26 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

The reason is the LB-10X is Clantech. No, really. Let me explain.

Before the actual Clans were released, the original plan was for "Clantech" to be Star League-era weaponry that would be better than the stuff people had from the original game, yet not out of the park. Thus, they released the 2750 tech readout with neato stuff like DHS, LB-10X, Gauss rifles, and so on. The proto-"Clans" would be equipped with what we think of now as 3050 IS tech.

Then someone at FASA had the horrible "bright" idea to make super-robots instead, giving us the Clan tech tree instead of a Star League tech one, adding in all kinds of broken levels of ill-thought out gear like pulse lasers + targeting computers, which gave your average Clan player the ability to fire off precision shots like an MWO laservomit build. Or "safe" XL engines and half-the-size endo/ferro. This left those TRO 2750 pieces of gear grandfathered in as the IS tech catchup, but now everything had to be balanced against the current IS tech. Thus, the later introduced LB-2/5/20X all are bulkier to stat more properly with everything else, leaving the LB-10X as the only truly better-than-standard AC. The game has been screwed ever since, to the point where if it wasn't for sheer stubborn, TT could have probably used a serious rules reset and rebuilding most of the later stuff from scratch, ala Warhammer's many tweaks.

Of course, in MWO that's not as big a difference as LB's can't fire solid shots and shotguns pellets for ranged ineffectiveness, but hey.

[LORD ORION]

LBX10 is the original well engineered star league lostech version

LBX5 and LBX20 are clan imitation weapons introduced in 3058

[Cabusha]

Tincan Nightmare, on 25 November 2017 - 09:36 PM, said:

Well the problem was that there is no weapon in TT that does .5 damage, so it was either round up or round down. An AC3 would probably have been better, but FASA evidently disagreed.

That's how I house rule the AC2 and AC5. AC2 becomes AC3 to better compete VS LRMs, and the AC5 becomes AC6 to better compete vs LL.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Khobai, on 25 November 2017 - 03:13 PM, said:

yeah because people were like

MAKE LBX DO 50% MORE DAMAGE PER PELLET

if I was PGI id ignore that too

10%-20% wouldve been a reasonable ask and probably all LBX actually needs. 50% was just excessive.

Hey, the first time I suggested it I figured 1.2 was about right, but the longer the game has continued on the more it seems like 1.5 is almost necessary to have it actually mean anything.

[Kin3ticX]

[Daggett]

Jun Watarase, on 25 November 2017 - 08:57 AM, said:

LBXs still suck 5 years after closed beta started. True story.

This may be true in competitive play, but in QP i think they are quite fine. The dual LBX-20 Scorch still wrecks faces and the LBX-10 can kill much faster on close- and mid-range than the regular AC-10 because of crit-damage.

Sure at range it spreads too much, but in a brawl it's basically an AC-15 against open components and it's spread is tight enough to still pinpoint such weak-spots in a fair distance. Because of this, the LBX-10 is my favorite AC by far.

[Tarogato]

Daggett, on 27 November 2017 - 03:24 AM, said:

Sure at range it spreads too much, but in a brawl it's basically an AC-15 against open components and it's spread is tight enough to still pinpoint such weak-spots in a fair distance. Because of this, the LBX-10 is my favorite AC by far.

Actually, LB10 only averages out to 13 damage with crits. It can be higher, but that's unusual.