54 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

I would like to note that the autocannons in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries treated a burst of bullets as a single bullet, with a single point-of-impact, despite the animations of many bullets on screen and the multiple empty shell casings being discharged from the weapons. Firing an AC/20 made a stream of little yellow specs shoot from your gun, but a single POI was attained. This made me sad.

You might recall from the old Video Demo for MW:Reboot that the Atlas's AC/20 fired a near-continuous stream of large-caliber slugs at about 1/second in a full-automatic firemode. This is a great contrast to MW4:M where every autocannon was depicted as a high-rate-of-fire weapon system, like a giant machinegun, that fired a short burst and had to wait for a reloading period between bursts.

So I have a poll about autocannons. Should they have these mystical reloading periods? Should they even be burst-fire? What about jamming. Let's hear.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 08 February 2012 - 12:20 PM.

[whiskey tango foxtrot]

Like the MW4:M depiction the best.......makes the most sense to me in this game setting.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I prefer the effectively single shot autoloader style. It justifies the single point of damage. I also voted for no jamming due to limiting rate of fire. This seems to me to be a needless further handicapping of AC's. Option 4, full auto, will see a lot of newcomers out of ammo in a few seconds.
I'm not sure how many people it will affect because, going by the posts, many people are of the rip everything out and put as many ERLL's and double heatsinks as I can fit persuasion

[MaddMaxx]

Other for Question #1

Allow for Fire Mode selection via the Trigger. Click click click, then Hold provides Full Auto. Click Click provides Standard Burst, with Click(Hold) Single shell out put. Weapons selection items changes Colors as the clicks happen, all you need do is remember the fire order or Color indicator.

Other for Question #2

If the jam can be Cleared somehow from with in the Mech via whatever means. No Jam should be the end of the weapons usefulness.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 08 February 2012 - 09:20 AM.

[Captain Hat]

It's a complicated question, and the short answer is: It depends on the autocannnon model in question.

To elaborate: It is well established in the background "fluff" that an AC is a representation of a projectile weapon that does a certain amount of damage in a certain time, rather than a specific weapon system that everyone just produces exact copies of. Exactly how this effect is achieved varies from weapon to weapon.

As an example: Most AC-20s are assumed to fire large single projectiles with HEAT shaped-charge warheads at relatively low velocities. However, there is at least one model of AC-20 mentioned in the fluff that is in fact a much lower-calibre gun with a very high rate of fire. They thus achieve roughly the same effect by completely different mechanisms.

This hasn't been represented in any game so far, and honestly I don't really expect it to be.

The "accepted" model is that "light" autocannons such as AC-2s and AC-5s mostly either fire short bursts or slow continuous fire, while "heavy" autocannons like the AC-10 or AC-20 fir larger, single shots. There is no real consensus on this however, and as I did mention earlier, different models of the same class of gun are mentioned in the fluff to operate by different mechanisms to each other.

[VYCanis]

continuous automatic fire with some sort of barrel overheat mechanic, though it should as Capn hat pointed out, depend on make n model

Edited by VYCanis, 08 February 2012 - 09:19 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 08 February 2012 - 09:07 AM, said:

I prefer the effectively single shot autoloader style. It justifies the single point of damage. I also voted for no jamming due to limiting rate of fire. This seems to me to be a needless further handicapping of AC's. Option 4, full auto, will see a lot of newcomers out of ammo in a few seconds.
I'm not sure how many people it will affect because, going by the posts, many people are of the rip everything out and put as many ERLL's and double heatsinks as I can fit persuasion

I though about that for a while, but then I realized that Autocannons have the highest potential for extreme damage/second because they can be continuously fired for longer than a Laser system, thereby dealing more total damage before having to attempt withdrawal from LOS to cool down or whatnot.

THAT should be the greatest advantage ballistics have over Energy systems: Ballistics should have a higher damage/second, in general, compared to laser systems in exchange for their ammo-dependency. If you think everyone's gonna ERLaserboat and render ballistics useless, then you can imagine what kind of updates would ensue... they'll have something to do with boosting the power of ballistics. This is how it should be done.

Now, when you mention the Noob spray-and-pray problem, you are righter than right: The reason we have 3-shot burst M-16 assaultrifles today is because the young men in Viet Nam would dump whole clips on full auto and find themselves reloading/running out of ammo far too often. So they changed it to 3-shot burst.

