28 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

I've leveled up the Jade Kite running 3 UAC 5 and 1 UAC 10, jams were bad but at least I could fire fast enough to invest in double Cool Shots. But the Black Widow running 2 UAC 5 and 1 UAC 10 barely lets me fire. Jam after Jam after Jam. My mech doesn't even get 50% hot 'cause I'm not able to fire my weapons.

I'd like to know what the jam chance is for the weapons. Just for knowledge's sake.

[Athom83]

IS UACs actually have a slightly lower jam chance then clan ones. There was a table the last time they changed the values in an update, which was quite a while ago so I probably can't find it.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Athom83, on 24 April 2019 - 03:13 AM, said:

IS UACs actually have a slightly lower jam chance then clan ones. There was a table the last time they changed the values in an update, which was quite a while ago so I probably can't find it.

Slightly lower? Feels exactly the opposite right now.

[Athom83]

FRAGTAST1C, on 24 April 2019 - 03:16 AM, said:

Slightly lower? Feels exactly the opposite right now.

Yah, it'll feel like that because Clan ones shoot more bullets per volley so it feels like you're getting more out of them. Plus, more weapons per equal sized mech.

Edited by Athom83, 24 April 2019 - 03:19 AM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Athom83, on 24 April 2019 - 03:19 AM, said:

Yah, it'll feel like that because Clan ones shoot more bullets per volley so it feels like you're getting more out of them. Plus, more weapons per equal sized mech.

No, I was testing it in the Testing Grounds. Same number of weapons on both mechs. I could count 2 full Alphas before a jam on the Black Widow on avg. while the Jade Kite allowed at least 4. The funny thing is on the Jade Kite, the first volley almost never jammed whereas on the Black Widow, the first volley jammed a lot.

BTW, I'm playing like regular ACs instead of UACs in matches. I'm not double tapping unless I need that burst. But the Black Widow jams a lot.

[Athom83]

FRAGTAST1C, on 24 April 2019 - 03:28 AM, said:

The funny thing is on the Jade Kite, the first volley almost never jammed whereas on the Black Widow, the first volley jammed a lot.

BTW, I'm playing like regular ACs instead of UACs in matches. I'm not double tapping unless I need that burst. But the Black Widow jams a lot.

That... should not be happening...

[Weeny Machine]

I don't know the values anymore, I just can remember that they were low and I laughed because I doubted them. Simply because it feels as if UACs seem to jam every other shot

[FRAGTAST1C]

Athom83, on 24 April 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

That... should not be happening...

My weapon groups are like this...

LMB - UAC 10
RMB - 2 UAC 5s

I just came back from a match. I pressed RMB once, then LMB a fraction of a second later. Then, I pressed RMB again. All good. A bit later, I pressed RMB once and bang! They fired and jammed instantly! Is the game not calculating the double press or something and simply adding the total presses to jam the weapon?

This isn't my first time using UACs. I have a Nightstar 9S running double UAC 20s. I try to manage the jam chance by alternating the weapon group carefully and almost never double tapping in quick succession and still they jam! Makes me wonder why they even exist.

[BlueStrat]

I can't help regarding info on UAC jam chance, but I have a suggestion on your Black Widow. I, too, have been frustrated with UACs, especially IS UACs, for a while now. I started experimenting a bit.

On my BW I've been running 4xLB2-X + 4xERML, Endo, LFE265, TC1, 1xDHS, and 7 tons of ammo with quite good results. For myself, it's in the top-3 of my 67 'mechs across all classes I do best in. It turned out to be a real beast-mode crit-machine.

I was quite surprised as I didn't expect a paltry 4 LB2s and 4 ER mediums to perform that well or take down enemies as quickly as it does. And the range...that *range*! And cooldown with full nodes on the LB2s is **0.66** !! (0.72 -(0.059) That's 8 points of high-crit-chance LBX damage every 0.66 seconds without using chain-fire! Holy dakka!

If you haven't got very many skill nodes on your BW yet, I'd suggest for heat reasons regular medium lasers in place of the ER-MLs until you get more of your heat and cool-run skill nodes filled out, although it doesn't run very hot at all, especially if you use the lasers sparingly. It's great fun to play, too!

Edited by BlueStrat, 24 April 2019 - 04:45 AM.

[Athom83]

FRAGTAST1C, on 24 April 2019 - 03:52 AM, said:

I just came back from a match. I pressed RMB once, then LMB a fraction of a second later. Then, I pressed RMB again. All good. A bit later, I pressed RMB once and bang! They fired and jammed instantly! Is the game not calculating the double press or something and simply adding the total presses to jam the weapon?

This sounds like something is up with your mouse, because its impossible to jam on a non-DTap. This has been reported before quite a lot and almost always ends up being the mouse somehow sending 2 clicks with one press, either because a small part in the mouse breaks/fails or its the connection between the mouse and computer. I've had this happen to me before as well and it was because of the ****** Blackweb mouse I got from Walmart because it was on sale for $10-$15 (or something around there), but never saw it again on any other mice before or after. I've also heard that Logitech mice have this issue sometimes and that part is prone to damage.

