UAC20 vs Gauss

[Profane Arbiter]

The damage per second of the Gauss is greater than that of the UAC20. While the gauss has greater long range accuracy, the UAC can be better used against BA. This might seem reasonably balanced, but in reality, there are better weapons to pop BA with such as lasers, and if I'm looking to mix it up in close or at medium range, lasers are superior to a UAC since they produce a higher damage per second in a situation where they can accumulate that damage with susutained fire, and minimizing the value of the UAC's "front loaded" damage which is more relevant while pop-tarting.

Of course, the gauss is better at pop tarting than the UAC, so that leaves the poor weapon somewhat inept. IMO it needs some TLC...perhaps have its range limited to the listed 350 meters, but its damage increased?

It's a shame knockdown isn't in the game. Nothing should knock a mech on its keister like a UAC20.

[Rally]

Are you serious? The UAC20 is one of the most powerfull guns in the game, it just tears mechs to pieces!

Did you calculate with it's splash damage?

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

UAC20 is my favorite weapon.  Getting both shells to land is tricky sometimes but the trajectory and pace seem to fall inline with my reflexes and I LOVE the sound effect.

[Profane Arbiter]

Are you serious? The UAC20 is one of the most powerfull guns in the game, it just tears mechs to pieces!

Did you calculate with it's splash damage?

There isn't a way that I know of to calculate that. I can only use:

http://wiki.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php?title=Weapons

If you know if a more informative source I'd love to know.

[Snowball]

Are you serious? The UAC20 is one of the most powerfull guns in the game, it just tears mechs to pieces!

Did you calculate with it's splash damage?

Rally's right, splash is insane.

There isn't a way that I know of to calculate that. I can only use:

http://wiki.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php?title=Weapons

If you know if a more informative source I'd love to know.

I believe Temphage calculated it out once in one of his suggestion threads.  I'll try to look for it, but I've got work soon.  It was pretty ridiculous though.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

Are you serious? The UAC20 is one of the most powerfull guns in the game, it just tears mechs to pieces!

Did you calculate with it's splash damage?

There isn't a way that I know of to calculate that. I can only use:

http://wiki.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php?title=Weapons

If you know if a more informative source I'd love to know.

Storm_Crow - you should see the talk page for this one. You just got yourself fooled quite a bit... and that was the thing I was worried about.

The damage values shown in table are taken from game files and they doesn't have anything in common for actual in-game damage. Ok... they do for Gauss, but not for any weapon with splash damage, nor for missiles... and there were some problems with lasers. So basicly this table is useless and I have no idea why it's still on Wiki (although Threesan and few other math-loving guys would kill me if I'd just delete it so... it shall float there as out of date table).

[Snowball]

So from what i read through (forgot I have the day off), UAC20's do 750 damage per shot, plus 250 splash damage per shot per adjacent Mech part.

Rough Example:

Fired UAC20 at Atlas, hit low on CT and high on RT.
Damage done:
CT: 1000 (750+250 splash from RT shot)
RT: 1000 (750+250 splash from CT shot)
LT: 250 splash from CT shot
Cockpit: 250 splash from RT shot
RA: 250 splash from RT shot
LL: 250 splash from CT shot
RL: 250 splash from CT shot

TOTAL: 3250

granted, that's just one situation, but you get the idea.

[Profane Arbiter]

So from what i read through (forgot I have the day off), UAC20's do 750 damage per shot, plus 250 splash damage per shot per adjacent Mech part.

Rough Example:

Fired UAC20 at Atlas, hit low on CT and high on RT.
Damage done:
CT: 1000 (750+250 splash from RT shot)
RT: 1000 (750+250 splash from CT shot)
LT: 250 splash from CT shot
Cockpit: 250 splash from RT shot
RA: 250 splash from RT shot
LL: 250 splash from CT shot
RL: 250 splash from CT shot

TOTAL: 3250

granted, that's just one situation, but you get the idea.

Well that explains why my experience with the UAC20 agrees with the wiki damage charts. I was thinking "it should kill the target faster." Since this is a game of damage rather than kills, it was dishing out more overall hurt to targets, while I was only noticing that the guass turned an enemy's single component pretty colors somewhat faster.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

It ain't that simple either Snowball.
I 3-times fired Atlas in center torso with UAC20 - it got head nearly-destroyed. Head has 3500 armor (so says game files) so I must have inflicted way over 3000 damage. Now let's assume the lowest level - exactly 3000 damage for whole 3 shots, so 1000 damage per one.
It's 4 times more than from out-of-game calculations.

