24 replies to this topic

[1Sascha]

What's up with the fire-rate on those things? People keep talking about double-tapping, but to me they seem to have only one firing-speed (read: holding down the trigger on chain-fire).

And why not simply implement some kind of two-stage trigger? While it's laughable in itself that anyone in any kind of military would even consider fielding a weapon that may jam on you after the first shot, at least you should have the option of avoiding jams altogether by sacrificing firing speed.

Anecdotal and all, but I've had matches running 3x UAC where I had only used 3 or 4 shots 3 or 4 minutes in, simply because again and again, all my UACs would jam up on me after one shot. And yes: I fired them chained and didn't hold down LMB.

According to BT, the Ultras jam up because of excessive vibration, so if you avoid those, you should be fine, right?

So why not:

Trigger stage one: UAC fires at the same rate as the corresponding AC. No jams.
Trigger stage two: Maximum fire-rate with XX % chance of a jam.

With this setting, you could probably even raise the jam-chance to 30 or 40% since it'd be a conscious decision by the pilot to sacrifice reliability for sheer lead-output.

?


S.

Edited by 1Sascha, 19 September 2013 - 01:47 AM.

[Mercworks]

The idea in the table top game was that you would use your UACs to fire normally, with the occasional, risky, double-tap. Players in MWO seem to think that UACs should be giant machine guns. If you use the UAC in its normal mode, and let it cool down between shots, it doesn't jam. It only can jam when you don't let it cool down between shots.

[General Taskeen]

Mercworks, on 19 September 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

The idea in the table top game was that you would use your UACs to fire normally, with the occasional, risky, double-tap. Players in MWO seem to think that UACs should be giant machine guns. If you use the UAC in its normal mode, and let it cool down between shots, it doesn't jam. It only can jam when you don't let it cool down between shots.

Because UAC's are "giant machine guns." Have you played any other Mech Warrior game? Like for real.

[Gaan Cathal]

General Taskeen, on 19 September 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

Because UAC's are "giant machine guns." Have you played any other Mech Warrior game? Like for real.

No they're not. That's Rotary Autocannons. Ultra Autocannons are Autocannons with a two-round 'burstfire' option, or alternatively the ability to fire twice as fast, either way with a jam risk.

Autocannon - Semi-Automatic (it's in the name!)
Ultra Autocannon - Semi-Automatic with Burst-Fire (or possibly variable recycle rate)
Rotary Autocannon - Fully Automatic
LB-X Autocannon - Shotgun (presume the silly shot-selection rubbish remains removed)

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 19 September 2013 - 12:13 PM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Gaan Cathal, on 19 September 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

No they're not. That's Rotary Autocannons. Ultra Autocannons are Autocannons with a two-round 'burstfire' option, or alternatively the ability to fire twice as fast, either way with a jam risk.

Autocannon - Semi-Automatic. Many alt. ammo typing -- more general and niche depending on ammo.
Ultra Autocannon - Semi-Automatic with Burst-Fire General doulbed rate of fire over standard ACs. No alt. ammo typing.
Rotary Autocannon - Fully Automatic Six times rate of fire over standard ACs. Risk of jam. No alt. ammo typing.
LB-X Autocannon - Shotgun Flak Cannon, improved version of standard ACs. Limited alt. ammo typing.
Hyper Velocity Autocannon - Penatrating Snipers. More range, thru armor crits -- bad to hardened armor. No alt. ammo types.
Light Autocannon - Lighter version of the AC2&5. No alt. ammo typing.

FTFY. Seriously, if you want to pull the "canon BT" card -- read up on yo' ****.

Edited by mwhighlander, 19 September 2013 - 02:47 PM.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Just hire the ******* team from Living Legends and let them do weapon balance.

Jesus christ

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 19 September 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

Just hire the ******* team from Living Legends and let them do weapon balance.

Jesus christ

Or, Hell anyone really.

[Gaan Cathal]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

FTFY. Seriously, if you want to pull the "canon BT" card -- read up on yo' ****.

