95 replies to this topic

[Trauglodyte]

No. The quirks for PPCs are on mechs so that not everyone runs them. What part of that do you people not get? If you want to use PPCs, go ahead. They'll go as fast as an AC5 which nobody seems to have an issue running. The HEAT is the only issue with them or you'd see them more often. Drop them down to 8 and 12.5, respectively, and you're fine.

[Y E O N N E]

Widowmaker1981, on 24 February 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

Well, if you wanted to get technical, a particle projection cannon does damage by kinetic energy transfer, just like a Gauss rifle, except the projectile is MASSIVELY lighter (being a stream of charged particles instead of a big hunk of metal) meaning that in order to actually do any damage whatsoever its velocity would need to be a significant fraction of light speed.

But that would be hitscan, and OP as hell. (i never played previous MW games multiplayer.. how the hell were hitscan lasers with no burntime not the only weapons ever used??)

Wouldn't be OP if it had a duration and/or spool-up time. Like, an extremely short < 0.25 second duration and a spool-up of something like 0.5 seconds.

Now I don't know that that would be a good compromise, but I do know it would be mechanically fun to play with.

[FLG 01]

IMHO, the greatest problem is heat. 10 damage for 15 heat on the IS ERPPC is simply not acceptable, high velocity or not. (Clan ERPPC is a tiny bit better but still nonsense).
The low velocity is just the final nail in the coffin of the ERPPC when it comes to extreme range combat. In the engagement ranges of the regular PPC I did not find it extraordinarily hard to hit targets with the standard velocity, although I needed to get used to it.

Today I made a run with the MAD-3R and ERPPCs. It was ok, I guess, as I had mostly solid games. But the massive need for DHS in order to support sustained fire (i.e. more than two or three shots) severly limits the ability to mount meaningful secondary armament. And that is on the MAD-3R with -10% heat gen on the PPCs.



Edit: forget my suggestions. I need to think about it. Anyway, the PPCs must be cooler.

Edited by FLG 01, 24 February 2016 - 09:42 PM.

[Benjamin357]

Simple fix for PPC/ERPPC, make them function like they do on the CDA-3C if you only mount one of them. Make them function as they currently do (slow/hot) with more mounted.

[Y E O N N E]

Benjamin357, on 24 February 2016 - 09:41 PM, said:

Simple fix for PPC/ERPPC, make them function like they do on the CDA-3C if you only mount one of them. Make them function as they currently do (slow/hot) with more mounted.

Slower cool-down with more honestly ought to be a thing universal to energy weapons (or energy-intensive weapons, which includes the Gauss).

[Andi Nagasia]

so Energy weapon Nerf?
+5% cooldown(Per Ton) x Number of Energy Fired(After the First)

so a Nova would get 25% Longer Cooldown on its ER-ML if firing 6 at a Time,
a WHK would get 30% Longer Cooldown on its ER-PPCs when Firing 2 At a Time,

would this Replace Ghost Heat?
lets see 6ER-ML + 2LPL = 85% Longer Cooldown on all Energy, Penalty for Alphas?

[Y E O N N E]

Andi Nagasia, on 24 February 2016 - 10:05 PM, said:

so Energy weapon Nerf?
+5% cooldown(Per Ton) x Number of Energy Fired(After the First)

so a Nova would get 25% Longer Cooldown on its ER-ML if firing 6 at a Time,
a WHK would get 30% Longer Cooldown on its ER-PPCs when Firing 2 At a Time,

would this Replace Ghost Heat?
lets see 6ER-ML + 2LPL = 85% Longer Cooldown on all Energy, Penalty for Alphas?

Just like with ghost heat, limiting cool-down by number of weapons fired is terrible. Instead, it should be a function of damage points dealt.

[Homeskilit]

Yeonne Greene, on 24 February 2016 - 10:19 PM, said:

Just like with ghost heat, limiting cool-down by number of weapons fired is terrible. Instead, it should be a function of damage points dealt.

Damage dealt or damage fired?

[RestosIII]

I've been playing Mechwarrior 4 again, and WOW I forgot how fun PPCs were when they weren't slow, worthless beachballs. PPCs are a show of their former glory, and really need both a speed buff and a projectile size reduction. We get those, and the only mechs I'll run are PPC Shadow Cats and Masakaris. (At least until they make the Awesome look like something besides a barn door)

[Y E O N N E]

Homeskilit, on 24 February 2016 - 10:37 PM, said:

Damage dealt or damage fired?

Dealt from the guns, so fired.

[Homeskilit]

Yeonne Greene, on 24 February 2016 - 10:48 PM, said:

Dealt from the guns, so fired.

OK, I wasn't sure, just wanted to make sure people weren't rewarded (er not penalized) for being bad shots.

Edited by Homeskilit, 24 February 2016 - 10:52 PM.

[RedScrambles]

Honestly I would use ppcs if the hit registration (or something, I'm blaming hitreg but it could be anything along those lines) wasn't completely borked. Last night I played around with running a 3ppc bj-3. I expected 3 PPCs to behave like a slower, hotter, dual gauss: 30 points of pinpoint damage, with a slow firing rate. I did not get that. Those 3 PPCs are not hitting the same place a huge portion of the time. I don't know if it's hitreg, the giant projectile size, or poor convergence, but they were hitting all over the place on the same shot, if the damage registered at all. I switched back to boating LPLs, because what's the point of crippling my mech with heat for less DPS and uncontrollable spread?

