69 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Ketzktl, on 26 May 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

Ok, I agree that this might be jumping the gun a bit as we don' t actually have the stats yet, but just from a theorycrafting point of view for now, looking at Smurfy an AC2 does ~3 dps for 6 tons while an AC20 is 5 for 14 tons. So in theory other than the cost of the extra ballistics slot (which I do agree is a consideration), 2xAC2 is lighter, longer range and higher dps than AC20, but that build isn't very common.

The weakness of the 2 AC/2 build is that it has extremely low frontloaded damage. It only does 4 points of damage with each mouse click. That's less than a single AC/5. As such, trying to rapid-fire will spread that damage all over the place and result in the target not taking any significant damage to a single body panel. It also requires constant exposure in order to reap that DPS.

The AC/20, however, puts 20 points of damage into a single location instantly. It will kill mechs far faster and more effectively than 2 AC/2 could ever hope to, despite the "on paper" lower DPS. Pinpoint damage is far more efficient for killing than the DPS boogeyman.

Edited by FupDup, 26 May 2014 - 10:40 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Ketzktl, on 26 May 2014 - 10:04 AM, said:

If clan ACs are burst fire and IS stay front loaded, doesn't that just make the clan AC's straight up inferior?

EXACTLY.......

Wow the way they plan to implement CUAC sounds just absolutely ******** as all hell.

No, CUAC should have the same function current IS UACs have but have a mildly less chance of jamming.

I really do sit and wonder what is PGI planning to do with the Clans.....

If they will actually give them any shadow of their clear superiority, or if they will just be cool new models with 10x the Cbill cost and suck royally.

So what they planning to do to the rest of the clan crap.....

[Khobai]

Quote

So what they planning to do to the rest of the clan crap.....

Like I said in other threads, I believe clanners will resort to using gauss and erppcs, because theyll be the only clan weapons that still do pinpoint damage and arnt hopelessly inferior to IS weapons.

[Vassago Rain]

Khobai, on 26 May 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

Like I said in other threads, I believe clanners will resort to using gauss and erppcs, because theyll be the only clan weapons that still do pinpoint damage and arnt hopelessly inferior to IS weapons.

I will break out my crystal ball.

I see...

Thors with max jets, twin ER PPCs, and UAC20s/gauss rifles.

Forever.

[Waelsleaht]

it is my understanding from the podcast that all UAC will become burst fire. including IS. they still have chance to jam but they will all become a burst of 4-5 shells. Regular AC for clans stay the same with diff stats from IS(tho none of the variants use them they are bringing in so they may not even have clan regular AC because of clan LBX), and clan LBX have option between slug and buck shot unlike the IS.

edit:
so basically:
all UAC (i.e. IS and clan) become burst fire of x number of rounds doing x damage.
Clan LBX have option between slug and buck shot. making then both LBX and regular AC in one.

Edited by Waelsleaht, 26 May 2014 - 11:09 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Thors with max jets, twin ER PPCs, and UAC20s/gauss rifles.

The Madcat has jumpjets now. No reason to ever touch the Thor

[101011]

Vassago Rain, on 26 May 2014 - 11:05 AM, said:

I will break out my crystal ball.

I see...

Thors with max jets, twin ER PPCs, and UAC20s/gauss rifles.

Forever.

They would be hard-pushed to do so, as they only have 22.5 tons of space, and 2 ERPPCS + 1 Gauss makes 24 tons.

[Vassago Rain]

Khobai, on 26 May 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

The Madcat has jumpjets now. No reason to ever touch the Thor

Madcat is 210 dollars. No sale.

There will be thors all over the place.

[Khobai]

Quote

Madcat is 210 dollars. No sale.

its $55 if you buy it alacarte. cheaper than the thor package.

[Vassago Rain]

Khobai, on 26 May 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

its $55 if you buy it alacarte. cheaper than the thor package.

I'm pretty sure most of the people who bought into clans for any reason got them before they added that option, which is why the supercombo bar has barely moved in 6 months.

[darkkterror]

Khobai, on 26 May 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

I believe clanners will resort to using gauss and erppcs

Unless PGI decides to implement that PPC arcing idea...only to Clan ER PPCs

[Mcgral18]

LordKnightFandragon, on 26 May 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

EXACTLY.......

Wow the way they plan to implement CUAC sounds just absolutely ******** as all hell.

No, CUAC should have the same function current IS UACs have but have a mildly less chance of jamming.

I really do sit and wonder what is PGI planning to do with the Clans.....

If they will actually give them any shadow of their clear superiority, or if they will just be cool new models with 10x the Cbill cost and suck royally.

So what they planning to do to the rest of the clan crap.....

PGI finally got around to implementing Auto Cannons. Shame the IS gets stuck with the FLD Rifles with severely inflated damage.

[Hans Von Lohman]

PPC's should be like other energy weapons, and do damage as a beam (which is actually a series of individual hits like an MG, but the art and sound effects trick your brain a bit).

To me PPC's should be a tri-burst weapon and fire three shots in rapid succession.

That is what they're doing with the Clan Ultra AC, and probably because of the C-UAC-20 in particular. I think this also needs to apply to the PPC's, and then maybe we wouldn't have needed ghost heat?

[LordKnightFandragon]

Waelsleaht, on 26 May 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

it is my understanding from the podcast that all UAC will become burst fire. including IS. they still have chance to jam but they will all become a burst of 4-5 shells. Regular AC for clans stay the same with diff stats from IS(tho none of the variants use them they are bringing in so they may not even have clan regular AC because of clan LBX), and clan LBX have option between slug and buck shot unlike the IS.

edit:
so basically:
all UAC (i.e. IS and clan) become burst fire of x number of rounds doing x damage.
Clan LBX have option between slug and buck shot. making then both LBX and regular AC in one.

