52 replies to this topic

[Tombstoner]

SC1P1O, on 13 March 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

I also should put the disclaimer that this tends to frustrate me more in pug drops, where i'm one of the few guys left and i have to deal with 1 to 2 of these builds. I just think boating really is detrimental to pug drops more so than organized 4 man drops.

I also think if your going to boat there should be some incremental penalty

i mean what soldier brings 4 sniper rifles to urban warfare?

The soldier with 4 ballistic hard points, pinpoint convergence and no cone of fire. cause we all know real sniper rifles don't have a cone of fire, All bullets should go where I'm aiming or its just a role of the dice = no skill. it would be unrealistic for a sniper rifle to miss what i'm aiming at. cause if we have a cone of fire in game/ just like real life, it just removes all skill and we should just be watching robots controlled by AI.

Boating itself is not bad. its a meaning full mech design choice that should be allowed.
its linked fire alpha strikes delivered by boats without a cone of fire / weapon divergence that people are complying about.

Without a game mechanic to compensate for perfect convergence, the game forces you to boat. heat is not the mechanic to counter boating. its a cone of fire that gets bigger or smaller depending on your actions. Things like pop tarting would be Nerfed but still viable. standing still, firing one weapon at time = pin point accuracy at extreme range like it is now.
link fire 4 ppcs should have a targeting penalty that is meaningless at short rage. a small cone of fire provides That solution

[NRP]

In my experience, PPC boats are really only effective when firing at enemies who are engaged fighting your teammates. If you get focused on or in 1v1 situations, the PPC boat is gonna lose more often than not. Usually in a helpless and degrading manner too.

[Coro Ner]

A ppc stalker doesnt have heat issues....XL300, DHS, 2x ERPPC, 2xPPC, 2x Streaks + Ammo. I can Alpha "almost" 3 times (with elite), i can "dual fire" my 2 arms often. For close ups i have ERPPC and Streaks. This build is versatile, "fast" (for a stalker) and quite deadly. Only wolfpacks of lights get me in trouble (2 or 3 jenner eg), but i guess this is a problem for every assault. I really dont see why people always have heat issues??

Edited by Coro Ner, 13 March 2013 - 02:04 PM.

[Yokaiko]

XL engine.......

[Kahrek]

SC1P1O, on 13 March 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

I also should put the disclaimer that this tends to frustrate me more in pug drops, where i'm one of the few guys left and i have to deal with 1 to 2 of these builds. I just think boating really is detrimental to pug drops more so than organized 4 man drops.

I also think if your going to boat there should be some incremental penalty

i mean what soldier brings 4 sniper rifles to urban warfare?

What human can take 4 sniper hits and live?

[Theevenger]

I have a 4 PPC Catapault C1 and it is actually my best Mech. I consistently do 400+ damage with it in a match. However, heat is an extreme issue. I can fire 3 alpha strikes before shutting down. I have to be very careful with it. I fire from cover, shoot and scoot. If I make a mistake and shut down out of cover, I have to quickly power up the override and hope I don't cook myself in the time it takes to get back into cover and shut down again.

Due to the slot penalty I have to take with endo-steel structure and DHS, I have enough weight for an AMS but not enough slots. I use the extra weight for a bigger engine.

I have massive burst damage, but it takes a lot of skill to pilot a Mech like this well, and there is very little forgiveness if you mess it up. Generally, I can afford about 1 mistake in a given match and keep fighting, if I'm lucky. A second mistake, or a particularly bad first mistake spells instant death, which is not the case on most of my other Mechs.

Jacmac, on 13 March 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

If that were true, everyone would be running 6 PPC Stalkers to get rid of the lights on the battlefield. It might be easy to kill bad light pilots with a PPC boat, but any light pilot with decent experience won't have much trouble killing off a PPC boat solo.

It's true, I have the most trouble with light Mechs. Sure I can 1shot a spider with a perfect hit and seriously wreck the day of any other light, but let's be honest. I'm an outstanding shot, and it's rare that I have to spend fewer salvoes on a light than I do a medium or heavy. Them ******** are tricky!

