Small Lasers are unbalanced

[ICStarz]

What they do for their weight is ridiculous. Here is here to beat expert.

Get 5 Arctic cheetas, unlock Omnipods with most laser slots and put small lasers on until you can unlock Nova.

Then put small lasers on the Nova.

Use that until you unlock the heavy with the most laser slots, then the direwolf. just add small lasers,

use the excess space for heat sinks and armour.

The range of small lasers is OP. It should be 150 meters like MG's.

[Valkynaz]

The ER Small Lasers need their damage lowered to the same as the Small Pulse Laser, I'm almost sure it was a bug they're ignoring for the time being because it's not game breaking

[ProzAction]

Small lasers have always had disproportionate firepower for their weight. That's their niche. The problem is most of this game's missions force you into facehugging brawls so we don't experience their trade-off of craptacular range.
If the maps were more open and/or the enemy AI was smart enough to retreat it would be a nonissue.

[storm0545]

this is a single player game with occasional coop if you have friends they dont need to nerf the lasers you could just choose to not boat nothing but them if you want a challenge. Clan tech is supposed to be over powered and as you've pointed out the clan er small has the same range and damage as an inner sphere medium laser for half the weight. That was how the original creators of battletech did things with clan tech when it was introduced it was pretty much 50% better. I will happily continue to boat er smalls on my gargoyle and enjoy my single player game.

[Geeves]

Small lasers in tabletop also have the disadvantage of each one rolling a separate to hit and hit location. In a first person action game they all hit the exact same spot every time. This turns into a massive advantage over how the weapon is originally balanced.

[Ninjafroggie]

Originally posted by Geeves:

Small lasers in tabletop also have the disadvantage of each one rolling a separate to hit and hit location. In a first person action game they all hit the exact same spot every time. This turns into a massive advantage over how the weapon is originally balanced.

you can link fire weapons in TT, they'll all hit the same spot but the tradeoff is one to-hit roll for the whole lot of em so if you miss you miss with everything. You can even linkfire missiles and lbx autocannons, though i have no idea why you'd want to since they have to roll and allocate for each 5pts of damage anyway. Unless im misremembering and that was a house rule we were using, IDK it's been a couple decades since i played any TT.

The real balancing factor is range. IIRC clan ERsmall has a range of 6 hexes max. Compare that to a standard IS medium laser at 9 hexes, and ERmed ranges of 15 (IS), on maps where you actually have the space to use range, and you see how a small laser boat can really leave you helpless. But it gets worse, because at 6 hex range, you get a +4 long range modifier to your shooting rolls, but the IS mech with bog standard medium lasers is only getting a +2 medium range modifier to shooting rolls back at you. At 5 hexes vs an IS ERMlas its still +4 for the small lasers but +0 for the IS mech. They've always punched way harder for the weight and heat than bigger guns, the problem has always been the difficulty in getting into range to use them effectively.

[talemore]

They're having a time of their life trying to hit light mechs with lasers and why small pulse laser is better.

I don't see why you want arctic cheetah when you need 5 mist lynx for challenges.

My mist lynx builds are :

ER large and LRM5.

SRM6 + Flamer + ER small.

And UAC2 + ER small

UAC2 works for the player against turrets
ER Large + LRM5 is the better build
While SRM6 + ER small is the backstabber.

I never found arctic cheetah to be any good when it came to lasers.

The main reason is that mist lynx is the superior mech with better torso angle of 156 vs 150

Even if arctic cheetah comes with lots of lasers you don't really do it effective since the mist lynx is a lot faster at killing with the srm6

The main thing is that you paying for +5 tonnage but end up with an inferior mech. This is true in MWO as well.
The only version of arctic cheetah who had a chance was a hero mech who was nerfed in updates.

You may have lots of lasers but what is the mech able to do with them?

The mist lynx is superior because the weapons are located next to each other which reduce the spread of your weapons.

Since mist lynx has a much better accuracy with the weapons you wasting less time with a mist lynx since the weapons are actually hitting the target.

What arctic cheetah does is making the pilot blind since the weapons are all over the mech. You can't see the target. All you see is lots of blinding light. The moment you push the button you're blinded by your own guns.

Since artic cheetah makes you blind you have for a second no control over what you aim at.

Not only that arctic cheetah has higher height than a mist lynx.

How arctic cheetah was to replace mist lynx is a question when mist lynx is such much better made mech with thoughts on the pilot.

Oh the mist lynx has not as much ammo...

You don't have to use SRM6 all the time.

But as example having 2 LRM5 and ER Large laser and 1 + 1/2 ton ammo is better than having only ER lasers since there are missions where range is superior.

Most of the time your followers end up shooting each other if you only have ER lasers. Many times targets are destroyed before you see them if some have ER large and LRM5. The couple of LRM5 is just enough to destroy turrets and light vehicles without taking any damage.

While it's true that mist lynx has a pepper box and one arm who may not have any weapons it is a better mech design than having lasers all over the place. Since you have control over the weapons and can aim at targets. This make you able to quickly remove the ppc from panther as an example.

It as well the case what else can you do with an arctic cheetah?

Not much frankly. All you have is energy weapons and a couple of missile slots who are spread all over the mech.

