Large bore autocannons (AC/10, AC/20)

[Buzz_Litebeer]

Actually, outside of the Uller vs Osiris gauss vs AC20, between brawls of similarly skilled players, I frequently see the gauss come out on top even in brawls. Why? The ability to do more damage over time to specific areas. Ultimately, the higher DPS to select targets comes out on top.. the overall damage of the AC20 rendered worthless. The opponents entire mech being orange doesn't matter when your CT, head, or leg has been stripped off by the gauss. This is assuming that the AC20 even gets close enough for that to occur, because gauss has 3x the range, a better projectile speed.. and when you've got an entire team full of such. Even UAC/20 often comes out on the bottom in these fights. The usual exceptions I see are when the UAC/20 user has precise enough aim to use other weapons available to saw the guy out of his head (thus taking advantage of the UAC area advantage), but this is ultimately more aim than is required for gauss to strip a CT or leg.

Whatever minor advantage AC20 vs gauss or UAC20 vs Hgauss may have as a brawler weapon (nil, in my opinion) is presently way overpowered by the other advantages the gauss have. Large bore ACs (and arguably, close range weapons as a whole excepting the SRMs) need more power to be worth it... and in my opinion, as evidenced by this thread, a different mechanic to give them an overall different utility at close range than the gauss weapons or LBX. You want to add something extra to it to make having to keep them in reticule worth it? Add a view shake for each hit (but that's a whole 'nother shitstorm of a discussion right there).

You are correct.

Pinpoint specific damage, in Mechwarrior, is more valuable than the same or slightly more damage done to multiple sections of a mech except in very specific situations.

The Uller with Gaus (Uller A) is actually BETTER now than it was in the previous patch because you have already gotten a single shot off at an Osiris coming in, and ready for the second before he gets in range to fire a single shot.

That and its harder to hit with the Autocannon, so if you keep moving, you can spread the damage out even more.

The heavy gaus is the single best weapon in the game, it does 3100 damage max, and 1900 min at 700 meters.  The two heavy gaus mechs (other than the atlases which are all crap) are sniper mechs.  Which means that they have a very good chance of a stable jumping platform to fire from.

The next best weapon is the gaus, followed by a mechs with 3 or more large lasers

The most devestating thing that two players working together can do in a game is have one take a gaus uller, give his money to the second player who takes a hollander heavy gaus.

Go out, kill 2 mechs, and then go back to base and reload/purchase bigger vehicles.

[Profane Arbiter]

As it stands, forget 300m...to get that giant hole you gotta be humping the target's leg.

Which is exactly why they need to rename the LBX20 Demolisher variant to "Bad Fido".

LOL

Or maybe just tighten the spread a bit...

[~SJ~Azov]

I think it's about time for my opinions on matters (not that it really matters)

I really like the idea of the burst fire on the higher caliber autocannons. HOWEVER, I think it should wait till we can get different ammunition types. I would like to have 5 shots on an ac20 without splash damage, ut I do like the splash on the single shot. I would also like to see a tighter spread and possily slightly higher damage on the lbx. I find them utterly useless, and will never use one.

As for this silly little gauss uller vs AC20 Osiris debate really makes me laugh. Typically the uller would be a more viable solution for most users, but I have found that the Osiris's manuverability gives the pilot the upper hand in this situation. And the gauss rifle doesn't necissarally out range the AC20. The range given to the weapon is generally where the  round begins to drop off. Since the Osiris has Jump Jets, a skilled pilot can begin landing rounds on an enemy as soon as the pilot receives visual contact. But balancing the jump jets with MASC and some nimble cornering, the pilot of the osiris can stay just out of Line of Sight for the Uller pilot to get a good shot with the Gauss rifle. With the splash damage with the AC20 your shots don't have to be lined perfectly, just close.

[(TLL)Siilk]

Indeed, I would like to see things as:

Gauss weapons: high damage to specific areas, long range, high projectile speed

AC/10 & 20: rapid fire, high damage to single areas per hit, significantly better DPS than gauss

LBX: massive damage spread over multiple parts. Or massive damage all into one area if close enough (read: point blank) to have no spread. The way I see it, if some schmuck with 900m range gauss/600m range Hgauss is dumb enough to get right up on an 300m spread damage LBX/20 user's nuts, they should pay a penalty best represented by a giant hole in their mech.

So basically, among the heavy hitter weapons, you get 3 categories: sustained fire, single shot big punch, and area damage

^This. The only thing I could add here is LBX should have more chance of doing critical subsystem damage.

