13 replies to this topic

[Kataiser]

Title.

I've had to put my trip-AC/2 builds away for the time being. With 10 DHS and 3 ACs, nothing else, it's possible to jump from about 40% heat to overheated in about 1 second. As far as I can tell, it only happens on chain fire, but that should be an option. Completely disallowing chain fire due to what I assume is a bug is just a problem.

[Ironwithin]

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

(damn, wanted to write that for AGES).

According to PGI, firing 3 or more ac2s on chainfire is *****-spawned witchcraft and no good christian should even consider it.


edit: lol, apparently it is not even ok to spell the name of "him", wich is HILARIOUSLY fitting.

Edited by Ironwithin, 17 November 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[Rasc4l]

Kataiser, on 17 November 2013 - 10:10 AM, said:

Title.

I've had to put my trip-AC/2 builds away for the time being. With 10 DHS and 3 ACs, nothing else, it's possible to jump from about 40% heat to overheated in about 1 second. As far as I can tell, it only happens on chain fire, but that should be an option. Completely disallowing chain fire due to what I assume is a bug is just a problem.

I think it's worst for new players. I've observed a couple of pugs with 3xAC/2 who have bound them under different buttons. Then I see the poor ******* shooting them first pretty well all together but when someone got close and he panicked, he started shooting them separately with HORRIBLE ghost heat attack.

Try then explaining to the new guy, who doesn't understand what's going on that "Yeah, the makers of this game decided to break this weapon like that." :I

But again, I don't at the moment even think that PGI understands the problem. They've set AC/2 to have ghost heat starting from 4. I think they see complaints about already 3xAC/2 causing ghost heat when it shouldn't as people just misunderstanding things.

I.e. I don't think PGI even understands that it's broken.

[MoonUnitBeta]

My understanding for ghost heat was to stop heavy pinpoint damage.
However, shooting 3 ac'2 at once (6 damage in one spot) over and over and over, builds up normal heat.
Shooting 3 AC'2 one after the other under the .5 sec ghost heat rule in 2 successions or more generates ludicrous heat.

This makes no sense because the damage is likely spread across multiple areas of the mech. The benefit is that it screen shakes the living daylights out of the receiving pilot.

I think they attempted to counter act this crazy heat build up by increasing the cooldown to .52 seconds a few patches ago. But that did absolutely nothing.

Why the rapid chain fire generates heat is because:
you fire your first bullet at 0.00 seconds, the 0.5 second timer for the ghost heat begins.
0.15 seconds later you fire the second one, the timer for ghost heat resets back to 0.5 but keeps track that you have now fired two weapons
0.25 seconds later you fire your third weapon and the timer resets again, keeping track that you've fired 3 weapons. No penalties yet.
Total heat generated thus far: 3
0.12 seconds later you're able to fire your first weapon again, the ghost heat timer resets back to 0.5 seconds and tracks that you've fired 4 times within 0.5 seconds and starts to apply the 4.18 heat penalty for the shot,
0.15 seconds later you fire your second ac2 for a second time, it resets ghost heat timer back to 0.5 and tracks that you've fired 5 times and applies the ghost heat 5.45 for this shot.
0.25 seconds later you fire your third ac2 for a second time, it resets the ghost heat timer back to 0.5 and tracks that you've fired 6 times and applies the ghost heat 6.81 for this shot.
Total heat generated thus far: 3 + 16.44 = 19.44
This explains why we generate such large amounts of heat.

We see that there are two problems with ghost heat, 1) the timer is resetting and 2) keeping track of the shots made even though 0.5 sec have passed 3 shots ago.

This theory is only what I have gathered from my own testing. I feel like it's accurate enough to understand the problems.

Just to clarify Katasier, by chain fire you mean having 3 ac'2's on different weapon groups, and you are firing each one manually and individually? You do not have all 3 ac'2s in the same group, with the auto chain fire engaged, correct?
This is something that I feel needs to be clarified so that PGI understands what we mean when WE chain fire.

I know there is another way to break the chain fire is having all three ac/2's in weapon group 1 and 2, press backspace on both weapon groups. So left click is auto chain fire, and right click is auto chain fire. Pressing LMB once and holding, then pressing RMB once and holding a little bit after will create the alternating chain fire that starts to generate uber ghost heat.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 17 November 2013 - 11:56 AM.

[Tolkien]

There was a post from the devs explaining why this behavior is 'working as intended', and in the context of large lasers I suppose it is. With AC2's it's just a bug they've decided to feature since they can't fix it.

