36 replies to this topic

[Tombs Clawtooth]

I'm trying to wrap my head around something...

A gauss rifle does 15 damage, weighs 12 tons, has a charge up delay, requires very finite heavy ammo, explodes if hit, and a shorter optimum range.

An ERPPC has 15 damage, weighs 6 tons, no delay, no ammo, a longer optimum range, faster cool down, and only at the price of it heating up some and needing to lead targets a little further.

I notice similar themes comparing lasers to AC/UAC/LBX. Except lasers even have more benefits here because they're instant and EXTREMELY light by comparison.

So can someone explain to me what the purpose of ballistic weapons are when they seem flatly inferior in every single regard besides heat on the smaller weapons?

I'm also kind of baffled why larger guns have less range and why LBX shotguns have longer range than ACs.

[Koniving]

Tombs Clawtooth, on 05 September 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around something...

A gauss rifle does 15 damage, weighs 12 tons, has a charge up delay, requires very finite heavy ammo, explodes if hit, and a shorter optimum range.

An ERPPC has 15 damage, weighs 6 tons, no delay, no ammo, a longer optimum range, faster cool down, and only at the price of it heating up some and needing to lead targets a little further.

I notice similar themes comparing lasers to AC/UAC/LBX. Except lasers even have more benefits here because they're instant and EXTREMELY light by comparison.

So can someone explain to me what the purpose of ballistic weapons are when they seem flatly inferior in every single regard besides heat on the smaller weapons?

I'm also kind of baffled why larger guns have less range and why LBX shotguns have longer range than ACs.

This is gonna take a bit of time to answer....
But a lot of it has to do with PGI's errorneous interpretations of how Battletech (the source material)'s weapons work.

Let me finish dinner and I'll be happy to spend an hour or so fleshing this out for you.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

Tombs Clawtooth, on 05 September 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around something...

A gauss rifle does 15 damage, weighs 12 tons, has a charge up delay, requires very finite heavy ammo, explodes if hit, and a shorter optimum range.

An ERPPC has 15 damage, weighs 6 tons, no delay, no ammo, a longer optimum range, faster cool down, and only at the price of it heating up some and needing to lead targets a little further.

I notice similar themes comparing lasers to AC/UAC/LBX. Except lasers even have more benefits

here because they're instant and EXTREMELY light by comparison.

So can someone explain to me what the purpose of ballistic weapons are when they seem flatly inferior in every single regard besides heat on the smaller weapons?

I'm also kind of baffled why larger guns have less range and why LBX shotguns have longer range than ACs.

Ok so... Er PPCs are slower in velocity, create massive heat... And do not do 15 damage into a pinpoint location...

Ballistics are extremelly powerful weaponry and definatelly worth the tonnage increase

Edit: gauss are my favorite weapons in the game

Edited by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, 05 September 2016 - 04:43 PM.

[Tombs Clawtooth]

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 05 September 2016 - 04:41 PM, said:

Ok so... Er PPCs are slower in velocity, create massive heat... And do not do 15 damage into a pinpoint location...

Ballistics are extremelly powerful weaponry and definatelly worth the tonnage increase

Edit: gauss are my favorite weapons in the game

I'm not denying some of the ballistics are good. So far I've used the UAC20, Gauss, UAC5, and LB5X, granted only the UAC20 and gauss seemed to really have much impact on any fight.

I'm using an EBJ-A with 1xGauss, 1xERPPC 4x ERML. I tried many combos with just the single gauss and medium/short range backup weapons and had no success in delivering reasonable damage. After adding the PPC, the build came alive.

I tried a build with a single UAC20 and 6x SPL with a lot of success but it seemed like the SPLs by themselves were doing the heavy lifting.

[Wintersdark]

Tombs Clawtooth, on 05 September 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around something...

A gauss rifle does 15 damage, weighs 12 tons, has a charge up delay, requires very finite heavy ammo, explodes if hit, and a shorter optimum range.

An ERPPC has 15 damage, weighs 6 tons, no delay, no ammo, a longer optimum range, faster cool down, and only at the price of it heating up some and needing to lead targets a little further.

I notice similar themes comparing lasers to AC/UAC/LBX. Except lasers even have more benefits here because they're instant and EXTREMELY light by comparison.

So can someone explain to me what the purpose of ballistic weapons are when they seem flatly inferior in every single regard besides heat on the smaller weapons?

