Bhael Fire, on 23 December 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:
No, that's not at all what it's like saying. You are not quite grasping what I am saying. ACs weigh more, take up more crit space and have limited ammo. Why would anyone take an AC if it behaved exactly like a laser?
They would need to lower the weight and crit space stats and increase ammo if they removed frontloaded damage on ACs...And even then, ACs would lose much of their flavor.
Right now, lasers and ACs are balanced fairly decently for two different styles of play.
Completely false. I have no idea what is being used to balance Autocannon and Lasers other than comparison by damage value (AC/2 va Small Laser, AC/5 vs Medium Laser, AC/10 vs Large Laser) and that comparison does not work. It leads to false conclusions.
Autocannon also have a range advantage over Lasers. Going from longest MWO range to shortest skipping Max Range:
AC/2 720m
ERLL 675m
AC/5 620m
LL 450m
AC/10 450m
ML 270m
AC/20 270m
SL 90m
A LL hits for near the same damage as an AC/10 but the LL generates more heat and has a longer cooldown, this allows the AC/10 to be fired more often so it generates MORE damage within the same range. Thus the AC/10 gets crit, weight and ammo penalties. Within a 7.5 second period, the AC/10 shoots 3 times for less heat and more damage where the LL shoots twice for less damage and more heat even factoring in dissipation. Add in the AC does frontloaded damage all to one spot with each shot, the Laser splashes.
An AC/20 hits like 4 MLs but only for about the same heat as 1! That is a big advantage, then factor in the cooldown being nearly the same, hell yes it needs crit, weight and ammo penalties. Again the AC hits one spot for everything, the lasers splash.
Ac/2s and AC/5s had no comparison before ERLL. Even with the extended range, over time due to cooldown and heat the light Autocannons can be fired more often yet the longest range lasers that come close STILL have crit penalties (1 crit space for AC/2 and 5 vs 2 for ERLL) along with heat and constant fire problems.
Basically it comes down to this.
Put two Mechs at range. Give one an AC, the other 1 or more Lasers of similar range. Who does more DoT whether they stay at range or close? The AC player thus he gets crit, weight and ammo penalties because he has heat and cooldown benefits allowing a third benefit, more DoT as they close range together.
3 penalties for 3 benefits.
Now MWO gives frontloaded damage? That is a benefit NOT needed. And some people wonder why ACs are a go to weapon? This is on top of those who complain ACs need a buff, yeah, OK, and I have a secret MWO tactical nuke.
You overstate AC penalties.
Galenit, on 23 December 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:
Thats why i promote 2x range and only 1/2 tt ammo for them.
They will still be the pinpoint high damage weapons they are now, but for burstdamage and not at all ranges.
You have to make your shoots count!
ACs do not need a range increase.
Bhael Fire, on 23 December 2013 - 06:57 PM, said:
have limited ammo (that can explode),
Please stop mentioning ammo explosions because we all know it is a meaningless, irrelevant point for 2 reasons.
Ammo in legs - lots pf players do this since most Mechs tend not to get legged so there is less risk of ammo explosions. There was at least one topic on this a while back where a few players advocated legging people to cause ammo explosions, despite the valid argument there is not much legging going on unless it is certain Lights.
CASE - if you do not put ammo in legs, then you run a CASE, it is only half a ton and not that big of a deal.
Those two items reduce the ammo explosion point to pretty much nothing.
Haji1096, on 23 December 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:
This meta is stale, but I don't like the idea of changing ACs and PPCs to DoT weapons.
ACs are already DoT weapons, so is every other weapon thanks to cooldown.
Sandpit, on 23 December 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:
Command Console is the most OP thing in game.