242 replies to this topic

[Bloodweaver]

Oh, OK. Yes, that makes a lot more sense.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Just pile drove a team that had 5 mechs with gauss and x3ppc. My team was a nicely balance mix of many types of weapons.
And i was a spider with.... 2 medium pulse lasers!

This thread just takes all the fun out of mech customization. Do what you want to, if you have fun doing it, then that's the point. Anyone who says otherwise should probably stay in the 8-man queue and have fun trading ppcs and lrms and run the same mech over and over and over.

Too many people playing like this is an e-sport game, especially in beta.
What's going to break my heart is if I start seeing people in the game start dealing friendly fire damage because they're "gimping their team" by not having the flavour of the month.
I got cored a couple months ago for having a flamer in my raven because I was playing how I wanted to play, and my team member decided that killing me was the best thing to do... I asked " so... what was that for?" he responded "you're gimping our team with flamers."

Since ELO ratings are starting to mix now with dwindling numbers, I can only hope that the remaining community isn't that ignorant as the one guy who killed me because I was testing out a flamer...

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 25 July 2013 - 03:53 PM.

[Victor Morson]

MoonUnitBeta, on 25 July 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

This thread just takes all the fun out of mech customization. Do what you want to, if you have fun doing it, then that's the point.

Correction.. PGI takes all the fun out of mech customization. If the weapons were balanced and they spent time balancing them opposed to dicking around with massively complicated, ultimately harmful / pointless systems (Check out The Maths thread), we'd have a ton more options.

MoonUnitBeta, on 25 July 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

Too many people playing like this is an e-sport game, especially in beta.

Again, with a little effort and willingness to admit when they're wrong, balanced guns make everyone - pugs and e-sport people alike - happy. Sure your frankemechs might not be good, but at least they'd have good guns then! Everyone wins.

MoonUnitBeta, on 25 July 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

What's going to break my heart is if I start seeing people in the game start dealing friendly fire damage because they're "gimping their team" by not having the flavour of the month.

This is flavor of the year stuff, but yeah, I'm not going to do that. Education not griefing!

MoonUnitBeta, on 25 July 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

I got cored a couple months ago for having a flamer in my raven because I was playing how I wanted to play, and my team member decided that killing me was the best thing to do... I asked " so... what was that for?" he responded "you're gimping our team with flamers." Was I ever pissed, and I still have his name written down. Anyone that dips that low to ruin someones fun over a game, and takes a video game that seriously is a total disgrace.

I'm not saying "Flamers suck, haha, stay sucky flamers!" I'm literally disappointed, highly, that Flamers are not worthwhile to use. I would love if PGI would spend a fraction of the time they do on crap like 3PV fixing stuff like this, with some external feedback, so your build would be viable.

I wish this stuff worked, but if wishes were horses..

MoonUnitBeta, on 25 July 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

Since ELO ratings are starting to mix now with dwindling numbers, I can only hope that the remaining community isn't that ignorant as the one guy who killed me because I was testing out a flamer...

To be fair, again, I don't endorse shooting people with bad configs.. if they're on your team, anyway. At all. But you should definitely make a point to let people know you're in an awful gimmick mech so at least they won't count on you. Everyone's driven a crappy gimmick from time to time, I think

[Padic]

There are definitely issues with a lot of weapon systems right now (although I don't worry about it as much as some players do).

The biggest issue I take with this guide is that it is all in the negative. It falls into the common trap of "if I don't know that it's good, it must be bad". No one is that omnipotent. You can say "I know this is good in these ways but I don't know any way to make that good."

In short, knowing what is good is good, shouting down experimentation is bad.

[audi man]

Agree with above - any noobs reading this are going to get some not very useful advice and a bad vibe form the OP.

If you work at it, you can make just about every weapon in the stable effective. The only ones I'm yet to really find a use for are flamers, MG and Streak 2's, which probably has a lot to do with my play style and mech choice, as others clearly have success with them.

Not every weapon works on every mech - doesnt mean theres not a place. If you havent found an appreciation for everything yet, perhaps you arent experiementing enough.

I have a very mixed stable of mechs and builds - and I find it quite amusing when people bag out particular weapons and mechs as useless when even my sorry *** can get fairly regular 3-600 dmg matches out of some of them.

Ok, if you want to get 1000dmg every match, you might not be playing for the fun of it anymore :-)

The one major what not to do I would state would be:

x) Ignore your team members positions and strategy!