I'm also kind of baffled why larger guns have less range and why LBX shotguns have longer range than ACs.

The Clan ERPPC is dramatically worse than a gauss rifle.

On live, the Clan ERPPC vs. Gauss

1) 14.5 heat vs. 1
2) 1300 m/s projectile speed vs. 2000. The Gauss is so fast it's nearly hitscan; extremely hard to miss with, while the Clan ERPPC at range is seeing it's projectile take such a long time to get to your target it's one of the few weapons you can actively dodge.
3) 10 damage vs. 15 that's actually pinpoint. The cERPPC gains +2.5 damage to a neighboring component and *in some cases* +2.5 to another, depending on where you hit. But it's only doing 10 damage where it hits, not 15. The splash damage is nearly worthless.

Tremendous differences.

Now, make builds: Gauss is bigger and heavier, but otherwise objectively better. More direct damage, faster projectile (more accurate), essentially no heat - and heat is what limits your damage output.

Mount a Gauss rifle and a bunch of lasers, then run a CERPPC and a bunch of lasers, and tell me which weapon you think is better after that.

Also, larger energy weapons = greater range.

The only larger = shorter range is the Autocannons, and they're trading range for tremendous pin point front loaded damage at low heat, while only being a little bit larger.

LBX's have longer range, but are basically worthless at that range. They're only doing useful damage much closer than their optimal ranges (see: putting all their damage where you need it to be rather than sandpapering your target mech.

[Tombs Clawtooth]

Wintersdark, on 05 September 2016 - 05:01 PM, said:

The Clan ERPPC is dramatically worse than a gauss rifle.

On live, the Clan ERPPC vs. Gauss

1) 14.5 heat vs. 1
2) 1300 m/s projectile speed vs. 2000. The Gauss is so fast it's nearly hitscan; extremely hard to miss with, while the Clan ERPPC at range is seeing it's projectile take such a long time to get to your target it's one of the few weapons you can actively dodge.
3) 10 damage vs. 15 that's actually pinpoint. The cERPPC gains +2.5 damage to a neighboring component and *in some cases* +2.5 to another, depending on where you hit. But it's only doing 10 damage where it hits, not 15. The splash damage is nearly worthless.

Tremendous differences.

Now, make builds: Gauss is bigger and heavier, but otherwise objectively better. More direct damage, faster projectile (more accurate), essentially no heat - and heat is what limits your damage output.

Mount a Gauss rifle and a bunch of lasers, then run a CERPPC and a bunch of lasers, and tell me which weapon you think is better after that.

Also, larger energy weapons = greater range.

The only larger = shorter range is the Autocannons, and they're trading range for tremendous pin point front loaded damage at low heat, while only being a little bit larger.

LBX's have longer range, but are basically worthless at that range. They're only doing useful damage much closer than their optimal ranges (see: putting all their damage where you need it to be rather than sandpapering your target mech.

I did mention the builds I've run over demoing different ballistic weapons. I found the gauss rifle severely lacking over 800m and only landing me 250-ish damage matches. I dumped some backup lasers for an ERPPC to supplement the gauss and my damage in those same fights shot up to 600-700+. So the ERPPC is clearly doing the heavy lifting in those engagements. I try to get both to hit at roughly the same time on stationary targets and just lead differently on moving targets. I haven't tried running dual ERPPC yet as I'm currently trying to save up.

[Koniving]

First and foremost and you might find this interesting; you're using the Clan weights which are lighter than the IS weights.

So here we go.
MWO compared to Battletech got the following kinda right in terms of implementation:
Lasers.
LBX.
ER PPCs (but not regular)
Gauss Rifle.

...and that's it.

Also I remind you "Kinda right." As in not completely right.

Lets start with the ballistic family.
The first thing that's off here is that MWO ceremoniously uses Rifles and not Autocannons. That is to say Russ the CEO wanted huge guns that make a big bang, and so they fire like tanks. There's also technical reasons for this related to server and hitreg issues. But from a lore standpoint autocannons are just wrong in how they are front loaded in their damage. This of course is how they get their edge from lasers -- unless you're using the Clan versions which are kinda-sorta closer to actual autocannons.

