium, as you have said.

In the end, we're not getting mech rifles, are we? We're getting something entirely different. quadruple ammo, increased damage, and many other buffs, just to introduce the weapon, might as well make up our own at that point.

Which is not something I'm averse to, but at the same time, I don't think light mechs should have a ballistic weapon between the AC 2 and MGs. That's my personal opinion though. It also does fit with how light mechs were used, built, and designed in lore. Very few were ever meant to use a big AC weapon. They mainly relied on energy, and missile weapons. The large damage potential of big ballistic weapons was left for bigger, and slower mechs, while the faster lights were mopping up infantry, and backstabbing other mechs. Both activities relied on using light weight weapons, and minimal exposure, and noise.

I think MGs should be made worthwhile. SRMs, too. Those are the options light mechs should be using if they want to be mobile. If they want more firepower, they need to be slow. Look at the Hollander. Someone wanted to put a Gauss Rifle on a light, they made it slow.

So what we really need is making the lighter weapons actually decent. For example, when was the last time you've seen a solo AC 2 on a mech? If anyone is using an AC 2, they have at least 2 or more of them.

Because the weapon is terrible.

Many of your ideas for making Rifles viable are good, and they might work, but I see them as making a new weapon. There is a reason the weapon was near extinct in lore, and we had ACs.

Good to know you didn't take it the wrong way. I think i might have cracked the way to make rifle usefull by while still having the -3 damage.
Edit: I've made a new thread for it. Link in the post just below this one.

Actually adjusting it to -2.5 damage since even MG's scratch paint.

As for the AC2 being useless - it's the primary reason why i want rifles.
I know more than most how useless the AC2 is since i made this thread to fix it. I actually experimented using single AC2's to gather info for the thread.
I was a painfull experience. Clan UAC2 came closest to being usefull but it just couldn't compete with any kind of PPC.
Clan/is Ac2 Fix Without Touching Heat Or Weight.

Some players believe that a reduction in heat alone will fix the AC2 family.
But i believe a much higher firerate is necessary to make it able to compete with the ER PPC which has the same range and weight.
3.6 secs of facetime to do 10 damage in comparison to a PPC's instant 10 pinpoint damage leaves the AC2 dead in the water.
That along with smaller firingflash, smaller explosions to prevent blinding the enemy and no shaking the enemy.
But i'm kinda worried removing too much of the heat will make the AC2 family too powerfull with such high firerates.

But lets get back on subject. I had an idea the instant i saw your comment that i was making an entirely new weapon Walker.

What are the changes? Well the obvious one is double ammo just like the AC's in MWO got.
So light rifle would get 36 shells per tonn instead of the original 18 that was in the boardgame.
Unlike AC's and the Gauss the Rifles don't actually need much ammo.

Since rifles fire explosive shells that do not penetrate mech armor very well they will probably explode as soon as they touch internal structure as well.
If a shell doesn't penetrate armor well...then make it do something else good
Rifle shells could instead throw out lot's of shrapnel which has really good chances to damage internal components.
In order to make up for the low velocity of the shells splash damage is necessary since targeting a specific component with a low velocity shell becomes a real problem.
It spreads the damage across 2 or 3 mech sections but the damage ain't important....it's the crit chance that really counts.

The goal is to make rifles into the ultimate crit seeker weapons of MWO alongside MG's.
Because rifles have low velocities and the heaviest ones have greater range the bigger they are the greater the velocity.
The higher velocity for the longer reaching rifles is to keep accuracy to an decent level.
Here are the AC velocities for easier referance. AC2- 2000. AC5- 1150. AC10- 950. AC20- 650.

() shows how much damage it does against armored targets.
1- **% under crit chance indicates the chance to crit a single component. 2- **% for 2 components and 3- **% for 3 comps Of course these stats needs adjustments.


ammo damage chance to crit comps velocity
Light Rifle 36 3 (0.5) 1- 60% 2- 30% 3- 15% 600
Medium Rifle 18 6 (3.5) 1- 80% 2- 50% 3- 30% 700
Heavy Rifle 12 9 (7.5) 1- 95% 2- 75% 3- 50% 800

I edited the post and now the stats table refuses to revert to normal. It's a mess.
I'm gonna make a new thread in the feature suggestion forum with a new table. This time i must not mess it up.

Heavy Rifles incredible crit chances is necessary to make it worth the tonnage.
If it ain't worth it then just boost it.
Of course the damage noted is what it does collectivly. Since rifle shells splash they will always split the damage between the target sections hit by the splash.
But any unprotected section splashed get's that 2.5 damage added and a chance of having internal components critted.
In theory if a rifle shell splashes 3 target sections it can crit a grand total of 9 components - although that chance will be very low indeed.

The shell count per tonn is small but you gotta save shells for the mid to late match when they become outright lethal with all the exposed internals.
They are just like MG's in that regard. If you fire MG's against armor they cannot do anything noteworthy.
But against unprotected internal components multiple MG's become slobbering beasts with a tremendous appetite for destruction.
3-4 MG's destroys unprotected weapons the size of an AC20/10/gauss almost the moment they touch them. Smaller weapons take only about 3-5 secs on average.

Imagine having any kind of rifle at the middle or end of the match and there are loads of mechs with multiple exposed internals.
When a match comes to this point the rifles could be very powerfull weapons as long as you have saved your shells for the occasion.
Should rifles do bonus damage against internal structure? I don't really know.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 26 August 2015 - 12:29 PM.

