41 replies to this topic

[Sable Dove]

So energy are the long-term weapons. Infinite ammo, but produce a lot of heat, and require a lot of space dedicated to cooling.

SRMs are high-damage, low-range, low-accuracy weapons for a little bit of punch in a brawl.

LRMs are 'long'-range indirect support weapons.

ACs are big and heavy, with excellent burst damage and DPS, as well as 50% longer range than energy weapons. The drawback is 'limited' ammo, and they take a lot of space/tonnage.

However, since virtually all mechs are limited to 6-8 hardpoints total, the size and weight of autocannons is rarely an issue. Even a 40-tonner can effectively mount the largest and second-heaviest AC (as well as the heaviest and second-largest), and it's one of the best builds available to the CDA-3C (and it's just about as effective as the other variants can manage).

Heavier mechs take them in pairs, at least, and rarely is ammo a real issue. The only mech I commonly run out of ammo with ACs on is my AC20 Cicada, and that's only because an AC20 is almost impractical for a mech that small.

So really, since hardpoint limits mean the size and weight of ACs is rarely a real issue, and ammo is plentiful enough that you don't have to really worry about running out in one match, ACs take on the role of the main weapons for the entire duration of a match. Energy weapons are barely needed when multiple ballistic slots are available, because ACs are just plain better. Higher burst- and sustained-DPS, with far less heat generated, longer range, and requiring less exposure to do full damage.


To remedy this, I propose giving ballistics a role more befitting a limited-ammo, high-power weapon. Simply reduce AC ammo per ton. Reduce it less for the smaller ballistics, and more for the higher ballistics.

A starting point:
AC2 - 70 rounds per ton (140 damage)
AC5 - 25 rounds per ton (125 damage)
UAC5 - 20 rounds per ton (100 damage)
AC10 - 10 rounds per ton (100 damage)
AC20 - 4 rounds per ton (80 damage)
Gauss Rifle - 6 rounds per ton (90 damage)
Machinegun - Reworked to 0.5 damage, 0.5s recycle, no random spread; 500 rounds per ton. (250 damage)

Machineguns become actually useful, especially for all-ballistic mechs that need a long-term weapon.
AC2s and AC5s remain fairly useful as medium- to long-term weapons.
The UAC5 and AC10 (which is kinda in need of a buff as well) become high-power burst weapons, more often used in close range due to limited ammo needing to be conserved for sure-hits.

AC20 becomes a table-turner; extremely high power, but very limited ammo. Used in brawls, and almost never at ranges past their effective range.

Gauss remains kind of a problem child. a single Gauss Rifle isn't exactly overpowered, but it's still a very-long-range, high-damage weapon, and anything with a pair of them is supremely frustrating to deal with. I'd prefer to see the charge removed along with this change, or the mechanic tweaked, at least.


TL;DR:
Rework MGs into a long-term ballistic weapon, in the same role as the ML (but less powerful, obviously), reduce ammo for ACs, with larger ACs getting a greater reduction.

(Heavy) Ballistics remain the most powerful class of weapon, but taking a lot of heavy ACs becomes far less practical than taking medium ACs, or a heavy AC with several smaller ones.

The numbers I gave are just an example; perhaps start with some smaller changes and go from there. I'm not in favour of nerfing the power of ACs; just making heavy-AC boats less viable than mixed-AC, or AC/energy/missile builds. The biggest impact would be to cheese builds like the AC40 Jager, triple-UAC5 Ilya, and Dual gauss Catapult/Jager.

[Mechteric]

Sorry but this is a terrible idea. AC's already require a large investment in tonnage for weapon and ammo, oh and that ammo can explode. But that doesn't resolve the problem of pinpoint damage.

IMO AC's should be DPS weapons. So an AC20 shouldn't do 20 damage to one location (I know that is how it is in Battletech, but hey lasers arent the same either), but rather AC20 should fire multiple shells to be the equivalent of the 20 damage if you can maintain the target. Ammo would then be increased to matche the current amount of damage per ton of ammo.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 13 December 2013 - 08:12 PM.

