351 replies to this topic

[William Petersen]

Zylo, on 05 May 2012 - 12:50 AM, said:

This got me thinking, will the angle of the shots matter in this game?

Using WoT as an example you could often bounce shells if your angle was bad in relation to the target but due to the complex shape of the mechs I wouldn't really expect to see the impact angle make a difference due to all the additional calculations needed.

I doubt it.

Armour penetration is the primary combat mechanic in WoT. Penetrating the enemy tank's armour to do "HP" damage and damage to the modules and crew. To my (admittedly limited knowledge), there's no real "HP" for your armour, you either get hit with a shot that pens you, or it bounces off.

In BT, the only 'penetration' mechanic is when you finally deal damage to a section greater than its armour rating, which isn't really 'penetration' so much as shooting off all the armour on the section. After that, all subsequent shots 'penetrate' (do internal structure damage, and give you chances for critical hits).

Though there were TACs in the TT which might be able to be considered penetrating shots, but A) I hate them and hope they don't make the cut for MW:O, B) they were random, and C) they only provided a critical roll but, they didn't actually damage the internal structure of the section.


EDIT:

Terick, on 05 May 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

I find it amusing that when we really look at physics energy weapons should lose damage the farther they get from the point of fire.

Point of fire? Or point of focus? B-)

Terick, on 05 May 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

Ballistic weapon damage would depend on HOW the damage is applied. A G-Rifle slug that is damage by kinetic energy should also lose damage the farther it goes... at these ranges though it shouldn't be a problem.

If the damage comes from the explosive force of the shell then won't matter hos fast the round was going when it hit you. You still have the explosive force doing the damage as long as it triggers.

Now that could really change weapons, sure the AC has ammo, but the damage is constant. Your ER PPC loses damage the farther we are apart... would make loading up on a lot of AC/2s worth it. The Demios and Bane would become real terrors.

There are a couple weapons that have differing damage values based on range. The Heavy Gauss Rifle is one I know off the top of my head, not sure about the others. (Snub-nosed PPC, maybe? /shrugs).

Interesting point about explosive force, but I think that would make them feel more like missiles (in terms of fluff, I mean; in game-play terms, I realize the AC round would travel much faster and look distinct, and be incapable of indirect fire).

Edited by William Petersen, 05 May 2012 - 01:04 AM.

[Sassori]

I find it amusing that so many people are so concerned with DPS and min-maxing and (of all things) REAL WORLD PHYSICS in an obviously fictional setting.

The interplay between weight, heat, damage, and critical slot allocation (And this last bit is /important/ since we have it this time) is all the balance we need.

Double Heat Sinks take up /space/ and weight. Especially for the Inner Sphere (3 crit slots per double heat sink!) that means there's a finite limit on them (Not just /30/ like in MW3 and MW4).

Heat is a limiting factor /because/ they are going more to the Table Top rules (Which is something neither MW3 nor MW4 did well imho) and the benefits and drawbacks are already there without having to tweak and make it /stupid/ to pick a large laser over an AC 10 because an AC 10 gets 3 times the DPS at the same range with no heat! (Cuz to make a large laser be heat neutral that's /13 tons/ of weight and 10 criticals (Or 14 criticals if double heat sinks are used).

The balance is already there, ballistics don't need to do more damage than they already do. They don't need to recycle three times as fast as a PPC or anything else. This kind of thinking is faulty and based on an old iteration and system no longer in use.

[Cifu]

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 03:58 AM, said:

The balance is already there, ballistics don't need to do more damage than they already do. They don't need to recycle three times as fast as a PPC or anything else. This kind of thinking is faulty and based on an old iteration and system no longer in use.

Copy-paste from one of my posts in a different topic:

Quote

AC/20:

Damage: 20
Heat: 7
Tons:14
Critical: 10
Range: 3/6/9

MLAS:

Damage: 5
Heat: 3
Tons:1
Critical: 1
Range: 3/6/9

So, the AC/20 /w 1 ton of ammunition:

Damage: 20
Heat: 7
Tons: 15
Critical 11
Range: 3/6/9
Can fire 5 times (make 100 point of damage)

4x MLAS /w 5 heat sinks:

Damage: 20 (4x 5)
Heat: 7 (4x 3 = 12 - 5 from the heat sinks)
Tons: 9 (4 + 5)
Critical: 9 (4 + 5)
Range: 3/6/9
Can fire unlimited time (make 100+ point of damage)

An AC/20 w/ 1 ton of reload have:

+6 tons
+2 criticals
and only 5 shoots

against 4x MLAS and 5x HS.