[Spleenslitta]

I made an entirely new thread in the suggestions forum for discussing rifles.
But unlike the other suggestions i've made this one is more.....lorelike with penalties when shooting at an armored target.
It also has 2 possible solutions to it all.
Either greater crit chance capabilities or extra internal structure damage.
Usefull Rifles Without Breaking Lore Too Much.

[IraqiWalker]

Spleenslitta, on 26 August 2015 - 09:26 AM, said:

Good to know you didn't take it the wrong way. I think i might have cracked the way to make rifle usefull by while still having the -3 damage.
Edit: I've made a new thread for it. Link in the post just below this one.

Actually adjusting it to -2.5 damage since even MG's scratch paint.

As for the AC2 being useless - it's the primary reason why i want rifles.
I know more than most how useless the AC2 is since i made this thread to fix it. I actually experimented using single AC2's to gather info for the thread.
I was a painfull experience. Clan UAC2 came closest to being usefull but it just couldn't compete with any kind of PPC.
Clan/is Ac2 Fix Without Touching Heat Or Weight.

Some players believe that a reduction in heat alone will fix the AC2 family.
But i believe a much higher firerate is necessary to make it able to compete with the ER PPC which has the same range and weight.
3.6 secs of facetime to do 10 damage in comparison to a PPC's instant 10 pinpoint damage leaves the AC2 dead in the water.
That along with smaller firingflash, smaller explosions to prevent blinding the enemy and no shaking the enemy.
But i'm kinda worried removing too much of the heat will make the AC2 family too powerfull with such high firerates.

But lets get back on subject. I had an idea the instant i saw your comment that i was making an entirely new weapon Walker.

What are the changes? Well the obvious one is double ammo just like the AC's in MWO got.
So light rifle would get 36 shells per tonn instead of the original 18 that was in the boardgame.
Unlike AC's and the Gauss the Rifles don't actually need much ammo.

Since rifles fire explosive shells that do not penetrate mech armor very well they will probably explode as soon as they touch internal structure as well.
If a shell doesn't penetrate armor well...then make it do something else good
Rifle shells could instead throw out lot's of shrapnel which has really good chances to damage internal components.
In order to make up for the low velocity of the shells splash damage is necessary since targeting a specific component with a low velocity shell becomes a real problem.
It spreads the damage across 2 or 3 mech sections but the damage ain't important....it's the crit chance that really counts.

The goal is to make rifles into the ultimate crit seeker weapons of MWO alongside MG's.
Because rifles have low velocities and the heaviest ones have greater range the bigger they are the greater the velocity.
The higher velocity for the longer reaching rifles is to keep accuracy to an decent level.
Here are the AC velocities for easier referance. AC2- 2000. AC5- 1150. AC10- 950. AC20- 650.

() shows how much damage it does against armored targets.
1- **% under crit chance indicates the chance to crit a single component. 2- **% for 2 components and 3- **% for 3 comps Of course these stats needs adjustments.


ammo damage chance to crit comps velocity
Light Rifle 36 3 (0.5) 1- 60% 2- 30% 3- 15% 600
Medium Rifle 18 6 (3.5) 1- 80% 2- 50% 3- 30% 700
Heavy Rifle 12 9 (7.5) 1- 95% 2- 75% 3- 50% 800

I edited the post and now the stats table refuses to revert to normal. It's a mess.
I'm gonna make a new thread in the feature suggestion forum with a new table. This time i must not mess it up.

Heavy Rifles incredible crit chances is necessary to make it worth the tonnage.
If it ain't worth it then just boost it.
Of course the damage noted is what it does collectivly. Since rifle shells splash they will always split the damage between the target sections hit by the splash.
But any unprotected section splashed get's that 2.5 damage added and a chance of having internal components critted.
In theory if a rifle shell splashes 3 target sections it can crit a grand total of 9 components - although that chance will be very low indeed.

The shell count per tonn is small but you gotta save shells for the mid to late match when they become outright lethal with all the exposed internals.
They are just like MG's in that regard. If you fire MG's against armor they cannot do anything noteworthy.
But against unprotected internal components multiple MG's become slobbering beasts with a tremendous appetite for destruction.
3-4 MG's destroys unprotected weapons the size of an AC20/10/gauss almost the moment they touch them. Smaller weapons take only about 3-5 secs on average.

Imagine having any kind of rifle at the middle or end of the match and there are loads of mechs with multiple exposed internals.
When a match comes to this point the rifles could be very powerfull weapons as long as you have saved your shells for the occasion.
Should rifles do bonus damage against internal structure? I don't really know.

See, now THAT I love. Rifles consistently have good ranges, They're not AC ranges, but they're good. Add to it higher crit chance once internals are exposed, and we've got ourselves a good weapon, even with the damage reduction against armor. If we remove that damage reduction, we can even tweak the damage numbers a bit, we've done it with lasers before, we can work it here.

Splash damage against armor is a great way of also explaining the damage reduction. They'd still be able to deal damage, but instead of 5 points, it's 3 to the section you want, and 1 to each adjacent section, or 2+1.5+1.5 Once they are hitting internals, they deal the full damage, with extra crit chance.

Let them travel at the speed of an AC 10 round, maybe somewhere between the 10, and 5 speeds, and we're good to go.