74 replies to this topic

[Orzorn]

Major Tom, on 09 May 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

To all those posters saying "t's a UAC/5", please post your source material (I am not saying it isn't and UAC/5 I just want to know the official source). This would be the first mech release that depicted a variant rather than the "prime"

I am also curious why an ultra (two shot) weapon has 3 barrels (as opposed to 1 or two).

http://mwomercs.com/...post__p__236282

Quote

it is the 3m

triple barreled weapon is the uac-5

From the artist himself.

[canned wolf]

mekredd, on 09 May 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

Are you people for real? This is the basic Cincada, that's 2 med. lasers and a small. There are no autocannons on that mech.

Jesus.

Some of us pay attention to detail. It's a 3M. Which means it should have CASE and a small pulse laser.

[Gun Bear]

Ignore this I was wrong.

Edited by Gun Bear, 09 May 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[Xanquil]

To be honest I have not seen the mech animated yet. If the barrels are fixed in place when fireing than I have no problem with it. But as soon as the barrels start a rotating it becomes a rotary ac.
In a game where we get most of our info about an enemy from what we see. it will be the little things that will make the difference. If the barrels rotate on an ultra ac5, and a rac5 than thay are visualy the same, which is why I said that it looked wrong. No one is going to count the spinning barrel in combat, just look to see if they are or are not spinning.
As a side note, Ultras always sound like they work closer to the osalating fire of a AAA gun.(2 or 4 barreled)

It is just that simple, RACs are called rotary for a reason.

[CaveMan]

mekredd, on 09 May 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

Are you people for real? This is the basic Cincada, that's 2 med. lasers and a small. There are no autocannons on that mech.

Jesus.

It's a CDA-3M, with the ultra/5, 2 medium lasers, and small pulse laser. Note the green lenses on either side of the torso and the red lens under the center torso. Medium lasers in MWO are green and small lasers are red. The weapon in the left torso is an autocannon. That's where the CDA-3M carries its uAC/5.

QED.

I don't like rotary barrels for ultra ACs either. Rotary ACs wouldn't be called "rotary" if there wasn't something special about them using multiple barrels.

Edited by CaveMan, 09 May 2012 - 01:44 PM.

[Sassori]

CaveMan, on 09 May 2012 - 01:42 PM, said:

It's a CDA-3M, with the ultra/5, 2 medium lasers, and small pulse laser. Note the green lenses on either side of the torso and the red lens under the center torso. Medium lasers in MWO are green and small lasers are red. The weapon in the left torso is an autocannon. That's where the CDA-3M carries its uAC/5.

QED.

I don't like rotary barrels for ultra ACs either. Rotary ACs wouldn't be called "rotary" if there wasn't something special about them using multiple barrels.

Depends on how fast the barrels rotate. A lot of autocanon's use magazines for their ammo, each magazine being an individual 'shot' or 'super fast burst' as it were. So I could see a UAC/5 having 3 barrels if it always had two magazines ready. Top barrel fires a magazine, it ca-chunks over to the next barrel and loaded magazine and fires while the third magazine is being reloaded the first barrel cools. After second barrel fires it chunks over to the third barrel and the first barrel is reloaded while the second barrel cools.

High rate of fire perhaps, but still not a rotary which is in essence a gatling gun.

Edited by Christopher Dayson, 09 May 2012 - 01:48 PM.

[CaveMan]

Christopher Dayson, on 09 May 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

Depends on how fast the barrels rotate. A lot of autocanon's use magazines for their ammo, each magazine being an individual 'shot' or 'super fast burst' as it were. So I could see a UAC/5 having 3 barrels if it always had two magazines ready. Top barrel fires a magazine, it ca-chunks over to the next barrel and loaded magazine and fires while the third magazine is being reloaded the first barrel cools. After second barrel fires it chunks over to the third barrel and the first barrel is reloaded while the second barrel cools.

High rate of fire perhaps, but still not a rotary which is in essence a gatling gun.