[Mcgral18]

If the ACs were burst fire as per lore, the pinpoint issue would disappear. However due to current hitreg with even missiles....that's not going to happen.

[Twilight Fenrir]

First, let me get out of the way that I really don't think there IS a problem. As far as damage, and fairness goes, I don't think there are any truly broken weapons. Some weapons are just better than others, that's the way it works This is the way mechwarrior games have always been... Without the trouble associated with real world combat, there are no drawbacks to ballistic weapons... Repair/Rearm used to be at least somewhat of a deterrent to heavy ammunition boats... and might be worth looking at bringing back to the game... I know I miss it :/

Now, back to the spirit of the thread, if I go along with the assumption that there is indeed a problem, I'm a little bit torn with this solution....

This would indeed make ballistic weapons more difficult to boat, and force a more conservative build, including energy weapons for when your ammo is depleted.(However, this might flip things around. People may not bother with the ballistic weapons if they require too much tonnage to be practical, and suddenly we'll be neck deep in PPC stalkers again..)

But, on the other hand.... It doesn't make sense As far as a game goes, it does. But shifting into logical design, it does not... At 6 rounds per ton, that means each gauss slug would weigh 333 lbs... Flying at hypersonic velocity, it should pretty much punch right through a mech. There isn't enough armor in the world.

I freely admit that my complaint is irrelevant to a video game, and can easily be dismissed as me fussing over made up things.... But, I dunno... I like a certain degree of sense in this universe....

Edited by Twilight Fenrir, 13 December 2013 - 08:23 PM.

[Dock Steward]

CapperDeluxe, on 13 December 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Sorry but this is a terrible idea. AC's already require a large investment in tonnage for weapon and ammo, oh and that ammo can explode. But that doesn't resolve the problem of pinpoint damage.

IMO AC's should be DPS weapons. So an AC20 shouldn't do 20 damage to one location (I know that is how it is in Battletech, but hey lasers arent the same either), but rather AC20 should fire multiple shells to be the equivalent of the 20 damage if you can maintain the target. Ammo would then be increased to matche the current amount of damage per ton of ammo.

To me the obvious answer has always been to treat the AC's like different caliber cannons, in that the burst fire rate would essentially be the same for each, but the damage per shell would increase with each larger size. A larger bullet with the same propellant would drop faster, so ranges would be what they are now, more or less. It seems like a pretty simple change to me: increase the firing rate of all the AC's to be more like the MG, but make the damage per "bullet" far lower than it is now. I don't know what the "20" in "AC/20" would mean in my proposal, but who cares, the damage would spread over multiple locations and the frontloaded damage problem would go away. Screw canon at this point. Balance the darn weapons.

Edited by Dock Steward, 14 December 2013 - 03:59 PM.

[Twilight Fenrir]

CapperDeluxe, on 13 December 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Sorry but this is a terrible idea. AC's already require a large investment in tonnage for weapon and ammo, oh and that ammo can explode. But that doesn't resolve the problem of pinpoint damage.

IMO AC's should be DPS weapons. So an AC20 shouldn't do 20 damage to one location (I know that is how it is in Battletech, but hey lasers arent the same either), but rather AC20 should fire multiple shells to be the equivalent of the 20 damage if you can maintain the target. Ammo would then be increased to matche the current amount of damage per ton of ammo.

That's more or less how they were treated in MW4... You pulled the trigger, and a burst of 2, 5, 10, 20, or double that for UAC's came out of the barrel of the gun. It all happened within a fraction of a second, but with you moving, and your enemy moving, it was difficult to keep all those rounds in one place.... This was also hell for hit registration on that particular game. Which, as much as I loved playing it, was terribly programmed. Throw in some muzzle lift from recoil, and you might be getting somewhere :3

Actually, recoil physics could do alot for this game. IIRC, the reason there weren't alot of light/medium mechs with AC/20s, is that if they tried to fire them they would fall on their *****. Even the mighty atlas had to have it on the hip, near its center of mass, so that it could be managed. And gauss rifles should have just incredible recoil... Going with the current 12 shots per ton, each slug is nearly 200 lbs, going from zero, to hypersonic velocities within the blink of an eye...

