How about this: Changing ammo types on the Lb-10 changes the performance of the weapon. With cluster the weapon behaves currently (not talking about the shot pattern or anything, just the weapon), with slightly better performance than the AC/10. With solid shot, the damage stays at 10/shot, but the heat goes up to 3/shot (equal to AC/10) and the cooldown/reload goes up to 2.6/shot to 2.65/shot instead of 2.5/shot.
This would make the LB/10 in solid-shot mode inferior to the AC/10 in DPS output, 3.85 to 3.77 DPS vs 4.0 DPS, but in DPSpT the LB-10 still has a slight edge.
Basically I think we want to get the AC/10 and the LB10 to the point where you want to take the AC/10 if all you're going to use is solid shot... but if you want the flexibility of the cluster ammo option, the price is some tradeoff on the solid shot side. This is one of the few areas where a side-grade is possible, and maybe even preferrable, to the strict up/down-grade that normally happens with TL-2 weapons vs their TL-1 counterparts.
[Edit]
And for everyone who's saying the LB-10/x is supposed to be a shotgun, the description and the rules are at odds, because range had no factor in how many pellets hit the target... 2 pellets hitting a target at point blank range was just as likely as all 10 pellets hitting a target at extreme range.
This argued for either a very sophisticated variable choke on the weapon, or a "flak" type shell that fragmented in flight and scattered the pellets so that most would hit the target (if the pilot's aim was good), regardless of range. The rare instances in which the aim was "bad" but the shell still hit (meaning the cluster hit table roll was low) would result in very few pellets hitting the target. The order of operations that determined that was a bit backwards... but that's how it worked out.
Right now in MWO, the LB10 has a fixed choke, which means the spread is constant, and at extended range tends to be much more "annoyance" than "weapon."
Edited by Vapor Trail, 05 December 2012 - 10:42 PM.