31 replies to this topic

[Future Perfect]

Or will they fire regular rounds as well?

Edited by Future Perfect, 09 July 2012 - 04:11 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Dev's haven't said.

[Tincan Nightmare]

I hope so for maximum flexibility for the weapon, though if it is only able to shoot cluster rounds it would give a reason to mount a standard AC/10 if you want pinpoint damage vs scattering.

[sheradin]

it probly will only fire scatter rounds because thats one more command they would have to put in to switch ammo types

[Buck Rogers]

Something that never, ever made any sense to me, is that while the LB-10X AC is a shotgun...

It has significantly more range than the AC-10! Sub-caliber rounds have much greater range if they're in a sabot or something like that, but not in a shotgun!

Doesn't make a ding dang frim fram bit of sense. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe, being as it's a shotgun, it invokes Army Of Darkness capabilities.

"Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick! The AA-gauge single-barreled Imperator-B. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Atreus, Free Worlds League. Retails for about four hundred thousand c-bills. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?"

Edited by Buck Rogers, 09 July 2012 - 12:00 AM.

[Aeryk Corsaer]

Buck Rogers, on 08 July 2012 - 11:59 PM, said:

Something that never, ever made any sense to me, is that while the LB-10X AC is a shotgun...

It has significantly more range than the AC-10! Sub-caliber rounds have much greater range if they're in a sabot or something like that, but not in a shotgun!

Doesn't make a ding dang frim fram bit of sense. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe, being as it's a shotgun, it invokes Army Of Darkness capabilities.

"Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick! The AA-gauge single-barreled Imperator-B. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Atreus, Free Worlds League. Retails for about four hundred thousand c-bills. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?"

Long Live Bruce Campbell!!! Now seen on Burn Notice...

[CaveMan]

Buck Rogers, on 08 July 2012 - 11:59 PM, said:

Something that never, ever made any sense to me, is that while the LB-10X AC is a shotgun...

It has significantly more range than the AC-10! Sub-caliber rounds have much greater range if they're in a sabot or something like that, but not in a shotgun!

LB-X autocannons are NOT shotguns. They're ordinary autocannons that can optionally fire a round which fragments in flight before striking the target.

Think of it like a gun that shoots cluster bombs.

[Buck Rogers]

CaveMan, on 09 July 2012 - 12:40 AM, said:

LB-X autocannons are NOT shotguns. They're ordinary autocannons that can optionally fire a round which fragments in flight before striking the target.

Think of it like a gun that shoots cluster bombs.

AH. I didn't realize that. So it's much closer to the Bofors 40mm and 35mm Oerlikon AHEAD (Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction) rounds. Those you can program on the fly to fragment over an enemy position shrapneling the enemy, or ahead of an incoming anti-ship missile, etc. Same general idea though. I think.

[CaveMan]

Buck Rogers, on 09 July 2012 - 12:46 AM, said:

AH. I didn't realize that. So it's much closer to the Bofors 40mm and 35mm Oerlikon AHEAD (Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction) rounds. Those you can program on the fly to fragment over an enemy position shrapneling the enemy, or ahead of an incoming anti-ship missile, etc. Same general idea though. I think.

Yeah it's pretty much the same concept.

The game's writers have sometimes muddied the waters by referring to the LB-X as "like an anti-mech shotgun", but that's kind of a back-of-a-napkin explanation, and it leads to confusion. The weapon's original description made it pretty clear that the cluster rounds explosively fragment in midair.

Interestingly, the LB-X's increased range, in the original fluff for it, is due to a specialized targeting computer that's built into the weapon package. My guess is it probably signals the cluster rounds to detonate based on a laser rangefinder reading.

[Melcyna]

that technically doesn't increase range though...

in fact the opposite...

heavier mass projectiles retain their momentum a lot better overall than lighter ones except in cases where the drag overshadow the kinetic energy.

This is why the heavier autocannon shells tend to be more effective at longer range than lighter ones (particularly obvious with our 20mm vs 30mm autocannon munitions performance, or even 5.56mm NATO rounds vs 7.62mm NATO rounds ... and hence why the military uses 7.62mm accurized rifles for marksman role against extended range target in the squad while others are armed with 5.56mm assault rifles).

what it will increase is the probability of a hit/partial hit... which is not really the range.

Perhaps you can sort of arm twist it to say that they really mean increase in 'EFFECTIVE RANGE' but that still doesn't make much sense given that the target of the shell and the range involved is not something that logically one can really miss.

Edited by Melcyna, 09 July 2012 - 01:07 AM.