That is dumb.

The UAC..its a standard AC10 shot or 5, 10,15, 30, 50..idc, that simply fired faster.........why it have to now do quarter of its damage just to gain burst fire? As if the jamming after every shot isnt bad enough.

UAC...RiP.

[Mcgral18]

LordKnightFandragon, on 26 May 2014 - 11:52 AM, said:

That is dumb.

The UAC..its a standard AC10 shot or 5, 10,15, 30, 50..idc, that simply fired faster.........why it have to now do quarter of its damage just to gain burst fire? As if the jamming after every shot isnt bad enough.

UAC...RiP.

You realise that just about every AC ever made was burst fire? TT made them all hit the same location, because rolling for 30 hits a round would be long and tedious. That's also why the range is so short. It's the range the burst will all hit the same location reliably.

[Khobai]

Quote

To me PPC's should be a tri-burst weapon and fire three shots in rapid succession.

Nah it should fire once but the damage should arc like lightning across multiple locations. So instead of doing all 10 damage to one location it might do 6 damage to one location, 3 damage to an adjacent location, than 1 damage to another adjacent location. PPCs are described as being similar to lightning bolts and we know it does electrical/emp damage so having it arc across locations makes sense.

Edited by Khobai, 26 May 2014 - 12:06 PM.

[Koniving]

HumpingBunny, on 26 May 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

A friend of mine directed me to Russ's post on clan 'Mech variants. After investigating the list of clan 'Mech variants, I did not see a single UAC-20 nor a single LBX-20 among the upcoming clan chassis (perhaps I missed one or two?). Also, I have noticed PGI devoting a certain effort to avoiding the notorious OP weapons and 'Mechs - so my fear was that they deemed clan 20-class A/C's over powered. My only intention is to get more of an idea of what we will see, come June 17th.

They don't come stock. You change them out.

Clan UAC/20 will be a multi-shot weapon. In the Mechs Devs and Beer 15 it was stated to be "5 shots" to do "20 damage."
We don't know how ghost heat will affect them.

Clan LB/20 will be similar to the Inner Sphere AC/20 in that it can fire single shot slugs as well as LB-style shotgun 'cluster shot'.

The weapons are not common in stock configs because in lore they were very large and difficult to stick on mechs. (Yes it might have fewer slots than Inner Sphere's AC/20, but most Clan Omni-Mechs even have slot limitations higher than most mechs since they do not have dynamic slots.

Edited by Koniving, 26 May 2014 - 12:09 PM.

[Koniving]

Waelsleaht, on 26 May 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

it is my understanding from the podcast that all UAC will become burst fire. including IS. they still have chance to jam but they will all become a burst of 4-5 shells.

Paul specifically excluded the I.S. UAC/5 in the Mechs Devs and Beer 15 podcast.
Or was it mentioned that he changed his mind in a later one?
Also Clans do NOT have ACs. UAC and LB are basically superior in every way; autocannons became obsolete technology (as a UAC fired at standard speed is basically an AC with an optional 'double speed' switch). Imagine a light machine gun that fires tank rounds, which has 2 settings for firing rate (full and double; or looking at it from another perspective, half and full).

The issue with firing at the UAC's full rate was that when they did jam it was permanent until they could get back to a mechbay or field base.

[Willard Phule]

Mcgral18, on 26 May 2014 - 11:56 AM, said:

You realise that just about every AC ever made was burst fire? TT made them all hit the same location, because rolling for 30 hits a round would be long and tedious. That's also why the range is so short. It's the range the burst will all hit the same location reliably.

Yes! This! It even explains that in most of the Star League sourcebooks that talk about the development of the Battlemech and weaponry that could cause it damage.

Everyone (including the developers, obviously) seems to think that "Ballistic Weapon" or "Auto Cannon" means "Big, Bad Machinegun" or something. It doesn't.

Battlemechs don't use the same kind of armor that armored vehicles at the time used. The new composites they came up with were virtually impervious to tanks and such. That's why new weapons had to be developed...then new 'mechs...and so on.

The "AC-Whatever" term is the term from Tabletop in the first place. It simply expresses the amount of damage the weapon causes when it hits. In the novels, they refer to a "Kali Yama Series Blahblahblah" and then go on to explain the damage it caused. An AC2 OBVIOUSLY did not explosively amputate the arm of the Atlas. You get the idea. Most of the time, the description is basically the AC vomiting a pornographic number of projectiles....but there have been a few where it describes a single, large one.

All I can think is....if they're going to change ALL Autocannons into burst-fired weapons.....will we ever see the "Rotary Autocannon" for the Inner Sphere and, if so, what would the difference be?

[Willard Phule]

Koniving, on 26 May 2014 - 12:08 PM, said:

Also Clans do NOT have ACs. UAC and LB are basically superior in every way; autocannons became obsolete technology (as a UAC fired at standard speed is basically an AC with an optional 'double speed' switch).

For the timeframe of the invasion, for the most part, you are correct. However, as soon as the Provisional Garrison Clusters were brought forward, some places in the IS began to see "Second Line" mechs...most of which were retooled Star League or Inner Sphere 'mechs taken as Isorla. And THOSE have Clan ACs in them. There's a reason why there are still standard ACs in the Clan armory...most of it having to do with things that aren't addressed by the MW:O experience.