14 replies to this topic

[The Warspite]

Hey Mech'ers,

I started this thread up (there may already be one, I didn't check) to see what the preferences are out there. I used to play another game *cough*EVE*cough.. where dps was all that mattered. A game like this though is totally different and while dps can be useful, I tend to prefer a high alpha strike for dishing out my damage.

Let's take the AC/2 vs the AC/20. Make it 2 x AC/2's due to the weight difference. The reason I like the AC/20 more is simple. Most battles take place in urban areas or hills where there's lots of cover for your enemies. The 2 x AC/2's have a higher dps but you may only have a few seconds to fire and you might score a few hits with a bit of spread on the damage. In that same window of opportunity, you could have fired off an AC/20 slug and caused 20 dmg to a single component. You've reloaded by the time he shows himself again and you can plant another AC/20 slug in his head... I tend to fight CQB, so the AC/20 works better for me...but...

Where a higher DPS weapon shines, like the AC/2's, is in open terrain. Every map has an area you can go to if you like open terrain You can hold down the trigger longer and get off more shots with a higher damage over time than the high alpha weapons. That, and it's hell-a-fun to put 4 x AC/2's on a Cataphract 4X and pom-pom mechs into dust. The flip side is that you're also exposed to maintain your target and will likely attract some LRM or PPC fire. I would just rather put on 2 x Guass for the alpha.. cause that's the kind of guy I am.

So, what's your take on it? DPS or Alpha.

Oh, and stop saying "one-shotted"... I see that all the time and it drives me nuts. It's called "alpha'd"... as in, "The ****** alpha'd my face off!"

The Warspite

Edited by The Warspite, 23 February 2013 - 07:51 PM.

[Monky]

Damage is really a function of how long you can survive in contact with the enemy, combined with how much firepower you are capable of effectively delivering. it breaks down into range brackets, where at shorter ranges your time to live becomes short (so long as you're not facing an exclusively ppc/lrm user), which makes alpha jump in value. DPS is more useful in engagements at distance or where cover is scarce and the enemy is not particularly maneuverable.

In short, it's pretty damn complicated, build something that's reasonably heat efficient and won't run out of ammo right away and you're sure to do fine.

[TygerLily]

I've not played EVE but I think in that game you set our ship to "fire" and let it do all the work so DPS would be good. In MWO you have to aim and it's much easier to aim once for 20 damage than aim 10 times for 2 damage, in my opinion. For the most part, you don't fire and forget in MWO and your target's movement and distance actually affects your DPS.

EDIT: Hence the new hotness of Atlas RS and Cataphract 3D direct fire builds. Or the previous trendy builds like Splatcat and Streakcats, etc.

Edited by TygerLily, 23 February 2013 - 08:00 PM.

[Gaan Cathal]

The Warspite, on 23 February 2013 - 07:50 PM, said:

I started this thread up (there may already be one, I didn't check) to see what the preferences are out there. I used to play another game *cough*EVE*cough.. where dps was all that mattered.

Alphamael/Alphathrasher/Alphacane. Infact, for either fast strike (e.g. hulkageddon) or large subcap fleet (melt target before reps land) Alpha is superior to DPS.

And back on topic....

I find it's often a factor of relative mech speed. In very fast, lightweight mechs, your ToT is very low, so higher alphastrike is worth the extra heat simply because you can't use more spread out DPS when you're circle around scenery for another attack run. It also makes concentrating damage on a specific compartment easier. High-DPS/Low-Alpha setups however, seem to do better in sustained brawling environments, especially where continuous-fire heat is a concern, likewise slower mechs, especially those typically inclined to engage slower targets, will suffer less from the lower damage concentration since it is easier to maintain point-fire accuracy.

The Warspite, on 23 February 2013 - 07:50 PM, said:

[color=#959595]Oh, and stop saying "one-shotted"... I see that all the time and it drives me nuts. It's called "alpha'd"... as in, "The ****** alpha'd my face off!"[/color]

That's what she said.

[Inyc]

Honestly Alpha damage trumps DPS every time. The only time DPS can be better is if both players are built for DPS, are fighting in an area thats good for it (wide open) and don't have any team mates around to interfere.

So basically never.

Why take 5 or even seconds to do 20 damage with 2 AC/2s when you can do it in 1 with 1 AC/20? The first option leaves you open to return fire for five times as long as the second, so you'd be stupid to pick it unless you want to take five times the damage you need to.

[Eddrick]

It depends. Do you want to see who can do the most damage in the shortest amount of time or do you want big hits.

Damage racing works well if you are just shooting to hit the target. Going for big single hits works best if you are focusing on valnerable spots.

It's mostly the differance between a "Brawler" and a "Sniper". It's a matter of preferance.

[Gaan Cathal]

Inyc, on 23 February 2013 - 08:16 PM, said:

Why take 5 or even seconds to do 20 damage with 2 AC/2s when you can do it in 1 with 1 AC/20? The first option leaves you open to return fire for five times as long as the second, so you'd be stupid to pick it unless you want to take five times the damage you need to.

Because if your opponent is any good, he can torso twist to take at least -some- of those AC/20 shots on an arm. That's 4s of 0 damage for the AC/20 and (say his arm is in-reticule for 1s, he needs to shoot too) 12 damage to a relevant component from the AC/2. Idealised example, of course, there are tonnage differences and whatnot. But loading out a weapon that punishes you for missing will, well, punish you for missing. And sometimes you will miss, because your opponent will make you (unless you are Broceratops, obviously). I'm, as per above, treating hits to irrelevant crap as 'misses', not just when your round hits the backdrop/friendly/sky.