So, please, say again: the balance is already there, and this way of thinking is faulty...

Edited by Cifu, 05 May 2012 - 05:16 AM.

[Sassori]

The balance is there. 4 ML's is 12 heat vs 7 heat of the AC 20. 4 ML's do not put all that damage in the same location like an AC 20 does. 4 ML's also are DoT and not practically instant application like an AC 20. 4 ML's do not have the same in game physics effect as an AC 20 impact does.

The Balance Is There.

You're trying to build an arguement without looking at /everything/. You're using only the parts that support your arguement and not the full picture.

If you feel that 4 ML's is superior to an AC 20, nobody's stopping you from using them, but those people who absolutely must kill every last mother *censored* in the room? Accept no substitute.

And if you find 1 ton of ammo to little for that AC 20, learn to be surgical with it, or take more ammo.

Edited by Christopher Dayson, 05 May 2012 - 05:22 AM.

[GrizzlyViking]

If economics were the only variable involved in weapon choices economics would be more relevant, but the original question does not consider terrain, heat, role, etc.

[Cifu]

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 05:18 AM, said:

The balance is there. 4 ML's is 12 heat vs 7 heat of the AC 20. 4 ML's do not put all that damage in the same location like an AC 20 does.

The 4x MLAS do the same amount of damage. Same location or not.

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 05:18 AM, said:

4 ML's also are DoT and not practically instant application like an AC 20. 4 ML's do not have the same in game physics effect as an AC 20 impact does.

The Balance Is There.

You are a DEV to know what kind of balance in the game? I perhaps miss something, but in one time you argoue with the TT rules, next time use the MWO, but nor you, nor i can do exatcly how tha game balance is working.

Saying the "balance is there" in such situation i believe is faulty...

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 05:18 AM, said:

You're trying to build an arguement without looking at /everything/. You're using only the parts that support your arguement and not the full picture.

I use only the TT rules about the argument. If you got the full picture in the MWO, please share with us.

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 05:18 AM, said:

If you feel that 4 ML's is superior to an AC 20, nobody's stopping you from using them, but those people who absolutely must kill every last mother *censored* in the room? Accept no substitute.

Actually the min/maxing is working almost all PVP game, and take your bet: there will be working in MWO too...

[Sassori]

Ok you want to use TT rules only? AC 20, 1 shot, 1 hit, 1 miss. 4 ML's, 4 shots, 4 chances to hit or miss, creating a spread of 0, 5, 10, 15, or 20 damage. Those 4 shots will hit (most likely) 4 different locations creating light damage to even the smallest mech unless hitting a rifleman in the back I guess.

An AC 20 when it hits will do /20/ damage to a single location, ripping through all but the heaviest armor and doing internal damage in one hit. On some mech's it's literally game over unless it clips an arm, then you're only mostly screwed. If the medium laser was so overpowered nobody would use anything but. Ever. Yet that's not the case in any game I've played. Sure, there are the occasional mech with a bunch of small/medium lasers, they're usually small fast mechs that can make sure they get into range to use them.

Against a small fast mech 4 medium lasers isn't as scary as an AC 20 because out of those 4 medium lasers, 2 are going to hit, maybe 3, and the damage will be scattered to separate hit locations. It's still scary, but not /as/ scary because in one shot chances are you're not getting a torso cored, or losing a leg, or getting your head blown off.

Is 4 Medium Lasers better than an AC 20? Situationally yes. Situationally no. This is called Balance.

As for your comment about what is in game: Watch the video's. Lasers apply damage in a different fashion than ballistics do.

[EDMW CSN]

@ christoper, the med lasers and AC20 comparison is poor due to the recent changes of lasers being DOT and convergence accuracy issues. So we will use PPCs to AC-10s instead.