Edited by gldgti, 25 July 2013 - 07:46 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Padic, on 25 July 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

The biggest issue I take with this guide is that it is all in the negative.

There are more bad weapons & mechs than good ones at present time.

Padic, on 25 July 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

It falls into the common trap of "if I don't know that it's good, it must be bad". No one is that omnipotent. You can say "I know this is good in these ways but I don't know any way to make that good."

Tons and tons of testing internally and with the higher level teams in the game suggest that you don't need to be omnipotent to deduct that some weapons are inferior.

Padic, on 25 July 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

In short, knowing what is good is good, shouting down experimentation is bad.

Shooting down experimenting with bad weapons is a time saver, honestly.

Your logic would have us going "Have you TRIED a WWI tank gun on a modern tank? Who knows, it might be good!" when it's pretty clear it wouldn't be.

[Victor Morson]

gldgti, on 25 July 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

Agree with above - any noobs reading this are going to get some not very useful advice and a bad vibe form the OP.

Tons of positive feedback threads and someone always jumps in and muddies them stating to use a gun that's horrible. Just look at the build threads. It's easier to negative the problems.

gldgti, on 25 July 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

If you work at it, you can make just about every weapon in the stable effective. The only ones I'm yet to really find a use for are flamers, MG and Streak 2's, which probably has a lot to do with my play style and mech choice, as others clearly have success with them.

You can have success with any weapon if you're ignored, even MGs. It doesn't make them good. I could shoot someone with a flintlock, but by God, I wouldn't recommend it over a modern assault rifle.

gldgti, on 25 July 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

Not every weapon works on every mech - doesnt mean theres not a place. If you havent found an appreciation for everything yet, perhaps you arent experiementing enough.

Not every weapon works with every 'mech, true, but the ones I listed have no place on any 'mech, period.

gldgti, on 25 July 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

I have a very mixed stable of mechs and builds - and I find it quite amusing when people bag out particular weapons and mechs as useless when even my sorry *** can get fairly regular 3-600 dmg matches out of some of them.

Again, poor players and being ignored lets you get that damage with anything.

gldgti, on 25 July 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

Ok, if you want to get 1000dmg every match, you might not be playing for the fun of it anymore :-)

.. and that is sad. You're basically saying "You can either have fun or play well." That's not good design, but it's truth.

gldgti, on 25 July 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

The one major what not to do I would state would be:

x) Ignore your team members positions and strategy!

Good advice. Definitely not things you could ignore. I'll agree there!

[Padic]

No. You see. My fundamental claim is that the elite-est of players still have things to learn. You're saying "Nuh huh. They're perfect"... Which is obviously insane. The game isn't perfectly mapped. It will never be perfectly mapped.

Edited by Padic, 25 July 2013 - 08:34 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Padic, on 25 July 2013 - 08:33 PM, said:

No. You see. My fundamental claim is that the elite-est of players still have things to learn. You're saying "Nuh huh. They're perfect"... Which is obviously insane. The game isn't perfectly mapped. It will never be perfectly mapped.

Every weapon on my list has been mapped and mapped and mapped again.

Until things change, we do in fact know objectively and subjectively the LPL is terrible, for example.

[Padic]

K dude

[Roland]

Let's get one thing straight... there is nothing elitist about pointing out bad weapons to new players. It only becomes elitist if you tell them that they are somehow terrible people for not knowing better right out of the gate.

But a lot of the weapons can be clearly illustrated to be terrible. This is not an issue of some kind of moral failing on the weapon or the part of the user. This is simply due to the statistics of the weapons.

For instance, the pulse lasers present a good example of this, and a good example of clear inferiority which is sometimes missed if you don't think about it enough.

Pulse lasers tend to weigh more, run hotter, and have dramatically reduced range than their standard laser counterparts.

In exchange, what do you get? You get a very slightly shorter discharge time, which can potentially make it easier to land all of the damage on the target (although, if you accept this, then you can easily see how a weapon like the PPC which does all of its damage in one chunk is a better weapon from the perspective of accuracy).

What is the other advantage of pulse lasers? Their damage is a bit higher, right? This seems good.

But when you consider it in combination with the dramatically reduced range, this benefit is quickly made moot. The standard lasers will have a significant range band within which they will actually do better damage than their pulse laser counterparts. That is, in many cases, the pulse laser will end up doing LESS damage due to the damage reduction that takes place as range increases.