Edit for clarity: Not saying DPS > Alpha, saying it's not true that DPS > Alpha (in the wild at least, in an idealised scenario where everyone always hits and never dodges, Alpha wins).

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 23 February 2013 - 08:27 PM.

[Royalewithcheese]

In addition to what people above have said, a unique quirk to Mechwarrior games is that in addition to alpha damage and damage per second, damage per heat also matters. Any time after your first shutdown warning, your ability to dissipate heat becomes a (relatively, you can always choose to alpha and shut down) hard cap on the damage you can put out. This is one of the reasons the higher-damage ACs are good in brawls - they have really high damage-to-heat ratios. You can pretty much always rely on being able to blast someone with an AC/20 without worrying about overheating.

Also, you'll probably want to do the torso-twist-to-spread-damage trick every now and then, and you can't do it if your weapon requires you to keep it trained on your opponent.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 23 February 2013 - 08:32 PM.

[Inyc]

Gaan Cathal, on 23 February 2013 - 08:26 PM, said:

Because if your opponent is any good, he can torso twist to take at least -some- of those AC/20 shots on an arm. That's 4s of 0 damage for the AC/20 and (say his arm is in-reticule for 1s, he needs to shoot too) 12 damage to a relevant component from the AC/2. Idealised example, of course, there are tonnage differences and whatnot. But loading out a weapon that punishes you for missing will, well, punish you for missing. And sometimes you will miss, because your opponent will make you (unless you are Broceratops, obviously). I'm, as per above, treating hits to irrelevant crap as 'misses', not just when your round hits the backdrop/friendly/sky.

Edit for clarity: Not saying DPS > Alpha, saying it's not true that DPS > Alpha (in the wild at least, in an idealised scenario where everyone always hits and never dodges, Alpha wins).

I would say that it's harder to land 5 shots in a row to the same spot than it is to consistently avoid one shot every 4 seconds.

Thats the sticking point here. For every 1 shot you hit with the AC/20, you need to land 5 with your double AC/2. So saying that it's easier to dodge 1 AC/20 shot than dodging 5 AC/2 shots only negates the difference in aiming skill required (and that's not even really accurate. Good aim is easier to get in this game than good avoidance)

And it still leaves you open for return fire for five times as long.

Edited by Inyc, 23 February 2013 - 08:34 PM.

[Fajther]

I used to run 2xac2 on my ylw but I never did as good. With it. I ended up deciding that I would loose the arm they were on to ac20 hits before I did the damage I needed to. I do see what you are saying about dps still being useful, but there is still too little armor to last. When!!!(please comstar) they add hardened armor dps might become more important.

[MustrumRidcully]

You need to deal damage faster to your enemy than he deals it to you, all things equal.

That means that the "theoretical" DPS over an infinite span of time is not relevant. But it also means that an alpha followed by a shutdown isn't useful either.
Example - AC/2 with Gauss. a single AC/2 has a theoretical DPS of 4, a Gauss only 3.75. But after 4 seconds, the Gauss will ahve delat 30 damge, the AC/2 about 18. On the other hand, at 3.5 seconds, the Gauss is still sitting at 15, the AC/2 at 16. (Note: that only works if the AC/2 was actually firing every 0.5 seconds, which it apparently doesn't anymore according to some posters.)

And of course, missing doesn't help. So you need a weapon with which you can aim well. Slow projectiles hurt. Long beam durations can hurt (but they can also compensate initial inaccuracy). Streaks help. You also want the ability to minimize your enemies incoming fire, or at least its effectiveness. So high DPS paired with a high fire rate can make things difficult.

In my weapon balance benchmarks (see my signature), I use a target damage over time to compare weapons. E.g. I ask "how much damage can I deal within 15, 20 or even 30 seconds and what does it cost me?" (cost measured in weight for the guns, ammo and heat sinks.)

[Asmosis]

ac2's are only useful if you can focus your shots on a single location which is generaly a stationary target (gl with that) or a stalker since they are slow and can't torso twist to get RT/LT out of the way easily like other mechs.

An extreme example of burst dmg would be 6x er ppc stalker. Its DPS is horrible, but it can fire two bursts before shutting down which in the hands of a skilled pilot is enough to kill most targets short of an atlas (even then if he has XL hes toast).

Lrms/srms are on the opposite side. They deal very high DPS, but its spread so it takes a lot more damage to kill an opponent. theres some exploits atm which allow them to hit single locations due to the X flight path but thats getting fixed.

[Febrosian R Gillingham]

Don't forget that alpha damage builds let you torso twist away after you fire, whereas a dps build forces you to stay facing the opponent. So no matter how good your aim is, in a brawl a dps build WILL spread your damage across several components.

[DCLXVI]

Febrosian R Gillingham, on 24 February 2013 - 06:34 AM, said:

Don't forget that alpha damage builds let you torso twist away after you fire, whereas a dps build forces you to stay facing the opponent. So no matter how good your aim is, in a brawl a dps build WILL spread your damage across several components.

take it one step further arming 2 lbx instead of ac20, don't even have to face them as long to aim. i belive that's the same theory the swat team uses

[Kaspirikay]

Re: eve


Alpha is pretty damn important in pvp.


Re: mwo

I prefer dps for light mechs and alpha for larger mechs.