114 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Wintersdark, on 04 December 2014 - 07:52 PM, said:

The reason the AC2 doesn't have a cooldown module is that the closer it approaches .5s the more it "accidentally" triggers ghost heat.

This, because group-fired AC2's tend to "desync" slightly, already spreading their fire over several hundredths of a second. As soon as there's <0.5s between any two AC2 rounds, Ghost Heat starts counting. As this desync keeps compounding, it tends to randomly but very rapidly ramp up ghost heat even in situations where there aren't enough AC/2's firing to officially generate ghost heat.

Then, of course, you get the joyous situation where someone has 2 AC2's in two separate firing groups (say, one for each arm on a Jagermech as an example). Fire them "offset" and you get ghost heat practically instantly, fire them together and the closer to .5s they cycle, the closer to impossible it is to avoid that situation.


Of course, the good solution here is to just remove AC/2 ghost heat (because seriously, **** ghost heat on AC/2's!!! they're the WORST autocannon, and require effectively 100% face time while spreading damage!)

Cooldown modules all give +12% cooldown time. Most variant-specific AC/2 quirks stack with generic ballistic quirks to give +15% AC/2 cooldown, or even faster in certain cases. The Dragon 1N in particular has a generic ballistic cooldown of +25%. And add another +5% due to the Fast Fire pilot skill.

A +12% AC/2 cooldown module would be a non-issue, even with heat considered.


...And, by the way, group-fired AC/2 with that cooldown mod wouldn't even fire faster than or equal to 0.5 seconds.

Base cooldown: 0.72
Module buff: +12%
Fast Fire Pilot Skill: +5%
Combined buff: +17% (decimal form is 0.17)

0.72 - (0.72 * 0.17) = 0.72 - 0.1224 = 0.5976

You'd be in the clear from heat by almost 0.1 seconds.

And even if a "desync" did occur by some bug, that would be the player's own choice to briefly boost their damage rate at the cost of heat from paranormal sources. If they didn't want to trigger it, they could just remove the module or not hold down the firing button.


----------
That being said, having heat for the AC/2 at all is still dumb of course.

Edited by FupDup, 04 December 2014 - 08:29 PM.

[Captain Stiffy]

Wintersdark, on 10 September 2014 - 03:19 PM, said:

I've always wondered why they keep bashing on the poor AC2. It's always been the weakest of the regular autocannons, requiring constant facetime... it get's ravaged by ghost heat (totally unnecessarily, as it's never been an alpha weapon), and yet it still sees nigh constant nerfs.

I think it's the extreme reaction most players have to the immense dakka. While it doesn't really do enough damage to be a show stopper against high-damage long-range alphas it definitely seems like it does.

[Wintersdark]

Captain Stiffy, on 04 December 2014 - 08:40 PM, said:

I think it's the extreme reaction most players have to the immense dakka. While it doesn't really do enough damage to be a show stopper against high-damage long-range alphas it definitely seems like it does.

that's the thing. It seemed potent, particularly when stagger fired to get a constant stream of impacts...

... but it was worse fired that way. People figured that it was because of [evil bogeyman]MACROS[/evil bogeyman] AC2 users where able to somehow get a higher rate of fire, but that was entirely false. What's more, you could easily staggerfire even up to 6 AC2's without macros. Macros could only make your AC2's sound and look awesome, but made your JM6 less effective.

Nevertheless, they were nerfed because reasons Paul.

[Wintersdark]

FupDup, on 04 December 2014 - 08:20 PM, said:

Cooldown modules all give +12% cooldown time. Most variant-specific AC/2 quirks stack with generic ballistic quirks to give +15% AC/2 cooldown, or even faster in certain cases. The Dragon 1N in particular has a generic ballistic cooldown of +25%. And add another +5% due to the Fast Fire pilot skill.

A +12% AC/2 cooldown module would be a non-issue, even with heat considered.


...And, by the way, group-fired AC/2 with that cooldown mod wouldn't even fire faster than or equal to 0.5 seconds.

