I agree 100%, in my view even equipping a mech with 2 PPCs instead of an AC20 will prove more effective and if we bring + weapons into play the differences become a little absurd. To be 100% honest until I saw your Highlander 733P, 4 stab PPCs build, I've only ever considered that build for the Atlas 2 because in that mech, you can afford to maintain the use of jump jets and still have a manageable heat delta even without double heatsinks. All in all, no matter how you look at it, ACs are the worst weapons in the game followed by, in order (not considering support weapons): PPCs, Large lasers, LRMs, SRMs and Medium lasers. If we bring + weapons in the discussion, PPCs become better than large lasers and if we account for all the "Lostech", PPCs become IMO, on par and arguably even more effective than LRMs due to the lack of ammo and the targeting debuff.
I never use ballistic weapons as headcappers. The moment I get called shot bonus and eventually called shot mastery, I find that the best way to pop the head off a mech or burn the meat inside are ML/SL barrages from the side. In the early game, this is a pair of Firestarters. In the late game, a pair of Grasshoppers. Between a 16% chance to hit the head, side torso destruction, leg knockdowns or just blasting off the head completely, you're near guaranteed to get any mech you want.
exactly! the storm of laser fire will get u that mech no matter what. probably the head will be destroyed very fast, a knockdown is very likely, as well as side torso destruction. add to that many weapons disabled...
Carry 2 UAC-20s in an Atlas. With called shot maxed-out that's 4 AC 20 shots each time the mech fires. Heads RELIABLY pop. For good measure, bring two of these Atlases. Efficient use of tonnage? Depends on what your play style is like. Effective outside of close range? Nope. That's what support weapons/mechs are for. Easy to carry enough ammo? Nope. Back up the dakka with mediums, LRMS, and melee. Re-fire penalties? Shoot. Punch. Shoot. Punch. Satisfying as hell? Absolutely.
That the Adv on uac weapons. They actually make ballistics usefull.the weight t damage ration with ballistics is absurdly low, but with uac wepoans your essentially doubling that making them suddenly pretty dam good especially with the fact that they aren't generating much heat. Ammo is still a problem but it's much more efficient to have 1 uac rather than 2 standard ac to produce the same damage but with many more spare tons. An urban mech with a uac 20 is just fascinatingly dangerous it takes meme mech to a whole new level. This is why I like the introduction of uac wepoans as it gives ballistics a place
LRMs so good with indirect and stability and can Crit out well. To make up for some of the spread damage go with a jumpy build like a catapult and fire into a side location to help concentrate fire.
LRMs so good with indirect and stability and can Crit out well. To make up for some of the spread damage go with a jumpy build like a catapult and fire into a side location to help concentrate fire. Skills and abilities inho have the largest impact on the game. As soon as you can call shot you dominate
Thank you for another highly educational video, Edmon! :) I've been working off a complex (over-complicated?) spreadsheet in order to calculate a sort of battle value for each weapon, and I am well aware of the poor AC's plight. So I've been thinking about giving them a further buff in XLRP, but without taking away their character and uniqueness (and without straying too far from TT). What course of action would you suggest? You probably noticed I already increased the ammo capacity/ton for most of them to make running out of ammo less of an issue (as well as somewhat normalizing their damage/ton of ammo across the different ACs), but to be honest I'm thinking about going the reverse route and upping their damage at the cost of reduced ammo per ton instead. Speaking of ammo, I am also thinking of reducing the damage of ammo explosions. Ammo weapons, especially ACs, are gimped enough already compared to say, a medium laser.
I honestly would like to see a different approach to different autocannons: AC/2 - I'd like to see it be made lighter, 3 or 4 tons, so that light mechs can use it well. This gives an interesting sniping option for commands, locusts and urbies... while not really affecting the balance of heavier mechs much (as hardpoints will always be limiting for them). The only stock mech really affected would be the Jager or Blackjack and you could just give them extra ammo to keep them "lore". The AC/5, is the only autocannon that isn't terrible, has a decent blend of firepower, range and ammo consumption. I would like to see the AC/10 + AC/20 deliver decent stab damage and maybe have a bit more ammo. LRM's out stab them by a long way, that doesn't seem "right" to me. But this is my shower thought.
@@TheEdmon Also taking into account that they are the only weapon that gets worse the more you have to use them repeatedly (recoil) they should have a significant alpha strike... wich they do not.