Thus, the end result is that pulse lasers weigh much more, run much hotter (meaning less sustained damage, especially considering the weight means less tonnage for heat sinks), and actually do less damage straight up on average since your mech is usually not going to just magically transport into point blank range against every mech you fight.

A lot of weapons end up being like this. It's not really that they are simply a matter of preference or not. They are mathematically inferior. This is not to suggest that you cannot use them. Using them doesn't even make you a bad player.

But you will do better with other weapons.

[NRP]

The more people whine, the more weapons will be added to Vic's "trash" list. Case in point: Paul said PPCs/ERPPCs are getting their base heat increased. This, in addition to the heat scale penalty, will probably relegate them to where they were before they were buffed - the trash pile.

So let's look at where we're at now: LLs are not usable. LPLs are not useable. Streaks are not usable. PPCs are about to become unusable.

Congrats whiners! Keep it up! Before long, every weapon will suck. Then you can run around in your MG + Flamer frankenmech pretty much unmolested.

Edited by NRP, 25 July 2013 - 09:13 PM.

[Windsaw]

Victor Morson, on 25 July 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Thus, LPLs are a terrible weapon and it's a bad idea to take them. Always.

One build where I use the LPL is a very fast Centurion that has just the missile weapon and an energy.
I had to decide what weapon to put in the CT. PPC doesn't fit. I tried two mediums or two pulse mediums but in the end settled for a LPL. Heat efficiency is irrelevant since it is a single weapon and ignoring the heat argument the LPL is a good tradeoff between, damage, firing time and range.
For this one build the last changes on the LPL were really a buff.

Okay, I admit, this is the ONLY configuration with LPLs that I can think of where they are not in a disadvantage. But it exists.

Edited by Windsaw, 25 July 2013 - 10:25 PM.

[Windsaw]

NRP, on 25 July 2013 - 09:05 PM, said:

The more people whine, the more weapons will be added to Vic's "trash" list.

Can't say they are. There have been trash weapons (not Vic's list: his list is way too big) since I started and I don't think they have become more. Sometimes one is added, sometimes one is removed.

[Modo44]

Victor Morson, on 25 July 2013 - 08:35 PM, said:

Every weapon on my list has been mapped and mapped and mapped again.

Some things you can not mount on some mechs. Some mechs have spare tonnage when fitting the "good" weapons, but can take more firepower using less optimal ones. Some weapons are better on faster or slower mechs only. The dumb list ignores all of that.

Edited by Modo44, 25 July 2013 - 10:33 PM.

[audi man]

Victor, I think I know where you're coming from - but there are some areas where your own gaming experience may not have yet proved sufficient with certain weapons to find their uses.

For instance, the med pulse laser.... In my experience, a very useful weapon. My most successful build, a phract 1x, has 5 of them with an ac20. If I change them to medium lasers, it make very little difference to my scores, but I average lower. Ok, so on this particular build, taking out my own piloting skill - I might say that the ML and MPL are similarly effective.

Take that down to the light mechs though, and it can get very strange. I have a SPD-5D with 3 MPL - by FAR my most effective light mech build. If I change it to 3 ML, I cannot get the same scores..... the speed of the mech coupled with the shorter duration means the pulse laser helps me land that much more per salvo, and ofcourse being fast the distance to taget is not so much an issue.

The point here is that although on a heavy chassis the MPL might present little or no advantange to the fight over the ML, on the light chassis, in this case, it presents a big advantage.

I certainly wont say that this will be the case for every pilot, becasue goodness knows that we all pilot differently (and this is what makes the game interesting!) - but nonetheless, we all only have out own experience to draw on.

Another case is my DRG-1N. Man, I was convinced there was no build I could make that would make it successful for me. I went 20-30 matches with not more than about 250 damage, trying stuff.

Then I gave up on it for a few weeks. After a while, I came back and tried a build with 'spares' in my parts bucket - an ERPPC, 2xSRM4, and a LBX-10. Brilliant! - I was getting solid matches out of it. Then I swapped the LBX10 for an AC-10, and I was (predictably) getting not too dissimilar matches out of it.

Then, I tried 2xAC5 instead of the AC 10, and swapped the ERPPC for 2xML (needed the tonnage) and with a slight adjustment in play style, seeing double the DMG per match I was before.

I guess thats a pretty long winded way of saying that atleast personally, I am having fun with all the weapons, and since this is gaming at a non-competative level - lets all have fun.

