39 replies to this topic

[no one]

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

None of this makes the current state of Gauss Rifles good or bad - but it's important to remember all the facts when talking (and hopefully first thinking) about Gauss Rifle mechanics.

I agree with most everything you said. We're ultimately talking about a symptom of the broader problems with the heat/convergence systems and it effects all weapon balance more or less. The problems start when you start balancing around the presumption that a weapon's always going to be used in a specific meta combination. As you said -

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

So in order to reduce the dps of Gauss/vomit builds without making the Gauss Rifle still more inconvenient to use, PGI increased the cooldown.

. . . is a great example of something that's good for helping balance the meta mechs, but ultimately harms extra-meta weapon balance. It's this balancing against convergent weapon behavior that causes problems, so that's the underlying problem that needs to be addressed first.

Edited by no one, 04 February 2016 - 01:59 PM.

[Void Angel]

You do know they used to have convergence, right? And that it was removed for a reason? So whether or not delayed convergence is a panacea for all these balance ills, repeatedly wishing for something that was long ago deemed technically unfeasible may not be the most productive thing you could be doing with your day.

[no one]

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

You do know they used to have convergence, right?

You do know they have convergence NOW, right?

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

And that it was removed for a reason?

Yes, as I recall that reason was "we can't get it to work with HSR", but. . .

Where do you think your shots are converging when you lead a target? According to them, HSR is working okay no problems in that context, right? So if there isn't any technical problem with those shots connecting, then PGI's technical reason that extreme range convergence isn't technically feasible is that PGI isn't technically competent to do it. They could sure as hell do a better heat system, and there's no excuse there good or otherwise, for them not to.

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

may not be the most productive thing you could be doing with your day.

Correct, nothing either of us says on these forums is a productive use of time for exactly the same reason.
By the way, did you know you have 10 times as many average posts per day as me?

[Void Angel]

Obviously in context I am talking about delayed convergence, and using the shortened term to save space. Bad-faith arguments don't convince people, but they do discredit those who offer them. Arm-chair programmers are all alike, too - go do it yourself, then run your mouth. If you're not willing to do it, or able to do it, and you weren't involved in not doing it, all you have to offer is empty talk. Ditto for claiming you know without having tried, or that "someone else did it that one time." The people actually working on the project said there were nontrivial software engineering issues with the way the game is currently coded. They're the ones who would know. It's possible they could figure it out eventually, but resources are not unlimited, and it would stall or slow the development of new features. Now, maybe when they update CryEngine they can revisit the issue! You can always hope.

But as long as the situation remains as-is, you're not offering a solution, you're just wishing - loudly, angrily, and with snide commentary when you're challenged. If wishes were fishes we'd walk on the sea - but you're going to come back from your hiking trip rather wet.

[Tim East]

Ok dudes, let's ease up on the salt a little. Yeah, the charge thing is a little silly, and yeah, it results directly from how much the PPFLD meta sucked and the instant convergence of all weapons.

PGI isn't going to fix this. They've outright said that delayed convergence is not feasible in the current system, and gnashing one's teeth about it is about as effective as trying to get the wind to stop blowing by biting it.

As far as alternate gauss mechanics go, I'm not really so disappointed in the charge up, though I really wish that uncharged gauss wouldn't flippin' explode. I am disappointed in the max use at once thing though. I want to get a bigger rush from avoiding quad gauss dire whale salvos.

Also, if you like gauss, buy AC10's. They're not quite as low-heat, and they don't quite go as far as fast, but they do hit 2/3rds as hard and way faster with no ramp up. I rather like them.

[IraqiWalker]

McDewbie, on 03 February 2016 - 11:38 AM, said:

I've been away for 3 years but since the game is on steam now I thought I'd add it to my steam library seeing I had so much fun Gauss sniping in the past. OMG what the heck did they do to that weapon? I mean it was strong and people cried bloody murder about how unfair it was but really this is the solution to it? Make it so you have to charge it up and release before it resets? I mean talk about a ham-fisted balance that makes no sense in a technological advanced era. I find it hard to believe in this fictional universe some gear head Mech bay rat couldn't come up with a more elegant solution than this. Oy vey!

Currently it stands as the number 1 weapon in the game.

It'll take you a bit to get used to it, but if you're half decent, you'll overcome it.

Another thing you may have not noticed by now is that you can only fire 2 Gauss Rifles at a time. (we had a short period of time where quad Gauss DWFs were becoming too much of a problem).

