18 replies to this topic

[Corwin Vickers]

ATM Dakka AC2 is better than the other ACs DPS wise while at the same time having the longest range in the game.

AC5 is useless compared to the UAC5.

ACs are relatively hard to hit with.

AC20s shoot 2000m/s right now.

Change the AC2 back into something that does .4 x the damage the AC5 does.

Increase the speed of the autocanon based on it's range. So the AC2 would fly incredibly fast. Maybe 4000m/s. This would simulate it's ability to hit things at super long range since we have no other way to make things easier to hit with at range atm.

Make the AC5 shoot something in between, maybe 3000m/s.

The UAC5 could stay where it is, or go slower. This difference in the ability to hit with it might make the AC5 more attractive in certain situations.

AC10, maybe 2500m/s?

But you get the idea. Stop messing with weapon DPS since there are so many other variables to change to make them viable.

[yashmack]

Corwin Vickers, on 22 March 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

ATM Dakka AC2 is better than the other ACs DPS wise while at the same time having the longest range in the game.

if you can stay on target 100% of the time... otherwise DPS will drop off dramatically with each miss

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AC5 is useless compared to the UAC5.

LOLOL when was the last time your AC5 jammed? UAC5 jams pretty frequently...

I disagree with everything in this post, rofl

[Soltastic]

last 4 matchs in a row my UAC5's spent most the match jammed, so yeah... lead those targets AC's are fine.

[yashmack]

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Change the AC2 back into something that does .4 x the damage the AC5 does.

the AC 2 is named the AC 2 as it does 2 damage per hit, nothing has ever changed in this regard, it does the same damage it has always done...

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Increase the speed of the autocanon based on it's range. So the AC2 would fly incredibly fast. Maybe 4000m/s. This would simulate it's ability to hit things at super long range since we have no other way to make things easier to hit with at range atm

this is already done, AC/2 is 2000 m/s, AC/5 is 1300 m/s, AC/10 is 1100m/s, ac/20 is 900 m/s
seems reasonable to me, i dont have any problems using autocannons currently

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Make the AC5 shoot something in between, maybe 3000m/s.

why?

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The UAC5 could stay where it is, or go slower. This difference in the ability to hit with it might make the AC5 more attractive in certain situations.

The only different between an AC/5 and a UAC/5 is the option to fire a second round almost immediately with a change to jam, this is canon and i see no reason to change it really...

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AC10, maybe 2500m/s?

again, why?

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But you get the idea. Stop messing with weapon DPS since there are so many other variables to change to make them viable.

the only changes they have made are to firing speed and some changes to rate of fire here and there, nothing major
I still dont understand why youre saying these changes need to be made
most everyone is happy with autocannons as far as i know...

[zztophat]

in three mechs so far that have fielded UAC5s I have switched to AC5s. I like UACs, they sound cool, they look cool and I want them to be great but... they are heavier, they jam and they burn ammo while at the same time having less ammo per ton. The tonnage saved by switching to AC5s has always lead to more effective mechs either because of the extra cooling, armor, ammunition or firepower granted by those extra tons.

I want UACs to be better than they are because right now I find myself better off without them but I still want to use them.

Edited by zztophat, 22 March 2013 - 10:03 PM.

[Tragos]

Actually the UAC/5 has a much better firing rate than the AC/5 even without double-shot. 1.1. to 1.7 seconds between shots.

[yashmack]

Tragos, on 22 March 2013 - 10:02 PM, said:

Actually the UAC/5 has a much better firing rate than the AC/5 even without double-shot. 1.1. to 1.7 seconds between shots.

good point, there is a slight DPS increase, 4.55 instead of 4.0 DPS

all this is coming from the smurfy mech builder which uses MWO stats
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_ballistic

[Corwin Vickers]

I thought they increased the speed of the AC20 and the rest of the ACs to 2000m/s. I guess I was wrong.


But the AC2's recharge is .5 seconds while the AC5s recharge is 1.7 seconds meaning the AC2 does 6.8 damage in the time the AC5 does 5 and it does it at a longer range.

I don't know about you guys but I never see anyone using an AC5 over a UAC5. Maybe it's macros? I use UAC5s also but I just let them jam.


Other than the UAC5 and the AC20, ACs are not used. And there is lots of crying to make the AC2 generate less heat since when you fire it like it's a machine gun it generates a lot of heat (and machineguns are useless).





