190 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

This is somewhat a sequel to my earlier thread about unique ammunition types, except with a much broader focus.

Basically, I've been attempting to think of a way to balance low-caliber Autocannon weapons - AC/2 and AC/5, as well as Machine Guns, including their upgraded brethren (UAC, LBX) and other than the ammunition concept from earlier, I'm drawing a blank.

The long story short is that these weapons are terrible in the board game and are highly specialized towards non-'mech situations; this was reflected in Living Legends, where these weapons were given a non-canon (but smart) upgrade in damage against light armor, meaning they would shred aircraft, hovercraft and battle armor - providing an extremely useful support role and making their poor effectiveness against BattleMechs an entirely acceptable trade-off.

But in a 'mech on 'mech game with limited NPC or no combat with vehicles and infantry and a huge focus on 'mech to 'mech, they are extremely poor weapons in almost every regard. A quick recap of each weapon:

AC/2
PRO: Extremely Long Range, Only 1 Crit, Low Heat
CON: Weighs more than a Large Laser for the damage of a Small Laser, posses only slightly more range than LRMs which do several times the damage and is ammo based further increasing weight and crit space to make it combat effective.

AC/5
PRO: Range similar to a PPC, Low Heat
CON: Has similar range to a PPC but weighs more; takes more crits than a PPC and is ammo dependent (meaning a PPC with a pair of DHS would take similar space without the drawbacks), damage is comparable to a single medium laser while weighing in as 8 times heavier

Machine Guns
PRO: Extremely light weight, as damaging as a Small Laser
CON: Ammo dependance increases weight and introduces more risk of explosions.

_

All that said, I think Machine Guns can be used acceptably as a gimmick build in the table top game (though most 'mechs only sport 2 of them maximum, which is why they appear to be bad weapons as even a half ton of ammo can support several for quite some time) but they've always translated poorly to MechWarrior games (since 1, anyway).

They're also the only one I have any honest suggestion on to make more effective - which is to say make them burst-fire, rather than non-stop fire, allowing you to do more damage over a short period and localize it more. Even if there is acceptable DPS and they are made "auto fire" it will effectively get too spread out over the 'mech to make them useful; they are likely to be more of a liability (again, due to ammo explosions).

As for the AC/2 and AC/5? That's why I'm making this thread. They're terrible weapons. The only option to make them useful is to go outside of canon heavily and possibly adjust their weight or space, but then that unbalances the progression to AC/10s and AC/20s: One could argue the AC/10 is too heavy for it's usefulness even and AC/20s are actually extremely effective weapons in both table top and past MechWarrior games.. but buffing the 2s and 5s may out date both of them.

Again this problem wouldn't be here if the game presented a reason for these weapons such as anti-air, but since we're talking a 'mech on 'mech game first and foremost here, I'm at a loss as to how these can be made useful and not just wasted weapons that sit unused as they have been in the past. Does anyone have any thoughts on the issue?

[Exilyth]

Until ER weapons are around, the AC/2 has the highest range of all. At least until the LBX-AC/2 comes around.

Well, the usefullness of an AC depends on how much damage you can do until the enemy closes to a range where a bigger AC would be preferable, e.g. If you could deal more than 5 points of damage with an AC/2 before an enemy could get near enough as to be inside the range of an AC/5, an AC/2 would be worth taking for long range fighting.

The problem is that anyone can close the distance faster than you can plink away at them, so either you've got to enter close combat or relocate. Or, your problem is the small difference in range between the AC used and the other long range weapons: Compared to most LRM launchers, the Gauss Rifle, Large Lasers and the PPC, the low calibre AC damage is indeed quite small.

So, instead of messing with weight or critical space, I'd like to suggest messing with either range or reload time.

Edited by Exilyth, 14 March 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[Felbombling]

I think many of the Mech battles will turn into knife fights in a phone booth, making the light AC's pretty useless. Unless the situation developed with your commander where you could stand off and pick the enemy apart, without their ability to close the range, a Mech armed with a lighter AC will soon be outgunned. The OP is right. LRMs are a better trade off per ton.

My suggestion would be to go off canon for their weight. [I know... I'm stunned I suggested that, too!] Even a ton or two would make a huge difference. The heat and crits were always fine, it was the tonnage that killed lighter ACs.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Make them rock the enemies aim and they have a function. In a SHS world they're okay. Its once you get to DHS that they become pointless until specialty ammo becomes available.

