92 replies to this topic

[GrimRiver]

It's what happens when you have a weapon system between AC5's good ROF to damage ratio and AC20's damage to ROF ratio.

It's meh at best like IS LL.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 January 2017 - 10:42 AM, said:

This, the concern over weapon synergy is a goofy one. Weapon synergy is a good thing because it gives more reason to not boat weapons, it also means the weapon becomes useful for mechs that can't boat AC10s (which is pretty much all of them) but can use one or two with PPCs.

Weapon Synergy is not "a good thing" really. I mean boated weapons have strengths and drawbacks. "Weapon Synergy" is what you call mixing strengths and avoiding drawbacks. It creates a situation where you ought to just run the AC+PPC combo or go home. You should not really aim to create synergy unless your goal is to reduce variety of loadouts on the field (I.e. make the Synergy Build outright better than other loadouts)
Synergy should make loadouts that are good, but not necessarily outright better than boated choices.

[FupDup]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 January 2017 - 10:42 AM, said:

This, the concern over weapon synergy is a goofy one. Weapon synergy is a good thing because it gives more reason to not boat weapons, it also means the weapon becomes useful for mechs that can't boat AC10s (which is pretty much all of them) but can use one or two with PPCs.

But...PGI likes to nerf individual weapons based on combos. Like they did with most of the IS ACs back during the first poptart meta. Or the Gauss Rifle (which has survived but still worth listing). Or PPCs for both factions based on the 2 ERPPC + 2 Gauss Dire Whale (which completely killed PPCs for a long time).

Or that whole Energy Draw debacle...

Edited by FupDup, 24 January 2017 - 11:09 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Prosperity Park, on 24 January 2017 - 11:05 AM, said:

I mean boated weapons have strengths and drawbacks.

What drawbacks is there really if it weren't for ghost heat?

Prosperity Park, on 24 January 2017 - 11:05 AM, said:

You should not really aim to create synergy unless your goal is to reduce variety of loadouts on the field

How exactly does synergy remove variety....you realize we have weapons with synergy right now right? PPC/Gauss/AC5s, cLPL/cERML and iLPL/iML

Prosperity Park, on 24 January 2017 - 11:05 AM, said:

Synergy should make loadouts that are good, but not necessarily outright better than boated choices.

Mechs intended to boat should really just get higher ghost heat thresholds that way they can compete, but those aren't as common.

[Bishop Steiner]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 January 2017 - 10:57 AM, said:

Which is nice, but it also eats up tonnage to get those advantages, and it can't be boated on very few mechs and there isn't really a weapon that goes with it nicely like LL did in TT (because of the disparity between hitscan and projectiles at 450m).

Honestly though, both the AC20 and AC10 need buffs because both are lackluster in their range brackets.

and being PPFLD, both can easily tip to OP, at the drop of a hat. Maybe it's the memories of all the 2PPC/AC20, then 2PPC/AC10 then 2PPC/2AC5 DragonSlayers for a year of vanilla toaster pastry play hell..... but I would rather continue using them even mildly subpar, than go thru some version of that crap, again. AC20 vel is fine for it's intended purpose... brawling. THe AC20 is lackluster, because all the damn structure and armor buffs that keep pushing the power curve upward, has made 20 ppfld less important (combined with of course, insta convergence weapons).

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 January 2017 - 11:15 AM, said:

and being PPFLD, both can easily tip to OP, at the drop of a hat. Maybe it's the memories of all the 2PPC/AC20, then 2PPC/AC10 then 2PPC/2AC5 DragonSlayers for a year of vanilla toaster pastry play hell

Those aren't returning, Clans and new options have changed the playing field. Not to say you won't see people take those builds, but they pale in comparison to the existing Clan options.

Bishop Steiner, on 24 January 2017 - 11:15 AM, said:

THe AC20 is lackluster, because all the damn structure and armor buffs that keep pushing the power curve upward, has made 20 ppfld less important

Pretty sure this has more to do with SRM hitreg being better and allowing SRMs to be more potent in brawl than anything. Not many of the good Clan mechs have structure quirks and AC20s still aren't that useful against them, not like SRMs.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 24 January 2017 - 11:25 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

It seems to me that MWO is all about creating synergy relationships between weapons. Previously, I have argued that the only way around this is to make the heat for each weapon so absurdly hot (and remove 2X armour) that more than 1-2 weapons with the same range would effectively be overkill, leading to people mixing all ranges. Which might not even be particularly fun, even if it did lead to a lot of builds similar to the ones you see in TT (SL + ML + LL + LRM, for example). And even that is not a given, but let's not go down that road.

Synergy is the name of the game. Either you have weapons that can successfully be boated alone, without other weapons, or you have weapons that rely on some sort of synergy in order to make them effective (you don't see too many pure gauss boats, for example) or you have weapons that aren't effective when boated and don't offer any kind of synergy, so people don't use them.

AC10 needs to be used in tandem with other weapons. PPC is the obvious choice. What else are you going to do with a weapon that does pinpoint damage at a range of 450 meters, with 900 meter max range? No point combining it with SRMs or other ballistics. It's either large lasers or PPCs, basically. Otherwise, what's the point in having that long range and lower DPS than the AC20? And how are you going to make it work better with LLs instead of PPCs?

