27 replies to this topic

[Zyllos]

Reduce the spread so 80% of the shots will hit a Medium mech at the optimum range aiming at the Center Torso.

LBX shots deal 2.0 damage per pellet for critical hits.

[Strum Wealh]

Oppresor, on 17 February 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

Yes I totally agree with this one. I really like my LBX10 Scattershot; its by far the best thing I have ever fitted to the Atlas, sounds great and is backed up by the MG Array for CIWS work. However, if we were to get the LBX20 this would be a real improvement, especially when used in the last ditch CIWS role.

First: the IS version of the LB 20-X isn't available until 3058.

Second: Why the "necro" on this thread?
Granted, making the point in a relevant and already-existing thread rather than starting a new one is good and should be applauded, but still...

Third: no human being is accurate enough to do any significant manual anti-missile work (or really, any manual anti-missile work) with a platform as slow and cumbersome as a BattleMech, especially when the missiles in question are highly maneuverable and the same size as modern shoulder-launched missiles. As such, it does not really fit the CIWS role (which is separate and distinct from the "close combat role").

Fourth: @ the OP...

Quote

What would you all say if the LBX/10 became a giant automatic shotgun?

The LB 10-X is an autocannon - that is, a cannon-caliber (20+ mm) ballistic weapon featuring an automatic loading system and the ability to fire continuously for as long as the trigger is held and ammunition is available - that fires shotshell-like cluster munitions.
For all intents and purposes, it already is an "automatic shotgun".

Fifth: @ Skyfaller and Asmudius...

Quote

LBX10 needs to fire a promixity fuse shotgun shell.

Fire it...

when round is near a mech (~20m) it bursts into a forward cone spread.

Quote

To me it is the debate about being a shotgun or a explosive shell that detonates on proximity.

The LB-X family have always been explicitly described and depicted in BattleTech canon as "'Mech-scale shotguns", a behavior that MWO's LB-X cluster rounds emulate.
By contrast (and according to page 352 of Tactical Operations), "Flak ammunition" (one of the alternate AC ammo types) does use a proximity-detonated explosive shell (as opposed to the Shrapnel shell that was rendered obsolete by such HE shells) - but, it's only fully-effective against aircraft in flight and unarmored infantry and delivers only half-damage against everything else.

[Stringburka]

Increase spread by 20%.
Decrease reload time by 10% to 2.25 secs*.
Double crit damage.

*If proven not enough, decrease to 2 secs

[Oppresor]

Strum Wealh, on 17 February 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

Third: no human being is accurate enough to do any significant manual anti-missile work (or really, any manual anti-missile work) with a platform as slow and cumbersome as a BattleMech, especially when the missiles in question are highly maneuverable and the same size as modern shoulder-launched missiles. As such, it does not really fit the CIWS role (which is separate and distinct from the "close combat role").

Your absolutely right, a human cannot realistically engage targets in the same way as a Vulcan Phalanx or Goal Keeper system. what I propose and actually do is to use the LBX10 Scattershot as a CIWS against anything that gets too close for comfort. For example, I have just come out of a mission where I was holding Theta in the Crater. I had backed my Atlas up against a high ridge to stop anything getting behind me. A Jenner closed in to under 100 Metres, I had good LOS so opened fire; after about three LBX shots had hit him or her, they went down.

This is why I trust the LBX. I know that we are working in a pre-determined timeline, but also know that if I had access to the LBX20 now, my seriously flawed tactics would stand a better chance of working for me.

Looking at the thread from a future suggestions point of view, with the hope that we can have some influence on new weapon types yet to become a part of the MechWarrior universe; it would be great to have some form of automated CIWS similar to AMS to take care of close quarter threats like light Mechs. As things stand and looking at other threads it seems that the MG Array may be getting a positive overall to make it effective against armour; for me that's great news because I run an Array in tandem with my LBX10 Scattershot.

[Renthrak]

Asmudius Heng, on 11 November 2012 - 03:21 PM, said:

Using the emchanics of BT to inform the fluff, pellet shot and multiple location hitters were great at cit seeking in the TT game. Since we can aim this is not as needed. However increasing the damage that such weapons do to intenrals would be a way to simulate this and give the mech a role as a crit seeker as well.

It already does this, to a point. Fire an AC/10 at a breached armor location, and that 10 damage is applied to ONE critical slot. Do the same with an LBX, and you potentially hit TEN different critical slots. Against larger items like Gauss Rifles or AC/20, you are virtually certain to inflict most of that damage to it, where an AC/10 could spend all of its damage on an empty location. Add in a couple Medium Lasers and that LBX will tear the internals out of any ballistic 'Mech in one good volley. Against areas packed with many smaller bits of equipment, the LBX can potentially damage all of them, again reducing the number of additional shots required to destroy internal components.

Also, it is possible to fit 2 LBX 10s in the right torso of an Atlas, which has tonnage to spare. At close range, that creates an AC/20 that fires at the rate of an AC/10, and is more useful for legging light 'Mechs with the spread. You can't do that with regular AC/10s. This is also one very good reason not to increase the damage, or significantly alter the rate of fire, unless you think an Atlas can't hit hard enough already.