AC-10 boat
10 base heat sinks = 0 weight.
2 AC-10s = 24 tons
4 tons of ammo
Total = 28 tons of gear
Total heat capacity = 8/10 (assuming running generates heat)
Flaws = ammo goes boom and capable of being depleted.

PPC boat
10 base heat sinks = 0 weight
2 PPCs = 14 tons
Extra heatsinks = 12 tons
Total tonnage = 26 tons
Total heat capacity = 22/22 (assuming running generates heat)
Flaws = Min range

Advantage still leaning towards the PPC. Especially once you factor in ammo cost. Even with 20 reloads, the AC mech will labour his shots very soon, especially if ACs are going to fire faster.

A cunning PPC boat might not even lose a heatsink in most battles while ammo will definitely go fast. Overtime the AC will be extremely costly due to unkeep alone, so might as well make them worth the C-bill. By making ACs fire a lot faster than PPCs.


Things get even worse shape for the AC if you wanna compare them to PPCs with double heatsinks. LB-10x is not considered a replacement yet because the devs have not revealed whether selectable ammo types are in, hence by default they are scatter shot.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 May 2012 - 10:34 AM.

[Sassori]

A cunning AC user won't expend all their ammo and run it dry in three seconds either.

We cannot know what 'upkeep' costs will be associated with PPC's and other Energy Weapons yet either as recalibrating ppc's could cost as much or more than ammo does, we simply don't know (So that's a non-issue).

Now let's extrapolate on your example some:

2 AC-10's + zero heat sinks is Heat -2 (assuming running), weights 28 tons and it takes up 14 criticals + 4 for ammo (4 tons) = 18 criticals total.

2 PPC's + 12 Heat Sinks is Heat 0, weights 26 tons, and takes up 6 Criticals (For PPC's) + 12 Criticals (For Heat Sinks) = 20 criticals total.

Advantage to the AC's as I've got 2 criticals /and/ 2 additional heat to burn off before I even /need/ additional heat sinks. With the PPC's to even get to the same heat level (-2) I need to add 2 more tons of Heat Sinks, which uses 2 more criticals. So the payoff is that as an AutoCannon I0 user I get more criticals to put more weapons into.

It's a balancing act. AC's do comparable damage to energy weapons (Or better) but weigh more and (overall) take less space if it's a balanced build.

This allows you to build a more well rounded mech at the heavier weight classes. It's all about total offense, what weight is available, and the like.

If I am building a 30 ton mech, a large laser is awesome, 8 heat, 8 damage, 5 tons, I can run and fire that all day long with stock 10 heat sinks and still have room for armor. It's a balancing act, the heavier you get mech wise, the more effective ballistics are overall as tonnage increases but critical slots remain the same.

Unless you're not caring about heat neutrality at all. The Awesome gives up quite a bit for it's 3 ppc's. A single small laser for close in weapon, 3/5 movement, it's a sitting duck, a jenner gets behind an awesome and stays there and it's just /done/. Even worse if a griffin got back there.

Got to look at the whole picture before saying anything is 'better' or 'imbalanced' because it's all situational. Sometimes one weapon is better, just like sometimes a scout is better than another Atlas.

[EDMW CSN]

Similarly a jenner that switches out its meds for flamers will have the ac boat kissing the ceiling real fast due to explosive ammo. It has 4 energy hardpoints after all.

But we will see how the devs handle this. If energy weapons are costly to maintain as well there should not be an issue wise for the economy.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 May 2012 - 11:01 AM.

[Sassori]

Flamers generate more heat in /you/ than they do in the enemy.

Flamer does EITHER 2 Heat OR 2 Damage to the Enemy while generating 3 Heat to you.

Now ammo can /maybe/ explode at 19 heat (at a 4+ on 2d6). That's /10 flamers/ to even have a /chance/ of igniting your ammo. 12 Flamers get you a 57.7% chance of ammo explosion or so. Takes 14 Flamers (all hitting at once) to get an 8+ on 2d6 to explode.

I posit that given the range a flamer has to be in, and the fact that you shouldn't be alone in a mech (unless you're a scout, and a scout isn't likely to be carrying an AC-10 anyways) regardless, flamers really aren't as scary as people think. Given how easy it is to run heat neutral with AC's anyways.

