93 replies to this topic

[The pessimistic optimist]

The6thMessenger, on 02 November 2020 - 05:23 AM, said:

The shake stops after you let go of the JJ, so at that brief fall you have a solid aim.

Yea what I thought I run my Sparky as a heavy PPC poptart I was like I am pretty sure that always has cockpit shake when I jump lol but yea not a big problem if you wait for the peak of the jump to fire.

Edited by SirSmokes, 02 November 2020 - 09:19 AM.

[LordNothing]

also part of the reason the cerppc is better is because of the clan double heatsink. spheroids suck at stacking dhs.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 November 2020 - 07:11 AM.

[VonBruinwald]

Question:

To which IS PPC(s) is the cERPPC considered inferior?

Edit: And why?

Edited by VonBruinwald, 02 November 2020 - 08:27 AM.

[LordNothing]

VonBruinwald, on 02 November 2020 - 08:27 AM, said:

Question:

To which IS PPC(s) is the cERPPC considered inferior?

Edit: And why?

none of them, dhs.

also the fact that the cerppc is an all rounder while is ppcs are specialized. if you ignore the dhs issue, the is ppcs are slightly better at their specialties. of course dhs changes that. i dont think the extra second of cd that the cerppc has is relevant at all because with any ppc you almost never fire them as fast as you can due to heat management constraints. so i think most of the is ppcs need buffs (not cd related except possibly the lppc to give it a rapid fire niche).

Edited by LordNothing, 02 November 2020 - 09:20 AM.

[The pessimistic optimist]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 09:09 AM, said:

none of them, dhs.

also the fact that the cerppc is an all rounder while is ppcs are specialized. if you ignore the dhs issue, the is ppcs are slightly better at their specialties. i dont think the extra second of cd that the cerppc has is relevant at all because with any ppc you almost never fire them as fast as you can due to heat management constraints. so i think most of the is ppcs need buffs.

Why a lot of the time PPC for IS only really work well on mechs with good % heat quirks like said Sparky hero with - 10% heat that can be put up too - 20%

[LordNothing]

SirSmokes, on 02 November 2020 - 09:23 AM, said:

Why a lot of the time PPC for IS only really work well on mechs with good % heat quirks like said Sparky hero with - 10% heat that can be put up too - 20%

this applies to the clans too, eg warhawk. good builds always exploit available quirks.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 November 2020 - 09:28 AM.

[The pessimistic optimist]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 09:27 AM, said:

this applies to the clans too, eg warhawk. good builds always exploit available quirks.

Yea I think you can make a fair argument PPC could use a buff to heat generated with a decrease in the heat they produce. But that kind tricky too little and not that helpful too much PPC OP so yea not sure were that balance is

Edited by SirSmokes, 02 November 2020 - 09:33 AM.

[LordNothing]

SirSmokes, on 02 November 2020 - 09:30 AM, said:

Yea I think you can make a fair argument PPC could use a buff to heat generated with a decrease in the heat they produce. But that kind tricky too little and not that helpful too much PPC OP so yea not sure were that balance is

heat is the best way to balance most ppcs. erppcs benefit from range and velocity, and lppcs benefit from cooldown, and id like to see a couple points of splash on the snub. but heat is the main thing that prevents you from doing damage with them and is the best knob for balancing them. but using only that knob blurrs the lines between the specialties.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 November 2020 - 09:58 AM.

[TELEFORCE]

Don't the light peepers have the same cool down as the rest of the Inner Sphere ones?

[The pessimistic optimist]

TELEFORCE, on 02 November 2020 - 10:38 AM, said:

Don't the light peepers have the same cool down as the rest of the Inner Sphere ones?

Only IS PPC with 5 second cool down is the heavy PPC other wise the rest are 4 seconds

[Jack Shayu Walker]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 09:09 AM, said:

none of them, dhs.

also the fact that the cerppc is an all rounder while is ppcs are specialized. if you ignore the dhs issue, the is ppcs are slightly better at their specialties. of course dhs changes that. i dont think the extra second of cd that the cerppc has is relevant at all because with any ppc you almost never fire them as fast as you can due to heat management constraints. so i think most of the is ppcs need buffs (not cd related except possibly the lppc to give it a rapid fire niche).

