122 replies to this topic

[Errinovar]

I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm saying that if you support the LBX it can work. It got me ace of spades. How did you get your Ace of Spades?

[mad kat]

This thread has prompted me to build an ac10 and lb-10x firebrand with four medium lasers just to see Whether combining them is any good. So far ok but not used it enough to properly try it out.

[Wintersdark]

Punk Oblivion, on 13 January 2015 - 02:53 PM, said:

The AC10 is ok. It is inferior to the AC20, but I typically will bring an AC10 over a 20 because of my meh aiming ability haha.

The LBX10 needs a re-work. Either a much faster fire rate, or a flat damage boost to unarmored sections.

The 10's are kinda poor for a couple reasons. They cycle faster than other weapons, but too slow to stay on target, so more often than not you're firing everything, twisting till everything is ready again, the firing again - this prevents fully utilizing the -10's damage potential be it LBX or regular. 2.5s is a very odd cooldown. Then they're big and heavy, a huge logistic investment in a weapon that's far inferior to the (U)AC5 or AC20. For just 2 (or 3) tons the gain going from an LBX or regular AC10 to an AC20 is enormous.

I'd like to both 10's go down to 2 heat, and the AC10 gain ~250m/s projectile speed, and the LBX simply do double damage to internal structure always (rather than just double damage crits, so crit damage remains 2 per pellet but structural damage goes up to 2 per pellet).

That way, the LBX would still be kinda crappy vs. armor, but up close against unarmored targets it'd still typically be delivering 10 damage to your target component, and more damage "shotgunned" elsewhere.

Edited by Wintersdark, 13 January 2015 - 03:20 PM.

[Errinovar]

I'll give that they are more inefficient than standard 10s but as far as disabling enemy mechs (through component destruction) I would argue that the LBX generally does a lot more component destruction than pretty much any other weapon I've used, particularly when you use 2 of them.






13 components destroyed was pretty average, I saw games with 20+ components destroyed. The LBX is good at crippling mechs, despite what you might believe.

Edited by Errinovar, 13 January 2015 - 03:44 PM.

[Tim East]

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 01:41 PM, said:

This is covered in your comment immediately above, but isn't obvious: The ranges at which your aim matters really impact this. Unless you've go atrociously bad aim, its pretty hard to miss at all at the ranges in which an LBX does anything useful at all. You don't need "great aim" in those cases. If you're struggling to hit targets at 200m even with zoom ballistics are not a good weapon for you at all.

Respectfully, I disagree. I have found that in the heat of battle it can be difficult to nail an open ST even up close and personal when your target and you are both twisting and running around while shooting all at the same time, and the small cone of fire from spread weapons can get you the lucky poke you need to send a component flying. If you're shooting an assault moving at 40 kph or someone who doesn't know how to twist, yeah, aiming gets easier, but you can't always count on your enemy handing their mech to your k/d on a silver platter. Of course, you might just be a lot better at aiming than me too. One other thing, some mechs have the goofiest hitboxes. It isn't always obvious where a ST starts and a CT ends, and not everyone wants to dig through the hitbox threads to study every mech either. Also, I'm not sure how recently those have been updated or if anything has changed since then.

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 01:41 PM, said:

But flamers hurt the user more than the target. They're the only weapon where in most cases using them against a target can leave you actually worse odd.

Makes me so angry that they are the way they are. I agree wholeheartedly.

kenyzed, on 13 January 2015 - 01:55 PM, said:

I liked reading the back and forth between Tim East and Wintersdark, I feel like it helped me understand the tone and intention of your posts slightly better. So I have a question: Can you delineate specifically why you think the lesser weight of the LBX doesn't add appreciably to the 'goodness' of the weapon?

If you are using two LBX10s versus 2 AC10s, I feel like 2 tons can go a long way in your build.

Well, that's a fair point, since two tons is the weight of an MPL or 2 MLs, but:

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 02:11 PM, said:

Weight matters, but in this case it's an issue of opportunity cost, and to have that discussion you'd have to discuss specific builds rather than the two weapons.

The problem is, an AC5 is a better weapon than an LBX10, too. It's damage:heat ratio is much better, it's still doing pinpoint damage, it's dealing 5 point crits. Much better range, refire rate, virtually heat free; and it's much lighter. The discussion gets very complicated here however.

Ultimately, the AC10 is a pretty poor autocannon choice except in conjunction with PPC's which have very similar projectile properties (allowing easy pairing), so once you start talking builds then use of the LBX or AC10 at all comes into question.

He's totally right here. 100% the answer I'd have given.

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 03:15 PM, said:

The 10's are kinda poor for a couple reasons. They cycle faster than other weapons, but too slow to stay on target, so more often than not you're firing everything, twisting till everything is ready again, the firing again - this prevents fully utilizing the -10's damage potential be it LBX or regular. 2.5s is a very odd cooldown. Then they're big and heavy, a huge logistic investment in a weapon that's far inferior to the (U)AC5 or AC20. For just 2 (or 3) tons the gain going from an LBX or regular AC10 to an AC20 is enormous.

I'd like to both 10's go down to 2 heat, and the AC10 gain ~250m/s projectile speed, and the LBX simply do double damage to internal structure always (rather than just double damage crits, so crit damage remains 2 per pellet but structural damage goes up to 2 per pellet).

That way, the LBX would still be kinda crappy vs. armor, but up close against unarmored targets it'd still typically be delivering 10 damage to your target component, and more damage "shotgunned" elsewhere.

That would be pretty cool.

I still use LBs on my King Crab in conjunction with 4 MGs, and mostly just ignore the twist rule on anyone crazy enough to enter point-blank range with me. It's crazy, suicidal, counter-intuitive, and surprisingly functional. I've had matches where I just said "screw it" and stared, and killed 3 mechs from full armor. I've even taken AC20 crabs head-on and won with this build. I don't know if my heat efficiency is just that much better that I can sustain fire or if they get distracted by all the flashy lights or what, but I rarely take more than 2 alphas from them.

