34 replies to this topic

[Gevurah]

I'm always leery of posting something like this because it's purely based on my own experiences but here's what is going on here. I've been using my YLW and it's glass cannon AC/20 arm forever. It's reasonably effective when the thing isn't blown to pieces in the first 2 minutes of the match. However, it still takes considerable time to rear armor (probably due to that bugfix coming mid-feb) but also to strip exterior armor on a lot of mechs seems to take a while longer than you'd think 20 damage with 2x MPL should. Like 3-4 hits on a stalker's arm or LT/RT just to strip the outer armor. I'm pretty accurate with my fire so I usually am very good at hammering away at the same component. Regardless, I simply said "well, maybe I'm not doing something right." This goes double for lag-shielded lights who the ac-20 seemingly would hit clean and do nearly nil damage to.

However, consistently I've noticed that Gauss shots seem to do ridiculous damage proportionate to their "15" damage. This from the receiving end of having components destroyed near-instantly by 2xGauss shots. This also I accepted as simply being 'well they're really good shots'.

What started this whole experiment was a few nights ago on the 2x XP weekend I rolled out my dragon w/ XL engine in it. I took a single hit to the rear torso from a hunchback with a gauss. It was my right rear torso; I had waded into the battle undamaged and fresh thus I wasn't worried when I felt a few lasers hit. My rear armor was fine; exterior was yellow.

However I then was cored and blew up unexpectedly from the hunchie's first gauss strike. I looked at my readouts and was astonished to see that the exterior armor was in place in ALL of my mech's spots; but my right rear torso armor was missing. So in effect my core had been blown out by my armor was still intact. I wish they had an in game screenshot function

Is this a purposeful function of gauss? If so I'll shut up now - people are always going on about penetration but a search of the forums yielded nothing from devs saying that gauss did so.

That said, as an experiment I swapped my AC/20 for gauss last night on the YLW. The very first shot took a slightly injured hunchback's shoulder AND arm off in one hit. I was kind of astonished; so I continued playing another 20-30 games and here are my impressions:

1) damage to light mechs is unmistakably higher. In one game I was 'light swarmed' and killed three of them before being finished by the stalker who rolled up... and that was only because I ran out of gauss ammo! I have literally hundreds of games in the YLW without seeing a performance like that against lights.

2) long range damage is shockingly high for the gauss. I expected more drop off.

3) gauss component kills were vastly higher than ac20 kills.

4) Shot accuracy seemed better with the gauss. With the YLW the shots with the ac/20 were consistently off to the right by a large margin when turned/moving (which is to say all the time), ie they never went where the reticle/circle showed, even factoring bullet speed). vs the gauss which was remarkably consistent with the reticle.

I'm not sure if it's my imagination (I'll put that first since I'm dubious myself), a function of the gauss that I couldn't find, the gauss doing something wrong, or the ac/20 doing something wrong (or any combination of the above).

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks

[Alaric the Arcane]

Gauss is OP. PGI should nerf it.

[Gevurah]

Also one other thing - the gauss is VASTLY more survivable than the ac/20. I read up and saw others experienced this as well, spent a good hour or so reading up on crits so that makes more sense to me now but thought it was worth repeating.

Alaric the Arcane, on 22 January 2013 - 08:01 AM, said:

Gauss is OP. PGI should nerf it.

Honestly I don't think so. It functions how I'd expect a gauss to work. Though I'm not sure if this is by design or not. If anything I'd say buff the AC/20.

[Arjohan]

Well, I started to use an AC/10 instead of a Gauss in my D-DC build. I think, somehow, after this last patch the gauss damage had decreased. Well, maybe it's me or the game, but I can make more damage with AC/10 than Gauss.

[Team Leader]

Him, I dunno, I have never noticed this

[WhiteRabbit]

gevurah, on 22 January 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

SNIP
However, it still takes considerable time to rear armor (probably due to that bugfix coming mid-feb) but also to strip exterior armor on a lot of mechs seems to take a while longer than you'd think 20 damage with 2x MPL should. Like 3-4 hits on a stalker's arm or LT/RT just to strip the outer armor. I'm pretty accurate with my fire so I usually am very good at hammering away at the same component. Regardless, I simply said "well, maybe I'm not doing something right." This goes double for lag-shielded lights who the ac-20 seemingly would hit clean and do nearly nil damage to.

However, consistently I've noticed that Gauss shots seem to do ridiculous damage proportionate to their "15" damage. This from the receiving end of having components destroyed near-instantly by 2xGauss shots. This also I accepted as simply being 'well they're really good shots'.

SNIP

well 3-4 hits with the ac20 seem about right for a side torso or arm... the stalker has an arm armor of 46 (default) and 56 max.

[o0Marduk0o]

Ryon Kerensky, on 22 January 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

Well, I started to use an AC/10 instead of a Gauss in my D-DC build. I think, somehow, after this last patch the gauss damage had decreased. Well, maybe it's me or the game, but I can make more damage with AC/10 than Gauss.

AC10 does more dps than Gauss when all shots hit the target.

[Gevurah]

WhiteRabbit, on 22 January 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

well 3-4 hits with the ac20 seem about right for a side torso or arm... the stalker has an arm armor of 46 (default) and 56 max.

Right - including 2xMPL though? that's an additional 12 which can be fired readily with pinpoint accuracy.

[T0rmented]

if u take a shoulder you will always take the arm, how is the arm gonna be attached without a shoulder to bolt it on to your torso? Also bullet lagging behind your aim that is known as weapon convergence: point at something it takes time for the arm and torso to move to what you are pointing at and home in on the distance you are aiming for. Guass is a bit quicker than ac20 is.