So I don't believe any such simple maths you people try to do.
Damage isn't only what in-game files says about damage factor. It's not only damage+constant splash.
That's why these calculations are failed from the beginning all the way to the end.

[Snowball]

Yeah, its true the Gauss does more damage to individual parts, but the UAC20 has its place as well.  In some situations, I'd much prefer one over the other, but this changes alot based on gameplay, opponents, map, etc.

As for the math, I stated that it was a rough example just to get a point across.

I'm curious about your Atlas example now.  I'm not saying that it's wrong or right, I'm just very curious about it.  I'm gonna be hammering out some math using wiki stats and stuff; bear with me.

When you say "3-times fired", is that 3 hits, or that you fired 3 times, as the latter means 6 total projectiles.  Also, are you absolutely sure none of the rounds impacted the cockpit (it does have a very large hitbox, and lag may or may not have played a part)?  Was there anyone else firing at the atlas/did the atlas cause heat damage to itself?  Was the Atlas already damaged?

As far as I can guess in regards to armor, red means about 25% health left, which means that total damage done was anywhere from ~2625 to 3499.

Let's assume you didn't hit the cockpit, and you only landed 3 shots.  That's only 750 splash damage, which is far short of the damage required, which is very curious.  If one shot did impact the cockpit, that's only 1250 damage, which is closer, but still short by far.  This leaves a huge gap that cannot be explained by the statistics without more information.

This next case is only if you meant "fired 3 times" and not "hit 3 times".  If it was 6 shots total, that'd only be 1500 from splash; again, still short, but closer.  If one shot hit the cockpit, it bumps up to 2000, which is closer to the required amount, and the extra damage could be from stray shots or self-inflicted heat damage, but it still seems a little implausible. If 2 shots impacted the cockpit, dealing 2500 damage; that makes it much more plausible.  Any further than that invalidates this theory as the damage would soon exceed the total health of the cockpit, which means the pilot would be dead.

I wish I could test this further with some sort of tool, but alas time is a cruel mistress.

[Rally]

UAC20 splash damage? Ya don't have to actually calculate it. Just know that it's there and that the UAC20 is stronger with it than the data would suggest.

[Snowball]

I know, I'm just inherently curious about how stuff works.

[Profane Arbiter]

I agree with Snowball. Crunching the numbers on paper is a good time. It's why I myself am pro mechlab. I want to tinker and optimize. I probably spent half my time "playing" MW4 in lab. In MWLL, having that stats allows me to anylize each variant, and determine if this or that mech has a slight edge on another...and it doesn't always work out. There are other factors that don't translate from paper to "reality."

Now, I know the laser damage on the wiki was supposed to be off, but if you read the weapons page, it claims that all numbers in bold are supposed to be correct so...not sure.

[=KoS= Eldragon]

I agree with Snowball. Crunching the numbers on paper is a good time. It's why I myself am pro mechlab. I want to tinker and optimize. I probably spent half my time "playing" MW4 in lab. In MWLL, having that stats allows me to anylize each variant, and determine if this or that mech has a slight edge on another...and it doesn't always work out. There are other factors that don't translate from paper to "reality."

Now, I know the laser damage on the wiki was supposed to be off, but if you read the weapons page, it claims that all numbers in bold are supposed to be correct so...not sure.

Exactly. I spend at least 80% of my Megamek time just creating new variants. Its fun. I too would really like to know the numbers behind some of these weapons rather than using "trial and error" and gut feelings. But I'm fine with waiting on having hard numbers until after the weapons have reached a stable balance point.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

When you say "3-times fired", is that 3 hits, or that you fired 3 times, as the latter means 6 total projectiles.  Also, are you absolutely sure none of the rounds impacted the cockpit (it does have a very large hitbox, and lag may or may not have played a part)?  Was there anyone else firing at the atlas/did the atlas cause heat damage to itself?  Was the Atlas already damaged?

Right... good point - it was 6 hits, not 3 cause UAC20 fires 2 projectiles at a time. So minimum 500 damage per one... 2 times more than what math suggests .

All rounds hit exactly the center torso of brand new mech. All hit the same spot, nothing missed, nothing hit the cockpit. Atlas was powered-down.

BTW: 2 Direct hits with HGauss give more damage to the head than 3 UAC20 salvos at the torso... but still not enough to destroy it.