/edit: re-read your response to me, and I don't know what made me read your stuff as aggressive. Probably just the use of absolute statements such as, "quite frankly Math says you're wrong." I'm usually a pretty chill dude, probably almost to the point where you probably should get disappointed if I'm on your team, since I'm very likely to be running something really silly. Otoh, I've long felt that there is something to be said for silly builds. I used the 5SPL Locust 3M long before the quirkening and the simultaneous buff to both pulse lasers and to a lesser extent regular ones. I actually did very well with that build before it became the go-to build for that mech, because all it took to be viable was a willingness to take risks with myself and close to point-blank range with the mech. The rebalance just improved it by extending the reach of it to allow for close-range poking and raising the damage total to an even 20.

I guess what I'm getting at is that just because something is sub-optimal on paper doesn't mean you can't be a beast with it, which is why you get all those anecdotal mentions of 8 kill LB games or whatever. I feel like the entire game could stand a rebalance, especially with regards to ballistic weaponry, especially IS-side. PPFLD is kind of overpowered in a lot of ways, at least as long as we have 0-delay pinpoint convergence. I don't want to parrot Koniving overmuch, but I don't really like instant convergence, and I don't like how it invalidates the faster convergence efficiency.

Also, I'm starting to think I should do another one of those posts where I take some of the basic mechanics and abbreviations and break them down Barney-style for newbies to get educated with. And try to get it pinned so that it doesn't just evaporate under a thousand other topics. Something like that. I like writing manuals.

Edited by Tim East, 13 January 2015 - 04:01 PM.

[Michael Abt]

With the LBX10 you need to fight asymmetrical, and you need a build to emphasize that, and its spread damage.

One of my favorite HBK-4G builds is LBX10, 2MG and 3ML. The main fire group is all weapons in it. Instead of torso twisting away i stay on target and keep shooting. The weapons are out of sync due to their different cooldowns which has two advantages: it is a steady stream of damage, and heat is more evenly distributed. People twist away to avoid high pinpoint damage to vital spots, but that is not the goal of an LBX10 build. The goal is to shred them into pieces.

Yes it works, and it works great.

[Wintersdark]

Michael Abt, on 13 January 2015 - 03:48 PM, said:

With the LBX10 you need to fight asymmetrical, and you need a build to emphasize that, and its spread damage.

One of my favorite HBK-4G builds is LBX10, 2MG and 3ML. The main fire group is all weapons in it. Instead of torso twisting away i stay on target and keep shooting. The weapons are out of sync due to their different cooldowns which has two advantages: it is a steady stream of damage, and heat is more evenly distributed. People twist away to avoid high pinpoint damage to vital spots, but that is not the goal of an LBX10 build. The goal is to shred them into pieces.

Yes it works, and it works great.

I know you're an exceptional HBK pilot, and to be honest in this case I think you'd do equally well with any build.

That listed above, though? Doing the same with an AC20 would be more effective (particularly considering the same fire rate on a 4G, the AC20 pushes FAR higher DPS).

The problem with the above listed build is it relies on your target cooperating and not returning fire. The LBX/2MG/3ML damage output isn't particularly high and will spread and splatter; most any other build can simply stay on target and hold fire buttons down and win that exchange. One could as well argue that an AC10 would do exactly the same thing (same DPS output, after all) except it'll destroy internal components better than the LBX (as previously detailed).

As I've said before, the LBX isn't useless. It's still a 10 damage autocannon, and at very close range (where you'd be to use machine guns) it's basically just an AC10.

But seriously, I think you could mount flamers instead of ML's on that hunchback and still do really well.

Edited by Wintersdark, 13 January 2015 - 04:46 PM.

[Punk Oblivion]

Tim East, on 13 January 2015 - 03:41 PM, said:

[color=#959595]I still use LBs on my King Crab in conjunction with 4 MGs, and mostly just ignore the twist rule on anyone crazy enough to enter point-blank range with me. It's crazy, suicidal, counter-intuitive, and surprisingly functional. I've had matches where I just said "screw it" and stared, and killed 3 mechs from full armor. I've even taken AC20 crabs head-on and won with this build. I don't know if my heat efficiency is just that much better that I can sustain fire or if they get distracted by all the flashy lights or what, but I rarely take more than 2 alphas from them.[/color]

This is actually a legit tactic that I use as a ballistics lover. The dakka distraction! Something like UAC5's on macros or a mix of AC weapons will keep a constant stream of screen shake/smoke/sparks onto your enemies screens. I have used 65 ton Jagers with dual AC5's/AC2's, and even the 50 ton BJ-1DC with dual AC5's to make atlas' turn and run scared in a 1V1!

Of course you will come across pilots that will remain calm and return just as much damage or more back to you, but I find in pug ques your are mostly safe. Right now I am using a 4AC5/2AC2 KGC to lay down dakka-pocolypse on ppl

Having said that, AC10's/LBX10's are not as good at this by themselves... That is of course unless we get a KGC hero that has ballistics slots in LA/LT/RT/RA *looks at PGI* Hear that guys! I need my quad AC10 mech!

[Kmieciu]

kenyzed, on 01 January 2015 - 12:09 PM, said:

Plus it weighs one less ton, which can be handy. In a vacuum, the AC-10 is better. In the hands of the incompetent, I go LBX every time.

If you've got shaky hands, take some laz0rz instead.

You can train to become better at using AC10. You can learn to lead your shots and compensate for the bullet drop.

You cannot learn to deal with LBX10 spread pattern. It's random and it spreads outward. The only way to hit one component is to get closer.

But you have to realize that SRMs have a slight inward spread. That means, they are more concentrated @250 meters than @50 meters. I have not performed any hard tests, but in my opinion SRM4s deal more concentrated damage than LBX10, at brawling ranges*. And they deal triple damage, for less weight:

4xSRM4
34,4 alpha strike
8 tonnes
11,48 DPS
4 HPS

LB-10X
10 alpha strike
11 tonnes
4 DPS
0.80 HPS

/*Brawling range does not mean point blank because you don't want to hug the enemy mech. You don't want to block your teammates line of fire.

Edited by Kmieciu, 14 January 2015 - 12:30 AM.

[Michael Abt]

First, thanks for the compliments, Wintersdark.

Second, wall of text incoming.

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 04:46 PM, said:

(...)That listed above, though? Doing the same with an AC20 would be more effective (particularly considering the same fire rate on a 4G, the AC20 pushes FAR higher DPS). (...)

