72 replies to this topic

[Phoenix Branson]

The AC/2 and AC/5 should have a selector switch to fire either single fire or burst fire. Basically, burst fire mode fires a predetermined number of Autocannon rounds in rapid succession at the target. The AC/2 will fire a 3 round burst while the AC/5 will fire only a 2 round burst. The small bore Autocannons are currently lackluster in design as their weight does not support their damage output. Here is an idea to strengthen the small bore Autocannons. Obviously, this would have to be balanced.

Autocannon/2 (Selector Switch)
Single Fire: 1 round
Burst Fire: 3 rounds

Autocannon/5 (Selector Switch)
Single Fire: 1 round
Burst Fire: 2 rounds

Edited by Maverick01, 29 July 2012 - 04:33 PM.

[RogueSpear]

This is what ultra autocannon technology is. We already have the UAC5, in time they'll be done for all the ACs.

[verybad]

Actually, in the Btech rules, an optional rule allows multiple rounds fired, but theres's a higher chance of jamming or even explosion.

[TG Xarbala]

As I like to keep mentioning, I'd think a slight reduction on damage dealt-per-shot coupled with a very high fire rate and ammo capacity for all small-bore ACs, including Ultras, would be vital for making these weapons more than just ineffectual weightsinks.

On tabletop? I'd have retconned these guns to be 2/3rds their weight (or less!) decades ago. They're just that horribly designed.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Burst Fire would be acceptable for small bore autocannon if the recycle time is multiplied by the number of shots in a burst, plus an additional second or so as a penalty for balancing purposes.

Ex. AC/2 does 2 damage every X seconds.
Burst AC/2 fire does 3 shots @ 2 damage each, but fires only every 3.5-4X seconds.

[Willpower]

Meh.
These things are not M16's.

Having more weapon group options including chain firing would be a far more important use of developer time at this point I would think.

[Scrooloos]

Well, if I remember correctly, some AC's fired multiple rounds anyway. I don't mean just UAC giving you a higher fire rate. I mean that in BT rules I seem to remember that different manufacturers had different firing options.

I.E. Brand X version of AC5 may fire 4 rounds, while Brand Y's version may fire only 1. EDIT: Arbitrary numbers of course.

If the PGI crew were to get super technical and add brand names to weapons we could see that happen. I'm not holding my breath though.

Edited by Scrooloos, 29 July 2012 - 05:10 PM.

[wildfyre010]

Calling the UAC-5 a 'weightsink' is a little bit absurd. It is already substantially superior to both the LBX-AC10 and the standard AC10 and AC20. It's got great range, short recycle, low heat, and good sustained damage. It's not a coring weapon like an AC20 or a Gauss, but it's not supposed to be. I don't think it needs to be improved.

The AC2 needs help though, I'll give you that.

[sancus]

The UAC-5 has very good damage per weight and damage per heat, dunno how anyone could say it's bad. AC/2 and AC/5 could use some help, though, agreed.

[TG Xarbala]

wildfyre010, on 29 July 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

Calling the UAC-5 a 'weightsink' is a little bit absurd. It is already substantially superior to both the LBX-AC10 and the standard AC10 and AC20. It's got great range, short recycle, low heat, and good sustained damage. It's not a coring weapon like an AC20 or a Gauss, but it's not supposed to be. I don't think it needs to be improved.

The AC2 needs help though, I'll give you that.

sancus, on 29 July 2012 - 05:12 PM, said:

The UAC-5 has very good damage per weight and damage per heat, dunno how anyone could say it's bad. AC/2 and AC/5 could use some help, though, agreed.

Well, you're both right in that's true of the beta as it stands, and my dislike of the UAC/5 in tabletop and other games doesn't really apply outside of a more general context. In the beta it's also true that there's little reason to pick the LB-X AC/10 or the standard heavy ACs over one or more UAC/5s or a Gauss Rifle, but that's mostly because four Medium Lasers do exactly what a single AC/20 does but without projectile lead times and with more precise limb-killing/CT coring aim to say nothing of the regular AC/10, which can't even compare to the admittedly substandard AC/20 in terms of damage and ammo for weight.

But that can change at any time. It's a beta.

Generally, though, lower damage and dramatically improved fire rate have been most recent MW games' attempt at making smallbore ACs worth their weight. This has not always been successful, but in MW:LL preset configs meant you had to take what you got. Or just grind up to a four-Lightgaussboat Fafnir.

Edited by TG Xarbala, 29 July 2012 - 05:31 PM.

[ManDaisy]

Sounds good to me, I'd take burst fire mode in place of decreased accuracy and increased cooldown time that is more then 1 to 1.

