I have, noticed the IS versions of UAC and LBX models take up too much room and weigh too much to make viable builds. The rocket launchers have to be upped in damage to be viable as a one shot weapon. MRM need to have their spread tightened up. Heavy and light gauss are too heavy. Also noticed the look of the UAC weapons are not the same thru different sizes and different mechs. ER lasers seem to work as intended. Boating Heavy machine guns is going to be a problem to deal with. Had an Arrow get in my face and tore me up in Mauler.
I have issues with just about all the new weapons. One could look at this as a good thing in that none of them will be clearly better than existing weapons. But I think most of them are clearly worse. Rotary autocannons: High damage for a few seconds and then at least twice that time with no damage. Jams last forever and the heat is brutal. The nice thing about autocannons is supposed to be you trade weight and ammo for lower heat. RACs are heavy, need ammo and are hot. Light gauss is too heavy and too slow to fire. Trading a 20% weight reduction for 50% damage reduction and no increase in rate of fire is a losing proposition. Light MGs do less damage than medium MGs. I don't see how that's useful. Heavy MGs are too heavy and scatter fire too much to focus on naked components. For the investment you need to carry enough of them, they need to do more. LBX autocannons at the same weight as regular autocannons is a no go. MRMs are too hot, fire too slow and have too much spread. They won't hit a moving target outside of SRM range. Snub nose PPCs need the minimum range removed. I like where light PPCs are at, filling a void between Medium and Large lasers on the energy weapon weight scale. Rocket Launchers take up too many slots for one off weapons. Why does a RL20 take up the same space as MRM10 and a full ton of ammo? Laser AMS at 5 (or even 4) heat per second makes it useless if you're trying to fight at the same time. Clan HMGs might be worth the weight. I haven't tried yet. Heavy lasers are actually more heat efficient than ER models. They're made for hit and run attacks where you alpha then hide and cool off. ATMs have too much spread for a low number of missiles. ATM9 has the same spread as LRM20 and cant take advantage of artemis. That's going to spread damage all over the target. Some of the math analysis I've seen on the MWO forum is something that PGI should have been doing well before getting to PTS. I predict lots of changes before rollout
That's why I'm not worried about the lackluster new!tech yet. PGI will see the feedback and make changes accordingly, I'm sure. Then what's the point? In TT they can switch to solid slug to nullify the inherent weakness of spread fire, but without that option reduced weight is the only real draw that the LBX family offers. I'd never use the IS 10X if it wasn't a ton less than a normal AC. Yeah, I was looking at the Sarna stats and wondering why anyone would bother running one. Such mediocre performance for the downgrade; might as well run a normal gauss... or an AC2 if you really want lightweight sniping. Still excited for RACs (even if they suck), Light Peeps (switch out ERLLs for lightweight PPFLD) and HMGs (for the truly insane knife-fighters like the LCT-1V and SDR-5K). EDIT: Seen those MRMs in action. Besides perhaps a bit more velocity they look exactly like I was hoping for them to be.
I'm wondering if people were expecting too much as to me some of the same weapons you're all complaining about are stunningly useful from my testing. MRM's are borderline broken in some builds they're so useful. Don't think of them as LRM's or streaks they're SRM's with much higher damage and range - volley and twist away. I was savaging assaults. Snub nose and light PPC's are really useful. On the LBX complaints - they're basically clan LBX's so what did you all expect we'd have. UAC's have some broken linkages like being able to run two uac/20's with no ghost heat which I presume will be changed. Currently look better than the clan versions as less pellets per shot so easier to land everything. The light engines are in a really nice place - only downside is I need a LOT more c-bills for buying them. My one big disappointment is RAC's - too many downsides. The easiest immediate change would be to increase the 2's to be able to fire say 3 with no ghost heat or 3 of both 2's and 5's. Don't unlink the 2's and 5's though or people will just run 2 of each. HMG's... got ripped apart a few times with them. If you get caught by Heavy lasers its very painful. Anyone tried stealth armour or a UAC build with the changed nodes yet?
Meant to say I'm torn on the Heavy Gauss as within optimal they're deadly but they seem to lose damage very fast. I'd suggest dropping that max range but making the drop less severe. If you twin them with dual lppc or snub nose ppc they're deadly which is probably why they're being really conservative. I haven't found a single use for the light gauss so far.