The difference between an AC/2 and an AC/20 in Battletech lore isn't that the AC/20 fires bigger bullets -- though this is generally true we will instead compare the GM Whirlwind/L AC/2s of the Blackjack [30mm] with the Pontiac 100 AC/20 (also 30mm, though models exist at 40mm but lets stick with 30mm for this explanation for simplicity), so bringing us back to the point of the difference between an AC/2 and an AC/20 -- is that the AC/20 fires 10 times faster than the AC/2, thus cutting its range significantly while spiking large amounts of heat. MWO has it the other way around and rewards the AC/2 with a high firing rate that used to allow it to outclass the DPS of the AC/10...
leading to this problem.


The Rifles I mentioned before are your literal tank cannons that we know in our real world. The smallest one has a very limited accurate range and the largest one has a much further range; a combination of both propulsion (speed), size and thus gun powder and damage, as well as other factors like a bigger more accurate barrel. They are also obsolete as they have a Barrier Armor Rating of 8, and most Mechs and combat oriented tanks have a BAR of 10, causing them to lose effectiveness against Mech Armor. That aside though, the Heavy Rifle which is the largest of the family does 6 effective damage against 'Mechs, has an 'expected accurate' range of 540 (which in BT is identical to the AC/5 range), and a real range of 3,000+ meters. The only example with a given caliber size is 190mm. It also manages a single shot within 4 to 5 seconds making for a maximum of 2 shots per ten second time slice in tabletop, at the risk of breaking the gun.

The average universal size of AC is 120mm and encompasses AC/5s, 10s, and 20s. A GM-brand Whirlwind/5, mounted on the Marauder 3R -- which is supposed to be mounted on a turret but can't due to lawsuits with copyrighted art back in the 1980s to 1990s -- can fire a "Painfully slow" 3-4 shots per second, requiring a total of 3 shots to deliver 5 damage, and can manage a maximum of 2 seconds of sustained fire before the weapon itself overheats to the point that the barrel or feed mechanisms could cause problems and permanently jam at an exceptionally high risk.
The AC/10 of the same caliber can fire at the same rate but longer or twice as fast depending on the manufacturer, requires 6 shots to make 10 damage, and if firing at the same rate as the AC/5 there's no risks of jamming what-so-ever.
A UAC/5 is much lighter than an AC/10 and can do the same thing. Depending on the model it could manage the same rate of fire for 4 seconds or fire twice as much in just 2 seconds. While just a ton more than the AC/5 (on the IS side anyway), it effectively just has a significantly lower chance of a critical failure rendering the weapon inoperable.
The AC/20 -- and there's about a dozen brand names including the King Crab's Deathgiver at 120mm -- fires 12 shots to get its 20 damage. It can fire up to 24 at extremely high risk for a whopping 40 damage in 10 seconds.

What is interesting is that a very specific AC/20, the Chemjet Gun, is stated to be 185mm and is specifically stated to fire 4 bullets per rating in a slow burst. Each of these bullets would do 5 damage. The Heavy Rifle was 190mm and in a single shot does 6 damage (9 damage if not for Mech Armor). The Rifle's maximum possible range is 3,000+ meters. All ACs have the typical range of "about 2,000 meters." However while Rifles shoot few bullets and hardly could manage more than 2 in 10 seconds, autocannons fire lots of shots and some as much as 100 shots per damage rating. Food for thought.

Now consider that Gauss Rifles are supposed to be FLD; one of the very few weapons intended to be.
If one of the biggest AC/20s in existence is only doing 5 damage per bullet...and hat's a machine gun firing shots bigger than this...t

(And for a side note: The Crusher Super Heavy Cannon AC/20 is 150mm and specifically stated to fire 10 shots to get 20 damage).
So when the novels say that the Gauss Rifle will rip a Huge ******* Hole through your mech, and in Battletech tabletop with all the rules will destroy something inside your mech in the process... You won't even get to finish saying "Holy-" before your world got ****** over by a single Gauss Rifle...
hence this Light Mech.

The Hollander. Notice...the size... of that ******* cannon!? Boom *************!

Now consider this:
The Long Tom "tactical nuke" that PGI has depicted in faction warfare that everyone cries about... is horribly misrepresented. It is actually a 30 ton weapon, on a 90 ton setup of a 60 ton vehicle with a maximum speed in the late 20 kph range and several trailers containing cooling equipment and ammunition. The actual total damage it does between direct impact up to total Area of Effect from a single shell.. is 270 damage. MWO's version of it does 1,200 or 1,300 something... down from 1,600+ that it did originally in their first version.

