Jack Cisco, on 20 May 2018 - 03:20 PM, said:
I would like to see a test of the AC 20 as I do believe there is drop well within it's effective range. But I rarely use the weapon.
You can test it for yourself in the testing grounds. Just find a piece of flat vertical terrain on a level surface with a long sightline and walk towards/away from it while firing. The default IS AC/20 range band is 270m max ideal range, 540 max range. It hits dead center out until ~450m. It starts hitting on the edge of the arm reticle at ~485m, but doesn't actually drop below until ~550m.
So that's still fairly consistent, just with a slightly faster dropoff at the default maximum range. The AC/20 is the heaviest round you can fire, after all. Also worth noting that it has the lowest velocity and an anemic ammo per ton count, so you're not going to be plinking people with it at 500m anyways--it's a brawling weapon.
Fun fact, I went the other way and tested AC/2s as well. The max distance on the rangefinder-
Spare Parts Bin, on 20 May 2018 - 03:28 PM, said:
A new scope with range finder would be nice.
-we have one of those, yes, it's to the right of the crosshair--
the max distance on the rangefinder will give out and display infinite distance to target before you start seeing shells drop below the arm crosshair. They were still tapping the rim of it at 2km out, and time-to-target is short enough on AC/2s to track moving 'mechs at that range.
e: And because I know it will probably come up, re: "But why
shouldn't you shoot your AC/20 at 400-500m out?"
The AC/20 has won the Triple Crown of suffering disproportionately from damage dropoff.
1. Short-ranged weapons are hit harder by damage dropoff as each unit of range incurs more damage loss. An AC/2 takes 405m to drop from 100% damage to 50% damage (hint: that's a little under 80% of the AC/20's
maximum range); an AC/20 takes ~
80m to drop from 100% damage to 50% damage. Having shorter base range also means lower benefits from range gained from quirks and the skill tree.
2. High-damage weapons are hit harder by damage dropoff because they have more to lose. In that ~80m of dropoff the AC/20 loses 10 damage. In that same distance the MLas, which has the same range band, loses 2.5 damage. When an AC/2 fires at 50% damage range, it loses 1 damage. Alone, this isn't so bad. However, it meshes with the next point.
3. Ammo-based. Ammo-fed weapons are not good candidates for long-range potshots simply because they're limited by a finite resource. Energy weapons you can shoot all day at max range and you'll be fine as long as you take the time to cool down before getting stuck in. This is even worse for the AC/20 because it has such low ammo per ton.
So that's kinda the long and short of it. If you want to plink things at 500m with an AC/20 you won't have any real trouble, but it's incredibly wasteful and will drop your damage into the gutter.
As for my own experience, the only time I've ever deliberately elevated above my target with ballistics has been while trying to skim long-range shots over the edges of invisible terrain on Tourmaline and Polar to hit exposed slivers of 'mech.
Edited by Alexander of Macedon, 20 May 2018 - 07:14 PM.