[Tristan Winter]

Davegt27, on 24 January 2017 - 09:40 AM, said:

its hard to keep up with PGI and there
dicknanigans

FTFY

[Gas Guzzler]

They just need to release an IS mech that can take 3 AC10s and 2 PPCs or 4 AC10s and then AC10s will be "fixed".

[FupDup]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 January 2017 - 12:20 PM, said:

They just need to release an IS mech that can take 3 AC10s and 2 PPCs or 4 AC10s and then AC10s will be "fixed".

A 12-ton gun shouldn't need to be megaboated to be worth its weight.

[Bloody]

Annihilator!

[Tristan Winter]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 January 2017 - 12:20 PM, said:

They just need to release an IS mech that can take 3 AC10s and 2 PPCs or 4 AC10s and then AC10s will be "fixed".

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...58e41be1cc92b1c

Not a problem.

[Gas Guzzler]

FupDup, on 24 January 2017 - 12:21 PM, said:

A 12-ton gun shouldn't need to be megaboated to be worth its weight.

Yeah. My post was satirical. The AC10 has always been pretty anemic.

[Bishop Steiner]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 January 2017 - 12:20 PM, said:

They just need to release an IS mech that can take 3 AC10s and 2 PPCs or 4 AC10s and then AC10s will be "fixed".

considering how fast I can wreck things with 2 ac10s... that is part of my concern, tbh. Folks seem to forget how easy these things tip the seesaw from OP to UP. And 4x IS AC10? Will wreck a lot of face, no matter how anemic you think they are.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 24 January 2017 - 12:36 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 January 2017 - 10:57 AM, said:

Which is nice, but it also eats up tonnage to get those advantages, and it can't be boated on very few mechs and there isn't really a weapon that goes with it nicely like LL did in TT (because of the disparity between hitscan and projectiles at 450m).

Honestly though, both the AC20 and AC10 need buffs because both are lackluster in their range brackets.

900M/s was the Ye Olde AC20 speed, right?
A 30% cut, because it was paired with PPCs

And also had more than 10 damage at 450M
So, naturally, they removed most of those to make it the bowling ball launcher it is today



Normal ACs should have better velocity. For a balancing method, maybe make them faster than UACs. On the one hand, different velocities to get used to, on the other hand, 1200M/s cAC20 wouldn't be worthless.
isUAC20 and cUAC20 could remain bowling ball launchers, for their output potential, but AC5 and AC10 could be improved to be more reliable at their rated ranges.

[Gas Guzzler]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 January 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

considering how fast I can wreck things with 2 ac10s... that is part of my concern, tbh.

I hope you are right for the BSW's sake. But I have always found other loadouts to be more desireable... like 3 AC5s, which weight the same but require more ammo..

[GoatHILL]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 January 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

considering how fast I can wreck things with 2 ac10s... that is part of my concern, tbh. Folks seem to forget how easy these things tip the seesaw from OP to UP. And 4x IS AC10? Will wreck a lot of face, no matter how anemic you think they are.

What mechs are you wrecking so fast with dual IS AC10s? I want to play that game.

[Bishop Steiner]

GoatHILL, on 24 January 2017 - 12:40 PM, said:

What mechs are you wrecking so fast with dual IS AC10s? I want to play that game.

It's a pretty easy one...called...learn to aim. That's 20 PPFLD every 2.5 seconds. If you can't cause pain with that, not my problem.

[L3mming2]

Tristan Winter, on 24 January 2017 - 09:38 AM, said:

Me personally? I'm not sure what the solution is. For mechs that have a single ballistic component, such as the Cataphract, Victor, Shadow Hawk, Dragon or Highlander, I find that it's a bit difficult to pair the AC10 with PPCs, which used to be a thing. And if I'm combining a single ballistic with SRMs, it's usually going to be the AC20, or I may as well just boat SRMs instead.

It seems like the AC10 is only used for mechs like the Rifleman and Jagermech, for running 2xAC10 with lasers. I'm not really seeing other mechs use it very much. I don't even see 2xAC10 used on the King Crab, Cyclops, Mauler or CTF-3D, even though those mechs are capable of running 2xAC10 plus lasers. Instead, people tend to run 2xAC20, 4xUAC5 or something else entirely on those mechs.

Maybe I have simply not noticed that many people are using the AC10. From my vantage point, it seems to be the most rare IS Ballistic weapon right now.

runing 2 AC10's on a KGC is bad, the amound of lead u need to give your target at 450m range mean u have to aim at the empty space in front of the enemy mech (even for assaults), this results in the convergence being set to infinity, result 1 shell will pass infront of the target, the second one behind... if i could set the convergence to a fixed 450m wile not targeting a ennemy mech it might be a good weapon, but now u can only accuratly hit targets at range with it when they stand still..

[Tristan Winter]

L3mming2, on 24 January 2017 - 12:46 PM, said:

runing 2 AC10's on a KGC is bad, the amound of lead u need to give your target at 450m range mean u have to aim at the empty space in front of the enemy mech (even for assaults), this results in the convergence being set to infinity, result 1 shell will pass infront of the target, the second one behind... if i could set the convergence to a fixed 450m wile not targeting a ennemy mech it might be a good weapon, but now u can only accuratly hit targets at range with it when they stand still..

Yep, I agree that it's bad. That's my point. If it was so fantastic, you'd see more mechs using it.