[Cifu]

First thing first: you can always can use the Rate of Fire (RoF) as a balance. The AC/5 have the same range as the PPC, but smaller damage? Yes. The PPC make heat, but lighter and can make unlimited shoots (no ammo). But what happen, when the AC/5 have twice the RoF of the PPC? Then the AC/5 have the same theoretical Damage Per Second (DPS), still have the ammo problem, but make almost no heat. It's sound better right?

Same in the AC/2, yes, it's can make the same damage as a Small Laser in extreme large range in one shoot, but if had larger RoF, then the DPS is become a more viable level.

If you remain the same DPS scale as the BT rules suggest, then yes, the AC/2 and AC/5 are actually useless weapons...

[Victor Morson]

Exilyth, on 14 March 2012 - 02:37 PM, said:

Until ER weapons are around, the AC/2 has the highest range of all. At least until the LBX-AC/2 comes around.

Well, the usefullness of an AC depends on how much damage you can do until the enemy closes to a range where a bigger AC would be preferable, e.g. If you could deal more than 5 points of damage with an AC/2 before an enemy could get near enough as to be inside the range of an AC/5, an AC/2 would be worth taking for long range fighting.

The problem is that anyone can close the distance faster than you can plink away at them, so either you've got to enter close combat or relocate. Or, your problem is the small difference in range between the AC used and the other long range weapons: Compared to most LRM launchers, the Gauss Rifle, Large Lasers and the PPC, the low calibre AC damage is indeed quite small.

So, instead of messing with weight or critical space, I'd like to suggest messing with either range or reload time.

That's definitely something I should have addressed in the OP, and realized later. That while the range advantage is decent (ER Lasers and Gauss should both exist in 3049) over many weapons, the concern is actually two things - one of which you addressed: Can you do enough damage to make them worthwhile before the enemy closes in and the second is how effective the weapon is the general range bracket. It's hard to compare an AC/20 to an AC/2 because they have such different ranges - but when the AC/2 is put up against ER Large, ER PPC, Gauss and LRMs.

Another problem with the small caliber ACs is their "faster to fire, very low damage" approach generally leads to ineffective weapons - in particular at long ranges - unless the rate is extremely fast (RACs) - the ability to smack a target that pops out of cover for only a few moments is far more important as running across open terrain is a pretty rare thing to see against even moderately decent teams.

StaggerCheck, on 14 March 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

My suggestion would be to go off canon for their weight. [I know... I'm stunned I suggested that, too!] Even a ton or two would make a huge difference. The heat and crits were always fine, it was the tonnage that killed lighter ACs.

That's largely my thinking too. This is one instance where I am entirely OK with them changing the canon usefulness/core weight of a weapon, primarily because these are seriously broken weapons there as well outside of TAC cheesing - and I seriously hope that TACs aren't in/a large part of MWO.

I am curious how they'll be handling LBXs in general (likely sticking with the now standard MechWarrior "shotgun" approach rather than the range-extending scatter rounds) because low-caliber LBX are often times even worse than the standard model.

Edited by Victor Morson, 14 March 2012 - 03:04 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

The pro of small caliber ac is as mentioned their higher rate of fire. have you ever played a game with solaris scale?
No - then trie it - the first thing you do is to swap a ppc for a AC 5 - could fire 3 times where a ppc fired only once. next problem is heat - when your mech overheates with every shot of your ppc you need a cool down time - mostly it last as long as it takes to recharge. while you are able to deliver constant hail storm of light shells with a small ac.

Hm... next pro of a high rate of fire is that a mech with serious armor damage could become easier victim.

[Siilk]

High RoF, low per-shell damage is a bad thing to gave. As Victor Morson said, it's all about dealing as much damage per short period of time as possible, this way you don't have to be exposed for a long time and can use even shortest moments of your enemy being visible. That is the worst part in smaller ACs: you have to stay and stay and stay more, plinking enemy armour off while gauss-wielding mech could peek out, shoot and hide back. Same DpS, different RoF.

Cifu, on 14 March 2012 - 02:50 PM, said:

Same in the AC/2, yes, it's can make the same damage as a Small Laser in extreme large range in one shoot, but if had larger RoF, then the DPS is become a more viable level.

This assumption is wrong. TT damage for SL and AC2 are not per-shot values, they are DpS. Hence, what you suggest would be, effectively, a damage boost for smaller ACs, which, as was already stated in OP, would devalue bigger ACs. In other words, what would be the point of AC10, if AC2 would be almost as good in DpS but will have almost two times longer range?

