169 replies to this topic

[Anudiz]

They should seriously up Damage and range for this weapon.
Its fun to use, but definetely lacking.

Maybe 1.4 Damage per pellet
+ tighter grouping

So that 50% of your pellets hit a target at ~400m or ~500m

[Greg Djekow]

Once we get selectable ammo, there will be a place for both, the LBX10 and the AC10.

LBX gets Slugs + Cluster and is lighter
AC gets special ammo like ArmorPiercing, Precision (maybe faster travel speed?) and your all time favourite, the Standard with tracer rounds mixed in.

On a side note, I think all AC class weapons should get an ammo increase. we have double the armor compared to the TT. I'm not sure if structure points are doubled too, but getting #shots up to 1.75 to twice table to rate seems legit. ACs are allready very heavy compared to laser + HS. AC2 ammo is about right with 75 per bin, AC10 could use 2 more and AC20 one more round.

[RiceyFighter]

I think it just needs a weight reduction. Maybe 1 or 2 tons less. Makes them stack with better weapons.

[Roland]

Generally, you are not going to see weight changes of any weapons.

The reason is that it screws up stock configs... for instance, if you made an LBX10 weigh 2 tons less, than every stock config using the LBX10 ends up being 2 tons lighter than it should be.

Thus, most weapons modifications tend to focus on other aspects of the weapon, such as recycle time, heat, and damage.

In this case, I think that most AC weapons would benefit from having their damage increased, but especially the LBX10.

[Skyscream Sapphire]

SpiralRazor, on 18 February 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

ItsAPotato, on 18 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

The LBX is also an outstanding Gauss hunter. While I don't find it to crit any other weapon/equipment type any better than any other weapon, it DOES take out Gauss targets much faster.

That said, it definitely needs a price nerf, as 800k is a ridiculous price for the weapon.

It does not....because of the way critical damage works and the calculations involved.....

Anything except MGS and Flamers can take out a gauss faster then LBX10s.

Actually, it is the best gauss killer in the game. Let's all look at it in detail as it will help us understand a lot about the strengths of this weapon and others in critting.

First, one must understand the crit system in the game. To do this, read the excellent post by Selfish:
http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

Let's summarize the important points:

1) Every time damage is applied to an unarmored component of the mech, it has a cumulative chance of 42% of also doing that same damage (there are no multipliers...that's only the table for the future) to a piece of equipment in that section. This is known as a critical hit or crit in MW:O.

2) Every piece of equipment that can actually be destroyed has 10 hit points, with the exception of the Gauss Rifle which has 3.

So let's look at an example of an unarmored component with a gauss rifle. For simplicity, let's assume that is the only equipment in this component. Let us consider firing an AC/10 or an LB-10X into the component.

The AC/10 round has a 42% chance of critting the gauss rifle and will always destroy it if it does.

Each LB-10X round has a 42% chance of critting the gauss rifle and will do 1/3 of the damage necessary to destroy it when it does. However, we obviously plan to hit it with more than one round. To find out what the chance is that we will actually destroy the weapon, we need to look at a binomial probability with the special condition of each trial being independent (i.e. that fact that one pellet critting does not affect the chance that next will crit). This special case is known as a Bernoulli trial. We want to look at the cumulative probabilities which calculate to the following:

The chance that At Least x pellets will crit when 10 hit:
0 - 100.00% (obviously)
1 - 99.57%
2 - 96.45%
3 - 86.28%
4 - 66.65%
5 - 41.78%
6 - 20.16%
7 - 7.12%
8 - 1.72%
9 - 0.25%
10 - 0.02%

What can we extract from this data? The LB-10X is a vastly superior gauss killer with an 86.28% chance of destroying the gauss if the full blast hits compared to 42% on the AC/10. Even if you only manage to hit with a partial blast, 6 pellets still have a higher cumulative probability of dealing the necessary 3 damage at 49.71%.

Considering multiple shots: Firing two AC/10 rounds into the component increases your cumulative odds to 66.36%. However, unloading 2 full blasts of 20 pellets has a 99.79% chance of taking out that gauss...that's a near certainty.

However, if you noticed in the table above, there is a nearly non existent (0.02%) chance of the LB-10X critting a 10HP piece of equipment. With a double shot this still only increases to 30.64% while the AC/10 retains the same 66.36%. Keep in mind the gauss itself and the AC/20 fare no better or worse than the AC/10 in crit seeking. Missiles with their 1.8 or 2.5 damage per missile and 5-20 or 2-6 count would end up somewhere in between.

