59 replies to this topic

[Gigastrike]

Yeah, turns out repair costs are going away, so there's not real reason for a mech with such tiny side torsos to not use an XL engine.

[Shatterpoint]

I love it right up until I'm sat there overheating, which is only 5-6 shots..with 3 ppc's on an awesome that kinda love is just a quickie.

[Kmieciu]

Shatterpoint, on 19 December 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

I love it right up until I'm sat there overheating, which is only 5-6 shots..with 3 ppc's on an awesome that kinda love is just a quickie.

Nice poem.
BTW: Large Lasers still better than PPCs.

[SinnerX]

I've been running 3xPPCs on my Ilya Muromets and I love it. Same damage potential as 2xgauss, fast rate of fire, and I can get off 3 quick alphas without overheating on caustic, 4 on "neutral heat" maps, and practically unlimited on snow maps. Switching to chain fire, I can fire fairly rapidly for a surprising long time.

With lag shielding the way it is, I prefer the all or nothing approach of PPCs compared to the DoT effect of lasers. Plus freeing up tonnage won't help me much since my bottleneck is slots on that particular build. And don't even get me started on the worthlessness of large pulse lasers.

[Gigastrike]

SinnerX, on 21 December 2012 - 05:21 AM, said:

I've been running 3xPPCs on my Ilya Muromets and I love it. Same damage potential as 2xgauss, fast rate of fire, and I can get off 3 quick alphas without overheating on caustic, 4 on "neutral heat" maps, and practically unlimited on snow maps. Switching to chain fire, I can fire fairly rapidly for a surprising long time.

With lag shielding the way it is, I prefer the all or nothing approach of PPCs compared to the DoT effect of lasers. Plus freeing up tonnage won't help me much since my bottleneck is slots on that particular build. And don't even get me started on the worthlessness of large pulse lasers.

Are you using single or double heat sinks?

[Fiest]

PPC's are better than people make out. That 90m minimum range thing is falloff similar to being over optimal range - been a couple of occasions I snipped the last red internals on a mech when my lasers were on cooldown and i needed to kill them quickly.
The absolute lack of ammo makes its more damage over time than the gauss and more resilient with the 10 component hp.
It has the alpha of a ballistic as well which makes it far better for pop-out shooting compared to lasers (read this as river city buildings - step out, shoot, step back into cover, wait on cool down)

That in a vacuum comparison it has to be 'heat neutral tonnage balance is not as good as a gauss so it isn't as good' is flawed - How often do you really fire as soon as cooldown is up.
If you do you still have the [number of heatsinks] + 30or40or50.
Thats at least 5 volleys before a shutdown.

It did get a projectile speed buff (2000m/s same as an ac/2) and has a some tinkering listed

Currently I use it in my cataphract -1x:
-Endosteel
-300 standard engine
-368 standard armour
-2 ppc (torsos)
-Large laser (left arm)
-2 medium lasers (right arm)
-9 extra heat sinks (total of 19 dhs)

Hit 'em with the ppc's then finish the internals with the lasers. Don't tank just support the brawl but you do have the armour to disengage if you do.

[SinnerX]

Gigastrike, on 21 December 2012 - 08:16 AM, said:

Are you using single or double heat sinks?

DHS all the way. Any time my engine rating is over 250, I switch to DHS because that usually means I'll get better heat efficiency.

[SirSlaughter]

My CNT9-AL thinks that 2x PPCs are not so damn bad.

[Gigastrike]

SinnerX, on 21 December 2012 - 11:13 PM, said:

DHS all the way. Any time my engine rating is over 250, I switch to DHS because that usually means I'll get better heat efficiency.

If you're limited by slots and not tonnage, it could be worth using more singles. Assaults run into that issue a lot.

[Buckminster]

SirSlaughter, on 22 December 2012 - 06:22 AM, said:

My CNT9-AL thinks that 2x PPCs are not so damn bad.

My Raven 3L agrees. It's actually stupid amounts of fun - just taking duck and cover put shots at people - with both weapons in the same arm they tend to put both shots at the exact same spot. Nice and lethal.