[Yeach]

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

Now let's extrapolate on your example some:

2 AC-10's + zero heat sinks is Heat -2 (assuming running), weights 28 tons and it takes up 14 criticals + 4 for ammo (4 tons) = 18 criticals total.

2 PPC's + 12 Heat Sinks is Heat 0, weights 26 tons, and takes up 6 Criticals (For PPC's) + 12 Criticals (For Heat Sinks) = 20 criticals total.

Advantage to the AC's as I've got 2 criticals /and/ 2 additional heat to burn off before I even /need/ additional heat sinks. With the PPC's to even get to the same heat level (-2) I need to add 2 more tons of Heat Sinks, which uses 2 more criticals. So the payoff is that as an AutoCannon I0 user I get more criticals to put more weapons into.

It's a balancing act. AC's do comparable damage to energy weapons (Or better) but weigh more and (overall) take less space if it's a balanced build.

This allows you to build a more well rounded mech at the heavier weight classes. It's all about total offense, what weight is available, and the like.

I believe the 2 "extra" criticals would be used up for CASE.
AC10 to PPC is totally comparable with the exception of costs if you go by TT C-bill values

More discussion of AC10 vs PPC here
http://mwomercs.com/...her-trade-offs/

Edited by Yeach, 05 May 2012 - 12:43 PM.

[Sassori]

CASE is entirely optional in the inner sphere. It's not necessary and in the Clan's it's automatically assumed to be present and takes up /zero/ criticals, CASE does not influence this example in any way, shape, or form as CASE on Gauss Rifle Ammo is about worthless.

[William Petersen]

Yeach, on 05 May 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

I believe the 2 "extra" criticals would be used up for CASE.
AC10 to PPC is totally comparable with the exception of costs if you go by TT C-bill values

More discussion of AC10 vs PPC here
http://mwomercs.com/...her-trade-offs/

Actually, unless you're putting your ammo in multiple locations (why would you do that? O.o), you'd only need 1 critical for CASE... <.<

[Steel Talon]

What about penetration, if not reactive, armor is less effective vs HEAT/HEAP projectiles

[AlphaKale]

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 03:58 AM, said:

I find it amusing that so many people are so concerned with DPS and min-maxing and (of all things) REAL WORLD PHYSICS in an obviously fictional setting.

Hmm... a big part of this is suspension of disbelief for the players. If things don't behave at least vaguely close to the way the real world around us works then it can spoil the immersion effect of the game. That said, MW already takes some liberties with this for the sake of awesome; for instance in a less forgiving universe most of the weapons used would be able to hit targets many kilometers away. This would make for really boring combat though, so the TT canon uses the fiction that targeting systems suck due to the dark ages so you HAVE to get close-in to hit anything. The Devs have to find a balance between keeping it awesome while not triggering any disbelief responses from the players.

Christopher Dayson, on 05 May 2012 - 03:58 AM, said:

The balance is already there, ballistics don't need to do more damage than they already do. They don't need to recycle three times as fast as a PPC or anything else. This kind of thinking is faulty and based on an old iteration and system no longer in use.

I think rate of fire can definitely be tweaked on ballistic weapons; you will just run out of ammo faster that way.

[EDMW CSN]

AlphaKale, on 05 May 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

Hmm... a big part of this is suspension of disbelief for the players. If things don't behave at least vaguely close to the way the real world around us works then it can spoil the immersion effect of the game. That said, MW already takes some liberties with this for the sake of awesome; for instance in a less forgiving universe most of the weapons used would be able to hit targets many kilometers away. This would make for really boring combat though, so the TT canon uses the fiction that targeting systems suck due to the dark ages so you HAVE to get close-in to hit anything. The Devs have to find a balance between keeping it awesome while not triggering any disbelief responses from the players.

I think rate of fire can definitely be tweaked on ballistic weapons; you will just run out of ammo faster that way.

Actually the devs could if they wanted. Bring AT2 ranges into play, have mechs sniping AC-20s at 4.5km and harassers taking nearly an eternity to cross 11km to knock out a gauss sniper. That would be uber boring though.

