133 replies to this topic

[Andi Nagasia]

Dakota1000, on 01 September 2015 - 02:40 PM, said:

... or just... ya know... firing 2 AC2s without chain firing.

yes but what im trying to get at is lower the cooldown it will make AC2s more Viable for people mounting 1-2,
and less so viable for those who would boat them by mounting 4-6, all in all i feel this would be a good change,

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Andi Nagasia, on 01 September 2015 - 02:46 PM, said:

yes but what im trying to get at is lower the cooldown it will make AC2s more Viable for people mounting 1-2,
and less so viable for those who would boat them by mounting 4-6, all in all i feel this would be a good change,

I can see how lowering the cooldown makes the AC2s more viable overall, but I have no idea what you are getting at with the whole chain fire thing, no one uses, or at least no one should be using, chain fire on AC2s, especially if they are trying to boat them. I'd expect boats to either run a macro, have a load of weapon groups, or just fire them all at once.

[Andi Nagasia]

Dakota1000, on 01 September 2015 - 02:48 PM, said:

I can see how lowering the cooldown makes the AC2s more viable overall, but I have no idea what you are getting at with the whole chain fire thing, no one uses, or at least no one should be using, chain fire on AC2s, especially if they are trying to boat them. I'd expect boats to either run a macro, have a load of weapon groups, or just fire them all at once.

O ya i was just giving an Example of an AC2 with 0.52 cooldown would fire faster than Chain Fire,
ya i really dont know when you would ever Chain Fire AC2s, it even sounds like a bad idea,

[SolCrusher]

Andi Nagasia, on 01 September 2015 - 02:53 PM, said:

O ya i was just giving an Example of an AC2 with 0.52 cooldown would fire faster than Chain Fire,
ya i really dont know when you would ever Chain Fire AC2s, it even sounds like a bad idea,

Some people very early on with the AC2 debate back a few years ago proved you can chew through 120 points of armor using 6 AC2 before you over heat. An Atlas or Direwolf would be victimized by a Crab. It's no joke, 120 points of armor gone before your direwhale gets it second recharge of it's gauss. That 80+ alpha is nothing compared to 120 point sawzall.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

An Atlas is already victimized by a Crab... or a Direwolf. Honestly I'd rather them be shooting a bunch of AC2 shells so I can spread it better than having them launch dual gauss or dual AC20s into my CT while I try to level my poor Atlas with its single AC20 and 2 medium lasers.

Edit:
Also even if the AC2s fired every half a second and you had 6 of them it would still take you 5 seconds to put out that damage.

Edited by Dakota1000, 01 September 2015 - 04:13 PM.

[Khobai]

AC/2 has three major problems:

1) tonnage, 6 tons plus ammo weight is absurd for a 2 damage weapon. To put that in perspective, a CERML does 7 damage and weighs 1 ton and requires no ammo weight. Unfortunately we can't change the canon tonnage of the AC/2 because it would screw up stock builds, but we can give the AC/2 more ammo per ton, like the AC/10 got. More ammo per ton means less overall tonnage spent on the weapon.

2) heat, AC/2 generates massive amounts of heat which defies all common sense. It's heat should be lowered to about half of what it is now.

3) range dropoff, The AC/2 should be the best autocannon at extreme range and its not because of how game mechanics work. The AC/5 actually does better damage at extreme ranges than the AC/2 because of the silly way damage dropoff works. An AC/5 at 50% damage dropoff is still doing 2.5 damage per shot which is more than the AC/2 even at its optimum range. The AC/5 and AC/2 need their optimum ranges adjusted so the AC/2 is superior to the AC/5 at extreme range.


Lastly maybe give the AC/2 a critical hit bonus like the machine gun. Yeah its not much but its something... and the AC/2 needs all the buffs it can get.

Edited by Khobai, 01 September 2015 - 04:19 PM.

[sycocys]

The CD is fine imo, but a pair run hotter than 6 LPL which is far more of an issue.

[FupDup]

sycocys, on 01 September 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:

The CD is fine imo, but a pair run hotter than 6 LPL which is far more of an issue.

