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In general, any ballistic weapon other than the machine gun, should come with 1 ton of ammo as part of fitting the weapon. All suggestions below are for baseline stats, not quirks.
Pros:
Ballistics are great for managing heat generation and have faster flight time compared to ppc's, and missles in general.
Cons:
Ungodly cumbersome and unwieldy. HUGE, HEAVY, need room still to carry many tons of ammo, all have some sort of fitting draw back such as ammo can explode, or guass rifle itself.
The machine gun:
Role: Close Quarters, disable target by destroying components, DPS
Damage: 0.08 (8/100)
Crit %: Unclear
Fire rate: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 10 rounds per second)
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 120 m, Falloff out to 240 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 100 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 1000 rounds)
Slots: 1
Tonnage: *IS: 0.5, *Clan: 0.25
Damage per Ton per Second: *IS 1.60, *Clan: 3.20
This 1 of 4 ballistic weapons who's ammo per ton is efficient and the ONLY one that is easy to fit, but it lacks damage, and/or crit, and/or range. If you want it to help strip off armor, it needs damage. If you want it to disable a mech with already removed armor, it needs more crit. If you want a bit of both, it needs a faster fire rate (Think Plalanx CIWS).
For lol's: http://en.wikipedia....ki/Phalanx_CIWS
Auto Cannon 2 (IS):
Role: Long ranged damage, DPS or alpha strike
Damage: 2
Crit%: Unclear
Fire Rate: 1.28 rounds per second
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 720 m, Falloff out to 1440 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 2000 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 75 rounds)
Slots: 1
Tonnage: 6
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.43
This is 2 of 4 ballistic weapons who's ammo per ton is efficient but 6 tons is way too much. It's DPS contribution is equivalent 1/3 of a machine gun making it completely pointless, even with range. Who's gonna waste 6 tons on that? An ER Large Laser is 5 tons, 2 slots, instant hit (no flight time) and grassing your target for an instant of it's duration will do the same damage with unlimited ammo. Just 1 ERLL in this case is negligible heat gen. It's pretty hard to take full advantage of this gun's fire rate at long distances. A person would be firing this slowly at range to make the shots count, or firing quickly with a lot of misses.
If the A/C 2 is really meant to be a ranged machine gun, it needs about 300 rounds per ton of ammo, needs to fire about 3 rounds a second, needs to weight about 2 tons and needs more crit to match that of the machine gun. The baseline velocity also may need a slight increase to about 2250 m/s. Maybe increase it's fitting slots to 2.
If the A/C 2 is supposed to be part of a ranged alpha strike build, fitting must still be reduced to 2 slots, 2 tons at most, increase crit to match that of the guass rifle, even reduce ammo per ton to 60 and recycle time to as much as 0.4 rounds per second.
Auto Cannon 5 (IS):
Role: Long ranged damage, DPS or alpha strike
Damage: 5
Crit %: Unclear
Fire Rate: 0.60 rounds per second
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 620 m, Fall off out to 1240 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 1150 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 30 rounds)
Slots: 4
Tonnage: 8
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.38
This is 3 of 4 ballistic weapons who's ammo per ton is efficient and even it's overall fitting to usefulness ratio is close to good. It would be nice to fit this on more of the smaller mechs. If this was reduced to 3 slots and 5 tons it wouldn't need any other changes.
Auto Cannon 10 (IS):
Role: Mid ranged damage, DPS or alpha strike
Damage: 10
Crit %: Unclear
Fire Rate: 0.4 rounds per second
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 450 m, Fall off out to 900 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 950 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 15 rounds)
Slots: 7
Tonnage: 12
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.33... (1/3)
At half the ammo per ton of the A/C 5 and still 2/3 the fire rate, the ammo burns too quickly. Ammo per ton needs to be increased to 20 to match the fire rate. Since there are 12 slots in the side torsos and all ecm slots for IS mechs are in a torso along with another hard point besides 1 ballistics, in order to keep the option open to fit an XL engine, ECM, A/C 10, there needs to be at least 1 more slot for that usual other hard point. I recommend fitting slots be reduced to 6, tonnage to 10. Otherwise, the weapon works fine.
Auto Cannon 20 (IS):
Role: Short ranged alpha strike
Damage: 20
Crit %: Unclear
Fire Rate: 0.25 rounds per second
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 270 m, Fall off out to 540 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 650 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 7 rounds)
Slots: 10
Tonnage: 14
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.36
Ammo per ton is less than half that of the current A/C 10 with again 2/3 the fire rate and the A/C ammo per ton was less than efficient. The ammo per ton of the A/C 20 needs to be increased to 15 to keep standard set by the A/C 5. As this is unavoidably an alpha strike build, the balance can be taken out of the fire rate, taking it down to 0.20 rounds per second and/or increasing the ammo fitting to 1 ton, 2 slots so crit % vs. this mech yields the same results. This will also better utilize standard structure and standard armor settings. This still presents a challenge to the player as the potential of this weapon can only be unlocked at close range. Keeping a cool head and accurate shots with this rate of fire while maneuvering and shielding in close quarters will show the real skill of the wielder.