And the big thing.... the jump snipers I hear so much complaining about, could be squashed easily with recoil added in. Can you imagine the catastrophic consequences of firing a gauss rifle, with nothing to keep you stable? The whole mech would pirouette. Probably falling on its cockpit and killing the pilot. Getting HIT while airborne, should cause similar catastrophic results. Even energy weapons, melting off a ton of armor radically changes your mechs flight characteristics, and could make you spill over. Especially the losing of a limb.

Edited by Twilight Fenrir, 13 December 2013 - 08:38 PM.

[LORD TSARKON]

PPCs should be not be pinpoint damage...EVER

ACs fired while in the AIR should cause your mech to stumble in midair (after firing) and perhaps falldown or land not up right,ect...

Firing Gauss Rounds in midAir automatically makes your mech fall down and move a percentage backwards depending on the tonnage of the mech and how many rounds were fired...

This would pretty much destroy poptarting... unless it was normal Lasers,ect

[OneEyed Jack]

LORD TSARKON, on 14 December 2013 - 12:17 AM, said:

PPCs should be not be pinpoint damage...EVER

ACs fired while in the AIR should cause your mech to stumble in midair (after firing) and perhaps falldown or land not up right,ect...

Firing Gauss Rounds in midAir automatically makes your mech fall down and move a percentage backwards depending on the tonnage of the mech and how many rounds were fired...

This would pretty much destroy poptarting... unless it was normal Lasers,ect

That entire post has nothing do do with game balance or making sense. It's just you whining about Pop-tarting.


This thread is about "fixing" ballistics. I don't agree they're OP, but at least don't use it as another place to cry about a completely different issue.

Edited by OneEyed Jack, 14 December 2013 - 12:30 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Energy weapons and ballistics are weapons and are thus used to deal damage. The longer the range of the weapon, the less damage it deals for its weight, compensating for the range advantage.

The unique aspect of ballistics weapons is that they produce less heat than energy weapons but instead the weapon itself is heavier and needs some amount of ammo. In the end, ballistics and energy weapons are suposed to be balanced around the idea that for the same amount of weight investment in weapons, ammo and heat sinks, you get equal results. The differences exist primarily for flavor.

Additional flavor aspect of both is that energy weapons deal more damage and have more range as they grow in weight and size, while ballistic weapons lose range but gain damage as they grow in weight and size.


The balance problems happen if some weapon is more powerful for its weight investment than others. For the current imbalances, I blame both the heat system, as well as convergence combined with single projectile damage. People would probably not care as much about ballistics if lasers weren't damage over time weapons, and likewise, people wouldn't worry quite as much about ballistics if they dealt their damage in bursts of projectiles instead of single projectiles.

This has all been discussed a few thousand times now, I think.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

One issue I don't think I've seen raised recently, is that Ballistic weapons are all Fully Automatic currently, and maybe as a gameplay mechanic having them work as semi-automatic might work.

This video explains the difference between the two:[spoiler] [spoiler]

So, If Autocannons keeping their current damage values would require us to re-click to fire each round, then we might see a difference in how they get used in a match.

I also want to explore burst fire and simply reducing the damage per round and upping ammo.

Here is a table that has different values for Ballistics weapons:


Edit: adding spoiler tag

Edited by Praetor Shepard, 14 December 2013 - 03:39 AM.

[Fooooo]

Best way, imo, to balance ballistics....well to balance every "upfront" or "instant" dmg weapon, is to spread their dmg out into blocks. (thats if you dont want to be making changes to convergance ie removing or adding set conv for each weapon type)

Basically make them burst weapons.

AC's fire multiple shells per trigger pull. (for the same total dmg all up, ie AC/20 fires 6 "rounds" per trigger pull at 3.33dmg per round, consuming 1 unit of ammunition so no changes to ammo needed.)