Thanks a lot for your input! :) I kinda agree about the AC/2 - it would be nice to have something on the lower end that's actually light enough for lights as well as the lower-end medium Mechs. That being said, the weight is the one thing I don't like to touch at all to be honest - doing so opens all cans of worms, really. (In fact, I changed the lighter variants of some weapons, like Gauss and ER Large Laser back to stock tonnage. Otherwise it overlaps with Clan Tech, IMHO.) A boost to stability damage would've been my next approach as well, particular for the heavier ACs. If not the undisputed king over missile-based weapons they should at least be their equal I think. If I remember right, MechWarrior 3 had an interesting approach to autocannons: They enabled you do dish out tremendous amounts of damage in a short amount of time (the Annihilator really annihilated everything in its path!), but you had to be careful not to run out of ammo too quickly. Maybe not perfectly balanced (but what is?), but definitely tons of fun. :D EDIT: You've also probably seen the custom-built Twin MGs I added to the mod - they're meant to finally give some purpose to those multiple ballistic slots on light Mechs. No attacks during melee, but at least some much-needed range increase. Combined with overpressure ammo (appropriately called "OP Ammo" :D) and +++MGs you can turn even the lowly urbie into a nasty close-range killing machine...!
Light Autocannons are the balance fix to the AC/2 but not in this timeline. You could make them fire faster (I.E. 25x2 damage profile + 2 ammo use) but this doesn't help give lights an extra option. The problem with the AC/2, bottomline, is that it's too heavy. But the lore can of worms around changing the weight is putting everyone off making the needed fix... The only other choice is to make them stab busters... but I don't think this will give AC/2's a place in the game, though it will make the other AC's better. MW3 was pretty epic when it came to autocannons, but the ammo disappeared fast... and was limited. Once it was gone, it was gone. It's ok for a game to have "bad" weapons, it adds to the diversity, but I agree that there should be options for lights in the ballistic catagory... twinmg thing seems pretty good, I've bought a few but not tried them thus far.
I tend not to use ballistic weapons other than support weapons.. The re-fire penalties, weight and ammo requirements are too much of a drawback In my opinion.
How might you attempt to address the advantage of longer range? I've found that even with the weight and heat burdens, Large Lasers are still quite effective for back line support mechs. They deal huge damage and (being lasers) come with accuracy bonus. Separately, I think the chance to hit a precision shot component can be over-clocked. I've run a Marauder with 3 or 4 Large Lasers (LosTech or normal) that consistently headshots anything more than half the time. Maybe a loophole needs to be fixed?
Does Roguetech do anything to adjust his or does most of this hold true? I only play Roguetech, but this was a super informative video and I'm wondering if i can apply this knowledge to my RT playthrough.
Ignoring LRM , wich are completely op on every front. I find that medium lasers are king until you get blacknight/assaults, since at that point the hard limit is on the weapon hard points, limited to a maximum of 8 for energy weapons. With that Large Lasers become king, since with Exchangers, TTS and computer you can have 8 of them and manage the heat with the tonnage the assaults alow. a 320-400 damage alpha strike at 540m with pinpoint accuracy means a head shot every 2 shots on average, but a cored mech in 87% of the cases with called shot and called shot mastery assuming the mech has 300 structure+armor on the core (wich is almost anything).
Interesting comment on large lasers. I've never really liked them, but I can totally see them doing well when you have a lot of free tonnage to use + double heatsinks + exchangers. They will benefit most from lostech cooling.
What on Earth are you fitting 8 LL on? The only thing I can see that can do it is the SLDF Black Knight, which would have 8 tons left for cooling and armour.
I never heard of ballistic weapons' advantage being to headcap - I heard of the advantage being more concentrated damage to a single component. Crits only happen after getting through the armor. So a missile salvo is way more effective if it has been preceded by an AC shot. Whereas a truckload of mediums just goes all over the place.
Note "I never heard" doesn't mean this hasn't been said, or even that it's not brought up often. Just that when I saw talking about AC advantages, I didn't see this being brought up.
@@alan_sylver Concentrated damage is not brought up because it simply isn't an advantage, except in the case of headshots, then it matters. The reasoning behind this is that the DPS on other weapons is so high, much higher than autocannons, that they will do more damage to any region over time than an AC will. Remember, AC's between shots are still randomly placed. A different way to think of it: 60 damage from an AC/10, is going to be less damage to 1 region over 3 turns than 125 laser damage. DPS is so much higher, the spread doesn't matter. Especially on side/rear shots, where there are only 3 possible regions to hit (plus the flat chance of head).
@@TheEdmon Rear shots I get. But I don't fire at the same mech for 3 rounds. I fire once, use the AC to weaken one region once, then SRM or laser him for crits. At least, that's how I understood this. Over multiple rounds this gets lost, sure. But when I need multiple rounds to down one mech, I guess I am doing something wrong?
It is very hard to bring down a mech in a single volley unless it is a rear shot, or you are using precision strike. And if you are using precision strike, you will get more DPS on target with lots of medium lasers compared to equal weight in AC-20.
@@TheEdmon I was going for two volleys, one hammer and a missile battery. But I get the impression that my own experience in the matter is skewed since I don't use precision strikes (too powerful IMO). I think that would benefit ACs a bit. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to address my comments.
