116 replies to this topic

[hashinshin]

I don't really care to argue about whether or not Ballistics are in fact the worst. There are only two Ballistic weapons reasonably worth using in competitive mech, and those are the AC20 and Gauss. The Gauss is fine, the AC20 eeks by with usefulness.

Now you might be wondering: "What makes ballistics worse?" Well let me tell you: The MASSIVE weight combined with difficulty in use and ammo consumption.

1. Ballistics are heavy. Like, really ****** heavy. The offsets their "DPS" and and makes them difficult to use. 4 AC/2s will cost 24 tons, and likely 6 tons in ammo. The DPS per ton of many ballistics is pathetic. DPS of a medium laser is 1.67. Add in a heat sink to offset their heat and it's still 0.83 Damage per second per ton. (DPS/T) The DPS/T of an AC2 assuming only a SINGLE ton for ammo (~2 tons of ammo per AC2 is good) is... 0.28. Yeah. Medium laser + heat sink is 3x as much DPS/T as a AC2 + 1 ton ammo.

2. The lower level ballistics require 100% aim uptime. Instead of the "fire then forget" nature of Lasers you have to have your cursor over the opponent at 100% of the time. What's worse, the AC2 and AC5 still have travel time which means you have to aim in front of your opponent. What does this mean? Using lasers with AC2/AC5 is practically impossible. Where as SRMs and LRMs have lock on and therefore work fantastically with lasers the AC2 and AC5 basically can't use them.

2b. The counterplay that comes from 100% aim uptime is obvious. AC2 spammer on you? Swivel around. He's going to hit arms with many of his shots, and any shot on an arm is basically a shot deflected. People that know what they're doing can easily make the impressive 4 DPS of an AC2 a 2 or lower DPS on the area they're trying to hit just with swiveling. "Damage done" is not a very impressive stat when a good 50% of your shots went to areas you had no intention of ever finishing off.

3. The massive skill cap. Any person can hold the cursor slightly in front of an enemy (to compensate for lag) and get full hits with lasers. Very few people can use ballistics alone, and ballistics + lasers is a whole other thing. Even the best players will miss ballistic shots and make that ever so awesome looking DPS stat drop noticeably so. Even a 33% miss rate (hitting 2/3 of shots) will drop your DPS... by 33% (dur.) What's more is the stress of using ballistics + extra will cause you to miss even more shots.

4... Ammo. Explosions from ammo. Dying from ammo exploding. Running out of ammo. Ammo.

Due to these and more issues (but these being the most important) I suggest the following things. Assuming that Crit space, Damage, Range, and Weight is off limits due to Mechwarrior being based on the (flawed) BT rules then:

AC2: Ammo per ton increased to 100 from 75. This would reduce the "effective weight" of the AC2 and allow it to be used far more on different mechs. It would only maybe free up maybe 2 tons at most on even AC2 spammers, but that's a good start. A more powerful recommendation going past conversative changes would be to reduce the heat of the AC2 to 0.8 to allow it to also use fewer heat sinks, again reducing it's effective weight.

AC5: Refire rate reduced to 1.1. Just to match the UAC5. Seems ... well.... reasonable. I don't know who could argue against this. Might need a little more after this, might recommend increasing ammo per ton to 35 from 30. Would possibly effect the below change.

UAC5: Ammo per ton increased to 30 from 25. Just to match the AC5. Would reduce it's effective weight again a little bit. The UAC5 is decently good as is, just needs a little bump of help. Also, the JAMMING shot should always fire. You should ALWAYS get off the second shot. The jamming will happen, but the shot must fire. The entire intent of the second shot is when you're desperate, to jam AND not fire the shot is just a **** move.

AC10: Refire rate reduced to 2.5 from 3 seconds, ammo per ton increased to 20. Would increase it's DPS to 4 instead of 3.33. Would make it more comparable to the AC20 considering it only weights 2 tons less. The extra range and 2 tonnage lower cost would help offset the additional aim time required from a faster firing weapon (as well as being 20% DPS lower after buff.)

AC20: Ammo per ton increaesd to 8 from 7. Just a tiny little bump. A little "Thank you for putting down 16 tons on to a short range weapon."

Edited by hashinshin, 11 January 2013 - 04:26 PM.

[TurinAlexander]

I **** mechs with my dual AC/20s, but hey, if they devs want to make my build even more effective, I wouldn't argue against it.

[hashinshin]

TurinAlexander, on 11 January 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

I **** mechs with my dual AC/20s, but hey, if they devs want to make my build even more effective, I wouldn't argue against it.

The AC20 is largely fine as is, I just think it could get some tiny bumpage. The AC20 is really the only AC I'd argue is doing good.

[hashinshin]

BTW, the DPS/T/H (damage per second per ton per heat) of a medium laser is .2075. The DPS/T/H of an AC2 is still 0.28. However assuming a 33% miss rate and not even factoring in the ease of swiveling to ignore shots the AC2 comes in at 0.1848. Which is an 11% difference. If you factor in the ease of swiveling but also remember that the AC2 has longer range BUT remember the AC has ammo which can explode then you finally come to my end result: The AC2 needs a good 20%+ bump in power.

[HighlandCoo]

I stopped reading when you said you didn't want to argue (perhaps you meant "discuss"? Thats what the forum is for no?)

