24 replies to this topic

[Zigmund Freud]

Greetings. I was wondering, why do cAC10 and cAC20 even exist?
They have a little less heat (2 vs 3 in UAC10 and 6 vs 7 in UAC 20) and that's only pro. At the same time UAC 10 and 20 have tha same range, same dmg, way better rate of fire, and need less slots.

I get the balance in IS ballistics, UAC5 is 1 tonn heavier and 1 slot bigger, that's fair. But what's the point of making two different kinds of AC for clans, if cUACs are better in any way?

Maybe I don't get something? Do you guys even use regular ACs?

[Kotzi]

Its a placeholder. Normaly ClanUAC can switch ammotype. But PGI cant handle the Cryengine and thus we have a CUAC that nobody needs and wont be replaced anytime soon or at all.

[Ced Riggs]

C-ACX exist because Piggy can't into variant ammunitions for LBX ACX. C-ACX are the work-around to load LBX ACX with slug ammunition, but rather than having ammo to swap between, as would be possible in TT, we get a different weapon system, with it's own ammo that we can't get modules for.

[Zigmund Freud]

Ced Riggs, on 28 April 2017 - 04:25 AM, said:

as would be possible in TT

What's TT btw?
And do thay have any plans to do make changeable ammo types? Didn't read anything about this.

[Ced Riggs]

Zigmund Freud, on 28 April 2017 - 05:07 AM, said:

What's TT btw?
And do thay have any plans to do make changeable ammo types? Didn't read anything about this.

Tabletop - Battletech is, originally, a boardgame.
As for changes to LBX ACX and ammo types, apparently, the guy who wrote LBX code is no longer with Piggy and they need to rewrite that entire section for any chance of being able to swap ammo types. With that being said... don't hold your breath.

[Kotzi]

Tabletop. Thats the origin of Battletech/Mechwarrior. Changeable ammo is lore, it should have been implemented when the first clans were introduced. Thats like two years ago? Well didnt change since then and probably wont change at all.

Edited by Kotzi, 28 April 2017 - 05:13 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

If 3 or more then go ultra if not then stick with AC. Jam risks get to high for me in my opinion.

[Kotzi]

Clownwarlord, on 28 April 2017 - 05:23 AM, said:

If 3 or more then go ultra if not then stick with AC. Jam risks get to high for me in my opinion.

Well, if you dont doubleclick it wont jam, Normal Clan-AC are less hot but need one crit space more. Ultra AC can shoot double with a chance of jamming. But if it doesnt jam those double shots can save your big, haary behind, sometimes. I have to admit its Clan Ultra AC for me anytime.

Edited by Kotzi, 28 April 2017 - 05:31 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

Kotzi who ever lied to you, you should go and kick them. A uac can jam on the first shot with out even double clicking.

[Steve Pryde]

Clownwarlord, on 28 April 2017 - 05:52 AM, said:

Kotzi who ever lied to you, you should go and kick them. A uac can jam on the first shot with out even double clicking.

No they can't. Tested it in testing grounds with a Kodiak-3. Depleted all the ammo and not a single jam.

[Kotzi]

Clownwarlord, on 28 April 2017 - 05:52 AM, said:

Kotzi who ever lied to you, you should go and kick them. A uac can jam on the first shot with out even double clicking.

Normally it shouldnt because its Battletechlore. But i have to admit sometimes i think it does. But thats in heat of the battle where i am not sure if its the first or the second shot i try.

[Monkey Lover]

With the new tech coming c-ac weapons should be changed to a slug.

[Wintersdark]

Ced Riggs, on 28 April 2017 - 05:12 AM, said:

Tabletop - Battletech is, originally, a boardgame.
As for changes to LBX ACX and ammo types, apparently, the guy who wrote LBX code is no longer with Piggy and they need to rewrite that entire section for any chance of being able to swap ammo types. With that being said... don't hold your breath.

Sort of but not exactly. The way this version of CryEngine works internally, you can't have different ammo types for a weapon, because weapons don't actually use ammo. The weapon simply has it's own stats and decreases your ammo count by one when it fires. So changing what ammo your using on a weapon wouldn't change how that weapon works.

