43 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

Duke Falcon, on 11 September 2023 - 11:27 AM, said:

RAC is a try-and-weshallsee kinda weapon.
Depend on your target you either be good and supress your target into cover or get face-punched because the facetime they need. On paper they do sh!tload of damage (put two on a mech and the stats show your damage would over 100 BUT NOOOO!!!) but what is the truth? They meme-stuffs mostly. I use them on some mechs for fun (anyone here crazy enough to consider a 4xRAC2s JagerMech a viable design?!). RACs are pretty weak if you face someone who not fill his pants as soon as the cockpit starts to flash.
I even dare to say that RACs need some buff to became a weapon worth to carry into REAL matches. Lower tiers are full of RACs because many not understand how they trully work <== put four on a KGC, top it with an XL engine and wonder! It's not me who's a cheater, boy, sorry...
And as Ignatius said wisely: RACs compared only by X-pulzorz 'cause both weapon-branch are *@*@* "oh-oh-oooh"...

xl on a king crab made me cringe a little. especially considering you can hit the rear st from the front at certain angles.

[The6thMessenger]

LordNothing, on 11 September 2023 - 02:59 AM, said:

its sort of like running away from a chihuahua.

I agree. Barking is the only thing it does rather well, and the dude wants to take it away?

Curccu, on 11 September 2023 - 03:44 AM, said:

If you shoot until you jam with 3xRAC2 or 2xRAC5 you have also done loads of damage to enemy.

Being dependent to face time means, the enemy can also do a lot of damage back to you, and likely to very very very hungry mechs within a firing line, that is not a good trade.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Chainguns, Gattling guns, Miniguns..

All the same beast, the only difference is rate of fire and if they're motor driven.
There might be some delay (like.. Miliseconds) from the first shot fired until full rate of fire is achieved, but no There should be no spinup.

People who know nothing about military weapons, as well as Video games came up with the spinup mechanic..
Reality is you pull the trigger, and unleash instant firehose from hell.

Same thing with Ultra's, from a military deployment standpoint, weapons that jam, get fixed, or decommissioned.

Heat, environment, poor maintenance, or fouling from poor quality means of propulsion should be the only acceptable reason any automatic or semi-automatic weapon to fail consistently.

[Curccu]

Lockheed_, on 11 September 2023 - 09:21 PM, said:

^THIS!
it's such a video game and B-movie trope that gattling guns spin up before they fire. There surely must be other ways to balance rotary weapons outside of a lame spin up mechanic.

Well it is good way to balance them sometimes for example team fortress 2, they can be the most powerful weapon in the game but movement is hindered if barrels are spinning and if they are not there is small delay for them to shoot.

In MWO they are not even nearly powerful enough work like that.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 11 September 2023 - 05:36 PM, said:

Being dependent to face time means, the enemy can also do a lot of damage back to you, and likely to very very very hungry mechs within a firing line, that is not a good trade.

Is it ever good trade to fight against firing line?

[foamyesque]

Curccu, on 11 September 2023 - 10:04 PM, said:

Is it ever good trade to fight against firing line?

Not really. I dunno why we're inventing a firing line for one side and not the other, though. Like it isn't like RAC mechs can't be part of a firing line themselves, y'know?

[Curccu]

foamyesque, on 11 September 2023 - 10:21 PM, said:

Not really. I dunno why we're inventing a firing line for one side and not the other, though. Like it isn't like RAC mechs can't be part of a firing line themselves, y'know?

I know (and use them like that).... 6th doesn't.
every weapon system is bad when played bad.

[Ilostmycactus]

I think it's silly that your own weapons can blind you. Mechs with hardpoints by the cockpit are the worst. This is the far future, a mech should have a filtered cockpit.

[Duke Falcon]

LordNothing, on 11 September 2023 - 05:17 PM, said:

xl on a king crab made me cringe a little. especially considering you can hit the rear st from the front at certain angles.

