36 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

FupDup, on 31 March 2019 - 04:09 PM, said:

The CAC/10 is pretty nice.

I'd also argue that vanilla IS ACs are a bit overrated for the most part.

The thing is that, the +- Tons has it's purpose, considering that IS is usually starved for tons it serves as a lighter alternative

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 March 2019 - 04:20 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Standard ACs are absolutely overrated. None of them are actually usable without either big quirks or big boating, sometimes even both.

So many times I see the "b-b-b-but IS ACs are PPFLD", and so many times I see nobody using them in a fashion where that would matter, if they are using them at all.

All of the popular dakka boats on the IS side are either AC/2, RACs, or some combination of the two, with the occasional Boom (LB-40X, either twin 20s or quad 10s) build. Clans, it's AC/2, UAC/30, and UAC/35, LB-40X, and AC/40 (quad AC/10).

TL;DR: ACs are rough right now regardless of faction and cannot stand on their own.

[Wil McCullough]

Nesutizale, on 31 March 2019 - 11:43 AM, said:

Looking back at the last rulebook I have autocannons are discribed as following:
"rapid-fi ring, auto-loading, heavy ballistic weaponry—gigantic machine guns, in other words."

That would mean that the Rotary might be the closest thing to the lore that we have. All other guns would have a similar firing pattern BUT will only shoot a fixed amount of shells instead of firing until overheating or would overheat much faster.

LBX Cluster ammo is more discribed as a HE shell that scatters on impact.
In that regard I am wrong and Hammer is right.

Question is, would it still be an interesting gameplay if all autocannons have the same firing pattern, just with different amounts of shells beeing shot?

Yes, this is correct.

In lore, acs were grouped into 2/5/10/20 based on the amount of lead they shot per minute. Not their caliber. That means it can be a single huge round or multiple smaller rounds. In fact, there's only one lore manufacturer that produces an ac20 that shoots a single round. And only one mech that mounts it.

It's a weird way to group weapons i have to say. It's like classifying a desert eagle as a lighter weapon than a glock because the desert eagle's slow rate of fire means the glock puts out more lead onto a target .

[Koniving]

Nesutizale, on 31 March 2019 - 01:20 PM, said:

Who?

It seems I have been summoned....

Shorthand until I am home:
1) LBX is described as a shotgun as shorthand to very simply explain that damage is scattered. It is originally described as firing a flak-like shell...and has its excelling use in anti-aircraft weapon systems. Lets remember... aircraft... thousands of feet to miles in the air...and shotgun. This isnt battlefield.


time index 2:03 take down helicopter with 870 shotgun.

That just doesn't work...

2) Autocannons in real life though often used against infantry, light armor and entrenched positions or even surface areas of naval vessels, its most common use is anti aircraft. Autocannons in Battletech are evolved from anti aircraft weaponry. Likewise, LBX was an evolution in that. (Rifles are evolved from tank cannons and are basically useless due to how easily they are dodged, blocked or deflected (read the story of the first mech), and how few shells you get in order to have the umph to penetrate.)
3) Battlemech armor seems exceptional at stopping narrow dense penetrators....yet easily is thwarted by a punch or kick. Explosive wide area damage seems far more efficient than concentrated fire... this is important because
4) "cluster munitions" in practical use and definition comes from a projectile (typically a missile or - in the case of flak a shell) which splits or detonated to release a number of smaller explosive submunitiins within a certain range of the target. As it happens Flak is derivative of the German phrase for air defense cannon (FliegerabwehrKanone) which also happened to be autocannons that over time developed time-delay and proximity explosives for better effectiveness. Cluster bomb. Cluster missile. Cluster munitions.
5) The LBX in native rules has no accounting for spread despite range. This would be necessary for a shotgun.
6) LBS natively has superior accurate range in a game that knows bigger cannons get greater range but to robs AC/20 because of recoil, firing rate, damage over time and "other factors".. yet gives RAC superior range but drops the accurate enough to land all in one spot in exchange for that range.
7) a shotgun requires a larger bullet/slug to make better use of the space of the barrel...but lbx barrels are in fact smaller (ac/2 minimum 30mm LBX 2 minimum 20mm uac2 minimum 20mm... typical LBX 20, 100mm typical ac/20 120mm... something is up.
In general smaller calibers generate less recoil so when spraying them it would have better range. And their use against aircraft would make no sense as a conventional shotgun.

There is actually quite a list including early novels with lost tech champions firing streams, the Atlas II and the Partisa AA http://www.sarna.net...isan_AA_Vehicle both having rotary lbx.... Especially since the Atlas II has a rotary style LBX before rotary cannons even existed in battletech. Why would a shotgun need a rotary configuration?

There is plenty more if necessary.

When you think of lbx... think this plus exploding submunitiins instead of just a spray of balls.
Suddenly every inconsistency of lbx will make sense..

Edited by Koniving, 31 March 2019 - 06:12 PM.