LBX10 generates 2 heat, AC20 6 heat. Simplified it means that i am able to shoot the LBX10 three times, AC20 once for same heat. Damage per heat the LBX10 has an advantage. It means that you can keep up fire for a longer duration until you run hot. An AC20 build has higher starting DPS but falls off a lot earlier because of necessary heat management. Due to its high pinpoint damage it is possible to end many fights before that fall off kicks in. However, on maps like TT the difference is very noticable.

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 04:46 PM, said:

(...)The problem with the above listed build is it relies on your target cooperating and not returning fire. The LBX/2MG/3ML damage output isn't particularly high and will spread and splatter; most any other build can simply stay on target and hold fire buttons down and win that exchange. One could as well argue that an AC10 would do exactly the same thing (same DPS output, after all) except it'll destroy internal components better than the LBX (as previously detailed). (...)

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 04:46 PM, said:

(...)As I've said before, the LBX isn't useless. It's still a 10 damage autocannon, and at very close range (where you'd be to use machine guns) it's basically just an AC10.(...)

Your assumption is wrong. I don't rely on him to torso twist - what i do is forcing my fighting style onto him. If the target torso twists i just blow of its arm. At one point he has to open up in order to return fire. It doesn't even matter when he does, even if he starts a shoot out right from the start, because then i am able to aim for the weak spots, and like you wrote, at close range it is basically an AC10 shooting at him. AC10 generates 3 heat, so from that point of view the LBX10 has an advantage over the AC10.


------------------


In the discussions in this thread there are two major misconceptions why some draw the conclusion that the LBX10 is inferior. For example, a gauss rifle does 10 damage too, you can brawl with it as well, but it isn't your first choice for that, is it? The weapon has a different purpose. Same with AC10 and LBX10. Both weapons have a different purpose and that is why you can't flat out compare them.

The second misconception is what one could call the "pinpoint damage doctrine". Several folks pointed out that after a certain distance the LBX10 spread is so high that you can't deal reliable pinpoint damage. Yes! That is *exactly* the point! Pinpoint damage is *not* the intention! The main goal is to land a hit.

Take Canyon Network for example with its typical sniper standoff. Shooting one at long range with an LBX10 is supression fire / drawing attention. That is the purpose. Most common reaction is that the enemy backs off into cover, because even if he noticed it was a low damage hit he has to fear that the next hit will be from a gauss. Supression fire.

Other common reaction is that they switch target to you in order to return fire. With an AC10 i may be stationary, advance zoomed in, and very likely being hit by that return fire. With an LBX10 i am able to land a hit at full speed, moving in an odd angle. The return fire is less likely to hit me. Drawing attention.

Either way the sniper does not shoot my teammates any more, and that is the purpose of long range engagement with the LBX10.

---------------------

Finally, anecdotal evidence. This is my HBK-4G LBX10 build (*ignore armor distribution) i used during the chassis challenge, prequirk, and my best match with it during the event was:




I didn't even use my arti strike in that match...

Edited by Michael Abt, 14 January 2015 - 11:24 AM.

[Punk Oblivion]

Kmieciu, on 13 January 2015 - 11:33 PM, said:

If you've got shaky hands, take some laz0rz instead.

You can train to become better at using AC10. You can learn to lead your shots and compensate for the bullet drop.

You cannot learn to deal with LBX10 spread pattern. It's random and it spreads outward. The only way to hit one component is to get closer.

But you have to realize that SRMs have a slight inward spread. That means, they are more concentrated @250 meters than @50 meters. I have not performed any hard tests, but in my opinion SRM4s deal more concentrated damage than LBX10, at brawling ranges*. And they deal triple damage, for less weight:

4xSRM4
34,4 alpha strike
8 tonnes
11,48 DPS
4 HPS

LB-10X
10 alpha strike
11 tonnes
4 DPS
0.80 HPS

/*Brawling range does not mean point blank because you don't want to hug the enemy mech. You don't want to block your teammates line of fire.

As things stand right now, I would totally agree that SRM's are better then an LBX10. Lighter, more damage per ton of ammo, better spread(especially with artimis on SRM6's)

However, you are bringing missiles to an Autocannon fight, which is what this thread is about. And that's just not fair :-P

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Guh. Lots of incomplete info here and I only got through the first three pages. As a longtime LB10-X user (more regularly than the AC/10), I feel somewhat compelled to provide a full infodump.

So here we go.

MWO Critical Hits

A standard weapon has standard critical hit chances when its projectile or (in the case of lasers) tick hits structure. This is a 35% chance to cause one to three critical hits. Specifically, a 25% chance to cause one critical hit, a 14% chance to cause two critical hits, and a 3% chance to cause three critical hits.

MWO critical hits have two effects. The first effect starts out as per the tabletop game, and then deviates:

Each of these critical hits has an even chance of hitting each slot in a component (6 slots in legs and head, 12 slots in torsos and arms). Any slot that is occupied by Ferro-Fibrous Armour, Endo-Steel Internal Structure, or nothing at all produces a reroll, re-evaluating the critical hit until it hits a component. Actuators, the engine, the gyroscope, the cockpit, life support, and the sensors can all be critically hit, though by current rules for MWO the only one of these that has any effect on the piece of equipment is an engine hit in the Center Torso- if you have heat sinks beyond the base 10 mounted inside the engine, a critical hit to the engine in the CT will hit one of these heat sinks at random.

In the tabletop game, a critical hit to a piece of equipment destroys it, except for the Gyroscope (two hits), the Engine (three hits), or the Sensors (two hits).

In MWO, any piece of equipment that is not an actuator, engine, gyroscope, cockpit, life support, or sensors instead has a set number of 'hit points'. For most equipment this is 10, but large weapons (such as the AC/20) differ. The most notable variances are the AC/20 (which has 20 hit points), and the Gauss Rifle (which has 7 hit points and is -NOT- more likely to be hit, despite what the screensplash at the start of a match may say. This is actually a misworded warning about how frail the Gauss is and the fact that it will explode if destroyed). Ammunition bins similarly have 10 hit points.

