82 replies to this topic

[n r g]

HlynkaCG, on 18 September 2014 - 01:33 PM, said:

Because ton-for-ton it's still the most efficient 10 points of pinpoint FLD that you can mount.

I would expect a member of the patrician class to able to do basic math, but no matter.

That's the problem, you focus too much on math/statistics and lack real world experience. In other words, the PPC on paper doesn't look like a terrible weapon, but it comes down again to the argument of hitscan (lasers) vs. projectile (ppc).

HlynkaCG, on 18 September 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

...and that burst damage is why they are still effective. At 6 or 7 tons a piece they are half the weight of a comparable ballistic weapon + ammo, while still having the range and pinpoint advantage over equivalent Missiles and Lasers. For 'mechs looking to minimize "face time" the PPC/ERPPC is still one of the better (if not best) weapon choices.

Then again I'm a plebeian who pilots IS mechs, plays modes other than skirmish, and majored in mathematics. What do I know?

I'll duel you right now, you can take any PPC mech you want and I'll take my choosing.

You focus too much on statistics and math, and disregard real (ingame) experience.

You won't win.

With how bad ppc's were overly nerfed, I'd argue that in a duel (1v1), a skilled laser pilot will beat a skilled ppc/projectile based pilot 100% of the time.

It's just that simple, if the PPCs were buffed slightly, they would be the "counter-laser" weapon with their minimum peak time and burst damage. However, they are too slow to be effective, and the recent JJ/heat nerfs don't help them at all either.

We called it in CSJ and the forum posts /threads are still on these forums and my history if you want to read them.

I said that if the casual, diluted, pub scrub mainstream wanted to nerf the PPC and JJ's (as they eventually did), you would see a new meta upon the clans releasing of Lasers and hill-humping (no jump jets needed).

It's pathetic to me that, 99% of the community either disagreed or argued vehemently against it, but now jump on the bang wagon of "omg it's a TW laser vomit META!!!!"

Derp, we called it. Not only should PGI listen to ONLY the competitive community regarding balance changes, but so should the casual base in this game. That is, if you want to get any better, you guys might get a little smarter in the process as-well learning a bit from we, the Elite.

Edited by E N E R G Y, 18 September 2014 - 02:00 PM.

[Metus regem]

HlynkaCG, on 18 September 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

...and that burst damage is why they are still effective. At 6 or 7 tons a piece they are half the weight of a comparable ballistic weapon + ammo, while still having the range and pinpoint advantage over equivalent Missiles and Lasers. For 'mechs looking to minimize "face time" the PPC/ERPPC is still one of the better (if not best) weapon choices.

Then again I'm a plebeian who pilots IS mechs, plays modes other than skirmish, and majored in mathematics. What do I know?

Don't count yourself out, I only PuG, and play any match I find, to the best of my ablity, some matches go better than others...

I still remeber the match where I saw E N E R G Y on the OP-4 list.... I was a sad panda, still gave it my all though.

[n r g]

Metus regem, on 18 September 2014 - 02:00 PM, said:

Don't count yourself out, I only PuG, and play any match I find, to the best of my ablity, some matches go better than others...

I still remeber the match where I saw E N E R G Y on the OP-4 list.... I was a sad panda, still gave it my all though.

What is the OP-4 list?

And, I don't want to come off as a jerk, (I merely troll sometimes).

It's just, this game already has a high learning curve, and BIG casual player base (meaning players who have NO/0 knowledge of competitive e-sports in PC gaming or simply players who don't care).

Thus, perpetuating information on weapons, or mechs, or playstyles that aren't really valid just worsens the community. The competition community is usually a step-ahead on what weapons are viable or what playstyles work, thus I think the competitive community should always be where the DEVs go to regarding balance (i.e., CSGO, LoL, dota2?)

[Metus regem]

E N E R G Y, on 18 September 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

What is the OP-4 list?

Opposing Force list

(OP)poaing (For)ce list, hence OP-4, it's term that is usualy found in the world that I work with. It's not usually heard outside of the Military.

[K0M3D14N]

Metus regem, on 18 September 2014 - 02:33 PM, said:

Opposing Force list

(OP)poaing (For)ce list, hence OP-4, it's term that is usualy found in the world that I work with. It's not usually heard outside of the Military.

