2 replies to this topic

[Cato Zilks]

I am only going to focus on IS tech here, which is not to say that Clan tech is looking good, just that I need boundaries. On a general note, we must keep in mind that IS stuff is bigger, heavier, and the light engine will mean that the IS has less weight to work with

1) Across the board, you all have failed to have ghost heat levels balanced.

2) PPCs

a) Snub Nose. Its range is bad (270), and its heat output is insulting compared to what we have in the game already. If you think about it the ERPPC is 1 more ton, 1 more crit slot, costs 3.5 more heat, does the same damage but then get roughly double the range. As someone who hates the ERPPC, it is just superior to the snub nose.

What should change:

• Drop the heat from 10 down to 9.5 (= to PPC)
  
• Increase the optimal range to 400, but have the max range only 600 (a net reduction of range for a more reasonable optimal range, Also closer to lore stats where this weapon had precipitous drop off).
  
• Decrease the pinpoint damage to 9 with two .5 splash damages (total of 10).

b ) Light. Again the heat is a bit insulting but it may work here. It is hard to assess at the moment because the ghost heat threshold is stupid for this one.

What should change:

• Fix the ghost heat. We should be able to fire 5 or six of these without ghost heat.
  
• Reduce the cooldown to 3.6 but keep the heat at five. It gets better dps but worse heat management compared to the PPC.

c) Heavy. IS gets less tonnage and space to work with on any given mech. This weapon is insulting. it is 2x the space and almost 2x the weight of the C-ERPPC (and again, IS has less weight to work with) .

What should change:

• It takes up so much weight and space, it needs to be a 15 pinpoint damage weapon.
  
• Its heat should match the Clan ERPPC: 14.0 (which maybe should be 14.5).
  
• These two weapons should have identical heat. IS gets the more pinpoint for a lot more weight and space while Clan is smaller and shoots further.

3) MRMs. These seem to have some hitreg issues, and if you want dumb fire then we need to have all the missiles shoot at once. The complaint that late release missiles aim back at where you used to be aiming is a valid one. Alternatively, the slow release can stay but a missile's trajectory should be determined by when it leaves the tube.


What should change:

• Just pick a firing style and go with it.
  
• Speed up the missiles a bit.

4) RACs.


I will focus on the RAC/5, but this applies to the RAC/2 as well. This weapon is garbage right now: the heat is scaled for a super high damage output, but its actual damage output is crap and requires insane face tanking. Other threads point out the dps advantage the The RAC/5 has over the UAC5 and AC5. However it has a ~1.5 second charge and then really barely out does UACS.

• You see an enemy at time X. You take .5 seconds to aim.
  
  • With a UAC5 you double tap and do 10 damage in 1.5 seconds.The second round of double tap starts at X+2.16 sec, and rounds 5 and six happen at X+3.82
    
    
    At X+4.25 the UAC/5 will have put out 30 damage
    
  • You begin charging the RAC as you aim (+.3 delay). Wait for 1.5 seconds. At ~1.8 seconds begin dealing damage. It takes 4.925 seconds for the RAC/5 to reach the 30 damage like the UAC5.
    
  • That more than half a second more to catch up to the UAC, all while running hotter, weighing more, and taking up more space.

What should change:

• Maybe let us hit a key to get the barrels spinning so there is not fire delay, but a jam means you need to get that barrel going again. This would help a ton.
  
• Increase the damage to 10.2 per second.
  
• Eliminate Ghost heat entirely from RAC weapons, but have the jam bar go faster on when more RACs are firing. So it does not spike heat but will jam weapons.
  
• Allow two RAC/5s or three RAC/2s to fire without penalty. This allows a 6 RAC/2 or a 4 RAC/5 mech the ability to rotate their fire between the 2 jam bars to keep the fire rate up, while still putting respectable firepower out.

5) Gauss.


What should change:

• Heavy gauss: needs a respectable optimal range. It is currently crap. At least 450m. This thing is a massive investment of space and weight plus ammo. It needs its range.
  
• Light Gauss: needs its cooldown reduced to 3.4. Allows it to be competitive with the regular Gauss which is nearly the same size and weight.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 28 June 2017 - 11:08 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

1 alternative I have heard from others for the Light Gauss is to give it the old 3x max range. I would gladly take that in exchange for a cooldown reduction.

[Cato Zilks]

Oh and regarding the SN PPC, this is the Sarna description:

"The Snub-Nose PPC is to a Particle Projector Cannon as a sawed-off shotgun is to a shotgun. The Draconis Combine-produced version of the weapon is slightly lighter than a standard PPC, but its energy discharge trails off considerably faster, leading to shorter range and reduced damage capacity over range. An interesting side benefit is the dramatically increased short range, longer than almost any other weapon."

Short 1-9, Medium 10-13, Long 14-15.
So again that damage profile better matches a 400/600 split as opposed to their weird 270/6?0 range spread. Its like they read how this weapon work and thought... no, lets invert that.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 29 June 2017 - 07:32 AM.