Edited by ManDaisy, 29 July 2012 - 05:48 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

TG Xarbala, on 29 July 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

Well, you're both right in that's true of the beta as it stands, and my dislike of the UAC/5 in tabletop and other games doesn't really apply outside of a more general context. In the beta it's also true that there's little reason to pick the LB-X AC/10 or the standard heavy ACs over one or more UAC/5s or a Gauss Rifle, but that's mostly because four Medium Lasers do exactly what a single AC/20 does but without projectile lead times and with more precise limb-killing/CT coring aim to say nothing of the regular AC/10, which can't even compare to the admittedly substandard AC/20 in terms of damage and ammo for weight.

But that can change at any time. It's a beta.

Generally, though, lower damage and dramatically improved fire rate have been most recent MW games' attempt at making smallbore ACs worth their weight. This has not always been successful, but in MW:LL preset configs meant you had to take what you got. Or just grind up to a four-Lightgaussboat Fafnir.

As much as I hate to admit, the AC's for Btech and Mechwarrior have always been broken. They work for balance issues, to a fair degree, but are not terribly well thought out. For instance, the description is basically a catch all for any self loading ballistic rifle or cannon used in vehicles or mechs, ranging from 30mm to 203mm, with varying "range" issues due to everything from Throw weight to combined muzzle rise from recoil. (Which doesn't explain why RACs don't have the shortest range of all, then).

Simply put... doesn't make sense. Especially if you want me to buy into a 203mm chemjet being a rapid fire weapon, vs a self loading single shot one. Basically, it is akin to a howitzer, but full auto.

Of course, some source material deffine them as both, and basically we just get generric "classes" that incorporate all sorts of designs. But when we had better designed, longer range and more powerful Autocannons in WW II than in the 31st century.. and they weighed essentially NOTHING, it does call for some reconsideration.

For a little over 1 metric ton you have the Hotchkiss AA 25mm autocannon. For all intents and purposes, an AC/2. But with an effective range of over 6 km, depending on muzzle elevation.

And don't get me started on the A-10s 30mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary AC, which is essentially a RAC/5..... yet weighs 1/4 of a ton, with a range over a km.

Thing is, once you "fix" this, or "fix" that... eventually, like many re-seen attempts.... you know longer have the original product at all. So, I guess I am saying that while I understand, and agree with all these ideas, and think they are great... it won't be too long before what is left isn't Mechwarrior anymore.

[Reginald Rawlins]

Bishop Steiner, on 29 July 2012 - 05:48 PM, said:

As much as I hate to admit, the AC's for Btech and Mechwarrior have always been broken. They work for balance issues, to a fair degree, but are not terribly well thought out. For instance, the description is basically a catch all for any self loading ballistic rifle or cannon used in vehicles or mechs, ranging from 30mm to 203mm, with varying "range" issues due to everything from Throw weight to combined muzzle rise from recoil. (Which doesn't explain why RACs don't have the shortest range of all, then).

Simply put... doesn't make sense. Especially if you want me to buy into a 203mm chemjet being a rapid fire weapon, vs a self loading single shot one. Basically, it is akin to a howitzer, but full auto.

Of course, some source material deffine them as both, and basically we just get generric "classes" that incorporate all sorts of designs. But when we had better designed, longer range and more powerful Autocannons in WW II than in the 31st century.. and they weighed essentially NOTHING, it does call for some reconsideration.

For a little over 1 metric ton you have the Hotchkiss AA 25mm autocannon. For all intents and purposes, an AC/2. But with an effective range of over 6 km, depending on muzzle elevation.

And don't get me started on the A-10s 30mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary AC, which is essentially a RAC/5..... yet weighs 1/4 of a ton, with a range over a km.

Thing is, once you "fix" this, or "fix" that... eventually, like many re-seen attempts.... you know longer have the original product at all. So, I guess I am saying that while I understand, and agree with all these ideas, and think they are great... it won't be too long before what is left isn't Mechwarrior anymore.

I've always thought this as well. The damage values, descriptions, and weights of the various autocannons have never made sense, and we don't need to start making them make sense. Although, it would definitely be nice to tweak the values on a few of the lighter ones so that they aren't obscenely inferior to SRMs (yes, I know they have a longer range, but engagement ranges in MW:O are very short on average, so the increased range of an AC/2 or AC/5 hardly offsets the corresponding loss of damage/ton and damage/heat).

[OriontheHunter]

Autocannons are essentiall large caliber machine guns that fire shells instead of bullets. So in the abstraction of the TT, one shot is multiple rounds being fired. The problem with trying to make a first person sim that follows the TT rules, is how do you represent a weapon whos shot is multiple rounds but needs to all hit the same location.

The A/C2's game is range, it's the longest ranged weapon in the game, if you don't have the map space to represent the needed ranges, and most tables didn't in the TT, then it doesn't have a place on your mech.

As for real world ranges, the TT ranges are an abstraction to make the game fit on a table, try representing a range of 6km with a scale of 1in.=30m, the table would need to be about 17ft long. The A10 is designed around that gun, literally, so you need to include part of the weight of the aircraft, as the support structure to mount it and the ammunition loading system, but granted the weights are generally much heavier than the real world, but again it's an abstration, this time to fill out the weights needed to acheive the wanted tonnages for the mechs, and I fail to understand why people insist on comparing a fantasy science fiction world to the real one.