FRAGTAST1C, on 24 April 2019 - 03:52 AM, said:

This isn't my first time using UACs. I have a Nightstar 9S running double UAC 20s. I try to manage the jam chance by alternating the weapon group carefully and almost never double tapping in quick succession and still they jam! Makes me wonder why they even exist.

I mean, I have a UAC on pretty much every mech medium and up (with a few exceptions here and there for RACs and Gauss) in my ~80 mech stable. As for UAC/20s specifically, they're more a single weapon kind of thing and aren't that "good" when you have 2 of them (mainly because of heat). I enjoy them quite a lot, and they don't jam on me that often (until I'm in a situation where I REALLY need them to not jam). With just 1 of them, a lucky triple tap can oneshot mediums and some heavies (that are running XLs or you get them from behind).

[Aidan Crenshaw]

BlueStrat, on 24 April 2019 - 04:21 AM, said:

I was quite surprised as I didn't expect a paltry 4 LB2s and 4 ER mediums to perform that well or take down enemies as quickly as it does. And the range...that *range*! And cooldown with full nodes on the LB2s is **0.13** !! (0.72 -(0.59) That's 8 points of high-crit-chance LBX damage every 0.13 seconds without using chain-fire! Holy dakka!

Yeah... don't think so. Max Cooldown from nodes is -12% and thats 0,086s on the LB2 for a Cooldown of 0.63s. Just sayin'.

[FRAGTAST1C]

BlueStrat, on 24 April 2019 - 04:21 AM, said:

On my BW I've been running 4xLB2-X + 4xERML, Endo, LFE265, TC1, 1xDHS, and 7 tons of ammo with quite good results. For myself, it's in the top-3 of my 67 'mechs across all classes I do best in. It turned out to be a real beast-mode crit-machine.

I was quite surprised as I didn't expect a paltry 4 LB2s and 4 ER mediums to perform that well or take down enemies as quickly as it does. And the range...that *range*! And cooldown with full nodes on the LB2s is **0.66** !! (0.72 -(0.059) That's 8 points of high-crit-chance LBX damage every 0.66 seconds without using chain-fire! Holy dakka!

If you haven't got very many skill nodes on your BW yet, I'd suggest for heat reasons regular medium lasers in place of the ER-MLs until you get more of your heat and cool-run skill nodes filled out, although it doesn't run very hot at all, especially if you use the lasers sparingly. It's great fun to play, too!

I've unlocked 35 nodes, with 1 for UAC Jam duration. I can always respec.

The problem is the build working or needing to work with team mates. The Jade Kite had ECM so I could play it like solo and didn't care for the passive assaults and nonsense on the field. With the Black Widow, having no JJ and needing to stay with the team when there are matches where my paltry ~450 damage is more than than Charlie lance combined is incredibly aggravating. The concept of low damage high dps is ok but what I'm facing now in the QP matches is forcing me to go the way I was before and rely on burst damage and kill quickly. The team work is an ever increasing lost concept in QP with the number of matches I've played since reaching Tier 2.

Maybe when I can join a Unit and focus on FW, I'll certainly give your build a go 'cause it sounds very good but for QP and the kind of match ups that I'm having, I'd rather stay away from low damage dps at long range.

Athom83, on 24 April 2019 - 04:32 AM, said:

This sounds like something is up with your mouse, because its impossible to jam on a non-DTap. This has been reported before quite a lot and almost always ends up being the mouse somehow sending 2 clicks with one press, either because a small part in the mouse breaks/fails or its the connection between the mouse and computer.

Oh... well.... It certainly works properly but if it's causing an issue with MWO then I'll look into it carefully.

[Ghogiel]

BlueStrat, on 24 April 2019 - 04:21 AM, said:

as it does. And the range...that *range*! And cooldown with full nodes on the LB2s is **0.13** !! (0.72 -(0.59) That's 8 points of high-crit-chance LBX damage every 0.13 seconds without using chain-fire! Holy dakka!!

max cooldown nodes are 12% on IS mechs. 12% of .72 is like 0.06sec reduction or something.

[Snowhawk]

Yes, there is a Chart, you have to hover your mouse over the coldown section of the uac's … https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment

[FRAGTAST1C]

Snowhawk, on 24 April 2019 - 05:04 AM, said:

Yes, there is a Chart, you have to hover your mouse over the coldown section of the uac's … https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment

Given how frequent the 15% is in this game, it should be halved but that's another topic. Anyway, thanks for that link.

[MrMadguy]

Snowhawk, on 24 April 2019 - 05:04 AM, said:

Yes, there is a Chart, you have to hover your mouse over the coldown section of the uac's … https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment

I don't feel, that this numbers are right, too. Because simple math suggests, that average number of shots before jam is 100%/P, where P is chance of jam in %. See geometric distribution for reference. More specifically - it's expected value.

