60 replies to this topic

[Chris Lowrey]

Hi everyone.

The Civil War patch introduces many weapons designed around gradual damage fall off. These weapons contain fairly short "optimal" ranges, but have their damages degrade over an extended period of time compared to many of the weapons in the current game.

While we do display this extended fall off in the Mechlab, we know that many will want more precise idea of what kind of damage you can expect at which ranges. So I want to share these with everyone for all of the weapons that currently are designed around non-standard damage drop offs.

Heavy Gauss Rifle:

0-180: 25 Damage
324: 20 Damage
468: 15 Damage
612: 10 Damage
756: 5 Damage

The weapon follows a linear damage falloff from Optimal to max range. These ranges provide "benchmarks" for when these damage values are hit. Anything over them will do more damage up to 25 max damage, anything under will do less.

Snub Nose PPC:

0-270: 10 Damage
450: 5 Damage

The weapon follows a linear damage falloff from Optimal to max range.

ATM's:

120-270: 3 damage per missile
320-500: 2 damage per missile
550-1100: 1 damage per missile

Unlike many other weapon system's ATM's have a unique way in which they apply damage. Rather then their damage falling off linearly, ATM's operates on a series of Damage Plateaus depending on the distance the missile projectile has traveled. With a 50 meter "transition" period in which there is a liner damage falloff between plateaus.

Range Quirks and Range Skills:

Its important to note that range skills apply their modifier to all weapon ranges with the exception of the minimum range. When it comes to weapons built around the gradual damage fall off, its important to note that Range modifiers will extend the range in which all of these benchmarks can be hit. So using the ATM's for example, 15% of quirks or weapon skills boosting range would boost the second damage Plateau of the ATMs from 500 meters, to 575 meters before you start seeing damage fall off.

Bonus:

Have received a few people asking, but yes, the Heavy PPC will do a solid 15 damage to a single location upon release while in Optimal Range.

[CanadianCyrus]

So ATMs still do 3 damage from 120 to 270? The Patch notes state ATM12s do 24 damage. Not sure if the notes just don't bother to list the damage fall off or not.

Edit: Also love that 15 damage HPPC.

Edited by Funzo, 14 July 2017 - 08:53 PM.

[Andi Nagasia]

Thank you on account of the HPPC, cant wait to Try it out,

[Chris Lowrey]

Funzo, on 14 July 2017 - 08:47 PM, said:

So ATMs still do 3 damage from 120 to 270? The Patch notes state ATM12s do 24 damage. Not sure if the notes just don't both to list the damage fall of or not.

ATM's are designed and balanced around their standard ATM munitions but they will still have properties that support their alternative Extended Range (Extra velocity / range over LRM's) and High Explosive (Extra damage at close range) munition properties from the fiction.

The 'Mech lab will display the "base" damage of the standard ATM Munitions, but they will still benefit from the bonus HE damage up close.

[Brain Cancer]

I was hoping we'd see a rapid damage decline rather than the 120m deadzone for ATMs: by 80m it's down to 2, 40m 1, and at point blank approaches zero damage. That narrow window between best damage and no damage is better than the 180m PTS deadzone, but still painful for missile users.

But thank you very much for the data. This is the kind of things hardcore stat chewers crave.

Edit: I wish my LRMs got to go as fast as ATMs do, but that velocity tweak will definitely up ATM accuracy a bit. Thank you.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 14 July 2017 - 08:59 PM.

[Composite Armour]

Is there any chance of letting the LPPC and normal PPC benefit from the HPPC's damage ramp up in min range?

[Andi Nagasia]

Chris if i may be so Bold as to Ask,

both the Heavy Gauss and LBX20 are still 11 Crits,
is PGI stead fast in their position not to deviate from TT Slot requirements(which is ok)
or are you just waiting on making a Final Decision with them as to see how they work in a Live environment,
in this case making a final decision when you have more data on how they are preforming?

Once Again thanks for Responding to us,

[Duvanor]

One question, if I may. Since it is not part of the stats in the patch notes: are ATMs still as prone to AMS as they were on the PTS or will we see an increase in the missiles health?

[Brain Cancer]

Yeah. I did see the tweaks to AMS on the patch notes, but as it was, a triple-AMS mount could completely counter an ATM 12.

[Wintersdark]

Chris Lowrey, on 14 July 2017 - 08:52 PM, said:

ATM's are designed and balanced around their standard ATM munitions but they will still have properties that support their alternative Extended Range (Extra velocity / range over LRM's) and High Explosive (Extra damage at close range) munition properties from the fiction.