Each projectile or tick of weapon damage deals hit points of damage to a piece of equipment on a critical hit equal to the damage that projectile or tick of weapon damage would deal to armor or structure in total. This means that several points come up.

• The only weapon that can destroy an AC/20 with a single critical hit is another AC/20 (however an AC/10, Gauss Rifle, or PPC with two crits both to the AC/20 will still break it).
  
• A critical hit to an ammo bin will not automatically destroy it.
  
• Small lasers (and lasers in general) are really bad for destroying equipment in a 'mech, since each tick checks for critical hits separately.
  
• SRMs aren't too great either.
  
• LRMs are okay, but that's mostly because they have so many projectiles.
  
• Since machine guns deal damage in .1 damage ticks (ten per second), following these rules exactly would make them terrible for breaking equipment. Flamers are just as bad, and generate heat too.
  
• Similarly, these rules would make the LB-X autocannon horrible at breaking equipment, since each pellet only deals 1 damage critical hits.

There are a couple of other alterations before touching on 'high crit' weapons.





In the tabletop, any critical hit to an ammo slot or a Gauss Rifle causes all ammunition and Gauss Rifles in the same component to explode for damage to the 'mech equal to the total remaining shots of explosive ammunition plus 15 points per Gauss Rifle. This damage transfers inwards until spent (exactly the same way weapon damage transfers, which is why it destroys armor before structure and your 'mech may continue functioning for a second or two after the fatal hit), which is why an ammo bin hit in the arm can destroy your entire machine. CASE stops this by preventing the transfer from ammo/Gauss explosions only from transferring after destroying the location with CASE. This is why CASE in the side torso of an Inner Sphere XL 'mech does nothing to prevent the 'mech being 'killed'- although it does save money if you have to replace parts, since only a small portion of the engine has been destroyed.

In MWO, when an ammo slot is destroyed, it has a chance to explode. I don't know what this chance is, but it's something along the lines of 50-75%. Gauss Rifles always explode when destroyed. This damage transfers inwards as usual. This makes ammunition critical hits no longer instant kills even without mounting CASE- a conscious decision on the part of PGI to reduce the chance of instant fatality.

In the tabletop game (which, I should point out, is the base on which all Battletech/Mechwarrior games are made, which is the reason I'm referencing it- I do not think this game should be made a carbon copy of tabletop, but it provides an useful reference point and should be adhered to within reason), critical hits only have the chance to destroy equipment.

In Mechwarrior Online, to offset the reduced chance of destroying equipment and make critical hits still meaningful every time, each critical hit boosts the damage of the projectile or tick that deals it by 10%- but does not increase the HP of damage to equipment. This means that an AC/20 shell that deals a critical hit is actually dealing 22 damage instead of 20- and if it scores a triple critical hit, that damage becomes 26- although the hit points of damage to a piece of equipment per critical hit remain 20. Each critical hit still only deals 20 (not 22 or 26) HP of damage to one component, because 20 is the base damage of an AC/20.

High Crit Weapons

The LB-X autocannon and Machine Gun become terrible by these rules. An LB10-X hit to a location with no armor left winds up with a very low chance of doing anything. The Machine Gun only deals .1 damage per crit, which means it takes 100 crits to kill a slot of ammo. That's a lot of machine gun fire- several hundred ticks, by law of averages, .

HOWEVER.

The LB-X and Machine Gun use the 'improved critical hit ratio' quality. This means that each tick of machine gun fire and each pellet of LB-X shot has, instead of a 35% chance of producing any critical hits at all when damaging exposed Internal Structure, a vastly improved chance.

An LB-X pellet has, instead of a 35% chance of critical hits, a 67% chance- 39% of the time it will produce 1 critical hit, 22% of the time it will produce 2 critical hits, and 7% of the time it will produce 3 critical hits.

Flamers use the same profile as LB-X autocannon, netting a 67% chance of critical hits.

Machine Guns use a slightly different profile- each tick of Machine Gun damage has a 52% chance to provoke critical hits- a 31% chance of one critical hit, a 17% chance of two critical hits, and a 4% chance of three critical hits.

On top of that, the equipment HP damage from the Machine Gun and the LB-X pellet are doubled- 2 and .2 HP, respectively.

This means that the LB10-X, when hitting an armored component, prompts 10 individual checks for critical hits. On average, this will yield 11 critical hits for a total of 1.1 additional damage, and enough critical hits to destroy two normal pieces of equipment should it be alone in the location. After 3 shots to an unarmored component, should your target somehow still retain that component, six pieces of equipment will be destroyed (or one AC/20 and four pieces of other equipment) and you'll have dealt an average of 33 damage, where a standard AC/10 would have dealt, on average, 31 damage and scored 1 critical hit to break one piece of equipment that isn't an AC/20.

This means that the LB 10-X is better for destroying equipment- but only if you're not sure you're going to destroy the whole component. It also makes the LB 10-X much better for triggering ammunition explosions. Plus you get a little more damage to internal structure.




My point, in going over that, is that anyone taking an LB 10-X with the expectation of doing loads more damage in close quarters is using the weapon for the wrong reasons. If you want to break components and trigger ammo explosions, the LB10-X is vastly superior to the AC/10- but only after armor is mostly or completely removed. The same pretty much goes for all clan LB-X autocannon as well.


So, which one is better for general use?

Well, there are upsides and downsides to both.

The Standard AC:

• Fires a single shell. All the damage from the hit is dealt to one location. This is not so true with Clan ACs, which fire 2/3/4/5 shells in a rapid stream, but this is still controllable at least.
  
• Deals its full 10-point crit if its shot strips the last of the armor off -and- deals internal structure damage, giving it a chance to break equipment the instant it breaches armor, no matter what.
  
• Fires a single shell- if you can aim through a narrow space properly with it, you won't lose any of the shot to the sides.
  
• Fires only where you point- if your target moves in an unexpected direction, you don't lead your reticle well enough, or there's an obstacle barely in the way, you get no hits.
  
• Is bigger and heavier. This can be a serious problem if you're strapped for crit slots or tonnage.

The LB-X AC:

• Fires a spread of shot. If you don't have time to aim for precision or can't aim too well, and just want to make sure you hit at all, this can be okay.
  
