53 replies to this topic

[dario03]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 November 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

A Ultra AC5 weighs 7 Tons Plus ammo (and one ton went a long way on TT), Heck a 30 ton Omnimech carries a Clan Gauss! As Clan Ballistics were smaller and lighter they were more capable of being on a Light Mech, but Our stock is bulkier, heavier and thus has NEVER been a good choice for lights.

I have a kitfox with a Cuac5, ersl, and a couple erml, with ecm and a jj to round it out. It works pretty well and even though I only played it long enough to master it, I must of had a dozen people ask me about it in game.
Though getting a gauss on there would be a bit tricky since you would be stuck with some really low ammo count, even if you stripped the armor off one side.

[Tristan Winter]

stjobe, on 06 November 2014 - 01:17 PM, said:

In short, make the MG worth mounting and you have all the ballistic goodness you'll ever need.

I agree with all of the above, but it doesn't really help many of the <50 ton mechs I mentioned in the OP. Buffing the MG helps mechs like the RVN-4X, but it does nothing for Blackjacks, Adders, Ice Ferrets or the CDA-3M - mechs that don't have enough hardpoints to boat MGs. Boating to a lesser or greater degree is always going to be key in this game. You don't want a single small laser, a single SRM2 or a single MG, but those may all be useful if boated.

So while I agree with all your points, I think fixing the MG doesn't address the issue I raised in the OP. The Ice Ferret would still come with 1 ballistic slot, and no ballistic weapons would be worth equipping. If I have the choice between 1 MG or an arm with 2 energy hardpoints, I'll go with lasers instead. Same with the Adder. And the CDA-3M would almost certainly stay a laser boat, unless you do something wacky, like equipping a gauss rifle.

The CUAC2, CAC2, CLB2X and, to a lesser extent, the IS AC2 all need to be looked at.

Edited by Nicolai Kabrinsky, 06 November 2014 - 01:45 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The problem has and always will be that the lighter the AC is, the different style of play it encourages. AC2s are rapid/continuous fire weapons where as AC20s are big punch weapons and this is where the problem stems from. Make AC2s big punch for their weight and range and you encourage their use on mechs that rely heavily on the skirmisher/harasser role. You also allow more differentiation between weapons like the UACs and RACs later on.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 06 November 2014 - 01:44 PM.

[FupDup]

WM Quicksilver, on 06 November 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

The problem has and always will be that the lighter the AC is, the different style of play it encourages. AC2s are rapid/continuous fire weapons where as AC20s are big punch weapons and this is where the problem stems from. Make AC2s big punch for their weight and range and you encourage their use on mechs that rely heavily on the skirmisher/harasser role.

I've always wondered what it would be like if we increased the upfront damage of the AC/2 to 4, but reduced its DPS to 2.0 to compensate, maybe up the projectile speed a little bit too. Would probably make it act more like a real "mini sniper" weapon than an impotent suppression fire hose. This would also solve the weapon's heat issue...

[Quicksilver Aberration]

FupDup, on 06 November 2014 - 01:45 PM, said:

I've always wondered what it would be like if we increased the upfront damage of the AC/2 to 4, but reduced its DPS to 2.0 to compensate, maybe up the projectile speed a little bit too. Would probably make it act more like a real "mini sniper" weapon than an impotent suppression fire hose. This would also solve the weapon's heat issue...

There was a mod for MW4 that took this route (Evilcow was the main guy behind it) but unfortunately it didn't get enough play to get good tests on whether or not it made them viable as a compact sniping weapon. Kinda wish that mod was still floating around so I could grab the values and play around with them.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 06 November 2014 - 01:52 PM.

[Tombstoner]

WM Quicksilver, on 06 November 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

The problem has and always will be that the lighter the AC is, the different style of play it encourages. AC2s are rapid/continuous fire weapons where as AC20s are big punch weapons and this is where the problem stems from. Make AC2s big punch for their weight and range and you encourage their use on mechs that rely heavily on the skirmisher/harasser role.

There in lies the problem..... PGI's implementation of the ac-2. The ac-2 is ment to be a long range harassment weapon not really carried by large mechs that have the tonnage to mount weapons like the ac-10 or a ppc. The ac-2 should be one of the longest ranged weapons in the game with the least amount of damage drop off and an extremely fast round. Not a brawling weapon. add in knock per hit and a fire rate of .5 you can stun lock people. The ac-2 is meant to be a sniping anti material weapon.

If the ac-2 was more like what i described then i can see a very long range anti base turret and rear armor back stabbing weapon many lights would consider taking.

[Tristan Winter]

Tombstoner, on 06 November 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

There in lies the problem..... PGI's implementation of the ac-2. The ac-2 is ment to be a long range harassment weapon not really carried by large mechs that have the tonnage to mount weapons like the ac-10 or a ppc. The ac-2 should be one of the longest ranged weapons in the game with the least amount of damage drop off and an extremely fast round. Not a brawling weapon. add in knock per hit and a fire rate of .5 you can stun lock people. The ac-2 is meant to be a sniping anti material weapon.
If the ac-2 was more like what i described then i can see a very long range anti base turret and rear armor back stabbing weapon many lights would consider taking.

How would you go about doing that? Just increase range, or change other stats as well?

[Mothykins]

I think overall, part of the problem is PGI hates Sniping (Probably after making so many games on the subject they're just like "no."). This is why we have a singular sniping weapon in the game; The gauss. Which is made hillarious by the ERPPC that has more range, and such a slow travel speed (Better now, but still) This is why the AC2 became a brawling weapon (And then got nerfed again and again... Seriously, it started off bad, and then they kept making it worse.)

