53 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 08:02 AM, said:

Is does not an ought make.

KFX-Prime, ADR-D, CDA-3M, BJ1, BJ1DC, IFR-A all come with AC2's, AC5's, CLB2X, CUAC5, CLB5X. Nobody every uses those weapons for those mechs, except stoch mech enthusiasts. There's clearly a precedent for putting light ballistics on light mechs and small medium mechs, but there's no point in this game. I think it would be a step in the right direction if light mechs had the same kind of flexibility that other mechs have in this game. The choice between lasers, PPCs, SRMs, LRMs, ballistics and PPCs should be available to everyone.

And the clan AC2 variants shouldn't be so bad. I have yet to see anyone actually using the LB2X for the Ice Ferret A-variant.

I don't think UAC5s or AC5's need to be changed for either IS or Clans, because it's too hard to change them without messing with medium, heavy and assault mech builds. But AC2s and all the Clan AC2 variants are different. No clan heavies use the LB2X.

Yes but for a light Mech to carry a worthy AC it had to give up speed or armor or both. Look at the hundreds of light Mechs in Universe. Only a handful carry Ballistics. and each has a glaring weakness to do so.

[Tristan Winter]

Jin Ma, on 06 November 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Sure but that is a seperate problem the AC2 has its own nitch as a heavier weapon for medium mechs <. But we are talking about light mechs right now.
With the velocity and the poor damage/tonnage it will never be a good weapon on light mechs

Unless PGI changes velocity and DPS, right? Because they could do that.

By the way, I'm not seeing any medium mechs with AC2 at all. They're all carrying AC5, AC10 or even AC20 / gauss. Even the Blackjack that comes with AC2 is carrying an AC20 on its tiny 45 ton body. What medium mechs are you seeing with AC2's?

[dario03]

Yeah I wouldn't mind having some protomech or light autocannons. Or just a version of the AC2/5 that is exactly like the regular version but lighter and with much less range. Might cause a issue with heavier mechs boating them so slap on some limits or ghost heat or whatever. I also wouldn't mind some energy weapons to go inbetween the ml/mpl and ll.

[Jin Ma]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 10:59 AM, said:

Unless PGI changes velocity and DPS, right? Because they could do that.

By the way, I'm not seeing any medium mechs with AC2 at all. They're all carrying AC5, AC10 or even AC20 / gauss. Even the Blackjack that comes with AC2 is carrying an AC20 on its tiny 45 ton body. What medium mechs are you seeing with AC2's?

Shadowhawks one of the best mediums. A long range slow moving weapon just does not work with the philosophy of a hit and run up close light mech.

Would i like to see it viable? Sure, but that would mean buffing its ballistic speed so that it is inconsistent with the rest of the autocannon line to move it into another nitch (fast hit and run weapon) just doesn't make sense

Edited by Jin Ma, 06 November 2014 - 11:01 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 November 2014 - 10:58 AM, said:

Yes but for a light Mech to carry a worthy AC it had to give up speed or armor or both. Look at the hundreds of light Mechs in Universe. Only a handful carry Ballistics. and each has a glaring weakness to do so.

That's not the case with Clan mechs though, and certainly not in this game. The Ice Ferret with max armour and all that speed is capable of carrying an CLB2X without problems. The only issue is that the CLB2X is doing about as much damage as the Inner Sphere flamer on a mech with single heatsinks. The mech isn't the issue, IMO.

[dario03]

Jin Ma, on 06 November 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Shadowhawks one of the best mediums

You talking about the 3xac2 shadowhawk? That used to be a great mech and would see it decently often but I haven't seen those much at all in months.

[Jin Ma]

dario03, on 06 November 2014 - 11:01 AM, said:

You talking about the 3xac2 shadowhawk? That used to be a great mech and would see it decently often but I haven't seen those much at all in months.

sure they can rebuff it so it works on the mediums better, But like i said we are talking about ballistics for light mechs right now.

even the Clan ACs dont work well on light mechs

Edited by Jin Ma, 06 November 2014 - 11:07 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

That's not the case with Clan mechs though, and certainly not in this game. The Ice Ferret with max armour and all that speed is capable of carrying an CLB2X without problems. The only issue is that the CLB2X is doing about as much damage as the Inner Sphere flamer on a mech with single heatsinks. The mech isn't the issue, IMO.

Never was to much of a problem with Clan Mechs as the ACs were about 15% lighter than IS ACs of the same class.

[Khobai]

PGI should add mech rifles as lightweight ballistic options... theyre canon weapon that predate autocannons. just remove the 3 damage penalty when shooting at battlemechs.

light rifle 3 damage, 3 tons, 360m range, 1 heat, 1.75s cooldown
medium rifle 6 damage, 5 tons, 450m range, 2 heat, 2.25s cooldown
heavy rifle 9 damage, 8 tons, 540m range, 4 heat, 2.75s cooldown

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heavy_Rifle

[Zypher]

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?

