Bulletsponge0, on 02 November 2017 - 01:22 PM, said:
PPCs (of all varieties) should be rather warm..they are basically lighter AC5/10/15's with unlimited ammo. oh, the the heat gen nodes, because they are percentage based, benefit the PPC family more than they benefit missiles, ballistics and most lasers.
I can understand that argument however in practice it's a little extreme.
For a 4 PPC build you have to devote the rest of your crit slots to heat sinks,
all of them for a mere 40 damage medium range weapon platform that is still far too hot.
Two Gauss and two mediums is far more efficient, has better range, has no minimum range, can be used on a heavy chassis with ease, and can be fired together. The extra weight and ammo is negligible as you will have all the ammo you need, enough weight for it, and far better heat management.
Firing 2 AC20's at the same time is more heat efficient.
The point here is that every other direct fire weapon system can be used without all of the drawbacks of PPCs. All of the alternatives will outperform PPC's by a very large margin. The ghost heat mechanic gave them a sustained DPS role (being unable to fire more than 2) without the capacity to be DPS weapons.
As far as the Heat Gen nodes being better for PPCs that is true but it hardly makes a difference. That's like saying you can get 10% off any car when you only have 10K to spend. Sure that would be more savings off a Lambo but it doesn't matter if you only have 10K to work with. The amount of heat they generate is so much that even if you devote 100% of your nodes to heat gen. cool run, and heat containment, it wont be enough.
Proof being in the pudding and the eating how many dedicated PPC builds do you actually see? How many of those are actually effective and have a decent score at the end of a match? Contrary to this how many Gauss builds do you see? How many Ballistic builds? There is a huge gap in performance for PPCs one that makes any energy based Inner Sphere assault non meta unless it can boat large lasers which really won't outperform a similar clan build. This transfers over to clan as well, why use PPCs when you can vomit lasers or use a Kodiak 3?
They just aren't viable weapons unless paired with something ballistic, and when paired with something ballistic they lose heat sinks, they aren't effective on their own or in tandem.
A further 10% off of their heat would still keep them from being competitive with the likes of autocannons or gauss. They would still be comparatively hot and still require a mech full of heat sinks and a skill tree devoted to heat management.
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