388 replies to this topic

[wwiiogre]

AC 2 and AC 5 are both considered AA or anti air, now hopefully the Dev's will be including strafing, they said they were and a dedicated AA mech will have a job of shooting down aero assets as well as picking off scouts and lights and medium mechs. The Jagermech with the variant with 2 AC 5's and 2 AC 2's is a dedicated AA asset and also really good at taking out vehicles because of the chance of scoring that golden bb shot and getting a critical hit with a shot that doesn't penetrate armor. We do not know if the Dev's are going to have this part of the TT rules in the game. Or if you will have to peel off all external armor before there is a chance to get a critical that bypasses armor. The odds of getting that critical would be the chance of the shot times 1 in 36. In other words pretty bad chance to crit or golden bb someone. But the mech was designed to do that and plink at other mechs from range. Most people don't like that config and I have rarely seen it used well except on the tabletop and then only in its role of long range sniper and Anti Air. As a mech vs another mech it would get chewed up by most mechs its own weight and even by some mechs a bit smaller. But if it stayed back as all support mechs should do and stayed at range with a good scout mech pointing out targets for it hopefully it will become a viable mech chasis to pilot and in the future if and when PGI add combined arms its use will become even more evident. The same can be said for the Firestarter a very specialist style mech for anti infantry and urban warfare.

chris

[Victor Morson]

Mason Grimm, on 13 April 2012 - 06:42 AM, said:

*cough*

Does POTENTIALLY 5x the damage.

...

Apples to oranges my man, apples to oranges.

Potential damage is better than flat out no damage.

Given both weapons are long range fire support, I hardly think it's Apple to Oranges. You can complain about damage spread and missiles missing all you want, but that doesn't change the fact the AC/2 lands exactly 2 damage in an equally random location. I'd rather take the possibility of 5 damage in two places than 2 in one. This isn't rocket science.

Mason Grimm, on 13 April 2012 - 06:08 AM, said:

But we aren't talking about M16s and Slingshots.

We might as well be.

MaddMaxx, on 13 April 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

The argument seems to be, imo, whether or not weapons that don't one shot "BLAM" the enemy in the face, like so many others, should even be in the game, because, you know, without that instant "BLAM" effect, what is the point of the weapon really.

I've come to the conclusion that there are basically two types of players when all is said and done:

Player A: My designs are great, but man that weapon is overpowered.
Player B: My designs are great but everyone else is overpowered.

This is the crux of people who are complaining about mechlab mechanics and such are coming from, versus those that want to make every weapon a viable choice. There is a serious group of players that will try to take terrible designs that they feel represent Table Top more, with 5 kinds of mismatched weapons and AC/2s, then when they under perform in actual game play blame it on everyone else's design being too good. "I'd have won if you hadn't packed those PPCs and Gauss!" "I'd have won if you didn't have jump jets!" "I'd have won if you didn't have all AC/20s and SRMs!"

But at the end of the day, if everyone's config and weapon choices are overpowered you need to look at your own choices. AC/2s and AC/5s have been terrible weapons across nearly every MechWarrior game (again, barring Living Legends and Hardcore for different reasons) as well as table top.

People often confuse being able to make them do something or trying to exploit their tiny differences as an advantage, but it's never enough to consider taking it. I mean just look at a stock Awesome versus a stock Zeus. Ouch.

Leetskeet, on 13 April 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

Side note, unless it's shooting a burst of like 5 shells, the rate of fire for the AC/5 probably needs to be something more along the lines of every .5 seconds, with the AC/2 slinging rounds out fairly quickly. Not machine gun quick, but an AC/2 should be a constant hail of 30mm rounds, perhaps 20 round bursts if they are going the burst route.

I really think AC/2s and AC/5s should be balanced in a similar fashion to MW4 RACs, since RACs don't exist yet - we can cross how to make them good when we come to it. At least in terms of fire rate, rock and overall damage.

Edited by Victor Morson, 13 April 2012 - 08:13 AM.

[WithSilentWings]

I think another aspect we're missing here, especially for a video game: this idea that a PPC packs all of it's damage into one area is also a drawback.

Honestly, I would expect a fight between two matched mechs where one has a PPC and one has an AC5 to go something like this:

AC5 is fairly continuous fire. Many rounds will miss their intended target (miss entirely or hit an arm when you're aiming for torso or head) but this continuous fire using HE rounds will not only obscure the PPC mech's view but it will also cause instability when it tries to return fire. And so, when the PPC goes of it will likely often miss entirely or have it's damage dispersed quite widely unless the pilot is very skilled and very lucky on the same day.