What?

AC/2 Heat Per Second: 1.39

LPL Heat Per Second: 1.79

[Andi Nagasia]

sycocys, on 01 September 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:

The CD is fine imo, but a pair run hotter than 6 LPL which is far more of an issue.

um you need to look at that again maybe,

i say reduce CD for the reason of making it more Viable for Light/Medium Mechs,
yes if it had less heat it would work well pairing it with lost or hot lasers, but thats not a Light/Medium Problem,
i think that if the CD was Even 0.62 it would help it give Lights a Light Ballistic Brawling Option,

[Khobai]

Its never going to be a viable weapon for lights. Its too much tonnage.

The best the AC/2 can ever hope to be is an extreme range sniping/suppression weapon.

And if it outranges every other weapon it *might* find itself a niche on certain maps like alpine and caustic.

Again the 4 things the AC/2 needs:
1) more ammo per ton
2) less heat per shot
3) better optimum/maximum range
4) critical hit bonus like mg

Might also be cool if there were PVE aircraft you could shoot down and the AC/2 got a bonus vs aircraft. It basically is an anti-aircraft weapon afterall. Thats pretty much its only use in tabletop.

Edited by Khobai, 01 September 2015 - 05:19 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Khobai, on 01 September 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

Its never going to be a viable weapon for lights

The best the AC/2 will ever be is an extreme range sniping weapon

And if it outranges every other weapon it *might* find itself a niche

Now to just give it a 3KM optimal range and have an adv adv zoom module then set up all the way across river city on the hills near the drop location, there we go. We now have the "Whats hitting me and why does it tickle" gun. At the very least it *would* get some damage done and maybe get the enemies to rethink their path. If boated then it might really get them rethinking.

Half of me sees this as comical and the other half sees it as something I might want to try at some point if it was a thing.

[Andi Nagasia]

Khobai, on 01 September 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

Its never going to be a viable weapon for lights. Its too much tonnage.

The best the AC/2 can ever hope to be is an extreme range sniping/suppression weapon.

And if it outranges every other weapon it *might* find itself a niche on certain maps like alpine and caustic.

If i had faster Fining i would bring it on my Adder/Urbie for Suppression,
but when a Any Mech can Stair through your scratches and Kill you before you can PaperClip them to death,

Extreme range weapon? i think we have it its called Gauss,
for the Price of 3AC2s you get 15PPFLD, thats more ammo efficient,

if it out ranges all other weapons than it may be useful on 2 maps, i also dont think Range is its biggest problem,
thats like saying lets make double the Heat on the Flamer(both Giving and Receiving), will that make it better?

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 01 September 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

Its never going to be a viable weapon for lights. Its too much tonnage.

The best the AC/2 can ever hope to be is an extreme range sniping/suppression weapon.

And if it outranges every other weapon it *might* find itself a niche on certain maps like alpine and caustic.

Again the 4 things the AC/2 needs:
1) more ammo per ton
2) less heat per shot
3) better optimum/maximum range
4) critical hit bonus like mg

Might also be cool if there were PVE aircraft you could shoot down and the AC/2 got a bonus vs aircraft. It basically is an anti-aircraft weapon afterall. Thats pretty much its only use in tabletop.

Is there an actually rule book that says the AC/2 has a bonus against air? So far all I've seen are little fluff snippets from mech descriptions that don't give any actual specific game rules.

From what I can tell from TechManual, a single LRM5 does 3 damage to aerospace units, which is 50% better against aircraft than the AC/2 (which is just 2 damage). It also weighs only 2 tons for that damage, compared to the AC/2's 6 tons...so you could use 2-3 LRM5 in place of a single AC/2 for much better anti-aircraft capabilities than an AC/2. Or even just use a single LRM5 to be better against air, and then use that saved tonnage on other useful things.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

FupDup, on 01 September 2015 - 05:55 PM, said:

Is there an actually rule book that says the AC/2 has a bonus against air? So far all I've seen are little fluff snippets from mech descriptions that don't give any actual specific game rules.

