48 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Yeonne Greene, on 28 June 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

I don't object to PPCs being long-range heavy-hitters, but two PPCs alone isn't enough to qualify as heavy-hitting, three can't be fired together, and laser volleys out-gun the PPCs even at long range and after dissipating some of it with spread. Throwing a Gauss into the mix exacerbates the effect. Anybody worth his salt can even hold a burn on a pop-tart in the air, firing at the apex of his jump.

I think that being PPFLD makes the 20-30 damage worth more than 20-30 laser damage, the issue at least on my side of the firing line is that they tend to be unreliable at longer or even medium ranges unless velocity quirked... I'm not sure where poptarts come into this, I'm thinking about PPCs on mechs that are groundbound as well.

In theory, PPFLD weapons should actually be one of the best counters to laser vomit, given that you wouldn't have to stay exposed as long as the vomiter. This just requires the PPFLD weapons to be more effective than they are now...

Yeonne Greene, on 28 June 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

I think a better way to regulate the PPC is cycle time. If you want a heavy-hitting PPC, bump the ghost to 3, raise velocity by 20%, drop the heat a little bit, and increase the cycle up to perhaps 5 or 6 seconds. Firing a pair of ERPPC twice with 15 DHS should not be placing the 'Mech at 82%, and that's exactly what it does when you have no quirks. Even with 20 DHS, you are at 45% from one firing. That is a bit insane for only 20 damage and having invested 24 tons in the ERPPCs and 10 extra DHS.

I do agree with reducing their fire rate a bit, but not really with heat reductions. I guess I could see subtracting -1 point from ERs and regulars, but beyond that not really.

I think this is more of an issue with the heat system as a whole, where PGI/Paul/friends intentionally made it so mechs inevitably run hot unless you use very specific builds. [ER]PPCs just so happen to get hit by "Paul Logic" more than other weapon types.

Paul, in ATD #43 said:

Answer from Paul: There are no current plans to change the heat threshold towards TT values. Are we hard set against it? No, just at the moment there’s no need to do this.

Playing with a higher rate of cooling makes a lot more builds become heat neutral. A lot of heat neutral builds results in mid-range damage applied at a constant rate over time. This mechanism would be highly exploited by those with knowledge of building efficient heat neutral Mechs.

Also note that PPC heat hasn't been complained about as much until after Clan laser vomit hit...the heat sure didn't stop the old PPCs in IS-vs-IS combat from mostly replacing the mediocre IS lasers.

Yeonne Greene, on 28 June 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

Edit: IS PPC/ERPPC would have to ghost at 3, C-ERPPC would have to ghost at 2 and have their 15 damage be all up front instead of splashed.

I would consider the CERPPC full 15 damage if they kept their slow velocity as a drawback to that, so that it's not quite a 6-ton Gauss Rifle...

Edited by FupDup, 28 June 2015 - 10:01 AM.

[Mcgral18]

FupDup, on 28 June 2015 - 04:51 AM, said:

I don't want to reduce the heat on either factions' PPC weaponry because the heat serves as a bottleneck to prevent them from being substitute brawling weapons. If you want to spam energy volleys constantly, vomit some lasers or something.

PPCs should be a long-range "sledgehammer" type of gun that can't easily be sustained in closer ranges as their weakness.

Yeah, simple .XML edits.
Beyond PGI's ability though.

It's always annoyed me long range weapons have had the same recycles as short range weapons...

Changing

Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Energy,LargeWeapon,PPC,ISPPC" name="PPC" id="1009">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\PPC.dds" descTag="@PPC_desc" nameTag="@PPC"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0" speed="950" lifetime="10" duration="0" tons="7" maxRange="1080" longRange="540" minRange="90" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="4" heat="10.0" impulse="0.03" minheatpenaltylevel="3" heatpenalty="7.0" heatdamage="0" damage="10" numFiring="1" projectileclass="bullet" type="Energy" slots="3" Health="10" nullRange="90" heatPenaltyID="1" EMP="4.0"/>

to

Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Energy,LargeWeapon,PPC,ISPPC" name="PPC" id="1009">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\PPC.dds" descTag="@PPC_desc" nameTag="@PPC"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0" speed="1250" lifetime="10" duration="0" tons="7" maxRange="1080" longRange="540" minRange="90" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="5.5" heat="10.0" impulse="0.03" minheatpenaltylevel="3" heatpenalty="7.0" heatdamage="0" damage="10" numFiring="1" projectileclass="bullet" type="Energy" slots="3" Health="10" nullRange="90" heatPenaltyID="1" EMP="4.0"/>

is too much work.