For the record, if we want to get into the lore, this fix is actually still reasonable. Instead of the capacitor charge being automated, now it's manual. Conversely, Gauss should have a 0% chance to explode when it's not charged.

[no one]

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 09:53 PM, said:

Obviously in context I am talking about delayed convergence, and using the shortened term to save space. Bad-faith arguments don't convince people, but they do discredit those who offer them. Arm-chair programmers are all alike, too - go do it yourself, then run your mouth. If you're not willing to do it, or able to do it, and you weren't involved in not doing it, all you have to offer is empty talk. Ditto for claiming you know without having tried, or that "someone else did it that one time." The people actually working on the project said there were nontrivial software engineering issues with the way the game is currently coded. They're the ones who would know. It's possible they could figure it out eventually, but resources are not unlimited, and it would stall or slow the development of new features. Now, maybe when they update CryEngine they can revisit the issue! You can always hope.

But as long as the situation remains as-is, you're not offering a solution, you're just wishing - loudly, angrily, and with snide commentary when you're challenged. If wishes were fishes we'd walk on the sea - but you're going to come back from your hiking trip rather wet.

Yes, I was also talking about delayed convergence. I was making the point that the game already does what the "we can't do non instant convergence" argument hinges on the game not being able to do. Right now we have a system where depth of convergence is determined by what's under your reticule at the moment you fire, right? HSR compensates for lag by interpreting the ms delay between the server and the player's client to determine what the player was aiming at. Now, for sake of this argument let's assume that's functioning correctly. If I fire slightly over the head of a target into the infinite distance my weapons can and do connect with a target at separate points. So if you edited the line of code that takes reticule range as input and replaced it with an integer for 3000 meters then your weapons would effectively fire without convergence, and HSR would not be effected, correct? If you instead took that mouse input range and replaced it with a simple distance-to-target then your weapons would converge to a point at distance to target perfectly, regardless of what was actually under your reticule. Of course to do a gradual convergence you need your weapons focus to start at the extreme range value, and then gradually reduce that value to distance to target. So you need a function that can, after a value time T, return the point of convergence D. Since the target is probably moving and the precision of convergence over the period of convergence isn't important, we can graduate D by say, 100 meters? And then once your convergence point's within 100 meters of range to target you can just use that.


Of course I'm just enjoying theory crafting an solution to a known obstacle to true balance. I don't have access to the game's code. It will probably never be implemented. My expertise in particular to this is both irrelevant, and a poor argument. For the sake of highlighting my own hypocrisy though, I'll point out that what I said of PGI's competence ran a similar thread. Perhaps I was harsh, but you don't do well to defend them by attacking me. Fixing the problem may be non trivial, it may take time, but convergence is a core function of balance. Time devoted to developing new features that rely on a broken system being broken are ultimately going to result in greater delay if the broken system is ever fixed.

I'm sorry if you found my words snide, but consider how they mirror your own. Either one of us could have been joking. Perhaps it was your interpretation that was hostile? I was certainly being hostile to PGI, but not to you.

IraqiWalker, on 04 February 2016 - 10:20 PM, said:

Another thing you may have not noticed by now is that you can only fire 2 Gauss Rifles at a time. (we had a short period of time where quad Gauss DWFs were becoming too much of a problem). For the record, if we want to get into the lore, this fix is actually still reasonable. Instead of the capacitor charge being automated, now it's manual. Conversely, Gauss should have a 0% chance to explode when it's not charged.

Interesting, I didn't know this. It actually sound pretty similar to the cludge fix I threw out as a hypothetical earlier. Koniving pointed out that it would result in a lower DPS unless there were allowances made for overall rate of fire. Are there any?

I still think capacitor discharge is dumb. Who am I buying these things from, Quickscell?

Edited by no one, 05 February 2016 - 12:49 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

no one, on 05 February 2016 - 12:43 AM, said:

Interesting, I didn't know this. It actually sound pretty similar to the cludge fix I threw out as a hypothetical earlier. Koniving pointed out that it would result in a lower DPS unless there were allowances made for overall rate of fire. Are there any?

The fix you suggested forces you to use only 1 Gauss. The DWF was the only mech in the game that could fit 4 GRs reliably, so there was no real damage there. One Cataphract variant also could mount 3, but that's it. So there was no noted damage to the player population. The fix you're suggesting would damage/cripple almost half the builds in the game, which would justify making allowances to compensate.

no one, on 05 February 2016 - 12:43 AM, said:

I still think capacitor discharge is dumb. Who am I buying these things from, Quickscell?