What we have right now is a machine gun AC2. No one who knows what they are doing uses a LBX10 or an AC10 (or from what I have seen, an AC5)


Canon on the UAC5 is that if it jams it's gone until you can get a refit so it's not canon that we have. All auto cannons shoot the same ROF and are actually giant machine guns that fire non-stop or a burst of shells, not a single giant round, so it's not canon.

I'm not talking canon, I'm talking about making all the ACs useful.

Edited by Corwin Vickers, 23 March 2013 - 01:52 AM.

[LegoPirate]

i think most of the acs are in a good place. i think UACS need their jamming algorithm looked at and AC5s need a cooldown reduction.

[MuKen]

yashmack, on 22 March 2013 - 10:04 PM, said:

good point, there is a slight DPS increase, 4.55 instead of 4.0 DPS

all this is coming from the smurfy mech builder which uses MWO stats
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_ballistic

Uh, you should read your own link. The DPS difference is much more than what you said.

As it stands right now, for anybody who learns to correctly time their UAC5 shots so they won't jam(which is really not that hard, or you can macro it if you need to), AC5 is a pretty terrible deal.

The fact that on top of its already significantly higher dps, you can choose to risk a jam to maybe get super insane DPS for awhile out of your UAC is merely icing on the cake.

Edited by MuKen, 22 March 2013 - 11:12 PM.

[Falconic]

I don't have a problem with AC's. I have ran most of them in either my Cicadas or the Jager. I need a machine gun upgrade for my Cicada 3C. 2 ac2's and a large laser makes the mech too slow, brittle and lean on ammo for a medium mech.

AC 5 vs UAC 5: Learn to count in your head and the UAC 5 will be your friend. Don't and the AC5 will treat you right. I find all AC to be inferior to lasers at the moment. They weigh much more, still create heat, run out of shots and have to be led. The only thing they have going for them is all the damage from a shot hits the part it hits. Not even sure that's a good thing for half the pilots.

[Corwin Vickers]

The problem is that people are using AC2s to DPS over AC5s.

And if you say that UAC5s are not insanely powerful you are doing it wrong.

[Sekard]

Just lower the weight of AC/2, AC/5, AC/10, and LB10-X. All these things weigh quite abit for mediocre concentrated damage. The high spike damage of AC/20s/Gausses overshadow other ACs while the UAC/5 gets by being a RNG spam cannon.

[Khobai]

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Just lower the weight

Not an option. That messes up all the canon builds.

[Rubidiy]

Here's my post in other thread about ballistic weapons. WARNING! A lot of text. All balance suggestions are made after testing and analyzing different mechs, their loadouts and fighting capabilities.

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Ballistics for everyone!


Today we don't really have a full line of ballistic weapons at all. Developers are right in their desire to create three different weapon mechanics to distinguish lasers from ballictics.
in our desire to offer descent game models for different ballistic weaponry we should also think about the way any weapon delivers it's damage and make sure that this way is somehow unique.
This does not lead to any outstanding solutions while talking about MGs, cause they already have their uniqueness and the only question is balance, but what do we have in other weight categories??? Almost nothing.
I just cann't understand why energy weapons are almost completely deprived of any size restrictions, missiles are restricted only by quantity of missile shafts (which is usually not that a big deal) and ballistics always come in high prise of weight and space?
Why can we easily install 6 PPCs in STALKER (and have a big problems because of our stupidity)? But we CAN do this! I know that all 6 of them will hardly ever hit same part of enemy mech, but in case of severed half-torso they will. Now we really have 4 PPCs positioned in hands of STALKER to hit one spot, and thus we have our massive AC20s, wich are currently the only well balanced ballistic weapon in the game, because the weight and space we spend on it gives us REAL fighting ability which is also needs a bit of skill to be attached. So we have 4x10 dmg for PPCs hitting one mech component and 2x20 dmg of a bit hot AC20s or 15x2 dmg of Gauss rifles wich will blow your own mech quite frequently, but you can fire them non stop for they don't generate any heat at all.
OK. But what with AC10? Why if they're considered as middle-long range one shot cannons, they weight so much? Why AC10 uses so many slots that we can't install 'em even we're reckless enough to do so???
Same goes to LBX-10. I just can't understand why middle or light mechs should undergo a severe nerf to their armor and mobility to be able to carry one ludicrous ballistic like AC5, AC10 or LBX-10??? Those are just a weapons with no real advantages. Their damage per ton is fetile compared to missiles not to mention lasers. They're highly skill dependant but still they weight unreasonably a lot. SRM6+Artemis does ~15 dmg (splash damage included), It's weight is 4 tons. 2 medium lasers do same dage just for same 4 tons of their own weight + 2 DHS. So how come LBX-10 weights 11 tons? Why won't we buff it to 6 ton? Why a mech with ballistics is always desperately slow and unarmored just for no reason at all but the fact that instead of 10dmg of missiles or 10 dmg of energy it uses 10 dmg of gunfire??? Because lasers are difficult to aim at one spot??? But same goes to ballictics with persistent firing model (AC/2, AC/5, ultra AC5).No matter the firing model currently the game entirely lacks ballistics for light and middle classes. I succesfully used 5 PPCs on cataphract but was unable to install 4 AC10s. And their heat generation doesn't balance their weight and unability to use 4 of them. 2,5 seconds is a time which can be of use only for close combat situations and therefore being taken into account for LBX-10 balance but not for AC10. If devs want to differ AC10 from PPC, they already have thier counter ECM ability of PPC hits, they already have difference in their delays, trajectory, distance et.c.
So it's 2.5sec reload time is useless, it weights too much and it can't be installed by 2 in one component. I suggest:
AC/10
1. Change AC10's slots down to 5
2. Change reload time to 3,25 seconds
3. Damage drop start down to 270m
4. Weight down to 9 tons
Thus it will weight much more than 1 AC20. You still won't be able to install 4 of them into any existent mech except for Jagermech, which will lead to huge engine, armor and ammo restrictions.
My fingers are bleeding so I'll just write down my further suggestions to ballistics. The only thing I just have to add that I used mouse macross (just for investigation, I'm not abusing it) to prevent ultraAC5's from jamming to test their real firepower and real battle abilities. And those tests were taken into account, although I recommend devs to turn off it's ability not to jamm if fired after reload...
LBX-10AC
1. weights 6 tons
2. reload time is 3.25sec