The cERPPC was a good all rounder back when the CD was more comparable to IS PPCs. Now its shoehorned pretty hard into the role of a dedicated sniper’s weapon. If the CD isn’t relevant then revert it to 4 seconds and let mechs that utilize a single cERPPC get some more DPS out of the weapon. A buff to all PPCs across the board would be most welcome while we’re at it, but I’d like to see the cERPPC fill that Jack of All Trades role again. After all clanners can’t choose their PPCs.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 November 2020 - 11:15 AM.

[Vorpal Puppy]

Like so many other weapon nerfs, I'm sure mitigating the boating of cERPPCs is part of the reason for the longer cooldown. The OP mentions the problem this longer cool down is for mechs with a single cERPPC. I'm sure PGI wont do it, but I'd love to see a global, dynamic quirk that automatically gives you a 20% cooldown buff if you only carry 1 of a certain weapon category (1 ppc, 1 ballistic, etc). Would help a lot of underperforming mechs especially lights. Might be one or two mechs you would have to exclude from this buff (a certain Vapor Eagle comes to mind), but there are a lot of mechs that just dont boat well and thus are rarely played.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Miss Greene, on 01 November 2020 - 05:25 PM, said:

If I had my way, my initial adjustments to PPCs would look something like this (keep in mind this is for unquirked; quirks would need a big re-work):

Clan ER PPC
Damage: 11+4
Heat: 14.5
Cooldown: 4
Range: 810/1620
Velocity: 1400
Min-Range: None
HSL Group: 2
Rationale: Good at all ranges given compounding Clan equipment advantages in weight and sizing

PPC
Damage: 10
Heat: 8.5
Cooldown: 4
Range: 540/1080
Velocity: 1400
Min-Range: None
HSL Group: 3
Rationale: IS baseline, good mid-range trading weapon that isn't too hot to complement other weapons but can also support itself. HSL=3 because the HPPC is a thing.

ER PPC
Damage: 10
Heat: 12
Cooldown: 4
Range: 810/1620
Velocity: 1800
Min-Range: None
HSL Group: 3
Rationale: IS long range trading weapon; ability to fire triples counters Clans doing more PPFLD in doubles and being able to fire 2+n without cooking themselves. This is still fairly hot for IS.

Light PPC
Damage: 5
Heat: 4
Cooldown: 2.5
Range: 540/1080
Velocity: 1400
Min-Range: Exponential
HSL Group: 3
Rationale: DPS option, different niche than is typical for PPCs. Pew pew. Min range prevents it from overshadowing standard PPC and AC/10.

Snub-nose PPC
Damage: 10+2
Heat: 8
Cooldown: 3.5
Range: 270/810
Velocity: 1100
Min-Range: None
HSL Group: 3
Rationale: Its a brawling weapon, it needs to do enough damage to be worth its heat up close; slightly extended the max range over the existing 630 meters to add overlap with normal PPC and make it an interesting alternative. Lowered velocity to sync better with the shorter-ranged ballistics and missiles.

Heavy PPC
Damage: 15+3
Heat: 14.5
Cooldown: 5
Range: 540/1080
Velocity: 1400
Min-Range: Exponential
HSL Group: 2
Rationale: Big hot gun with a big beefy punch.

I'd find these changes to be pretty agreeable. Only thing I'd be concerned about is the IS PPC and IS ERPPC being a bit too similar, but I suppose they wouldn't be any more similar than a Large Laser and an ER Large Laser. Regardless I'd back this any day of the week over what we have now.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Vorpal Puppy, on 02 November 2020 - 11:27 AM, said:

Like so many other weapon nerfs, I'm sure mitigating the boating of cERPPCs is part of the reason for the longer cooldown. The OP mentions the problem this longer cool down is for mechs with a single cERPPC. I'm sure PGI wont do it, but I'd love to see a global, dynamic quirk that automatically gives you a 20% cooldown buff if you only carry 1 of a certain weapon category (1 ppc, 1 ballistic, etc). Would help a lot of underperforming mechs especially lights. Might be one or two mechs you would have to exclude from this buff (a certain Vapor Eagle comes to mind), but there are a lot of mechs that just dont boat well and thus are rarely played.