To be fair, it's usually just OPFOR.

[Metus regem]

K0M3D14N, on 18 September 2014 - 02:40 PM, said:

To be fair, it's usually just OPFOR.

True, and I was just being lazy with not typing that out.

[Just wanna play]

I personally ran a 4 ppc awesome 8q, it was slow but great, i also ran a 3 er ppc awesome 8q, still doable heat wise, went 60kph with out tweak

Edited by Just wanna play, 18 September 2014 - 03:00 PM.

[Clownwarlord]

9 ERPPC Direwolf

[Just wanna play]

clownwarlord, on 18 September 2014 - 03:00 PM, said:

9 ERPPC Direwolf

my blr had the same alpha 90 alpha is meh, not much it can one shot except lighter mediums and lighter

Edited by Just wanna play, 18 September 2014 - 03:02 PM.

[T0rmented]

terrycloth, on 17 September 2014 - 10:59 AM, said:

hard to judge when people are 'too close' at short range, though.

If only PGI gave us some sort of indicator to range, somewhere easy to see, preferably in the middle of the screen, right next to the crosshair. . .

[RazorbeastFXK3]

When you're in the thick of battle it's not easy to judge how close all your opponents are to you when you want to use your ppc against them. Unless you're able to have a clear head and can focus enough to see the little range indicator or "eyeball it" as they say when you don't use any tools to gauge ranges.

T0rmented, on 18 September 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

If only PGI gave us some sort of indicator to range, somewhere easy to see, preferably in the middle of the screen, right next to the crosshair. . .

[Koniving]

Certain Vindicators have reduced energy weapon heat, as does the Awesome 8Q. The 8Q's benefits have a number of other quirks toward energy weaponry such as increased cooling. The two of these stack very nicely to make 3 PPCs heat efficient.

You would have trouble with firing 3 of them all at the same time too often (it actually seems to get worse each time you do it in a row).

Chain fired, you can pump quite a few down the line.

Still you probably wouldn't want to start with this mech.

Consider a Vindicator and/or Awesome though. If you think you can make it work, give it a try.

In the mean time here's an idea to salvage your PPC Raven idea.


6 PPC Stalkers after ghost heat. (This is what I get for using a macro to control my firing pace).


Ignore the Cicada thing on this, ER PPC + Streaks on Raven 3-L 1 month ago.


Pre quirk Awesome 8Qs.


Far more efficient now with extra strength to the armor on the front CT.

[T0rmented]

RazorbeastFXK3, on 18 September 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

When you're in the thick of battle it's not easy to judge how close all your opponents are to you when you want to use your ppc against them. Unless you're able to have a clear head and can focus enough to see the little range indicator or "eyeball it" as they say when you don't use any tools to gauge ranges.

I liked your post cause its cute, if your in at closer ranges using ppc's and not keeping an eye on your range indicator, your doing it wrong

[n r g]

T0rmented, on 18 September 2014 - 03:40 PM, said:

I liked your post cause its cute, if your in at closer ranges using ppc's and not keeping an eye on your range indicator, your doing it wrong

yeah, an experienced pilot can easily quickly transfer focus to the range inidicator and see whether your at <90m.

also, after a while, you merely get a "feel" for it.

with that being said, I feel the min.range nerf was another unnecessary nerf to the PPC (including the gigantic velocity nerf).

it could and should be a gradient, not just "0" damage <90 but a fall-off. The weapon has been overly nerfed on all accounts ,range, heat and amount (max 2 per alpha)

[Time Bandit]

E N E R G Y, on 18 September 2014 - 03:43 PM, said:

yeah, an experienced pilot can easily quickly transfer focus to the range inidicator and see whether your at &lt;90m.

also, after a while, you merely get a &quot;feel&quot; for it.

with that being said, I feel the min.range nerf was another unnecessary nerf to the PPC (including the gigantic velocity nerf).

it could and should be a gradient, not just &quot;0&quot; damage &lt;90 but a fall-off. The weapon has been overly nerfed on all accounts ,range, heat and amount (max 2 per alpha)

Gotta agree with E N E R G Y here. Yes PPCs have a min range, but you could still do damage at a lower rate in tabletop(harder to hit). Nerfing that and making them slower was an odd choice.