No, they don't get a bonus unless using flak ammo (lulz). What makes them good against air is their extreme range and low BV investment. Range is really important when playing with aerospace in a ground battle because of weird rules, or at least when I played with those in Megamek. LBX are generally better for dealing with Aerospace however, since precision ammo is much more useful for standard ACs than flak ammo.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 02 September 2015 - 09:54 AM.

[Alek Ituin]

Khobai, on 01 September 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

AC/2 has three major problems:

1) tonnage, 6 tons plus ammo weight is absurd for a 2 damage weapon. To put that in perspective, a CERML does 7 damage and weighs 1 ton and requires no ammo weight. Unfortunately we can't change the canon tonnage of the AC/2 because it would screw up stock builds, but we can give the AC/2 more ammo per ton, like the AC/10 got. More ammo per ton means less overall tonnage spent on the weapon.

2) heat, AC/2 generates massive amounts of heat which defies all common sense. It's heat should be lowered to about half of what it is now.

3) range dropoff, The AC/2 should be the best autocannon at extreme range and its not because of how game mechanics work. The AC/5 actually does better damage at extreme ranges than the AC/2 because of the silly way damage dropoff works. An AC/5 at 50% damage dropoff is still doing 2.5 damage per shot which is more than the AC/2 even at its optimum range. The AC/5 and AC/2 need their optimum ranges adjusted so the AC/2 is superior to the AC/5 at extreme range.


Lastly maybe give the AC/2 a critical hit bonus like the machine gun. Yeah its not much but its something... and the AC/2 needs all the buffs it can get.

1) F**k that noise, just replace the lost tonnage with armor. The AC/2 should be, at worst, 4 tons.

2) Agreed

3) Agreed

[Revis Volek]

Alek Ituin, on 02 September 2015 - 10:12 AM, said:

1) F**k that noise, just replace the lost tonnage with armor. The AC/2 should be, at worst, 4 tons.

2) Agreed

3) Agreed

I also do not think that lore should be getting in the way of this one...Im sure we can find ways to fill that tonnage up...Like DHS maybe?

It needs to loose some tonnage or i will never use it...i know a few pilots that feel the same way i do. 7 plus tons for 2 dmg per shot is absolutely asinine.

[Khobai]

Quote

s there an actually rule book that says the AC/2 has a bonus against air? So far all I've seen are little fluff snippets from mech descriptions that don't give any actual specific game rules.

The AC/2 can equip flak ammo which is good vs aircraft

and the extreme range makes it good vs aircraft

[Alek Ituin]

DarthRevis, on 02 September 2015 - 10:44 AM, said:

I also do not think that lore should be getting in the way of this one...Im sure we can find ways to fill that tonnage up...Like DHS maybe?

It needs to loose some tonnage or i will never use it...i know a few pilots that feel the same way i do. 7 plus tons for 2 dmg per shot is absolutely asinine.

I suggested increased armor for 2 reasons:

1) Stock builds almost always have craptastical armor

2) Armor doesn't require spare CS which some stock builds dont have available.


I suppose it could be a per variant basis, but still, armor is a damn good general filler.

[Apnu]

I know its heresy, but I've run a JM6-S with 2xAC2, 2xAC5. It shreds things fast. Granted its got AC2 cool down quirks

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...953805bbfbb9813

I tried the AC2s on the BJs and the time-to-kill was much longer for the face time I had to endure, so I think the AC2 needs to be paired with something to be effective. Either 3+ AC2s or something else like large lasers or PPCs.

I think, stats wise, the AC2 is fine.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Needing to pair a weapon with a weapon that is actually lighter than it so that it may be effective might just mean that its not really in a good position. I mean it works for machine guns because those things are light and generate no heat at all and have that crit mechanic, but when you have a heavy gun that generates a decent amount of heat (enough to stop your cooldown, which is the important part when you are using it with other weapons, especially the large lasers and PPCs you suggest) and still doesn't add much to the table then you might as well have just slapped on another laser or two and some heat sinks.