TG Xarbala, on 29 July 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

... but that's mostly because four Medium Lasers do exactly what a single AC/20 does...

If that's the case then they've done nothing to fix the fps mechanic and this game will have weapon/armor balance problems, as 4 medium lasers should not hit the same location, most of the time, they should spread their damage over more than one location, whereas the A/C20 should hit a single location, if they wish to maintain the balances set by the TT. If they don't then they need to be prepared to start changing armor values to be greater than what cannon says, as allowing people too much accuracy will make mechs die too quickly. Part of their armor in the TT is that they have more locations to spread damage across.

[Team Leader]

why would you ever use single fire if this was implemented??

[Bishop Steiner]

Great, sure, II'll add the weight to mount, it. Heck I'll quadruple the weight, or even 2 double it from there again. So now the gun, minus ammo is ....2 tons? vs an RAC/5 weighing 10 tons.

But then, as I myself stated, while we can pick holes into most of it, relatively easily, what we end up with isn't Mechwarrior or Battletech anymore, because while we could "reality base" the whole system (minus of ourse having NO clue what a fusion reactor would REALLY weigh, or lasers, or PPCs, and heck, lets revampt the entire missile system, since the reloadable rocket pod variety is physically impossible to actually mount the way they show, etc), we essentially have a whole new game.

And While we reality base everything, it now means that to design a Mech... well, you actually probably need a degree in engineering, to understand shear stress, load bearing, and such for making the strcture actually capable of holding the weight, motion etc. Oh, and essentially, you could not modify them very easily, as every new weapon system would require probably redesigning the structure to support it.


So yeah, I actually was saying the same thing you did. I simply acknowledged the system was broken, first.

Team Leader, on 29 July 2012 - 06:53 PM, said:

why would you ever use single fire if this was implemented??

Accuracy and ammo conservation. There are instances you don't need a burst. Also for an extreme long range shot, the recoil of a burst will take youoff target, and if you go off target, wwaste a lot of ammo.

Why do you think Snipers don't shoot full auto?

[Reginald Rawlins]

Bishop Steiner, on 29 July 2012 - 07:03 PM, said:

Great, sure, II'll add the weight to mount, it. Heck I'll quadruple the weight, or even 2 double it from there again. So now the gun, minus ammo is ....2 tons? vs an RAC/5 weighing 10 tons.

But then, as I myself stated, while we can pick holes into most of it, relatively easily, what we end up with isn't Mechwarrior or Battletech anymore, because while we could "reality base" the whole system (minus of ourse having NO clue what a fusion reactor would REALLY weigh, or lasers, or PPCs, and heck, lets revampt the entire missile system, since the reloadable rocket pod variety is physically impossible to actually mount the way they show, etc), we essentially have a whole new game.

And While we reality base everything, it now means that to design a Mech... well, you actually probably need a degree in engineering, to understand shear stress, load bearing, and such for making the strcture actually capable of holding the weight, motion etc. Oh, and essentially, you could not modify them very easily, as every new weapon system would require probably redesigning the structure to support it.


So yeah, I actually was saying the same thing you did. I simply acknowledged the system was broken, first.




Accuracy and ammo conservation. There are instances you don't need a burst. Also for an extreme long range shot, the recoil of a burst will take youoff target, and if you go off target, wwaste a lot of ammo.

Why do you think Snipers don't shoot full auto?

And I was mostly agreeing with you/the OP. Maybe not burst fire, but something at least.

[Yeach]

Everyone seems to enamoured that the "light" autocannons AC2/AC5 has to fire "faster" than a comparable AC10/20 "heavy" autocannons.
What if the opposite was true?

What if the AC2 does the same damage as an AC5 but had twice the reload rate.
DPS would make the AC2 do half the damage as the AC5. (well appoximately) making it suited to Battletech.

This changes the tactics making the AC2 the more "perfect" sniper autocannon.

(I have a post somewhere about this where all autocannons do the same damage whereas the AC5 has 4 times the recycle time than an AC20)

[BigSteel]

We did this with our TABLE TOP Battletech some 25+ years ago.

ACs were underpowereed, especially considering the ammo limitations and ammo explosions.

This was fixed by allowimng a "Burst" for lack of a better term. A pilot could choose to have his...

AC20 could shoot two shots in a single round.
AC10 could shoot three shots.
AC5 could shoot four shots.
AC2 could shoot five shots.

The kicker was that the next round they could not shoot. And in the case of the AC20, a small pilot check was made from the recoil. But all of them immediatley became desirable. On par withg the laser weapons, particle beams, guass and missles. Though we never had a big "want" of short missles. We did have some fixed considered for small missles but it was never a big deal.

Edited by BigSteel, 29 July 2012 - 07:13 PM.

[Deceptor]

I HATE jamming. I hope you hate jamming too.