115 replies to this topic

[Squigles]

Christopher Dayson, on 26 May 2012 - 10:50 AM, said:

The only definitive rules for the weapons we have is the Table Top really. That's what I'm going by. Recycle mechanics of any sort should not increase or decrease a weapons effectiveness or damage over time otherwise it upsets balance completely. The role an AC2 fills is not one that is useful for this specific theater but it has it's uses in TT against Aerospace fighters.

At 6 tons and 2 damage with 45 shots per ton, you can fit 2 of them into a single gauss rifle. If the tech level is there, then a Light Gauss is even /better/ as it has /more/ range than an AC2, with 4 times the damage.

So with what information we have available, the AC 2 is practically worthless.



P.S. You're not getting under my skin, I'm just trying to be helpful. If after all of this you still want to waste 7 tons on 2 damage... well that's on you. I'll be satisfied with the original gauss.

To be fair, we can't assume precisely what version of table top rules are used for every little thing, and if you go by solaris rules, the AC/2 can be fired 3 times for every gauss rifle shot, bringing the total damage over time by weight much closer together for the 2 weapon types.

Reference: Solaris VII The Game World [Game master's book] Page 51

[Sassori]

If the rate of fire is altered, so to must the heat and damage be altered or else things get out of balance. That simple. Comparatively an AC 2 should do 2 points of damage per ten seconds and the gauss rifle should do 15. If the AC 2 does 8 damage in 10 seconds (Arbitrary made up number) then the Gauss Rifle should do 60 in ten seconds to be comparable.

Once refire rates start being tweaked then everything needs to be adjusted to be comparable or there is no point in using TT as a basis for anything, which is something they /are/ doing. TT is the base. So a PPC needs to be 5 times stronger than an AC 2 for example.

So trying to count on Rate of Fire changes to make something that was one of the weakest weapons 'uber' is the absolute /wrong/ way to go about adjusting the game for real time fps combat. If all of the sudden the AC2 starts pouring out stupid amounts of damage, at that range, then it clearly becomes the 'uber' weapon and that's all we'll see.

Balance must be maintained.

Solaris VII rules are completely optional and not standard TT rules, at all.

EDIT: If all weapons become homogenized to do the same damage per second overall, then there's really no point in even having a variety of weapons as whichever weapon has the best range, wins.

Edited by Christopher Dayson, 26 May 2012 - 11:12 AM.

[SideSt3p]

Nice find!

[Redshift2k5]

The AC/2 can be buffed without making it "stupid amounts of damage" or "uber". The TT is great but it's not perfect.

[Major Bill Curtis]

UnLimiTeD, on 26 May 2012 - 03:48 AM, said:

Wait.
I'm not too involved in the background, but isn't the K a 3050's variant?

Yes, it comes out with Combine forces shortly after the Clan invasion. The tech for it is all there in 3049.

[Squigles]

Christopher Dayson, on 26 May 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Solaris VII rules are completely optional and not standard TT rules, at all.

Damage transfer is also standard, armor/internals not being doubled isn't standard. As I said before, we can't "assume" what rules, from what sources will be used, or what rules will be stricken from existence entirely. The fact is that Solaris rules, which include a RoF statistic are much more easily translatable to a real time mech game then the basic TT rules. If they'll base weapons off of those rules is entirely up in the air, no one knows, but you can't disregard them just because they're not standard.

[Sassori]

Redshift2k5, on 26 May 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

The AC/2 can be buffed without making it "stupid amounts of damage" or "uber". The TT is great but it's not perfect.

How? Explain to me how you buff the AC 2 without making the AC 5 pointless or any other weapon completely pointless. There's a fine balance already in place between weight, tonnage, critical slots, and so on and so forth. Adjusting one means screwing with something else.

The AC 2 is a perfectly functioning weapon, it's just stupid to take if you have the weight /and/ the crits to take a gauss rifle instead. Especially on a slow moving mech that cannot control the range of the engagement.