Gigastrike, on 22 December 2012 - 08:39 AM, said:

If you're limited by slots and not tonnage, it could be worth using more singles. Assaults run into that issue a lot.

I don't know about this. I ran into the problem with space for DHS on my K2 (maxed out at 19 DHS, still had 3 tons left over), and when I did the math, I realized I'd need 33 SHS for the same amount of heat dissipation (10 x 2.0 for Engine DHS, 9 x 1.4 for the rest), and there was no way I was going to have that much free weight.

I ended up bumping up my engine to a 275 for 2 tons, which gave me an engine slot for another heat sink.

[Gigastrike]

Buckminster, on 22 December 2012 - 10:37 AM, said:

I don't know about this. I ran into the problem with space for DHS on my K2 (maxed out at 19 DHS, still had 3 tons left over), and when I did the math, I realized I'd need 33 SHS for the same amount of heat dissipation (10 x 2.0 for Engine DHS, 9 x 1.4 for the rest), and there was no way I was going to have that much free weight.

I ended up bumping up my engine to a 275 for 2 tons, which gave me an engine slot for another heat sink.

Just throwing it out there. Not many people consider it.

Edited by Gigastrike, 22 December 2012 - 10:51 AM.

[Buckminster]

I suppose in an assault mech it could actually make a difference - an Atlas would have had the weight available.

[Shalune]

BOOMLegShot, on 13 November 2012 - 06:44 PM, said:

Probably because the alternatives are more attractive. It has the drawbacks of a ballistic weapon (travel time) combined with the drawbacks of an energy weapon (heat).
An ER Large Laser gets you more range, no travel time, fewer slots and tonnage, and barely less damage with barely more heat.
An AC/2 gets you more range, roughly same tonnage and slots, less heat, and more dps with the same travel time drawback.On larger mechs where hardpoints are the bottleneck rather than tonnage, guass becomes a more attractive choice for long range heavy hitting.

Pretty much this. Even so people are getting too used to ignoring PPCs. They are genuinely useful as is.

[Taijiya]

I think adding a short disrupt to ECM and some minor heat tweaks would make PPCs very viable and fun.

[headbasher]

Taijiya, on 26 December 2012 - 09:38 AM, said:

I think adding a short disrupt to ECM and some minor heat tweaks would make PPCs very viable and fun.

You could have 1 shot just add some static to the targets screen/hud then with successive shots it gets worse and the effects start falling off as soon as it happens that way you would have to keep up the firing to keep the disruption going thus ensuring that it cant be abused. Damn that doesnt sound half bad does it? Or just the ramblings of a madman.

Edited by headbasher, 27 December 2012 - 09:05 PM.

[testhero]

Do gauss rifles not explode when hit in MWO ? that was their original drawback, that and taking up too much space which does not apply in MWO

[J0anna]

Actually with their reduced travel time, I'm finding more and more ways to include them in my loadouts. The regular PPC's are fine, but the 90m limited range is a killer (ask the all ppc stalker I ran into). The ER PPC's don't have the minimum range, but have heat "issues", nonetheless chain firing them and heat discipline go a long way. I'd love a HUD disruption effect, but not so sure it would be balanced.

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

I love my dual ER PPC Cat. Though I think that PPCs could use some slight damage boost, like 2-3 points.

[Gaeb]

It needs tweaks, but its not useless.

I run twin ERPPC's on my Ilya as a holdover from a "low cost repair easy cbill grind" mech. I do 400-600 damage on average per match.

PPC advantages:
1) Damage Duration / Rate of Fire - no seriously, doing 10 damage to one location on a 3s cooldown is exquisite. Just don't miss.

PPC disadvantages:
1) Heat (wtfbbqlazr)
2) Min range (the physics... don't... maek... senc...)
3) Damage (honestly, it should be higher for the heat/crit slot/weight cost)

Edited by Gaeb, 30 December 2012 - 09:55 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

I've been running a dual PPC build on my Flame... great success. I don't always have the highest damage on my team (usually 400-500) but its all pinpoint damage instead of the widespread chaos SRM boats cause.