30 replies to this topic

[cazidin]

Greetings Mechwarriors. Today I have a simple question. When piloting light mechs or fast brawlers with abundant energy hardpoints which is better? Small lasers or small pulse lasers? I already know the stat differences but I'd like your opinion(s) on which is better from experience.

Also, the Viper will be released in a week.

[FupDup]

The SPL, of course. On the Inner Sphere side it's particularly skewed, as almost nobody uses the vanilla SL. The Clam ERSL at least has some niche uses...

Edited by FupDup, 12 July 2016 - 03:42 PM.

[JediPanther]

I agree with fup. For is lights especially the spls are a better choice vs smalls. The less time your light or fast medium is giving the enemy a chance to return fire the better. Combined with cool down and elite skills spls have huge dps. You can always mix in a few med lasers for extra range.

Most of my locusts are spl builds while my jenners are a mix of spl and meds.Spls let you deal with enemy lights pretty easy while meds will let you fire and poke.

[Y E O N N E]

Since there are no IS Lights (or Mediums) which can bring 12 of them...which is what you'd need for IS Small Lasers to be viable...the SPL.

[Baulven]

Small pulse is the weapon of choice. The ersl barely has any range on it, much shorter burn times and more damage for miniscule heat changes. This is why you spot moves carrying 12 spl a bunch. It's yeah efficient in groups, it inflicts the damage faster and more accurately and is primed for knife fighting.

[Bud Crue]

As a matter of lore-play I built one of my Locust 1E with a std engine and 5 small lasers. Its a novelty build and I run it every once in a while...usually when my fellows and I have been heavily drinking.

The only other mech I have small lasers is are a grasshopper (and maybe a BK but I think I changed that build), they are not assigned to weapons groups, is (they) are merely filler to push other weapons up to higher hard points. On the other hand I have been known to run 4-6 spl on various PPC builds as close up weapons group. Also like others have mentioned lights that can run spl or ml, I go with spl (mostly). Mediums that support similar load outs I go with ML.

[3xnihilo]

I run a lot of IS lights and I can't think of any common builds that run SL except for a stock
Pirate's Bane which is a decent niche build, but inferior to the 6 spl Locust 1e or 5 spl 3m or even the 4ml PB. So yeah, always spl over SL on an IS light.

[El Bandito]

My Nova runs 12 ERSL. 12 SPL runs too hot on non-elited mech, on top of my 3xAMS and 2 tons of ammo.

[Deathlike]

SL is still bad. Even if you don't bother increasing the range (it might need a little bit of that), duration is what makes the SPL (both IS and Clan) worth its weight.

It would help the IS SL to have a slightly shorter duration. The Firestarter-A is occasionally a thing with 8 SPL... SL is more of an afterthought ultimately.

[Hit the Deck]

That of course depends.

The cSPLs weigh twice of cERSLs so the weight difference between the two becomes greater the more you boat them. That means cSPL if you can mount enough DHS on a boating 'Mech. On a 'Mech like Nova with more than 9000 energy hardpoints you can combine the two to find the sweetspot (if Nova had more space then it would just boat cSPL) but then you have a bit of synergy issue (it's not that big though).

[Mazzyplz]

i prefer small laser. i add them when i can only spare .5 tons and if i am going to spend a full ton then i always go for medlas.
why would i prefer spl over medlas? only for small laser boat would i choose spl. or in case the SL is not doing a terrific job as a backup weap then i will upgrade one or 2 of them to SPL. but for the weight i think the medlas is much superior

[Idealsuspect]

Guess it depend your playstyle and your connection... if you have a nice lagshield run some SPLs of course.
If you like and can pinpoint at longuer range you can try ersls.
Range diff between IS small pulse and IS small laser is anecdotic..

Fighting a IS small pulse laser boat with a Clan small lasers boat can be interesting if you can shoot legs while running away for keep +200 meters distance.
Same with a IS medium laser boat vs a Clan small lasers or small pulse boat but +250-300 meters range...

Edited by Idealsuspect, 12 July 2016 - 05:18 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

SPLs, for both. The shorter duration is absolutely necessary for brawling, that and despite the extra tonnage needed, your sustained DPS tends to stay near the same if not better (12 SPL Nova actually has similar sustained DPS as the 12 ERSL Nova, not counting quirks).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 12 July 2016 - 05:38 PM.

[cazidin]

So, even on mechs like say the Arctic Cheetah or the Nova C-SPL are superior to C ER Small Lasers?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

cazidin, on 12 July 2016 - 06:24 PM, said:

So, even on mechs like say the Arctic Cheetah or the Nova C-SPL are superior to C ER Small Lasers?

cSPLs have always been superior on the Cheetah, Nova has been a tossup between people, but cSPLs are just hard to pass up.

[Kadreal]

The Pulse version for both IS and Clan generates the same heat as its non pulse cousin. This means that it is more heat efficient. I haven't run the number but I'm pretty sure even running 2 SPL vs 2 SL + 1 extra sink still favors the SPL in terms of sustained DPS.

This means the only thing the normal small laser offer over the pulse is range, which isn't even that significant.

Edited by Kadreal, 12 July 2016 - 06:43 PM.

[Moldur]

Clan small lasers and small pulse lasers are at least slightly to taste. Clan small lasers aren't really pointblank weapons, while c-SPLs, even with their better than IS range, are still extremely short range. If a pilot is engaging with SPLs only a few dozen meters beyond their optimal range, then that damage drop-off means they might as well be using small lasers that come at half the tonnage. I guess a person has to think first about whether or not that extra damage for lower range is going to go to use.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

It's all about the tonnage. In general the SPL is better, but in general the ML is better than the SPL for the same weight. The SPL is a niche weapon for specific build types.

The SL is a niche weapon among niche weapons. It is entirely restricted to builds that need to maximize hardpoint-to-tonnage ratios. There are only a handful of specific builds that really need the weight savings that are the entire point of the standard SL.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Depends on number of available E hardpoints and the tech base we're looking at.

Generally speaking, IS mechs should stick to the SPL if you're in a fast light with loads of E hardpoints (Locust, Jenner, Firestarter). It may be a toss-up when your mech has PoorDubs because of a sub-250 engine, where running the full load of SPLs becomes way too hot.

Fast mechs = better gap closing ability = range difference minimal.
Slower mechs = poorer gap closing ability = range difference actually makes a difference.

A combination of these means that a mech like the Nova with tons of E hardpoints might actually benefit from using SLs as opposed to SPLs, because over 12 hardpoints that's a difference of 6 DHS which lets you fire more often, and I believe one extra alpha before you have to get out of a fight. It is also important to note how easy or difficult a mech can escape a fight; a mech with good escape abilities (e.g. Locust, Commando) can afford to have big alphas with little sustain, because they can easily escape if the battle drags on longer than expected. A mech with poorer escape abilities (e.g. Nova) must also pay attention to sustainable DPS.

Consider your playstyle. There's a load of variables here, and the answer isn't as clear cut as we'd like it to be.

[Kubernetes]

The IS Small Laser is great as a placeholder to move your real weapons into higher mounts.

Otherwise, one ML is better than two SLs. A single SL? May as well strip .5 ton armor and put an ML there. I suppose if you somehow have exactly 1.5 tons free you can do 3 SLs, but even then I'd probably take an extra heatsink or even BAP or AMS.