You would wonder how many times I tumbled upon XL Kcrabbies. Low T people tend to run those with as many RACs (or in better cases UACs) as possible and then wonder...
I follow a simple rule: No XL on IS stuffs! Either keep the STD or upgrade to a Light with the same tonnage what the STD engine had. Works better than using XL "deathtraps".

Curccu, on 11 September 2023 - 10:04 PM, said:

Is it ever good trade to fight against firing line?

Ummm. nooo..?

Curccu, on 11 September 2023 - 10:32 PM, said:

every weapon system is bad when played bad.

But sometimes people think that certain weapons systems would skyrocket them into T0+ despite they have little clue about many things. RACs are such a "misconcept" weapons. If you learn how to use them they could be usefull in the right time. But most I saw just RAC'd-up some big assaults and YOLO with continous dakka 'till their humiliating premature death with very low damage considering their possible damage output (RAC's fire pattern not exclude aiming, but it seems some people think it's enough to just shot like hell)...

Ilostmycactus, on 11 September 2023 - 10:47 PM, said:

I think it's silly that your own weapons can blind you. Mechs with hardpoints by the cockpit are the worst. This is the far future, a mech should have a filtered cockpit.

They does. Some pilot even use vector-display instead to ride their mechs. Just easier to implement cockpits the way you see in-game.

Edited by Duke Falcon, 11 September 2023 - 10:51 PM.

[foamyesque]

Duke Falcon, on 11 September 2023 - 10:49 PM, said:

I follow a simple rule: No XL on IS stuffs! Either keep the STD or upgrade to a Light with the same tonnage what the STD engine had. Works better than using XL "deathtraps".

Depends a great deal on the 'mech. I run XLs on almost every light, many mediums, and a couple of heavies who otherwise simply could not fit the warload I want and still have acceptable speed.

[The6thMessenger]

Curccu, on 11 September 2023 - 10:32 PM, said:

I know (and use them like that).... 6th doesn't.
every weapon system is bad when played bad.

Way to throw shade.

foamyesque, on 11 September 2023 - 10:21 PM, said:

Not really. I dunno why we're inventing a firing line for one side and not the other, though. Like it isn't like RAC mechs can't be part of a firing line themselves, y'know?

Okay, so you as a RAC user is in the firing line, firing against another firing line. Does it stop being a face-time weapon?

You seem to have this misunderstanding that what I mean is the RAC user would be in the open and is out of position.

But guess what, the problem persists even when you are in a firing line, because tracer works both ways. It being dependent on facetime to do damage means there's a tendency to extend, compared to something say a Laser Vomit that you can hide back after a burn, or a UAC that has insane burst held back by jamming -- the only time you're going to jam is when you're firing for 7.25 seconds + (unless back-to-back firing already built up your gauge).

Edited by The6thMessenger, 12 September 2023 - 01:03 AM.

[Rosarius]

The solution is simple, we shoot the RAC mech

[LordNothing]

The6thMessenger, on 11 September 2023 - 05:36 PM, said:

I agree. Barking is the only thing it does rather well, and the dude wants to take it away?

id rather it be brought up to snuff and clean up the effects.

but doing nothing has worked out well for the last decade, so why change it.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 September 2023 - 06:08 AM.

[LordNothing]

Cyborne Elemental, on 11 September 2023 - 09:47 PM, said:

Chainguns, Gattling guns, Miniguns..

All the same beast, the only difference is rate of fire and if they're motor driven.
There might be some delay (like.. Miliseconds) from the first shot fired until full rate of fire is achieved, but no There should be no spinup.

People who know nothing about military weapons, as well as Video games came up with the spinup mechanic..
Reality is you pull the trigger, and unleash instant firehose from hell.

Same thing with Ultra's, from a military deployment standpoint, weapons that jam, get fixed, or decommissioned.

