27 replies to this topic

[MechMaster059]

Edit: The title should be "Bad Ballistic Damage / Ton Inconsistencies"
I can't delete the post and re-post it. =(

So I noticed my Shadow Hawk SHD-5M would often run out of ammo when I had 2x UAC5's mounted on it. I tried various configurations and lowered the size of it's light engine to the point where I could carry 6 tons of ammo. This was enough to last the whole fight if I did well and was one of the last mechs standing.

I eventually came to the conclusion this configuration was untenable because the mech became too slow to maneuver away from danger and I'd get into trouble a lot. I decreased the ammo to 4.5 tons and brought the engine size back up along with move speed skills and resigned myself to the fact that the mech would run out of ammo about 75% into the match if I was doing well and I'd have to finish off whatever remains with the 2x SRM 4's and 2x ML's mounted on it. This isn't too bad since whatever enemies are left would likely be damaged.

I ended up swapping out the 2x UAC5's for 1x UAC20 and noticed a DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT in firepower, though I still ended up having to lug around 4 tons of ammo to feed this monster weapon. That's quite an ammo tax for a single weapon mount.

(Additional in-game low ammunition experiences at bottom of post)

When dabbling around on the MechDB website I noticed some oddities in the damage / ton of various ballistic weapons:



1. The 10 caliber cannons get MUCH MORE damage / ton than the other calibers.

2. The ammo skills give a large boost in damage / ton to the highest caliber cannons and gauss weapons. This is due to the low number of base rounds those weapons have. (The Heavy Gauss overtakes the regular Gauss in damage / ton with the skill points)

3. Light and Heavy machine guns get MUCH LESS damage / ton from the ammo skills as a percentage than other ballistic weapons. (The MechDB site shows regular machines guns getting 92 damage / ton but that must be a bug on their site so I'll assume they get 252 like the other MG's.)

4. The regular machine gun # of rounds / ton is not an even multiple of 600. How very BIZARRE!? This is bad numerology that weakens the machine spirit of the code. (Some heretic dev must have done that intentionally...)

=====

It's somewhat embarrassing to have to point all this out. These are glaring inconsistencies that really should be fixed. What conclusions can we draw if things are left this way?

1. Players should avoid using the 2 and 5 caliber cannons. Their ammo tax is only acceptable if you mount 1x of them but it's a bad idea to stack these weapons together. They WILL run out of ammo unless you make draconian mech layout trade-offs. If you're thinking of building a mech around these weapons... don't. Choose something else.

2. The 10 caliber weapons are just fine. If you go ballistics, these are the weapons to focus on mounting.

3. The 20 caliber weapons are devastating enough and have enough alpha to still be viable but that's not really enough of a justification for them to have such a heavy ammo tax.

4. Now I know why the regular machine guns I mounted on my Arctic Cheetah SH last so much longer than the Heavy Machine Guns that came mounted on it. I had thought it was simply due to Heavy MG's lower # of rounds / ton but now I realize the ammo skills play a HUGE role as well. Heavy MG's get little benefit from the skills and regular MG's get a large benefit. Avoid Heavy MG's if possible folks or be prepared to pay a large ammo tax on them.

=====

I propose the following changes to fix these issues:
(Green = Buff, Red = Nerf)



1. The # of rounds / ton are all even numbers so they get evenly split between 1 ton and 0.5 tons. (The current 35 rounds / ton for UAC5's discourages players from splitting ammo into 0.5 tons to spread the risk of ammo being destroyed because doing so loses 1 round of total ammo.)

2. The 2 and 5 caliber weapons get the ammo they need to be viable in stacks.

3. The 10 caliber weapons get a TINY nerf to bring their Damage / Ton progression in line with the other caliber's.

4. The 20 caliber weapons get a TINY buff to make their Damage / Ton less onerous and bring their skill % improvement down.

5. The RAC's get a TINY buff to avoid the RAC5 from having an odd number of rounds and also make all their numbers (including skill bonus) an even multiple of 30.

6. The Gauss weapons no longer have sucky damage / ton. Their % increase in damage / ton with skills is normalized. Gauss weapons have plenty of other issues like charging the weapon to fire and increased destruction from crits to offset these buffs. These buffs are not a big deal. (I know a 25% increase in damage / ton from skills seems high but there's no way around it because of the low minimum numbers involved in their ammo bonuses)

7. High alpha weapons still have worse damage / ton than lower alpha weapons as a price to pay for the higher alpha.

8. The Light and Heavy machine guns now get the proper number of additional rounds from the skill points to be in line with the gain of the regular machine gun.