Also keep in mind that the Atlas and Dire Wolf's 608 stock armor in MWO... would be 304 armor in BT. Thus for an MWO-appropriate version we'd need it to do 540 damage per shell.

-----------
PGI MWO's original versions of the Clan lasers required beam durations of up to 2 seconds, but lots of complaints. It is also important to mention the actual damage for IS Large/ER Large and Clan ER Large lasers are supposed to be 8, 8 and 10 damage respectively and their heat is supposed to quite a bit hotter at 8, 9 and 9 heat respectively.

Even so in MWO each laser is doing damage in "Ticks" and each laser has between 4 and 10 ticks. If the tick happens when off target, the damage is completely lost. Switching hitboxes between ticks? Damage could be lost. So to get the real damage you need to hold it on target and in the same spot until the beam is done.

LBX weapons as I've recently learned after a long debate about them with other lore buffs... are a crossbreed of Rifles and Autocannons. Their shells are quite a bit larger with more both a bit more volume and more efficient propellant. Technically LBX shots are supposed to be about 20% faster than AC rounds, delivered with a bit more force... but the real kicker for accuracy, those "pellets" are all supposed to explode like a carpet bombing or cluster missile's secondary munitions for a spectacular light show, which makes missing pretty damn difficult! That's the key reason for the range.

In MWO those are 'full damage ranges'. In Battletech, those are given expected accurate ranges without undue difficulty for the average pilot under combat conditions.

Also keep in mind... Battletech's mechs are a lot smaller than PGI's interpretation (which seems more based on Wizkidz than on FASA). Those accurate ranges account the following: Enemy is likely aware of incoming attack and can block or dodge fire, smoke and other visual difficulties, and general lack of HUD indicators... Yes, 'Mechs have HUDs and yes they did a lot of things. Putting Doritos and squares on targets wasn't a common feature. Keep in mind mechs are generally hundreds of years old.

...Unless you're in a Clan mech.

----------

Also lasers are supposed to have another huge disadvantage which doesn't exist in MWO.
Atmosphere. Everything from particles of dirt to particles of smoke... Without a perfect vacuum, lasers loose effectiveness for every bit of smoke they have to go through.

Mechs also have consumables of a weight not worth mentioning (less than 0.05 tons) called Anti-Laser Aerosols. Spray this into the air like a smoke screen to severely dampen the damage potential of lasers.

Further, keep in mind about Battletech: Ballistic weapons can be used up to 2 times their stated rate (except Rotary ACs which can be used up to 6 times their normal rate) with some risk. So 4, 10, 20, and 40 damage respectively. Lasers in Battletech could only be used at 1 times their rate: So 3, 5, and 8 damage IS and 3, 6, and 10 damage Clan respectively.
Gauss does a flat 15 either way but in a single blow.

The PPC and ER PPC deliver FLD damage in Battletech, but were highly unsafe weapons and with a Mech Threshold of 30 total heat [not counting cooling], an ER PPC's 15 heat brings you at the point where your movement is affected by 90 meters worth of speed (per 10 seconds or a Speed cut of 32.4 kilometers per hour that you're slowed down after just firing a single ER PPC) and an accuracy penalty of 2 (so the difference in accuracy between an seasoned veteran with several years and dozens of battles and a green rookie stepping into his mech for the very first time)... and 1 unit of heat above the bare minimum 'shutdown' risk. That's for one ER PPC, assuming your heatsinks were turned off.

So yeah. Battletech for ya. Hope that answers a lot.

Edited by Koniving, 05 September 2016 - 07:09 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Use what works for you, but understand as you work you way out of the kiddy pool, get better, and your opponents get better, things will change. Opponents won't just let you plink them at range with ERPPC's, and you'll want way more damage output. You can't add much to an ERPPC due to heat, but that's not a problem for Gauss.

I'd assume your problem with the GR is around not being good at dealing with the charge up. Once you do, the fact that its objectively superior becomes abundantly clear.

But in the mean time, use what works best for you. Gameplay is more fun when you're successful after all. Enjoy your time as a newbie!

Also: pay attention to Koniving if you want to understand why things are the way they are and how things work. His posts are often long, but there's nobody who does as good a job explaining Battletech stuff, and he's a community treasure for new players

[TooDumbToQuit]

The issue is heat.