But that's how Gauss Rifles work. It used to be that the charging was automated, now they made it manual.

let me put it this way:

Do you ever remember a mech with ERLLs being able to compete at range with a Gauss Rifle mech?

It didn't happen, because by the time their ERLL dealt you 2 damage, you already landed your 15 and ducked back into cover. At least now it allows for some counter play, and is one of the most reasonable representations of minimum range I've seen.

[Tim East]

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 01:06 AM, said:

Do you ever remember a mech with ERLLs being able to compete at range with a Gauss Rifle mech?

It didn't happen, because by the time their ERLL dealt you 2 damage, you already landed your 15 and ducked back into cover. At least now it allows for some counter play, and is one of the most reasonable representations of minimum range I've seen.

That's actually a really good point, though I still hate the rifles blowing up without a charge if someone sneezes too hard at them. Also, with that said, I'm not so certain that I want to blame the GR for that as much as the decision to make laser burn times so long. I practically can't play with regular or ER lasers. Gotta be pulse, all day, every day. Especially IS LPL. Those things are beastly, with none of the hitreg shenans I feel like I run into with PPCs for the same tonnage price.

[IraqiWalker]

Tim East, on 05 February 2016 - 01:14 AM, said:

That's actually a really good point, though I still hate the rifles blowing up without a charge if someone sneezes too hard at them. Also, with that said, I'm not so certain that I want to blame the GR for that as much as the decision to make laser burn times so long. I practically can't play with regular or ER lasers. Gotta be pulse, all day, every day. Especially IS LPL. Those things are beastly, with none of the hitreg shenans I feel like I run into with PPCs for the same tonnage price.

It's why I think they should only explode when being charged, but the counter argument is that the explosion chance is another debuff needed to offset the advantages, and if it's put under the player's control then they would just disengage the charge, and not suffer the explosion. Which I really don't know what to feel about.


I think burn times are reasonable, if they were made instant hit, we'd have some serious issues. Ballistics are already on frail grounds as is. Making the lasers better than them in every respect is not a good decision.

If you don't believe me, look up footage from competitive MW4 matches. Or just online regular matches. There's a reason we always packed lasers over most ballistics. ammo-less, PP FLD hitscan damage is too strong.

[no one]

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 01:06 AM, said:

The fix you suggested forces you to use only 1 Gauss. The DWF was the only mech in the game that could fit 4 GRs reliably, so there was no real damage there. One Cataphract variant also could mount 3, but that's it. So there was no noted damage to the player population. The fix you're suggesting would damage/cripple almost half the builds in the game, which would justify making allowances to compensate.

The fix I suggested for Gauss was basically just a forced chain-fire mechanic and increased rate of fire. That's a clunky fix but I'm not sure how that equates forcing you to use one Gauss. You'd still get the DPS increase for multiple Gauss.

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 01:06 AM, said:

Do you ever remember a mech with ERLLs being able to compete at range with a Gauss Rifle mech?

It didn't happen, because by the time their ERLL dealt you 2 damage, you already landed your 15 and ducked back into cover. At least now it allows for some counter play, and is one of the most reasonable representations of minimum range I've seen.

Maaaybe but the Gauss actually loses dominance as a sniper weapon to the erLL at longer ranges or against a more mobile target. That may change a little once laser range quirks get flattened, but losing damage on an ammo limited weapon because of long range, or because you target walked over over a divot hurts a lot more than losing damage with a laser. The absolute major advantage of Gauss over lasers is that it doesn't paint a line straight back to you, which is great if you're an ECM 'Mech or well outside 800m.

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 01:44 AM, said:

It's why I think they should only explode when being charged, but the counter argument is that the explosion chance is another debuff needed to offset the advantages, and if it's put under the player's control then they would just disengage the charge, and not suffer the explosion. Which I really don't know what to feel about.

Just use the charge state when the critical hit is inflicted. Discharging isn't going to save you unless you see the blow coming, and if someone's smart enough to not charge the gauss in their striped torso while they're fighting a machine gun spider, then good for them.

Edited by no one, 05 February 2016 - 01:58 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

no one, on 05 February 2016 - 01:54 AM, said:

The fix I suggested for Gauss was basically just a forced chain-fire mechanic and increased rate of fire. That's a clunky fix but I'm not sure how that equates forcing you to use one Gauss. You'd still get the DPS increase for multiple Gauss.