=====

Other low ammo stories:

1. I was testing out my new LRM mech in a match on Alpine Peaks. It was a totally different playstyle so I didn't understand the necessity of running away sometimes. An enemy Urbanmech charged at me on one of the slopes and I didn't run because I erroneously thought I could brawl it with my 2x SRM 6 Artemis. (I had already been damaged by some LRM fire.) It eventually killed me. (With help from some LRMs raining down on me too.) This Urbanmech went on to be the last enemy standing vs 2 mechs on our team.

One of our mechs had a pile of lasers mounted on one of it's arms. All of it's other weapons were ammo based and out of ammo. Our mech began to brawl with the enemy Urbanmech. I was wondering what in the hell was taking our 2nd allied mech so long to show up. I found out why when it finally did show up to help. It was a Rifleman IIC with only 6x UAC2's. He was out of ammo. The Urbanmech eventually shot off the laser arm of our 1st mech with it's lasers and proceeded to win the game vs 2 of our mechs because they both were out of ammo. VERY FRUSTRATING TO LOSE TO A FRIGGIN URBIE... =(

2. This same Rifleman IIC showed up in my next match on Emerald Taiga. I was pissed to see him because I knew he'd run out of ammo and he did. I died halfway through and he made it to the end. I was spectating him after I died and he threw out some serious damage and got some kills but he ran out of ammo with 2 enemy mechs left. We ended up winning and he had like 890 damage at the end.

I was very pissed at this Rifleman IIC running out of ammo in both matches but now I realize it wasn't that guys fault. Now I know the 2 and 5 caliber cannons are BADLY under-ammoed. (And the 20's to a lesser extent as well)

Edited by MechMaster059, 10 July 2022 - 06:38 PM.

[Therax]

Potential-damage-per-ton inconsistency with the class 10 autocannons are certainly well known to members of the Cauldron, so I am a little bit surprised that they have not yet addressed it.

Potential-damage-per-ton for all classes of same-type autocannons should be standardised across the board.

The skill tree ammo nodes should give the same percentage increase in potential-damage-per-ton for all same-type ballistic weapons regardless of their class; otherwise an unskilled AC20 build is less viable relative to an unskilled AC5 build, even if both build are equally viable when their ammo nodes are skilled.

Edited by Therax, 10 July 2022 - 07:07 PM.

[w0qj]

For what it's worth, there was a very similar thread about alleged IS UAC5 / UAC10 ammo/ton mix-up.
https://mwomercs.com...o-per-ton-mixup

As it turned out, MWO was correct, at least in this above UAC5/UAC10 ammo/ton matter.

[MechMaster059]

w0qj, on 10 July 2022 - 09:34 PM, said:

For what it's worth, there was a very similar thread about alleged IS UAC5 / UAC10 ammo/ton mix-up.
https://mwomercs.com...o-per-ton-mixup

As it turned out, MWO was correct, at least in this above UAC5/UAC10 ammo/ton matter.

That was the other topic I started where I was wondering why the UAC10 had more ammo despite having a larger caliber size. That thread was strictly focused on ammo count and I was wondering why the UAC10 ammo count suddenly jumped up when it appeared there was a pattern of ammo count going down with increased caliber size. I didn't understand at the time that the UAC10 and UAC20 fired multiple rounds well below their caliber size. That's all I was "corrected" on.

MWO wasn't "correct". MWO has the ammo count of the UAC10 and UAC20 coupled to their AC counterparts and is doubling and tripling respectively the ammo of the UACs to get the same total damage / ton as their AC counterparts. In no way what-so-ever does this actually fix the fact that a 10 caliber cannon will be able to inflict SIGNFICANTLY MORE damage before running out of ammo than any other caliber of cannon. This is NOT to say the 10 caliber is overpowered. The point is all the other calibers are UNDERPOWERED and run out of ammo too soon by comparison. I know the other calibers are underpowered by the fact that I have to carry so many tons of ammo for them in order to not run out in matches where I survive to the end and have frequently seen allied players run out of ammo as well.

Please take the time to read my posts and fully comprehend them. The numbers I present here are very obvious to anyone who can think objectively and are not open to debate. Either PGI fixes it or they don't and I'll just know to avoid all 2 and 5 caliber weapons when building mechs and other players can be left wondering why their mechs stacked with these calibers always end up prematurely running out of ammo.

