35 replies to this topic

[Mcchuggernaut]

Literally 2 minutes into a game today, I get hit in my Atlas with what I think was a dual AC20 shot and lost my AC torso armor. It was just barely stripped off, and would have taken at least another AC20 blast to destroy. So I moved back from the front lines a tad, and went on fighting, since none of the rest of my mech was even scratched. Seconds later a Spider pops over the hill, barely tickles me with a machine gun as he runs by, and then is gone off across the map. It maybe did 2 damage to me, if even that, since machine guns are, what, 1 damage per second?

AC20 destroyed.

WTF? Is that even possible? Apparently yes.

You would think that a huge gun like the AC20 ought to be harder to destroy than that. You invest a huge amount of tonnage for the weapon and ammo, use a ton of critical spaces, have a limited number of shots, it fires slow, has limited range, and takes good accuracy to use effectively. Granted, it is a GREAT weapon when it hits, but most builds that have one are centered around it, and losing it is a HUGE loss.

Has giving the AC20 more health been discussed before, and if so why was it decided to leave it made out of straw and unicorn farts? The fact that it takes up as many criticals as it does isn't helpful either, because you can't put more than two other weapons or parts in with it to pad for crits, and putting ammo in there is a very bad idea since it, you know...explodes, so making up for it that way is out. Any of you pros out there got any tips to help keep your incredibly important gun from disintegrating like wet tissue paper in a blender every time someone barely grazes you?

Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 15 December 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[anonymous161]

That sucks perhaps use ac 10 or something...back to talking about the clans, cya and good luck too ya.

[Selfish]

It has the most HP out of every weapon in the game. It was already buffed to 18.

[xCico]

Yeah i felt that also, good we find more things to fix

[Sybreed]

because crits work with the number of slots used, so the more slots a weapon uses, the more chances it gets critted

[Mcchuggernaut]

Selfish, on 15 December 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

It has the most HP out of every weapon in the game. It was already buffed to 18.

Ah, I see that. I just checked it's hitpoints in the mech lab and it does have 18hp. I got my number for that from an old forum thread, so I guess that has been changed. I'll edit that in my post.

Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 15 December 2013 - 02:29 PM.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Sybreed, on 15 December 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

because crits work with the number of slots used, so the more slots a weapon uses, the more chances it gets critted

That I was aware of, but with 18hp, I am amazed that half second of machine gun fire destroyed it. Literally every bullet would have had to crit the AC20. Maybe it really was just horribly bad luck, but since I absolutely HATE relying on luck, and worship at the church of skill, I don't like anything that works that way.

[Sybreed]

Mcchuggernaut, on 15 December 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

That I was aware of, but with 18hp, I am amazed that half second of machine gun fire destroyed it. Literally every bullet would have had to crit the AC20. Maybe it really was just horribly bad luck, but since I absolutely HATE relying on luck, and worship at the church of skill, I don't like anything that works that way.

4 MGs will crit an AC/20 in the blink of an eye, so yeah I'm not really surprised

[Gretik]

In table top they were great guns, but very prone to criticals when the armour was stripped away. If anything, they're much tougher in MWO.

[Selfish]

Mcchuggernaut, on 15 December 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

That I was aware of, but with 18hp, I am amazed that half second of machine gun fire destroyed it. Literally every bullet would have had to crit the AC20. Maybe it really was just horribly bad luck, but since I absolutely HATE relying on luck, and worship at the church of skill, I don't like anything that works that way.

MGs are insanely efficient crit-seekers. The 4MG spider's MGs deal a combined statistical average of ~27.72 critical damage per second. It's enough to clean out any component it looks at for more than a moment. When they hit unarmored internals their non-crit DPS also doubles from 1 to ~2 via the crit damage transfer mechanic.

Edit/addon: The reason they're so good at critting is they have higher than average crit rates (52%), roll for crits 10 times per second, and when they do crit deal extra damage (9x the normal damage of each pellet for each crit multiplier). This creates a surprisingly regular amount of crit damage (6.93 CDPS), 15% of which is dealt back as real damage. 6.93 * 0.15 = 1.035 DPS. The MG goes from a Small Laser in DPS to near that of the Large Laser against internals.

Edited by Selfish, 15 December 2013 - 02:43 PM.

[stjobe]

Selfish, on 15 December 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

MGs are insanely efficient crit-seekers. The 4MG spider's MGs deal a combined statistical average of ~27.72 critical damage per second. It's enough to clean out any component it looks at for more than a moment. When they hit unarmored internals their non-crit DPS also doubles from 1 to ~2 via the crit damage transfer mechanic.

Edit/addon: The reason they're so good at critting is they have higher than average crit rates (52%), roll for crits 10 times per second, and when they do crit deal extra damage (9x the normal damage of each pellet for each crit multiplier). This creates a surprisingly regular amount of crit damage (6.93 CDPS), 15% of which is dealt back as real damage. 6.93 * 0.15 = 1.035 DPS. The MG goes from a Small Laser in DPS to near that of the Large Laser against internals.