[Asmudius Heng]

Renthrak, on 17 February 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

It already does this, to a point. Fire an AC/10 at a breached armor location, and that 10 damage is applied to ONE critical slot. Do the same with an LBX, and you potentially hit TEN different critical slots. Against larger items like Gauss Rifles or AC/20, you are virtually certain to inflict most of that damage to it, where an AC/10 could spend all of its damage on an empty location. Add in a couple Medium Lasers and that LBX will tear the internals out of any ballistic 'Mech in one good volley. Against areas packed with many smaller bits of equipment, the LBX can potentially damage all of them, again reducing the number of additional shots required to destroy internal components.

Also, it is possible to fit 2 LBX 10s in the right torso of an Atlas, which has tonnage to spare. At close range, that creates an AC/20 that fires at the rate of an AC/10, and is more useful for legging light 'Mechs with the spread. You can't do that with regular AC/10s. This is also one very good reason not to increase the damage, or significantly alter the rate of fire, unless you think an Atlas can't hit hard enough already.

A few issues there.

In TT this was true. A single shot could take out a single component. A scatter shot had a better chance of striking unarmour locations due to more chances at hiting an unarmoured seciton. Components had no health, they were either cit hit and destroyed or they were not. As such SRMs and LBX and a bunch of MGs meant you had more chances at scorring crits than a single shot, though your damage to the mech was not as punctuated as as a ingle shot weapon which was still better for killing the internal armour anyway.

In MWO each item has health. A single pellet of LBX does 1 point of damage. The lowest health of an item is 3 for ECM i think but most have 10 poitns of health. The damage is randomly distributed for each shot so the AC10 would actually take out a scomponent with a single hit while the LBX, if it was superbly lucky or very close to a mech would put 10 individual shots which would be scattered across each omponnent possibly killing nothing at all. As such the AC10 is actually a better crit hitter than the LBX seeing as by the time you get a few critical hits the entire section has had its internal structure destroyed anyway so its a moot point.

The lack of randomness in MWO and the way components and critical hits work mean that the crit seeking function has to be redefined for a real time game.

This is being looked into by the devs with increased cit damage chances for MGs and LBX now - but how effective it will be i do not know.

It would be great to scattershot a light with an open side torso and crit hit his XL engine slowing him down, or taking him out on a lucky strike which would simulate what might happen in TT but with skill and tactics employed in MWO real time.

I have yet to feel the spread of the LBX makes it easier to hit light mechs than a regular AC also but that is my experience not a fact.

[Zyllos]

Renthrak, on 17 February 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

...where an AC/10 could spend all of its damage on an empty location...

I think this statement is invalid.

When you get a critical hit, you are guaranteed to hit something. So that AC/10 will guarantee to deal 10 damage to something useful ~40% of the time (there was a thread that calculated the 1x/2x/3x critical chances but I can't find it so this number might be off).

The issue with that LBX is that it takes a ton of pellet hits to destroy something useful due to 10 HP of equipment. Now if they reduced the HP of equipment of all items to something like 5 HP for standard stuff, 8 HP for fortified stuff, and 2 HP for fragile stuff, and increase the LBX critical damage to 2, then the LBX might be good at destroying equipment.

[Renthrak]

Asmudius Heng, on 17 February 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:

In MWO each item has health. A single pellet of LBX does 1 point of damage. The lowest health of an item is 3 for ECM i think but most have 10 poitns of health. The damage is randomly distributed for each shot so the AC10 would actually take out a scomponent with a single hit while the LBX, if it was superbly lucky or very close to a mech would put 10 individual shots which would be scattered across each omponnent possibly killing nothing at all. As such the AC10 is actually a better crit hitter than the LBX seeing as by the time you get a few critical hits the entire section has had its internal structure destroyed anyway so its a moot point.

The devs intend to implement effects of damage to equipment beyond 'intact' and 'destroyed', so instant destruction is not the only measure of success. By the same token that the AC/10 could destroy what it hits, it could also hit one containing less important items, thus wasting 100% of the potential damage to equipment. The LBX is more likely to apply some damage to any given item in the targeted section, so at least some progress is made towards destruction every time.

Zyllos, on 17 February 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

I think this statement is invalid.

When you get a critical hit, you are guaranteed to hit something. So that AC/10 will guarantee to deal 10 damage to something useful ~40% of the time (there was a thread that calculated the 1x/2x/3x critical chances but I can't find it so this number might be off).

Allow me to rephrase 'empty' to 'non-essential'. Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous occupy critical slots also, though I don't know how/if that factors in to the critical hit calculation. The chances of any kind of critical hit is 42%, according to the devs. This means that 4 out of 10 AC/10 shots will cause a critical hit on average. For an LBX, each pellet has a 42% chance, meaning that statistically, 4 out of the 10 pellets from EVERY shot will cause a critical hit, at least one of which will be a 2x or 3x. Also, a single AC/10 shot can damage a maximum of 3 critical slots (3% chance), while an LBX shot can damage a maximum of 30 critical slots (in the unlikely event that every pellet hits that 3% chance).

To use your phrasing, the AC/10 is guaranteed to inflict 10 damage to something 40% of the time, while the LBX is guaranteed to inflict 1 to 4 damage to something 100% of the time.

Edited by Renthrak, 17 February 2013 - 10:06 PM.