69 replies to this topic

[Cyborne Elemental]

Hotthedd, on 02 September 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

You said you wanted to hear their opinion, not looking for a yes/no, but if PGI thought of it as an issue.

You got Russ responding, AND GIVING YOU A REASON for their opinion, but you still want more.

I think you were being disingenuous.

The UACs give the ABILITY for higher DPS, not the guarantee, otherwise there would be no reason to ever equip a regular AC.

Look, DPS is going to go up initially on those first shots yes, no way around that.

There is also nothing stopping them from putting a higher jam all the way up to 100% jam chance at the top end cap either.

Or start adding heat on every sucessive burst, or adding cone of fire that gets worse, or higher jam durations if you managed to get X# of shots off way past the norm.

Its all controlled by the heatbar multiplier.

It would average out, same as what ours is doing now, but it would be more reliable.

[Product9]

I think you're missing that making UACs more reliable would upset the balance. It is unreliable by design, and at present they are plenty useful as compared to other weapon system in the game.

[Bishop Steiner]

Product9, on 02 September 2015 - 11:49 AM, said:

Thanks man.

And it's not for lack of trying. It's just when I read that it took them over a thousand years to get two machine guns to fire at the same time (Machine Gun Array, 3068), or that the longest range 'mech mounted weapons have a shorter range than real world infantry level sniper rifles, I'm left scratching my head.

But I really meant that as more of a "i'm no expect" sort of disclaimer. I'm in no way trying to discredit the fandom.

well, it was supposed to be post apocalyptic, lo tech, mad max style mech warfare how originally envisioned.... problem is that to all the other stuff they decided to balance to that, so that advanced tech became a joke. Mechs were supposed to be WWII or Korean War level targeting and such, hence the short overall range.... it wasn't that the weapons couldn't function but that they couldn't reliably target.

Still didn't make a lot of sense, but it is what it is, lol.

[Bishop Steiner]

Product9, on 02 September 2015 - 11:54 AM, said:

I think you're missing that making UACs more reliable would upset the balance. It is unreliable by design, and at present they are plenty useful as compared to other weapon system in the game.

the crucial detail everyone wants to ignore.

It's like everyone wanting to be run NoS at 2000 rpm above redline and know exactly when the engine is going to fail. The only way to make it 99% reliable and predictable is to only mildly spray, and still the more it's done, the more likely it will fail earlier.

But a UAC isn't a "mild boost, but actually running at TWICE the cyclic rate the system is meant for. Yeah, it's somewhat reinforced, hence the extra ton, but it's still not MEANT for sustained, non stop double fire rate.

While it can certainly be adjusted (and Mr Ds idea is not all bad, but I do feel possibly overly complex in some areas) the random jam is inherent and essential to any system, to avoid people gaming it.

[Kubernetes]

Yeah, I wish they'd remove the first shot jams, but otherwise the UACs are fine weapons. Even with jams a UAC5 will out dps a regular AC5 by a fair amount. Peek-and-retreat gameplay favors the UACs even more because jams are easily managed under cover.

[Squarebasher]

I would not mind the jam chance staying the same for UACs, if clans had the choice of one big shot ACs that IS have but clan does not.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 September 2015 - 03:26 AM, said:

Firing twice the suggested RoF and we wanna be able to manage when it jams...

Lol, no mechwarrior ever would use a gun with the reliability of a UAC....whose purpose was to fire faster then normal weapons but jams at random like 90% of the time.....id chalk that right up there with the Matar and have my design team start over.....

[Bishop Steiner]

LordKnightFandragon, on 05 September 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

Lol, no mechwarrior ever would use a gun with the reliability of a UAC....whose purpose was to fire faster then normal weapons but jams at random like 90% of the time.....id chalk that right up there with the Matar and have my design team start over.....

and none would ever use a standard AC is there was a gamable foolproof UAC. Huh, go figure. It's a video game. Games need BALANCE>

[Squarebasher]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 September 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

and none would ever use a standard AC is there was a gamable foolproof UAC. Huh, go figure. It's a video game. Games need BALANCE>

I am not asking for no jamming of UACs, I am asking for something that is a little more predictable. In RL most old heavy machine guns needed cooling systems so they could fire for longer, or the ability to change barrels.
My idea would be for the chance of a jam with heat at say 0 to 50 percent at say 5 percent, with heat at 50 to 75 percent 10 percent chance of jamming, above 75 percent a 20 percent chance of jamming. Also no jamming on the first shot which happens all the time at the moment, a jam should only occur on a double tap.

And this game is not balance it has sticking plasters all over it lol.

Edited by Squarebasher, 05 September 2015 - 07:20 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Rhaythe, on 02 September 2015 - 04:16 AM, said:

Look on the bright side. In tabletop, if you had a weapon malfunction, you had to spend an entire turn NOT FIRING ANYTHING in order to clear it.

So you'd fire everything you could, then unjam on the next round while your mech cools down because most mechs can generate a lot more heat than they can dissipate. You'd lose out a bit in damage output due to having to substitute shots from a ballistic or missile with lasers, but that's it. If you were already running hot to begin with, you might not lose any potential damage at all.