They don't necessarily need to match up with gauss rifles, and they don't need to be OP again just because they were in MW4, but I'd at least like ppcs to be usable on the mechs that are quirked to run them.

[Raso]

RedScrambles, on 26 February 2016 - 12:05 PM, said:

Honestly I would use ppcs if the hit registration (or something, I'm blaming hitreg but it could be anything along those lines) wasn't completely borked. Last night I played around with running a 3ppc bj-3. I expected 3 PPCs to behave like a slower, hotter, dual gauss: 30 points of pinpoint damage, with a slow firing rate. I did not get that. Those 3 PPCs are not hitting the same place a huge portion of the time. I don't know if it's hitreg, the giant projectile size, or poor convergence, but they were hitting all over the place on the same shot, if the damage registered at all. I switched back to boating LPLs, because what's the point of crippling my mech with heat for less DPS and uncontrollable spread?

They don't necessarily need to match up with gauss rifles, and they don't need to be OP again just because they were in MW4, but I'd at least like ppcs to be usable on the mechs that are quirked to run them.

I wonder if the slow travel time is causing that? I know when you lead with ACs you don't get convergence but on a medium that shouldn't be as pronounced as a problem than, say, a broard shouldered Jagermech mech.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 February 2016 - 09:05 AM, said:

Heat still isn't the real problem, velocity is, requiring PPC velocity quirks to remotely be useful is pretty indicative of the problem, well the major one at least, ghost heat being severely punishing of PPFLD mechs is still remnants of the poptarts and 4 PPC Stalker days and could probably be undone a bit so it isn't near as punishing since they aren't near as scary as they used to be.

The biggest problem with the PPC is the LPL, for both clan and IS.

All the other problems the PPC has are irrelevant as long as the LPL is that significantly better than the PPC.

[mad kat]

The biggest problem with the PPC is the god awful hit reg. It appears to me that only a third of my direct hits do any damage. Every single time i'm having trouble with PPC's i swap them out for LPL and as if by magic things start rolling over dead in front of me. Go back to PPC's and im the one playing dead.

Hit reg on the PPC is awful its worse than the SRM's have ever been.

[Homeskilit]

mad kat, on 02 March 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

The biggest problem with the PPC is the god awful hit reg. It appears to me that only a third of my direct hits do any damage. Every single time i'm having trouble with PPC's i swap them out for LPL and as if by magic things start rolling over dead in front of me. Go back to PPC's and im the one playing dead.

Hit reg on the PPC is awful its worse than the SRM's have ever been.

I think hit reg issues are a myth and until i see some videos proving otherwise i will continue in that belief. Usually hit rig "issues" are:
1. Lag - Either you or the server is lagging, probably both.
2. Missed shots - PPCs are projectiles not beam weapons, they can go between legs or between arm and torso and miss.
3. You hit an invisible magic wall - These are all over the place, anytime you are shooting at someone partially hidden behind a structure and your shot does not hit, it is probably because you hit the magic wall he was hiding behind instead.
4. Projectile is too big - this also can be rolled into #3 but many times your shot will just slightly clip the edge of a hill/rock/structure and terminate itself.

[Dan Nashe]

Just fixing velocity is enough. Hell, I'd settle for ghost heat (mild) at TWO for 50 percent more velocity. It's a long range that can only hit fools at long range. It was intended to desync it from gauss. PPC plus gauss very good. But long range weapons with low velocity are useless. PPCS only good as short range brawl weapons.

[Raso]

I think about issue with the PPC hit registration is when you lead a target you lose convergence (or rather it converges on whatever point the pip was on at that time). projectile travel time also means that there are times when the projectiles will wond land where you were hoping. This means that you aren't always getting the pinpoint damage on the same location despite a well placed shot. This has been very noticeable on my Jagermech. It's one of several reasons I use PPCs instead of ERPPCs. IMHO at extreme range the quirks regarding the way convergence works at range and when leading makes dual ERPPCs too inaccurate.

[Steve Pryde]

My problems with ppc's in general:

1. hitreg (a miss shot hurts badly because of point 3)

2. velocity speed (only usable with like 30-50% velocity quirks that only IS-mechs have)

3. too hot.

4. minimum range for standard ppc's (makes lore wise no sense)

5. splash dmg for clan er-ppc's that no one needed or wanted


In MW4 Mercenaries ppc's were feared but here? Just a LOL-weapon. And I miss the negatives for the guys who gets hit from ppc's (hud-issues for example).

Edited by Steve Pryde, 02 March 2016 - 04:17 PM.

[SQW]

mad kat, on 02 March 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

The biggest problem with the PPC is the god awful hit reg. It appears to me that only a third of my direct hits do any damage. Every single time i'm having trouble with PPC's i swap them out for LPL and as if by magic things start rolling over dead in front of me. Go back to PPC's and im the one playing dead.

Hit reg on the PPC is awful its worse than the SRM's have ever been.

I didn't know LPL has an effective range of 800m and also does full dmg to a single section.

Dual PPC on group fire is equivalent of doing AC20 dmg at 800-900m. Similar weight. Trading distance advantage and ammo restriction for 3 times the heat.

If you want to use PPCs, and I admit only mechs with a good quirk should run more than one, you can't use it like a regular energy weapon. It's basically a massive sniper cannon that can be used at medium distance brawl in a pinch. Plan your load out around that concept and you'll do fine.