Yeah.....you see the phrase "canon BT" in my post? Nope, because that's not what I'm talking about. You can tell because I excluded the single-shot-just-plain-better-than-an-AC-because-derp function on the LB-X ACs. I'm drawing function parallels between general FPS weapon categories and the MW:O weapons, including the as yet not included Rotary AC to point out that the Ultra AC is, infact, not a giant machinegun. I personally think the Ultra-line should be able to fire it's second shot after Recycle/2s as opposed to as a burstfire mode, but that's apparently the way PGI are going and they don't really seem to know how to do that 'changing direction' thing.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Gaan Cathal, on 19 September 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Yeah.....you see the phrase "canon BT" in my post? Nope, because that's not what I'm talking about. You can tell because I excluded the single-shot-just-plain-better-than-an-AC-because-derp function on the LB-X ACs. I'm drawing function parallels between general FPS weapon categories and the MW:O weapons, including the as yet not included Rotary AC to point out that the Ultra AC is, infact, not a giant machinegun. I personally think the Ultra-line should be able to fire it's second shot after Recycle/2s as opposed to as a burstfire mode, but that's apparently the way PGI are going and they don't really seem to know how to do that 'changing direction' thing.

Oh well, if you are considering only the autocanons we have in MW:O then...


AC2 - Nope. Too hot, ghost heat, **** damage, never use. Ever.
AC5 - Decent DPS, good to compliment with harder hitting weapons or in an array.
UAC5 - Use in arrays of 2-3 or as a complimentary weapon system. Never primary -- too unreliable.
AC10 - Decent single shot hard hitting weapon. Pair with another AC10 or PPC's.
LB10X - Nope. Still borked. Maybe one day PGI will figure out that simply choking the weapon won't fix it.
AC20 - Large and on some mechs too bulky to fit without a standard engine. Great single shot primary weapon.

Edited by mwhighlander, 19 September 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[Gaan Cathal]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Oh well, if you are considering only the autocanons we have in MW:O then...

AC2 - Nope. Too hot, ghost heat, **** damage, never use. Ever.
AC5 - Decent DPS, good to compliment with harder hitting weapons or in an array.
UAC5 - Use in arrays of 2-3 or as a complimentary weapon system. Never primary -- too unreliable.
AC10 - Decent single shot hard hitting weapon. Pair with another AC10 or PPC's.
LB10X - Nope. Still borked. Maybe one day PGI will figure out that simply choking the weapon won't fix it.
AC20 - Large and on some mechs too bulky to fit without a standard engine. Great single shot primary weapon.

A basically accurate appraisal, although I've heard (not tried it out) that 3xAC2 groupfired can be a decent loadout for a 3-ballistic arm on the Dragon or Victor. Don't see it personally. And the 3UAC/5 builds are still chewing things up fine as long as they don't faceplant, so I dunno that 'never primary' is really right there, depends a lot of how good you are at swapping between doublefire and AC/5 mode manually I guess.

Not that it has nothing to do with whether or not the UAC/5 is a super-heavy machinegun.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 19 September 2013 - 03:15 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Oh well, if you are considering only the autocanons we have in MW:O then...


AC2 - Nope. Too hot, ghost heat, **** damage, never use. Ever.
AC5 - Decent DPS, good to compliment with harder hitting weapons or in an array.
UAC5 - Use in arrays of 2-3 or as a complimentary weapon system. Never primary -- too unreliable.
AC10 - Decent single shot hard hitting weapon. Pair with another AC10 or PPC's.
LB10X - Nope. Still borked. Maybe one day PGI will figure out that simply choking the weapon won't fix it.
AC20 - Large and on some mechs too bulky to fit without a standard engine. Great single shot primary weapon.

Yup. I'm still for proximity fuzed shells myself on the LB-10X. It's usable now, but I can think of little reason not to spend the ton and crit extra for a standard AC10. And if I can't afford it, even as a single weapon, but particularly in pairs, would much prefer the UAC5.

[MisterFiveSeven]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Oh well, if you are considering only the autocanons we have in MW:O then...


AC2 - Nope. Too hot, ghost heat, **** damage, never use. Ever.
AC5 - Decent DPS, good to compliment with harder hitting weapons or in an array.
UAC5 - Use in arrays of 2-3 or as a complimentary weapon system. Never primary -- too unreliable.
AC10 - Decent single shot hard hitting weapon. Pair with another AC10 or PPC's.
LB10X - Nope. Still borked. Maybe one day PGI will figure out that simply choking the weapon won't fix it.
AC20 - Large and on some mechs too bulky to fit without a standard engine. Great single shot primary weapon.

