28 replies to this topic

[Brody319]

Bishop Steiner, on 04 May 2015 - 06:30 AM, said:

because changing tonnage would somehow affect their lore stats and builds an less?

could mess with stock builds. which can lead to mechs being broken when bought.

[Bishop Steiner]

Brody319, on 04 May 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

could mess with stock builds. which can lead to mechs being broken when bought.

kind of the point being gotten at......

[Quaamik]

I’m familiar with the mechanic for reducing damage under a minimum range. I still say that no one would run a ERPPC / C-ERPPC with a 270 m minimum range. The weight and heat generation of a ERPPC / C-ERPPC force them to be the primary weapon of a mech to be useable. On Mediums and Lights, it forces them to be the only significant weapon normally.

The heat, recharge time, velocity and pinpoint all work against the PPCs when employed against lights at close range. Getting a hit against a fast circling light is hard. Add in jump jets and obsticals in terrain it’s really hard. Getting a critical hit – one that will damage the light enough to force it to back off or to let you take it – is near impossible. Decrease the damage below 270 meters? That’s the area that a light swarming you can stay in. Even with light speed velocity (ala lasers) you wouldn’t be able to put enough damage on a light to hope to survive. When it’s your main weapons system, it becomes too much of a liability with that big a dead zone.



The PPC/ERPPC/C-ERPPC are broken and out of balance, no question. As to how to fix them?

First, fix the hit registration (bad issue on the C-ERPPC). The reason I say first is if it turns out it cannot be fixed with the current “spread out” damage, then it changes how to balance them.

Assuming it can be fixed:

-Change the minimum range of the PPC to decrease damage with decreased range. So that at 45 m (1/2 the 90 m minimum) it does ½ damage.
-Increase speed of all the PPC/ERPPC/C-ERPPC family to the same speed of 2000 mps, same as the Gauss is currently.
-Use the same trick they did for the Gauss when the clans came out (limiting to no more than 2 Gauss charging at once) to limit to no more than 2 of any combination of PPC or Gauss firing at once.

Leave everything else the same.

Assuming they CANNOT fix the hit registry while still spreading the damage of the C-ERPPC (this makes it harder):

-Break cannon and reduce the C-ERPPC to 12 or 13 pinpoint damage AND 11 or 12 heat. That reduction brings it more in line with lasers for heat, and compensates for the lower DPS with the lower heat, allowing faster firing before overheat.
-Change the minimum range of the PPC to decrease damage with decreased range. So that at 45 m (1/2 the 90 m minimum) it does ½ damage.
-Increase speed of all the PPC/ERPPC/C-ERPPC family to the same speed of 2000 mps, same as the Gauss is currently.
-Use the same trick they did for the Gauss when the clans came out (limiting to no more than 2 Gauss charging at once) to limit to no more than 2 of any combination of PPC or Gauss firing at once.

Leave everything else the same.


The PPCs will still be less effective than Gauss in the sniper role, because you can see it coming and see where it came from. Not to mention the Gauss, with 15 pinpoint damage, will still hit harder.
The screams about how a 2000 mps speed on the C-ERPPC will overbalance the game are negated by the fact the PPC and ERPPC will have the same speed.
The screams about how the C-ERPPC giving Clans a second sniper weapon will overbalance the game are negated by the fact that you still can’t fire more than 2 “sniper” weapons.
The screams about how the C-ERPPC having a 12 – 13 point pinpoint damage will overbalance the game are negated by the fact that the IS ACs have better pinpoint damage than the Clan ACs.

[Quaamik]

Since everyone is terrified of a return to the 2 Gauss + 1 ERPPC builds that "dominated", this could prevent that:

(PPC below includes any in the PPC / ERPPC / C-ERPPC family):

If they could not set it so that more than 2 Gauss or PPC could fire at once, build a feedback in. Make it so fireing a PPC drains the charge on any Gauss capacitors on the same mech. Make it so firing a Gauss disrupts any PPCs (as though they fired) for the amount of time they normally recharge. Make ghost heat multi stage for PPCs. As in 1 PPC is normal heat, 2 at a time is x additional, 3 at a time is 2x additional, 4 at a time is 4x additional. That would prevent 3-6 PPC builds that fired together as the mech would detonate due to overheat. But still allow paired PPCs or volley fire to compensate for the slow recharge.

[Aiden Skye]

PPC's are my favorite weapon in Battletech. I usually use them in pairs with smaller lasers for back up. I don't like the fact that they have been nerfed because of the AC5 / PPC and Guass+PPC meta min maxing zerg. What about those of us that aren't interested in meta?

Yosharian, on 04 May 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:

Messing with the minimum ranges runs contrary to table-top lore which PGI have shown they more or less don't want to do.

If PGI didn't want to mess up lore, why aren't my CERPPC's doing 15/15? Instead of 10 + useless 2.5 on each side? I'm pretty sure in lore PPC's wern't so slow as well.

Edited by W A R K H A N, 04 May 2015 - 12:15 PM.

[Rhent]

W A R K H A N, on 04 May 2015 - 12:10 PM, said:

PPC's are my favorite weapon in Battletech. I usually use them in pairs with smaller lasers for back up. I don't like the fact that they have been nerfed because of the AC5 / PPC and Guass+PPC meta min maxing zerg. What about those of us that aren't interested in meta?



If PGI didn't want to mess up lore, why aren't my CERPPC's doing 15/15? Instead of 10 + useless 2.5 on each side? I'm pretty sure in lore PPC's wern't so slow as well.

Really, having 3 hits on a mech giving you three chances at a crit is worthless when you have only 1 chance at a crit?

[Brody319]

I got an idea! Lets change PPCs to fire 3 small bursts (4 for ERPPCs) the damage being split into each little burst.
then they can reduce the heat and increase the velocity. People always complain how Clan Ballistics are pretty useless because of the burst fire spreading damage, well if the PPC did that, then it would spread damage and decrease front loaded damage.

[Navid A1]

regarding clan ERPPCs... how are you going to differentiate?... between what?... clans only have 1 type ERPPC.
your suggestion for cERPPC will kill an already rare weapon.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Rhent, on 03 May 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

You can't increase the ERPPC velocity and recycle time without giving it a weakness beyond heat.

Says you, that is the reason the weapon used to be viable even during a brawl, it wasn't because of the alpha, it was because you a reasonable sustained DPS which a longer recycle time would counteract making you less useful in a brawl. Long recycle times are less important in a poke fight especially if you are trading the ability to actually hit a target with a decent speed at 800m.

Rhent, on 03 May 2015 - 09:55 PM, said:

A lot of people want ERPPC/PPC's to be viable again and have higher velocities but the only way to do that would be to either greatly increase heat or bring in dead space.

This is quite an assumption you are making, there were a lot of factors that contributed to PPCs being meta for as long as they are and I believe some of those factors have changed, enough for all non Gauss projectiles to get a decent velocity boost, including PPCs to actually compete better with the laser vomit meta without any trade-off.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 04 May 2015 - 02:07 PM.