ultra AC/5
1. takes 5 slots
2. weights 7 tons

AC/5
1. takes 3 slots
2. weights 6 tons

AC/2
1. weights 3 tons
2. Reload 1 sec

This is the simpliest way to create ballistics for everyone. Spread, heat generation et.c. won't change.

Edited by Rubidiy, 23 March 2013 - 11:00 PM.

[focuspark]

Alpha > DPS

IMO all AC should have identical DPS with UAC chance for jamming combined with un-jam time keeping them at equal levels as well. The big alpha weapons are big and heavy, which makes sense for balance reasons.

Honestly if the devs took time to "fix" the uAC and MG, ballistics would be about spot on IMO.

Oh AC5 needs to be brought on par with other ACs as well.

[Cyke]

The most glaring discrepancy is the AC5's poor DPS.
Perhaps its recycle time should be boosted to 1.25 seconds. This will give it 4 DPS, which is exactly the same as the AC2 and AC10.
The UAC5 can be kept at 1.1 seconds or nerfed to 1.25 seconds to match the AC5. The extra 0.15 second delay would be barely noticeable, but I believe having the same recycle for the AC5 and UAC5 is more elegant. The UAC5 would, of course, still have its doublefire feature.


But generally, the DPS values of the autocannons are a bit curious:
AC2: 4 dps
AC5: 2.94 dps
AC10: 4 dps
AC20: 5 dps

Shouldn't it go upward, the bigger the cannon you take?
The larger the AC, the more slots and tonnage you're spending, and getting less projectile velocity and range to boot. Shouldn't you get more DPS?

I understand that DPS isn't fully applicable in an action game where the player's ability to actually score hits is the big factor, but the smaller ACs also have easier-to-maintain hit consistency, due to better range and velocity!

Edited by Cyke, 24 March 2013 - 02:16 AM.

[Corwin Vickers]

Cyke, on 24 March 2013 - 02:15 AM, said:

Shouldn't it go upward, the bigger the cannon you take?

That is because they raised the fire rate of the AC2 so high.

The AC5 and AC10 should be the go-to medium range low heat/ammo based weapons. Instead we see 6 AC2 Jagers running around.

I also started using two UAC5s instead of AC20s. They do insane damage right now while still having an 1800m range. Even with jams I think they do much more damage than an AC20.

[focuspark]

Corwin Vickers, on 25 March 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

That is because they raised the fire rate of the AC2 so high.

The AC5 and AC10 should be the go-to medium range low heat/ammo based weapons. Instead we see 6 AC2 Jagers running around.

I also started using two UAC5s instead of AC20s. They do insane damage right now while still having an 1800m range. Even with jams I think they do much more damage than an AC20.

in a mech that can stand there and unload uac5 is awesome. I have always thought AC20 were for pot shots,