22 replies to this topic

[Ritual Hammer]

Ha! Fooled you! This topic is not about hatin' but actual constructive ideas!

Now that you're here though, here are some of my ideas to fix these weapons because the idea of using a mech killing shotgun gives me fierce erections.

Option One:
Pretty simple. Decrease the cooldown. This will up the dps over all and balance out the need to be so close to concentrate damage. I bet you saw that option coming.

Option Two:
More bang for you C-Bill. Who hasn't held a shotty in their hands and just wanted to {LT-MOB-25} its bulky but smooth action all night long? I know I have. So increase the shells per ton. This keeps the DPS the same but allows pilots to be more trigger happy with it and increases the POTENTIAL damage of the weapon to balance out that a fair amount of your pellets will simply miss the target you had perfectly lined up. That's fair, right? If Piranha wants to keep this weapon as canon as possible, this is probably the way to do it.

Option Three:
My favorite option and maybe Piranha's too. Make it a burst weapon. Make it fire 2 or 3 (hopefully 3) shells rapidly and multiply the cooldown by the same number. DPS and ammo/ton ratio stay the same but the weapon grows a god damn personality for once! A nice peek-a-boo weapon for close quarters with lots of cover. A painfully long cooldown and short effective range still make it pretty balanced and easy to counter, but it gains a strength similar to ballistic variant of SRM boat volley. I feel this would be the most interesting.

Option Four:
Builds off of option three but if you really wanted to spice things up a bit with some added skill: have the weapon reload one shell at a time per cycle of standard cooldown time. Shoot the weapon once, it fires 3 shells. Wait 2.5 seconds and you can fire 1 shell again. Wait 5 seconds and next trigger pull will fire 2 shells. Wait 7.5 seconds or more and the next shot will fire 3 shells. Absolutely the very least likely option that will ever happen to Mechwarrior... because I don't work for Piranha.

What do ya guys think? Ladies, I wanna know that you think, too.

[Ryoken]

How about implementing it the right way and make the shell split up in shrapnells at ca. 10 meters distance to the target?

As it is now the shell splits up right after leaving the cannon and thus rendering it useless at long ranges.

[Ritual Hammer]

Ryoken, on 18 February 2016 - 02:36 PM, said:

How about implementing it the right way and make the shell split up in shrapnells at ca. 10 meters distance to the target?

Well, that sounds pretty damn effective. Where are the resources that say it is supposed to work like that? Kinda confusing though. If you fired a LB10X at 10 meters the pellets would behave just like a AC/10 round... unless this version of the rounds had a much looser spread once it turned to shrapnel . Did it?

[Ryoken]

In Battletech lore LB-X cannons always worked that way. They do not loose effectiveness with increasing range when the cluster ammunition is used. In fact LB-X cannons had superior range when compared to standard versions:
IS AC10 Range S/M/L = 5/10/15
IS LB-X AC10 S/M/L = 6/12/18

No matter how far the target is away you always roll dice for 10 shrapnells that might hit with the same probability.

http://www.sarna.net...LB-X_Autocannon

Edited by Ryoken, 18 February 2016 - 03:01 PM.

[Bud Crue]

I fixed it by just treating as if has the same range as an ac/20. Works just fine that way.

[Ragnahawk]

Lower the spread. A lot.

[Lightfoot]

LBX do more damage at close range, but not in MWO. Why is that?

[Ryoken]

Lightfoot, on 19 February 2016 - 08:27 PM, said:

LBX do more damage at close range

That is plain wrong. Who told you LBX do more damage at close range?

Maybe you mean Heavy Gauss, it does more damage at close range?

[martian]

Austiclyse, on 18 February 2016 - 01:16 PM, said:

What do ya guys think? Ladies, I wanna know that you think, too.

I think that the first thing to implement would be to make LBX Autocannon work as they should operate - with switchable Slug and Clustershot ammo.

[MrMadguy]

Add Light knockdown effect, when 5 and more dmg is done.

[Ritual Hammer]

MrMadguy, on 20 February 2016 - 06:03 AM, said:

Add Light knockdown effect, when 5 and more dmg is done.

