423 replies to this topic

[Angus McFife VI]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 January 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

That autocannon is firing single rounds loaded one at a time into the action with a belt-feed. The contrast with BT is that ACs you are pining for are loading cassettes containing multiple rounds in them that fire in one go. If I keep my trigger depressed with MWO's AC/5, and it fires, loads, and fires on its own, it's an autocannon.

For all that text...you sure did a great job missing the fundamentals.

My thoughts exactly. The autocannons in MWO are just automatically reloading very slowly. An autocannon is a cannon that automatically reloads itself. In MWO you don't have a crew in that side torso loading in shell's do you?

Edited by Dont LRM me please, 09 January 2018 - 10:07 AM.

[Koniving]

Dont LRM me please, on 09 January 2018 - 09:58 AM, said:

So you want to remove the extremely satisfying and effective single-shot cannons, that would only make the laser vomit meta far more effective and no one would be using AC's.

In Mechwarrior 5: Mercs, yes.
And supply some Rifles, which are prevalent use in the Periphery. Those are the lore proper single shot cannons.

Here there's no hope of changing them, the game would need a full rebalance.

Wanted to follow up on this but was pulled away earlier.

MW5: Mercs already has multi-shot ACs.

My gripe is that while there's all this:
Heavy Rifle that can deliver 6 damage in a shot for 8 tons (9 against structure, many vehicle types and ESPECIALLY against VTOL), a Medium Rifle that can do 3 damage in a shot against armor for 5 tons (6 against many vehicle types and against VTOL). Or for 3 tons you can do 0 damage against BAR (Barrier Armor Rating) 10 targets (so mechs, actual combat tanks) but still net 3 damage bullseyes on structure, many vehicle types, structures (not hardened ones) and VTOL craft like helicopters with enough concussive force to knock them out of the sky even if you fail to kill them.
....we are getting "single shot cannons" thrown in our face as "autocannons" from a game spouting all this ******** about giving the fans the deep lore-rich experience we crave.

Rifles might not be mainstream for the various Houses' actual military because PAINFULLY SLOW firing rates and huge "Miss and be ineffective" issues.. you know like MWO's AC/20 where you miss and for 4 seconds or so you can't do a damn thing...
But Rifles ARE very common in the Periphery and among low end mercenaries... which is EXACTLY what you start out as in MW5: Mercs... a low end mercenary with a SINGLE mech to your name and by some miracle, a Leopard Dropship... If you even start with THAT dropship and not a smaller one (which I think you should... unless you're renting it?)

There's the single shot wonders taken care of, with EXTRA damage and EXTRA satisfaction!

And I can have my lore proper ACs... which I know PGI has in the game... but then you give me a Shadowhawk with a lore AC/5 of 80mm... 80mm... and then tell me that does 5 damage (when 150mm does 2 damage per shell)...
and I am immediately thrown out of the belief that all this attention went into lore in a game where the customization digs deep into "Weapon variants" as opposed to "Mount 5 ACs on your Jenner."

Edited by Koniving, 09 January 2018 - 11:44 AM.

[MarsThunder]

PGI, what about an actual roadmap? My decision with Fafnir depends on the roadmap (would I like it or not).

[Angus McFife VI]

Koniving, on 09 January 2018 - 10:10 AM, said:

In Mechwarrior 5: Mercs, yes.
And supply some Rifles, which are prevalent use in the Periphery. Those are the lore proper single shot cannons.

Here there's no hope of changing them, the game would need a full rebalance.

Also if AC's are supposed to be "multi-shot weapons" with small calibers then how come the AC/20 has less effective range than an AC/2? Isn't it based off damage done over time only rather than caliber? So if I have a 100mm AC5 and a 100mm AC20 with the same amount of propellant, what's determining the effective range? What if I have a 200mm AC5 and a 100mm AC5, why would they both weigh the same?? I find it such a silly way of classifying a weapon.

Edited by Dont LRM me please, 09 January 2018 - 10:25 AM.

[Koniving]

Dont LRM me please, on 09 January 2018 - 10:24 AM, said:

Also if AC's are supposed to be "multi-shot weapons" with small calibers then how come the AC/20 has less effective range than an AC/2? Isn't it based off damage done over time only rather than caliber? So if I have a 100mm AC5 and a 100mm AC20 with the same amount of propellant, what's determining the effective range? What if I have a 200mm AC5 and a 100mm AC5, why would they both weigh the same?? I find it such a silly way of classifying a weapon.