PPCS do either the same thing (multiple shots per trigger pull), or have a "bolt stream" that basically does the same thing, just looks like a long bit of plasma hitting and then squashing into the mech.


Other then that they (instant / upfront dmg weapons) will always be prefered unless you make them unuseable via heat or harsh ammo limitations.

[Turist0AT]

oh no, not this again. You know why ppl cry about balistics now (yeah some of us do)? Because everything else has been nerfed in to the ground. Shame on you OP for not knowing that!

we could bring all other weapon systems in line. And not make more weapons bad and boring and to heavy and to hot and to slow and to litle ammo.

Yeah! AC-20 the heaviest weapon in the game with allready limited ammo and no range. Yeah lets nerf it even more. Yeah lets nerf all balistics and never use them again. Why would you pay that tonnage for that litle?

And Medium Mech, (oh god i feel sorry for them) will take and are taking the biggest hit when you nerf.

Plus we need to separate PUGs from Competetives. Competetive player should not exist in this game, simply bcus this game is not designed nor balanced for it. The 12 man matches resolve to, cheapest, esiest and cheesiest tactic to win. ala poptart.

[Joseph Mallan]

Missiles= Sand blaster
Lasers= Scalpels
Ballistics= Hammer

Roles are already defined.

[Nryrony]

ACs got 3 advantages over other weapons:

- Instant and focused dmg
- extreme range
- low heat

Now in theory tonnage, ammuntion and space (ballistics) vs heat (energy) should be balanced.

Yet with energy weapons you will quickly arrive at a point where you got enough tonnage, but lack the space to fit more heatsinks.

This means, that a Stalker or any other Assault mech equipping exclusivly energy weapons of any typ will have a significant lower dps value over a pure ballistics mech like a Jagermech or a Cataphract. Even with your + on tonnage you simply cannot keep your weapons cool enough. (_not counting ghostheat_)

Considering the range disadvantge and the lower dps of energy weapons, gameplay is shifting strongly towards ACs.

The main reason we see energy weapons these days is, that most mechs lack the ballistic hardpoints.

Edited by Nryrony, 14 December 2013 - 07:32 AM.

[Charons Little Helper]

Frankly - I think that all the talk of AC weapons being broken is more about missiles needing a bit of a boost.

For smaller mechs - energy only configs are quite good. Energy weapons are the most tonnage efficient weapons in the game. However, once you get over 50 tons or so - the heat gets so high with pure energy - that you need to shift to either AC or missiles. (sometimes both) Energy weapons should be in the mix too - (still the most tonnage & space efficient) - but bigger mechs don't have more base heat resources.

However - as it stands, everyone nearly always turns to AC weapons either as primary weapons, energy as secondary, other than streaks. There are exceptions of course.

If LRMs & SRMs were equal to AC - then bigger boats would choose either missile or AC to complement their energy weapons. Pure energy would still stink for bigger mechs - but I really don't have a problem with that.

Mostly I believe LRMs need a speed buff (maybe from 120m/s to 160ish)- SRMs need a better spread/heat reg.

[Jman5]

Mcgral18, on 13 December 2013 - 08:16 PM, said:

If the ACs were burst fire as per lore, the pinpoint issue would disappear. However due to current hitreg with even missiles....that's not going to happen.

I see this argument a lot and I strongly disagree. All you would be doing is turning it into a ballistic laser. Weapon classes need to be distinct with just the occasional cross over.

Instead of changing the property of the ballistic class, I think we need to be looking at creating defensive counters that players can choose to equip (for a cost). We have those sorts of systems in place for the missile already with ECM and AMS. AMS is effectively 1.5 tons of missile damage reduction. ECM helps counter LRM/SSRM. Why not have some sort of anti-ballistic and anti-energy weapon armor? Players could choose one or the other and it would confer some moderate damage reduction when struck by relevant weapon type.

[Mcgral18]

Jman5, on 14 December 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

I see this argument a lot and I strongly disagree. All you would be doing is turning it into a ballistic laser. Weapon classes need to be distinct with just the occasional cross over.