To make ammo switching work, then, they need to change your weapon to a different weapon "on the fly" - the idea was to switch your LBX into a AC when you hit the ammo switch button. That's why cAC's exist - the intention was to magically change your weapon from one to the other mid match, and that's why they (originally) had the same economy/logistic stats as the LBX's. But they couldn't make that work. So they're just... There.

[LordNothing]

been running cacs since the uac nerf. unless you are running 3 or more guns or have jamchance quirks the jams are intolerable. uacs have become a weapon you only run when you have quirks backing them up.

cacs get a defacto buff with the skill trees. right now there are no cac modules, but the skill trees bring global velocity and cooldown enhancement options that do encompass the cacs, and so they become more useful. right now i think that the cacs out dps their uac brethren, especially at the big end of the spectrum. people see uacs as 'free double damage' but in reality its going to be in the neighborhood of 1.3x damage unless you are really luckey, and in the long run that luck levels out.

then when you account for 8 seconds of jam time + 4 seconds of cd with the uac20. you can put down 60 damage with the cac20 in that time. the uac20 in theory should jam every 6th double tap. 5 double taps plus the single on the last tap is 220 damage in 20 seconds, and the cacs do 100 damage in the same span. the sixth shot jams and in that time the cac does 60 more damage, so its 220 vs 160 damage. 60 less damage i think is worth having a 100% reliable weapon. heat wise the uac20 puts out 70 heat while the cac20 only puts out 48 in the same time, so its better when mixed with lasers. and its worse if the rumor about uac20s being able to gh themselves on a double tap is true.

if you run a uac and avoid double taps you still have more heat to contend with, and there is never any good reason to doubletap with this weapon (uac20). as a brawly weapon you want it to be reliable, and you cant use it at range either where jams are more tolerable. it might work for the 10, and definitely for the 2s and 5s, you jam you can always go back behind the hill you just humped and wait for it to clear. id actually knock the jam chance down to 15% and take one second of jam time off of the 5,10 and 20, and half a second off the 2.

Edited by LordNothing, 28 April 2017 - 07:22 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

Wintersdark, on 28 April 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

Sort of but not exactly. The way this version of CryEngine works internally, you can't have different ammo types for a weapon, because weapons don't actually use ammo. The weapon simply has it's own stats and decreases your ammo count by one when it fires. So changing what ammo your using on a weapon wouldn't change how that weapon works.

To make ammo switching work, then, they need to change your weapon to a different weapon "on the fly" - the idea was to switch your LBX into a AC when you hit the ammo switch button. That's why cAC's exist - the intention was to magically change your weapon from one to the other mid match, and that's why they (originally) had the same economy/logistic stats as the LBX's. But they couldn't make that work. So they're just... There.

Couldn't you just spawn a lbx/ac next to each other as close as you can. Then just disable one weapon and enable the other depending on the ammo toggle? It sounds kind of simple.,

[Wintersdark]

Monkey Lover, on 28 April 2017 - 07:22 AM, said:

Couldn't you just spawn a lbx/ac next to each other as close as you can. Then just disable one weapon and enable the other depending on the ammo toggle? It sounds kind of simple.,

It's not about physical placement on the mech - having multiple weapons in a single overlapping location not displayed was the original behavior of weapons in MWO after all. The problem is that you've got to be able to add both weapons at once, when the user is only installing one weapon, only one weapon is showing up on the weapon list, and a UI interface is toggling the weapons on and off without being visible as two different weapons to the user.

There's not really a point in spitballing "how it could work" because without access to the source, not knowing how they're actually implemented and referenced in the UI, it's simply guesswork.

There was a concerted effort to make it happen, but it just didn't work out. There's no simple answer, or we'd have switching ammo types now.

[Zigmund Freud]

Wintersdark, on 28 April 2017 - 07:28 AM, said:

There was a concerted effort to make it happen, but it just didn't work out. There's no simple answer, or we'd have switching ammo types now.

Thanks for sharing. I can't believe that actual team of pofesional game devs can't overcome this sort of problems. It sounds like it's an amateur team who just found out about RPGmaker and struggle to make it work.