Edit: Isn't it interesting how the guy with only 84 posts gets it but the guy with 2,100+ doesn't?

Edited by MechMaster059, 10 July 2022 - 10:44 PM.

[Gagis]

Your loadout was bad, ditch the srm and lasers for more ammo or bigger gun. IIRC my 5M has a tiny engine and UAC10+UAC5.

Rating 2 and 5 autocannons are excellent and have historically been more popular than 10 since tonnage, range, dps are far more important than minor inconsistencies in ammo capacity. You are giving bad advice if you say this is a reason not to use them.

[crazytimes]

Mediums aren't really meant to have multiple ballistics, and ammo, and backup weapons by lore. In lore they'll tend to have a single ballistic and one or two ton of ammo for it.

My 5M has 2xUAC5 + 2ML, with sufficient ammo, but it really isn't a great build for current gameplay. It was one of my first mechs and worked great at tier 3 four years ago, but I rarely dust it off now. Adding SRMs would not make it a more useful build.

I'm interested in the 10+5 build though, I'll have to see how that looks.

[caravann]

Autocannon 5's have their uses, they're lighter and hard points aren't an option.

Autocannon 2's is as specific like light machine guns. You need at least 3 ac2 or 7 lmg or else don't bother.

[Maddermax]

I meant it’s a huge post, but it fails at the premise. The amount of ammo per ton is a point of balance, but it doesn’t at all describe the overall balance of a weapon, as you’re implying it does. There are heaps of builds that use AC2s effectively, a few that use AC5s effectively, and AC10s are fine weapons, but they’re not nearly the be all an end all, and especially not because of needing a little less ammo.

There’s heat, range, slot usage, DPS, pinpoint, projectile speed, ghost heat limits, face time needed, lots of other factors that determine if a weapon is good or not, Damage per ton of ammo is just one tiny piece of the puzzle, and trying to draw arch conclusions of effectiveness from that tiny piece is definitely going to lead you in wrong directions.

i mean, in your example, you got pissed at a Rifleman IIC for running out of ammo for his AC2s, and then mention how he got 900 damage in a match. That’s not a failing weapon system, that’s a pure example of how AC2s can be awesome, and yet you’re trying to say they suck because you need a ton of extra ammo? It’s just such a weird conjecture.

Edited by Maddermax, 11 July 2022 - 02:07 AM.

[MechMaster059]

Gagis, on 10 July 2022 - 11:50 PM, said:

Your loadout was bad, ditch the srm and lasers for more ammo or bigger gun.

As I said in my post I ditched the 2x UAC5's for 1x UAC20. I guess you missed that part.

Gagis, on 10 July 2022 - 11:50 PM, said:

minor inconsistencies in ammo capacity

LOL... a 10 caliber weapon gets 31% more damage / ton than a 2 or 5 caliber weapon and 43.8% more than a 20 caliber weapon. Those aren't "minor inconsistencies". That's a MASSIVE difference. I notice you have no justification for that difference. You just blithely dismiss it: "No big deal, just a minor inconsistency..." LOL.

crazytimes, on 11 July 2022 - 12:11 AM, said:

Mediums aren't really meant to have multiple ballistics, and ammo, and backup weapons by lore.

OK so now we've got the lame "lore" canard. Check.

Still no justification for the massive difference in damage / ton between the different calibers.

Maddermax, on 11 July 2022 - 01:59 AM, said:

I meant it’s a huge post, but it fails at the premise. Blah blah blah...

I'm not able to justify why 10 caliber weapons have massively more efficient damage / ton than other calibers so I'll just proclaim your post failed.

K

So we have the typical garbage responses that dodge the issue (as usual) and just proclaim there's no problem.

[Maddermax]

MechMaster059 said:

1657544873[/url]' post='6466151']
As I said in my post I ditched the 2x UAC5's for 1x UAC20. I guess you missed that part.


LOL... a 10 caliber weapon gets 31% more damage / ton than a 2 or 5 caliber weapon and 43.8% more than a 20 caliber weapon. Those aren't "minor inconsistencies". That's a MASSIVE difference. I notice you have no justification for that difference. You just blithely dismiss it: "No big deal, just a minor inconsistency..." LOL.


OK so now we've got the lame "lore" canard. Check.