The 'Mech lab will display the "base" damage of the standard ATM Munitions, but they will still benefit from the bonus HE damage up close.

did you adjust ATM health? As it stands, a single AMS negates 3-4 tubes of ATM's - with few high damage missiles, AMS was disproportionately strong against it.

[Chados]

Thanks, Chris.

I'd still like to lobby you for a velocity buff to the AC/10. The ERPPC vel buff is primo...those are going on my 3R(S) Marauder ASAP!

[Gas Guzzler]

That's all fine but the Gauss PPC ghost heat thing is a disaster.

[Shifty McSwift]

Please restore this effect to ER lasers, at the moment for clan the ER vs pulse distinction when it comes to range is really minimal or negligible. The effect of longer burn off range would do a lot to distinguish these weapon types, right now only ERLL has extra falloff range, why not ERML and ERSL?

[MischiefSC]

Happy to take a shot at it in live, glad there were some healthy changes in there too.

The only thing I'll say about ATMs is this -

Situationally worthless = functionally worthless. Because moving forward is faster than moving backward it's always easier to close range than increase range. By having both a minimum range and being very weak to AMS, ATMs are functionally worthless. There are two things the other player can do to Eliminate or cripple the viability of the weapon system regardless of skill.

As such it can never be a 'serious' weapon. It's going to be fun for potato farming until everyone gets used to taking AMS, then it'll see little/no use outside of bottom tier play.

It's unfortunate. The flat trajectory, higher speed and optimal performance at mid range otherwise makes them a potentially viable choice to take for mid-range firepower. However weak vs AMS and a minimum range means that just like LRMs and regular IS PPCs they won't really see any use because they are more subject to the other players skill than your own.

Eliminating all minimum ranges and instituting a damage falloff inside those ranges would go a long, long way to broadening what weapons are viable. For now, ATMs are just another kind of LRM. A bit of a giggle against bads but no real place in the lineup for anything like 'meta' or any competitive environment.

[thehiddenedge]

So Chris, I was just looking at the patch notes and noticed something rather odd. Can I assume that the IS ERPPC having a 90m minimum range is just a typo? Having no minimum range is part of their design.

Edited by thehiddenedge, 14 July 2017 - 10:20 PM.

[Andi Nagasia]

thehiddenedge, on 14 July 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

So Chris, I was just looking at the patch notes and noticed something rather odd. Can I assume that the IS ERPPC having a 90m minimum range is just a typo? Having no minimum range is part of their design.

just looked both the SNPPC & ERPPC(under IS PPCs) Say NONE where the others have 90(min Range)
i think you just may have read it wrong,

[FupDup]

thehiddenedge, on 14 July 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

So Chris, I was just looking at the patch notes and noticed something rather odd. Can I assume that the IS ERPPC having a 90m minimum range is just a typo? Having no minimum range is part of their design.

You read the patch notes wrong. They show "1620 None" for their max/min range listing.

[thehiddenedge]

Andi Nagasia, on 14 July 2017 - 10:21 PM, said:

just looked both the SNPPC & ERPPC(under IS PPCs) Say NONE where the others have 90(min Range)
i think you just may have read it wrong,

They must have changed it. I refreshed the page and it correctly says none now. So yeah, it was just a typo.

Edited by thehiddenedge, 14 July 2017 - 10:26 PM.

[Andi Nagasia]

no worries,

[Angel of Annihilation]

I have to say I share the concerns about the ATM's weakness against ASM, I do hope this was addressed. Considering the limitation on these weapons they should do damage at least proportionally to LRMs, i.e. if 15 of 20 LRMs would make it through a single AMS then 9 of 12 ATMs should make it through.

On the other hand for the most part I am greatly pleased about the direction things are headed with IS mechs. It seems most of the new IS weapons received a fair amount of improvement since the last public test and I am super excited to start retrofiting my 70+ IS mechs to take advantage of this. However, I don't really understand why you continue to take wacks at Clan weapons and equipment.

To be honest I am becoming rather alarmed at the continued nerfing of Clan staples like the CER ML, CER SL and MPL, especially in light of the significant improvements IS mechs are going to be seeing with the new tech. I am honestly at the point where I am starting to have little desire to actually drop into a match with a Clan mech and the added heat burden most of my Clan builds are going to experience due to these nerfs are likely to going to push me over the edge. I can honestly say I am probably going to have at least a dozen Clan builds I use, which ride a razor edge on heat as it, get totally broken by the changes and I am not talking about mechs like the Marauder IIC either. I am talking about mechs like the Ice Ferret, Kit Fox, Executioner, Myst Lynx, etc, mechs that most considered sub-par as is. Got to say I am very upset about this.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 14 July 2017 - 11:00 PM.