Compare it to mist lynx having 2x of SRM6 in one arm and able to punch in the missiles into a single torso, not only that you can add an energy weapon into the SRM6 so now you dealing 17 damage. It almost as if you had an AC20

[HITMAN]

Did I just hear someone say Mods?

[apocal43]

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

you can link fire weapons in TT, they'll all hit the same spot but the tradeoff is one to-hit roll for the whole lot of em so if you miss you miss with everything. You can even linkfire missiles and lbx autocannons, though i have no idea why you'd want to since they have to roll and allocate for each 5pts of damage anyway. Unless im misremembering and that was a house rule we were using, IDK it's been a couple decades since i played any TT.

Link fire is a thing, but it only cuts down the number of to-hit dice rolls. One roll for all weapons. But damage location is still rolled separately, as normal. The only exception is the Machine Gun Array.

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

The real balancing factor is range. IIRC clan ERsmall has a range of 6 hexes max. Compare that to a standard IS medium laser at 9 hexes, and ERmed ranges of 15 (IS), on maps where you actually have the space to use range, and you see how a small laser boat can really leave you helpless. But it gets worse, because at 6 hex range, you get a +4 long range modifier to your shooting rolls, but the IS mech with bog standard medium lasers is only getting a +2 medium range modifier to shooting rolls back at you. At 5 hexes vs an IS ERMlas its still +4 for the small lasers but +0 for the IS mech. They've always punched way harder for the weight and heat than bigger guns, the problem has always been the difficulty in getting into range to use them effectively.

MW5/MWO lasers get falloff, which extends the range in practice. It doesn't help that the AI struggles with the idea of hanging back at long range unless they have mostly (or all) LRMs, PPCs or ERLLs. Even running a non-cheese T-wolf, they'll watch me nuke an assault with SRMs and MGs, but still waddle within 200m just in time for themselves to get CT cored as well.

[ProzAction]

Disregard my prior comment, OP is right. I just tested it in the Courchevel airfield siege mission.
The ERSL has completely cheat range right now. It doesn't appear to have damage falloff beyond its optimal range, and with skills the max range extends out to like 800m. I was blowing components off at over 500m.

[Ninjafroggie]

Originally posted by apocal43:

MW5/MWO lasers get falloff, which extends the range in practice. It doesn't help that the AI struggles with the idea of hanging back at long range unless they have mostly (or all) LRMs, PPCs or ERLLs. Even running a non-cheese T-wolf, they'll watch me nuke an assault with SRMs and MGs, but still waddle within 200m just in time for themselves to get CT cored as well.

the point is, in TT, you had to roll to hit with lasers, and the small lasers got some pretty bad to hit penalties unless you were at point blank range, which balanced out their higher damage per ton per heat than other weapons. In an FPS setting, they sort of balance this by having damage dropoff but then the level design and enemy AI negates that by constantly forcing CQB. So, in fact, the weapon is not OP, it's just that the game design very rarely allows its shortcomings to make themselves evident.

SmPLas needs a ROF buff tho.

[talemore]

Small pulse laser is just as good as small laser. The differences is that how pulse laser works it's like a cannon and it hits the target very quickly and precise and as such there is no evasion of pulse laser compare to laser.

To reduce the power of laser all you have to do is move to the side. Or run around in circles.

Against enemies who only run straight forward laser is better.

That is how weapons work in videogames is a damage vs time. The bullets are animations and everyone think the bullets are real but it's just a clever illusion.

If we compare it to laser, damage vs time it is the time the laser is shooting that indicate how much damage is made.

What makes laser good is speed of torso twisting vs the mech turning speed.

Most of what makes a laser good has to do with the mech itself and not just the weapon.

For this reason buffing weapons are fundamental flawed as it doesn’t take into account the evasion of the mechs and the torso twist speed and angle or the arm mobility.

This is why the hardpoints are there.

If it would work correctly mechs with arms have better damage by having a much better tracking of targets. Laser weapons in the side torso is to pray that the opponent will rush you straight forward.

Mechs like hunchback were made after inner sphere stupidity of running mechs in a straight line since that was the only formation they could understand in a mass scale and after the war. The hunchback was made to last just as long to force the opponent to face the hunchback which then locks the opponent into being pushed back into a wall and there it would use its backup weapons of lasers along with its AC20

If you compare AC10 and Large pulse laser there are not many differences and likewise if you compare medium pulse with an AC5

[ProzAction]

Fix the broken small laser range and increase the burn time on all beam weapons by at least 50% (raising the skill floor/ceiling for them), ammo-based weapons will shine.

[thundercactus]

ER small lasers are OP even in battletech. Difference is in battletech you'll get absolutely smashed at long range, whereas in MW5 they funnel you into melee range.

[Kazuma]

and this post is why mwo is a broken unfun mess

[Clever Name]

Originally posted by ICStarz:

The range of small lasers is OP. It should be 150 meters like MG's.

Going by the books, an MG should actually be 90m maximum range. An ER small clan laser should be 180m max range.

Why they decided to increase both, I don't know. But yeah, cutting it back to 180m would bring some semblance of balance back.

What makes them broken is that their base range is already much higher than it is in tabletop, so any range bonuses from research or pilot skills are exaggerated. All of it would be fixed just by going back to the 180m limit; even with a 50% range boost it'd still only be 270m, which is still shorter than the base range is now.