Racs are powerful: Rac 5 deals 1.5 damage/shot and does so 7.275 every second and thus 10.9125 DPS, ramp-up time of 0.75s with a total of 8s, means it has 7.25s of firing duration, to a maximum of 79.115625 reliable damage, before redline, and guess what, you can have two RAC5s.
So why does it need a rework? It comes to the issue of the weapon highly reliant on face-time. Think about it, the meta is all about maximizing outgoing damage and minimizing incoming damage, this is why alpha-centric build shines.
Yeah 10.9125 DPS looks a lot, multiplies by the amount of seconds you can maintain shooting, but you have to realize that, UACs can burst all it's load on you, or a gauss vomit, and immediately disengage, so the damage you do is largely minimized in the first place. That 10.9125 damage takes an entire second, but a UAC10 an burst 20 damage under 0.33s, note that a blazer at 1.25s burn duration (after nerf) deals 18, and would have dealt 14.4 damage (hitscan BTW), and ****** off afterwards.
And when you can go to town to an idiot off position, is that you're likely open to other sources of damage as well, meaning it won't be a good trade. 109.125 damage seems like a lot for 5s of firing from 2x RAC5s. But you have to remember that competent poke and laser vomits could burst 80+ damage and **** off in less than half of the time you do that.
Oh just add lasers or more RACs? RACs are hot as hell, you'd likely be overheating first with a 2x RAC5 before you actually jam with a redline. And at that point, when you're not built at sustain, why not go full blown UACs that would let you burst.
Do we just remove the RACs sustain? Not necessarily, but I think it shouldn't be just built around it. And guess what, we can totally do it in XML.
The point of this change is to make the weapon jam immediately when redlined, while making the jam buildup easier to clear. By removing the redline damage output, it can instead be diverted into something else useful.
As scary as 29.1 DPS from 2x RAC5s are, or 26.19 from 3x RAC2s, to engagements that lasts only seconds, that is far more competitive, and the trade is the weapon becomes balanced now around 6.25s of firing, or the 46 shells before jamming -- that 46 shells is your entire lot, versus 80 of the previous setup that while dealt, 240 total damage, took 10.99s to make happen, you dealt 184 damage instead under 6.25s.
Note that to a 10s encounter, the pre-change RAC5 is able to output 100.940625 Damage assuming that it doesn't jam. But post change, it can only deal 90.9375, while being only able to fire for 6.25s, because of the inevitable 5s jam that acts like a cooldown.
The slow dissipation means it builds up upon quick and repeated engagement, this now ultimately just avoids the weapon being fired for too long, and now it can be balanced around that.
Velocity boost is because, leading is a *****.
Edited by The6thMessenger, 12 September 2023 - 02:17 AM.