[Ubertron X]

This very question might be answered in the upcomming "Ask the dev's 9" even today, at least it has been asked repeatedly during the last week.

However it might have been answered already, not sure about this, so the devs might chose to ignore the question.

[Buck Rogers]

Melcyna, on 09 July 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

that technically doesn't increase range though...

in fact the opposite...

heavier mass projectiles retain their momentum a lot better overall than lighter ones except in cases where the drag overshadow the kinetic energy.

This is why the heavier autocannon shells tend to be more effective at longer range than lighter ones (particularly obvious with our 20mm vs 30mm autocannon munitions performance, or even 5.56mm NATO rounds vs 7.62mm NATO rounds ... and hence why the military uses 7.62mm accurized rifles for marksman role against extended range target in the squad while others are armed with 5.56mm assault rifles).

what it will increase is the probability of a hit/partial hit... which is not really the range.

Perhaps you can sort of arm twist it to say that they really mean increase in 'EFFECTIVE RANGE' but that still doesn't make much sense given that the target of the shell and the range involved is not something that logically one can really miss.

I think the improved "accuracy" might have to do with the fragmentation nature of the AC round. Firing beyond maximum effective range with an AC-10 would mean effectively 0% hit probability. With the fragmentation nature of the LBX however, the enemy migh be dealing with a multi-meter wide cloud of sub munitions raining down, increasing the probability of a hit by many times thus "increasing the effective range of the weapon". The LBX basically changes the terminal "hit box" from fist sized to several meters at least. Thus the ability to lay down some damage at long range is increased, cause, in effect, it's like the target gets bigger, or your crosshairs get larger.

At least, that's how I read it.

[KageRyuu]

Hopefully the LBX will be able to fire both it's munitions, and hopefully the AC will get access to it's special munitions.

http://www.sarna.net...ecial_Munitions

Edited by KageRyuu, 09 July 2012 - 02:27 AM.

[Reoh]

We know that there is no ammo-switch feature in game (Was answered in a recent QnA). It could be that you can only equip it with one type, or it would favor one type over the other until that ran out. We just don't know at this time. :s

[Melcyna]

Buck Rogers, on 09 July 2012 - 01:15 AM, said:

I think the improved "accuracy" might have to do with the fragmentation nature of the AC round. Firing beyond maximum effective range with an AC-10 would mean effectively 0% hit probability. With the fragmentation nature of the LBX however, the enemy migh be dealing with a multi-meter wide cloud of sub munitions raining down, increasing the probability of a hit by many times thus "increasing the effective range of the weapon". The LBX basically changes the terminal "hit box" from fist sized to several meters at least. Thus the ability to lay down some damage at long range is increased, cause, in effect, it's like the target gets bigger, or your crosshairs get larger.

At least, that's how I read it.

Sure, but the problem is that in BT's simplified mechanism, the range they are using is abysmally short (partly to accommodate the size of the terrain that the player have to provide to play i assume) that the entire system basically makes little sense when judged with nominal values that we know of from ballistic weaponry.

Add to that the odd treatment of weapon maximum range and it gets weirder still.

So we had to engage suspension of disbelief when we are told that an AC-10 can't hit a target the size of a BATTLEMECH with over a dozen meter tall in height of dimension beyond 450m, a range in which no shell the size of an AC should lose momentum so quickly that it become ineffective compared to the shorter range, nor is it so far that a cannon shell could possibly deviate so far to drop in effectiveness from accuracy loss to zero.

An odd situation basically, the fragmentation system is LOGICAL, but the very same ballistic mechanism that governs the logic for it would also tell that the ballistic property on the AC rounds as they are in BT are ILLOGICAL, which was an unavoidable situation given that Battletech had to be scaled to fit into something that players can reasonably find as a playing field (unless the typical americans had a table the size of a living room for tabletop gaming).

[Bombast]

Melcyna, on 09 July 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

Sure, but the problem is that in BT's simplified mechanism, the range they are using is abysmally short (partly to accommodate the size of the terrain that the player have to provide to play i assume) that the entire system basically makes little sense when judged with nominal values that we know of from ballistic weaponry.

Add to that the odd treatment of weapon maximum range and it gets weirder still.

So we had to engage suspension of disbelief when we are told that an AC-10 can't hit a target the size of a BATTLEMECH with over a dozen meter tall in height of dimension beyond 450m, a range in which no shell the size of an AC should lose momentum so quickly that it become ineffective compared to the shorter range, nor is it so far that a cannon shell could possibly deviate so far to drop in effectiveness from accuracy loss to zero.