[Kenyon Burguess]

imo

-machineguns = 1 POI - no jamming
-autocannons = 1 POI -no jamming
-ultra autocannons = multiple POI - possible jamming if holding trigger down
-rotary autocannons = multiple POI - low chance of jamming on 2,3 - high chance of jamming on 4,5,6 number of attacks.

Edited by Geist Null, 08 February 2012 - 09:20 AM.

[Kaemon]

mmmmm....jam.....

running out of ammo should be a possibility, if you can't manage your ammo, you'd better be damn good at DFA.

[Philipe von Rohrs]

Maybe a switchable mode between full auto (and risk hamming) and single fire.

Of course, this is getting into the realms of Ultra/Rotary ACs...

Personally I liked the "burst" from MW3 per shot.

And some of the novels show ACs with cartridges that hold a number of rounds and eject to replace a fresh one.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

@Prosperity - Yeah I thought about the multi fire aspect with the AC20 - and thought of the yowls from the ML lovers if you could put 2 or 3 rounds into them while their lasers were recharging. I also thought that I only have 10 rounds in a standard Hunchback. Even practicing fire control it runs out real fast leaving you to fall back for those with more ammo/energy weapons. I am really looking forward to next month when hopefully we will get a few answers to fuel our speculation. Even better if some WAG's turn out to be right

[Aegis Kleais]

I'm confused.... automatic fire?

"Automatic" fire simply means that you press a button and a shot is fired. This is opposed to manual where you may have to do an action manually with each round fired (like cocking back the hammer on a revolver)

Automatic fire can be semi (where 1 bullet is fired for each pull of the trigger) or full (where bullets continually fire as long as you hold the trigger down). Burst is a mode of semi-automatic where 1 pull of the trigger fires out usually 3 rounds and is used as an optimal mode to put more than 1 bullet's damage accurately on target without the loss of accuracy that fully-automatic fire has.

With that out of the way, when would we EVER see full, semi or burst mode fire on AC10's and AC20's? Their reload time is so great that it really doesn't exude any form of automated fire.

As for lower caliber AC, I'm fire with you being able to set a firing mode from semi or full, because that just deals with how it behaves in firing when it becomes able to do so (semi means fire once with a trigger pull, load next round, wait for another pull on trigger vs. full meaning fire as long as you see the trigger held and fire the next round as soon as it loads if the trigger is still down)

Only for lower caliber AC (2/5) would there be an option for burst mode, so yeah, you could toggle it on, but you wouldn't really see the AC10 or AC20 utilizing it.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Automatic = Fires a bullet, reloads, and continues firing for as long as the trigger is held.

Although the term "Automatic" refers to the reloading mechanism, you have to explicitly state "semi-automatic" if you're talking about an autoloader that disconnects the trigger sear after a single shot is fired. An automatic resets the trigger for you after it shoots, so only a semi-automatic is built to stop firing after 1 shot.

Also, you must not have looked closely at the Reboot video because it shows the Atlas's AC/20 firing rather quickly. Watch from 1:13 to 1:19




That's at least a 7-shot, low-speed (1 shot/second) burst from a 150mm cannon! I would call that Full-Automatic fire because it kept shooting continuously; there was no 5-second reload between shots.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 08 February 2012 - 12:09 PM.

[WingMcCallister]

I'm thinking by automatic you mean continuous... Continuous fire would equal awful game play in my opinion. Every n00b under the Sun would want to AC boat, and if the weapon knocks the target chassis, then all hell breaks loose. Mektek, in its infinite wisdom, introduced the RACs to do this in Mech4 Mercs. It damn near ruined the game until jamming was introduced to counter the sad effects of a continuously firing ballistic weapon.

[Felicitatem Parco]

WingMcCallister, on 08 February 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

I'm thinking by automatic you mean continuous... Continuous fire would equal awful game play in my opinion. Every n00b under the Sun would want to AC boat, and if the weapon knocks the target chassis, then all hell breaks loose. Mektek, in its infinite wisdom, introduced the RACs to do this in Mech4 Mercs. It damn near ruined the game until jamming was introduced to counter the sad effects of a continuously firing ballistic weapon.

So what do you think of the Reboot video's implementation?

1:13-1:19
I count 7 shots total.