• Shoots farther. The LB-X autocannon have enough more range than a standard autocannon that it does matter for anything shy of a /20 autocannon. Not huge amounts more on /10 size, but enough to matter. This is more important for the loss of damage beyond intended range- as per a later point, the far reaches of its range are largely unusable.
  
• Has no shell dropoff. The pellets are effectively unhindered by gravity, meaning you don't have to compensate for distance by shooting slighly above what you want to hit.
  
• Fires a spread of shot. If you're shooting at a light 'mech that you can't aim point-on at because it's moving too fast/erratically, or you're firing at something that's smoking but you don't have time to figure out from where and can't get a lock for target info, this can be a real boon.
  
• Will wreck equipment. While the damage from crits to internal structure is a minimal difference, the chance to break things is very significant. If you're not sure you can kill it fast enough, but really want to stop its weapons from firing or stand a good chance of triggering an ammo explosion, the LB-X autocannon is much better.
  
• Is lighter and/or smaller in most IS cases and some Clan cases. A real boon if you're strapped for crits or tonnage.
  
• Runs significantly cooler. You want the lowest-heat non-machinegun ballistic weapon? It's these.
  
• Fires a spread of shot. No shooting through narrow breaches here.
  
• Fires a spread of shot. It doesn't describe a cone (after a certain travel distance the pellets stop spreading significantly) but it's a fairly wide spread at its widest, and the shot pattern is randomized. Sometimes you get a horizontal or vertical line, sometimes you get as many as three individual clusters, sometimes each pellet separates entirely, sometimes you get one cluster at one side of the shot and one pellet on its own at the far side. This plays merry hell with attempts to leverage its extremes of range.

A lot of people will tell you that an LB-X is for CQC only- SRM range or shorter. I have to disagree- but only partly. You cannot reliably use an LB-X autocannon beyond its intended range- that 'Max Range' value is mostly just for show and when you feel like trying to keep heads down by flinging pellets everywhere. The 'Range' value, though, is important. In the case of the Inner Sphere AC/10 and LB 10-X, that increase from 450 to 540 meters is absolutely useful.





A while back- maybe a year or so- I was using AC/10s all over the place. I tried replacing one with an LB 10-X- and my performance with that 'mech improved. I went across my whole set of 'mech bays, replacing AC/10s and improving my performance across the board.

Six months later, I went through my 'mechs again and swapped all of them back to AC/10s- and many of them I tanked on. Not because the AC/10 is worse by any means, but because the way I played the 'mechs and the way I chose my firing solutions for a given situation were often dependent on the different behavior of an LB 10-X.

I now run a mix of both autocannon types, different ones on different 'mechs. Which weapon I use (or want to use) depends very heavily on the 'mech I'm using and the other weapons loaded.

The LB 10-X is usually a support weapon. It's what you run if your other weapons are primary, but that cool-firing, equipment-destroying cannon would be a good supplement. This is true with the CTF-1X Thresher, the HBK-4H Unorthodoxy, and the JM6-A Absolom. It can also be fun and useful in a few other configurations- 'mechs like the TDR-5S From The Blue, BLR-1D Galoot, or BLR-3M Genghis can wield it to destroy equipment after tearing open holes with PPCs or single-action autocannon. A few 'mutant' builds can load them as main weapons to take advantage of the low heat- my CPLT-K2 Ballista for instance.

The AC/10, however, is a main weapon. I put it in the HGN-733 Candycorn for a strong close-range defence and so I have an actually noticeable weapon set when the LRMs are unusable or run dry, and I have plans for another Cataphract or two and some Mediums as well on the backburner that I intend to put standard AC/10s on.


The real problem that many people run up against is that the LB-X autocannon is not intended to do the thing that a lot of players got used to standard ACs doing- dropping individual high-value shots as a main weapon to open a salvo with. The LB 10-X is a powerful secondary weapon, when used for its purpose- breaking your opponent's weapons and weapon supplements so they can't keep shooting you (or your friends) while you go about wrecking their 'mech the rest of the way- or occasionally hunting for an ammo explosion.

Neither autocannon is strictly worse, but the use of a ballistic hardpoint and the size of the LB 10-X make it a bad choice for the things most people want to do with a ballistic hardpoint and 13+ tons of weapon/ammo. You need to consider what kind of weapon you're looking for, what role you want it to fill in your loadout. That's what determines whether the higher value is found in an LB10-X or an AC/10 (or a UAC/5)- or whether an SRM-4 is better than an LRM-5, or what's better between a Large Pulse Laser, a PPC, and an ER PPC, or whether you'd rather have four machine guns and two ERPPCs or two UAC/5s and four medium lasers.





Edit- And concering SRMs, yeah they're better for raw damage at the same tonnage, but that requires a lot more hardpoints to get the same tonnage in, ammo that explodes harder, and considerably harsher ammo usage as well as much higher heat generation, and you have an absolute range limit of 270m without quirks- 297 with module- compared to the very useful 540m (and less useful 1620 max) of the LB10-X.

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 15 January 2015 - 02:34 AM.

[Kmieciu]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 15 January 2015 - 02:12 AM, said:

In MWO, when an ammo slot is destroyed, it has a chance to explode. I don't know what this chance is, but it's something along the lines of 50-75%. Gauss Rifles always explode when destroyed.

10% for an ammo bin, actually. That's why you can crit an entire side torso filled with LRM ammo and still not get an explosion. You are far more likely to destroy entire component before causing any ammo explosion. And guess what - if you do destroy a component all the ammo bins automatically roll for explosion. And AC10 is better at destroying single components than LBX

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Which still makes the LB10-X a better weapon to hunt for an ammo explosion if you're not sure you can rip the component off entirely, since you get a lot of chances at ammo detonation comparatively- assuming you're correct.

I find the 10% assertion curious- where did you get that info? It doesn't match up properly with the experiences I've had.

As far as ammo rolling for explosion when the component is destroyed, either I and every match (6,000+ matches) I've been in are extreme outliers, or you're wrong. I've a number of 'mechs where I pack ammo (2-4 tons per) into an arm and regularly lose the relevant arms and not once has the loss of the arm caused an ammo explosion. This happening would be especially noticeable since I pilot almost only Inner Sphere 'mechs and CASE does not prevent side torso loss in such a situation.