Is it purposely balanced so that the A/C 20 can not be fit in a torso carrying an XL engine? If not, the slots need to be reduced to 7, again to fit ECM, XL and this weapon. If it is only meant for standard engine torsos, then fitting slots are fine. As for tonnage, standard engines are very heavy and this weapon is very heavy, thus fitting it even on assault mechs in a torso limits fitting anything else besides enough ammo. If the ammo per ton is corrected, that may be enough to offset this weapon's issues.
LB 10-X A/C (IS):
Role: Short-mid ranged DPS
Damage: 10
Crit%: Unclear
Fire Rate: 0.40 rounds per second
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 540 m, Fall off out to 1620 m)
Spread: Unclear (not meant for long range)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 1100 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 15 rounds)
Slots: 6
Tonnage: 11
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.33... (1/3) If all pellets hit
Much like the A/C 10 with easier fitting, this weapon also requires 20 rounds per ton of ammo. The tonnage would also benefit from a reduction to 10. If quirks are a thing to stay for the long haul, I would recommend there be some for reduced pellet spread, also a weapon module for this would be beneficial. They would also have to be large values to be viable, allowing for more reliable damage further out.
Ultra A/C 5 (IS):
Role: Long ranged DPS, alpha strike, burst damage.
Damage: 5 / 10
Crit %: Unclear
Fire Rate: 0.60 / 0.60
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 600 m, Falloff out to 1200 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 1150 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 30)
Slots: 5
Tonnage: 9
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.38 / 0.76
A double barrel shotgun with the option to give 'um both barrels at once, it's like an A/C 10 with easier fitting, faster fire rate, but unreliable jamming. And if the above changes to the A/C 10 ammo per ton were corrected, the UAC5 would not be as comparable as it would burn ammo faster, which is it's design: burn ammo in a pinch for burst damage, hopefully. There are a few quirks for a slightly less jam chance, there needs to be more of these and a weapon module for this. As this is an A/C 5 on steroids, but unreliable, I suggest the fitting still be reduced to match, 4 slots and 6 tons. This would be the ultimate weapon on a smaller mech before sacrificing speed for fitting.
Gauss Rifle (IS):
Role: Long ranged alpha strike
Damage: 15
Crit %: Unclear
Fire Rate: 0.18 (This is unclear in UI, reload is 4 seconds, but 1.5 second charge up time = 5.5 seconds between shots at best)
Range: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: Optimal 660 m, Fall off out to 1980 m)
Velocity: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 2000 m/s)
Ammo per ton: Unclear (Thanks to Smurfy: 10 rounds)
Slots: 7
Tonnage: 15
Damage per Ton per Second: 0.18
This is 4 of 4 ballistic weapons who's ammo per ton is efficient. A purposeful balancing flaw is the 1.5 second wind up time and 2 second firing window making it difficult to hit targets that pop out for less than a second to fire off PPC's or A/C rounds. The wielder of this weapon has to be quick at pattern recognition and fire at predicted locations at predicted times to deal with "pop tarts" or "peek-a-boomers." But it is generally best to back up this weapon with an instant fire, instant hitting weapon such as lasers - or maybe modified A/C 2's if corrections above are implemented. But the generally unwieldy size and weight of this weapon makes fitting difficult on anything sub-assualt, and all but 1 IS assault have all their ballistic slots lumped into 1 location, again making this weapon's size impossible to fit more than one on the only type of mech that can handle the weight. This is either poor mech design planning or poor weapon fitting. The extremely slow fire rate coupled with a required charge up time should not also warrant the title heaviest weapon in the game.
The few non-assault mechs in the game capable of mounting 2 gausses usually have to sacrifice a lot of speed and/or armor and/or ammo. I recommend this weapon's weight is reduced to 14 to match that of the A/C 20, which allows for 2 tons of options on dual wielders for armor, ammo or speed. It's not much, but it will make a positive difference.
Personally, I would like to run 2x gauss with 100 rounds, 2x A/C 2 with 2 tons ammo on a heavy mech capable of ~70 kph.
This post has taken over 2 hours to type - will do clan side later.
Edited by destroika, 23 May 2015 - 02:18 PM.
