Roadbeer, on 11 November 2013 - 02:16 PM, said:
I think I said it earlier in this thread, each system has it's pros and cons.
The Pro with ballistics is that it's direct damage, and low heat. The cons are ammo limitation, explosive potential if the ammo box is breached and finite hardpoints
Energy weapons have the opposite of both the pros and the cons.
This, seems to me, like balance.
I would agree on you if we were simply lookinh at weapon<s numbers out of the box, however where is lost balance is when you equip them on the mech and then have to support with either ammo or heat sinks, this is were it is thrown off balance.
I messed around a bit in the mech lab and this is what i got:
Batlle master 1G std engine 200
1 AC5 DPS is 3,33 with 229% cooling effiency for 6 tons and 4 critical slots.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...1960e2a771055ea
Now same build with medium laser tying to match the AC 5 dps is: 3 medium laser with 8DHS for a total of 11 tons and 27 critical space topped with a cooling efficiency of 91%
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f79ca1db02e867c
If you balance the whole thing to the tonnage that Ac 5 will get 3 tons of ammo for a total of 7 critical space and 90 shells, this is huge for 1 single canon.
For fun lets go for the dual AC 5 build that has 6,66 DPS with 114% cooling efficiency
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...303fcdb1f90ee12
To match the dual Ac5 DPS with medium lasers, i simply cant with DHS since i dont have enough critical space to do so...
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...748af547c8d073b
So i tried with single heat sinks, used 6 medium lasers and filled every single critical space available to slot single heat sinks and i still cant match the DPS or the cooling efficiency of the dual AC5 while he can use that extra tonnage for literally tons of ammo.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...aa95d15c82b952c
I know in my example i used 6 medium lasers instead of 4, why? Because with only 4 i never managed to get close enough of the AC DPS so with 6 i could go a tad closer to the magic numbers. I took medium lasers and AC 5 as example but i did so with all lasers ( no pulse tho) and all canons except the AC 20 since i would have to compare it to a PPC and thats another story.
So in the end the lasers recycle time is good but the heat is way too much/ or the heat is fine but the heatrsink system ( as mentionned many times) is broken and doesnt support energy build very well. Righjt now the only way Ballistic weapons are unreliabale is when they are coupled with an energy one since you will trade heatsinks for ammos so your mech wont be able to cool off that easily.
So to sum it up, lasers requires more critical slots and tonnage than ballistic to be (almost) on the same level in therm of dps and you also consider the fact that they do their damage over time, have less range, are being chained by the ghost heat and reveals your position every time you shoot... I think it is safe to say that some balancing have to be maid.
Edited by Bacl, 14 November 2013 - 05:57 AM.