Base cooldown: 0.72
Module buff: +12%
Fast Fire Pilot Skill: +5%
Combined buff: +17% (decimal form is 0.17)

0.72 - (0.72 * 0.17) = 0.72 - 0.1224 = 0.5976

You'd be in the clear from heat by almost 0.1 seconds.

And even if a "desync" did occur by some bug, that would be the player's own choice to briefly boost their damage rate at the cost of heat from paranormal sources. If they didn't want to trigger it, they could just remove the module or not hold down the firing button.


----------
That being said, having heat for the AC/2 at all is still dumb of course.

I love that you have a ghost image for that

Anyways, the issue is that you don't need to actually drop below .5 seconds to trigger ghost heat. And, group fired AC/2's don't all fire at the same time. They should, but they don't.

Before the AC/2 nerf, this was visible by equipping 3 AC/2's: they're below the limit, but if you group-fired 3 they'd end up generating ghost heat anyways. Koniving has many a video detailing the effect and why; I verified it personally as well.

It's a bug with how weapons fire and how ghost heat works. The reality is that even with group fire, weapons do not fire as regularly as they should - the actual cycle time of weapons is impacted by ping. Incidentally, this is why for a long time machine gun actual DPS was heavily dependant on ping - low ping players would actually shoot faster than high ping players.

In the case of the AC/2, it causes them to desynchronize. Fire 3? First volley, all three fire. Second volley, one fires a fraction of a second later than it should. Next volley, the same thing happens - randomly, some may fire a little late. Successive volleys don't fire faster to get back to where they should be, as each AC/2 can only fire at their cycle rate or very slightly slower - they never get closer, then, only ever further apart. As they slip out of sync, they eat up the time between shots. It's just a matter of time before they start triggering ghost heat.

It's yet another reason why ghost heat sucks.

Edited by Wintersdark, 04 December 2014 - 09:30 PM.

[FupDup]

Wintersdark, on 04 December 2014 - 09:29 PM, said:

I love that you have a ghost image for that

I can't take credit for it, I stole it from Alcom Isst.

Wintersdark, on 04 December 2014 - 09:29 PM, said:

Anyways, the issue is that you don't need to actually drop below .5 seconds to trigger ghost heat. And, group fired AC/2's don't all fire at the same time. They should, but they don't.

Before the AC/2 nerf, this was visible by equipping 3 AC/2's: they're below the limit, but if you group-fired 3 they'd end up generating ghost heat anyways. Koniving has many a video detailing the effect and why; I verified it personally as well.

It's a bug with how weapons fire and how ghost heat works. The reality is that even with group fire, weapons do not fire as regularly as they should - the actual cycle time of weapons is impacted by ping. Incidentally, this is why for a long time machine gun actual DPS was heavily dependant on ping - low ping players would actually shoot faster than high ping players.

In the case of the AC/2, it causes them to desynchronize. Fire 3? First volley, all three fire. Second volley, one fires a fraction of a second later than it should. Next volley, the same thing happens - randomly, some may fire a little late. As they slip out of sync, they eat up the time between shots. It's just a matter of time before they start triggering ghost heat.

It's yet another reason why ghost heat sucks.

I'll take your word for it, even though I haven't really noticed it while derping it up in my Shadow Hawk 2H(P) with 3 AC/2.

Either way, PGI doesn't seem to care much that multiple quirked mechs are already firing faster than an AC/2 cooldown module could enable, and it's still the user's own choice if they want to risk heat from paranormal sources for faster dakka (a choice I wish they didn't have to make, but we need to convince Paul of that...) by equipping such a module. If they didn't want to risk it, they could just remove the mod.

Personally I probably would only fire half a dozen or so shots (give or take) before going back to cover, so that wouldn't usually give the 's time to multiply themselves. And in the case of longer firing times, I could always just skip a shot interval every few volleys to reset the 's.


But the best workaround of all would be this:

Edited by FupDup, 04 December 2014 - 09:36 PM.

