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I got drunk, and started to contemplate the weapons in game. For starters, I like the way they've treated the weapons for the most part. Energy weapons doing DOT, ballistics front loading their damage, and missiles being scatter weapons with splash. However, I did think about the missiles and ballistics. Energy after the PPC/LPL loving feel perfect, but I feel that the other weapons are kinda wonky. So let's start shall we?
Ballistics
TT Ammo values per ton
AC/2, UAC/2, LB 2-X: 45
AC/5, UAC/5, LB 5-X: 20
AC/10, UAC/10, LB 10-X: 10
AC/20, UAC/20, LB 20-X: 5
Gauss: 8
MG: 200
If you noticed, a single ton of AC ammo does 100 points of damage (AC/2 does only 90) and Gauss does 120. And the MG does a whopping 800 damage per ton (dafuq?!).
Missiles
TT ammo per ton:
SRM: 50
SSRM: 50
LRM: 120
SRMs and SSRMs do 100 points of damage per ton and LRMs do 120 points of damage per ton.
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Ballistics do need some loving. But mostly in the form of just doubling the ammo per ton.
MWO ammo values are:
AC/2: 75
AC/5: 30
UAC/5: 25
AC/10: 15
LB 10-X: 15
AC/20: 7
Gauss: 10
So the ballistics do:
150 points per ton for AC/2
150 points per ton for AC/5
125 points per ton for UAC/5
150 points per ton for AC/10
150 points per ton for LB 10-X
140 points per ton for AC/20
150 points per ton for Gauss
80 points per ton for MG
Sure, that's more than than TT, but we also have doubled armor. And at least they kept them relatively consistent. So the ballistics need some loving in the ammo department. As you can see, the ballistics are kinda shorted on damage per ton by:
AC/2: 15 rounds, 30 points of damage, or 16.67% loss of efficiency
AC/5: 10 rounds, 50 points of damage, or 25.00% loss of efficiency
UAC/5: 15 rounds, 75 points of damage, or 37.50% loss of efficiency
AC/10: 5 rounds, 50 points of damage, or 25.00% loss of efficiency
LB 10-X: 5 rounds, 50 points of damage, or 25.00% loss of efficiency
AC/20: 3 rounds, 60 points of damage, or 30.00% loss of efficiency
Gauss: 8 rounds, 120 points of damage, or 37.50% loss of efficiency
MG: well... it's a different approach for sure. But I'll talk more on the MG in a bit.
So for the same efficiency in damage per ton we'd need:
AC/2: 90 rounds
AC/5: 40 rounds
UAC/5: 40 rounds
AC/10: 20 rounds
LB 10-X: 20 rounds
AC/20: 10 rounds
Gauss: 16 rounds
Projectile speeds:
AC/2: 2000m/s
AC/5: 1300m/s
UAC/5: 1300m/s
AC/10: 1100m/s
LB 10-X: 1100m/s
AC/20: 900m/s
Gauss: 1200ms/
Well, I agree with the projectile speeds on all of them except the Gauss. The Gauss being a kinetic weapon should have a much higher projectile speed. I think it matching the AC/2's velocity would be fair.
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The MG in a 10 second turn would do 2 damage (for a DPS of 0.20) and fire 1 "round" from it's 200 per ton. Putting the MG at 800 damage per ton. WAY more than the other ballistics, 8x more to be exact. Our beloved MWO MG does 0.04 damage per round and fires them individually from a ton containing 2000 rounds for a total damage of 80 per ton. Its ROF is 10 rounds/sec, for a DPS of 0.40, which is double the TT. But the next worse ballistic is the AC5 at 2.94 DPS, and excluding the Flamethrower, the next worse energy is the Small Laser at 1 DPS.