As for this silly little gauss uller vs AC20 Osiris debate really makes me laugh. Typically the uller would be a more viable solution for most users, but I have found that the Osiris's manuverability gives the pilot the upper hand in this situation. And the gauss rifle doesn't necissarally out range the AC20. The range given to the weapon is generally where the  round begins to drop off. Since the Osiris has Jump Jets, a skilled pilot can begin landing rounds on an enemy as soon as the pilot receives visual contact. But balancing the jump jets with MASC and some nimble cornering, the pilot of the osiris can stay just out of Line of Sight for the Uller pilot to get a good shot with the Gauss rifle. With the splash damage with the AC20 your shots don't have to be lined perfectly, just close.

 Gauss does not outranges AC20, but it's much more precis and has more projectile velocity. That makes hitting fast moving target at more than 300m much easier. AC20 user would have to lead target a lot and take distance into consideration, while gauss can be fired with almost no lead, except for long ranges and no ballistic deviation at all. It still possible to use AC20s at ~1000m, but hitting same target with gauss is much easier, hence AC is at disadvantage in Osiris/Uller duel.
 

[Haunted]

I like the (U)AC 10/20 as they are. The LBX could use a tighter cone of fire though. And the AC could use a more heavy sound.

The only thing they truly have in common with the gauss is that both weapon types do damage in one hit (well two in case of ultras) and long reload times. But ballistics and splash are very different (enough to grant them both their place).

And i don't like the idea of making them full auto. Except if the burst were so fast that the way their are use wouldn't change much. Meaning making them fire their burst in the time the ultras fires it's two shells (or even faster).... and in case of the ultra twice the amount of shells in the same time.

Fire wait wait fire.. and making each shot count is very much BT canon. It's IMHO the very core of BT warfare.

And the main reason i am against burst/auto fire is spread of damage. That would make the ACs a lot worse (except if they upped the damage potential.... and that would make ACs very overpowered under certain conditions).

[rgreat]

Which is exactly why they need to rename the LBX20 Demolisher variant to "Bad Fido".

LOL
Or maybe just tighten the spread a bit...

I think it is better to limit spread over distance, like particles are linked together with net.
So after a 100meters particles stop spreading and stay rather compact.

[Flyingdebris]

just because shoot wait, shoot wait, shoot wait, has been a tradition, doesn't necessarily mean its a good one.  There are already waaaaaaay too many shoot wait weapons. 

er and regular small, medium, and large lasers, ac10/20, uac10/20, lbx5/10/20, srms, lrms, mrms, gauss rifles light, standard, and heavy, ppcs, er ppcs, thunderbolts, arrow 4s, longtoms,

24  slow ROF weapons, more so if you count the different size of launchers for missiles

rapid fire weapons. pulse lasers small, medium, and large, mgs, ac2/5 uac 2/5 and RAC 2/5s

10 fast ROF weapons

and not a single fast ROF weapon is a heavy hitter, all of them are of the whittle down variety.

[Aposiopesis]

Fire wait wait fire.. and making each shot count is very much BT canon. It's IMHO the very core of BT warfare.

Wrong. It's part of CBT, but that's because CBT is a turn-based game. It requires a bit of imagination to make your CBT battles come to life... some weapon systems simply aren't sitting there firing once every turn. The fluff is there to pick up where the imagination fails, though, and from the fluff we learn that ACs, including the large ones, are indeed rapid fire weapons firing multiple times over the course of a turn's amount of time (10 seconds iirc). There are one or two makes of AC/20 that only fire once or twice per salvo, but these are the exception.. most of them are firing at a rate of around 1 round a second. See the Atlas in the MW5 trailer.

And the main reason i am against burst/auto fire is spread of damage. That would make the ACs a lot worse (except if they upped the damage potential.... and that would make ACs very overpowered under certain conditions).

Spread of damage is different from what we have now with HE cannon balls... how? Whittling away at 750 damage to one location and making other parts slowly going yellow and orange while a gauss user is drilling your CT/leg out of you in big single target hits in a close range battle is not a good representation of close range firepower. Overpowered in certain conditions? That's the idea. These certain conditions are called 'close range', and you have to do a bunch of fancy maneuvering, duck through cover, and survive a maelstrom of LRMs, gauss, large lasers, and PPCs to do so. If you manage to get in close range with enough armor left to be able to do damage over time with a hard hitting, rapid fire short ranged weapon, you deserve to be 'overpowered'.