[Lexx]

Russ Bullock, on 10 September 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

We are taking a tally of missing weapon modules now and will let you know when they will be added.

While you are taking tally of the missing weapon modules could you please also re-arrange them so they make sense instead of being spread all over the place making it harder to find certain modules.

[Ted Wayz]

AC2's that fire as mast as MGs plz.

That is all.

[MountainCopper]

Helsbane, on 10 September 2014 - 03:09 PM, said:

Why so much hate for the AC2? I can't spend a few million Cbills for my old pre nerf RoF?

Already, some IS Mechs have benefits for firing AC/2 faster without a module:

BJ-1
+15% fire rate
-15% heat generation

DRG-5N
+25% fire rate
-25% heat generation

JM6-A
+15% fire rate

JM6-S
+15% fire rate

Edited by GoldenFleece, 05 December 2014 - 02:33 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

FupDup, on 04 December 2014 - 07:25 PM, said:

You DARE to refuse MOAR DAKKA?!

Yes. Yes I do!

Quote

If PGI wasn't fixated on having Autocannon damage per shot being based on name (i.e. AC/10 "must," by their logic, always do 10.0 damage per shot, never higher or lower), then I'd be okay with that instead of an AC/2 RoF mod. But since they're not willing to make that leap, I want moar dakka.

That IS what I want. I want AC10 shells that do 10+ a few% more per shell. I am a BFH kinda person. I prefer Dealing heavy damage cause I like to kill quicker. I don't worry about dying faster cause Well i'm not a whiner cause I know I am not all that good. But I game like I fight. I want my opponents dead last week, not yesterday. Not an Hour ago. And DEFINITELY not in a minute from now!

[Skamay]

I would like an AC2 cooldown module please.

[Joseph Mallan]

FupDup, on 04 December 2014 - 08:20 PM, said:

That being said, having heat for the AC/2 at all is still dumb of course.

Now it looks better. Ghost Heat is sucha stupid Idea. 2 things that create 7 heat each when fired together create 21 heat! Stupid as the day is long.

[Gattsus]

Lower the ac2 weigh, 1-2 tonnes!

[Nightshade24]

Seraphic Law, on 11 September 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

Why were some of the weapons excluded in the first place?

I am not sure about some weapons...

But when Ghost heat was still around the AC 2 would ghost heat BY ITSELF when firing with cooldown 5 module...

That's a huge problem. especially if your a clanner. the UAC 2 already ghost heats on itself with the double shot...


Atm ghost heat is gone so no worries now...

[Tahribator]

When AC2 had ghost heat, on some ballistic quirked 'Mechs(Blackjack, Grid Iron) the AC2 cooldown would have went below 0.5s if they introduced cooldown modules. This would obviously cause problems with gameplay since 2xAC2 in group fire would be generating ghost heat.

Now that the ghost heat is gone, there's no reason not to give AC2 a cooldown module.

Edited by Tahribator, 12 March 2015 - 02:05 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Skip the module and just bring the base weapon cooldown back to 0.66 where it was.
Heat will still keep the weapon in check if it remains at 1 heat per shot.

[Skamay]

Love the ideas about differing modules like spread etc. Could we please also have what I would think are fairly conventional concept ones too. Such as laser duration reduction, heat reduction and projectile velocity.

Also definitely lower AC2 weight by 1, maybe 2, tons.

[Weeny Machine]

Maybe the module would help to make my castrated Blackjack-DC (thanks once more for changing the AC/5 quirks to AC/2s) somewhat useful again.

[Novawrecker]

FupDup, on 04 December 2014 - 09:36 PM, said:

But the best workaround of all would be this:

So you're saying not to cross the AC2 streams for those that pilot mechs boating them?

[Pepito Sbazzeguti]

Need an AC2 cooldown module.

Stop.

Edited by Pepito Sbazzeguti, 25 April 2015 - 03:29 PM.

[TheArisen]

Grisbane, on 25 April 2015 - 04:51 PM, said:

so basically you want to change the 6 ac2 king crab from this



(fires 800 rpm now)

to this

Yes please