I.e.:
14%: 7.14
15%: 6.66
16%: 6.25
17%: 5.88

AVERAGE! I.e. sometimes something like 12..15 shots without jamming should happen. Have you ever seen something like that?

Edited by MrMadguy, 24 April 2019 - 06:45 AM.

[BlueStrat]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 24 April 2019 - 04:47 AM, said:

Yeah... don't think so. Max Cooldown from nodes is -12% and thats 0,086s on the LB2 for a Cooldown of 0.63s. Just sayin'.

Yeah, I saw and corrected that. I read 0.059 as 0.59. So actual CD is ~0.66. That'll learn me to post before the second cup of coffee!

[Athom83]

MrMadguy, on 24 April 2019 - 05:18 AM, said:

AVERAGE! I.e. sometimes something like 12..15 shots without jamming should happen. Have you ever seen something like that?

Only in my Orion and Cicada with -% Jam Chance quirks.

[BlueStrat]

FRAGTAST1C, on 24 April 2019 - 05:00 AM, said:

I've unlocked 35 nodes, with 1 for UAC Jam duration. I can always respec.

The problem is the build working or needing to work with team mates. The Jade Kite had ECM so I could play it like solo and didn't care for the passive assaults and nonsense on the field. With the Black Widow, having no JJ and needing to stay with the team when there are matches where my paltry ~450 damage is more than than Charlie lance combined is incredibly aggravating. The concept of low damage high dps is ok but what I'm facing now in the QP matches is forcing me to go the way I was before and rely on burst damage and kill quickly. The team work is an ever increasing lost concept in QP with the number of matches I've played since reaching Tier 2.

Maybe when I can join a Unit and focus on FW, I'll certainly give your build a go 'cause it sounds very good but for QP and the kind of match ups that I'm having, I'd rather stay away from low damage dps at long range.

I understand your reasoning. I went for burst damage at first (I play solo-QP exclusively) but I just could not find a build that delivered a sufficiently-large burst that did not suffer from having to severely cut corners elsewhere like engine size, heatsinks, ammo, range, and/or armor on that 70 ton chassis. Just not enough slots/tons to play with, it seemed.

Of course, playstyle is a huge factor. Everybody is different and what works for one person won't work well for another. You could always try it out in Mechlab/Testing Grounds without spending any C-Bills or changing anything with your existing build. I think you might be shocked at how fast it wrecks face.

[panzer1b]

Not 100% sure about jams per each UAC, but i will add some of my experience with UACs based on some statistical analasys.

Jamming is very very dependent on 2 things, where each gun is placed, and how they are bound to your weapon groups. Ive found that there are some hardpoints on certain mechs that you should NEVER EVER put a UAC into unless you want to double jam 10+ times per match.

The best example (at least for me) is the mad2c with arm mounted dakka, both the scorch and the 2c-d suffer from this issue, especially when i try dual UAC10s on them. Pretty much autojam on the 1st doubletap half the time i expose to fire at someone. Another good example, the sunspider vanguard, if you use the stock omnipods and put 2 UAC10s in STs, they dont jam much more then reasonably expected. If you mount 1 UAC in a torso and 1 in a arm, the guns jam like mad. Same exact thing on teh timberwolf, if you mount the UACs both on the right side 1 ST 1 arm, jams all day, if you mount 1 in each torso, much less jamming regardless of what UAC caliber you choose.

It appears that mounting 1 UAC in a side torso and 1 UAC in a arm is a big no-no on teh vast majority of mechs ive tried that in. Mounting 1 UAC per arm also appears to be very bad unless you split the weapons up so each is fired on a different trigger.

The next thing worth noting is the benefit of splitting up your weapons. Ive found that on jam prone configurations (such as the above mentioned setups), you can drastically decrease the chances of jamming up if you split the guns up so 1 UAC fires per weapon group, usually 1 on left and 1 on right trigger. This doesnt make the jams go away, but its borderline impossible to get a doublejam firing them that way unless you actually click both triggers at the exact same milisecond which is doubtful even if you want to alfa strike them due to how human interaction works.

Next up, ive also found that when firing 3-4 guns it is often beneficial to bind them (assuming you want to fire all of them on a single click) where all guns are bound to weapon group 1, and 1 of them to an inactive weapon group (such as 6). It takes some experimenting around to really figure out which gun should have more then 1 group bound (it does actually matter alot), but overall this can let you have a single click weapon but with reduced or even no jam issues besides the usual jamminess of the guns as the raw stats would expect.

TLDR, if you want to run UACs, be sure to mess around with what hardpoint you choose them to be in, how you bind your weapon groups to them, and what mechs they are on. Some mechs/setups let you spam doubletapped UAC 3-4 times without 1 jam, others will doublejam or worse on the 1st exposure, and sadly, with the way they jam, a doublejam in a bad spot is game over for you if you arent able to immediately disengage, and even if you do, oftentimes the damage you now arent able to deal can cost the match.