When you factor these sorts of things in you can also have a much stronger argument for the abilities of an AC5 when trying to target a specific location. In a fight like this, the AC5 will use the fact that it fires so quickly to TRY to hit the head, and even if only 1 out of 5 shots (or less) scores a hit, it's still much more likely the PPC mech's cockpit will be blown out before it can score two direct PPC hits while it's taking fire.

Edited by WithSilentWings, 13 April 2012 - 08:19 AM.

[Victor Morson]

There's two problems with that WithSilentWings. Long range stuff generally needs to be able to fire from cover and do it's damage quickly - if you stand up firing and firing, you're probably going to eat a massive salvo of LRMs and actual PPCs really quickly.

Second, if the damage is balanced on par with Table Top or past MechWarriors, the AC will - in the time it takes to recycle the PPC - do about half the damage of a PPC round. That means several seconds of scattering damage all over a 'mech exposed versus 1 second to do direct damage to an area and then fade back into cover.

Unless, of course, the AC provides a lot of rock with a damage buff, making it very hard for anything being barraged to return fire. That's what RACs and later, Hardcore ACs did to various results; none the less, turning light ACs into a suppression weapon is a fine move to make and at the very top of my considered solutions for them.

[Rorik Thrumsalr]

Yeah, as said before, for 3025 tech the light ac's have and advantage in the single heat sink era. They are cold firing weapons with excellent range, the trade being low damage and ammunition dependancy.. Lrms are not reliable with their damage output. PPC's and LLASERS are hot and somwhat shorter ranged. Are they suitable primary weapons? Occasionally, but not for higher tech matches.

[Leetskeet]

WithSilentWings, on 13 April 2012 - 08:15 AM, said:

I think another aspect we're missing here, especially for a video game: this idea that a PPC packs all of it's damage into one area is also a drawback.

Honestly, I would expect a fight between two matched mechs were one has a PPC and one has an AC5 to go something like this:

AC5 is fairly continuous fire. Many rounds will miss their intended target (miss entirely or hit an arm when you're aiming for torso or head) but this continuous fire using HE rounds will not only obscure the PPC mech's view but it will also cause instability when it tries to return fire. And so, when the PPC goes of it will likely often miss entirely or have it's damage dispersed quite widely unless the pilot is very skilled and very lucky on the same day.

When you factor these sorts of things in you can also have a much stronger argument for the abilities of an AC5 when trying to target a specific location. In a fight like this, the AC5 will use the fact that it fires so quickly to TRY to hit the head, and even if only 1 out of 5 shots (or less) scores a hit, it's still much more likely the PPC mech's cockpit will be blown out before it can score two direct PPC hits while it's taking fire.

Oh my dear sir that is not a drawback in a video game that you can actually aim in. Popping high damage shots on the same location is exactly what you want.

That said, the AC/5, outside of table and it's 10 second recycle times, is or should be a high dps constant fire weapon. For instance, hitting the center torso with a PPC every time it's ready is, lets make something up, 10 dps. The AC/5 should be 12 dps or so, but its damage comes in small increments so it isn't just a flat out better weapon. If they're turning to protect their weakest location, you'll end up spreading damage out, whereas a PPC can just pop a flat chunk of damage in a single trigger pull.

Edited by Leetskeet, 13 April 2012 - 08:27 AM.

[KingCobra]

I think ac2-ac5 are very effective when boating a Blood Asp with 8-10 Ac2 often ruled on long range maps in MW4 sense MWO will be a more Sim like game there effective use diminishes with less weapons per group as in only 1-4 weapons.They can still knock a opponent back enough to distract him or her till that Gauss or PPC hit comes into play.A good combo of Ac2-5 with long range LRMs or other long range missiles works great also.So don't diminish there role in any battle.Like many i would also like to See ground and Aero fighters and vehicles in the game but that would require a Pve element of battle-tech and we still do not know if they will implement Pve into the game.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Autocannons?
Useless.
Oh, you meant just the 2 and 5 classes.
Still useless.

Afaik, they're only somewhat good for vehicles since vehicles don't need heat sinks to fire them.

[Wyzak]

Does an autocannon really need heat sinks anymore though? The last few mechwarrior titles I played didn't really have much heat from ballistics fire (excepting the Long Tom)

[BerryChunks]

calculate ac2damage * ammo / weight, it turns out better than gauss rifles.

I reloaded MW3 and downed an annihilator standard variant before it could ever close range, with 4 Ac2 on a heavy mech backpeddling.

Edited by BerryChunks, 13 April 2012 - 08:54 AM.

