39 replies to this topic

[Ronstar]

I was in my Awe-8q and had it equiped with 6 ER PPC's playing Conquest on the Frozen City map against a fellow friend in Teamspeak. They wer all at theta cap point and he was in his Cataphract 2x with his back to me. I shot all 6 er ppcs from up on the ledge above theta and hit him square in the back center torso. His back center torso turned Red. It was the only part on his mech that was damaged. He lost one weapon and that was it. I said by all means you should be dead with that direct hit. I asked how much armor he had on the back in the center torso, he said twenty.

Yeah, PPC damage is fubared.

BTW, his mech was undamaged until I shot him.

Edited by Ronstar, 18 March 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[Syllogy]

If you hit in in the Rear CT, then you wouldn't have killed him.

The 2X has 26 armor stock in the Rear CT (60-26=34) and another 45 points of Structure (45-34=11), so Red was definitely the right answer.

However, PPC's have had issues with hit registration. Lately they have been fewer and fewer.

One of my main builds is a 6PPC Stalker, so I know exactly how your pain feels.

[Ronstar]

he had 20, not 26.. So it should be 5 left if anything, but what about engine damage? 3 hits to the engine should have killed him. And these are ER PPCs, dont they do 11 each?

NM they do 10 but do 11 heat. But still 5 points left and hes still alive? Does it leave the gryo or engine out of those for damage?

Edited by Ronstar, 18 March 2013 - 08:17 AM.

[stjobe]

At knife-fighting range, the whole torso of the other 'mech filling most of my windscreen, I fire the ERPPC of my ghetto Panther (COM-1D, ERPPC, ASRM-4) and... Nothing. No hit, no damage.

It happens way too often that the PPC bolt seems to just go through the target.

[WVAnonymous]

Seems like an easy thing to validate now that the proving grounds are up. Stock armor on stationary mechs.

[Ph30nix]

yea i can relate to this, my K2 ill have games in the 500+ range where ive spent the entire match peppering anything that moves with chain fire or ill have games where i do almost exactly the same thing yet my damage is 100-150....

i usualy just right it off as my failure and move on, but always have a nagging doubt that somethings up with my beloved PPC.

[Forestal]

Ronstar, on 18 March 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

he had 20, not 26.. So it should be 5 left if anything, but what about engine damage? 3 hits to the engine should have killed him. And these are ER PPCs, dont they do 11 each?

NM they do 10 but do 11 heat. But still 5 points left and hes still alive? Does it leave the gryo or engine out of those for damage?

Damage to equipment within the internal structure, or what are known as "critical hits", are "probabilistic"-- i.e. you have a CHANCE of making an ADDITIONAL "critical hit" on the equipment within every time you hit the internal structure (which is only possible when the armor has been "stripped away" or reduced to zero).

IOW, you do not hit the engine just because you are hitting the internal structure of the torso, you merely have a CHANCE of hitting the engine (or some other equipment housed therein)-- so it is perfectly possible to miss all your "critical hit" chances, and only destroy the the engine (or some other equipment housed therein) when you have finally destroyed the internal structure of the torso.

Edited by Forestal, 18 March 2013 - 08:37 AM.

[BlackWidow]

I concur. I have had MANY matches where PPC or ERPPC damage is NOT regeistering.

I run a Stalker with 4 ERPPC (or PPC sometimes) and have done THREE or more alpha strikes into the back of a variety of mechs and had them walk away with armor still intact. This should NOT be the case.

[Forestal]

Thontor, on 18 March 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

67 days since the last post.. Nice thread necro. I haven't noticed any issues with PPC damag.. Hit detection maybe... Make sure you go by whether your reticle turns red to determine if you hit or not... Until state-rewind goes in for travel time weapons, you can't trust what might look like a direct hit.

I take all this thread-necromancy as a sign that we have more new MWO players to educate-- and that it not a bad thing...

Thontor, on 18 March 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

^this

Also, currently even if you do critically hit an engine, it can't be disabled via critical hits.

Are you talking about the equipment housed within the mech having their own "health" or "hit-point" value-- so that it can take more than one single hit to destroy an engine?

[Trauglodyte]

There is a targetting bug (easily reproduced) that causes the PPC/ERPPC bolt to fly off in an odd direction if there is terrain within 90m that is blocking your fire.