So strangely enough, while the LB-10X is a GREAT gauss killer, it is actually a significantly inferior crit seeker on all other equipment! Though of course this could significantly change if the devs every make the equipment HP pass they have been talking about

[AnnoyingCat]

Sifright, on 18 February 2013 - 11:38 AM, said:

not really, AC5 and AC10 are terribly heavy weapons for the damage they put out.

think about the heat and range

[Leetskeet]

I remember back in closed beta when I was making this topic

Might as well not bother, it has a deceptive 10 in the name that tricks the weak into thinking that it has to do 10 damage.

b-but I do so well in my triple LBX Muromets and my double LBX Atlas!

[Moromillas]

SpiralRazor, on 18 February 2013 - 09:11 AM, said:

Projectiles to 1.5 damage each + make the projectiles actually travel past 540....1620 is laughable. Everyone knows this to be the case.

If thats still UP then projectiles to 2.0 damage with fixed effective ranges.

Not designed to be a long range weapon. It's essentially a shotgun like weapon, It was never long range, cluster rounds that spread the damage is intended. If you think the damage numbers are too low, you need something more substantial than just thinking that it's UP.

[Lord Perversor]

Leetskeet, on 18 February 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

I remember back in closed beta when I was making this topic

Might as well not bother, it has a deceptive 10 in the name that tricks the weak into thinking that it has to do 10 damage.

b-but I do so well in my triple LBX Muromets and my double LBX Atlas!

Been running a Dragon-1c with an LBX-10 and while i can say sometimes it feel underpowered due the spread, when the hit impacts properly can wreack more havoc than most of ppl concede it.

Imho the range/speed and spread seems fine, a bit more of Dmg should be okay (1.2 as much 1.2-1.4 seems too high) I'm not sure why but i feel easier to aim and use the LBX-10 than an Ac-10

[Roland]

Lord Perversor, on 18 February 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

Been running a Dragon-1c with an LBX-10 and while i can say sometimes it feel underpowered due the spread, when the hit impacts properly can wreack more havoc than most of ppl concede it.

No man, it's really a garbage weapon.

Just yesterday I had some Atlas chasing my poor little cicada around, firing two LBX10's at me from around, maybe, 2-300 meters.

Despite the fact that I was already cored out when he started shooting at me, he couldn't finish me off. He was hitting me, and honestly, I was surprised at how much it was knocking my mech around... but he wasn't doing any significant damage to me. I just ran away, and ended up surviving while he died trying to finish my critted out mech with LBX and my team just fell on him and gutted his mech.

If you think your LBX is useful, put another weapon onto your mech in its place, and you will find it to be MORE useful. (excepting machine guns, or medium pulse lasers, or flamers)

[Leetskeet]

I just ignore mechs with LBX's on them, honestly. They're not even slightly a threat, especially if it's just a single LBX.

The funny thing is that they have like a third of the spread that they used to have. PGI really is stuck on that number 10 seeing as the only thing that's been modified is the spread. I wonder if they've realized it isn't going to work after these 8 or 9 months.

They usually get around to actually tweaking the right attributes on weapons after a couple months, and the LBX10 is one of the only few weapons left that's still fubar.

Edited by Leetskeet, 18 February 2013 - 02:27 PM.

[Roland]

Honestly, even if the LBX10 had zero spread and only fired a single slug, I'm still not entirely convinced it would be that good a weapon.

I think I'd still choose to take a UAC5 over it.

[Lord Perversor]

@at Roland

and just 2 days ago i crushed a 3L raven and left his cicada mate almost close to die by 1-2 hits with an LBX-10 and 2 x med lasers.

As always it's a matter of skill and ability (maybe i was better than them, maybe i was lucky) all i say is that when i want to get up and close with my Dragon the LBX it's the weapon that fits me best. (and that Dragon loadout can be modified to accept up to a Gauss rifle)

If it's a Crap weapon, well better for me if someday PGI chooses to buff it up.

[Leetskeet]

Roland, on 18 February 2013 - 02:16 PM, said:

Despite the fact that I was already cored out when he started shooting at me, he couldn't finish me off.

Also, this is basically why I ignore them. I don't think I've EVER died to an LBX.

A number of time I've been in a hopeless situation where my front armor is gone and the last mech is basically fresh, except that it spent 22/33 tons on weapons that couldn't kill a Harasser and I end up coming out of the fight barely worse off than I was going in.

[Leetskeet]

Lord Perversor, on 18 February 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

@at Roland

and just 2 days ago i crushed a 3L raven and left his cicada mate almost close to die by 1-2 hits with an LBX-10 and 2 x med lasers.