Still no justification for the massive difference in damage / ton between the different calibers.


K

So we have the typical garbage responses that dodge the issue (as usual) and just proclaim there's no problem.

You literally refuted nothing and skipped to declaring victory.

If you’re looking for a whinge, have at it, but the point stands that balance does not revolve solely or even mainly around ammo per ton, it’s one small cog in a large chain of gears.
I mean, heat is a resource as well, and the AC5 get 4.55 damage per heat generated, and the AC20 only gets 4 damage per heat generated. If I used this as an example to declare the AC5 completely superior, it would be a stupid argument, just as silly as declaring that the difference in ammo dam/ton is the determining factor. Hell, with the heat saved with AC5s, but leave out a heat sink, and hey presto, you’ve saved a ton for extra ammo, done, superior weapon.
Except….
DPS is better on the AC 20,
Except weapon weight is better on the AC5,
except pin point damage is better on the AC20,
except range is better on the AC5,
except, you need less FaceTime with the AC 20
except AC5s take up far fewer slots
except, except except.

https://mwo.nav-alph...uipment/weapons

Trying to judge a weapon on a single variable is stupid. If you’re not in a listening mood, that’s up to you, maybe it’s just a whinge thread. It’s not like I’m arguing every weapon is perfectly balanced, just that if there’s a difference, it has to be seen in overall performance of AC2s and 5s, not a single stat of many that affect how they play.

Edited by Maddermax, 11 July 2022 - 06:45 AM.

[LordNothing]

a lot of weirdness comes from the weapons with low granularity. that is to say big damage numbers where just adding a single round can contribute a lot of extra damage/ton. the hgauss is the biggest offender there. people dont want to unlock an ammo node and not even get an extra round. an hgauss for example picking up a single round with each node represents an extra 50 damage per ton. even then the base value could stand to come up an extra round.

its better that numbers be even so half ton ammo bins are split evenly. that leads to additional issues with low granularity ammo. you started off even and then you unlock a node for an extra round so then you end up with an odd number. with our favorite whipping boy, the hgauss, you start with seven, unlock the first node for 8, the second for 9. the zeroth and second node then adds no additional ammo for the half ton. i think a more acceptable solution is to round up to the next round no matter what. worst case scenario you can get an extra round per ton by wasting a crit slot. ammo explosions are not a problem for gauss weapons, but for 20 class guns, while you can get a bit more ammo by wasting otherwise unused crit space, you increase your crit probability of hitting ammo. tradeoffs like this are good.

the nodes end up being more powerful for those big damage weapons. get as close to the desired 200 dmg/t, then either round down or, if its evenly divisible, -1 shot that value to help offset the power of the nodes. doesn't help that dpt base are all over the place and dont seem to follow any logical rules and sometimes tt rules (not lore) say that an ammo is less efficient and go with that instead of something that makes sense in mwo. they have just sort of organically have been adjusted over the years, almost arbitrarily in most cases. id say do something like 200dpt for ppfld weapons, 240 for scatter weapons. burst fire weapons start at 210 for 2 round burst weapons and +10 for each additional round in the burst. machine guns around 220 and racs around 230, splitting the difference between dps and scatter. something like an ac2/5 can count as both a dps and ppfld weapon, perhaps split the difference at 210.

no matter how messed up things are for ballistics, i think missiles are an even bigger mess.

Edited by LordNothing, 11 July 2022 - 09:52 AM.

[crazytimes]

MechMaster059, on 11 July 2022 - 05:07 AM, said:

K

So we have the typical garbage responses that dodge the issue (as usual) and just proclaim there's no problem.

The issue appears to be your close minded position on a topic that doesn't really require a position. You want to make bad builds, you have the personal freedom to make bad builds, but you want the bad builds to have more ammo to support your bad builds.

You can insult everyone as much as you want, a bad build is still a bad build.

[MechMaster059]

Maddermax, on 11 July 2022 - 06:41 AM, said:

You literally refuted nothing and skipped to declaring victory.

There was nothing to refute. Those posts offered no justification for why 10 caliber weapons should be so much more efficient in damage / ton. It was just a bunch of garbage about "the lore" or ac2/5 are still good just because or being dismissive of the glaring difference between the weapons.

Maddermax, on 11 July 2022 - 06:41 AM, said:

Trying to judge a weapon on a single variable is stupid.