[Tim East]

I mainly see confirmed "ammo" explosions occur on gauss rifle detonation. Every once in a blue moon I'll get killed by one, but most of the time you tend to lose components outright before the ammo in them explodes.

[Wintersdark]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 15 January 2015 - 09:42 PM, said:

Which still makes the LB10-X a better weapon to hunt for an ammo explosion if you're not sure you can rip the component off entirely, since you get a lot of chances at ammo detonation comparatively- assuming you're correct.

I find the 10% assertion curious- where did you get that info? It doesn't match up properly with the experiences I've had.

As far as ammo rolling for explosion when the component is destroyed, either I and every match (6,000+ matches) I've been in are extreme outliers, or you're wrong. I've a number of 'mechs where I pack ammo (2-4 tons per) into an arm and regularly lose the relevant arms and not once has the loss of the arm caused an ammo explosion. This happening would be especially noticeable since I pilot almost only Inner Sphere 'mechs and CASE does not prevent side torso loss in such a situation.

It's 10% for an ammo explosion.

Ammo DOES roll for an explosion when the component is destroyed, but it's unlikely to happen - if it does happen, you're also only suffering damage based on the amount of ammo remaining in those bins. Then, even if it does explode, and does do damage, it's transferring only a fraction of that damage inwards.

Gauss Rifles explosions, as Mr. East says, are counted as Ammo Explosions.

I don't know what you've concluded based on your personal experience, but the above is how it works and how it's always (* since the start of Open Beta) worked.

[Wintersdark]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 15 January 2015 - 02:12 AM, said:

Guh. Lots of incomplete info here and I only got through the first three pages. As a longtime LB10-X user (more regularly than the AC/10), I feel somewhat compelled to provide a full infodump.

Thanks. There's stuff here I didn't say earlier simply because I didn't want to write huge walls of text (moreso than I already have) for background info (and because this isn't a new discussion).

Regardless, thanks for taking the time.

Quote

So here we go.

MWO Critical Hits

All good info, trimmed for brevity. A more indepth guide to MWO crits can be found here as well: http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

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High Crit Weapons
This means that the LB10-X, when hitting an armored component, prompts 10 individual checks for critical hits. On average, this will yield 11 critical hits for a total of 1.1 additional damage, and enough critical hits to destroy two normal pieces of equipment should it be alone in the location. After 3 shots to an unarmored component, should your target somehow still retain that component, six pieces of equipment will be destroyed (or one AC/20 and four pieces of other equipment) and you'll have dealt an average of 33 damage, where a standard AC/10 would have dealt, on average, 31 damage and scored 1 critical hit to break one piece of equipment that isn't an AC/20.

This means that the LB 10-X is better for destroying equipment- but only if you're not sure you're going to destroy the whole component. It also makes the LB 10-X much better for triggering ammunition explosions. Plus you get a little more damage to internal structure.

Now, you're absolutely correct at this part, and it's a very important part.

However, this situation is actually extremely unlikely in normal play. Why? This situation assumes all 10 crits hit the same target component. An LBX fired at 150m to dead center mass on an Atlas, one of the largest CT's to fire at in game from extremely short range, will still hit all three torsos with every blast. Let's assume 2/6/2 hits, to be generous.

That means, against your target component in an ideal situation, you've got 6 pellets rolling to crit, not 10. If you're critting anything other than a side torso, you're also losing a percentage of those crits to actuators, gyros, and such. Now, instead of 22 crit damage in a hit, you've done ~13.2. That's still a destroyed item if it's alone in the component, but if it's, say, a PPC (3 slots) in an arm (UAA, LAA 2 slots) and a DHS (3 slots), roughly 5 crit damage to the PPC. This is important. It's EXTREMELY unlikely for that one shot to destroy the PPC outright, or the DHS. Very, very unlikely.

An AC10 crit on the PPC would destroy it outright, as would a hit on the DHS. There's a 2/8 chance the crit would do nothing (hitting the UAA or LAA) but a 6/8 chance of scoring component destruction.

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My point, in going over that, is that anyone taking an LB 10-X with the expectation of doing loads more damage in close quarters is using the weapon for the wrong reasons. If you want to break components and trigger ammo explosions, the LB10-X is vastly superior to the AC/10- but only after armor is mostly or completely removed. The same pretty much goes for all clan LB-X autocannon as well.

So, it's a vastly superior weapon to break components:

1) At ~100m or less
2) If that component is alone or one of two components in a section, ideally without padding indestructible components.

The AC10 is equal or better at destroying components:
1) At >100m, all the way out to <900m -
At greater ranges, the AC10 is equal or better, and those "greater ranges" extend all the way out to the AC10's furthest maximim range. Any hit that does any damage to structure at all does full weapon damage crits. So, an AC10 hitting an unarmored component at 899m can destroy 1-3 internal components with that hit.
2) If the target still has armor. Again, critical hits are scored if any damage is done to internal structure, Thus, at <450m where the AC10 does 10 damage, against a target with 9.9 armor it can still score 1-3 destroyed internal components.
3) If the components are padded. LBX pellet crits will spread randomly through internal components, the AC10 will simply destroy those components each time they're crit (ac20 notwithstanding, of course).

Exploding ammo bins? 10% chance per bin, as established. Blowing up ammo is fun, but never a really reliable strategy; it's too unlikely.

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So, which one is better for general use?

Well, there are upsides and downsides to both.

The Standard AC:

• Fires a single shell. All the damage from the hit is dealt to one location. This is not so true with Clan ACs, which fire 2/3/4/5 shells in a rapid stream, but this is still controllable at least.
  
• Deals its full 10-point crit if its shot strips the last of the armor off -and- deals internal structure damage, giving it a chance to break equipment the instant it breaches armor, no matter what.
  
• Fires a single shell- if you can aim through a narrow space properly with it, you won't lose any of the shot to the sides.
  
• Fires only where you point- if your target moves in an unexpected direction, you don't lead your reticle well enough, or there's an obstacle barely in the way, you get no hits.
  
• Is bigger and heavier. This can be a serious problem if you're strapped for crit slots or tonnage.