Take 4 AC-2's, that's 24 tons, 1 ton of ammo for each weapon brings us to 28 tons. You can /easily/ fit that on a 55-65 ton mech and get /way better/ mobility so you can control the range. You also have 4 AC 2's adding up to 8 damage, which can be significant and you'd never ever overheat with 4 AC2's so you don't have to worry about additional heat sinks. AC2's are fine weapons when used intelligently, on an Atlas with 3/5 movement, in the place of a gauss rifle, is not intelligently.

[OcO]

If you guys really want to argue which is better between an AC2 and Gauss could you start another thread about it please. This thread has been completely derailed by this argument which doesn't have a single correct answer cause its a matter of preference/playstyle.

I'm personally much more interested in what seeing the -K variant in atm could mean overall.

For example...having this variant officially released in 3050 but seeing it now since all the components required are already available means we could be seeing many other later year variants if the needed parts are already available.

Also it appears quite possible that you can not upgrade just any mech's engine to a XL engine and that those will be variant specific since the -D and -K have basically the same loadouts and the engine is the only real difference.

[Squigles]

OcO, on 26 May 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:

If you guys really want to argue which is better between an AC2 and Gauss could you start another thread about it please. This thread has been completely derailed by this argument which doesn't have a single correct answer cause its a matter of preference/playstyle.

I'm personally much more interested in what seeing the -K variant in atm could mean overall.

For example...having this variant officially released in 3050 but seeing it now since all the components required are already available means we could be seeing many other later year variants if the needed parts are already available.

Also it appears quite possible that you can not upgrade just any mech's engine to a XL engine and that those will be variant specific since the -D and -K have basically the same loadouts and the engine is the only real difference.

The 7K is actually a 3048 mech, not 3050, it was just first shown in the 3050 TRO. Based on the starting date of the game, I would surmise that we could see the AS7-D (2755), AS7-K (3048), and AS7-S (3049), although I find the latter highly unlikely as it incorporates rear firing weapons.

[William Petersen]

OcO, on 26 May 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:

Also it appears quite possible that you can not upgrade just any mech's engine to a XL engine and that those will be variant specific since the -D and -K have basically the same loadouts and the engine is the only real difference.

We also know through a slip-of-the-editing that the JR7-F is in the game along with the originally revealed JR7-D. The only difference between the two canon variants being the SRM launcher and ammo traded for armour.

The difference comes in unused hard points.


EDIT:

Squigles, on 26 May 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

The 7K is actually a 3048 mech, not 3050, it was just first shown in the 3050 TRO. Based on the starting date of the game, I would surmise that we could see the AS7-D (2755), AS7-K (3048), and AS7-S (3049), although I find the latter highly unlikely as it incorporates rear firing weapons.

Both the AS7-D and AS7-K have 2 rear-facing MLas. So does the CN9-A. They're simply made forward-facing for implementation into MWO.


EDIT 2: I derped. >.< I meant that the CN9-A has *one* rear-facing MLas, not two. It mounts two total. I know this, I just forgot to specify and my phrasing implies a falsity.

Edited by William Petersen, 26 May 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[OcO]

Squigles, on 26 May 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

The 7K is actually a 3048 mech, not 3050, it was just first shown in the 3050 TRO. Based on the starting date of the game, I would surmise that we could see the AS7-D (2755), AS7-K (3048), and AS7-S (3049), although I find the latter highly unlikely as it incorporates rear firing weapons.

TY for that did not know the -K was actually 3048 since Sarna lists it as 3050.

Yes William it is kinda hard to be sure on differences atm since we can't see what additional hardpoints may be in place but not used.

[William Petersen]

OcO, on 26 May 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

TY for that did not know the -K was actually 3048 since Sarna lists it as 3050.

Yes William it is kinda hard to be sure on differences atm since we can't see what additional hardpoints may be in place but not used.

Yup, I know. =) I wasn't faulting, was explaining.

I find it a source of great frustration: not knowing all the hard point lay outs. However, I suspect the reason for this is that it is still something upon which they are iterating to try to get "just right" before they give us ravenous masses information to complain about and call overpowered. XD

[OcO]

William Petersen, on 26 May 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

Yup, I know. =) I wasn't faulting, was explaining.