[terrycloth]

The range indicator tells me how far it is to the terrain directly under my reticle. It's not reliable. At close ranges it's not going to be over the enemy 100% of the time, and I need to decide how close they are before I decide who to target, if I can even target anything with all the ECM out there.

I have had no success using the non-targeted range indictor to measure how far it is to a mech. I'll take your word for it that it even pays attention to mechs?

edit: Tested it on allies and it does pay attention to mechs. So maybe if I can remember to look in the heat of battle. n.n

Edited by terrycloth, 19 September 2014 - 11:14 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

Just wanna play, on 18 September 2014 - 03:01 PM, said:

my blr had the same alpha 90 alpha is meh, not much it can one shot except lighter mediums and lighter

90? no try 120 alpha
DWF-PRIME

[Psyrex]

Thanks again all.
So much advice i'm find it hard to decide what to do.

The PPC's are possible from what everyone has said, they have their problems.
Ideally i'd use ER PPC's but of course there are major heat problems with that.

Maybe i should look more into ER LL's, the only reason i look at PPC's as i want that burst damage in a single point of armour.

This is going to be a tough one i think.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

The lore has it that the PPC min 90m Range was set so it wouldn't fry the components of the mech unloading the PPC rounds then somewhere down the line they made ER PPC which removed that safety from the launcher.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/PPC
EDIT (Forgot to quote the piece from the link): "PPCs are equipped with a Field Inhibitor to prevent feedback which could damage the firing unit's electronic systems.^[6] This inhibitor degrades the performance of the weapon at close ranges of less than 90 meters. Particularly daring warriors have been known to disengage the inhibitor and risk damage to their own machine when a target is at close range."

Though I'm curious to know why the opponent doesn't experience heat buildup after they're hit by the ppc as I've been bit by ppcs a few times and didn't notice my thermal gauge going up after being hit by them. "The Particle Projector Cannon (or PPC) is a unique energy weapon. PPCs fire a concentrated stream of protons or ions at a target, causing damage through both thermal and kinetic energy."

E N E R G Y, on 18 September 2014 - 03:43 PM, said:

I feel the min.range nerf was another unnecessary nerf to the PPC (including the gigantic velocity nerf).

it could and should be a gradient, not just "0" damage <90 but a fall-off. The weapon has been overly nerfed on all accounts ,range, heat and amount (max 2 per alpha)

Edited by RazorbeastFXK3, 19 September 2014 - 10:28 AM.

[HlynkaCG]

E N E R G Y, on 18 September 2014 - 01:54 PM, said:

That's the problem, you focus too much on math/statistics and lack real world experience. In other words, the PPC on paper doesn't look like a terrible weapon, but it comes down again to the argument of hitscan (lasers) vs. projectile (ppc).

...

You focus too much on statistics and math, and disregard real (ingame) experience.

...

With how bad ppc's were overly nerfed, I'd argue that in a duel (1v1), a skilled laser pilot will beat a skilled ppc/projectile based pilot 100% of the time.

To me, blanket statements like "Lasers will beat Projectiles 100% of the time" indicate that you really don't play this game all that much. You have your narrowly defined competitive e-sport 12 man perspective and think that this perspective is all there is or otherwise representative of the game as a whole. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. There is this thing called a "Solo Queue", there are game modes other than skirmish, and fair fights are for suckers who don't know any better.

On paper a Commando or Jenner will never kill a Dire Wolf, in game the situation is a bit more fluid.

A force composition optimized for Conquest isn't necessarily the one you'd bring to a Skirmish match. and a build that works well as part of a team is not necessarily the best mech to use in a dual and vice versa. A bouncing PPC-Spider might not hold a candle to a Mad Cat in a 1v1 dual, but a lance of them will make an absolute PITA out of themselves.


Like I said above, ECM + PPC fast attackers and Gauss + PPC assaults might not be the "I win button" that they once were but they haven't gone away either.

As for duel, I can be found on the MechForce Classic or House Davion public team-speak servers any given week night, PST. I look forward to seeing you.