Everything else is PGI's and MWO bs.

A Modern Main Battle Tank can take out an enemy tank at 3 miles if it can see it. In the 80's we were taught, if you can see it, you can hit it and if you can hit it, you can kill it and vice vs......

[Tombs Clawtooth]

Wintersdark, on 05 September 2016 - 05:52 PM, said:

Use what works for you, but understand as you work you way out of the kiddy pool, get better, and your opponents get better, things will change. Opponents won't just let you plink them at range with ERPPC's, and you'll want way more damage output. You can't add much to an ERPPC due to heat, but that's not a problem for Gauss.

I'd assume your problem with the GR is around not being good at dealing with the charge up. Once you do, the fact that its objectively superior becomes abundantly clear.

But in the mean time, use what works best for you. Gameplay is more fun when you're successful after all. Enjoy your time as a newbie!

Also: pay attention to Koniving if you want to understand why things are the way they are and how things work. His posts are often long, but there's nobody who does as good a job explaining Battletech stuff, and he's a community treasure for new players

I had trouble the first day of play on a trial mech figuring out how to get the gauss to fire.

But now a few days in, no, the charge up mechanic is no problem, if anything it makes it easier to fire a round precisely when leading a running target. I come from planetside, I used a gauss sniper rifle (railjack) there that had a 200ms delay after pressing the mouse button before the round fired, now THAT is a pain to deal with!

[Wintersdark]

LikeUntoGod, on 05 September 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

The issue is heat.

Everything else is PGI's and MWO bs.

A Modern Main Battle Tank can take out an enemy tank at 3 miles if it can see it. In the 80's we were taught, if you can see it, you can hit it and if you can hit it, you can kill it and vice vs......

Wait, are you trying to apply real life physics to Battletech Space Magic? Go home, you're drunk.

[TooDumbToQuit]

Wintersdark, on 05 September 2016 - 06:41 PM, said:

Wait, are you trying to apply real life physics to Battletech Space Magic? Go home, you're drunk.

Hey! I'm allergic to alcohol(because God hates me).


Now as far as being ...uh......lifted...that is another story.....

P.S. We are lucky we do not have to pay for ammo.....

Edited by LikeUntoGod, 05 September 2016 - 07:19 PM.

[SilentScreamer]

Tombs Clawtooth, on 05 September 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around something...

I notice similar themes comparing lasers to AC/UAC/LBX. Except lasers even have more benefits here because they're instant and EXTREMELY light by comparison.

As others have said, HEAT is one key difference between energy and ballistics. The other is rate of fire a.k.a. cooldown.

Lets use a Jagermech JM6-S as a simple example (Note - I do not use these buillds, this is just theory).

Jager1 has 3 PPCS and 7 additional heatsinks (28 tons). Impressive alpha damage of 30, but with Heat mechanics (and Ghostheat) you won't get more then 2 shots with each before either a) shutting down b) blow 40,000 c-bills on a coolshot or c) go hide and wait to cool down. That is only 60 damage which will not kill a heavy mech unless you hit the head rear.

Jager2 has three AC5s and 4 tons of ammo (also 28 tons). Not an impressive alpha, only 15 damage. But the mech will not overheat.

Additionally the AC5s fire once every 1.6 seconds while the PPCs take 4 seconds to cooldown, so damage over time would work roughly as:



At this point Jager1 probably shuts down from heat. Jager2 can keep going. If you are playing a mobile sniper, energy works.If you are trying to break the enemy line and take down mechs quickly, go ballastics or SRMs.

(edit made table look pretty)

Edited by SilentScreamer, 10 September 2016 - 03:56 AM.

[TooDumbToQuit]

[Koniving]

Now I need to go to bed, but before I do...

Why use ACs over lasers in MWO with PGI's design?

Using IS ACs...
Damage is instant for ACs on impact, no face time required. Fire and turn away to protect yourself.
... but not for lasers which require around a second of 'holding the target' to do the same damage (before quirks).