Sounds kind of like you're talking about a volley gun. Be kind of a strange way to assemble a weapon in the 31st century, but maybe because of lostech they can't build a powered autoloader that operates fast enough for sustained fire with one barrel.

[Sassori]

CaveMan, on 09 May 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Sounds kind of like you're talking about a volley gun. Be kind of a strange way to assemble a weapon in the 31st century, but maybe because of lostech they can't build a powered autoloader that operates fast enough for sustained fire with one barrel.

Considering that their targeting software isn't even as good as a modern mid-range gaming system, I'm not that surprised. They don't even have true lock on targeting capability with missiles. While their tech is better than ours in some amazing ways, their weaponry is very crude in a lot of ways going for sheer power over pin point accuracy in order to slag off the tons of armor mech's carry.

[canned wolf]

Xanquil, on 09 May 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

To be honest I have not seen the mech animated yet. If the barrels are fixed in place when fireing than I have no problem with it. But as soon as the barrels start a rotating it becomes a rotary ac.
In a game where we get most of our info about an enemy from what we see. it will be the little things that will make the difference. If the barrels rotate on an ultra ac5, and a rac5 than thay are visualy the same, which is why I said that it looked wrong. No one is going to count the spinning barrel in combat, just look to see if they are or are not spinning.
As a side note, Ultras always sound like they work closer to the osalating fire of a AAA gun.(2 or 4 barreled)

It is just that simple, RACs are called rotary for a reason.

The barrels spin, you can tell by the way it mates to the main chasis. It's not the devs fault that some of the in game equipment has conflicting descriptions. RAC's were a expansion on the rules for UAC's. Nothing new, just higher rates of fire and more chances to jam. If you need to be angry, be angry with the person who named them in the first place, thus implying all other AC's were non-rotary.

[Dark Puppy]

Exactly, calling it a Rotary was a misnomer. So realx guys calm the butt hurt over an artistic inturpratation of a weapon.

[Alex Iglesias]

it's an ultra ac 5

in battletech, acs are abstracted to all hell and back in terms of what the art implies, what the fluff implies, and what the rules imply.

And if you look at enough bt art you'll find that though all rotary acs have multiple barrel vulcan style assemblies, not all vulcan multiple barrel style assemblies are rotaries. The hunchback iic, predator and some others for example.

heck, the art for the clint features a triple barreled looking lbx ac, and those aren't even known for high rates of fire.

also vulcan guns just look cool, and give a nice little visual distinction

[El Death Smurf]

Maybe they were being loyal to the art inaccuracies of the original Cicada in their own special way...

"Though most of the artwork shows that the medium lasers are mounted in the Cicada's arms, according to the official record sheets and TRO: 3039 they are installed in the torso sides. It is unclear if this is intentional or an error that never was fixed."
- http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Cicada -

Edited by El Death Smurf, 09 May 2012 - 09:33 PM.

[UncleKulikov]

*guess not*.

Why use regular ACs when Ultras are available?

Edited by UncleKulikov, 09 May 2012 - 09:59 PM.

[Orzorn]

Alex Iglesias, on 09 May 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

it's an ultra ac 5

in battletech, acs are abstracted to all hell and back in terms of what the art implies, what the fluff implies, and what the rules imply.

And if you look at enough bt art you'll find that though all rotary acs have multiple barrel vulcan style assemblies, not all vulcan multiple barrel style assemblies are rotaries. The hunchback iic, predator and some others for example.

heck, the art for the clint features a triple barreled looking lbx ac, and those aren't even known for high rates of fire.

also vulcan guns just look cool, and give a nice little visual distinction

I'm just glad that you're representing ACs in different forms. Its much more fluffy than past games where all ACs were just long barrels. It was pretty boring and a really direct representation of the rules, rather than a good representation of the fluff. ACs were so damn abstract for so long that people have forgotten that, canonically, ACs can look like a huge variety of things. They aren't all just a single barrel with 4 different sizes. I'm happy you recognize that.