Heat, environment, poor maintenance, or fouling from poor quality means of propulsion should be the only acceptable reason any automatic or semi-automatic weapon to fail consistently.

the actual gatling gun was a hand cranked civil war (also seen in some westerns) piece. the minigun is the same idea, more modern, electric, but its still a gun since its only firing standard rifle cartridges. anything 20mm and up is a "cannon", at least in aviation parlance. a chain gun is just any belt fed automatic gun, the belt may also be a linkless feed system found on larger caliber guns (its usually not gas powered but electrically timed to reduce jams). there were also revolver cannons used in early jets, which feed like a gatling but only have one barrel, but these ran hot and the solution was just to go full gatling to spread the heat across multiple barrels.

american rotory cannons tend to be either electric or hydraulic. russian rotory cannons are usually gas powered, just using a muzzle break that vents tangentially to provide the necessary torque (they also have breaks to stop and a means of initiating rotation, sometimes using a 'cocking' charge or some kind of electrical initiator). im actually a bigger fan of the russian guns, because their designs are just crazy. for example if the breaks fail they will just heat up cherry, lose structural integrity and fly apart. especially the gsh-6-23 and its 10k rounds/minute.

i generally like when game developers design their weapons with some military thought. a gauss rifle for example would do its charging when its armed, remain on standby and fire instantly when needed. somone posted a video of a railgn rifle that had a hold to charge mechanics, the guy was clearly a gamer. no military engineer would do that.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 September 2023 - 06:35 AM.

[Curccu]

LordNothing, on 12 September 2023 - 06:25 AM, said:

a chain gun is just any belt fed automatic gun, the belt may also be a linkless feed system found on larger caliber guns (its usually not gas powered but electrically timed to reduce jams).

Doesn't whole chain guns name and working principle come from that it is cycled by chain (driven by external powersource) instead of gas or recoil?

[LordNothing]

Curccu, on 12 September 2023 - 07:07 AM, said:

Doesn't whole chain guns name and working principle come from that it is cycled by chain (driven by external powersource) instead of gas or recoil?

maybe. im not sure whether they started out electric or mechanical. probibly mechanical. the ability to time your feed and firing so that they are in perfect sync, gets fire rate up and reduces jams. they waste very little time in the firing cycle. electrical system lets you plug more sensors into the equation, to add tolerances say when the barrel is hot.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 September 2023 - 07:28 AM.

[feeWAIVER]

I thought they were called chain guns because they were fed a chain belt of bullets..
The barrels turned via hand crank.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 12 September 2023 - 09:06 AM.

[Curccu]

feeWAIVER, on 12 September 2023 - 09:06 AM, said:

I thought they were called chain guns because they were fed a chain belt of bullets..
The barrels turned via hand crank.

Nah chains cycle those weapons. Belt-fed guns are just... belt-fed guns.
But yes my understanding is that primary gain is reliability, doesn't matter if round is a dud, etc. chain drive will cycles that last round out and next round in + fires it. Used mostly in places where human interaction if malfunction happens is not easy thing to do. Like Apaches auto cannon under the belly, bit hard for pilot to go out there and clear jam .

[pbiggz]

Curccu, on 12 September 2023 - 10:48 AM, said:

Nah chains cycle those weapons. Belt-fed guns are just... belt-fed guns.
But yes my understanding is that primary gain is reliability, doesn't matter if round is a dud, etc. chain drive will cycles that last round out and next round in + fires it. Used mostly in places where human interaction if malfunction happens is not easy thing to do. Like Apaches auto cannon under the belly, bit hard for pilot to go out there and clear jam .

https://www.youtube....rts/JR_EY4cvv2E

[Curccu]

pbiggz, on 12 September 2023 - 10:50 AM, said:

https://www.youtube....rts/JR_EY4cvv2E

That would be gatling, bit same idea but with rotating multi barrel where chainguns are in my understanding pretty much always single barreled.
But yeah Gau-8 Brrrrt is lovely as long as you are not the target.