[Victor Morson]

rorik jorgensson, on 13 April 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Yeah, as said before, for 3025 tech the light ac's have and advantage in the single heat sink era. They are cold firing weapons with excellent range, the trade being low damage and ammunition dependancy.. Lrms are not reliable with their damage output. PPC's and LLASERS are hot and somwhat shorter ranged. Are they suitable primary weapons? Occasionally, but not for higher tech matches.

TRUE: LRMs are not reliable with their damage output.
ALSO TRUE: Unreliable lots of damage is still better than reliable almost no damage. Even on a terrible LRM hit, if even 2 missiles connect (always true if we go by 5 point clusters) you're guaranteed better damage than an AC2.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Quote

I reloaded MW3 and downed an annihilator standard variant before it could ever close range, with 4 Ac2 on a heavy mech backpeddling.

No big surprise, imo.
You could do the same with an LRM boat, and probably faster with an LRM-boat.
Considering that Annihilators are less mobile than an UrbanMech.

[GrimJim]

For now (because who knows how long it will be b4 access to gauss tech), I'm fine with AC's.
The 5's are the best for low heat and great range and medium laser dmg. Same with the 2's but their useless dmg is frustrating.

HOWEVER, if their ROF is five times that of a PPC.... then we have a weapon that does the same damage as a PPC, with a fraction of the heat and nearly double the range. Chew on that.

And even if they didn't I'd still take it over nothing. You may not down a 'Mech with these weapons but 10 to 1 the 'Mech using this weapon will be fast and not likely to be going toe to toe with brawlers (Vulcan, Blackjack, Clint, JaggerMech anyone?.....their armor is low so to pilot WON'T go toe to toe). It will snipe from the edges, wear a 'Mech down for it's lancemates to handle, or open of some holes so when the opponent finally closes you can finish them off with a spread of crit seekers.

[MaddMaxx]

The increase in RoF for the light AC's would only be feasible if there ammo loads are increased per ton, if we have to buy. Then one states but that stuff goes BOOM too, well we have not heard that will be the case in MWO, many are assuming that, but it is just that.

What if instead of totally over hauling the AC2 and AC5 so they somehow compare to the power hitters, the PPC in this case, we increase the HEAT the PPC does to such an extent that firing it, or having 2 on a chassis, will require a serious cool down, and if that is no good, then a reload time, such that the AC2 and AC5 folk can attempt to close and flush the PPC'r from there hidy holes.

Sadly the reason these discussions even exist is that the weapons in question do not the proper targets on the battle field that make them useful and often was the exact intended use. Tanks, Jets, speedy hovercraft etc etc.

Put them on the field and then the players can choose to use the proper tool. Killing Mechs 2 pts at a time sounds plausible, if you have 7 tons of non-exploding ammo and can out run your opponent. Then it just takes the patience of Jobe. No worries right?

Edited by MaddMaxx, 13 April 2012 - 09:15 AM.

[GrimJim]

Oh....and I forgot.

For the 3050 crowd, AMS can't shoot down a slug, nor can an ECM screw with it.

[Hao Yu]

This entire thread pretty much illustrates how the classic BT stats of autocannons are terribly balanced. Too little damage. Too heavy. Such long ranges for such light ballistics. Such short ranges on heavy ballistics. The list goes on.

Best thing we can hope for is that PGI doesn't stay faithful to the tabletop stats and finds a way to make these weapons worth the wasted weight.

[Coralld]

I always saw AC/2s and AC/5s being very good AA weapons and for IFVs and tanks, against other mechs they are only useful against Lights and some Mediums, against Heavies and Assault their effectiveness goes way down. It really isant until RAC2s and RAC5s do they become deadly killing machines against everything. But a Light or Medium mech who might have speed on their side but low armor that they can't go toe to toe against the heavier mechs that having a AC/2/5 or two will be handy in being a real pain in the *** of those Heavies and Assault.

Edited by Coralld, 13 April 2012 - 09:22 AM.

[Codius Dakanius]

There is no such thing as a bad weapon. even a jaggermech is just as dangerous as an atlas in the hands of a intelligent pilot. AC 2's are highly effective when used as a sniping weapon.

Besides this is mechwarrior not call of duty MW3.

Edited by Codius Dakanius, 13 April 2012 - 09:51 AM.

[Hao Yu]

As for the ones recommending lights and mediums to use AC2s and AC5s to "stay away" from heavier mechs? Or for fighting vehicles or VTOLS or hovercraft? I'd rather use LRM10s and LRM15s. Lighter, better damage. More versatile.

[UncleKulikov]

Mason Grimm, on 13 April 2012 - 05:19 AM, said:

You neglected to mention that the PPC does as much damage as 5 AC2s, and 2 AC5s, altering the heat calculations.

You also didn't include critical space and tonnage, considering that ACs require additional slots for ammunition, which can then detonate through over heating or damage.