I would love if the LPL weighed 5 tonnes instead of 7. I would also love it if double heat sinks only took up 2 slots instead of 3 - but I still have fun, regardless - and I would encourage everyone to experiment with builds, because we all play differently, and what works for some may not work for others.

Edited by gldgti, 26 July 2013 - 01:08 AM.

[Shakma]

The AC-10 gets interesting when you can mount two of them. Have seen pairs of them doing well in cataphracts, cat-K2s and they do well in my jäger. However I stronly agree with the LBX-10, it's a total waste.
Likewise machine guns get usefull when you can mount at least two, preferably three or more of them, also considering their low weight and generous ammo per ton.

Edited by Shakma, 26 July 2013 - 01:48 AM.

[Bloodweaver]

Padic, on 25 July 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

The biggest issue I take with this guide is that it is all in the negative. It falls into the common trap of "if I don't know that it's good, it must be bad". No one is that omnipotent.

Did you read my post regarding the pulse lasers? It hardly claimed they're bad just because I don't know if they're good. I lined it all out in easily understood arithmetic. The numbers don't lie; pulse lasers are a poor trade-off compared to standard lasers, because you gain only a minute advantage for SEVERAL disadvantages, most of which are rather severe - range, heat, weight, and damage per ton.

Windsaw, on 25 July 2013 - 10:24 PM, said:

One build where I use the LPL is a very fast Centurion that has just the missile weapon and an energy.
I had to decide what weapon to put in the CT. PPC doesn't fit. I tried two mediums or two pulse mediums but in the end settled for a LPL. Heat efficiency is irrelevant since it is a single weapon and ignoring the heat argument the LPL is a good tradeoff between, damage, firing time and range.
For this one build the last changes on the LPL were really a buff.

I'm glad you were able to get the LPL to work for you. Reality is, I'd love to use pulses, the idea of them seems a lot cooler - the weird and completely non-threatening medical-instrument-sound-effects notwithstanding. I was running my CN-9A's zombie with two medium pulse for a while. But once I switched those out standard medium lasers, I had two tons free to put towards the engine, heat sinks, ammo, and/or Artemis.

Compared to a single LPL, two medium lasers will weigh five tons less, cost no additional crits, generate 0.5 less heat, only suffer a 30m(normal)/60m(max) range penalty, and cause only 0.6 less damage per shot. But, because the MLAS' recycle time will be 3 instead of 3.25, you will actually do more damage over time with two MLAS. Let's say you look at the number of shots fired, with no pauses, over 39 seconds(because 39 is the lowest whole number divisible by both weapons' recycle rates). The LPL will fire 12 times, generating 127.2 points of damage. The 2xMLAS will fire 13 times, generating 130 points of damage. Of course, you can say this is offset by the fact the LPL's beam duration is 1/4 of a second less, meaning your damage output is more accurate; but then you also have to admit THAT is offset by the fact the 2xMLAS has a shorter recycle, giving you more opportunities to actually do any damage at all. All this while have five more tons you can apply towards armor, agility, or heat efficiency, letting you put out STILL MORE more shots, since you can absorb more fire, run faster, or avoid shutdowns. If you change the LPL to a single LLAS or even 2xMPL, the equations become even more bonked; the former gives you WAY more range, and the latter gives you more damage at less heat, and even though it's only half the range, the LPL's range is so small that it doesn't make that much of a difference.

Frankly, the beam duration for the pulse lasers should be much, much shorter. I wouldn't be against them being point-damage weapons, actually - that would make SENSE, considering the cost you have to pay in weight, heat, and range to use them. Plus it would actually reflect tabletop rules, where pulse lasers got an impressive accuracy advantage over standard lasers - not just a minor one. And even then, such a change alone still might not be enough to make them truly balanced.

gldgti, on 26 July 2013 - 01:05 AM, said:

Take that down to the light mechs though, and it can get very strange. I have a SPD-5D with 3 MPL - by FAR my most effective light mech build. If I change it to 3 ML, I cannot get the same scores..... the speed of the mech coupled with the shorter duration means the pulse laser helps me land that much more per salvo, and ofcourse being fast the distance to taget is not so much an issue.