Easy.

Its based on damage over time and AC/20s fire (within the same caliber as an AC/5, 120mm) 4 times faster.

For example...

120mm GM Whirlwind/5 has a "painfully slow" firing rate of 3-4 shots per second (but only a 3 shot magazine), with a 4 second magazine (BT calls them cassette) changing time (reload/cooldown) in which you could fire it again within 10 seconds, culminating the Rapid Fire Autocannons rule from TacOps at the risk of potential barrel melting, explosive jams, etc. if you keep pushing this freedom.
(Ultra/5s have significantly less risk of issues, even though they do have a risk of jam... the risk is almost 4-5 times higher for a standard AC).
A 120mm Deathgiver (King Crab) fires specifically in 3 shot bursts and has 4 shots to a cassette, firing at twice the rate of the Marauder's GM Whirlwind/5 and only taking 3 seconds to reload.

So in the time it takes for the Marauder's 120mm AC/5 GM Whirlwind/5 to get off 6 shots (2 damage ratings), a King Crab's AC/20 120mm Deathgiver can churn 24 shots at the same risk for pushing the guns.

Meanwhile, in real life if the caliber is bigger, the effective range tends to be greater, provided it is not a rapid fire weapon (as recoil and other factors cut range).
As such, a single shot weapon such as a Rifle has short range for a Light Rifle, medium range for a Medium Rifle, and the 190mm Heavy Rifle has an effective range equal to an AC/5, for 8 tons, at a whopping 6 damage in a single slug, a stated maximum firing rate of 2 shots in 7 seconds (though in BT unless using advanced rules, you'd only use it once just like ACs) [figure the remaining 3 are spent aiming and then reaiming? The recoil of a Heavy Rifle can cause a mech lighter than 35 tons to fall over from firing it in fluff if they are not stationary).

Canonically, ACs max out at 2000 meters for actual range (not effective range, which is the range a typical pilot/gunner can expect to land ALL shots onto a target without undue difficulty, when accounting for movement, defensive action, etc. on the target).
Rifles max out at 2,000 (Light), 3,000 (Medium) and 4,000 (Heavy) meters. Again the likelihood of hitting anything even a stationary target at these ranges is something of a "miracle" or likely staged.

Also fun:
Since according to TechManual page 207 / 208.. AC/2 starts at 30mm and cuts off at 90 mm. AC/5 goes from 40mm to 120mm. AC/10 cuts off at 120mm (and I never found any mention of an AC/10 under 70mm), and AC/20 goes from 30 or 40mm (depending on which Author's Pontiac 100 you're reading about) up to 185mm in the IS and up to 203mm in the Clans...

its funny to think about this.
185mm Chemjet Gun is a 4 shot/20 damage weapon that only fires singly (one shot at a time but up to 4 shots under normal conditions and can be pushed to 8) and can land an "average" of 5 damage per shot.... which can also be fired over walls like an artillery shell by changing the amount of chemical propellant being injected prior to firing and the angle of fire...
190mm is a Heavy Rifle that fires a 21st ("22nd") century style tank-style sabot to get 6 damage against Mech and most tank armor. But against a Barrier Armor Rating of 7, and against structure, it nets 9 damage.
The 203mm UAC/20 exclusive to the Ebon Jaguar, the only mech that can handle its immense recoil due to its squat and wide nature, can fire up to 2 shots PER barrel in about 8 seconds in Ultra mode and must be stationary (fluff only) while firing. So out of 40 damage in a 10 second period from ultra, we get 2 shots per barrel. How many barrels?

I see 2 on the Prime config. So 2 per gun. That's 4 shots to net 40 damage. 40 damage / 4 shots = 10 damage per shot.

The math of Battletech does wondrous things. Well if you ignore some outlier authors. Some like to throw wrenches into **** 'cause they didn't do any research into weapons or don't give actual details.