Edited by Zypher, 06 November 2014 - 11:12 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

Jin Ma, on 06 November 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

sure they can rebuff it so it works on the mediums better, But like i said we are talking about ballistics for light mechs right now.
even the Clan ACs dont work well on light mechs

I'm also talking about the 40 and 45 tonners, because as soon as you get to 50 and 55 tons, you have more freedom to carry bigger guns. And yeah, the BJ can carry an AC20, but it's supposed to carry AC2's, so I included it in the conversation. It has the capacity to fire 2 AC2's rather well with DHS, but they just don't do enough damage unless you bring 3 or combine them with AC5s or AC10s.

Joseph Mallan, on 06 November 2014 - 11:04 AM, said:

Never was to much of a problem with Clan Mechs as the ACs were about 15% lighter than IS ACs of the same class.

I'm sorry, I don't know what your point is here. Could you explain?

Jin Ma, on 06 November 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Would i like to see it viable? Sure, but that would mean buffing its ballistic speed so that it is inconsistent with the rest of the autocannon line to move it into another nitch (fast hit and run weapon) just doesn't make sense

This is an argument I don't particularly care for. It's this line of reasoning that made Paul nerf pulse lasers, to make them "consistent". Which made all the lasers look very neat and logical on paper, but it also resulted in ER LLs, MLs and LLs being the only 3 of 7 laser weapons in use.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

I'm also talking about the 40 and 45 tonners, because as soon as you get to 50 and 55 tons, you have more freedom to carry bigger guns. And yeah, the BJ can carry an AC20, but it's supposed to carry AC2's, so I included it in the conversation. It has the capacity to fire 2 AC2's rather well with DHS, but they just don't do enough damage unless you bring 3 or combine them with AC5s or AC10s.


I'm sorry, I don't know what your point is here. Could you explain?


This is an argument I don't particularly care for. It's this line of reasoning that made Paul nerf pulse lasers, to make them "consistent". Which made all the lasers look very neat and logical on paper, but it also resulted in ER LLs, MLs and LLs being the only 3 of 7 laser weapons in use.

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.

[Jin Ma]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

This is an argument I don't particularly care for. It's this line of reasoning that made Paul nerf pulse lasers, to make them "consistent". Which made all the lasers look very neat and logical on paper, but it also resulted in ER LLs, MLs and LLs being the only 3 of 7 laser weapons in use.

lets not bring paul up as a point in any balance discussions. that is just a can of worms

[Postumus]

The problem is that high ROF with low damage weapons are never going to be viable in this game in the way that high damage, low ROF weapons like the Gauss or AC/20 are. Any weapon that relies on constantly facing towards and exposing yourself to the enemy puts the mech carrying that weapon at a disadvantage. There are two ways to go about fixing AC/2s and their derivatives:

Very fast burst fire with a longer cooldown - put out several (3-4) full damage slugs, or slightly more partial damage slugs for the clan version, is the space of half a second, followed by a long cooldown. This can be balanced so that the DPS ends up the same, but with a higher burst damage. This would let you get your long range shot off, and then seek cover or maneuver without losing DPS. This could also be done to the AC/5 - have a burst of 2 full damage slugs almost instantly, followed by twice the cooldown.

Increase rate of fire to the point where it is impossible to fire all the time - the tactic would then be, fire as much as you can in your window of opportunity, and spend the rest of the time cooling down. The problem with increasing heat on the AC/2 is that it affects smaller mechs more than larger ones, because they have a smaller heat "budget", with less tonnage for heatsinks.

The best solution is the first one, because all it does is rearrange the damage over time profile from a steady line to a square pulse, which is what all of the competitive weapons look like.

[BourbonFaucet]

IMO what they ought to do with the AC/2 is un-nerf the firing rate, reduce ghost heat by 1 cannon, and decrease heat per shell by a bit, then test it and see if the weapon does any better in the long-term setting of many, many matches.

[Mothykins]

Machne guns just need to stop sucking.

There is literally no other way to look at it than that. Lowest DPS weapon in the game, weighs at the least 1 tons for IS, .75 for Clan becasue of ammo being required. It is the same weight with minimum ammo as one medium laser or two smalls, yet puts out less DPs than either combination. Yes, it has no heat production, but neither does a Gauss or (Generally speaking) the AC5

It requires constant face time to use, and almost face hugging range. The largest boatable ammount is 6, currently dealing a whole 4.8 DPS where the same tonnage in SMALL LASERS, (Sans the ammo on the guns) is 18 Damage alphas, with 6 DPS. Of note is, at this quantity, a single ton of ammo lasts 33 seconds.

As well, at that quantity, they are comparable in tonnage to 1/2 a single AC2. The machine guns output more than twice the DPS, but at 1/6^th the nominal range.



It's really hard to balance the Machineguns in general, just looking at this mess.

[Jin Ma]

Cavale, on 06 November 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

Machne guns just need to stop sucking.