[Koniving]

A couple more.
Tank cannon shotgun shells are called canister shot.
Yet LBX ammo is called cluster munitions. Note not cluster shot.
https://m.youtube.co...h?v=Es1A1XoM5ZE

"A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles." Wikipedia (am aware it isn't the definitive source but laziness.)
And most importantly... The term is LB-X autocannon. If Autocannons are by definition giant machine gun cannons.... then whether a fancy gun with proximity detonating cluster bombs or normal cannon sized shotgun shells it still boils down to the fact that these are ring fired from a mech-sized machine gun cannon. Who shoots once per ten seconds with a machine gun? No one.

Round count count is also identical. Given that a Battletech round is a magazine (they call them cassettes).. it is safe to say a similar number of shots may be needed either way.

One might also call into question how a ball bearing from a mech sized shotgun is going to do the same damage as a missile... against armor that is strong against penetration but weak against wide area explosives. But a series of smaller explosives in a volley, collectively, could easily achieve this.

Autocannons have a traditional flak shot...
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Flak
And a traditional shotgun shot.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Flechette
Both are significantly inferior to lbx. This is because they don't go boom...and they also don't get LBX superior range.
Clan acs in mwo do have the range because they are lbx...
But it doesn't change that lbx in mwo is incorrect. In mw2 it was done as a shotgun because it was too complicated to do it right. In mw3 it burst fires because again it is too complicated to do it right in hardware...but actually by then it was probably for simplicity. Like mech mortars it would require a fair bit of work to do right and in these games that's a lot of work for just one system. Of course by now people don't dig into what things are or try to get an explanation for why it is the way it is... when the wage in cbills for a soldier is about equal to what a US soldier made in 1986.-1988 and in the 30y0s plus the average wage is about equal to what they make in 1990... that is a lot of work and often there is a lot of thought that goes into it that anyone skimming it is gonna write it off as they don't know jack... which I used to think too. Then I started realizing an awful lot of military references in a time when most robot warrior games had magic space lasers that bend around corners.. battletech had minimum accurate ranges due to difficulty in maneuvering heavy arm mounted weaponry to engage in close quarters and ballistic launch angles with the issues there in, and how a Catapult is literally a walking MLRS with lrms modelled originally after the 19ps MLRS rockets...down to minimum range.

Edited by Koniving, 01 April 2019 - 11:08 AM.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Y E O N N E, on 31 March 2019 - 04:56 PM, said:

Standard ACs are absolutely overrated. None of them are actually usable without either big quirks or big boating, sometimes even both.

So many times I see the "b-b-b-but IS ACs are PPFLD", and so many times I see nobody using them in a fashion where that would matter, if they are using them at all.

All of the popular dakka boats on the IS side are either AC/2, RACs, or some combination of the two, with the occasional Boom (LB-40X, either twin 20s or quad 10s) build. Clans, it's AC/2, UAC/30, and UAC/35, LB-40X, and AC/40 (quad AC/10).

TL;DR: ACs are rough right now regardless of faction and cannot stand on their own.

On the contrary I never see anyone running standard clan auto cannons. I'm not sure of any builds that I can think of where a standard clan autocannon is more desirable to run than a UAC unless it had pertaining quirks that benefited that mech.

[Y E O N N E]

Arnold The Governator, on 31 March 2019 - 06:36 PM, said:

On the contrary I never see anyone running standard clan auto cannons. I'm not sure of any builds that I can think of where a standard clan autocannon is more desirable to run than a UAC unless it had pertaining quirks that benefited that mech.

Nobody is really running IS ACs, either. I can think of many builds where the PPFLD is useful, but the bottom line is that those builds are inferior to UAC, RAC, or HPPC alternatives.

[Vxheous]

Rollup, on 31 March 2019 - 06:56 AM, said:

The C-AC10(2 heat/shot) is almost half the heat as the equivalent C-UAC10(3.5 heat/shot), which allows breaching the HSL with very little penalty.
This allows a quad C-ac10 setup(very under-rated), to exist.
XL400 and quad CAC-10 on KDK-3 for example.

p.s. I think the C-AC10 is the most heat efficient AC???

Unless you're absolutely c-bill strapped, it is always best to drop the XL 400 out of the kodiak in place of an XL 380. You lose ~2 kph in speed (really negligible) while gaining 6 tons for additional ammo/heatsinks/etc)

[Valdarion Silarius]

Y E O N N E, on 31 March 2019 - 07:14 PM, said:

Nobody is really running IS ACs, either. I can think of many builds where the PPFLD is useful, but the bottom line is that those builds are inferior to UAC, RAC, or HPPC alternatives.

I run standard AC2's on my Mauler MX90 and standard AC5's on my Maurader 3R. I think the IS have more of a reason to run standard autocannons vs clans. I think the blackjack and jagermech can still run standard AC2's with some pretty good results.

[Daurock]

Arnold The Governator, on 31 March 2019 - 07:31 PM, said:

I run standard AC2's on my Mauler MX90 and standard AC5's on my Maurader 3R. I think the IS have more of a reason to run standard autocannons vs clans. I think the blackjack and jagermech can still run standard AC2's with some pretty good results.