As someone mentioned before they call ghost heat a way to fix pinpoint alphas, not a way to fix pinpoint alphas and plinking AC2s.

[HyperMegaShock]

Yes, it makes little logical sense to the brain but if you fire triple AC/2's all simultaneously you will be fine. If you chain fire them one by one, you will over-heat.

[keith]

HyperMegaShock, on 17 November 2013 - 02:10 PM, said:

Yes, it makes little logical sense to the brain but if you fire triple AC/2's all simultaneously you will be fine. If you chain fire them one by one, you will over-heat.

make perfect sense. devs don't want ppl to play the game. when new ppl come in they leave

[Kataiser]

MoonUnitBeta, on 17 November 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Sniiiip

This is exactly right. I have 4 weapon groups for the AC/2s, one for all 3 and then three more singleton weapon groups. I had a feeling that this was the cause of the heat issues, but I wasn't sure because I was not aware that the timer resets on each shot. I thought it just took the last 0.5 seconds into account on each shot instead of working forward like that. I thought it was a bug because the amount of heat generated matches about 10-12 ACs alpha'd after a while.

So yes, I fire by going 234234234234234 with as close to 1/6 of a second between them as I can. Usually a bit faster so there's a delay after the 4.

Specifically, it takes about 10-15 shots to overheat like that with 10 DHS.


Edit: I also got different math than you, but it's still ridiculous.
1 + 1 + 1 + 2.45 + 3.81 + 5.29 = 14.55 in the first second
6.95 + 8.85 + 11.05 + 13.85 + 17.85 + 22.05 = 80.6 in the second second
totaling to 95.15 heat in 2 seconds.

I really want to say that my math is wrong. It probably is. But if not, that's hot.

Edited by Kataiser, 18 November 2013 - 02:13 PM.

[Lord Perversor]

Kataiser, on 18 November 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

This is exactly right. I have 4 weapon groups for the AC/2s, one for all 3 and then three more singleton weapon groups. I had a feeling that this was the cause of the heat issues, but I wasn't sure because I was not aware that the timer resets on each shot. I thought it just took the last 0.5 seconds into account on each shot instead of working forward like that. I thought it was a bug because the amount of heat generated matches about 10-12 ACs alpha'd after a while.

So yes, I fire by going 234234234234234 with as close to 1/6 of a second between them as I can. Usually a bit faster so there's a delay after the 4.

Specifically, it takes about 10-15 shots to overheat like that with 10 DHS.

Be thankful.

To macro warriors cuz they made the 4-6 Ac/2 Jager chainfire ludicrous practice
To forum whiners cuz they raged in forums for time and time about how op and annoying the macro warrior were.
To Trolls cuz they moved into the macro warriors land to feed in the tears of the forums whiners
To 1337 keyboard warriors cuz they staggered fire without macro to prove everyone was wrong
To the Pro crew who claimed staggered fire was useless and non meta

and finally to PGI because tired of all the previous people and by random luck found the ghost heat fixed this so stick up with it and never bothered to fix it!!

Now i stand in the middle with my Quad Ac/2 Jager still ravaging the Battlefields overcoming the gimp nerf if had to suffer due a lot of morons.....

P.S: the reason because stagger fire (making all your Ac/2 fire as fast as possible) produces Ghost heat and Chain fire (use the backspace to let the game use the automatic refire mode) does not it's simple.

Ghost heat it's Weapon type related not Single weapon related.. wich in sort means you need to wait 0'5 sec between similar type of weapon fire not EACH SINGLE WEAPON fire , and with the Ac/2 with a 0'52 delay (0'5 with elite) makes it useless to be used in chainfire (as it's practically the same as fire a single weapon)

[Lord Perversor]

Kataiser, on 18 November 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

This is exactly right. I have 4 weapon groups for the AC/2s, one for all 3 and then three more singleton weapon groups. I had a feeling that this was the cause of the heat issues, but I wasn't sure because I was not aware that the timer resets on each shot. I thought it just took the last 0.5 seconds into account on each shot instead of working forward like that. I thought it was a bug because the amount of heat generated matches about 10-12 ACs alpha'd after a while.

So yes, I fire by going 234234234234234 with as close to 1/6 of a second between them as I can. Usually a bit faster so there's a delay after the 4.

Specifically, it takes about 10-15 shots to overheat like that with 10 DHS.


Edit: I also got different math than you, but it's still ridiculous.
1 + 1 + 1 + 2.45 + 3.81 + 5.29 = 14.55 in the first second
6.95 + 8.85 + 11.05 + 13.85 + 17.85 + 22.05 = 80.6 in the second second
totaling to 95.15 heat in 2 seconds.