Ok some big changes here and a big bug warning at the end which rather changes my view on MRMs being great.... Ballistic UAC/10 Fixed ammo tuning to appropriate amount, 40 shots per ton, 20 per half ton Heat reduced to 3 (from 4) UAC/20 Fixed Ammo tuning to appropriate amount, 21 shots per ton, 9 per half ton Heat reduced to 6 (from 7) RAC 2 Increased damage up to 0.7 (from 0.5) Reduced Spin up time to .75 seconds (from 1 second) Increased velocity to 1500 (from 1150) RAC 5 Increased damage up to 1.35 (from 1.2) Reduced Spin up time to 1 second (from 1.25 seconds) Increased velocity to 1025 (from 950) Increased ammo to 150 shots per ton, 75 per half ton (from 130 and 65 respectively) Light Machine Gun (Both Clan / IS) Damage increased to 0.07 (from 0.06) Crit Multiplier increased to 13(from 9) Heavy MachineGun (Both Clan / IS) Damage reduced to 0.14 (from 0.15) Crit Multiplier reduced to 6 (from 9) Light Gauss Increased velocity to 2200 (from 2000 Decreased Cooldown to 3.75 (from 5) Heavy Gauss Increased velocity to 1500 (from 1000) Energy Light PPC Increased the minimum heat penalty trigger to 4 (from 3) Component Health reduced to 5 (from 7.5) Heavy PPC Projectile damage increased to 13 (from 12) Arcing Damage decreased to 1 (from 1.5) Minimum range now represented by an exponential damage drop off similar to Clan LRMs. Heavy Small Laser Duration decreased to 1.2 Cooldown Increased to 3.9 Heavy Medium Laser Duration Decreased to 1.45 Cooldown Increased to 5.15 Heavy Large Laser Duration Decreased to 1.55 Missiles *Special Note* First round PTS feedback alerted us to a current bug on PTS in which the Artemis Mech upgrade is unintentionally boosting MRM, ATM, and Rocket Launcher spread attributes. This will be fixed for the final feature release, but it still remains within this current PTS. It is advised that anyone wishing to test the new Missile weapon systems on PTS to take the Artemis Guidance Mech upgrade to test currently intended spread test values. MRM 10 Velocity increased to 400 (from 350) MRM 20 Velocity increased to 400 (from 350) Component Health increased to 10 (from 7.5) MRM 30 Velocity increased to 400 (from 350) Component Health increased to 12.5 (from 7.5) MRM 14 Velocity increased to 400 (from 350) Component Health increased to 15 (from 7.5) ATM 3 Minimum Range reduced to 120 meters (from 180) ATM 6 Minimum Range reduced to 120 meters (from 180) Component health increased to 5 (from 3.5) ATM 9 Minimum Range reduced to 120 meters (from 180) Component health increased to 7.5 (from 3.5) ATM 12 Minimum Range reduced to 120 meters (from 180) Component health increased to 10 (from 3.5) Rocket Launcher 10 Spread increased to 6.2 Heat Penalty value increased to 3.5 (from 1.75) Heat Penalty Trigger reduced to 3 (From 5) Rocket Launcher 15 Spread increased to 6.2 Heat Penalty value increased to 3.5 (from 1.75) Heat Penalty Trigger reduced to 2 (From 5) Rocket Launcher 20 Spread increased to 6.2 Heat Penalty value increased to 3.5 (from 1.75) Heat Penalty Trigger reduced to 2 (From 5) Equipment: Laser Anti Missile System (Both Clan / IS) Heat reduced to 3.5 (from 4) Please note that these values still remain test values and may change by final release.
Odd thing about some of those is they might not help despite being impressive changes. Neutral changes: RAC's the big problem is heat imo so the nice improvements still don't help but they clearly don't want you boating them. MRM's - nice velocity increase but if they were getting Artemis factored in to the spread that's really not good Big winners: ATM minimum range dropped to 120 is big as its much easier to keep people out of 120 rather than 180. Laser AMS was basically unusable over 1 so fingers crossed that helps. Heavy PPC - so many boosts its scary - more concentrated damage and a much better minimum range mechanic. Heavy lasers - some pure boosts others just easier to land all your damage but countered by a cooldown increase (luckily lasers already really benefit from nodes anyway) UAC's - and no mention of the UAC 20 being changed for ghostfire.... Nerfs: HMG's???? Light PPC's - PGI obviously met my dual LPPC Locust and were terrified - bizarre change though.
Played a little PTS last night. Had a couple of 700+ damage games Catapult Streak Cat with 6 Streak 6's last night. Like the light ppc and snub-nose ppc work nicely on lights and smaller mediums. I don't think UAC 10 and 20 are registering damage correctly. Hit a an Artic Cheetah center torso with three rapid fire bursts and and did not seem to scratch him. The amount of damage you get with light gauss is a waste of time for just three tons light then regular gauss. Need to up the damage or reduce the weight. Like 8 tons instead of 12, or 10 or 11 damage instead of 8.
Only seen streams of the new weapons, as playing on the PTS is a hassle for me. Once they're released I'll check them out I have, however, changed the FAQ on build titles to incorporate standardized abbreviations for the new tech, so you guys can start brewing here immediately. The staff and I will be keeping an eye on newly posted builds so the transition is smooth and we only have to bring older builds up to speed in a few cases!
I haven't tried since the update but they had the same 90m minimum range as other PPCs when the PTS first went up.
What are the thoughts on stealth armor though? I haven't seen any in practice and I haven't been able to try it, so I'm going to ask a few questions, like how effective is it? How visible am I? How hot are they? Is it worth it? How big can my stealth builds get?
Be aware that if you're locked before you stealth they can still streak etc you, aka it doesn't break just stop locks. Heat management is also a bitch and there aren't many gauss boats with ECM.... Tag's and PPC's will stop it. Currently FW radar scans also show you but that may or may not be intentional. For the strength and limitations of stealth armour rather than the edited good stuff watch this footage from his twitch stream: https://www.twitch.tv /videos/162956031 (just take the spaces out after "tv" in the middle as couldn't get it to just do a normal link or leave it as plain text)