Instead of changing the property of the ballistic class, I think we need to be looking at creating defensive counters that players can choose to equip (for a cost). We have those sorts of systems in place for the missile already with ECM and AMS. AMS is effectively 1.5 tons of missile damage reduction. ECM helps counter LRM/SSRM. Why not have some sort of anti-ballistic and anti-energy weapon armor? Players could choose one or the other and it would confer some moderate damage reduction when struck by relevant weapon type.

The problem is that ECM can completely destroy LRMs as a weapon system, and that itself is unbalanced.

The main issue with the game (IMO) is the convergeance, but PGI has stated that will never change, as such the second issue is frontloaded damage from multiple weapon systems hitting at the same point. The only way to mitigate that is to change them to not be frontloaded. The armor types is more of a bandaid, just like ghost heat. Another option would be to change group fire options...but there would be so much whining with that.

Still, different armor types would be nice, although some builds couldn't afford the crit slots.

[General Taskeen]

AC's had a clearly defined (better programed) role in other Mech titles. Unfortunately revamping them would take a lot of time and the Devs are concentrated on other stuff... But to be fair, its not just AC's that could use an entirely reprogrammed mechanic.

Only if the Devs allowed the test environment version of the game to be modded could there be a chance of revamps (all the way from heat sinks, to specific weapon mechanics) in a shorter amount of time, I'm sure many people would gladly make/mod something for free and the Devs could evaluate it and decide whether to adopt it or not. But that's a pretty lofty dream of mine that I don't see IGP allowing.

Edited by General Taskeen, 14 December 2013 - 10:16 AM.

[D0GMA]

I've learned from PGI how to fix pesky overpowered ballistic weapons. We've got make up some quirky new firing mechanisms!

First is the AC20: Oh I know, you need to do a pirouette before you can fire it. What a fun little charge up, and just imagine the fraps vid on a drop with a lot of AC20s. All the Jager mechs dancing around. WEEEE.

Next is the AC10: I don't think the AC10 needs much nerfing, so we need something mild. What if there was a 1/10 chance that your next shot was a random color paint bomb. If you were hit by the paint bomb, it would change your mechs color. And If you don't own that color, it would be unlocked for you. It's like you would want to be shot by the AC10!

Okay, lets fix the UAC5: There should be safeguards in place to keep such a powerful weapon from accidently discharging. Maybe you need the key or something. Hey this could work, simply enter the Contra Code when ever you're about to unleash your UAC5 fury! Or some kind of code anyway. I really like the Contra Code though.

And now the AC5: A perfectly benign weapon on its own, this cork shooter would need no nerf at all, if not for people figuring out how to put two, three, or more on a single mech! I think the best fix would be a simple formula that divides the damage of the AC5 by the amount of AC5s on a given mech. Call it, ghost damage reduction, or something.

And finally the AC2: This auto cannon has taken all the skill away from using ballistics. And If we don't do something about it, mech warriors will be forced to take cover or some other ridiculous tactic. Image the embarrassment of hiding from enemy fire. I say we put some skill back into using this game wrecker. Imagine a Guitar Hero like firing mechanism, with a stream of notes, or numbers, or symbols, or something streaming down your screen. And all you have to do is match the stream on your keyboard to keep firing. Wah la, the AC2 is fun, and fixed.

Now you may think I just spent all this time trolling the OP, but that's not true. I was just saying, in a long and fun way, that I think the ballistic weapons are pretty good as they are. I was also taking a little stab at the current state of the gauss, as I believe it should have it's silly little charge up removed.

[MustrumRidcully]

Jman5, on 14 December 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

I see this argument a lot and I strongly disagree. All you would be doing is turning it into a ballistic laser. Weapon classes need to be distinct with just the occasional cross over.

But they are distinct even as "ballistic lasers". They are low-heat, ammo needing weapons. That's something different than high heat, ammo less weapons.

It's pointless to stick to properties as important if these very properties are imbalanced.