I really want to say that my math is wrong. It probably is. But if not, that's hot.

Just to make it clear if you are using 2-3 or 4 Ac/2 ALWAYS fire all them at once.

Pros: more pinpoint dmg and faster killing if can aim at the right enemy mech sections, plus always avoiding Ghost heat (not if using 4x but can be manageable)

cons:
No Dakka, No psychological effect of a frigging army focus firing me!!

[Kataiser]

@last two posts:

Yes. I am 100% aware that chain firing is the cause of the ghost heat. However, this is a problem. Those numbers are per shot. An AC/2 should not be generating more heat than a PPC per shot in any circumstance. The fact of the matter is, three ACs are generating ghost heat that is supposed to (allegedly) be used to stop alpha striking.

No, I don't care how much you can brag about your u83r 1337 5k337z and I'm not looking for a way to circumvent the problem. It's in patch feedback because it's outright a problem that should not exist. AC/2s should not generate more heat in 12 shots than 9 PPCs, period.

Please read the thread before replying, as it is very clear that ghost heat is the problem and it is very clear that alpha striking does not generate as much heat. But that is not what the topic is about. It is about the severe degree of ghost heat that is still being generated.

[Asmosis]

Tolkien, on 17 November 2013 - 12:30 PM, said:

There was a post from the devs explaining why this behavior is 'working as intended', and in the context of large lasers I suppose it is. With AC2's it's just a bug they've decided to feature since they can't fix it.

As someone mentioned before they call ghost heat a way to fix pinpoint alphas, not a way to fix pinpoint alphas and plinking AC2s.

It covers a number of things, not specifically pin point alphas.

It also covers high DPS builds (LL's, srms, lrms, ac2's) and "troll" builds that are designed to keep your cockpit bouncing around like a cat toy.

[Malzel]

I don't think many people understand the issue with 3 AC/2s, and why the heat penalties are, in fact, working as intended.

It's not an issue with "pinpoint alpha strikes". A "pinpoint alpha" of 6 is laughable, because in order to do any real "pinpoint" damage, you'd have to hit the same location repeatedly, which defeats the purpose of a pinpoint alpha build. If you want a pinpoint alpha, use 2 PPCs for a 20-damage alpha on literally any mech, that weighs 5 tons less, and doesn't need ammo. That's a better alpha build than a load of AC/2s.

It's not really an issue with DPS, either. 6 AC/2s was a DPS issue, yes, but not 3. 3 AC/2s is an impressive 11.5 DPS, but you can get better DPS with 4 AC/5s, (13.3) and they don't even suffer a heat penalty. Obviously PGI isn't worried about DPS in that range, otherwise AC/5s would have an alpha limit as well.

The issue with 3 or more AC/2s is the constant cockpit shake that results from macro-assisted firing, or by grouping them "2+1". (2 chainfired in one group, another in a second group so you can stagger it between the first two.) That constant barrage can remove anyone's ability to aim and return fire, and if that's allowed for sustained periods of time, that's terribly overpowered. That's why AC/2s have the heat penalties, and they're working perfectly to stop that from happening. In a game, you should be allowed to shoot back.

It's important to realize you can still run 3 AC/2 configurations. I do on a SDH-2H, and I do on a BLR-1D. When macro-assisted or fired 2+1, they're still powerful for taking away an opponent's ability to aim accurately, but you can only do it in bursts of 5-7 seconds before you overheat, which is good, because removing someone's ability to aim for longer than that is terribly broken. If you want to keep using them, after 3-4 seconds of firing, just stop firing for .5 seconds so your heat penalties expire, and then start firing again. 3 AC/2s fired in this way gives you a long-term, sustained barrage because the little half-second pauses keep your heat manageable. It also allows the other guy a chance to shoot back every now and then, which is perfectly fair.

So try that, and stop complaining about balanced game design.

Edited by Malzel, 19 November 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I just put my triple AC/2 in a single weapon group and fire it like an AC/6.

Firing them in a rapid-fire chain is penalized under Ghost Heat Initiative Alpha-034, as it's terribly trollsome to be on the receiving end (the constant screen shake and smoke effects are practically blinding).

To be honest, the singly grouped AC/6 is more combat effective, because you start the volley with more shots on-target, but the staggered AC/2x3 is more psychologically effective... Guess we have to settle, for now.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 19 November 2013 - 09:55 AM.