1:28 - 1:38
I count 9 shots.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 08 February 2012 - 12:18 PM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Normal AC = Semi auto
Ultra AC = Burst mode
RAC = Full auto

No "jam", but you can overheat the gun and it'll shut down for awhile. Regular AC would generate the most barrel heat per shot, RAC the least.

[Strum Wealh]

There is a statement in TechManual that describes the Ultra ACs' inability to use special munitions as being a result of incompatibility between the munitions and the special magazines used by UACs.

As such, that statement would indicate that ACs in BT/MW are more commonly magazine-fed or clip-fed (like an assault rifle or submachine gun) rather than being belt-fed (like a machine gun), where:
1.) the "auto" in "autocannon" refers to both the automatic loading of a new shell (ACs and artillery fire shells, Gauss Rifles fire slugs, MGs fire bullets) after the firing of a previous shell and the automatic replacement of a magazine/clip, and
2.) the ammo values given on the TT tables represent magazines/clips rather than individual shells, such that the AC-20 ammo comes in sets of five magazines/clips per ton, where each magazine/clip contains a sufficient number of individual shells to allow for 10-seconds (one TT turn) of fire from the weapon before the magazine/clip is empty and needs to be replaced (e.g. AC-2 has 45 magazines per ton, AC-20 has 5 magazines per ton, each magazine contains multiple shells).

As such, I would imagine that, in terms of ROF, the AC-2s (~20-40 mm) would behave more like very large SMGs and AC-5s (~50-90 mm) would behave more like very large ARs while AC-10s (~100-140 mm) would behave more like tank guns and AC-20s (~150-203+ mm) would behave more like direct-fire versions of heavy artillery (howitzers and naval artillery).

My view is that all ACs should fire salvos of 1-6 shells (number of shells per salvo increasing as AC size decreases), with damage-per-shell and shells-per-magazine/clip and frequency-of-salvos/bursts (ROF) and heat-per-salvo/burst balanced against each other such that the weapons' DPS and ammo consumption are reflective of those implied by the TT values.

The high-ROF models - UACs and RACs - should then be able to fire salvos/bursts more frequently than their Standard, LB-X, Light, and HV brethren (2x for UACs, up to 6x for RACs) at the cost of increased ammo consumption, reduced accuracy (greater spread of shells) at range (due to recoil), and some sort of ROF-limiter mechanic ("mechanical jamming", "barrel overheating", etc).

Your thoughts?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 08 February 2012 - 12:26 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

You mean like a 40mm Bofors... a real-life 40mm autocannon that feeds on 6-round stripper clips.

Yeah, that sounds good. That would be a perfect videogame compormise between reality and balance.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 08 February 2012 - 12:28 PM.

[Aegis Kleais]

Prosperity Park, on 08 February 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

Automatic = Fires a bullet, reloads, and continues firing for as long as the trigger is held.

Although the term "Automatic" refers to the reloading mechanism, you have to explicitly state "semi-automatic" if you're talking about an autoloader that disconnects the trigger sear after a single shot is fired. An automatic resets the trigger for you after it shoots, so only a semi-automatic is built to stop firing after 1 shot.

Also, you must not have looked closely at the Reboot video because it shows the Atlas's AC/20 firing rather quickly. Watch from 1:13 to 1:19




That's at least a 7-shot, low-speed (1 shot/second) burst from a 150mm cannon! I would call that Full-Automatic fire because it kept shooting continuously; there was no 5-second reload between shots.

Using the 2009 Unreal 3 Engine Trailer isn't the best of choices because the 2012 CryEngine 3 game is now no longer a game with the trailer's SP campaign, but instead just a MP title. The trailer was just done as a mockup of the game's envisioning around that time. It seems to have gone through an internal reworking which may render what you've seen there moot.

Even in that trailer, there is no feasible way you can determine if the AC is firing in semi/auto. Automatic weapons fire are for weapons that can produce multiple shots per second, usually hundreds per minute. They are akin to spray n' pray where you maximize your rounds down range but have a massive reduction in accuracy. The AC10/20 just don't fire enough rounds/minute to clarify this.

[Slyck]

I'd like to see various models in each class of autocannon. That way you can have high damage single POI and rapid fire machinegun-like autocannons. Then you can customize based on gameplay styles and mission specific needs.

This is closer to canon though it's never been modeled in game play.

Edited by Slyck, 08 February 2012 - 02:54 PM.