AC2 is effective in groups of 3 or more. However, you need to be fast enough to disengage and let your heat dissipate.

i.e. hunchie w/xl250

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

MisterFiveSeven, on 19 September 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

AC2 is effective in groups of 3 or more. However, you need to be fast enough to disengage and let your heat dissipate.

i.e. hunchie w/xl250

I've found that a UAC5/AC5 Hunchy is a bit more effective. But to each their own I suppose.

[MisterFiveSeven]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

I've found that a UAC5/AC5 Hunchy is a bit more effective. But to each their own I suppose.

I get my UAC5 fix from my Protector.

[Bishop Steiner]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

I've found that a UAC5/AC5 Hunchy is a bit more effective. But to each their own I suppose.

call me nuts, I just stick to my good old AC20. (backed with 2 mediums and 2 MGS, but nothign crazy)

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 September 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

call me nuts, I just stick to my good old AC20. (backed with 2 mediums and 2 MGS, but nothign crazy)

Also a good mech.

[MisterFiveSeven]

mwhighlander, on 19 September 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

Also a good mech.

Hunchie really doesn't get enough love.

[1Sascha]

Quote

A basically accurate appraisal, although I've heard (not tried it out) that 3xAC2 groupfired can be a decent loadout for a 3-ballistic arm on the Dragon or Victor.

Nope.

Ghost heat pretty much ruins any build with more than 2 AC2s. I've long since abandoned the idea of a 4/5/6 AC2 Jäger (5 AC2s chained will overheat that Mech in ~3.5 seconds). But I just played around with my Ilya's loadout the other day and tried one built around 3xAC2. Two chained in one group, one in another group. As long as you fire two of them, heat is not a problem. But once you let the third one chime in, heat goes through the roof very quickly.

And other than the heat, AC2s just don't pack enough punch. You need to keep your guns on target for an eternity to do any real damage with those things. And that means you'll be exposing your front to your enemy/his buddies. Sure: You might scare some players off by the sheer amount of lead you pour onto them, but smart players don't seem to let themselves get irritated by that, and will simply keep shooting you with heavier AC/PPC/LLAS until you're dead.

Quote

call me nuts, I just stick to my good old AC20. (backed with 2 mediums and 2 MGS, but nothign crazy)

Yeah. Been using 1xAC20 + 2xERLL/LL on my Victor and my ILYA now, and I'm quite happy with it. Alpha's not huge or anything and heat *can* become a problem, but overall that's a pretty decent loadout. It's just that sometimes I feel bad about running that ILYA with only one of its ballistics-slots filled..

S.

Edited by 1Sascha, 19 September 2013 - 11:08 PM.

[Gaan Cathal]

1Sascha, on 19 September 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

Ghost heat pretty much ruins any build with more than 2 AC2s. I've long since abandoned the idea of a 4/5/6 AC2 Jäger (5 AC2s chained will overheat that Mech in ~3.5 seconds). But I just played around with my Ilya's loadout the other day and tried one built around 3xAC2. Two chained in one group, one in another group. As long as you fire two of them, heat is not a problem. But once you let the third one chime in, heat goes through the roof very quickly.

It's my understanding that you need a macro (or to time it manually) to keep the AC/2's chainfire rate just outside the 0.5s boundary for ghost heat to make it work. It's a clear bug, since the AC/2 is supposed to have a 0.52s refire rate, but people have reported serious heat inflation with them on 'basic' chainfire, well beyond what ghost heat is supposed to supply. I'm guessing it's related to the MG-ghost-heat bug (fire an MG as part of a ghost-heat generating group and the heat will just keep on climbing as you fire the MG).

[MeiSooHaityu]

MisterFiveSeven, on 19 September 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

AC2 is effective in groups of 3 or more. However, you need to be fast enough to disengage and let your heat dissipate.

i.e. hunchie w/xl250

Tripple Hunch FTW!

Bishop Steiner, on 19 September 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

call me nuts, I just stick to my good old AC20. (backed with 2 mediums and 2 MGS, but nothign crazy)

That will be my future build for the Hunch once I move the Tripple A/C2s to the Shadowhawk.