For the interesting discrepancy of damage in the Rifle.. Remember it fires a sabot.
https://en.wikipedia...iscarding_sabot
No explosive power. Kind of like a Gauss Slug.
The UAC has explosive power behind its already immense shells, as all autocannons have as their default ammunition "HEAP" rounds which supposedly burrow in just enough to stick partly into the armor and then go boom.

Edited by Koniving, 09 January 2018 - 11:23 AM.

[Ovion]

SergalMagiks, on 09 January 2018 - 10:06 AM, said:

So when we getting the Flea so IS can counter Machine gun spam to -some- degree?
Or at least Wasp/Stinger for 20 tonner jumpjet fun? Not to discount the Fafnir but most of the builds it 'can' do can already be achieved on a better-armored Annie. IS needs some fun mechs too, PGI!

Never.
The Flea has been stated as not from PGI.
The reason being, it's a poor mans Locust, especially in MWO.

In lore (and in history) the Flea was made as a not-locust due to problems (like HG).
Almost all the variants are the equivalent of Locust variants, with 1-2 slightly different ones.
With MASC, it sorta matches the Locust in TT.

In MWO, thanks to MASC, it couldn't have as big an engine (180, maybe 185 at best, probably a 175-180).
But that MASCs bonus speed and weight is no different to just taking the bigger engine on the Locust (which you can then have, always).
If you take off the MASC, you can take slightly heavier weapons, on a slightly slower frame... but then you could do that with a Locust...

There are simply no redeeming features to it, and you'd be adding another 6 Locust variants, and it'd be a waste of a mech slot, especially in the 20T slot, where we could get the Wasp/Stinger or the Thorn.

[Koniving]

Dont LRM me please, on 09 January 2018 - 10:24 AM, said:

So if I have a 100mm AC5 and a 100mm AC20 with the same amount of propellant, what's determining the effective range? What if I have a 200mm AC5 and a 100mm AC5, why would they both weigh the same?? I find it such a silly way of classifying a weapon.

Covered the edited portion of your post already above.
TL;DR: Basically firing rate.

Unlike MWO where the AC/5 fires shitloads faster...

The AC/20 fires a boat ton faster.

In the example above, a 120mm AC/5 fires 3 shots in a second, reloads for 4 seconds.
A 120mm AC/20 fires 6 shells in a second, lobs them for 2 seconds and spends 3 seconds reloading. So long before the AC/5 can get out 6 shots, the AC/20's already done 12 and will be ready to start lobbing 13 through 18 by the time the AC/5 finishes the 6, and before it can get to 9 the AC/20 already hit 24.

Worth comparing: The average medium laser needs to fire 3 times to get 5 damage, and can only get 5 damage in 10 seconds.
(Meaning the AC/5 bullet of a 120mm and the Medium Laser's 0.1 second beam deliver the same damage, but that specific AC/5 will make 5 damage in a single second, while that specific medium laser might accomplish it in an unknown amount of time as there are 60+ UNIQUE IS standard medium lasers in fluff, with more than 88 different models at the last time I counted).

Edited by Koniving, 09 January 2018 - 11:30 AM.

[Koniving]

Ovion, on 09 January 2018 - 11:15 AM, said:

Never.
The Flea has been stated as not from PGI.
The reason being, it's a poor mans Locust, especially in MWO.

In lore (and in history) the Flea was made as a not-locust due to problems (like HG).
Almost all the variants are the equivalent of Locust variants, with 1-2 slightly different ones.
With MASC, it sorta matches the Locust in TT.

In MWO, thanks to MASC, it couldn't have as big an engine (180, maybe 185 at best, probably a 175-180).
But that MASCs bonus speed and weight is no different to just taking the bigger engine on the Locust (which you can then have, always).
If you take off the MASC, you can take slightly heavier weapons, on a slightly slower frame... but then you could do that with a Locust...

There are simply no redeeming features to it, and you'd be adding another 6 Locust variants, and it'd be a waste of a mech slot, especially in the 20T slot, where we could get the Wasp/Stinger or the Thorn.

One of the many reasons that sized hardpoints would solve so many issues in MWO...
Locusts never carry big weapons.
Fleas have variants that do.

[MovinTarget]

While I appreciate the amount of information being poured into this thread about the nature of ACs I've come to the conclusion that I simply don't care *that* much about the realism.

