98 replies to this topic

[Cyborne Elemental]

Lots of discussion about the current state of the UAC-5.
Thought I'd start my own.

Uac-5 seems to be in a state where it doesn't really work very well as a single weapon for light to medium mechs, and is less than reliable at best.
Had a brainstorm and would like to share my thoughts.
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"edit 2"
Proposed change to UAC-5 after discussion and refinement.

I like what a couple of you guys have said about making the jamming mechanic a mini-game type deal.
So how about this?

1. Give UAC-5 its own internal heat regulation per weapon (as is)

Holding down the firebutton fires UAC-5 at a fixed rate of 1.5 same as AC-5 mechanics.

Tapping shots allows for Burst fire. (as is)

UAC-5 allows you a much better chance of 2 shots before internal heat starts to roll the dice and raising the stakes of the jamming mechanic.

Start at 0% Chance To Jam on first shot, each shot after the first adds a % for C2Jam rolls.

Each shot after the first will add a small ammount of heat to the next shot.

Heat starts at 1 for the first shot, and adds 0.20 heat to every shot after that, and it stacks, ending with a maximum of 2 heat per shot to match the 30% maximum jam.

Additional heat only starts if you begin to use burst fire, and should reset on some type of cooldown.

UAC-5 has 30% maximum chance to jam.
On a jam, C2J is reset to 0%, and 7-8 second cooldown before you can fire again.

A jam can be cleared by pressing the firebutton again with a 40% chance to clear instantly, but at the cost of 1 Shell per try. (sound fair, or does it need to be closer to 50%?)

Waiting out the 7-8 second cooldown on a jam, you do not lose a shell.

May need a .25 second delay when the jam starts, so you don't accidentially force a roll of the dice on clearing the jam.

Since the weapon will recieve an 8% chance to jam on its third shot regardless of whether you burst fire the 4th, this is the tricky part because to beat macros the timer would need to check between bursts and reset the burst rolls and heatup down a step after 1.45 seconds and do a full reset after say 2 seconds of no firing .

I dunno though guys, afterall this is going to be one heck of a job for the coder who would have to do all that
"edit"

Made a small illustration too.

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*original post suggestions*

If it were possible to get the UAC changed, which of these would you guys prefer.

I came up with 6 reasonable alternatives, so please say which # you like or if you prefer it how it is.

1. Give UAC-5 its own internal heat regulation per weapon, allow it to fire a minimum of 2 shots before internal heat starts to roll the dice on jamming mechanic. Start at 0% chance for jam on first 2 shots, each shot after the first 2 adds 8-10% chance to jam with a maximum of 25% chance to jam. On a jam, C2J is reset to 0%, and 4 second cooldown before you can fire again.

2. Give UAC-5 a toggle mode via keybind, or as alternative code when its set to chainfire.
MODE 1 = Fixed rate of fire 1 shot every 1.4 - 1.45 seconds (slightly faster than AC-5)
MODE 2 = Burst fire (similar to suggestion 1) Allow first 2 shots always, every shot after that increases chance to jam by 8-10% with a maximum 25% chance to jam. On jam, reset C2J, 4 second cooldown to clear jam.

3. Give UAC-5 a full auto spindown mechanic, remove jam mechanic, start off at 0.8 shots per second (midpoint between AC-2 and AC-5), and on a curve, slow down the rate of fire until its at 1 shot every 5 seconds, give it a 5 second cooldown before its at fullspeed again.

4. Give UAC-5 a full-auto spinup, remove jam mechanic, starting at 1 shot every 2.5 seconds, and on a curve, speed up its ROF and multiply its heat to match over the course of say.. 4-5 seconds? Each time you let go of the firebutton, the ROF resets to 1 shot per 2.5seconds and starts the spinup fresh.

5. Give UAC-5 Fixed rate of fire, remove jam mechanic, midpoint between AC-2 and AC-5, say 1 second per shot, with heat at 1.5ish? to start?

6. Give UAC-5 its old stats back, remove jam mechanic, 3 shot burst with cone of fire spread slightly at 2 heat per shot, with 5 second cooldown. (similar in function to LBX mechanic) (dps will match Gauss roughly, but with inaccuracy because of spread)

Edited by Mister D, 10 February 2014 - 09:25 AM.

[Roland]

Sounds like you are effectively doubling the current ROF for the UAC5.