My thoughts on this issue are the following. Make smaller ACs a sidearm of sort, capable of situational long-range harassment, let it weight less than TT versions and that's pretty much all what we can do without them outclassing bigger ACs.


As a side note, I have a suggestion. I had this idea for a long time now, about different kinds of ACs for the same class. You know, how they always write in TT rulebooks, "AC/X is not a type, it's a class; ACs within a class differ by calibre, RoF, per-shell damage etc". So, I was thinking about making it so that there would be different types of ACs in the game: say Imperial Automatic ones are high RoF, low per-shell damage plinkers, Yefter's Weapons ones have higher-calibre, they are single shot low-RoF high per-shell damage cannons and those, which are made by Canopus Industries are using per-clip fire with fixed burst. Same DPS, same damage per ammo ton, different flavour. Such diversity could be made available for each of AC classes, making it easier to select what best suits your style of play.

[Cifu]

Siilk, on 15 March 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

This assumption is wrong. TT damage for SL and AC2 are not per-shot values, they are DpS. Hence, what you suggest would be, effectively, a damage boost for smaller ACs, which, as was already stated in OP, would devalue bigger ACs. In other words, what would be the point of AC10, if AC2 would be almost as good in DpS but will have almost two times longer range?

Sure, the AC/10 and AC/20 need to be balanced RoF too. What i say the DPS is not constantly follow the rules. Need to be understand the tabletop games rules are cannot be placed one-by-one in a simulator.

Siilk, on 15 March 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

My thoughts on this issue are the following. Make smaller ACs a sidearm of sort, capable of situational long-range harassment, let it weight less than TT versions and that's pretty much all what we can do without them outclassing bigger ACs.

That's an another way to broke the tabletop rules in the light of simulation game balance.
But yes, this way is viable too.

Siilk, on 15 March 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

[color=#959595]As a side note, I have a suggestion. I had this idea for a long time now, about different kinds of ACs for the same class. You know, how they always write in TT rulebooks, "AC/X is not a type, it's a class; ACs within a class differ by calibre, RoF, per-shell damage etc". So, I was thinking about making it so that there would be different [/color]types[color=#959595] of ACs in the game: say Imperial Automatic ones are high RoF, low per-shell damage plinkers, Yefter's Weapons ones have higher-calibre, they are single shot low-RoF high per-shell damage cannons and those, which are made by Canopus Industries are using per-clip fire with fixed burst. Same DPS, same damage per ammo ton, different flavour. Such diversity could be made available for each of AC classes, making it easier to select what best suits your style of play.

[/color]


I like the idea, and even in the tabletop game technical readouts have some note on troublesome version of guns.
But i think is hardly made debut in the game.

Just think it over how much weapons need to be implement in the future: ER and Pulse lasers, ER PPC, LB/X and UltraAC, different type of missiles (Streak, Swarm), Gauss Rifles, etc...

It's hard to keep the balance between even such different weapons, just imagine what happen, when every weapon have 2-3 different versions...

[anglomanii]

if i may through my hat in the ring gentlemen, given my less than complete knowledge of MW PC games may i ask what has been the benifit of AC types in previous MW games?..

i have played TT extensivly (a great deal of MWRPG w/homebrew rules) and to enhance our game play with the use of AC's we (my fellow gamers) employed knowlege from our real world experiences... with AC's we understood the effects of being able to use med/lrg cal ordnance, it's effects on target and the route to target effects. penetration of soft targets and interference in route to target, transference of kinetic energy and it's capabilities in a close urban environment. you have to take into consideration projectile deflection (ricochet), effects on static structures ( can i just saw 'wow' ) and secondry effects on target.
target aquisition : Direct Fire Support weapons: being able to lay a gun (25mm) unassisted to suppress from concealment and engage at range through or over difficult terrain. firing line of sight despite electronic interference and through physical interference

ok reading that i can clearly see i lost my way..
um boiling it down can i just say i hope AC's will include projectile deflection, the ability to effect targets through light cover and ease of maintenence and reliablity in the field. also might be nice to see a nice option with projectile selection.

[SnowDragon]

I dunno, I always felt the AC/2s were meant to be used in pairs. Ballisitcs mean less heat sinks, which means more ammo and armaments. As a support weapon, I love them, but they are very outlcassed as compared to other weapons. BUT, they don't produce a lot heat. In a close range alpha, an AC/2 over a small laser may just save you from shutdown.