[Monkey Lover]

Wintersdark, on 28 April 2017 - 07:28 AM, said:

It's not about physical placement on the mech - having multiple weapons in a single overlapping location not displayed was the original behavior of weapons in MWO after all. The problem is that you've got to be able to add both weapons at once, when the user is only installing one weapon, only one weapon is showing up on the weapon list, and a UI interface is toggling the weapons on and off without being visible as two different weapons to the user.

There's not really a point in spitballing "how it could work" because without access to the source, not knowing how they're actually implemented and referenced in the UI, it's simply guesswork.

There was a concerted effort to make it happen, but it just didn't work out. There's no simple answer, or we'd have switching ammo types now.

My point was you wouldn't over lap them. This would allow you basically have both weapons loaded. The engine r would see them as two weapons the UI as one and the toggle would enable and disable one weapon. I agree I can see issue with over lapping weapons. Maybe this would be to ugly.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 28 April 2017 - 08:08 AM.

[SmokedJag]

LordNothing, on 28 April 2017 - 07:21 AM, said:

been running cacs since the uac nerf. unless you are running 3 or more guns or have jamchance quirks the jams are intolerable. uacs have become a weapon you only run when you have quirks backing them up.

cacs get a defacto buff with the skill trees. right now there are no cac modules, but the skill trees bring global velocity and cooldown enhancement options that do encompass the cacs, and so they become more useful. right now i think that the cacs out dps their uac brethren, especially at the big end of the spectrum. people see uacs as 'free double damage' but in reality its going to be in the neighborhood of 1.3x damage unless you are really luckey, and in the long run that luck levels out.

then when you account for 8 seconds of jam time + 4 seconds of cd with the uac20. you can put down 60 damage with the cac20 in that time. the uac20 in theory should jam every 6th double tap. 5 double taps plus the single on the last tap is 220 damage in 20 seconds, and the cacs do 100 damage in the same span. the sixth shot jams and in that time the cac does 60 more damage, so its 220 vs 160 damage. 60 less damage i think is worth having a 100% reliable weapon. heat wise the uac20 puts out 70 heat while the cac20 only puts out 48 in the same time, so its better when mixed with lasers. and its worse if the rumor about uac20s being able to gh themselves on a double tap is true.

if you run a uac and avoid double taps you still have more heat to contend with, and there is never any good reason to doubletap with this weapon (uac20). as a brawly weapon you want it to be reliable, and you cant use it at range either where jams are more tolerable. it might work for the 10, and definitely for the 2s and 5s, you jam you can always go back behind the hill you just humped and wait for it to clear. id actually knock the jam chance down to 15% and take one second of jam time off of the 5,10 and 20, and half a second off the 2.

Been kind of interested in this with how the Warhammer 6R just beats people to death with slug guns.

[Wintersdark]

Monkey Lover, on 28 April 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

My point was you wouldn't over lap them. This would allow you basically have both weapons loaded. The engine r would see them as two weapons the UI as one and the toggle would enable and disable one weapon. I agree I can see issue with over lapping weapons. Maybe this would be to ugly.

The graphic shown is irrelevant and has no bearing on the discussion, really. You COULD have them overlap on the mech, and thus just look like one weapon. Remember, before modular weapons, you could have 3 Machine Guns mounted in the Hunchback-4G's torso and they'd all look like a single AC20, or remove them all and still look like there's an AC20 there. The weapon you see on the mech is not the weapon object from the game engine's perspective. Hell, just make regular Clan AC's invisible by removing it's mesh entirely; disabling the LBX wouldn't make the model vanish. It doesn't matter, though, the appearance of the weapons on the mech is the least important problem.

The problem is in the UI more than anything. You'd need to make modifications to the HUD and how it displays weapons, you'd need to change how weapons are added to the mech: You're equiping two weapons at once, but doing it only paying for one weapon, only using space and tonnage for one weapon, only using one hardpoint, etc. How complex this is depends heavily on how the game engine handles weapons in the first place. What about crits? if the LBX had slots/tonnage and the AC did not, you could have the LBX destroyed and the AC be invincible (with no crit slots, it can't take critical hits). Assuming you can even have weapons with zero critical slots.

It's messy.