Here's the thing though - None of those builds you mentioned is a PPFLD build at the core - They're all Spam builds, which don't much care if the base projectile is Single slug or not. For PPFLD to matter, you really need an alpha pushing 30 or better, which you don't find on either side unless you start linking them with PPCs.


Bottom line is, the same places you'd want an IS AC are the ones a CaC makes sense- Namely, a place where you're boating several of them, and need the heat advantage. Clan examples of good CaC builds would be 8x2 or 6x5 Whales, 4x10 Kodiaks, possibly a 3x10 Gyr. Realistically, both the clan and IS Uses of STD. ACs are pretty niche, as they're mostly constrained to the largest assault builds. Run smaller and Both IS and clan are better served running ultras. (or Racs)

[Moldur]

I have a balance suggestion how about we make the C-AC10 kill mechs instantly.

Eh? Eh??

[Rick T Dangerous]

Nesutizale, on 31 March 2019 - 06:24 AM, said:

I just had the image of an AC20 in my head that actualy fires 20 shots in a row. Rediculuse facetime but man what a show that would be. Like a RAC with a fixed number of shells instead of the jamming.
I mean it could be backed up by lore even as some sources discribe the ACs as bigger Machineguns instead of the Tankguns we have with IS Autocannons.

^That. And with that change, give CACs just one kind of ammo used for all models. Could make those things (a little) useful at last.

[Khobai]

I still dont believe PGI one bit about not being able to make CAC switch between slug and cluster modes. The problem isnt that its not possible. Its that PGI just doesnt care enough to find a way to make it work.

They might not be able to give a weapon two different fire modes that each use a different ammo type. But certainly they can make a weapon have two different fire modes that use the same ammo type.

If they can have a state toggle for ECM to switch between counter/disrupt then they can certainly have a state toggle for CAC that switches it between cluster/slug mode. Both modes would have to use the same ammo type though because I dont think ammo swapping is possible. But having a toggle to change between fire modes should certainly be possible....

Yeah it wont be accurate to battletech because both fire modes would use the same ammo type. But so what? At least CACs wouldnt be entirely pointless then.



I also think the ISACs need different ammo types. Although youd be limited to choosing one type of ammo since ammo swapping isnt possible (once you loaded one type of ammo onto your mech the other ammo types would get greyed out so they couldnt be used) . But it would still create more options than the game currently has.

Edited by Khobai, 01 April 2019 - 07:00 AM.

[Nesutizale]

The idea of switching the firemode instead of the ammo like you switch the ECM state is brilliant. Didn't thought about it but it sound good. Also using one type of ammo is allready happening with the ATM and its adaptable damage per range.

IS definitly could use some more ammo types and just haveing one kind of ammo at a time...I would say its a decission that you make on your personal preferance and then you stick with it. No complicated ammo switching mechanic needed.

Not taking into account the time it was developed (whats the current date anyway) IS could have:

- Armor-Piercing
- Precision Ammunition
- LB-X Cluster
- Flechette Ammunition (kinda useless as IIRC its an anti infantrie munition)
One has to see how to deal with the AP and Precision ammos accuracy rule but haveing less ammo per ton and causeing crits should be doable.

[thievingmagpi]

Heat dissipation buff has obviated the role for most ACs. DPS can now be achieved with big alphas, or actual super high DPS systems like RACs.

I dust off the old 2ac2 2ac5 Jager here and there but it just feels anemic because it can't keep up with other weapon systems.

[LordNothing]

Y E O N N E, on 31 March 2019 - 07:14 PM, said:

Nobody is really running IS ACs, either. I can think of many builds where the PPFLD is useful, but the bottom line is that those builds are inferior to UAC, RAC, or HPPC alternatives.

ac10s are still pretty sweet when you have 2-4 of them.

again its the ballistics are only good when boated scenario that afflicts almost every ballistic weapon in the game. but at least i have a few good builds that use them.

Edited by LordNothing, 01 April 2019 - 05:04 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

LordNothing, on 01 April 2019 - 05:03 PM, said:

ac10s are still pretty sweet when you have 2-4 of them.

again its the ballistics are only good when boated scenario that afflicts almost every ballistic weapon in the game. but at least i have a few good builds that use them.

Nah, pragmatically nobody is running AC/10s because why run AC/30 when you can run UAC/30? Heck, even UAC/25 is more deadly. If you want PPFLD poking, better to take HPPCs or some combination of AC/5 and PPCs.

Arnold The Governator, on 31 March 2019 - 07:31 PM, said:

I run standard AC2's on my Mauler MX90 and standard AC5's on my Maurader 3R. I think the IS have more of a reason to run standard autocannons vs clans. I think the blackjack and jagermech can still run standard AC2's with some pretty good results.

Y E O N N E, on 31 March 2019 - 04:56 PM, said:

All of the popular dakka boats on the IS side are either AC/2, RACs, or some combination of the two, with the occasional Boom (LB-40X, either twin 20s or quad 10s) build. Clans, it's AC/2, UAC/30, and UAC/35, LB-40X, and AC/40 (quad AC/10).

Basically, only 2s are any good and even then, like I said in that same post, only boated or with gigantic quirks.