Edited by SnowDragon, 15 March 2012 - 01:29 AM.

[LordDeathStrike]

scale ac dmg with range, they pack more punch the closer you get, esp lbx since they are shotguns, but even normal acs, if you cut the range to target in half, you should gain dmg on impact, due to the energy of the round not bleeding off as it flies.

say an ac 2 does 1 dmg at max range, by the time the target closes to half max range it should be doing 2 dmg, at 25% of max range you should do 3 dmg per hit, and at point blank, 4 dmg per hit, its still no ac 20 but given rate of fire, its still gonna sting, similar model for ac 5 within reasonable balance, and ac 10 to a minor degree of making it more effective at point blank to discourage non brawlers from getting too close, ac 20 is already a beast and balanced like this, at point blank it doesnt miss and does massive dmg, at listed max range its dicey to land a hit but does massive dmg, and it can exceed max range but getting a hit with falloff is pure luck.

[That Guy]

i really do not think that we have to worry about making the bigger ACs "obsolete". it can be very hard to keep an enemy at arms length in both BT and MW games. they ussually turn into circle straif knife fights, and the ac is already out matched

however, you guys are ignoring one point the the AC with have in its favor. they do damage all at once in a single location, where as lasers take a half a second to do damage, and missile damage is spread accross the whole body (see the gameplay trailer). lets consider our oft-meligned freind, the Jagermech. its armed with 2 ac5 and 2 ac2, in TT terms thats 14 damage. now in TT each shot is rolled seperately to hit, and for location making it really not very relyable to do much. but in MWO, all those shots are going to be going to the same spot (mostly). lets say each cannon has a recycle of only 1- 1.5 seconds (the ML seem to have a 2-2.5 res time, the ac20 about 3, but im bad at counting). thats almost a gauss rifles worth of damage coming your way at a high rate of speed. even spread accross your body that will start to sting.
using these numbers the light AC will be useful, but the bigger versions are still better. Against other long range weapons, the light acs my lack the raw damage potential, but they make up for it with a little more predictablilty. and just loading up a mech with a bunch of ac 5 and destroying some ones face at 1000m will be difficult because of flight time, ammo limits, and the nifty convergence feature

but fundamentally, i agree, the ac 2 and 5 need a little rebalancing. shave off one ton and one crit space from each, and replace it with an extra ton of ammo for each chassis that has them. Also, i think that the ammo per ton should be increased a little bit, for all ACs

LordDeathStrike, on 15 March 2012 - 01:50 AM, said:

scale ac dmg with range, they pack more punch the closer you get, esp lbx since they are shotguns, but even normal acs, if you cut the range to target in half, you should gain dmg on impact, due to the energy of the round not bleeding off as it flies.

you're in luck, the devs confrimed that weapons will have an effective range and a max range. lasers and AC can hit targets beyond effective range at reduced damage

Edited by That Guy, 15 March 2012 - 02:51 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I agree with TG that they should shave a ton & a crit off the 5 & 2. The 10 & 20 will be OK. What is important is that they produce a reasonable ammount of "knock". I've seen a number of posts complaining about how knock should be reduced so that it's only a minor annoyance but shouldn't be enough to "spoil my aim". IMHO it's the other major pro (after single point damage) that can translate from TT effectively into a RT game. Doing this would totally transform mechs like the Blackjack and Jagermech and give them a place in mech v mech combat. I have a feeling that we will not have access to the "new" Level 2 tech straight away to allow them to get the basic balance first.
The viability of mechs with AC's in game is always going to be limited once DHSs arrive along with the ER ML & PPC.
What we also know is that weapons now reach past their TT max range. They could always reduce damage less to start with on the 2 & 5, again it makes them more viable.
The Dragon only lasted until they upgraded it in 3040 to the Grand Dragon with a PPC. It isn't even in production anymore but it's in the game.
The big factor will be if CASE is available and easily fitted. It increases mech survivability immensly if ammo explosions are properly implimented.
I also agree that ammo per ton should be increased, especially if we are firing more often than once every 10 seconds.