What you don't seem to realize is that all the other trade-offs you mention make sense. 2 and 5 caliber weapons having such inefficient damage / ton doesn't make sense. A weapon having low alpha argues IN FAVOR of that weapon having more damage / ton. That's why the RACs and MG's have such high damage / ton numbers. This compensates for the fact that those weapons have to spend a lot of time on the target to get results.

Yet, 2 and 5 caliber weapons have lousy damage / ton numbers, then it suddenly jumps up for 10 caliber weapons to an acceptable damage / ton, and then crashes back down for 20 caliber weapons. THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. IT'S OBVIOUSLY ARBITRARY.

This is not hard to figure out but perceiving this fact does require one to be objective which you've clearly demonstrated you're not. In my in-game examples with the Rifleman IIC you cherry pick the fact that he ended the 2nd match with 890 damage. You ignore the fact that winning that match wasn't a certainty and thus him running out of ammo before it ended put our win at risk. You ignore the fact that in the 1st match he was reduced to trying to kill a badly battered Urbanmech by repeatedly running into it which failed miserably and that Urbanmech won 1 v 2 due to both our teammates running out of ammo.

LordNothing, on 11 July 2022 - 09:46 AM, said:

a lot of weirdness comes from the weapons with low granularity...

even then the base value could stand to come up an extra round.

Indeed.

LordNothing, on 11 July 2022 - 09:46 AM, said:

its better that numbers be even so half ton ammo bins are split evenly. that leads to additional issues with low granularity ammo...

Indeed. You make a good point about what happens if players only pick 1 ammo skill node.

LordNothing, on 11 July 2022 - 09:46 AM, said:

doesn't help that dpt base are all over the place and dont seem to follow any logical rules and sometimes tt rules (not lore) say that an ammo is less efficient and go with that instead of something that makes sense in mwo. they have just sort of organically have been adjusted over the years, almost arbitrarily in most cases.

It's good to see someone else recognizes this.

LordNothing, on 11 July 2022 - 09:46 AM, said:

id say do something like 200dpt for ppfld weapons, 240 for scatter weapons. burst fire weapons start at 210 for 2 round burst weapons and +10 for each additional round in the burst. machine guns around 220 and racs around 230, splitting the difference between dps and scatter. something like an ac2/5 can count as both a dps and ppfld weapon, perhaps split the difference at 210.

All reasonable suggestions.

LordNothing, on 11 July 2022 - 09:46 AM, said:

no matter how messed up things are for ballistics, i think missiles are an even bigger mess.

I looked at the missiles as well and LRMs, SRMs, and STREAKs all seem to have reasonable damage / ton. MRMs have a significantly higher damage / ton but after thinking about it I realized MRMs can't get a lock and they don't get Artemis which means it's probably very common for a significant portion of a salvo of MRMs to either miss or be badly dispersed. There's probably a significant amount of wastage with MRMs hence why they get to have such good damage / ton numbers.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply LordNothing. I recognized you as being one of the more intelligent posters on this board early on.

crazytimes, on 11 July 2022 - 10:36 AM, said:

The issue appears to be your close minded position on a topic that doesn't really require a position.

Another total epic fail reply that dodges the substance of the thread. Begone gnat.

Edited by MechMaster059, 11 July 2022 - 11:37 AM.

[Kanil]

MechMaster059, on 11 July 2022 - 11:27 AM, said:

There was nothing to refute. Those posts offered no justification for why 10 caliber weapons should be so much more efficient in damage / ton. It was just a bunch of garbage about "the lore" or ac2/5 are still good just because or being dismissive of the glaring difference between the weapons.

The AC/10 weighs 12 tons, and does 4.44 DPS, for a DPS per ton of 0.370.
The AC/5 weighs 8 tons, and does 3.57 DPS, for a DPS/T of 0.446.

So we can see that the AC/5 does a lot more damage per ton of weapon. Now let's say we're aiming to have around 500 damage worth of ammo. in the AC/5s case, that's 2.5 tons, and in the AC/10's case, that's just 2 tons.

Now the AC/10 weighs 14 tons, and does 0.317 DPS/T.
And the AC/5 weighs 10.5 tons, for 0.340 DPS/T.

Basically the AC/10 weighs too much for what it brings to the table, and giving it more ammo per ton makes it slightly less overweight compared to other guns.

Of course, you can't just measure a weapon by it's DPS/T any more than you can measure it by it's damage per ton of ammo, there's more to it than that. So perhaps a better question would be, why do you think the AC/2 and AC/5 need a buff?