I remember throwing out a similar suggestion back when the skill tree was in PTS and weapon classes all still had their own skill trees. Something to the effect of having the benefits of the cooldown nodes divided by the number of weapons they effect while dramatically increasing their base benefits.

At this point I doubt they would go back to a tree for each specific weapon, and for good reason.

However, I would suppose a skill tree rework could include some kind of masterwork nodes (or what ever you want to call them) at the end of each skill tree where you have a few different options but can only pick one. Perhaps the firepower tree could have a masterwork node for each class of weapon that reduces that weapon's cooldown but has the benefit divided amongst applicable equipped weapons.

[LordNothing]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 02 November 2020 - 11:13 AM, said:

The cERPPC was a good all rounder back when the CD was more comparable to IS PPCs. Now its shoehorned pretty hard into the role of a dedicated sniper’s weapon. If the CD isn’t relevant then revert it to 4 seconds and let mechs that utilize a single cERPPC get some more DPS out of the weapon. A buff to all PPCs across the board would be most welcome while we’re at it, but I’d like to see the cERPPC fill that Jack of All Trades role again. After all clanners can’t choose their PPCs.

cd is irrelevant. ppcs are so hot it is impossible to get the given dps out of them. you usually need to give them a second or two more time than the cd just to manage heat. neither a buff nor a nerf to cd will change the way the weapon is used in game. there are better kn0bs you can turn. i havent noticed a significant drop in performance from clan ppc boats, and i even got my ace of spades with a ppc supernova. decreasing its cd would just help potatoes commit suicide easier.

the only real exception is the lppc. i almost always use that like any other dps weapon. i think of it more as an ammoless ac5 and use several of them to increase rate of fire. a cd buff on that one would be well received. take it down to like 3.33 or something such that a pair of them can fire as fast as an ac5.

other buffs i think would be a heat buff on the ppc and snub, a small heat buff on the heavy and iserppc. alternatively give the snub a couple points of splash (10,1,1, much like the cerppc 10,2.5,2.5).

i also think that the ppc family needs to be the best energy weapon in the game, so i support across the board buffage. and to prevent it from getting out of hand do blue shield.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 November 2020 - 12:11 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 11:42 AM, said:

cd is irrelevant. ppcs are so hot it is impossible to get the given dps out of them. you usually need to give them a second or two more time than the cd just to manage heat. neither a buff nor a nerf to cd will change the way the weapon is used in game. there are better kn0bs you can turn. i havent noticed a significant drop in performance from clan ppc boats, and i even got my ace of spades with a ppc supernova. decreasing its cd would just help potatoes commit suicide easier.

the only real exception is the lppc. i almost always use that like any other dps weapon. i think of it more as an ammoless ac5 and use several of them to increase rate of fire. a cd buff on that one would be well received. take it down to like 3.33 or something such that a pair of them can fire as fast as an ac5.

other buffs i think would be a heat buff on the ppc and snub, a small heat buff on the heavy and iserppc. alternatively give the snub a couple points of splash (10,1,1, much like the cerppc 10,2.5,2.5).

i also think that the ppc family needs to be the best energy weapon in the game, so i support across the board buffage. and to prevent it from getting out of hand do blue shield.

A cooldown buff to the cERPPC is not irrelevant for all builds. Off-meta builds, especially to those on smaller mechs that only sport a single cERPPC with a few support weapons, would get a lot of milage out of having the cERPPCs cooldown knocked back down to 4 seconds. I used to love to run builds like this before the Cooldown was nerfed, I wracked up about 2,000,000 XP in total playing such mechs. Part of the fun was having to maintain a tempo and fire the cERPPC as soon as it cooled down to make full use of the availible heat.

And If cooldown is as inconsequential as you say it is, at least on meta cERPPC boats, then there shouldn't be any reason to keep the cERPPC's cooldown at 5 seconds. Why not include a reduction to a 4 second cooldown? Especially as a part of a further PPC rework to bring more use out of the other IS PPCs?