[Karl Streiger]

Stop talking about reducing weight of light and medium AC's - they are fine as they are. Even in MW4 the AC5 was my fav weapon. It may be true that you are able to inflict serious damage to a light mech with a single ppc hit - but first you have to hit, second you need secondary armament like SRMs to finish it of - while the PPC is recharging. The AC5 is able to keep firing.
For example i have a Vindicator ...with a arm armor of 14 points. I need 3 shots to deal critical damage with a AC5 and 2 shots with a ppc...
In normal TT the AC 5 may be a bad choice, but in solaris games or in all current MW games the higher rate of AC 5 made it superior. I have shot of the Arm of the vindicator with the AC 5 while the PPC is still recharging for the second shot.

A higher rate of fire allow you to suppress a enemy - it allows you to hit faster mechs - you don't aim seconds till you are sure to land a hit after there is a new round in the chamber you hit the trigger.

The Grand Dragon or Zeus 6T while superior to their AC 5 armed brothers in normal TT games have a hard time with a smaller time scale.

[SnowDragon]

KArl said it in many more words than I. They make great support weapons.

[Zyllos]

I always thought the AC/2 was used to damage supporting structures when armor is gone on a location. High rate of fire against internal structure is dangerous as it has more chances to damage something useful.

AC/5 has always been a good work horse. It can actually tear apart light mechs who stayed in range for an extended period of time.

Honestly, thought, I think the problem is between AC/2-AC/5 vs. UAC/2-UAC/5. An AC/2-AC/5 just can not pump out enough shots down range to deal lethal damage, even to internal structure (maybe the AC/5 can but you see my point).

[Petroff Northrup]

In MWLL the AC5 and AC2 are great I feel simply as they provide tremendous weight of fire at tremendous range, and feel that could be their draw, give the AC2 incredible range and the AC5 really good range with solid firepower and they should probably work well I think.

[MaddMaxx]

I can't forsee a 1 crit weapon be reduced to 0 crits (AC2) I also would vote against a 2 Pt. weapon having to much Knock.

Even a weight reduction could prove problematic if the Dev were to allow Weapons customization to any real degree.

I can imagine it now, the AC5 @ 6T/2Crit (1 each would be negligible) given the Heavy Mechs the ability to mount vast #'s of them and cause havoc at range.

A Dragon (low end Heavy) can mount 3 AC5's with a single engine downgrade, carry 75% of max armor and a extra ton of ammo for each gun. If almost any knock was added, that thing would be a Beast and a great Command Mech supporter. Stay close but reach out nicely (540m) with solid damage and no Heat worries at all.

Things can get dicey real fast so changing weapons will require extensive testing or Balanced quickly takes a bath.

[Orzorn]

Petroff Northrup, on 15 March 2012 - 07:02 AM, said:

In MWLL the AC5 and AC2 are great I feel simply as they provide tremendous weight of fire at tremendous range, and feel that could be their draw, give the AC2 incredible range and the AC5 really good range with solid firepower and they should probably work well I think.

I agree. ACs in MWLL, due to their higher rate of fire combined with great range, absolutely shredded lighter armored vehicles and, more importantly (in the context of MWO), mechs.

Another thing about ACs is that, as has been pointed out already, they are excellent support weapons. You don't have to lock on like LRMs (so they don't suffer from ECM slowing their lock speeds down, either), and you can send a constant barrage of damage down range. Something I think people have also neglected to point out is that, with 3 or so mechs, all with lower caliber ACs, you could bring them all to bear on a single target and totally shred them.

With the introduction of roles, and the speed and importance of light mechs, I foresee the importance of lighter caliber ACs to some groups. Light mechs, being fast, can easily escape the ranges of higher caliber ACs, SRMs, and the common medium laser. This is where the AC/2 and AC/5 come in. You could keep a constant barrage of fire on any light mechs within a very large radius, enough to keep them at twice arms length. It would be a good idea to have at least one fire support mech with an array of AC/2s or AC/5s to keep lighter mechs at bay. If you really want to go out of your way to kill light mechs, you can add perhaps another support mech. Two or three of them roaming around the battlefield and keeping to the high ground could demolish any number of lighter mechs within the vicinity, even the pesky ones with ECM, something that LRM fire could never hope to achieve, also in part because a light mech could easily reach cover before the missiles impact, whereas the ACs could hit home within split seconds.

So, I believe part of the reason why lighter caliber ACs were so useless in previous games is because of the propensity of heavy mechs to appear on the battlefield and field heavier weapons. No point in taking ACs when you know you're going to end up brawling a heavier mech, or just getting alpha struck by gauss.