This would make it easily the most overpowered weapon in the game.

For reference, when the UAC5 was exactly as it is now, but with a slightly lower jam chance, it was pretty much the win cannon.

[Cyborne Elemental]

UAC5 does effectively double the ROF of the AC-5, and it used to be triple, thats by design, intention, and any other reason you can think of.

My ideas are more about function, and how the weapon operates differently than it does now, because the jamming mechanic is overdone IMO.

Maybe we need an un-nerfed UAC-2 instead, scrap the UAC-5, and toss in a LB5x?

Just putting ideas out there to improve or remove the jamming mechanic, I'll leave it up to you guys to do the math.

Edited by Mister D, 31 January 2014 - 07:24 AM.

[Khobai]

If theyre going to redo the UAC mechanics completely...

Id like to see UACs have an overheat bar, that gradually overheats while its fired, until the weapon jams. The overheat bar would go back down when the weapon isnt firing. Also it would have a spin-up time of 1-2 seconds to prevent abuse of the overheat bar by tapping the fire button.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 31 January 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

If theyre going to redo the UAC mechanics completely...

Id like to see UACs have an overheat bar, that gradually overheats while its fired, until the weapon jams. The overheat bar would go back down when the weapon isnt firing. Also it would have a spin-up time of 1-2 seconds to prevent abuse of the overheat bar by tapping the fire button.

Why do you want our hand held in combat Kho? Soldiers never know when their weapon will jam or misfire and I realize this is a game, But that idea is just spoon feeding players. Sometimes skill is knowing when to take a risk taking a risk and when to play it safe. Having a indicator lessens the skill not raise it.

Do we have a indicator on TT when we might roll a 2 and jam out Ultra? Man that would be awesome!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 January 2014 - 07:44 AM.

[SI The Joker]

The UAC5 jamming mechanic in its current state at least, should be disabled.

You can just macro around it... so why even have it in the first place? Put everyone on the same playing field with UAC5s and let the dakka-fest really begin resume.

Edited by SI The Joker, 31 January 2014 - 07:55 AM.

[BillHones]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 January 2014 - 07:43 AM, said:

Why do you want our hand held in combat Kho? Soldiers never know when their weapon will jam or misfire and I realize this is a game, But that idea is just spoon feeding players. Sometimes skill is knowing when to take a risk taking a risk and when to play it safe. Having a indicator lessens the skill not raise it.

Do we have a indicator on TT when we might roll a 2 and jam out Ultra? Man that would be awesome!

With this mindset we should have mechs that randomly shut down, won't start back up, loss of power that interrupts lasers beam, jump jets fail, etc etc. In the year 3050 we have to worry about a weapon jamming 25% of the time? Lol. The skill aspect of the weapon should not be based on a random factor. The overheating and spin up elements make more sense. I sold my uac5s after the first match I played with them on my DD back in July. The weapon jamming is unacceptable.

[DONTOR]

I like the first suggestion, all the other ones seem like they might work with rotary auto cannons which arent in the game yet. And wont be for quite some time.

[Lord Perversor]

SI The Joker, on 31 January 2014 - 07:52 AM, said:

The UAC5 jamming mechanic in its current state at least, should be disabled.

You can just macro around it... so why even have it in the first place? Put everyone on the same playing field with UAC5s and let the dakka-fest really begin resume.

Why macro around it when you can get an AC/5 for 1 ton less and 20 extra range to perform EQUAL to a macroed UAC/5 it's something that i can't understand.

[Mcgral18]

SI The Joker, on 31 January 2014 - 07:52 AM, said:

The UAC5 jamming mechanic in its current state at least, should be disabled.

You can just macro around it... so why even have it in the first place? Put everyone on the same playing field with UAC5s and let the dakka-fest really begin resume.

I'm afraid you're thinking of the old 1.1 cooldown UAC5. It current has the same cooldown as an AC5, so if anyone is macro-ing it in it's current state, they are very silly, wasting a full ton for no reason.

[SI The Joker]

Lord Perversor, on 31 January 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Why macro around it when you can get an AC/5 for 1 ton less and 20 extra range to perform EQUAL to a macroed UAC/5 it's something that i can't understand.