I get that the single-shot nature and barrel sizes and stuff may not be completely kosher on a lore level, let alone a science-level, but I get the feeling that in order to incorporate that much "realism" into the game, especially this late in its life, would be kind of a turn off to those of use that simply don't want to think about it.

I get that there are people out there that would totally get off on that kind of immersion... I don't and I figured myself to be a colossal nerd!

From a MW standpoint, there were never "brands" of weapons that I recall, heck as someone pointed out, MW3 the weapons were even more homogeneous than in MWO!

So perhaps PGI's implementation isn't spot-on to TT. I am still waiting for someone to demonstrate that it's worse than any prior BT FPS since as far as I can tell, they all have their flaws.

[Ovion]

Koniving, on 09 January 2018 - 11:46 AM, said:

One of the many reasons that sized hardpoints would solve so many issues in MWO...
Locusts never carry big weapons.
Fleas have variants that do.

The longer I go, the more I dislike sized hardpoints, it's either stupidly limiting, or gets needlessly complex.

It's why I always advocate a Mass point system, where everything has a rating for the weapon, and a rating for the mech.

But even with your suggestion, I don't know where this concept of the Flea commonly taking heavier weapons comes from... *one* flea has a Large Laser, one other has a LPPC.
Everything else, has 1-5 small weapons (ML, MG, Flamer, MPL, one has 1 RL10), so it really doesn't change much if anything...
So 2 that'd be.. a little tiny bit different, if it had sized hardpoints...

Edited by Ovion, 09 January 2018 - 12:33 PM.

[Angus McFife VI]

Koniving, on 09 January 2018 - 11:08 AM, said:

recoil of a Heavy Rifle can cause a mech lighter than 35 tons to fall over from firing it in fluff if they are not stationary).

Canonically, ACs max out at 2000 meters for actual range (not effective range, which is the range a typical pilot/gunner can expect to land ALL shots onto a target without undue difficulty, when accounting for movement, defensive action, etc. on the target).

Really because I've spent a very long time on Sarna and it always says mechs with the AC/20 are primarily intended for close-range combat, and the AC/20 is even said to be a close range weapon strictly

"Different manufacturers and models of autocannons have different calibers (25mm-203mm) and rates of fire. Due to this, autocannons are grouped into generic "classes" of autocannons with common damage ratings, with Autocannon/20's doing massive damage while having very short range.^"

http://www.sarna.net...i/Autocannon/20

Also entries about the Hunchback say that it's a close-range oriented mech, same with the Urbanmech, and they both specifically mention how their AC/20 and AC/10 respectively are only good at close ranges. Why would that be the case if the only difference between AC's is slight caliber differences and mostly rate of fire differences. To rephrase the question, why would a 185mm AC/5 have more range than a 185mm AC/20. It makes no sense.

Edited by Dont LRM me please, 09 January 2018 - 01:08 PM.

[Koniving]

Ovion, on 09 January 2018 - 12:32 PM, said:

The longer I go, the more I dislike sized hardpoints, it's either stupidly limiting, or gets needlessly complex.

It's why I always advocate a Mass point system, where everything has a rating for the weapon, and a rating for the mech.

But even with your suggestion, I don't know where this concept of the Flea commonly taking heavier weapons comes from... *one* flea has a Large Laser, one other has a LPPC.
Everything else, has 1-5 small weapons (ML, MG, Flamer, MPL, one has 1 RL10), so it really doesn't change much if anything...
So 2 that'd be.. a little tiny bit different, if it had sized hardpoints...

Meaning that there's variants that carry weapons larger than a single ton.
Meanwhile, there isn't a single Locust carrying a weapon heavier than a ton.

Now in MWO that wouldn't be much different even with a sized hardpoint system. But if the damage ratings of X damage over time were kept without pumping "smaller weapons shoot faster because reasons."
you have Locusts with weapons that cap out at around 5 to 6 damage per 10 seconds. Meanwhile the Flea has some weapons that can reach 8 to 9 damage. Fluff in variant lore, and you have potential where Locusts might cap at 2 damage per actual shot with many shots, you'd have a Flea that could do up to 4 damage in a single shot from a single weapon.. Not to mention one has torso twist and the other doesn't. But then again... that's in a fantastical world where a Mechwarrior game stuck to the source material rather than making up its own stuff.