You've inadvertently hit on the one valid reason to take pulse lasers over standards. It has less to do with your weight and speed, though, than it has to do with critical spaces and hardpoint slots. If you only have a single hardpoint slot, and only one crit space open for it, what is the most powerful weapon you can put in? The MPL. In the same situation but with two crit spaces? The LPL. So if you've already filled out all your other hardpoints and just want to up your damage output as much as possible, the pulse lasers are the way to go. Whether or not that extra 1 point of damage is actually effective, though, considering the heat/range/weight tradeoff... well...

[evilC]

Victor Morson, on 25 July 2013 - 03:30 AM, said:

There's plenty of guides out there, but after seeing a massive decline in build quality even amongst pugs lately, I figure this is worth repeating - the list of what not to do. [BUT WHAT IF...] No, not even then! NEVER!

1: Mount a Large Pulse Laser, AC/5, AC/10, LBX/10, Machine Gun, Flamer, ER Large Laser, Medium Pulse Laser, NARC, or less LRMs (per volley) than 20.

Hmm, personally I would edit that LRM rule down to a min salvo of 15.

I would also add these words of advice regarding LRM efficiency.

The LRM5+15 are more ton efficient than the LRM10+20. The pack size of the LRM20 is too big, the 15 is more efficient.
The LRM5 is the most ton efficient LRM in the game. 4xLRM5 does the same damage as 1xLRM20 but for 2 less tons and 1 less slot.
Furthermore, 4xLRM5 does 6.76 DPS, whereas 1xLRM20 does 4.63 DPS
LRM 20+10 = 7.56 DPS for 15 tons and 7 slots. 2xLRM15 = 7.76 DPS for 14 tons and 6 slots.

Therefore, my recommendation would be:
Avoid the LRM10 and LRM20 if tonnage is your concern - they are inefficient.

Also, with the new heat rules, currently only the LRM20 has an alpha limit. Another reason to avoid it.

I encourage people to explore the LRM stats on a site such as Smurfy's.

[Roland]

Modo44, on 25 July 2013 - 10:32 PM, said:

Some things you can not mount on some mechs. Some mechs have spare tonnage when fitting the "good" weapons, but can take more firepower using less optimal ones. Some weapons are better on faster or slower mechs only. The dumb list ignores all of that.

But what you're stating here is merely an illustration of why the problem Vic describes is actually even worse.

The fact that certain mechs can only really mount poor weapons doesn't make those weapons good. It just means that those mechs end up being inherently bad as well.

The machine gun is a great example of this. While it's still a pretty terrible weapon, previously it was so bad that no one could argue it wasn't worthless. There were numerous chassis variants which were designed specifically around carrying multiple machine guns (generally light mechs like spiders who lacked the tonnage for other ballistic weapons). The fact that those mechs were centered around carrying machine guns didn't make machine guns good. It just meant those variants were terrible.

Quote

One build where I use the LPL is a very fast Centurion that has just the missile weapon and an energy.
I had to decide what weapon to put in the CT. PPC doesn't fit. I tried two mediums or two pulse mediums but in the end settled for a LPL. Heat efficiency is irrelevant since it is a single weapon and ignoring the heat argument the LPL is a good tradeoff between, damage, firing time and range.

I think that what you'll find is that if you replaced the LPL with a standard large laser, your mech will be more effective. You'll free up tonnage (which you could used for other things like heat sinks, or a bigger engine), and your weapon will be signficantly more heat efficient which will let you fire it more, and you'll have better range. The net effect is that you will almost certainly do more damage with it.

Quote

I have a SPD-5D with 3 MPL - by FAR my most effective light mech build. If I change it to 3 ML, I cannot get the same scores..... the speed of the mech coupled with the shorter duration means the pulse laser helps me land that much more per salvo, and ofcourse being fast the distance to taget is not so much an issue.

Yes, this is the only mech I run pulse lasers on, and even there I tend to question whether it's the right thing to do. But as you state, it's severely limited in tonnage and hardpoints.


I think this gets to the heart of Vic's list.

Ultimately, weapons are not "born" good or bad. They're made that way by the stats they're given, and the underlying mechanics of the game. LBX aren't bad because anyone wants them to be bad. They're bad because they are ineffective as weapons. They offer a poor return on investment in terms of mech building.

These types of decisions must be made through thoughtful analysis. If you want to make effective builds, you must do so through rational decision making, weighing the various aspects of the build, and what you are trying to accomplish. You can't simply say, "Every weapon has its place!" because in the current game that's not true. We all want it to be true, which is why folks argue for various changes to weapons balance, but it's not the case right now.