As always it's a matter of skill and ability (maybe i was better than them, maybe i was lucky) all i say is that when i want to get up and close with my Dragon the LBX it's the weapon that fits me best. (and that Dragon loadout can be modified to accept up to a Gauss rifle)

If it's a Crap weapon, well better for me if someday PGI chooses to buff it up.

Switch it to a standard AC10 and behold the glory. You are now better. Single AC10's aren't even that great(I find double AC10 builds to be decent, however) but it's miles above how horrible the LBX10 is.

It's cool that you like the weapon and all, but it's important that you understand how bad you're making your mech. Dragons are already fairly crap except for the Flame.

[MasterGoa]

Being a heavy LBX user and having multiple 500+ damage games with a triple Ilya,
I beleive that the grouping should be much improved and that it should be able
to use AC-10 rounds.

They are 800,000Bills a piece after all.

However, improving the groupd will not require buffing the damage IMHO.

See you in the field!

[Renthrak]

SpiralRazor, on 18 February 2013 - 09:11 AM, said:

Projectiles to 1.5 damage each + make the projectiles actually travel past 540....1620 is laughable. Everyone knows this to be the case.

If thats still UP then projectiles to 2.0 damage with fixed effective ranges.

First off, saying garbage like "everyone knows I'm right" is not going to help your case in the slightest. By starting your post saying anyone who disagrees with you is automatically wrong, you are inviting less than constructive responses.

Second, you are going to have to come up with some very compelling reasons for giving the LBX as much damage as a Gauss Rifle at 1.5 per pellet. Gauss is already deadly at short range anyway, but a lighter version with a higher rate of fire and more ammo per ton in exchange for shortened range doesn't sound particularly balanced to me.

There is already a weapon that operates like an LBX with 2 damage per pellet. It's called LBX 20. It's bigger, heavier, has a slower rate of fire and less ammo per ton. And it won't exist for a few more years in the timeline. If you want a 20 damage LBX, put two of them on an Atlas or a K2 Catapult. Both are nasty up close.

The effectiveness of the weapons is not supposed to be directly proportional to their tonnage. If it was, then it wouldn't matter what weapons you use, as long as you use the same weight in guns. Besides, since the LBX weighs less than the AC/10, it doesn't seem unreasonable that it isn't as powerful at range. For that matter, you haven't explained what you're expecting from the LBX 10 in the first place. 'UP' and 'OP' doesn't really give much detail.

Lastly, there are already plenty of 'buff the LBX' threads out there. Go chime in on one of those instead of starting yet another, particularly if you aren't going to articulate your argument in the first place.

[Heeden]

Rather than the shotgun-blast we currently get, I'd like to see the LBX-10 fire in a burst. 10 pellets, 1 damage each, fired over a duration of (0.5 - 1 second, adjust to balance around weight).

This would make it a laser-style ballistic weapon, which I think nicely mirrors the way PPCs are a ballistic-style energy weapon. It would probably have an awesome sound effect.

[Leetskeet]

Renthrak, on 18 February 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

you are going to have to come up with some very compelling reasons for giving the LBX as much damage as a Gauss Rifle at 1.5 per pellet.

It spreads out, each pellet isn't going to hit the same location unless it's a point blank shot, and video game shotguns have large total damage split amongst multiple projectiles. It's just how they work because it's the only way that they stay competitive with other weapons.

Notice how the LBX is not competitive because it doesn't actually give you increased total damage in return for splitting your damage into 10 segments.

Science.

Edited by Leetskeet, 18 February 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[Symbiodinium]

Roland, on 18 February 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Generally, you are not going to see weight changes of any weapons.

The reason is that it screws up stock configs... for instance, if you made an LBX10 weigh 2 tons less, than every stock config using the LBX10 ends up being 2 tons lighter than it should be.

That seems like a pretty minor problem. It can be solved by adding a couple tons of ammo, a heat sink, ticking the engine up a notch, adding CASE, whatever. Stock configurations were not handed down on stone tablets. The problem isn't the damage/range/spread/range of the LBX-10, it's just too big. At 11 tons/6 tons it can only be used by heavies/assaults, which spend most of their time shooting other heavies/assaults. It simply shouldn't be used that way. Its stats and tactics would be fine if it were shrunk down (both weight and crit slots) and could be used by lights/mediums effectively against other lights/mediums as an ECM-proof alternative to streaks.

Edited by Symbiodinium, 18 February 2013 - 04:04 PM.