No, not really, you'd get a minuscule increase for the 15 tons you invested. It makes the weapon absolutely a terrible choice past taking 1 Gauss Rifle. It also stops dual gauss snipers from basically being useful.

no one, on 05 February 2016 - 01:54 AM, said:

Maaaybe but the Gauss actually loses dominance as a sniper weapon to the erLL at longer ranges or against a more mobile target. That may change a little once laser range quirks get flattened, but losing damage on an ammo limited weapon because of long range, or because you target walked over over a divot hurts a lot more than losing damage with a laser. The absolute major advantage of Gauss over lasers is that it doesn't paint a line straight back to you, which is great if you're an ECM 'Mech or well outside 800m.

Are we looking at the same numbers here? Where do you see a burn duration on the Gauss Rifle? Because literally the only time the old GR could lose to the ERLL is if had a burn duration. ERLL is a better poking weapon, but it's not a better sniping weapon. It's not even a comparison if we are talking about sniping.

If we are talking about ranged combat in general, old Gauss wins hands down. Again because of the near hitscan PP FLD 15 damage projectile. This is of course before factoring in that the Gauss actually has a full 600 meters more range on the ERLL. It's dealing just under 5 damage at the point where the ERLL is dealing 0 (Gauss deals 5 damage at 1320, ERLL zeroes out at 1350, so GR should be doing about 4.9 damage at the point where ERLL does 0)

Accuracy isn't even an issue unless you decided you want to shoot a light mech, and even then, you still have a good chance of hitting them at long range if you aim. Or just use you PP FLD to accurately rip off sections on bigger mechs in the blink of an eye, without giving them a chance to spread the damage.


There has never existed a version of MWO where the Gauss Rifle was an inferior sniping weapon to the ERLL. With Gauss Charge in the game, it's just not as dominating, and allows laser based mechs a chance to fight back, instead of being killed without landing much damage in return.

no one, on 05 February 2016 - 01:54 AM, said:

Just use the charge state when the critical hit is inflicted. Discharging isn't going to save you unless you see the blow coming, and if someone's smart enough to not charge the gauss in their striped torso while they're fighting a machine gun spider, then good for them.

That's kinda my reasoning.

[Tim East]

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 04:07 AM, said:

If we are talking about ranged combat in general, old Gauss wins hands down. Again because of the near hitscan PP FLD 15 damage projectile. This is of course before factoring in that the Gauss actually has a full 600 meters more range on the ERLL. It's dealing just under 5 damage at the point where the ERLL is dealing 0 (Gauss deals 5 damage at 1320, ERLL zeroes out at 1350, so GR should be doing about 4.9 damage at the point where ERLL does 0)

There has never existed a version of MWO where the Gauss Rifle was an inferior sniping weapon to the ERLL. With Gauss Charge in the game, it's just not as dominating, and allows laser based mechs a chance to fight back, instead of being killed without landing much damage in return.

You know, if you discount the fact that you can take 3 of them for the tonnage of a single GR and use the space you would have on ammo for heat sinks.

Individually the ERLL might be inferior, but per ton... I'm unconvinced. You need to hold 3 ERLLs on target for a hair shy of .7 seconds to do gauss-equivalent damage. Gauss charge-up time is what? About half a second? So if you and your sniping opponent are equally quick on the draw, gauss has maybe, MAYBE a fifth of a second advantage? The only places it gets wonky are where he's pre-charging the rifle, since it then becomes a gaussing (yeah, I know, bad pun, but I typo'd it and thought it was funny) game to see if he can line up a shot and tag you before you tag him. There are a bunch of other factors in there, like twisting which is easier for the gausser than the ERLLer, and heat, which may cause the ERLL guy to have to disengage entirely, but in a stand and deliver clan style fight, the ERLLs enjoy a not-insubstantial 3.39 DPS advantage, discounting quirks, modules, and skills.

[Void Angel]

A good Gauss sniper will indeed start charging as he pops out of cover, and in practice he already knows where you are from teammates' spotting, or at least past experience. As for the Clans, they don't really do the Easymode Standoff thing any more, since the Inner Sphere has a number of popular chassis that are (over)quirked for range - such that they outrange the Clans. We may be seeing that come back more once the (much-needed) range quirk nerfs come in next patch, but that's still to be seen.

[Void Angel]

no one, on 05 February 2016 - 12:43 AM, said:

Yes, I was also talking about delayed convergence.

No, you weren't - not unless you were trying to tell me that the mechanic I told you was no longer in the game was still in the game! Here, let me refresh your memory.

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

You do know they used to have convergence, right?

no one, on 04 February 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

You do know they have convergence NOW, right?