The LB-X AC:

• Fires a spread of shot. If you don't have time to aim for precision or can't aim too well, and just want to make sure you hit at all, this can be okay.
  
• Shoots farther. The LB-X autocannon have enough more range than a standard autocannon that it does matter for anything shy of a /20 autocannon. Not huge amounts more on /10 size, but enough to matter. This is more important for the loss of damage beyond intended range- as per a later point, the far reaches of its range are largely unusable.
  
• Has no shell dropoff. The pellets are effectively unhindered by gravity, meaning you don't have to compensate for distance by shooting slighly above what you want to hit.
  
• Fires a spread of shot. If you're shooting at a light 'mech that you can't aim point-on at because it's moving too fast/erratically, or you're firing at something that's smoking but you don't have time to figure out from where and can't get a lock for target info, this can be a real boon.
  
• Will wreck equipment. While the damage from crits to internal structure is a minimal difference, the chance to break things is very significant. If you're not sure you can kill it fast enough, but really want to stop its weapons from firing or stand a good chance of triggering an ammo explosion, the LB-X autocannon is much better.
  
• Is lighter and/or smaller in most IS cases and some Clan cases. A real boon if you're strapped for crits or tonnage.
  
• Runs significantly cooler. You want the lowest-heat non-machinegun ballistic weapon? It's these.
  
• Fires a spread of shot. No shooting through narrow breaches here.
  
• Fires a spread of shot. It doesn't describe a cone (after a certain travel distance the pellets stop spreading significantly) but it's a fairly wide spread at its widest, and the shot pattern is randomized. Sometimes you get a horizontal or vertical line, sometimes you get as many as three individual clusters, sometimes each pellet separates entirely, sometimes you get one cluster at one side of the shot and one pellet on its own at the far side. This plays merry hell with attempts to leverage its extremes of range.

A lot of people will tell you that an LB-X is for CQC only- SRM range or shorter. I have to disagree- but only partly. You cannot reliably use an LB-X autocannon beyond its intended range- that 'Max Range' value is mostly just for show and when you feel like trying to keep heads down by flinging pellets everywhere. The 'Range' value, though, is important. In the case of the Inner Sphere AC/10 and LB 10-X, that increase from 450 to 540 meters is absolutely useful.

You cannot reliably use an LB-X beyond about 300m.

Even at 300m, the spread is large enough to completely encompass a Cicada. Not just hit every target section, but miss with many pellets too.

The range increase from 450 to 540 meters is irrelevant unless you're in really low Elo (and your targets are unspeakably bad) because LBX's fired at that range:

1) cover entire mechs with pathetically minimal damage.
2) Miss with a good portion of their damage no matter how true your aim.

Players who duck into cover under LBX fire at that range are very bad, and pose no real threat anyways. With that said, if you're a new player, that's fine: If you can get people to duck into cover at long range, by all means do it. But don't expect that tactic to work as you start facing experienced players. At >300m, an LBX does such ridiculously little useful damage that you're better off just wandering about, eating fire, then closing once the LBX mech has uselessly expended it's ammo.

Quote

Edit- And concering SRMs, yeah they're better for raw damage at the same tonnage, but that requires a lot more hardpoints to get the same tonnage in, ammo that explodes harder, and considerably harsher ammo usage as well as much higher heat generation, and you have an absolute range limit of 270m without quirks- 297 with module- compared to the very useful 540m (and less useful 1620 max) of the LB10-X.

Needing more hardpoints to get the same tonnage in is bad, tonnage is a significant limiting factor, you want to get effectiveness with LESS tonnage. Having spare tonnage left is awesome, as it can be spent elsewhere. Given that one SRM6 comparable to an LBX 10 in terms of damage done through armor and superior in terms of damage done when armor is involved, weighs only 3/4 tons and 2/3 slots (artemis dependent).

SRM6's burn 1 ton of ammo per 66.7s. An LB-10-X AC burns a ton of ammo in 37.5s Thus, SRM6's, given comparable damage output one launcher to one LBX, burns ammo at half the rate. You get the same firing time out of 2SRM6's than an LBX (thus doing 24 damage per shot instead of 10, too)

Edited by Wintersdark, 16 January 2015 - 03:59 PM.

[Wintersdark]

---

Oh! I will add: I hadn't realised LBX's had no bullet drop. That's pretty cool; you learn something new every day!

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

Now, you're absolutely correct at this part, and it's a very important part.

However, this situation is actually extremely unlikely in normal play. Why? This situation assumes all 10 crits hit the same target component. An LBX fired at 150m to dead center mass on an Atlas, one of the largest CT's to fire at in game from extremely short range, will still hit all three torsos with every blast. Let's assume 2/6/2 hits, to be generous.

That means, against your target component in an ideal situation, you've got 6 pellets rolling to crit, not 10. If you're critting anything other than a side torso, you're also losing a percentage of those crits to actuators, gyros, and such. Now, instead of 22 crit damage in a hit, you've done ~13.2. That's still a destroyed item if it's alone in the component, but if it's, say, a PPC (3 slots) in an arm (UAA, LAA 2 slots) and a DHS (3 slots), roughly 5 crit damage to the PPC. This is important. It's EXTREMELY unlikely for that one shot to destroy the PPC outright, or the DHS. Very, very unlikely.

An AC10 crit on the PPC would destroy it outright, as would a hit on the DHS. There's a 2/8 chance the crit would do nothing (hitting the UAA or LAA) but a 6/8 chance of scoring component destruction.

Atlas do not have super-large CTs- they're actually quite narrow. The data in the hitbox localization thread on the AS7 is current as of the last hitbox pass for the Atlas (and more recent than that, actually). Of the IS assaults, currently only the Stalker and Victor have center torsos with narrower portions, and both are only narrower in certain spots. If you want a wide CT, go to an AWS or KGC and try again. Atlases have very big side torsos, so if you want to test on a big location, use that instead.