I use AC5s myself... I really don't want to load someone's hinky software to play a video game... so I'm generally with you. That's just my preference, though... and I don't take issue with those who do use macros. I just think it's awfully silly to have a game mechanic that really isn't great to begin with... then tell folks they can macro around it if they choose to. Well... why have it at all, then?

As for them being equal I can't disagree on the numbers but I'm saying that being on the receiving end of a macroed UAC5 is seems alot worse than being on the end of someone chaining AC5s. Whether that's just perception or not... I don't know. But most of the time when I get plunked by some major dakka, it's someone with UAC5s.

[Rhaythe]

I can't tell if this thread is serious or not.

[SI The Joker]

Rhaythe, on 31 January 2014 - 08:26 AM, said:

I can't tell if this thread is serious or not.

Probably not. Smooches!

[SweetJackal]

Actually, what I want is simple.

I want my UACs to be UACs and not the RACs that they have given us under that name.

UACs should be firing two projectiles with a spread pattern when in a double tap mode with a jam chance.

RACs would be the the more automatic weapon response that we have got, the ability to straight up boost fire rate at the cost of a jam chance.

[Lord Perversor]

SI The Joker, on 31 January 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

I use AC5s myself... I really don't want to load someone's hinky software to play a video game... so I'm generally with you. That's just my preference, though... and I don't take issue with those who do use macros. I just think it's awfully silly to have a game mechanic that really isn't great to begin with... then tell folks they can macro around it if they choose to. Well... why have it at all, then?

As for them being equal I can't disagree on the numbers but I'm saying that being on the receiving end of a macroed UAC5 is seems alot worse than being on the end of someone chaining AC5s. Whether that's just perception or not... I don't know. But most of the time when I get plunked by some major dakka, it's someone with UAC5s.

Because you are mixing different issues.

Some months ago when the UAC/5 jam debacle the weapon was indeed firing at a 1.1 CD rate while the AC/5 was firing at 1.5 CD rate. Back then Macros to avoid Jam rate and use the UAC/5 was useful.

But the Firing rate was already fied by PGI and now it makes 0 sense to macro around the UAC/5.

P.S: the reason because major Dakka it's pounding you with UAC/5 double tap mechanism meaning that if the weapon do not unjam it's effectively firing at twice it's fire rate not because it's fring at the same rate as an AC/5

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

I favor option 5. Give it a fixed rate of fire, no gambling, with heat increases.

Seriously, its 31st century. We can't make a multi barreled weapon that doesn't jam? Didn't we fix this problem almost a millennium and a half ago?

[Bhael Fire]

The UAC should operate closer to how it works in TT.

That is, it basically operates exactly like a normal AC except that the pilot can choose to fire it in burst mode which has a chance of jamming.

So basically, while the trigger is held down it will fire just like an AC. However if you double click before the cooldown ends it will fire two shots but have a slight chance of jamming.

That way, the pilot can choose when to take the chance of it jamming.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 31 January 2014 - 08:40 AM.

[SweetJackal]

BaconTWOfourACTUAL, on 31 January 2014 - 08:34 AM, said:

I favor option 5. Give it a fixed rate of fire, no gambling, with heat increases.

Seriously, its 31st century. We can't make a multi barreled weapon that doesn't jam? Didn't we fix this problem almost a millennium and a half ago?

Welcome to the Succession Wars where we have bombed and battered civilization to the point that nearly everything is Lost Technology.

This means that though we still have Digital Clocks in the 31st century and can still make them (Thanks to blueprints and factories,) no one really understands how they work or why they work, just that it does. So changing that annoying buzz to be your favorite song instead is like asking a technician to change the color of the sky.

Edited by SuckyJack, 31 January 2014 - 08:42 AM.

[Cimarb]

Autocannons as a whole need to be realigned. Currently, we have four versions of the AC20, since every one of them does roughly 20 damage in the same time period. Here are the stats:

AC2
Damage: 2
Cooldown: 0.52
DPS: 3.85
Damage per 5 seconds: 19.23

AC5
Damage: 5
Cooldown: 1.50
DPS: 3.33
Damage per 5 seconds: 16.65

UAC5
Damage: 5
Cooldown: 1.50 (if only fired at normal rate)
DPS: 3.33 (varies)
Damage per 5 seconds: 16.65 (varies)