[MechMaster059]

Kanil, on 11 July 2022 - 12:02 PM, said:

The AC/10 weighs 12 tons, and does 4.44 DPS, for a DPS per ton of 0.370.
The AC/5 weighs 8 tons, and does 3.57 DPS, for a DPS/T of 0.446.

So we can see that the AC/5 does a lot more damage per ton of weapon. Now let's say we're aiming to have around 500 damage worth of ammo. in the AC/5s case, that's 2.5 tons, and in the AC/10's case, that's just 2 tons.

Now the AC/10 weighs 14 tons, and does 0.317 DPS/T.
And the AC/5 weighs 10.5 tons, for 0.340 DPS/T.

Basically the AC/10 weighs too much for what it brings to the table, and giving it more ammo per ton makes it slightly less overweight compared to other guns.

Now we're getting somewhere. This is a real argument.

I would say two things:

1. The poorer DPS / ton of the AC10 compared to the AC5 is compensated for by it's higher alpha and higher DPS.

2. If the higher alpha and DPS isn't sufficient compensation then there is straight-forward solution for this rather than screwing with the ammo: lower the weight of the AC10

(After personally using the deadly UAC20, I now strongly feel the UAC10 and UAC20 should both weigh 0.5 tons MORE to compensate for their tremendous alpha relative to their vanilla AC counterparts but I didn't want to muddy this discussion by bringing that up in my original post.)

Kanil, on 11 July 2022 - 12:02 PM, said:

why do you think the AC/2 and AC/5 need a buff?

My original post explained this. Please re-read it.

[Kanil]

MechMaster059, on 11 July 2022 - 12:18 PM, said:

My original post explained this. Please re-read it.

Having read it again, I still don't get why you think they need a buff. All you seem to say is that they need more ammo than AC/10s. That doesn't mean they're bad, it just means they need to put more tonnage into ammo. Do you have a justification for buffing them beyond "The AC/10 gets more ammo per ton"?

You also suggest they should not be used in large quantities, which is uh... where they shine.

Edited by Kanil, 11 July 2022 - 01:21 PM.

[MechMaster059]

Kanil, on 11 July 2022 - 01:20 PM, said:

That doesn't mean they're bad, it just means they need to put more tonnage into ammo.

And you were off to such a good start with your previous post...

"it just means they need to put more tonnage into ammo."

Thank you captain obvious. That's like saying "Lamborghini's aren't expensive, you just need to spend more money on them."

The whole point of my post is that they need so much ammo that it starts screwing with mech design trade-offs to the point that it's not worth the hassle. There's just better weapons to use in their place. Either you get the post or you don't. Not much else I can say to you at this point.

[Kanil]

MechMaster059, on 11 July 2022 - 03:32 PM, said:

And you were off to such a good start with your previous post...

Maybe you're the one who just doesn't get it, have you ever considered that? You don't have to answer, I already know.

You should not be asking "do ballistic weapons get a balanced amount of ammunition per ton?" That question does not matter in the slightest.

If a weapon needs 10 tons of ammo to be good, but is good when you put 10 tons of ammo on your 'mech, then the weapon needing 10 tons of ammo isn't a problem, because the weapon is still good.

There are plenty of builds out there that use AC/2s to good effect, they manage just fine with their current ammo totals.

Personally, I really like AC/5s and think they're just fine, but you could maybe argue that they're less popular.

[MechMaster059]

Kanil, on 11 July 2022 - 04:56 PM, said:

If a weapon needs 10 tons of ammo to be good, but is good when you put 10 tons of ammo on your 'mech, then the weapon needing 10 tons of ammo isn't a problem, because the weapon is still good.

I think we're done here.

[Athom83]

Since OP is complaining about 'garbage short responses';

MechMaster059, on 10 July 2022 - 03:35 PM, said:

I eventually came to the conclusion this configuration was untenable because the mech became too slow to maneuver away from danger and I'd get into trouble a lot. I decreased the ammo to 4.5 tons and brought the engine size back up along with move speed skills and resigned myself to the fact that the mech would run out of ammo about 75% into the match if I was doing well and I'd have to finish off whatever remains with the 2x SRM 4's and 2x ML's mounted on it. This isn't too bad since whatever enemies are left would likely be damaged.