Void Angel, on 04 February 2016 - 09:53 PM, said:

Obviously in context I am talking about delayed convergence, and using the shortened term to save space.

... which brings us back to your first quoted response. The only possible alternative is that you're not keeping up with the conversation.

In any case, my point about armchair programming stands - the only people who have tried to do it found it to be unworkable for whatever reason. It could be a coding conflict, it could be other things - we don't know. They do, and unless we're willing and able to go fix it ourselves, talking about how "simple" it would be is just so much hot wind.

Now, with the max number of Gauss Rifles that can fire, Iraqi forgot to mention that this number is shared with (ER)PPCs. This was done to eliminate the "fun" 45-point pinpoint alphas that made the poptart meta so enjoyable to play. Just like the recent cooldown nerf, weapon balance has to take into account the interactions a weapon system has with other factors in the game. Failure to do this results in things like the poptart meta: when the only chassis that could really poptart well was the Cataphract 3D, the tactic wasn't a problem - but add in a 90-ton Assault with jump jets and commensurate loadout and armor potential, and suddenly poptarting becomes the only effective tactic in serious play. It took months and months of incremental changes to reduce poptarting to anything less than an apex tactic. The Gauss Rifle is the same kind of issue, though less extreme - in order to fix the Gauss/Vomit meta, they had to pick something to change, and they picked the dps of the Gauss Rifle. Whether it was too much of a nerf is another subject, but it's not wrong of PGI to have nerfed teh Gauss Rifle to make that fix.

PS: Of course I know you're being snide about PGI. Why would I find arrogance and bad argument not to be annoying simply because it wasn't directed at me? Calling you on that isn't an "attack," nor is it defending PGI.

[IraqiWalker]

Tim East, on 05 February 2016 - 10:09 AM, said:

You know, if you discount the fact that you can take 3 of them for the tonnage of a single GR and use the space you would have on ammo for heat sinks.

Individually the ERLL might be inferior, but per ton... I'm unconvinced. You need to hold 3 ERLLs on target for a hair shy of .7 seconds to do gauss-equivalent damage. Gauss charge-up time is what? About half a second? So if you and your sniping opponent are equally quick on the draw, gauss has maybe, MAYBE a fifth of a second advantage? The only places it gets wonky are where he's pre-charging the rifle, since it then becomes a gaussing (yeah, I know, bad pun, but I typo'd it and thought it was funny) game to see if he can line up a shot and tag you before you tag him. There are a bunch of other factors in there, like twisting which is easier for the gausser than the ERLLer, and heat, which may cause the ERLL guy to have to disengage entirely, but in a stand and deliver clan style fight, the ERLLs enjoy a not-insubstantial 3.39 DPS advantage, discounting quirks, modules, and skills.

Here's something that should be stated:

If we are looking simply at raw damage numbers, and not factoring in mechanics, lasers are ALWAYS more efficient per ton, than ballistics.

The main reason you would choose a ballistic weapon over an energy weapon when you're not restricted by hardpoints is a mechanical reason.

otherwise, if it's just damage per ton efficiency, lasers win. Take a look at the ML, Compare 4 MLs to an AC 20, 4 slots, 4 tons, 20 damage, at exactly the same range bracket, no ammo dependency. Heat is your only problem, and you'd need 8 DHS to cool them off, for a total of 12 tons invested, or just use 8 from the 10 already in your engine. The AC 20 starts off at 14 tons before ammo.


The main reason why the GR is the better sniping weapon is the fact that it's near instant PP FLD, which means you can discharge full damage in a fraction of time hitting your target location, and then torso twist while hiding back behind cover. Whereas the ERLL mech will have to struggle to hold it's beam on one location.

Now imagine that scenario when the GR didn't have charge. I don't need to, I was on both ends of it. The laser loses, HARD. We need the charge to give the lasers a chance at some counter play.

Btw, the ERLL has a DPS of 2.0, and the C-ERLL has a DPS of 2.32, both of which are below the GR at 2.61.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 05 February 2016 - 01:22 PM.

[no one]

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 04:07 AM, said:

No, not really, you'd get a minuscule increase for the 15 tons you invested. It makes the weapon absolutely a terrible choice past taking 1 Gauss Rifle. It also stops dual gauss snipers from basically being useful.