Gauss has the same weight/damage ratio as the AC/2 with +10 damage. ER and Pulse weapons are totally inferior to their basic versions, they are heavier, run hotter and do less damage.
In regards to ACs is there a case to be made for opportunity cost? i.e. in situations where accuracy is high enough and you can pick a specific component as a target (knockdowned, precision strike etc.) that an AC could out do an LRM due to the built in splash of LRMs even when targeting in that manner?
Ummm, I guess there is some chance of that, but LRM's out DPS AC's so hard that I would wonder if they wouldn't do more damage to the targetted region as well as extra damage to everywhere else... Interesting thought though, I would favour Medium lasers in this case though.
@@TheEdmon One has to keep in mind that when the opportunity arises from a precision strike (or attack versus a knocked down target) only the first projectile of a weapon gets targetted at what you aim. The rest go wherever. In that case a hard hitting single shot weapon easily crushes multi shot weapons. For this reason I remain a fan of the AC /20 for it's peak damage, though it is usually backed by some Medium lasers for consistent damage. Their ability to get a lucky headshot in is too good to say no to. Didn't hit the head, well, whatever you hit is probably not in great shape either, which I prefer to distributing hits all over the enemy mech. Having said that, in late game I tend towards anything long range when my pilot skill and gear allow long range accurate shooting. Whatever the damage output is, it is probably higher than the mech that needs to weather my fire for a turn or two just to get in range with its main weapons. Ultimately, a damage per ton spreadsheet will only get you so far.
@@Elmarby Sorry but this is incorrect. A precision strike with 3xSRM6 Launchers (for example, 144 damage, roughly same weight with cooling), is far more likely to do 100 damage to the targetted region than an AC/20 is. The same is true of all weapons except LRM's. However, you can focus LRM's by targetting one side of a mech, since the cluster affect works on "nearby" regions, if you keep targetting one side of a mech, you can focus all the damage through a path to the CT and since there is base so much more damage, you will likely still do more damage to a particular section. Put a different way, 200 LRM damage (12 tons + ammo), is likely to do 55% of total damage to precision striked target. Which is 110 damage, which is still more than the heavier AC/20 will do. Plus you get the benefit of free damage to other regions on top. Thus, it becomes a myth that the AC/20 is better for single region damage, as it simply gets out volumed.
Plus also over a long time, those AC/20 shots are going to scatter about just as much as the missiles for a drop in total damage. For anyone who thinks it is simply better for localising damage, they are wrong. (Same as the headcapping calculation). The quirk to making ACs better is using the AC/2s and AC/5s for poor heat dissipating biomes.
I did buy AC/20 and put it to med Mech - it was ridiculously effective. Sadly, it was located in the arm and Mech lost it along with AC/20. I still miss it and will buy it again as soon as will find one on market. Replaced it with 2 x SRM-6 packs - not impressive at all. People who do math really underestimate the advantage of putting 100 dmg in one part of a Mech. Against light Mechs one landed AC/20 shot is oneshot. Headshot even at heavy Mech is oneshot and fully salvaged heavy Mech (I did it once and it felt so-o go-od :)). Med Mech' hand or leg - good buy limb. It may be not as effective against heavy and assault Mechs (still very effective to destroy armor though), but for light and med Mechs AC/20 is pure inevitable death. Right now I run a lance of "shotties" - LRM's, SRM's, bunch of med lasers, couple of shotgun PPCs (don't remember the actual weapon name) - and holy F it takes on my nerves to deal with light and med Mechs! It's like 1.5 - 2 turns of focus fire of entire lance to get rid of one light Mech instead of one shot from one med Mech. Practice, ma dudes, is stronger than math! :)
@@TheEdmon Well, I checked LBX/20 in battles and it's quite meh for it's weight. Replaced it with AC/10 and efficiency of my only heavy Mech Orion-somethingsomething rised. And today finally found another AC/20 on market, immediately bought and installed it. Now I'm good and happy! :)
so basicaly what this video is saying is get rid of balistics as fast as you can, maybe keep the AC 5 ..... well why should i, who likes to bring ballisic builds (in MW:O) play battletech? .... that medium lasers are supposed to be the workhorse weapon is nothing new but screw me always bringing discovomit and missileboats ... scrap is going to get old for me realy fast ...
This was made before ultra's came to the basegame, though they were always in mods. Ultra weapons are of course, twice as good (in some cases more than twice as good) as the baseline weapons and are well worth fitting.
@@martinjo3414 How are you getting 50% chance to hit the head from? I think the highest is 36% with the marauder bonus. I believe both shots of each weapon have the same headshot chance, but can't be 100% on that, as it's not been tested.
Ah ok no that covers what i was thinking thnx dude im running vindicator panther griffin and hunchback atm and mainly using snub ppc and med lasers but wanted to experiment with ac builds your vid was very thoughrough and thnx fo such quick response :)