Although the combination of Null Range and Min Range confuses me. Is one a holdover of the falloff damage? That was linear.

[FupDup]

Mcgral18, on 28 June 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

Yeah, simple .XML edits.
Beyond PGI's ability though.

It's always annoyed me long range weapons have had the same recycles as short range weapons...

Changing

Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Energy,LargeWeapon,PPC,ISPPC" name="PPC" id="1009">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\PPC.dds" descTag="@PPC_desc" nameTag="@PPC"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0" speed="950" lifetime="10" duration="0" tons="7" maxRange="1080" longRange="540" minRange="90" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="4" heat="10.0" impulse="0.03" minheatpenaltylevel="3" heatpenalty="7.0" heatdamage="0" damage="10" numFiring="1" projectileclass="bullet" type="Energy" slots="3" Health="10" nullRange="90" heatPenaltyID="1" EMP="4.0"/>

to

Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Energy,LargeWeapon,PPC,ISPPC" name="PPC" id="1009">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\PPC.dds" descTag="@PPC_desc" nameTag="@PPC"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0" speed="1250" lifetime="10" duration="0" tons="7" maxRange="1080" longRange="540" minRange="90" ammoPerShot="0" ammoType="" cooldown="5.5" heat="10.0" impulse="0.03" minheatpenaltylevel="3" heatpenalty="7.0" heatdamage="0" damage="10" numFiring="1" projectileclass="bullet" type="Energy" slots="3" Health="10" nullRange="90" heatPenaltyID="1" EMP="4.0"/>

is too much work.

Although the combination of Null Range and Min Range confuses me. Is one a holdover of the falloff damage? That was linear.

I think the null is where you hit 0 damage, since Clan LRMs have a null of 0 and IS LRMs have null at 180.

[Mcgral18]

FupDup, on 28 June 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

I think the null is where you hit 0 damage, since Clan LRMs have a null of 0 and IS LRMs have null at 180.

Which is what the min range itself did once upon a time.


I guess they changed it with cLRMs, or maybe even the linear decrease for normal PPCs.

[Y E O N N E]

FupDup, on 28 June 2015 - 09:59 AM, said:

I think that being PPFLD makes the 20-30 damage worth more than 20-30 laser damage, the issue at least on my side of the firing line is that they tend to be unreliable at longer or even medium ranges unless velocity quirked... I'm not sure where poptarts come into this, I'm thinking about PPCs on mechs that are groundbound as well.

It's not, though. I don't care how fast anybody thinks he is, he's not going to spread any more than 20% of a 1-second laser burn if the laser user has some skill. That means that 25-40 points of damage you can get on a single component at 500-600 meters is still way more dangerous than the 20 damage being dished out by the PPC-user. This applies to 'Mechs on the ground and in the air.

Quote

In theory, PPFLD weapons should actually be one of the best counters to laser vomit, given that you wouldn't have to stay exposed as long as the vomiter. This just requires the PPFLD weapons to be more effective than they are now...

Assuming they've got equivalent hard-point placement, PPCs are only a good counter to laser vomit at range if the PPC-using 'Mech is significantly more agile. A PPC Stalker would not be a counter to a laser Stalker, for example, because the Stalker in general can't get out of the way fast enough for the FLD to really be a boon over the mass lasers and the laser firepower is considerably higher; 27 to 20 per side. The laser Stalker will just sit there on the hill and wait for the PPC Stalker to peak over, then scorch his nose off. Bad turn rate + bad turn angle + slow acceleration + lower damage = dead PPC Stalker.

This is actually where the pop-tarting comes in; pop-tarting makes any 'Mech that can pull it off agile enough for the FLD to help.

Also, PPFLD is a much bigger deal in close quarters since there is a lot more incoming damage.

Quote

I do agree with reducing their fire rate a bit, but not really with heat reductions. I guess I could see subtracting -1 point from ERs and regulars, but beyond that not really.