Additionally, while the shot cluster -is- random so consistency only runs around 2/3 (roughly), firing from 450m or less with an LB10-X tends to land 3-5 pellets near enough the center of its spread to hit an aimed-at location, which is still plenty of chance to crit and destroy some piece of equipment (average of 6-10 critical damage per shot, on top of whatever critical damage was done by whatever weapon penetrated the armor to begin with). Remember that part of my point is that the LB10-X should rarely, if ever, be mounted as a -main- gun.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

So, it's a vastly superior weapon to break components:

1) At ~100m or less
2) If that component is alone or one of two components in a section, ideally without padding indestructible components.

The AC10 is equal or better at destroying components:
1) At >100m, all the way out to <900m -
At greater ranges, the AC10 is equal or better, and those "greater ranges" extend all the way out to the AC10's furthest maximim range. Any hit that does any damage to structure at all does full weapon damage crits. So, an AC10 hitting an unarmored component at 899m can destroy 1-3 internal components with that hit.
2) If the target still has armor. Again, critical hits are scored if any damage is done to internal structure, Thus, at <450m where the AC10 does 10 damage, against a target with 9.9 armor it can still score 1-3 destroyed internal components.
3) If the components are padded. LBX pellet crits will spread randomly through internal components, the AC10 will simply destroy those components each time they're crit (ac20 notwithstanding, of course).

The LB10-X is also a vastly superior weapon to break components if part of a 'mech is stripped but you don't have time to aim precisely, because you're moving for various reasons (seeking cover yourself, following team to an important location, attempting to roll damage) or because they're moving quickly (lights and fast Mediums). And again, your range profile is vastly overestimating the degree and rate to which LB-X shot spread.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

You cannot reliably use an LB-X beyond about 300m.

I can, have, and do. So can anyone else, because frankly, I'm no wizard at the controls.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

Even at 300m, the spread is large enough to completely encompass a Cicada. Not just hit every target section, but miss with many pellets too.

An interesting assertion, but it would work better if you didn't use something shaped like a fat lollipop on a very long stick- those legs stick well out of the spread. It's definitely large enough to encompass a whole -light- 'mech, but even the Cicada is too tall to be entirely within the shot spread. And yes, you do miss with some pellets (many if you're unlucky on your shot pattern), but again- that's a price you pay for ensuring that at least some hit, rather than being an all-or-nothing shot.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

The range increase from 450 to 540 meters is irrelevant unless you're in really low Elo (and your targets are unspeakably bad) because LBX's fired at that range:

1) cover entire mechs with pathetically minimal damage.
2) Miss with a good portion of their damage no matter how true your aim.

Players who duck into cover under LBX fire at that range are very bad, and pose no real threat anyways. With that said, if you're a new player, that's fine: If you can get people to duck into cover at long range, by all means do it. But don't expect that tactic to work as you start facing experienced players. At >300m, an LBX does such ridiculously little useful damage that you're better off just wandering about, eating fire, then closing once the LBX mech has uselessly expended it's ammo.

Assuming the LB-X wielding 'mech is alone and has no other weapons to fire at 450-540m, then you're right assuming that 'duck, suckaz~!' is the only intent- but those shot also make it hard for the pilot fired upon to see what's happening. Again, you're underestimating the useful range. Again, part of my point here is that the LB-X is a support weapon, not a primary damage weapon, except in relatively rare cases, and the issues people have with them tend to stem from trying to use it just like any other autocannon instead of as a completely different weapons system.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

Needing more hardpoints to get the same tonnage in is bad, tonnage is a significant limiting factor, you want to get effectiveness with LESS tonnage. Having spare tonnage left is awesome, as it can be spent elsewhere.

Sure, assuming you have hardpoints to spare. Many 'mechs in MWO simply don't. Which is my point regarding hardpoints. Having spare tonnage left is awesome, if you have an 'elsewhere' to spend it, but there are plenty of times in this game where that's simply not efficient or the LB-X is better, given that engine weights scale really hard past about a 330 engine and sometimes your remaining hardpoint list is 'one/two ballistic in this arm and a missile in the head' or something along those lines.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

Given that one SRM6 comparable to an LBX 10 in terms of damage done through armor and superior in terms of damage done when armor is involved, weighs only 3/4 tons and 2/3 slots (artemis dependent).

And also scores less than half as many critical hits per shot for the same component damage per critical hit.

Wintersdark, on 16 January 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

SRM6's burn 1 ton of ammo per 66.7s. An LB-10-X AC burns a ton of ammo in 37.5s Thus, SRM6's, given comparable damage output one launcher to one LBX, burns ammo at half the rate. You get the same firing time out of 2SRM6's than an LBX (thus doing 24 damage per shot instead of 10, too)

Hang on a minute here, weren't we discussing four SRM-4 launchers as composed to an LB-10X? Or something approaching equal tonnage (but also assuming a rather bloated number of missile hardpoints)? Someone was. And again, you're discarding the range differences between the LB-X and the SRMs as though the LB-X's range was absolutely meaningless. You're also ignoring heat difference, as was the person who mentioned the SRM launchers to begin with.

The LB-10X is absolutely usable at ranges beyond 300m. All ranges beyond 300m? No, but it is for a significant distance beyond that. And swapping .8 HPS for 4 HPS (as they recommended) is the difference between consuming the dissipation of four double heat sinks and twenty plus double heat sinks, given that that 4HPS isn't taking ghost heat into account.

[Bleary]

Wintersdark, on 13 January 2015 - 01:41 PM, said:

This is covered in your comment immediately above, but isn't obvious: The ranges at which your aim matters really impact this. Unless you've go atrociously bad aim, its pretty hard to miss at all at the ranges in which an LBX does anything useful at all. You don't need "great aim" in those cases. If you're struggling to hit targets at 200m even with zoom ballistics are not a good weapon for you at all.

In order to take real advantage of the AC's pinpoint damage, it's not enough to hit your target. You also have to be able to hit a specific location on the target. Otherwise your shot-to-shot damage is getting spread all over regardless of which autocannon you're using. If you or your target are moving at a fast lateral clip, reliably hitting one location is not a trivial thing. Even at 200m.

I have far more experience with the LB-20 than the IS LB-10, which isn't really the same kind of comparison. But I can say that I always suit up my LB brawler Crow for kill challenges, because it's damn near impossible to shoot a cored 'Mech without blowing off a location.

Edited by Bleary, 20 January 2015 - 07:49 PM.