Load up in Forrest Colony, move up to the small rock beyond the boxes at the lake side spawn point, put your cross hairs on the cell tower but only slightly above the rock, and fire. Your bolt SHOULD go straight to the tower but, instead, it'll cross up and to your left. I'll make a video of it and post it. But, this happens in a lot of maps and even occurs if a mech is too close to you. I've had this happen in Frozen City if a small building out crop is in my way or when I've run into a mech whose arm is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[SpiralRazor]

Lil Cthulhu, on 18 March 2013 - 07:43 AM, said:

Hopefully this will get fixed when they implement the state rewind for ballistics since the PPC is classed as such in terms of hit detection.

Zero to do with state rewind...everything to do with garbage interactions.

[GrimlockONE]

The only issues I have detected would be hit detection on light mechs at any distance. When lights close the gap it is simply a crap shoot on whether or not I will be dealing damage to them. Sometimes I get the hit, but it seems to do paltry damage compared to what it should be.

This is all while played the 3D POP-TART. Mechs from the other classes ex. Medium, Heavy, Assault do not have the issues mentioned above.

Edited by GrimlockONE, 18 March 2013 - 09:17 AM.

[Meanwhile On Namek]

Syllogy, on 18 March 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

If you hit in in the Rear CT, then you wouldn't have killed him.

The 2X has 26 armor stock in the Rear CT (60-26=34) and another 45 points of Structure (45-34=11), so Red was definitely the right answer.

However, PPC's have had issues with hit registration. Lately they have been fewer and fewer.

One of my main builds is a 6PPC Stalker, so I know exactly how your pain feels.

I have been on the receiving end of your stalker, it hurts, basically if you are light medium or heavy and you get hit by all 6 in the center torso its bye bye whatever mech gets hit. That was kinda cruel when you 6 ppc shot my commando in the head, but its cool you were like one of only 4 people in the past month that had the accuracy and skill to pull off a shot like that against my commando at that range. What was it like a 800 meter shot? You are a great shot and a great mech builder. I dunno if you are in a unit but I would serve you. You certainly earned my respect.

[NRP]

My PPC builds are still experiencing this weirdness.

[Zero Neutral]

I use ER-PPC consistently on my STK-3F, they are one of my current favorite weapon systems. My statistics are as follows:

ER PPC Matches: 105 Fired: 3,437 Hit: 2,135 Accuracy: 62.12% Time Equipped: 09:12:21 Damage: 21,630

This seems about right to me. I do not notice any problem with my shots.

One thing I think that people should be aware of is that State Rewind has not yet been implemented for any projectile based weapon systems. This can cause problems like what the OP has noticed.

Edited by Zero Neutral, 18 March 2013 - 10:04 AM.

[Circles End]

Since I am the OP of this topic I thought I had to do some investigating since my thread was necroed. I just took a match in my 8Q and I didn't have any issues here. Of course further testing will be needed by i don't feel that I've encountered any of those "dafuq?" moments since.... since the PPC heat reduction actually.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I used to see similar issues all the time, but since they changed the projectile speed to 2000m/s they are less frequent (although occassionally I notice a pass through shot).

Unfortunately weapon stats are not reliable since they do not identify damage spread across mutiple locations, although If it was possible to partically hit with a PPC (like a laser that doesn't stay on target) I would expect to see some reduced damage.

PPC is 6540 damage with 695 hits for 9.41 damage per hit, which could be accounted for by minium or maxium range.

ER PPC is 8917 damage with 861 hits for 10.36 damage per hit, which doesn't make sense for a weapon that only does a maximum of 10 damage.

[NRP]

Someone said the damage number includes crit damage, so that might explain why avg damage is higher than 10?

[Ghost_19Hz]

as long as i can remember, and i've been using PPC's since last summer, there is always a chance of shooting out a "ghost" PPC that does zero damage. Its gotten better over the patches and its been reported a number of times so we can only assume they are aware and working on it.

[Wintersdark]

My PPC's average out to 9.8 damage (ERPPC) and 8.3 damage (PPC), which is as expected given I fire at long and short (regular PPC) ranges frequently.

I know back before the heat mods, it very strongly appeared that stacked PPC's would sometimes register as a single PPC - that is, multiple PPC's in the same location, which when fired appear to be a single bolt.

Not so much since the heat mods. They've been working much better since then.