65 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Water Bear, on 11 January 2018 - 10:42 AM, said:

I've got an idea. Give it penetration, so it can hit targets behind. Don't ask why the Gauss rifle doesn't do that, just have faith.

Ooh, you can give the light gauss penetration, too, so that it's actually worth the bother.

Wouldn't punching a hole straight through an enemy mech's fusion reactor cause the whole thing to be destroyed? It would certainly cause any cockpit shots to be an instant kill regardless of armor levels (e.g. hit fully armored cockpit with HVAC/2, goes straight through thus instantly killing the pilot).

[Nema Nabojiv]

BumbleBee, on 11 January 2018 - 10:27 AM, said:

IS gets HyperAC's, Clan gets HAG's

I think that is fair

and clan RACs!

[Water Bear]

FupDup, on 11 January 2018 - 10:45 AM, said:

Wouldn't punching a hole straight through an enemy mech's fusion reactor cause the whole thing to be destroyed? It would certainly cause any cockpit shots to be an instant kill regardless of armor levels (e.g. hit fully armored cockpit with HVAC/2, goes straight through thus instantly killing the pilot).

Why must you ask these questions?

After all, this entire game is riddled with absurdities. Tank sized guns with range shorter than a kilometer, battlemechs existing at all given that tanks do the same job far better and with less complexity etc so on & so forth.

[Y E O N N E]

RNG to do a percentage of its damage to structure through armor...

...nightmare fuel, that is.

[Brody319]

Water Bear, on 11 January 2018 - 11:21 AM, said:

Why must you ask these questions?

After all, this entire game is riddled with absurdities. Tank sized guns with range shorter than a kilometer, battlemechs existing at all given that tanks do the same job far better and with less complexity etc so on & so forth.

Mechs in the battletech universe are unique though.

Can't take a tank that has been working in a desert and drop it into a Florida swamp and have it work as well or in the same way as it did in the desert. Even if mechs are more costly and resource hogging to produce at the same time battletech has moved past a scarcity world. If you had access to the limitless resources scattered through space, then a mech might seem like more of an attractive option.

A weapons platform that works everywhere, faster and more maneuverable than any ground vehicle, can mount enough weapons to level cities, has armor that is capable of withstanding an assault from multiple tanks and aircraft at once, can return fire on ground and air targets, and it has a fusion engine making it's fuel supply cheap and virtually limitless. You can kinda see how mechs could end up being a viable war machine.

[theta123]

Yeonne Greene, on 11 January 2018 - 10:19 AM, said:

IS ACs have never been a viable choice since IS UACs came out. Distinct, perhaps, but inferior.

Single-shot is also the only thing keeping them at all useful compared to cACs, but not by much since a cUAC is still a superior option and a cUAC has a lower opportunity cost than a cAC.

the AC 2 and AC 20 are still viable. Ac 5 and ac 10 not so.

[Y E O N N E]

theta123, on 11 January 2018 - 12:18 PM, said:

the AC 2 and AC 20 are still viable. Ac 5 and ac 10 not so.

UAC/2 annihilates the AC/2 except where it has express quirks, e.g. BJ-1.

AC/20 has marginal utility in niche situations and is the only one I can sort of agree with you on.

[FupDup]

Yeonne Greene, on 11 January 2018 - 12:27 PM, said:

UAC/2 annihilates the AC/2 except where it has express quirks, e.g. BJ-1.

Anecdotally, I get better results with triple AC/2 than triple UAC/2 even on a Dragon with UAC jam chance quirks.

For just 1 or 2 guns though the UAC/2 is the clear winner.

Perhaps there might be a "critical mass" point where once you have enough guns mounted the long-term consistency of the normal AC can overcome the short-term advantage of the UAC.

[Y E O N N E]

I get better results with 3x UAC/2 on a Marauder than 3x AC/2 and even 2x UAC/5.

The Dragon is approaching the equivalent output of 6xUAC/2 when you factor in the jams and quirks. It's a budget Mauler.

I wouldn't say there is a critical mass, more like a ratio of equivalency. But at only 1 extra ton I would still rather have the option for burst from the Ultra for any given number of guns.

[ROSS-128]

Hmm, taking a closer look at the LAC/5 it has an interesting relationship with the AC/10.

If you compare a pair of linked LAC/5s to an AC/10 they have:
The same weight
The same damage
The same range

The double LAC/5 has two advantages though: less heat (2 vs 3) and fewer crit slots (4 vs 7).