First off, that's not a great build to begin with. Yeah it can be decent from time to time but it doesn't really specialize in doing anything that well.

MechMaster059, on 10 July 2022 - 03:35 PM, said:

I ended up swapping out the 2x UAC5's for 1x UAC20 and noticed a DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT in firepower, though I still ended up having to lug around 4 tons of ammo to feed this monster weapon. That's quite an ammo tax for a single weapon mount.

Not really. Considering that the UAC/20 is of a similar size and weight to both of those UAC/5s, then why wouldn't you have a similar tonnage in ammo? Before the IS UACs were added, the normal AC/20 would eat through 3 tons of ammo a match on average, and the Ultras all fire twice as fast as their standard counterparts.

MechMaster059, on 10 July 2022 - 03:35 PM, said:

1. The 10 caliber cannons get MUCH MORE damage / ton than the other calibers.

2. The ammo skills give a large boost in damage / ton to the highest caliber cannons and gauss weapons. This is due to the low number of base rounds those weapons have. (The Heavy Gauss overtakes the regular Gauss in damage / ton with the skill points)

3. Light and Heavy machine guns get MUCH LESS damage / ton from the ammo skills as a percentage than other ballistic weapons. (The MechDB site shows regular machines guns getting 92 damage / ton but that must be a bug on their site so I'll assume they get 252 like the other MG's.)

4. The regular machine gun # of rounds / ton is not an even multiple of 600. How very BIZARRE!? This is bad numerology that weakens the machine spirit of the code. (Some heretic dev must have done that intentionally...)

1. And they have other downsides to them that you ignore. They have a dramatically shorter range without a big increase in DPS when compared to the 5s (3.45-3.6 vs 4-4.4) despite a noticeable tonnage and slot increase. However compared to 20s they're not that much smaller and lighter while lacking the burst damage and heavy pinpoint potential The jump from a 5 to a 10 is 4 tons while the jump from a 10 to a 20 is only 2 tons.

2. And? Why shouldn't they? Lighter weapons tend to have a much better DPS/ton than heavier weapons and tend to carry deeper ammo stores anyway, so the same direct percentage would benefit those more than the heavier weapons despite on paper effecting both the same.

3. And? Why should they? They're either a secondary weapon where you rarely need more than 0.5 tons per MG anyway. Even on mechs who's primary damage is MGs you rarely see more than ~0.75 tons of ammo per MG.

4.... what? Just... what? Are you actually just trolling all of us and trying to see who doesn't read your post in its entirety?

MechMaster059, on 10 July 2022 - 03:35 PM, said:

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It's somewhat embarrassing to have to point all this out. These are glaring inconsistencies that really should be fixed. What conclusions can we draw if things are left this way?

1. Players should avoid using the 2 and 5 caliber cannons. Their ammo tax is only acceptable if you mount 1x of them but it's a bad idea to stack these weapons together. They WILL run out of ammo unless you make draconian mech layout trade-offs. If you're thinking of building a mech around these weapons... don't. Choose something else.

2. The 10 caliber weapons are just fine. If you go ballistics, these are the weapons to focus on mounting.

3. The 20 caliber weapons are devastating enough and have enough alpha to still be viable but that's not really enough of a justification for them to have such a heavy ammo tax.

4. Now I know why the regular machine guns I mounted on my Arctic Cheetah SH last so much longer than the Heavy Machine Guns that came mounted on it. I had thought it was simply due to Heavy MG's lower # of rounds / ton but now I realize the ammo skills play a HUGE role as well. Heavy MG's get little benefit from the skills and regular MG's get a large benefit. Avoid Heavy MG's if possible folks or be prepared to pay a large ammo tax on them.

1. 2s and 5s are still very much popular, especially if you're going for DPS builds that maximize tonnage efficiency. 2 AC/2s are the same tonnage as a single AC/10 but have a DPS of 5.6 instead of 4.4, and while that takes 2 hardpoints they only took up 2 slots instead of 7 meaning you have more room for DHS or other stuff. Hell that's enough spare slots to swap out a standard engine for a LFE in a slot starved mech so you have more tonnage to add more ammo.

2. Not really. The 10s are very good generalist guns that try to be a happy medium between the lighter guns and the heavy hitters of AC/20 and Gauss. Yes they're a good pick if you don't know what else to specialize in, but they aren't strictly better than the heavier guns or carrying more of the lighter guns. Plus your entire argument is that the AC/10s are the best ballistic to chose because they have the highest damage per ton for their ammo... while also ignoring your own data that show RACs having a lot more damage per ton than even AC/10s.

