269 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Maybe... But I am in the AC ranges are to long crowd.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 December 2013 - 04:52 AM, said:

I want to point my weapon at the target and it hit in relatively the same place. We are firing on walking 2 story buildings. a one Meter Cone is not insane. If you can show me a U-Tube of a Tank chain firing or Better, a Battleship firing its broadside and all the shells hit the the exact same spot, I will give up the discussion. Show me. This is what you are trying to say happens cause you got skillz, Show me professionals firing multiple ballistic weapons and everything hitting the same spot.

I just made a post in another thread about my "skilz" (or lack thereof). I am by no means a competitive player.

Your examples are all of cannons that fire single projectiles, not autocannons (i.e. fully automatic weapons). If you look at an actual autocannon, like the AC on an A10 Thunderbolt/Warthog, it fires a burst of shells, then has a "cooldown" to regain speed - the AC can actually stop it in flight if held too long - not a single BFH. That is how it should be in game too.

[Almond Brown]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 December 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

Maybe... But I am in the AC ranges are to long crowd.

If making the shot would take true care and skill, range is then not a major factor. If the AC5 shooter had to aim up "and" to the left of its target at 700m, then applying consistent hits would be muchly increased. Apply it to all the AC weapons.

If it took even more UP and more to the left @ 800m etc etc. Current ranges allow for a lot of ammo waste. Decrease ammo would also help I suppose.

Edited by Almond Brown, 06 December 2013 - 12:10 PM.

[Jon Gotham]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 December 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

And yet I am finding my Kintaro to deliver more damage that My AC20 equipped Atlas!

That is probably due to superior mobility, being able to be more places, faster with more firing solutions.

[Joseph Mallan]

Cimarb, on 06 December 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

I just made a post in another thread about my "skilz" (or lack thereof). I am by no means a competitive player.

Your examples are all of cannons that fire single projectiles, not autocannons (i.e. fully automatic weapons). If you look at an actual autocannon, like the AC on an A10 Thunderbolt/Warthog, it fires a burst of shells, then has a "cooldown" to regain speed - the AC can actually stop it in flight if held too long - not a single BFH. That is how it should be in game too.

Understood, However the feel of an AC in the Universe is more of a single hit cannon than an actual AC. TT should have made ACs hit like an LRM/SRM where X number of of 2 point rounds are random rolled. Instead it s a solid pop. I am for keeping something front loaded inspite of real life examples.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 December 2013 - 12:20 PM.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

Understood, However the feel of an AC in the Universe is more of a single hit cannon than an actual AC. TT should have made ACs hit like an LRM/SRM where X number of of 2 point rounds are random rolled. Instead it s a solid pop. I am for keeping something front loaded inspite of real life examples.

Since you mentioned it, in TT, every direct fire weapon does a set amount of damage per turn, which is ten seconds. AC20s do twenty points of damage every ten seconds to a single spot. AC2s do two points of damage every ten seconds to a single spot. MGs do 1 point of damage every ten seconds to a single spot. Medium Lasers do five points of damage every ten seconds to a single spot. Large Lasers do ten points of damage every ten seconds to a single spot. I think you get the point.

[Trauglodyte]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

Understood, However the feel of an AC in the Universe is more of a single hit cannon than an actual AC. TT should have made ACs hit like an LRM/SRM where X number of of 2 point rounds are random rolled. Instead it s a solid pop. I am for keeping something front loaded inspite of real life examples.

I get what you're saying and I'm a bit torn on it. On the one hand, I really like the aspect of upfront damage. On the other, I think we all see what is going on these days and how much of a negative impact it has on the game. Gauss, by the nature of their new play style, are scary but not overwhelmingly so. You've got the delay but you also have to deal with them kersplodin on ya. ACs don't have that so there needs to be something to bring them back to earth. I'm all about making them physical based pulse lasers but with a MUCH faster burst. Right now, the UAC5 fires two rounds within 0.5s and they mostly always land in the same location. By that logic, would it be awful if each AC fired three rounds to total their damage within 0.3-0.5 seconds?

As an addition, if PGI ever decides to add in the Rifle line (light, med, heavy), and that is a big if, you're talking about weapons that would, by design, be single shots like the ACs are now but would probably be limited by rate of fire.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 06 December 2013 - 01:14 PM.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

Understood, However the feel of an AC in the Universe is more of a single hit cannon than an actual AC. TT should have made ACs hit like an LRM/SRM where X number of of 2 point rounds are random rolled. Instead it s a solid pop. I am for keeping something front loaded inspite of real life examples.