That! sounds interesting. I remember playing MW3 and having lights get knocked over for firing multiple large weapons at once. Nothing like that in MW:O sadly.

[Vlad Striker]

Quote

Nothing like that in MW

It was but it is ruined gameplay.
LB-10x can be fixed by making ammo switch between slug and buckshot. Ammo appropriate type must be loaded of course.

[Lorginir]

What LB-X needs is more damage. Since ammo switch is out of question LB-X can be turned into proper blunderbuss. Double damage per pellet or double amount of pellets alongside with significant reduction to both optimal and maximum range. Something like 200m optimal 300m maximum for LB10 should suffice.

Alternatively LB-X can fire proximity detonation shells, which may make it useful against moving targets or turn it into aoe weapon. Range may be increased a bit in this variant.

[Luscious Dan]

I can't imagine that toggling between solid and cluster is all that complicated. If they can't work the dual ammo supply system, just say screw it and keep one ammo type. Something like press L to toggle solid/cluster shot on all your LBX weaponry, similar to switching between ECM and AMS modes.

If you don't want to make it literally a solid shot, just make it a variable choke so you can get a tighter spread, perhaps at the cost of extra heat/reload time to balance things out a bit.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Halve spread. Increase damage by .2 per pellet.

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 22 February 2016 - 09:43 AM.

[Dee Eight]

In tabletop, an LBX firing cluster ammo a tight shotgun blast, not an expanding cone, which has a to-hit roll bonus over normal shots and if it hits you roll on the appropriate hits column of the missile table. (LB-10X uses the LRM 10 column) to determine the actual number of cluster hits with each piece of cluster hitting dealing 1 point of damage. LBX's can also fire non-cluster ammo that deals the full damage ratng in one spot like a regular AC but without the to-hit bonus. They are lighter and shoot further than regular ACs of the same rating.

In the lore of the game, once the Helm memory core knowledge became widespread, LB-10Xs basically totally replaced AC/10s on new production mechs and were a common retrofit for older mechs.

[Vermaxx]

I'm guessing they have no game engine way to either switch ammo types or to program in the LB to only split up in transit. I don't even think they have a way to provide different ammo TYPES, otherwise they would have added something by now. A gun is a piece of programming. It either fires a pulse (laser), or some kind of projectile. Since the the LBs fire a cluster, it has to happen at the gun. You'll also notice that the clan spread is automatically tighter.

MWO LBs are a cute weapon, but unless you're trying to get component destruction or kill steal it's more effective to use full slug weapons. This is a serious problem for the clans, since all their guns are cluster fire.

I don't know if any of your options are valid. Lowered cooldown or more ammo make it clearly better in many situations, and therefore unbalanced. Now personally I think some things NEED to be unbalanced, but PGI has routinely disagreed with that. As for the burst philosophy - any function that lets any gun fire more than once per a cooldown - no matter how long the cooldown - essentially multiplies that gun by that burst. A times-three LB is basically three guns for the weight of one. Sure, you can only fire it every ten seconds, but that doesn't matter when it allows you to pump three heavy guns' worth of damage in one click.

Edited by Vermaxx, 22 February 2016 - 11:27 AM.

[Dee Eight]

As is, one of the centurions and the IV-Four quickdraw have 30% ballistic cooldown, 10% LB-10X cooldown for a combined 40% reduction...so instead of 2.5 seconds its 1.5. You can get another 12% with a module... That's plenty damn fast I think.

[Nik Reaper]

So, how about just making it like the CERPPC, a single projectile with more range that splits it's damage to 2 next components?
Though if we really need a mech size shotgun I support the increase fire rate by a bit and change nothing else.

[Exard3k]

I think the LBX is great on mechs with Quirks for it (e.g. Orion,Centurion,Rifleman). But I'd like to have a spread module like range or cooldown although the range module slightly decreases spread as well. I like the LBX for being very heat efficient, having great impulse for cockpit shaking and being lighter than an AC10.

Edited by Exard3k, 23 February 2016 - 03:12 AM.