AC10
Damage: 10
Cooldown: 2.50
DPS: 4.00
Damage per 5 seconds: 20.00

AC20
Damage: 20
Cooldown: 4.00
DPS: 5.00
Damage per 5 seconds: 25.00

So, in a "normalized" turn of five seconds (since all weapons in MWO can fire at least once in that time), the range of damage between all autocannons is 16.65-25.00. According to the definition of an autocannon in Sarna:

"Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor. The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors. Autocannon are grouped into the following loose damage classes: (ac2-ac20)... Caliber is fluff for the size of the barrel that the shell or shells are fired from and no standard caliber has been set for any of the classes of Autocannon. Autocannon in a class vary by manufacturer and model. With the fluffed number of shells and caliber being specified, no Autocannon has been specified to be one shell fired for each 'round' or burst of fire. Probable exceptions are (185mm Demolisher cannon and 203mm Cauldron Born cannon, which is actually a clan mech, btw)"

According to this definition, every autocannon currently in the game would be considered an AC20, as their DPS are all closer to 20 than any other classification.

Side note: Oddly, the AC5/UAC5 are the most common autocannons, yet they are also the lowest DPS of all of them... This means they happen to fit in the sweet spot of weight/space versus firepower that people like most. Anyways...

What should happen is all autocannon need to be normalized to each other. That means, in 5 seconds of time, an AC2 should do roughly 2 damage, an AC5 should do 5 damage, an AC10 should do 20 and an AC20 should do 20. While this would dramatically nerf the lower class ACs in damage potential compared to currently, this can be offset by making the optimum/max ranges actually matter again! An AC2 may not do nearly as much damage, but they are the longest range weapons of the bunch. As the class gets higher, the range gets significantly lower, so on the other end you have the devastating damage of the AC20, but it can only be used at very short ranges, similar to how SRMs are used.

Here would be my proposed adjustments:
AC2 - damage 0.2 - cooldown 0.52 - DP5S 2.0 - range 720 - max range 1440
AC5 - damage 1.5 - cooldown 1.50 - DP5S 5.0 - range 620 - max range 1240
AC10 - damage 5.0 - cooldown 2.50 - DP5S 10.0 - range 450 - max range 900
AC20 - damage 16 - cooldown 4.00 - DP5S 20.0 - range 270 - max range 540

These would be the "standard" versions. Once CW gets implemented, you could then adjust the "damage" and "cooldown" numbers all over the place to represent different manufacturers, as long as the "DP5S" value stays within a small range of that classification. Here are some examples for possible AC20 variants:

185mm ChemJet AC/20 - damage 20 - cooldown 5.00 - DP5S 20.0
Pontiac 100 AC/20 - damage 0.2 - cooldown 0.50 - DP5S 20.0
Imperator Zeta-A - damage 5 - cooldown 1.25 - DP5S 20.0

On top of this, to give some real variety, you could also have burst-fire versions, such as:

Kali Yama Big Bore AC/20 - damage 5.0/tick - 1.0 second burst with 4 ticks - cooldown 4.0 - DP5S 20.0
Armstrong Requiem AC/20 - damage 1.0/tick - 4.0 second burst with 20 ticks - cooldown 1.0 - DP5S 20.0

You now have balanced autocannons (both compared to other weapons and also compared to each other), enough variety for every person imaginable, and a reason to own certain manufactory plants, as you could limit ammo supplies/cost for certain weapons based upon the current ownership and faction difference.

Edit: Now, for all Ultra versions (I got off topic), you can then have a toggle to double the rate of fire, but with an increasing chance to jam based upon how long you hold the trigger. The chance starts at 5%, then increases every second by another 5%, until it jams. Once the weapon jams, it is unusable for 5-10 seconds, but then the jam rate resets to 5%.

Edited by Cimarb, 31 January 2014 - 09:12 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Nice.
Only 2 guys actually responded to my suggested list
out of 15 posts.
rest is infighting and arguments, thx guys.

I prefer option 1 myself, its very close to how the jamming system currently is, just a little more refined and still counters macro quite well.

Opt 2, would be my second runner up, if the UAC5 is going to take 1 more slot and 1 more ton, being slightly faster is ok if its going to use fixed ROF mode, maybe my numbers are off a little, but straight math doesn't always apply when it comes to ingame application, ballistics are still hard to lead on moving targets, and odds are you're going to miss alot of shots anyways.

Edited by Mister D, 31 January 2014 - 09:50 AM.