So what do we need to do? Well some of what we could do is drop the ammo per ton to 1000 and up the damage to 0.20 per round. ***That would leave the MG at a DPS of 2 and doing 200 damage per ton, where I believe all the other ballistics should be doing***. We could also leave the ammo at 2000 and raise the damage per round to 0.10 for a DPS of 1, still doing 200 damage per ton. Or we could raise the damage from 0.04 to 0.05 and double the ROF to 20 rounds per second, have 4000 rounds, and still achieve 1 DPS and still get 200 damage per ton. I just want to be able to have 1 DPS and get 200 damage per ton from the MG.
*** my prefered choice ***
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Stop! LB TIME! Yeah, pretty lackluster right? Yeah, thought so. Contrary to popular belief from the anti-buff LB crowd, the 10 in LB 10-X was not the damage, does it happen to correlate? Yes. But that "10" is the number of fragments/pellets (in lore, it acted like a flak round OR it acted like grapeshot). In TT, it pretty much could be construed either way. So I happen to actually like the shotgun part personally. But back to the pellets, an LB 2-X had two pellets, the 5-X, and you get it from here. So the larger LBX's were usually the preferred ones since the smaller ones spread their damage out too much. Since the developers saw fit to buff the games OTHER scatter weapons, I see no reason to NOT buff the LB 10-X.
In TT, it was a ballistic that had the same behavior as the LRM of equivalent size. In MWO, we have the LRM-10 that does 1.8 damage per missile (NOTE: I talk on the LRM further down, and drop it's damage to 1.3, so that's what we'll use here). Which in TT, the LRM-10 and LB 10-X acted the same, with the LB 10-X not having minimum range issues but have a shorter maximum range (they had the same targeting window just about). In MWO, we can directly aim our LB 10-X with much greater chances of hitting, however, we can't reliably hit anything past 400m but it's simply mean within 90 meters. If we buffed the damage to 1.3 per pellet, we'd have a total damage per round of 13. Meaning if we used the same formula of 200 damage per ton for ballistics, instead of doubling the amount of ammo from 10 to 20, we could raise the ammo to 17, giving it almost the same damage/ton of ammo as the LRM.
LRM: 234 damage/ton, 1.30 damage/missile
LB 10-X Cluster: 221 damage/ton, 1.30 damage/pellet
Yes, that damage of 221 is breaking the 200 damage/ton standard of the AC class, making it 'better' than the rest (especially the AC/10). But since it's a shotgun, not all those pellets will land. Oh, and it's supposed to get solid munitions later too. Well, I thought about that too. The LB-10X is 11 tons and 6 critical slots compared to the AC/10's 12 tons and 7 critical slots. It also out ranges the AC/10 by 90 meters. So when we get the solid munitions for the LB 10-X the AC/10 is going to get dusty, right? Well, not really. here's why. Remember how the LB 10-X Cluster got a damage boost to 13 damage/shell for a total of 221 damage/ton and 17 rounds/ton? Well, the AC/10 gets 20 rounds/ton at 10 damage/round for 200 damage/ton. We make it so the LB 10-X Solid munitions are 10 damage/round at 17 rounds/ton for only 170 damage/ton.
AC/10 with 2 tons of ammo: 400 damage
LB 10-X with 2 tons cluster: 441 damage
LB 10-X with 2 tons solid: 340 damage
LB 10-X with 1 ton each: 391 damage
Balanced. More damage per ton for MUCH less range, or less damage per ton for 90 more meters.
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On to missiles!
SSRMs and SRMs do 100 points of damage per ton in TT, and they do 2 points of damage a missile, and have 50 per ton. LRMs do 120 points of damage per ton in TT, and do 1 point of damage per ton, and have 120 per ton.
In MWO, SSRMs and SRMs do 250 points of damage per ton and 2.5 damage per missile. LRMs do 324 damage per ton and 1.8 damage per missile. Which is better than TT by a pretty good margin.