An odd situation basically, the fragmentation system is LOGICAL, but the very same ballistic mechanism that governs the logic for it would also tell that the ballistic property on the AC rounds as they are in BT are ILLOGICAL, which was an unavoidable situation given that Battletech had to be scaled to fit into something that players can reasonably find as a playing field (unless the typical americans had a table the size of a living room for tabletop gaming).

Solid LB-X rounds can shoot further due to increased accuracy generated from improved tech. Cluster shot is able to hit at further ranges due to it's wider affect potential. However, at the extended range beyond normal rounds, this is compinsated by the LB-X hitting with a minimal ammount of pellets.

It's not like cluster shot hits with 100% of its munitions no matter what, you know.

EDIT: Remember, the maximum range on BT weapons is not maximum range overall, but maximum effective range due to horrible, miserable targeting. If you want to argue with that, take it up with the game developers who thought most of their audiance didn't want to play on a board bigger then their house.

Edited by Bombast, 09 July 2012 - 04:29 AM.

[Melcyna]

Bombast, on 09 July 2012 - 04:26 AM, said:

Solid LB-X rounds can shoot further due to increased accuracy generated from improved tech. Cluster shot is able to hit at further ranges due to it's wider affect potential. However, at the extended range beyond normal rounds, this is compinsated by the LB-X hitting with a minimal ammount of pellets.

It's not like cluster shot hits with 100% of its munitions no matter what, you know.

EDIT: Remember, the maximum range on BT weapons is not maximum range overall, but maximum effective range due to horrible, miserable targeting. If you want to argue with that, take it up with the game developers who thought most of their audiance didn't want to play on a board bigger then their house.

Like i said, ... twice, i am vaguely aware of the intention to fit the playing field within reasonable size for the players.

The part i am not certain though is why they use such a small scale for the range (it's not like the game board or field have to be scaled with the miniatures and what not, so technically they could've used ANY scale, ie: one unit can represent 1km and i don't see why that would be a problem).

to give an idea of how small is small... infantry battle rifle caliber rounds are generally effective to 500m easily, and still quite lethal to 700m and beyond (hence why they are now often used in marksman rifle).

the smallest autocannon round we have today (20mm) is effective to 1km against very fast and small moving target (ie: fighters and missiles), and up to 2-3km against slower mobile targets (ie: ground vehicles).

even as far back as WW1 and 2, we are already firing field guns and later on in WW2, tank guns and AT guns at over 2km with nothing but optic sight.

Having these BT AC with slugs sizing anywhere from 20-200mm, with effective range as short or shorter than infantry bullet is frankly one of the hardest part for my suspension of disbelief to hold, ESPECIALLY since they are shooting at something over a dozen meter tall...

Perhaps the targeting computer in BT lore should be renamed Imperial Stormtrooper targeting computer.

Equally boggling to logic is why the smaller autocannon round have more effective range than the larger one, because physically it's the other way around (assuming both designed aerodynamically and fired with the same speed) since the larger caliber shell tend to be much more effective at retaining momentum than the smaller one, ie: the smaller caliber shell tend to lose their speed very rapidly compared to the larger shell over long distance which makes them less suitable the longer range it gets, and naturally the smaller shells reach the diminishing point of effectiveness quicker than the larger shells.

Edited by Melcyna, 09 July 2012 - 07:38 AM.

[PANZERBUNNY]

To keep Ac's viable, probably keep them cluster, though the amount of alternate ammo you'd need would be enough or a drawback.

[Fahr]

OK - so this is just me examining the ideas behind BT ballistics... The suspension of Disbelief issue that was brought up assumes that the larger AC round has an equally larger amount of propellant AND that the round is doing all it's damage from impact. in other words that the two ACs are firing at the same muzzle velocity.

my assumption was that the small bore ACs were like Magnum .22 rounds, super fast, low mass, not a large amount of damage compared to say a 30-06 - but still effective. they don't do as much damage, but the rounds get there faster, while the Large Bore (ac/20) were like shotgun slugs, they are travelling much slower but have much more mass, so they impart more damage. with the AC/5 and AC/10 being more like standard rifles.

we're talking also about the ability to penetrate massive specialized armor with massive slugs, so part of the range reductions were in my mind from air resistance. there is a good reason to not want to carry enough propellant to fire the AC/20 slug as far and fast as the AC/2. all that propellant will go boom if it gets hit.

just because the overall damage inflicted is bigger, doesn't mean that the round is traveling faster - in my opinion.

[Vaktor]

I certainly hope it can fire both types of ammo... And I think with so many weapons that can use alternative ammo types they will probably put a "cycle ammo type" button in the control scheme.