65 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Roland, on 15 August 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

Up the damage per pellet of the LBX-10 to 1.5.

There. You just made the LBX-10 into a useful infighting weapon, and it took a 5 second change to an XML file.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

except the LB-X is supposed to be much more than an "effective infighting weapon". BAM. 5 seconds to apply yet another bandaid. Awesome.

[Strum Wealh]

So, from today's patch notes:
"Reducing spread on LBX-10 from 2.25 down to 1.3"

I won't be able to try it out myself until much later.
To anyone that can get to it before I can: how does the change affect the LB 10-X's handling?

[Bishop Steiner]

Strum Wealh, on 20 August 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

So, from today's patch notes:
"Reducing spread on LBX-10 from 2.25 down to 1.3"

I won't be able to try it out myself until much later.
To anyone that can get to it before I can: how does the change affect the LB 10-X's handling?

Honestly, not really.

Is the spread more effective at range? Yes. But worse for swatting close, fast moving Lights. And it still spreads the damage out in such a way that it is vastly inferior to a standard AC10 in actually destroying another mech. I ran my Can-Opener in both AC/10 and LB-10X guises today, and the damage and kill drop-off between the AC and LB-X was far greater than 1 ton of weight and 90 extra yards of range (largely unusable do to spread) would indicate.

I think we all agree that the switch ammo, TT version will never make it in, as it directly obsoletes the heavier, bulkier, shorter ranged and hotter running ac10. It was quite literally the only 100% instance of that happening, not counting the general Clan Tech vs Inner Sphere comparo. So I still say we need to think outside the box to give LB-10xs a real home.

Just my 2 cts.

[MisterPlanetarian]

OP your idea strikes me as needlessly complex in terms of coding. Do you really think proxy munitions are on the table for a "quick and easy fix" with all the netcode work PGI has to deal with to get basic 1 projectile weapons to register probably?


Me neither.


Then even at 20m the present LB-10X is really not that special, What it really needs above all else right now is a Rate of Fire increase. A 1.5-1.75 Cycle time will make it fair comptetition to the SRM6. Yes the 540 meter optimal is misleading and should take Cone of Fire in mind.

Your Idea seems kind of cool but hardly the only, much less the most effective immidiate solution to the current problem. And that problem Is that the LB-10X simply can't do anything the AC10 can't do better right now. This is easily fixed with a Rate of Fire increase as I mentioned.

Edited by MisterPlanetarian, 13 September 2013 - 06:05 AM.

[Roland]

Bishop Steiner, on 15 August 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

except the LB-X is supposed to be much more than an "effective infighting weapon". BAM. 5 seconds to apply yet another bandaid. Awesome.

Making the LBX into an infighting weapon will give it utility which makes it actually function in the game. It will make the game better.

The cannister shot idea is ridiculously complex, and will never work in practice. Trying to determine the correct range to explode will be nonsensical. Your use case involves a perfect world where you are shooting directly at a stationary target, and are using the raytrace from the gun to determine range.. this will almost never be the case in actual usage, since you'll be leading your target.

So then that will leave you will the options of either using whatever your selected target's range is (which eliminates snap shot options) or you'll be using some proximity detection which will not only be computationally intensive, but won't even work since another enemy mech you aren't even trying to shoot may just happen to get close to the path of fire, and trigger the explosion, possibly hitting friendlies.

Seriously, JUST UP THE DAMAGE. It solves the problem. It makes the weapon good, while not just eclipsing other AC weapons.

It's an infinitely easier solution which takes no additional coding to fix.

[RandomLurker]

TT players have, for a long time, seen the LBX as a proximity detonated shell and not as a shotgun. This is because the game mechanics work like a prox shell. The pellet spread is identical at all ranges- that is not how a shotgun works. Regardless of what the tech manuals describe it as, it's been generally accepted by actual players for a long time that they are wrong. There are a lot of archived discussions on the CBT forums confirming this.

We already have shotguns in the game- they are called SRMs. This change adds a new functionality and uniqueness to the weapon. Much superior to a unimaginative damage increase or tighter spread.