3. They... don't have an ammo tax though? Your own data shows them having similar damage per ton as the lighter weapons, and by your own data they benefit the most from skills...

4. This sounds more like a case of you constantly using HMGs while outside of your range and wasting most of your damage and ammo.

MechMaster059, on 10 July 2022 - 03:35 PM, said:

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I propose the following changes to fix these issues:
(Green = Buff, Red = Nerf)



1. The # of rounds / ton are all even numbers so they get evenly split between 1 ton and 0.5 tons. (The current 35 rounds / ton for UAC5's discourages players from splitting ammo into 0.5 tons to spread the risk of ammo being destroyed because doing so loses 1 round of total ammo.)

2. The 2 and 5 caliber weapons get the ammo they need to be viable in stacks.

3. The 10 caliber weapons get a TINY nerf to bring their Damage / Ton progression in line with the other caliber's.

4. The 20 caliber weapons get a TINY buff to make their Damage / Ton less onerous and bring their skill % improvement down.

5. The RAC's get a TINY buff to avoid the RAC5 from having an odd number of rounds and also make all their numbers (including skill bonus) an even multiple of 30.

6. The Gauss weapons no longer have sucky damage / ton. Their % increase in damage / ton with skills is normalized. Gauss weapons have plenty of other issues like charging the weapon to fire and increased destruction from crits to offset these buffs. These buffs are not a big deal. (I know a 25% increase in damage / ton from skills seems high but there's no way around it because of the low minimum numbers involved in their ammo bonuses)

7. High alpha weapons still have worse damage / ton than lower alpha weapons as a price to pay for the higher alpha.

8. The Light and Heavy machine guns now get the proper number of additional rounds from the skill points to be in line with the gain of the regular machine gun.

1. Ignoring how that is the point in some of the guns having odd numbers of shots in their ammo bins.

2. They already had plenty of ammo in stacks if you actually built the mech around boating all those guns.

3. Why though.

4. Again unneeded and you still didn't accomplish your stated goal.

5. And you shoot your own argument in the foot by giving them more damage per ton than anything else.

6. Except the entire reason they 'have less ammo per ton' is because the ammo isn't volatile and wont explode when damaged like every other ammo type... plus you give them the same percentage increase of ammo with the skill as what the AC/20 you were complaining about had.

7. Not with the new statistics you made. Gauss does 15 damage per shot and has more damage per ton than AC 10s, 5s, and 2s with your own data.

8.That's not how MGs work.

MechMaster059, on 10 July 2022 - 03:35 PM, said:

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Other low ammo stories:

1. I was testing out my new LRM mech in a match on Alpine Peaks. It was a totally different playstyle so I didn't understand the necessity of running away sometimes. An enemy Urbanmech charged at me on one of the slopes and I didn't run because I erroneously thought I could brawl it with my 2x SRM 6 Artemis. (I had already been damaged by some LRM fire.) It eventually killed me. (With help from some LRMs raining down on me too.) This Urbanmech went on to be the last enemy standing vs 2 mechs on our team.

One of our mechs had a pile of lasers mounted on one of it's arms. All of it's other weapons were ammo based and out of ammo. Our mech began to brawl with the enemy Urbanmech. I was wondering what in the hell was taking our 2nd allied mech so long to show up. I found out why when it finally did show up to help. It was a Rifleman IIC with only 6x UAC2's. He was out of ammo. The Urbanmech eventually shot off the laser arm of our 1st mech with it's lasers and proceeded to win the game vs 2 of our mechs because they both were out of ammo. VERY FRUSTRATING TO LOSE TO A FRIGGIN URBIE... =(

2. This same Rifleman IIC showed up in my next match on Emerald Taiga. I was pissed to see him because I knew he'd run out of ammo and he did. I died halfway through and he made it to the end. I was spectating him after I died and he threw out some serious damage and got some kills but he ran out of ammo with 2 enemy mechs left. We ended up winning and he had like 890 damage at the end.

I was very pissed at this Rifleman IIC running out of ammo in both matches but now I realize it wasn't that guys fault. Now I know the 2 and 5 caliber cannons are BADLY under-ammoed. (And the 20's to a lesser extent as well)

TLDR; You were so bad in match that your teammates simply couldn't carry you hard enough.