Even that's still pretty harsh for ERPPC. A CPLT-K2 generates 13.5 heat on its ERPPC, and it's really brutal even with 19 DHS in there. The thing is an ERPPC 'Mech can't really bring anything else to defend itself up close because all of the extra resources have to be dedicated to heat-sinks and, sometimes, jump-jets. It's just not useful enough to bring two ERPPCs when you can just bring a Gauss with three tons of ammo and then three or four C-ERML. You've got almost the same ability to slug people from far away with more versatile utility.

Quote

I think this is more of an issue with the heat system as a whole, where PGI/Paul/friends intentionally made it so mechs inevitably run hot unless you use very specific builds. [ER]PPCs just so happen to get hit by "Paul Logic" more than other weapon types.

I agree. PPCs are a case where low-cap, high dissipation would be preferable to high-cap with middling dissipation.

Quote

Also note that PPC heat hasn't been complained about as much until after Clan laser vomit hit...the heat sure didn't stop the old PPCs in IS-vs-IS combat from mostly replacing the mediocre IS lasers.

Yes it has. It has been complained about on and off ever since they bumped PPCs up to their table-top heat values early last year, it's just that more egregious deficiencies have taken the spotlight. Clan laser vomit and quirked IS large lasers just highlight the problem even further. For PPCs to compete with laser vomit, you have to be able to boat them to at least 30 points of damage, because 30 points is about what you receive from a competent laser user on a single component even after you soak it around. We only get away with just 20 damage in public queues because of heterogeneous skill levels across participants in a match. Even during the PPC+AC/Gauss pop-tart era, 20 damage was considered terrible, 25 was the bare minimum, and 30-35 was the norm.

Quote

I would consider the CERPPC full 15 damage if they kept their slow velocity as a drawback to that, so that it's not quite a 6-ton Gauss Rifle...

I've found that 1200 m/s is the sweet-spot for PPCs that are reliable without being overly easy to aim with. I might suggest making standard and C-ER PPCs travel around 1150 m/s while IS ERPPC travel around 1250 m/s. A 100 m/s difference won't be enough to really make one stand out over the other, but it will highlight personal ability. Since Clan weaponry seems to be all about having slightly higher skill floors in exchange for slightly higher maximum potential, it seems like a fair trade to me.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 28 June 2015 - 11:29 AM.

[Wrathful Scythe]

I'm in for increase of projectile speed and maybe a decrease of heat, because we don't have a cooler PPC version. (God, I love IS PPCs) Increasing the damage means having a lower TTK and stronger alphas for Clanmechs.

My 2ERPPC + 1 Gauss Ebon is strong enough, it doesn't need a buff. And imagine the Warhawk with its 4 ERPPCs. That thing is pretty deadly because the sheer mass of DHSs makes the heat manageable.

[Mardek]

Wrathful Scythe, on 28 June 2015 - 11:41 AM, said:

I'm in for increase of projectile speed and maybe a decrease of heat, because we don't have a cooler PPC version. (God, I love IS PPCs) Increasing the damage means having a lower TTK and stronger alphas for Clanmechs.

My 2ERPPC + 1 Gauss Ebon is strong enough, it doesn't need a buff. And imagine the Warhawk with its 4 ERPPCs. That thing is pretty deadly because the sheer mass of DHSs makes the heat manageable.

not all mech can afford that combo, and the warhawk with 4ppcs its hot as hell for the damage it does

Edited by Mardek, 28 June 2015 - 01:14 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

FupDup, on 28 June 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

I think the null is where you hit 0 damage, since Clan LRMs have a null of 0 and IS LRMs have null at 180.

LOL, for all intents and purposes, CLan LRMS are null of 180 as well, cuz really, the damage below 180 is a joke. I cant even strip the cherry red back off a TG Centurion from less then 180m with several volleys of LRM15s.

[Scratx]

LordKnightFandragon, on 28 June 2015 - 02:24 PM, said:

LOL, for all intents and purposes, CLan LRMS are null of 180 as well, cuz really, the damage below 180 is a joke. I cant even strip the cherry red back off a TG Centurion from less then 180m with several volleys of LRM15s.

150-180m is still good damage, you only start to feel it really bad below 120m or so.