It has one disadvantage unique to tabletop: splitting its damage between two locations.
It has one disadvantage unique to MWO: occupying two hardpoints.

Additionally, it likely would lose its heat advantage in MWO because an AC/5 is 1.5 heat in MWO, instead of 1.

The unknown factor is whether it would share its rate of fire with the AC/5 or AC/10.

[Y E O N N E]

Two LAC/5 is 10 tons vs. 12 tons on the AC/10. A pair of LAC/5 is smaller and lighter than even the LB-10X.

[ROSS-128]

Hmm, now I'm wondering just what the hell I was thinking of that was 10 tons.

Though most likely the way it went is my brain only remembered "2 to 5 is 2 tons, 10 to 20 is 2 tons, 5 to 10 must be the same", while forgetting that a 20 is 14 tons and the jump from 5 to 10 costs 4.

[Lugin]

ROSS-128, on 11 January 2018 - 06:13 PM, said:

Hmm, now I'm wondering just what the hell I was thinking of that was 10 tons.

Though most likely the way it went is my brain only remembered "2 to 5 is 2 tons, 10 to 20 is 2 tons, 5 to 10 must be the same", while forgetting that a 20 is 14 tons and the jump from 5 to 10 costs 4.

Clan weights, most likely.

[Y E O N N E]

Lugin, on 11 January 2018 - 06:25 PM, said:

Clan weights, most likely.

This. Clan UAC/10 and LB10-X are each 10 tons.

Making the IS AC/10 cost 4 extra tons over the 5 has been a major thorn in the side of the IS tech-base since its inception. It's messed up the LB-X line, it's messing up the HVAC line, and it makes the LAC line look way more appealing than it should.

[VonBruinwald]

So everyone agrees.... we need the LAC2/5.

[Water Bear]

Brody319, on 11 January 2018 - 11:36 AM, said:

Mechs in the battletech universe are unique though.

Can't take a tank that has been working in a desert and drop it into a Florida swamp and have it work as well or in the same way as it did in the desert. Even if mechs are more costly and resource hogging to produce at the same time battletech has moved past a scarcity world. If you had access to the limitless resources scattered through space, then a mech might seem like more of an attractive option.

A weapons platform that works everywhere, faster and more maneuverable than any ground vehicle, can mount enough weapons to level cities, has armor that is capable of withstanding an assault from multiple tanks and aircraft at once, can return fire on ground and air targets, and it has a fusion engine making it's fuel supply cheap and virtually limitless. You can kinda see how mechs could end up being a viable war machine.

That's sort of my point - the Battletech universe makes some rather unrealistic assumptions. Granted, though, that no weapons I can think of (in BT) behave in quite the way I was suggesting.

[Tom Sawyer]

Reminds me of the early days of MMO when we asked for variable ammo load outs. HE, AP, SMERSH, INC, Too complex to program so lbs become giant shotguns.

[Brody319]

Tom Sawyer, on 12 January 2018 - 08:44 AM, said:

Reminds me of the early days of MMO when we asked for variable ammo load outs. HE, AP, SMERSH, INC, Too complex to program so lbs become giant shotguns.

I think they should make alternative ammos for ACs like how they handle other upgrades. Just below Artemis it should ask what kind of ammo you want to put in your AC's then the ammo option for whatever guns you have gets switched. It should be free to switch ammo but you should have to pay for the different ammo tons.

[ROSS-128]

I'm pretty sure the only reason we don't have LACs yet is timeline. If/when MWO advances to the next era we'll probably see them.

HVACs though, probably were overlooked because of how little use they're likely to see. An HVAC/5 weighs as much as a light gauss rifle, does 3 less damage, generates triple the heat, and has less ammo per ton. It also has a chance to explode whenever you fire it.

Sure it takes up one less crit and the long range is hilarious (though the short range is the same and the medium range is shorter), but those two things don't really seem to make up for all the downsides. Seeing as people already complain about light gauss being underwhelming... the HVAC/5 would need major help.

In general it seems like FASA weighted range a little too heavily when balancing stuff, at least on ballistics. And it *really* shows in the comparison between the LAC/5 and HVAC/5. Maybe they just liked to play on big maps with little terrain when playtesting.

[Y E O N N E]

Is it because timeline, or was the timeline stopped where it was because PGI doesn't want the headache of balancing LACs against ACs, HAGs against HGauss, Magshots against AP Gauss, and Plasma Rifles/Cannons against literally everything else? Because they don't want the hassle of coding in XL Gyros and Small cockpits?