Ive used them on a couple mechs before, albeit almost always they were on purely for fun builds (as in seeing what can be done with a weapon thats normally not viable). The ONE exception to this is the AC2 which gets a minor but noticeable range boost compared to the regular model, allowing full damage at over 1km. Its rare (and ERLL boats tend to overshadow them at ranges of 1km or so) but sometimes when im not in the mood for constant meta trash and just wanna derp around ill bring say a quad cAC2 boat to FW on a sniper map and it can be made to work well. AC5s are in a similar category since they also get more range (beats GRs for that matter), but with such low velocity its hard to utilize that range and thus arent worth the extra slot requirement.
Only thing that would make me even consider ACs on clan is if they dropped the pellet count by 1 for every gun but the AC2 (having 0 shots per shot would make it somewhat hard to damage anyone with it no
). That would mean that the AC5s are PPFLD (and would give me a real reason to consider them on mechs), the AC10s would spread less, and the AC20 would still suck but a hair less then it does now. Aside from that, i fail to see ANY good reason to use them outside of the previously mentioned niche range from teh AC2 or AC5 vs the UAC equivalents (and you get a teeny bit less heat per shot, but in 90% of cases this is meaningless when you got 15+ DHS as pretty much every clan mech has). Aslong as they are burst, UACs are gonna remain superior in everything but ultra rare cases where you need to have the absolute maximum range or lower heat gen (2 heat for AC10 vs 3.5 for UAC10 does make a difference, but only if you are using it with lasers and thus you already got alot of DHS to cool em).
On a bit of a side note, i do have a few friends that run a quad AC10 kodiak, but thats mostly due to the fact that its alot less ghost heat problematic and doesnt require macros to be consistent. It works, but purely because that mech has enough raw damage output to hose down anyone whos stupid enough to try and facetank against it. Properly timed quad UAC10 would have been far deadlier imo...
Edited by panzer1b, 22 December 2017 - 03:26 PM.