You are correct though, Flea only carried a single medium-large to large weapon mount. For a 20 ton mech that's fairly impressive. But no other 20 ton mech (unless the Mercury does, not sure) has this, making the Flea entirely unique.

[Koniving]

Dont LRM me please, on 09 January 2018 - 01:07 PM, said:

Really because I've spent a very long time on Sarna and it always says mechs with the AC/20 are primarily intended for close-range combat, and the AC/20 is even said to be a close range weapon strictly

"Different manufacturers and models of autocannons have different calibers (25mm-203mm) and rates of fire. Due to this, autocannons are grouped into generic "classes" of autocannons with common damage ratings, with Autocannon/20's doing massive damage while having very short range.^"

http://www.sarna.net...i/Autocannon/20

Also entries about the Hunchback say that it's a close-range oriented mech, same with the Urbanmech, and they both specifically mention how their AC/20 and AC/10 respectively are only good at close ranges. Why would that be the case if the only difference between AC's is slight caliber differences and mostly rate of fire differences. To rephrase the question, why would a 185mm AC/5 have more range than a 185mm AC/20. It makes no sense.

One, there's No Such Thing as an 185mm AC/5. They stop at 120mm.

Two you failed to read anything.
AC/5 In an 185mm scenario would fire 1 shot in 5 seconds, 2 in 10.
Meaning you have ALL the time in the world to line up your shot and make it count.
AC/20 can lob 4 in 5 seconds, or 8 in 10... meaning you DO NOT HAVE TIME to make your shots count as well, but if you took the time you could. But why would you even have one if you didn't fire it fast?

That's like having an M249 SAW and only firing single bullets instead of full auto... Why the hell would you do it except in niche circumstances?




Which would you do if you MUST carry the weight?
Fire full auto, duh. Maybe in bursts.
Or while under fire, you could just piddle-fart with potshots instead of using the full brunt of your weapon in order to achieve long range accuracy?

Edited by Koniving, 09 January 2018 - 01:18 PM.

[Koniving]

(Side note: 25mm comes from LBX calibers and Light ACs. Light ACs are pretty limited in caliber size.)

Also: Just because the bullet can go 2000 meters maximum, doesn't mean the gun can hit things at that range.

With the same bullet, an M4 doesn't have the same accurate range of an M16.
A Scar doesn't share their range either despite sharing their bullet
And the M249's accurate range is abysmal compared to both.

The AC/5 is an M4, the AC/2 is an M16 and the AC/20 is an M249.

Does the accurate range make sense now?

Edited by Koniving, 09 January 2018 - 01:32 PM.

[Angus McFife VI]

Koniving, on 09 January 2018 - 01:16 PM, said:

[color=#959595]AC/20 can lob 4 in 5 seconds, or 8 in 10... meaning you DO NOT HAVE TIME to make your shots count as well, but if you took the time you [/color][color=#959595]could. But why would you even have one if you didn't fire it fast?[/color]

Why wouldn't you? If someone's far away and you need to take that time to fire, I'm sure you could just fire 1 shot and once they get close you can let that fire rate rip. An AC/20 by this standard could do what an AC/5 does and at the same time fire much faster up close. I like how it is in MW:O and MW:LL. Rifles are obsolete and all AC's would be if they functioned like that would be ammo-fed lasers that weighed much much more and no body would pick them over say Gauss rifles or LBX cannons.

Edited by Dont LRM me please, 09 January 2018 - 01:36 PM.

[Koniving]

Dont LRM me please, on 09 January 2018 - 01:33 PM, said:

Why wouldn't you? If someone's far away and you need to take that time to fire, I'm sure you could just fire 1 shot and once they get close you can let that fire rate rip. An AC/20 by this standard could do what an AC/5 does and at the same time fire much faster up close. I like how it is in MW:O and MW:LL. Rifles are obsolete and all AC's would be if they functioned like that would be ammo-fed lasers that weighed much much more and no body would pick them over say Gauss rifles or LBX cannons.