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 November 2020 - 12:18 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 11:42 AM, said:

the only real exception is the lppc. i almost always use that like any other dps weapon. i think of it more as an ammoless ac5 and use several of them to increase rate of fire. a cd buff on that one would be well received. take it down to like 3.33 or something such that a pair of them can fire as fast as an ac5.

And I (used to) think of the cERPPC as a clan version of the IS AC/10. Perhaps not as fast firing, but it was the clans only access to a front loaded pinpoint weapon with a decent fire rate and no charge up. I miss having that option because there's nothing at all similar that the clan's have access to.

The Gauss rifle is practically the only other front loaded pinpoint weapon the Clan's have and it's pretty much only useful for sniping or augmenting a laser build. I suppose there's also the UAC/2 (technically) but thats obviously more of a staring weapon, not something you can torso twist between shots with. Sadly the cERPPC now fills the exact same niche as the Gauss Rifle except that it does less pinpoint damage and isn't friendly to laser builds, and in exchange it doesn't have a charge up mechanic.

I miss having the option to skirmish with the cERPPC rather than just snipe.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 November 2020 - 12:40 PM.

[LordNothing]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 02 November 2020 - 11:30 AM, said:

I'd find these changes to be pretty agreeable. Only thing I'd be concerned about is the IS PPC and IS ERPPC being a bit too similar, but I suppose they wouldn't be any more similar than a Large Laser and an ER Large Laser. Regardless I'd back this any day of the week over what we have now.

these changes are close to my view. i think the only thing i would do is make the is erppc a bit better at sniping than the clan version (range/velocity/damage) such that all is ppcs perform better at their specialty than the cerppc. i also think the numbers on the hppc are a bit too aggressive, it would obsolete the already weak 20 line autocannons.

Jack Shayu Walker, on 02 November 2020 - 11:55 AM, said:

A cooldown buff to the cERPPC is not irrelevant for all builds. Off-meta builds, especially to those on smaller mechs that only sport a single cERPPC with a few support weapons, would get a lot of milage out of having the cERPPCs cooldown knocked back down to 4 seconds. I used to love to run builds like this before the Cooldown was nerfed, I wracked up about 2,000,000 XP in total playing such mechs. Part of the fun was having to maintain a tempo and fire the cERPPC as soon as it cooled down to make full use of the availible heat.

And If cooldown is as inconsequential as you say it is, at least on meta cERPPC boats, then there shouldn't be any reason to keep the cERPPC's cooldown at 5 seconds. Why not include a reduction to a 4 second cooldown? Especially as a part of a further PPC rework to bring more use out of the other IS PPCs?

im not strictly against a cd buff, i just worry it would take the place of another more important buff. i tried my nanuq with 3 uac5s and a ppc, and i think a second off the cd would help this build. it wouldnt do a thing for my cerppc boats though, good or bad.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 November 2020 - 12:37 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 12:30 PM, said:

this is close to my view. i think the only thing i wouldchange

im not strictly against a cd buff, i just worry it would take the place of another more important buff.

Conversely I'm worried that the cERPPC will recieve a buff that skews it even further towards being an energy clone of the gauss rifle, killing any chance of giving the clans back a PPFLD midpoint between the UAC/2 and Gauss Rifle. Having something of an equivalent of the IS AC/10 is sorely missed. It was a fun singleton weapon to plug into a Mist Lynx, or a Kitfox, or even a Shadowcat with some SRMs for backup. With good timing and persistence you used to be able to get a decent match score skirmishing and could even use it for brawling in a pinch with other small mechs.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 November 2020 - 12:37 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

LordNothing, on 02 November 2020 - 12:30 PM, said:

these changes are close to my view. i think the only thing i would do is make the is erppc a bit better at sniping than the clan version (range/velocity/damage) such that all is ppcs perform better at their specialty than the cerppc.

I wholeheartedly agree with giving them an additional velocity bump, maybe up to 2000? Miss Greene's suggestion already gives them the capability to fire 3 at once without ghost heat so im not sure there's need for a damage boost.

Edit: I will say though, a boost to 12 damage pinpoint on the IS ERPPC wouldn't be a total departure from canon. The extinct Enhanced ERPPC did 12 damage.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 02 November 2020 - 12:55 PM.