As for why ACs need to be boosted, it still depends on maintenance of energy weapons. If PPC cost as much if not more than the AC-10 to be maintained, then i believe there is balance. Because at it's stands an AC/10 cost 200K C-bills, same as a PPC and the player on minimum will bring 20 reloads. Many even 30. That is another 12K to 18K spent on ammo that can explode right there.

And this does not take into account of LB-10X autocannons.... Where 1 ton of cluster ammo cost a cool 20k C-bills. And the weapon itself is 400K C-bills. More expensive than even the vaunted ERPPC.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 May 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[LackofCertainty]

Cifu, on 05 May 2012 - 05:10 AM, said:

An AC/20 w/ 1 ton of reload have:

+6 tons
+2 criticals
and only 5 shoots

against 4x MLAS and 5x HS.

So, please, say again: the balance is already there, and this way of thinking is faulty...

The AC 20 isn't meant to be very efficient, it's meant to be a 20 damage slug that will outright kill or dismember most targets it hits. It is a "pop around the corner and make a giant hole where that medium mech's CT used to be" gun. In MWO, this can be more mitigated by having an FPS control system. In TT your 4 ML hit random rolled spots and are much less effective in quickly crippling an enemy mech.

However, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the AC 20 also has a different important advantage to consider in MWO. Hardpoints. You've used 4 energy hardpoints to get something that is -barely- superior to what you can get in 1 ballistic hardpoint. If you want to compare a more balanced example for MWO, you have to compare 1 hardpoint to 1 hardpoint. Obviously a comparision between 1 ML vs. 1 AC 20 gives the whole scenario a diffferent light.

In general, I think that your arguement has a couple holes in it whether talking about TT or MWO. *shrug* I'm a big fan of lasers, myself, but I sure as hell respect the AC 20 as a scary weapon.

One last afterthought on AC 20 vs. 4 ML's. AC's cause shake and possible knockdown on the target. ML's not so much.

Edit: apparently the filter think's I'm trying to say a naughty word, if I type "4 ML's" followed by "hit." : P

Big edit: Made another post, then realized no one had posted since this one. >_>

[EDMW]CSN, on 05 May 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

@ christoper, the med lasers and AC20 comparison is poor due to the recent changes of lasers being DOT and convergence accuracy issues. So we will use PPCs to AC-10s instead.


AC-10 boat
10 base heat sinks = 0 weight.
2 AC-10s = 24 tons
4 tons of ammo
Total = 28 tons of gear
Total heat capacity = 8/10 (assuming running generates heat)
Flaws = ammo goes boom and capable of being depleted.

PPC boat
10 base heat sinks = 0 weight
2 PPCs = 14 tons
Extra heatsinks = 12 tons
Total tonnage = 26 tons
Total heat capacity = 22/22 (assuming running generates heat)
Flaws = Min range

Advantage still leaning towards the PPC. Especially once you factor in ammo cost. Even with 20 reloads, the AC mech will labour his shots very soon, especially if ACs are going to fire faster.

You're comparing an AC boat that's runing ice cold to a PPC boat that's running lukewarm, which is unfair, unless you list it as a positive. The AC boat has the spare heat to throw on a couple more continuously operating weapons. Or, if all of your free 10 heatsinks don't fit in the engine, then you could save crits by dropping it down to 8.

More realistically, this boat in question could be modified to stop being a pure boat, and end up better in every way.

AC 10 -and- PPC Boat
10 base heat sinks = 0 weight
1 PPC = 7 tons
1 AC 10 = 12 tons
3 tons of ammo
Extra heatsinks = 5 tons
Total tonnage = 27
Total heat capacity = 15/15 (assuming running generates heat)

Advantage =
More ammo than AC boat = longer time to depletion.
Energy weapon backup even if you do run dry
Varied weapons mean it's not helpless at min range like the PPC Boat.

Flaws =
Ammo goes boom
Different weaponry means that it needs a minimal amount of skill instead of being an Alpha-strike boat that a toddler could pilot. (not really a concern, imo, because even a mouse has 2 buttons at least)


This is one of those situations where I think the game is working as intended. PPC's (and lasers) are high heat, low tonnage/crits. AC's are High weight, high tonnage/crits, low heat. They're the bestest of friends if you put them together.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 05 May 2012 - 08:39 PM.