SC1P1O, on 13 March 2013 - 09:08 AM, said:

Im coming from a point of view that boating other builds has more limitations. The A1 is very squishy and has to be at 200m to be effective. the AC20 cat is similar to the A1 in range but also much slower. Where as a PPC stalker can be very effective at any range, especially at long range where overheating does not effect you much.

I had a PPC Stalker for a while. It's only somewhat true that overheating at long range doesn't affect you, because lots of ACs and LRMs have long ranges too. However, even if it was, the fact that my Stalker could fire so infrequently and was so slow meant that my mobility was horrible and my ultimate DPS was also terrible. I have much better results with my 4 PPC C1, but it takes a lot of skill to pull it off.

[Mystere]

I am a 100% soloist and I don't boat, but ...

SC1P1O, on 13 March 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

I agree, i think after more analysis of this fustration, it is more a problem in pugging If your not with your group its frustrating running against boats, i feel to improve the pug experience nerfing boating would be helpful.

You feel handicapped without your group and as such you want things nerfed? ...

Edited by Mystere, 13 March 2013 - 02:49 PM.

[MisterPlanetarian]

My large laser aim is at 87.5% on an atlas D-DC or STK-3F(boating). I get nowhere near the same amount of kills with them compared to an (ER)PPC build. PPC Aim is at 66% though but i do alot more flick shots and try to score alpha strikes on light mechs which leads to more misses.

This is from like 20-30 or so games in the past 2 days using either the STK-3F or the D-DC.


PPC boating is perfectly viable, but it is a fire support loadout, you are not supposed to shoot from below 300ish meters ideally anyway. If you do you need to mind your positioning more.

[OneEyed Jack]

Theevenger, on 13 March 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

I have a 4 PPC Catapault C1 and it is actually my best Mech. I have much better results with my 4 PPC C1, but it takes a lot of skill to pull it off.

What really takes skill is cramming 2xPPC into he CT of a mech..... Impressive.

[Reyge]

No (probably because I own a Stalker-3F with 6PPCs, but that's beside the point )

[Culler]

Vapor Trail, on 13 March 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

Culler said:

If you can't cross 200m in 9 seconds, your mech is too slow. If you can't cross 400m in 9 seconds, your mech is too slow.

Just so you're aware, this translates to TT movement points of 7.33 and 14.66...

So anything that doesn't move 80 to 160 kph is too slow.

I mathed wrong, converting kph for some reason directly to meters per second. Brain fart. Good catch. I still maintain that if they can get 2 PPC alphas off at you, you should approach from a different angle. 30 seconds for 400m is typical of slower mechs (that's around 60kph if I judge it right) and that's way too vulnerable. Even 15 seconds for 200m isn't worth doing. A mech moving over 100kph can typically cover 200m in time for them only to get off 1 volley (by dodging and weaving to make each volley take longer to line up) and that's more reasonable.

Edited by Culler, 14 March 2013 - 08:18 AM.

[shotokan5]

PPC are fine me I would like to see them as powerful as in 3025 but I will take what I can get. Another thing If you notice ppc's miss a lot.

[Dishevel]

SC1P1O, on 13 March 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

Then if its so many drawbacks, why do you see so many of the boats, Its like the A1 people liked it cuz you could boat srm6 now its the ppc craze, and turning into lrm craze again. This boating is frustrating because thiers no drawbacks to it. I would like to see builds that are jack of all trades, i feel boating something should not equal amazing mech.

There are no drawbacks = there're if you must contract but it is a bad contraction.
On to the factual problems themselves.
No drawbacks to boating? Sure boating can work. The evidence is that you do see boating so it must at times work.
But to state that there are no drawbacks to boating is insane.
Getting inside 180 meters of an LRM boat is a free kill for the person that does it.
Staying 200 meters away from an SRM boat neuters them very effectively.
PPC boats have range issues.
AC20 and Gauss boats have ammo and speed issues.
Boating amplifies your strengths and your weaknesses.