[tynaiden]

Thank you Alex Iglesias for adding to this.

So many people screaming over how barrels and loaders work in their mind or from other fantastical universes but how many actually worked on, in, and around large caliber projectile weapons? This is also another universe with it's own standards and interpretations of how things work. Drop the preconceived notions built from other games and fantasy works.

The general statement of "rotary cannon means only they should have revolving barrels";
'Scout' is a general term too but not an absolute. Case in point the Cicada that seems to revived this debate. So many sources put scouts as one of or the lightest definition of whatever is the main subject yet the Cicada is not so light or small.

In-line with Alex but to expand a little more;
While RACs may always have revolving barrels, that does not preclude other ACs from using them either.
Do a google search on the M197 mounted on the AH-1 Cobra helicopter (650 rounds/min) and compare to the GAU-8 of the A-10 Warthog (up to 4200 rounds/min, with adjustable RoF). Both have multiple, revolving barrels but a rather large disparity in firepower.
This may all come from the differences between "Vulcan" (which is a name for a single weapon family), rotary, gatling, and auto cannon but loosely intermingled across so much media. Let the studio with the IP rights and their selected artists to flesh out the finer details. Overall, everything from PGI and Alex released this far has exceeded all previous titles in the BT Universe and I only see it getting better.

[pursang]

UncleKulikov, on 09 May 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

*guess not*.

Why use regular ACs when Ultras are available?

Cost? Availability?

[Karl Streiger]

pursang, on 09 May 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

Cost? Availability?

special ammunition, can not jam, lower heat, lower weight, less crits

Sry have to ask...will the PPC Cicada be supported - not that i want to use it.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 09 May 2012 - 10:28 PM.

[Xanquil]

Alex Iglesias, on 09 May 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

it's an ultra ac 5

in battletech, acs are abstracted to all hell and back in terms of what the art implies, what the fluff implies, and what the rules imply.

And if you look at enough bt art you'll find that though all rotary acs have multiple barrel vulcan style assemblies, not all vulcan multiple barrel style assemblies are rotaries. The hunchback iic, predator and some others for example.

heck, the art for the clint features a triple barreled looking lbx ac, and those aren't even known for high rates of fire.

also vulcan guns just look cool, and give a nice little visual distinction

Thank you for bringing up the art that I was refering to. In the past AC have been depicted in a almost randum way, and usualy contrary to the rules. The only acs that are stated to have rotary barrels are the racs. The clint and hunchback IIC are good examples of bad art.
I acualy love what you have done with the redesign of the mechs. I also think that "vulcan guns just look cool, and give a nice little visual distinction" but it should be saved for the ones that are in the game.(ie RAC)
In TT the art can be ignored or used as a guidline, but in a computer game it is what you see that defined the item. An ac5 with rotating barrels is a rotery ac5.

[pursang]

Xanquil, on 10 May 2012 - 03:32 AM, said:

Thank you for bringing up the art that I was refering to. In the past AC have been depicted in a almost randum way, and usualy contrary to the rules. The only acs that are stated to have rotary barrels are the racs. The clint and hunchback IIC are good examples of bad art.
I acualy love what you have done with the redesign of the mechs. I also think that "vulcan guns just look cool, and give a nice little visual distinction" but it should be saved for the ones that are in the game.(ie RAC)
In TT the art can be ignored or used as a guidline, but in a computer game it is what you see that defined the item. An ac5 with rotating barrels is a rotery ac5.

Can you give concrete proof that states that ultra auto-cannons can't use rotating barrels?

[Karl Streiger]

pursang, on 10 May 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

Can you give concrete proof that states that ultra auto-cannons can't use rotating barrels?

I want to see the reference too.
A item is defined by how it works not by look.

Ultra ACs are referenced as smooth bore cannons with a modified loading mechanism. To have 3 barrels instead of 1 is in my eyes a modified loading mechanism.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 10 May 2012 - 03:57 AM.