Also when your shoulder was hit by guass from rear it could have caused a critical, setting off ammo or in one of your xl engine slots that caused a cataclysmic internal explosion

Edited by T0rmented, 22 January 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[T0rmented]

o0Marduk0o, on 22 January 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

AC10 does more dps than Gauss when all shots hit the target.

at a cost of range and heat

[Lancer Deistler]

The Gauss has a higher projectile speed if i remember correctly. Therefore it's a bit easier to hit the spots your aiming. While mastering the Atlas i used both AC/20 and Gauß. From my experience the AC/20 is good for closeup engadgements on heavy and assault class mechs, while the Gauss is more a sniper rifle, exactly as it should be. I definitely feel the 5 DMG difference in an Atlas vs. Atlas brawl. Also these high damage weapons aren't made for hunting lights. You can hit them, but that needs skill and sometimes you get a lucky shot or the light pilot is just stupid. I remember an AC/20 Raven (stupid build) on Caustic running from me. While nearly undamaged i shot at his legs with my lasers and then one shoted his merely damaged leg with my AC/20. Adjusted to his rear CT and finished him with a second shot.

Edited by Lancer Deistler, 22 January 2013 - 08:44 AM.

[Havyek]

I think something is wrong with the AC20 IMO.

Even if it's working as intended, IMO for the size and weight of it, it should be a more "brawler friendly" weapon in that it should have higher health and easily outlast a Gauss in terms of survivability.

The AC20 already has range and ammo shortages, it should have those trade offs rewarded with at least the survivability to use most of the ammo before you die. I've had my AC20 get destroyed after 1 salvo of LRMs hit me.

[Noth]

BDU Havoc, on 22 January 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

I think something is wrong with the AC20 IMO.

Even if it's working as intended, IMO for the size and weight of it, it should be a more "brawler friendly" weapon in that it should have higher health and easily outlast a Gauss in terms of survivability.

The AC20 already has range and ammo shortages, it should have those trade offs rewarded with at least the survivability to use most of the ammo before you die. I've had my AC20 get destroyed after 1 salvo of LRMs hit me.

AC20 does have more health than the GR (10 compared to 3). The issue comes down to the crit system. Due to the fact that the AC20 has more crit slots means it can be crit more often.

[Havyek]

T0rmented, on 22 January 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

Also bullet lagging behind your aim that is known as weapon convergence: point at something it takes time for the arm and torso to move to what you are pointing at and home in on the distance you are aiming for. Guass is a bit quicker than ac20 is.

Not entirely true. This is a known issue of the server side authentication. It gets most noticeable if you're moving at higher speeds. Circle one way and fire, there is a delay between the time you fire, and the time that the server is told that you fired.

T0rmented, on 22 January 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

Also when your shoulder was hit by guass from rear it could have caused a critical, setting off ammo or in one of your xl engine slots that caused a cataclysmic internal explosion

I think the rear internals are only 9 points, if you took even enough damage to turn the rear yellow/orange, a solid Gauss round would likely be enough damage to take out that torso, therefor destroying the XL engine, and ending your MW experience for that match.

[Budor]

I have over 300k + xp on the ylw. I think the gauss does what it should but theres so many things wrong with the ac20 (esp. when arm mounted).

- convergence issues
- fire delay
- dmg seems to not register or splash
- low ammo count per ton

[MustrumRidcully]

BDU Havoc, on 22 January 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

Not entirely true. This is a known issue of the server side authentication. It gets most noticeable if you're moving at higher speeds. Circle one way and fire, there is a delay between the time you fire, and the time that the server is told that you fired.


I think the rear internals are only 9 points, if you took even enough damage to turn the rear yellow/orange, a solid Gauss round would likely be enough damage to take out that torso, therefor destroying the XL engine, and ending your MW experience for that match.

There are no rear internals. Once the armor is gone, you hit the internals of the respective location. So if you hit the Center Torso in the Rear, it's Center Torso Internals.

[T0rmented]

BDU Havoc, on 22 January 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

Not entirely true. This is a known issue of the server side authentication. It gets most noticeable if you're moving at higher speeds. Circle one way and fire, there is a delay between the time you fire, and the time that the server is told that you fired.

What I said *is* entirely true, the server side authentication (SSA) is another issue, Delay between pulling trigger and round firing is SSA whereas shot lagging behing fast moving reticule is intended to be in the game and is known as convergence

[Magik0012]

T0rmented, on 22 January 2013 - 10:46 AM, said:

whereas shot lagging behing fast moving reticule is intended to be in the game and is known as convergence

That is lead, not convergence.


When you have a weapon on the left arm and a weapon on the right arm, the distance at which the projectiles impact the same spot is the Convergence distance.

*edit for spellding* ;-)

Edited by Magik0012, 22 January 2013 - 11:14 AM.

[T0rmented]

nope lead is shooting at a moving target and aiming in front of it so that you hit, he runs into your bullet, convergence is the weapon zero'ing in on the distance you are firing.

[Magik0012]

T0rmented, on 22 January 2013 - 01:51 PM, said:

convergence is the weapon zero'ing in on the distance you are firing.

Magik0012, on 22 January 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

the distance at which the projectiles impact the same spot is the Convergence distance.

I think we are saying the same thing. Sort of.

The problem is, in MWO (as I understand it), the weapons have a dynamic convergence setup, that is based on what is under the reticle at the moment you click to fire. Could be your target mech, or a building or that hill waaaaaaay out there. This makes it hard to lead your target and hit with multiple ballistic weapons that are mounted in different arms/torso locations because the convergence range will rarely sync up to your target range. If the convergence range was determined by your currently selected target, you could lead and hit with multiple ballistics. Again, assuming they are mounted in different locations and assuming you are shooting at your targeted mech instead of the raven that just ran into view.

For lasers it doesn't matter as you don't need to lead, so your reticle is (usually) on target and hence the convergence range is the same.