[Terick]

Cifu, on 05 May 2012 - 05:10 AM, said:

An AC/20 w/ 1 ton of reload have:

+6 tons
+2 criticals
and only 5 shoots

against 4x MLAS and 5x HS.

So, please, say again: the balance is already there, and this way of thinking is faulty...

No, AC/20 is 14 tons and take up 10 crit slots for the gun and each ton of ammo is one ton and one crit extra. The MLs take up one slot each, so the MLs and heatsinks take up less space and tonnage then an AC/20 with ammo.

[Owl Cutter]

Regarding suspension of disbelief, it gets really sticky really fast when a lot of people have different beliefs regarding what is and is not realistic due to differing levels of familiarity with relevant parts of reality. To borrow from TVTropes, Reality is unrealistic. Since it might help some of you, I think the very short ranges were first canonically handwaved, even before the Guardian suite and all the stuff it works on, with something about signal warfare advancements showing a tendency of it being easier to mess things up than keep them functioning, and increasingly so as things get more complex, so the modern battlefield is so saturated with countermeasures that visual tracking ends up being the most reliable means left. (That extremely hostile environment is also used, though to my knowledge not canonically, to explain the huge mass and bulk of C3 gear and the fact that their capability is not standard for Battlemechs.) This came with the additional disclaimer that everything was an abstraction not to be taken literally, for extra redundancy. My own personal tendency is to see these odd scales, including "FASAnomics," tiny industrial output for whole worlds and tiny armies for whole interstellar nations, the same way I see blatantly unrealistic styles like that of Aeon Flux, "chibi," anything directed by Quentin Tarantino, any non-drama anime, (and probably a lot of "serious" ones too, anyway) etc. That is, as stylistic aspects that shouldn't be taken literally.

Comparing the AC/20 to a quartet of Medium Lasers looks very, very wrong to me. Total damage and range is a silly standard of comparison when they apply that damage in wildly different ways and have wildly different costs. First, effects: As noted, in the TT game having all of that damage be applied to the same place is a huge advantage and almost guarantees that if you hit, it is going to have a hugely dramatic effect immediately. It also forces a PSR on its own, no need to hit with other weapons in the same turn. A quartet of Medium Lasers OTOH has a much, much lower chance to deal full damage because you have to sucessfully hit four times. This is about evenly balanced with the fact that you have a decreased chance to deal no damage since you have to miss four times- the average damage ends up being the same, but PSRs are rare instead of common. In MWO, it looks like lasers will be dealing damage over time and I'm sure hoping they will be hitscan weapons and that autocannon are not, so using that 20 damage as a standard of comparison makes about as much sense as comparing a handgun to a 12 ga shotgun because they have similar magazine capacity, or to a machine gun whose bore diameter is similar just because of that. That number simply does not reliably correlate with effectiveness or desirability with such a huge range of variance from other factors.
Second, costs: the AC/20 is stupendously massive, as is its ammo. If you allocate 15 volleys' worth of ammo, (very heavy for a one-off battle, but appropriate for a campaign) the system masses as much as SIX Medium Lasers with enough heat sinks to make up the difference. The lasers still might not be as threatening as an AC/20 against most targets, but you can fire them (or any portion of them, even!) at targets you only have a slim chance of hitting without having to be wasteful of ammo. Additionally, a dramatically larger portion of that cost is in heat sinks, which translates to a huge mass savings if you are going for a bracket fire setup since heat sinks are shared between batteries.

If you absolutely must compare apples to oranges, at least compare similar weights of them; 6 Medium Lasers to 1 AC/20 is the closest trade in most cases; drop a ton of ammo for a short one-off battle comparison, and you get a single point of heat advantage over the lasers for the same tonnage, which is easy enough to deal with in BT by holding fire on just one laser every third turn, (so you lose 1/18 of your laser output) and in any MW game by just firing a wee bit less enthusiastically.

I have come to think the more popular PPC vs. AC/10 comparison might make more sense, since the minimum range vs. shorter ranges is much less of a big deal and the mounting costs, if we're going with 10 rounds of ammo, differ by 1 ton in favour of the PPC and 2 crit slots in favour of the AC. I would like to add that the Large Laser is much lighter, but some consider it a valid alternative to both the AC/10 and PPC...