Every direct-fire weapon (sans LBX in cluster mode) in TT did their damage to one location. Lasers, PPCs, ACs, all of them. To appeal to the authority of TT on keeping ACs single-hit when that was a game-mechanic simplification in the first place is spurious to say the least.

Lore-wise, ACs are rapid-fire machinegun-like weapons, firing in bursts. Sarna says bursts of 20-100 projectiles. It's no wonder the TT devs chose to have four to-hit rolls instead of four hundred for a 'mech with four ACs. That doesn't mean the MWO devs should do the same, because we don't need to do those four hundred rolls by ourselves, we have our (and PGI's) computers to do that for us in an instant. There's no technical or practical reason not to have ACs burst-fire.

And there are several very good reasons to make them burst-fire, not the least of which is that it reduces the severity of the instant pin-point issue that MWO has been suffering from since the get-go.

[YueFei]

stjobe, on 06 December 2013 - 01:18 PM, said:

Every direct-fire weapon (sans LBX in cluster mode) in TT did their damage to one location. Lasers, PPCs, ACs, all of them. To appeal to the authority of TT on keeping ACs single-hit when that was a game-mechanic simplification in the first place is spurious to say the least.

Lore-wise, ACs are rapid-fire machinegun-like weapons, firing in bursts. Sarna says bursts of 20-100 projectiles. It's no wonder the TT devs chose to have four to-hit rolls instead of four hundred for a 'mech with four ACs. That doesn't mean the MWO devs should do the same, because we don't need to do those four hundred rolls by ourselves, we have our (and PGI's) computers to do that for us in an instant. There's no technical or practical reason not to have ACs burst-fire.

And there are several very good reasons to make them burst-fire, not the least of which is that it reduces the severity of the instant pin-point issue that MWO has been suffering from since the get-go.

If they make ACs into burst-firing weapons, they could leave the LBX line as single-shot weapons. It gives them more flavor, giving them a distinct advantage over the other ACs, and when up-close and personal, would be the only one that can instantly deliver its damage. Get close enough and you can put all your damage into one component. Premier brawling weapons.

[Dan Nashe]

I do kind of wish they'd made ACs fire a burst of like 5 shells over 0.5 (or 10 over 1 second, I guess).
I think that would have been better for the game.
However, moving forward, I have concerns:

(1) How hard would this be to code? Just basic. How many weeks would this set back community warfare? Other weapon balance? Clan mechs?
I honestly don't know, but I fear that the cost/reward ratio at this point *may* not be there. I don't know. But suspect.

(2) Hit detection has been a problem for over a year. Because you would not want ACs to be hit scan like lasers (and MGs) this could cause a lot of problems with the game. Maybe? My thought here is server load being an issue - 5-10 different projectiles. On the othe rhand, maybe if 10% of hits failed to register, it would be Less unpredictable and less of a problem to balance by increasing damage if there are 10 hits to register. (I.e., imagine if a large laser failed to detect on average 10% of its pulses. If you made it 9.9 damage, *sometimes* you'd hit for the full 9.9 damage 50% of the time, and not break anything. If you did the same thing to an AC20, that's 22 damage 90% of the time - more likely to break the game.
Just a thought of why this may be difficult to make work. And may not without months of dedicated effort by the key, most experienced, most skilled programmers pgi has and even then it could hurt stability/performance server side. There's almost certainly a reason MGs are hit scan.

(3) related note: remember everyone having huge FPS issues when a lot of mgs were fired? Especially in the cave? Would burst fire risk causing FPS issues for players? I fear it might.


What I'm getting at is: I think burst fire ACs are great.
I wish they had done them.
But they may not be a practical solution, so don't shoe-horn yourself into "PGI implement this or else!".
[I am not talking to anyone in particular!]

[My soapbox is simple mechanic changes. I like starting with a small, simple, not-game changing tweak: Change AC20s to 5 second recycle time. Now the AC2, 10, and 20 do the same dps. But different ranges and alphas and weights. I don't think the AC20 is a god weapon. But it is a little too good.

Other options are ammo (effectively increasing weight and crits without breaking lore, but can you tweak the AC20 without risking hurting the 10, 10x, 5, UAC5, and 2? You'd have to break the canon ratio (7.5 AC20=15 AC10=30 AC5=75 AC2 shots].

The third option, Range modifiers (particularly, making ACs 2x max range) again raises core issues, is coding this easy or hard? Would you ruin the AC2, 5, and 10? Can you do this for the AC20 and not other weapons or is this core code? Would it delay other game fixes by a week, a month?]

Edited by DanNashe, 06 December 2013 - 07:14 PM.