Using IS or Clan cannons of AC or UAC or LBX versus lasers..
Firing rate. It is the real advantage between ACs and lasers in Battletech and surprisingly it still manages to be the big kicker here too.
Comparing an IS AC/5 to an IS Medium Laser which both do 5 damage per shot, the IS AC/5 at 8 tons does 5 damage in a single shot. It can fire -- for a mech without skill tree, quirks or other enhancements -- every 1.66 seconds. So bang, reload in 1.66 seconds, bang, reload in 1.66 seconds, bang. That's 3 shots in 3.32 seconds where you get 15 damage.
Compare now the medium laser. Again no skill tree or quirks, a medium laser requires 1 second of beam time to delivery 5 damage and 3 seconds of cooling/recharging time before it can fire again. Thus: Fire. Beam ends in 1 second. Recharge 3 seconds. That's 4 seconds already and you've done just 5 damage.
If we play fair and bring both up another shot...
The IS AC/5 in 4.98 seconds would deliver 20 damage while the IS ML would deliver a measly 10 damage in 5 seconds (that's two firings and only the first recharge; it won't be ready to fire again until the 8 second mark from the first time you pulled the trigger, the AC/5 will fire again just before the 6 seond mark and again by 8 seconds!)
A UAC/5 in that same time frame might deliver 40 damage compared to that 10 damage, but in MWO has the risk of jamming.

So of course you have to stock up on several lasers to do any real damage or to have any chance of competing against a single AC.
But wait, you can boat ACs if you really wanted to.

And so in the end you have this.

And very little is more OP than that. And I'm deliberately having them chain fire on a macro to slow down their rate of fire to keep it even colder as well as give my enemies a chance! That's not even full power.

This too, isn't even full power. Now the super fast firing rate is me actually using them at MWO's speed by holding the trigger rather than using a macro that slows them down in a sort of chain fire that overcomes the 'bug' in MWO's chain fire (which didn't get fixed until last month, 3 years after this following video!)
Keep in mind this video clip is from when Ghost Heat was first announced; and AC/2s were not listed as on the punishment list... yet had some bug for punishing them before it was made official.

Except twin Inner Sphere AC/20s; the only weapon combination that can instantly kill any and every single mech in the entire game... by landing it on the cockpit hitbox. But at 14 tons per AC/20; you'd expect that.

Edited by Koniving, 05 September 2016 - 08:06 PM.

[Jingseng]

perhaps the most important distinction:

They make different sounds when fired.

But notably and more seriously, how they do their damage (duration, speed of projectile, RoF, Heat generation -- which is a separate RoF issue, range effects) also matter.

Numbers on paper and Guns on Mechs don't always match up.

[Whiskey Dharma]

I'll say one nice thing about the (otherwise awful) requirement to level up three variants of a mech:

It forces you to try a variety of weapons. The MAD got me to love ACs and sniping; the SHD made me love SRMs and brawling. Now I'm back on the MAD, and I'm seeing the merit of lasers, with their more flexible range band.

[The Basilisk]

LikeUntoGod, on 05 September 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

The issue is heat.

Everything else is PGI's and MWO bs.

A Modern Main Battle Tank can take out an enemy tank at 3 miles if it can see it. In the 80's we were taught, if you can see it, you can hit it and if you can hit it, you can kill it and vice vs......

Hey if you want to put in real world yadayada you have to add that normal tank rounds like the Rheinmetall 120mm Glatt on those Abrams US Tankers would be sub par with even a AC2 (RM L55 would penetrate 810mm armorsteel at 2km when using a kinetic penetrator round while having muzzle velocity of 1750m/s and up to 5km effective combat range) The real range you would fire a tank cannon at an equvalent mobile enemy tank is below 1km.
Those things would just bounce of a mechs monocrystaline metallokeramic armor just scratching the damn paint. You would need lots of luck to even hurt an damn shutdown Locust point blank with that gun.

Edited by The Basilisk, 06 September 2016 - 05:18 AM.

[Hunka Junk]

If I have to choose between limited ammo and having to watch that lil red line, I'll take the ammo...

...and have some lasers just in case the ammo runs dry.

[Tombs Clawtooth]

So what I take from what has been said so far...

Ballistics have superior sustained DPS.

I guess I should ditch my UACs for regular ACs as it feels like the UACs decide to skip their cool down randomly without much control over it. Yes, even when simply holding the fire key for the group. That has made it rather unappealing to rely on.

It has been exceptionally frustrating on the EBJ build as my primary means of DPS goes out the window randomly.

Would switching to a standard AC20 be a highly ill advised move or a good idea?

Edited by Tombs Clawtooth, 06 September 2016 - 06:05 AM.