Well originally in the conversation I was pointing out that the gauss is a lackluster individual weapon because it doesn't leverage the extra hole-punch. In terms of raw DPS however, two Gauss fired in combination with the charge up mechanic have 5.22 sustained DPS. If you're chain fire Gauss on the same 5 second cycle sans .75 charge-up, but add a 1 second cool down independent re-fire delay your DPS shifts to 5.5 sustained DPS (15 damage / 5sec + 15 damage / 6sec) for two Gauss. For three Gauss your DPS shifts from 7.83 to 7.643 sustained DPS (15 damage / 5sec + 15 damage / 6sec + 15 damage / 7sec).

So it's not until you hit 3 Gauss that DPS suffers more from even something as huge as a one second delay than it does from a .75 second charge up. The problem, as Koniving pointed out, is that by doing that you're only fixing convergence for the Gauss rifle, so the Gauss stops being able to compete with massed ACs on heavier 'Mechs.

Void Angel, on 05 February 2016 - 11:05 AM, said:

No, you weren't - not unless you were trying to tell me that the mechanic I told you was no longer in the game was still in the game! Here, let me refresh your memory.
... which brings us back to your first quoted response. The only possible alternative is that you're not keeping up with the conversation.

You're talking bout the delay of convergence as it was implemented and removed. I'm talking about the mechanics of convergence delay as it already exists in game. Both of those things are 'convergence delay'.

Here, let me give you a clear example of convergence delay - If I shoot at a target that's 1000 meters away, then my weapons are going to converge at 1000 meters, regardless of where the target is in the meantime, right? Hypothetically say that when my weapons hit, the target has moved and is now within 200 meters. Are all my weapons going to strike the same point on that target? That's a form of delayed convergence, or divergence if you want.

But here's the funny thing; I logically laid out in my previous post why I believe PGI could do a convergence system, and it is largely because what they have achieved demonstrates the potential for it. You are choosing to believe that PGI still can't do it because at some point years ago someone said they couldn't.

[Tim East]

IraqiWalker, on 05 February 2016 - 01:15 PM, said:

The main reason why the GR is the better sniping weapon is the fact that it's near instant PP FLD, which means you can discharge full damage in a fraction of time hitting your target location, and then torso twist while hiding back behind cover. Whereas the ERLL mech will have to struggle to hold it's beam on one location.

Now imagine that scenario when the GR didn't have charge. I don't need to, I was on both ends of it. The laser loses, HARD. We need the charge to give the lasers a chance at some counter play.

Btw, the ERLL has a DPS of 2.0, and the C-ERLL has a DPS of 2.32, both of which are below the GR at 2.61.

I'm not disputing that the GR has great sniping potential, I'm just saying that ERLLs are viable, and have far superior dpspt. I'm not really surprised that laservomit is the meta right now, given the way heat threshold works and the aforementioned generally superior dpspt of laser weapons.

It's funny, because I think back to the Gausscat meta almost fondly. I agree that lasers weren't the counter to it, but that's mainly because they way I wound up countering the gausscat was with AC2's, believe it or not. I ran a Raven 4x that would just screenshake the piss out of whoever I hit with it, and they'd pretty much always back down. You know, kind of like I use those flamers on my shotgun KGC to keep people panicking. Always kind of liked staring builds.

Screenshake and blinding from ballistics used to feel a lot stronger to me. :\

Moving back to your point about AC20s vs MLs, I kind of hate MLs. AC20's do good damage in a single place for moderate heat. MLs mediocre damage spread all over anything that moves for way more heat than I really want to deal with. I've had them work, at least in that Cicada I got a little ways back, but ehhh. A better example would be how 2 LPL is pretty nearly always going to be superior to a single AC20 for roughly the same tonnage cost. On the other hand, I'm pretty thrilled with just how GOOD the IS LPL is. I kind of feel like it's the best all-around weapon on the game, especially if you've a 'Mech with quirks that support it.

Edited by Tim East, 05 February 2016 - 08:43 PM.

[Lunatyr]

Personally, I enjoy the charge up for the Gauss (though I am relatively new to the game and have no idea of what it felt like at the start) and I find it quite useful for when I see, through targeting,an enemy mech getting out of cover and just readying my attack.

[IraqiWalker]

Tim East, on 05 February 2016 - 08:43 PM, said:

Moving back to your point about AC20s vs MLs, I kind of hate MLs. AC20's do good damage in a single place for moderate heat. MLs mediocre damage spread all over anything that moves for way more heat than I really want to deal with. I've had them work, at least in that Cicada I got a little ways back, but ehhh.

and THAT is the mechanical reason for why you'd choose a weapon that's not as efficient Dpt wise.