I find it a source of great frustration: not knowing all the hard point lay outs. However, I suspect the reason for this is that it is still something upon which they are iterating to try to get "just right" before they give us ravenous masses information to complain about and call overpowered. XD

Lol I'm right there with ya on the frustration. I already know I'll be piloting an Atlas but can't really plan out what I want to do to it yet since we don't really know the hardpoint layouts.

[Squigles]

William Petersen, on 26 May 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

EDIT:


Both the AS7-D and AS7-K have 2 rear-facing MLas. So does the CN9-A. They're simply made forward-facing for implementation into MWO.

Great catch, can tell it's been awhile since I used either mech, lol. That being said, the -K has pulse lasers, rarw! Atleast this means we might see the -S though, which incorporated DBL Heatsinks as standard equipment, which could be a missile boaters dream as it would need to incorporate atleast 4 missile hardpoints in the LT to match the canon build.

[Gauge]

Christopher Dayson, on 26 May 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

How? Explain to me how you buff the AC 2 without making the AC 5 pointless or any other weapon completely pointless. There's a fine balance already in place between weight, tonnage, critical slots, and so on and so forth. Adjusting one means screwing with something else.

The AC 2 is a perfectly functioning weapon, it's just stupid to take if you have the weight /and/ the crits to take a gauss rifle instead. Especially on a slow moving mech that cannot control the range of the engagement.

Take 4 AC-2's, that's 24 tons, 1 ton of ammo for each weapon brings us to 28 tons. You can /easily/ fit that on a 55-65 ton mech and get /way better/ mobility so you can control the range. You also have 4 AC 2's adding up to 8 damage, which can be significant and you'd never ever overheat with 4 AC2's so you don't have to worry about additional heat sinks. AC2's are fine weapons when used intelligently, on an Atlas with 3/5 movement, in the place of a gauss rifle, is not intelligently.

The only comment I would make about buffing the AC2 is based off of something you've already pointed out, which is that their main use in the tabletop is as anti-aerospace. Having a game without aerospace fighters available already throws the balance off in a way by making the AC2 so much less useful, and I could understand if PGI wanted to tweak weapons to keep them competitive in an all Mech environment.

That being said, I'm not even going to touch HOW you would go about doing it without breaking everything else, because I'm just not familiar enough with the system. Just wanted to suggest a motivation for doing so.

[Orion Pirate]

Do not forget cost. How ever Cbills are going to work... You might WANT a Gauss, but all you can afford is an AC/2... A role of an AC/2 might be that it is affordable...

And I believe Ammo is going to play a huge role in this game... I know I will be considering it more then say in a TT game.

Edited by Orion Pirate, 26 May 2012 - 07:00 PM.

[EDMW CSN]

I see XL engine crits. A good sign

[Pvt Dancer]

Eh... the other big thing is that weapons can end up still doing damage after their max range. Right now a AC 5 at 18 hexs does not turn into a puff of smoke at 19 hexs. Devs have said damage will reduce pass max range but did not say the extended length and how much damage that is. So Guess what, your AC 2 has a even further range than 24 hexs, but at 2pts of damage, the drop off and extended range is probably steeper than say a AC 10 or AC 5. For example, that AC 5 might still be doing 2pts of damage at 24 hexs and both weapons might be doing 1pt of damage after that...the AC 2 might have a hex or two extra pass the AC 5.

All I am saying is that a AC 2 is even worse now due to the extended ranges but reduced damage of other weapons, specially other weapons like LRMs and Energy weapons. Please... keep using it if you want to. But it really is a weapon system you will have to /want/ to use. There is no real benifit to it, as you can not honestly claim range anymore.

As for the Atlas-K, yeah...why have the case in the torso with the Launchers when you have the ammo in the arms and legs?

[Gaius Cavadus]

1. It's AS7-K (and AS7-D); and
2. They didn't spell "Megadeth" correctly. Dave Mustaine and Dave Ellefson are disappointed

[Scrawny Cowboy]

Nice catch OP! This pretting much confirms the Dev's will be making the XL engine available in seperate variants.

As for my own feelings towards using a XL engine, I'd rather stick to the survivability of a standard engine (despite the weight) to match my brawler playstyle.