[hashinshin]

HighlandCoo, on 11 January 2013 - 04:15 PM, said:

I stopped reading when you said you didn't want to argue (perhaps you meant "discuss"? Thats what the forum is for no?)

The one truth of online forums: Somebody somewhere thinks you're wrong despite perfect math. Somebody somewhere just died to it and thinks it's OP. Somebody somewhere happened to just do good with it and thinks it's fine. Somebody somewhere just did bad with it and thinks it's bad. Etc. Etc. Forums are mostly a shouting contest.

[Ryjax]

I am primarily a ballistic user. I love them. I would say they do require a certain amount of skill to use based on the rubber banding/lag shield of the mech you're trying to shoot.

I agree that ballistics and lasers are not a good mix. My first real mech purchase was a K2 Catapult in which I tried to mix lasers and AC2s. That was very annoying having to twist different amounts to lead two different weapon types. Now I simply run one or the other usually. If I do mix them, like my LB10X K2 or my single AC20 K2, I mix slow ballistics with lasers so I have ample time to aim with each.

I think you have some good ideas, but honestly I love ballistics in this game and I am fine with them the way they are. I think the upcoming fixes to the netcode & lag performance will help ballistics a lot.

[rgreat]

In fact his points are valid, and even suggestions are well placed.

I support the OP.

[Mahws]

Well reasoned argument is well reasoned. Agree with all the balance suggestions.

[Joseph Mallan]

hashinshin, on 11 January 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

The one truth of online forums: Somebody somewhere thinks you're wrong despite perfect math. Somebody somewhere just died to it and thinks it's OP. Somebody somewhere happened to just do good with it and thinks it's fine. Somebody somewhere just did bad with it and thinks it's bad. Etc. Etc. Forums are mostly a shouting contest.

Now this I agree with.

[gamingogre]

I have found that ballistics just don't work right, but I believe this is a mechanic issue with the game itself. I miss a lot of shots in the point blank range. My cataphract with an AC/10 in each arm actually missed with a shot going on each side of the enemy mech, AT THE SAME TIME. I also have some crazy bullet paths when firing at long range with more than one autocannon in the arm. I am told the game auto corrects for range and it does this very poorly. I would prefer to control that myself, or at least be able to turn it on and off.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I disagree completely, in fact only AC I don't use is the AC5.
As heavy as AC's are, the benefit from reduced heat load more than makes up for it (with the exception of the AC2, which runs too hot). As for ammo, people tend to take a lot more ammo than they need, and fire more often than they should, just becuase there is a round in the chamber does mean you have to pull the trigger, line up your shots and make them count.

But I don't own stock in Ceres Metals, so by all means purchase whatever weapon your wallet and skill allow. However do not underestimate the value of the big guns.

[Garth Erlam]

I like your ideas, and have actually sent a list to design of weapon change ideas from the forums which include numbers that may not match, but are close to these.

[Norris J Packard]

Garth Erlam, on 11 January 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

I like your ideas, and have actually sent a list to design of weapon change ideas from the forums which include numbers that may not match, but are close to these.

Garth, any word on there ever being a Mech Pre-order system? I asked you about this a few months ago and even attached a mock up image along with a proposed system for it function under, and you told me you'd send it up the pipe.

[Yokaiko]

More ammo is good. A slightly increased fire rate on the AC5 and AC10 would be nice, I manage to wreck a fair number of mechs with both anyway. The AC20 and AC2 could use a bit of heat relief, other than that they are pretty good right now.

UACs are awesome in groups, if people think Ily is bad, wait will we get a Jager with no lower arm actuator. Quad UAC5s.....dakadakadakaHELLyes@!

I love ballistics

[hashinshin]

Yokaiko, on 11 January 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

More ammo is good. A slightly increased fire rate on the AC5 and AC10 would be nice, I manage to wreck a fair number of mechs with both anyway. The AC20 and AC2 could use a bit of heat relief, other than that they are pretty good right now.

UACs are awesome in groups, if people think Ily is bad, wait will we get a Jager with no lower arm actuator. Quad UAC5s.....dakadakadakaHELLyes@!

I love ballistics

Nothing in mechwarrior is BAD (okay flamers, PPCs, machine guns, and LBX are bad) but ballistics right now are "inferior."

[Protection]

In fairness, the AC/2 is about as close to fun and viable as it ever has been in any Mechwarrior game.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Garth Erlam, on 11 January 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

I like your ideas, and have actually sent a list to design of weapon change ideas from the forums which include numbers that may not match, but are close to these.

Would be nice also if the AC20 could spread critical slots to adjoining areas like they can in TT (I think.) No reason why Dragons and Centurions shouldn't be able to arm mount an AC20, it's not like those are OP mechs as they are.

[deforce]

your argument has a huge hole.... you left out most likely the WORST ballistic of all.... the dreaded most expensive LB pellet gun....i just walk up to LB users and watch as thier damage spreads over my entire mech.

[hashinshin]

Garth Erlam, on 11 January 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

I like your ideas, and have actually sent a list to design of weapon change ideas from the forums which include numbers that may not match, but are close to these.

I think I might've been a little more conservative in my suggestions than needed, but it'd be nice to get ballistics even a little better.