There is literally no other way to look at it than that. Lowest DPS weapon in the game, weighs at the least 1 tons for IS, .75 for Clan becasue of ammo being required. It is the same weight with minimum ammo as one medium laser or two smalls, yet puts out less DPs than either combination. Yes, it has no heat production, but neither does a Gauss or (Generally speaking) the AC5

It requires constant face time to use, and almost face hugging range. The largest boatable ammount is 6, currently dealing a whole 4.8 DPS where the same tonnage in SMALL LASERS, (Sans the ammo on the guns) is 18 Damage alphas, with 6 DPS. Of note is, at this quantity, a single ton of ammo lasts 33 seconds.

As well, at that quantity, they are comparable in tonnage to 1/2 a single AC2. The machine guns output more than twice the DPS, but at 1/6^th the nominal range.



It's really hard to balance the Machineguns in general, just looking at this mess.

it was a force to be reckoned with on the Spider.. almost as good as the jenner F.. but that wa sback when spiders had lag shiled

[Alistair Winter]

Cavale, on 06 November 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

Machne guns just need to stop sucking.

That's a weird thing to say when the best light mech in the game, or certainly top 3, is the Ember, with 4 MGs. And MGs on Clan mechs are just brutal, on certain mechs. Especially if you have 4 of them, like on the Nova.

However, I will agree that MGs are terrible on most mechs. For example, no one in their right mind would equip a single MG. So the MG is wasted on the Adder, the Ice Ferret and any other mech with a single ballistic slot. They're also not very scary on the Spider 5K, because it doesn't have enough energy weapons to get through the armour. The reason the Ember is such a menace, is because it has both 4 energy hardpoints and 4 ballistic hardpoints.

You can buff the MG all day, but it doesn't really help the clan mechs with a limited number of hardpoints, like the ECM Kit Fox, Adder and Ice Ferret. However, all those mechs would be a menace if they had at least 3 energy hardpoints and 3 or 4 MGs

I personally can't think of a single reason why they would only give the Ice Ferret 1 ballistic hardpoint, except to actively prevent MGs. With only 9 tons to play with, it's physically impossible to carry more than 1 of any ballistic weapon other than MGs.

If I were to put on my tinfoil hat, I would say that PGI doesn't want too many mechs to have MGs and flamers, because those weapons put a tremendous toll on the servers. And they don't want to talk about that kind of stuff.

[Almond Brown]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 November 2014 - 10:58 AM, said:

Yes but for a light Mech to carry a worthy AC it had to give up speed or armor or both. Look at the hundreds of light Mechs in Universe. Only a handful carry Ballistics. and each has a glaring weakness to do so.

Maybe PGI could introduce the Light AC20.

[stjobe]

Alistair Winter, on 06 November 2014 - 11:53 AM, said:

That's a weird thing to say when the best light mech in the game, or certainly top 3, is the Ember, with 4 MGs. And MGs on Clan mechs are just brutal, on certain mechs. Especially if you have 4 of them, like on the Nova.

However, I will agree that MGs are terrible on most mechs. For example, no one in their right mind would equip a single MG. So the MG is wasted on the Adder, the Ice Ferret and any other mech with a single ballistic slot. They're also not very scary on the Spider 5K, because it doesn't have enough energy weapons to get through the armour. The reason the Ember is such a menace, is because it has both 4 energy hardpoints and 4 ballistic hardpoints.

Nobody in their right mind takes a single MG.

Nobody in their right mind takes two MGs.

Three or more MGs, with some heavy ACs or preferably energy weapons to do the heavy lifting? Sure, now MGs look good.

PGI decided long ago (and here I place the blame squarely on Paul) that MGs should - and I quote - "suck against armour".

No matter that the BattleTech MG is as powerful as the BattleTech AC/2, only with a lot shorter range.

No matter that several 'mechs use MGs as their primary weaponry, and a lot more use them as backups.

No matter that the first really usable ballistic weapons weighs in a 6 tons - which is a lot for a 20-35 ton 'mech to carry.

No matter that "sucking against armour" translates to "being a waste of tonnage".

We're on the seventh (IIRC) iteration of the MG in MWO now, and it still isn't worth taking unless you can pack on three or more AND you have some other weaponry to strip armour with.

The MG in MWO is an atrociously badly implemented weapon that has been severely step-motherly treated by a man that has no clue about game balance or BattleTech, but still insisted on balancing a BattleTech game.

The same man who buffed the damage output of the AC/2 by 20 times its TT output - the highest buff any weapon in MWO got in the translation from TT. Guess which weapon got the least buff? Yep, that's right.

The MG.

So there is a solution to this problem, and it is to get rid of the stupid, misguided notion that the MG should be a "crit weapon" - ALL weapons in MWO crit at a rate of 42% of hits against unarmoured locations, and almost all of them do more damage than an MG, many of them being capable of destroying internal components instantly - and make the MG a regular, short-ranged, weapon like it's supposed to be.

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