A heavy rifle is 8 tons has identical range to an ac/5 and does 6 damage to armor and 9 damage to structure. That is not obsolete
It is only "obsolete" in battletech because rapid firing explosive bullets from giant machine guns is better than single shot slow firing guns in battletech's perspective. And because there is no single shot Ac/5. Otherwise battletech would consider it obsolete as that would be inferior to a heavy rifle. If it did have an Ac firing rate then you would have a RAC/5, or an Ac/15 in the case of using gm whirlwind/5's firing and reloading rate.. Because to fall under the definition of autocannon it needs to be able to shoot fast.

A heavy rifle at mwo's Ac/5firing rate would blow the Ac into useless obscurity. Even at something like 1.75s... The Ac/5 of mwo would basically become yesterday's news.

(Side note tomodzuru and chemjet guns (Ac/20s) both are often used in lore to fire singly. Just not gonna get 20 damage by using 1/4 to 1/5th the firepower.)

The "sniper" skill plus split fire plus glancing blows/ direct blows does enable you to do this in tabletop if your GM allows for it. It is a thing in Mechwarrior RPG (2nd edition), Battletechnology has custom rules including its own pre TacOps version of sniper which was not a pilot skill but an action that took 2 to 3 turns (20 to 30 seconds tops) to complete depending on the range you wanted to go for.

Just like in mwo you can hit someone at 1500 meters with two's Ac/20. Pgi made it so you do no damage at that range but you can do it. Doesn't mean its a good idea.

Sniper skill lets you double the range of all weapons used by the character. Kinda generic. The Battletechnology version had a second roll to determine how much damage you actually did on top of the to hit roll to determine where. Note this was before glancing blows. Will try to find the ruleset for it tomorrow after I sleep. I work till 5 am. Will check back at lunch.

The Battletechnology version is meant for hidden units using an ambush tactic to go along with citytech's hidden unit ruleset. It emulates this scene's circumstances.

Again though that is not the common use. That's like using a m960 like a sniper rifle.

Edited by Koniving, 09 January 2018 - 04:22 PM.

[IllCaesar]

Genesis23, on 09 January 2018 - 02:01 AM, said:

agree, but with a bit more bass. Fafnir is a dragon, it should sound like one ^^

Maybe they can add some dragon themed bolt-ons for the Fafnir. After all, it is the first new mech introduced after announcing the bolt-on stuff.

[Fox the Apprentice]

Koniving, on 09 January 2018 - 01:16 PM, said:

[...]
That's like having an M249 SAW and only firing single bullets instead of full auto... Why the hell would you do it except in niche circumstances?
[...]

Accuracy. Unless you're well-braced, you aren't gonna hit crap. Most heavy gunners are trained to walk the rounds on target with bursts of fire for this reason.

Also the reason many modern soldiers are equipped rifles that only fire in burst - it forces the soldier to not just hold down the trigger. It's not like COD where you have perfect form and keep a reliable recoil pattern.

Ryoken, on 08 January 2018 - 07:04 PM, said:

[...]
And while you are at it, you should head over to HareBrained Schemes and tell Jordan Wiseman that he wrongly implemented autocannons into his computer game about the fictional universe he created himself. They also seem to fire streams of projectiles...

He never said that autocannons never fired streams of projectiles. He said that there could be manufacturers (and provided a canonical source from a later date) that made autocannons which fired a single projectile. We are all well aware that a majority of the Battletech media over the years supports streams of projectiles as the norm.

Edited by Fox the Apprentice, 09 January 2018 - 03:21 PM.

[Dee Eight]

I'm on the fence. Its unlikely to be better than the annihilator (unless of course PGI nerfs that more) but its at least an alternative to an Atlas D-DC if you want to run more than one gauss or 10 class autocannon with a light engine...

[Koniving]

Fox the Apprentice, on 09 January 2018 - 03:21 PM, said:

Accuracy. Unless you're well-braced, you aren't gonna hit crap. Most heavy gunners are trained to walk the rounds on target with bursts of fire for this reason.

Also the reason many modern soldiers are equipped rifles that only fire in burst - it forces the soldier to not just hold down the trigger. It's not like COD where you have perfect form and keep a reliable recoil pattern.


He never said that autocannons never fired streams of projectiles. He said that there could be manufacturers (and provided a canonical source from a later date) that made autocannons which fired a single projectile. We are all well aware that a majority of the Battletech media over the years supports streams of projectiles as the norm.

Exactly my point. Niche long range circumstance. Or when not under heavy fire.