Some of the ideologies in the balance for this game are very WTF.

[Tombstoner]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 01:53 PM, said:

How would you go about doing that? Just increase range, or change other stats as well?

It would flat out be the longest ranged weapon in the game... id have to be since i would keep the damage at 2 but the fire rate no faster then 2. remember this is till a huge increase over TT: about 500%. DPS in not important since you cant really balance off range advantages per ton with this system. I would still have the weight be the same but delivering 1 damage at max range every 2.5 seconds is very annoying. over time will amount to some real damage. but your basically untouchable. that must come with some disadvantage... that would be tonnage. Still in the right position people can take down assaults that stip too much armor off the rear or kill turrets. that to me is the nitch the ac-2 is ment for.

[Mothykins]

Let's just do some simple figuring here.

AC2 =

• Worst Damage per heat.
  
• Best DPS/Ton
  
• Tied with Gauss for speed
  
• Worse heat per Second than everything except the AC20
  
• Affected by ghost heat (Non issue for Lights)

[Tristan Winter]

Tombstoner, on 06 November 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

It would flat out be the longest ranged weapon in the game... id have to be since i would keep the damage at 2 but the fire rate no faster then 2. remember this is till a huge increase over TT: about 500%. DPS in not important since you cant really balance off range advantages per ton with this system. I would still have the weight be the same but delivering 1 damage at max range every 2.5 seconds is very annoying. over time will amount to some real damage. but your basically untouchable. that must come with some disadvantage... that would be tonnage. Still in the right position people can take down assaults that stip too much armor off the rear or kill turrets. that to me is the nitch the ac-2 is ment for.

I'm not sure I'd want this, but I appreciate alternate solutions.

For this to work, they would also need to considerably increase the ammo per ton. In fact, they should probably do that anyway, so light mechs don't have to bring 2-4 tons of ammo for their AC2, CUAC2s, etc.

When you're constantly firing at targets over 1000 meters away, you need a lot of ammo to do damage over time.

[The Wakelord]

I agree entirely as an ex-2UAC2 kitfox. I play mostly lights (some medium), and keepwanting to use more ballistics.

Best thing I've found so far is the AC5 (or UAC5) + 3 tonne ammo + back up laser. Workers on the raven, FS & Kitfox at least!

[Tombstoner]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 02:34 PM, said:

I'm not sure I'd want this, but I appreciate alternate solutions.

For this to work, they would also need to considerably increase the ammo per ton. In fact, they should probably do that anyway, so light mechs don't have to bring 2-4 tons of ammo for their AC2, CUAC2s, etc.

When you're constantly firing at targets over 1000 meters away, you need a lot of ammo to do damage over time.

Part of that is the 50% max damage drop off. if your doing 1 point you could strip off the rear ct armor in what 10-15 shots. also each shell is basically a single LRM being delivered from 3,000 meters.
But i think ammo per ton should be ( ac-20 gets 7 shots per ton for 140 damage so why not give the ac-2 70 shots per ton. 2 tons for 140 shots is something reasonable. also the ac-2 round would need to be extremely fast to be useful. with a fire rate of 2 it would take you a full minute to run out of ammo. also its hard to track back to the source as opposed to a laser.

Still having the ability to deliver the same damage as an ac-20 just over a long time frame and at extreme distance is really the essence of the ac-2 from TT. ammo cant be excessive given the range advantage. but this would open up extreme flanking for rear armor shots for lights. trust me its fun. I do it in my ecm commando with and LRM5. rear armor shot in to a few mech in a blob is sufficient to get it to disperse as people move to cover there lightly armored rear. People are like What the... the best is when they think its FF and alpha the nearest team mate.....OMG that is funny

Edited by Tombstoner, 07 November 2014 - 04:56 AM.

[oldradagast]

Zypher, on 06 November 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

AC2s in general are just not well optimized. Even if you packed a DW with them they are overly heavy for the damage and range you get.

The problem is this game is focused on FLD PPD, even with brawling, SRMs are a little different because it's hard to beat the weapon stat ratios and they are good peakaboo weapons for lights. Clan UAC2s are even worse, not even sure why they exist in the game other than to satisfy lore.

If there was a reason in this game for mechs not to be behind cover they might be worthwhile.

Oh you mean like brawling, sure, by why would I be packing an AC2 over something heavier for brawling?

The problem with the Clan light autocannons is the system still fires 4 shots per trigger pull, no matter the damage dealt by the weapon. I understand why this is done to balance Clan AC 10's and 5's, but the number of bullets fired should decrease as the damage goes down. Clan 2's and 5 should only fire 2 bullets to get the full damage, 10's should fire 3, and 20's should fire 4. That way, no bullet ever does less than 1 point of damage, and we get away from the silliness of needing 4 bullets to hit in the same spot to do 2 damage. I've NEVER seen a Clan AC2 of any flavor every in a real match, which proves that they totally useless... even the nerfed IS AC2 shows up now and then, which is saying something.

Cavale, on 06 November 2014 - 02:04 PM, said:

I think overall, part of the problem is PGI hates Sniping (Probably after making so many games on the subject they're just like "no."). This is why we have a singular sniping weapon in the game; The gauss. Which is made hillarious by the ERPPC that has more range, and such a slow travel speed (Better now, but still) This is why the AC2 became a brawling weapon (And then got nerfed again and again... Seriously, it started off bad, and then they kept making it worse.)

Some of the ideologies in the balance for this game are very WTF.

In PGI's defense, I think we've all complained here about how games often turn into camp-fests with nobody moving from behind cover... as well as the problems with very low time to kill. While I'm not saying that PGI's decisions are always right, I can understand their fear of making sniping a heavier part of this game.