Yeah, I was just about to post that 4xMG has about 28 DPS vs internal components, but you beat me to it

4xMG:
4 DPS vs armour
8 DPS vs internal structure
28 DPS vs internal components

That AC/20 with its 18 HP isn't going to live long even if you try padding the side torso with other components.

Edit: Yet another reason to re-do the MG as a proper ballistic weapon, without all this "crit weapon" foolishness

Edited by stjobe, 15 December 2013 - 02:48 PM.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Selfish, on 15 December 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

MGs are insanely efficient crit-seekers. The 4MG spider's MGs deal a combined statistical average of ~27.72 critical damage per second. It's enough to clean out any component it looks at for more than a moment. When they hit unarmored internals their non-crit DPS also doubles from 1 to ~2 via the crit damage transfer mechanic.

Edit/addon: The reason they're so good at critting is they have higher than average crit rates (52%), roll for crits 10 times per second, and when they do crit deal extra damage (9x the normal damage of each pellet for each crit multiplier). This creates a surprisingly regular amount of crit damage (6.93 CDPS), 15% of which is dealt back as real damage. 6.93 * 0.15 = 1.035 DPS. The MG goes from a Small Laser in DPS to near that of the Large Laser against internals.

Well, that explains it I guess. Does putting more things (C.A.S.E., for example) in a part of a mech help to keep an AC20 from being critted? I thought I heard that somewhere. And if it does help is it enough to be worth it?

[stjobe]

Mcchuggernaut, on 15 December 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

Well, that explains it I guess. Does putting more things (C.A.S.E., for example) in a part of a mech help to keep an AC20 from being critted? I thought I heard that somewhere. And if it does help is it enough to be worth it?

Crits will be applied to a random location, so if all you have in the location is the AC/20, that's going to take the crits.
If you have several different components, crits will be randomly applied between them, but here's the thing:

The AC/20 takes 10 crit slots, so even if you stuff two other components in there, you'll still have a 10 in 12 chance that the AC/20 will take the crit.

In other words, yes it does help a little, but not enough to bother.

Edit: CASE does not help at all; that's just for stopping ammo explosions going inwards.

Edited by stjobe, 15 December 2013 - 02:56 PM.

[Mcchuggernaut]

stjobe, on 15 December 2013 - 02:54 PM, said:

yes it does help a little, but not enough to bother.

Well, then it looks like if you get that torso stripped you just better be prepared to quickly lose the gun, and it seems a bit of a shame. Better just baby it more and not take any risks with it when my armor is low.

Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 15 December 2013 - 02:58 PM.

[FerrolupisXIII]

you may have also taken damage to the AC-20 previously in the battle (when you had your armor stripped, damage is rarely exactly enough to strip armor without touching internals) leaving it below its max 18 HP.

Very nice numbers on the MG damage Vs Components, that is insane. even against structure 4x MG goes from eh that tickles to OW OW OW OW OW. going to be much more wary of machine gun mechs.

[Alex Warden]

that was the point in buffing the crit ability of mg´s... if you are stripped, you are supposed to lose your internals one after another... that´s WHY mechs have armor, ye know? xD

[Joseph Mallan]

Alex Warden, on 16 December 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

that was the point in buffing the crit ability of mg´s... if you are stripped, you are supposed to lose your internals one after another... that´s WHY mechs have armor, ye know? xD

The idea of HPs fr equipment tickles me. I grew up on your weapon got hit even once and boom it was broke. We get coddled here way to much.

[Khobai]

Quote

The idea of HPs fr equipment tickles me. I grew up on your weapon got hit even once and boom it was broke. We get coddled here way to much

TT also had random hit locations. You couldnt aim specifically to take out weapons. So I think hitpoints are fine. However item hitpoints should be based on the number of crit slots it takes up. Its stupid that an AC/10 and small laser have the same health for example.

[Bromineberry]

Darth Bane001, on 15 December 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

That sucks perhaps use ac 10 or something...

Bad idea. It is nearly as big as the AC20, but only has the normal 10HP, not 18. The AC10 is usually destroyed even quicker than the AC20. That's why I stopped using the AC10.

[Stardancer01]

If the section is not lost and the peace of equipment has not taken double its hit points, I thank it would be cool if it slowly repaired.

‘Bitching Betty’
(+++weapon offline+++
+++connection intermittent+++
+++switching to back up systems+++
+++running connection diagnostics+++
+++power and control re-established+++
+++power up sequence complete+++
+++weapon recalibrating+++
+++weapon online+++)

Redundant back up power and control system (consumable)
Might also be nice to have one consumable that brings a weapon back with 1 critical point and an x2 reload/recharge time in a non-completely destroyed location.
Activate consumable, chose weapon group or weapon number press enter.

(+++unable to locate weapon+++
+++section lost+++) if on a blown off arm or torso side

Edited by Stardancer01, 16 December 2013 - 01:39 PM.