SSRM: +0.50 damage/missile, +50 rounds, +150% efficiency/ton, +25.00% efficiency/missile
SRM: +0.50 damage/missile, +50 rounds, +150% efficiency/ton, +25.00% efficiency/missile
LRM: +0.80 damage/missile, +60 rounds, +170% efficiency/ton, +80.00% efficiency/missile
So missiles do:
250 damage per ton for SSRM and SRM
324 damage per ton for LRM
I think the SRM's are mostly fine, and should be a model they use to balance the rest on save for the damage. I think SRM and SSRM damage needs to back to 2 damage per missile.
SSRM's I like the way they are, almost, I do think they should be lock-on guided. But they should lose their lock if dodged and have their firing angles adjusted.
LRM's I hate. Hate them. I hate their damage output being 80% higher than TT and I hate their slow terribad flight pattern. I get the whole indirect fire thing, but with their slow flight time, horribad lofting pattern, and AMS/hills/building/Atlas's/ECM blocking them. They just aren't worth it, unless you get caught in the open.
Projectile speeds:
SSRM: 200m/s
SRM: 300m/s
LRM: 100m/s
So LRM's have 100m/s velocity AND they oscillate pretty terribly. So I would assume their actual velocity is even lower. Pretty crappy, yeah? I'd love to see them tweak the speed up to 200m/s and ditch the oscillation completely (or at least reduce the amount they oscillate). Which means that the target would have less time to get to cover and make dumb firing actually get results. Which brings me to "LRMs: Part II," with a 100% increase in velocity and a reduction in oscillation, they could use a damage drop by like 50.00% to 1.30 damage a missile. So afterwards:
Missiles do:
250 damage per ton for SSRMs and SRMs
234 damage per ton for LRMs
The lower damage per ton is offset by simply landing more hits in general due to increase velocity and better, flatter, straighter flight paths.
Oh, and before you QQ about the LRM's. MWO gave them a MASSIVE buff. In TT, they had a range of 660m, and the devs nicely extended that by 340m all the way out to 1000m.
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Let's have a look at a side by side comparison before and after:
TableTop
AC/2: 45 rounds, 90 damage/ton
AC/5: 20 rounds, 100 damage/ton
UAC/5: 20 rounds, 100 damage/ton
AC/10: 10 rounds, 100 damage/ton
LB 10-X: 10 rounds, 100 damage/ton
AC/20: 5 rounds, 100 damage/ton
Gauss: 8 rounds, 120 damage/ton
MG: 200 rounds, 800 damage/ton
SRM: 50 rounds, 100 damage/ton
SSRM: 50 rounds, 100 damage/ton
LRM: 120, 120 damage/ton
MWO Now
AC/2: 75 rounds, 150 damage/ton
AC/5: 30 rounds, 150 damage/ton
UAC/5: 25 rounds, 125 damage/ton
AC/10: 15 rounds, 150 damage/ton
LB 10-X: 15 rounds, 150 damage/ton
AC/20: 7 rounds, 140 damage/ton
Gauss: 10 rounds, 150 damage/ton
MG: 2000 rounds, 80 damage/ton
SRM: 100 rounds, 250 damage/ton
SSRM: 100 rounds, 250 damage/ton
LRM: 180 rounds, 324 damage/ton, velocity of 100m/s, 1.8 damage/missile
MWO After
AC/2: 90 rounds, 200 damage/ton
AC/5: 40 rounds, 200 damage/ton
UAC/5: 40 rounds, 200 damage/ton
AC/10: 20 rounds, 200 damage/ton
LB 10-X Cluster: 17 rounds, 221 damage/ton
LB 10-X Solid: 17 rounds, 170 damage/ton
AC/20: 10 rounds, 200 damage/ton
Gauss: 16 rounds, 240 damage/ton
MG: 1000 rounds, 0.20 damage/round, 200 damage/ton
SRM: 100 rounds, 250 damage/ton
SSRM: 100 rounds, 250 damage/ton
LRM: 180 rounds, 234 damage/ton, veloctiy of 200m/s, 1.30 damage/missile
Discuss!
TL;DR: Ye best go elsewhere, child.
EDIT: Typo on post submit proofread
Edited by JohanssenJr, 06 March 2013 - 06:38 AM.
