PPC Details

[Qoojo]

I watched a youtube video of this game, and the player seemed to like PPCs quite a bit. Is there a lore reason for this? I didn't really undertand the info in the UI, so it might have been a heavy hitter.

[beartech28]

Yes - PPC are typically High HEAT and High Damage (Energy weapon) so no ammo required hence the high heat.

[beartech28]

Also its a projectile not a beam weapon. In some games it even has splash damage to hit surrounding areas.

[wendigo211]

The stats I know about it are:
40 heat, 7 tons, 3 critical slots, 50 damage, 20 stability damage and has an emp effect on the enemy that gives them a penalty to accuracy on their next turn. I think the ranges are the same as tabletop so: short 1-180 m, medium 181-360 m, long 361-540 m.

Personally I think it's too heavy and generates too much heat compared to the Large Laser, LRM-15 and AC-5.

[Veritas]

The PPC is the only energy weapon that deals stability damage and it has respectable range. It doesn't need ammo and applies a debuff to the arget that reduces their to hit chances. That said, they are heavy and hot.

[PlevisVesel]

The PPC is a good sniper weapon. Also it does some stability damage and incurs a -1 Acc penalty on the target.
Thing is that some streamers don't like it because you can't mount too many on your mechs because of the high heat generated and it misses a lot (apparently) in the beginning when your pilots don't have much gunnery. Tho I suppose some of those streamers somehow upset RNGesus hence the low CTH they got.

[Chrome_34_FastBoi]

In lore they also scramble the electrical systems if a mech gets smacked by multiple shots. The reason for the 90 meter minimum range is because of the inhibitors that are designed to protect the mech that is firing it from the electrical side-effects but you could disable it if you felt man enough.

[Farg Igorg]

Originally posted by KeyboardForce:

but you could disable it if you felt man enough.

Challenge accepted (if allowed lol).

[Qoojo]

Thanks for all the info.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Pfloyd:

Originally posted by KeyboardForce:

but you could disable it if you felt man enough.

Challenge accepted (if allowed lol).

You don't need a mod for no penalty on PPC (or AC5). That's literally what high tactics skill pilots are capable of. -45 minimum range threshold at Five, and Eight tactics skill. Which adds up to more than the 90m penalty threshold on PPC/AC5.

[muddball]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

Personally I think it's too heavy and generates too much heat compared to the Large Laser, LRM-15 and AC-5.

PPCs and AC5 are the two different approaches to the same problem. One uses ammo and is low heat, the other is ammoless at the cost of high heat.

Large Lasers have slightly shorter range and Hairbrained took a little something off the PPCs damage base in order to add in a little on-hit targeting fuzz. (I'm not sure if I like that, but that's my own personal taste.)

[Nerivant]

From what ive seen from a letsplayer the PPC has a chance with each hit to slow enemy mech movement, and also does significant "stability damage" which lowers accuracy as they fire back, and also past a limit will knock a mech down.

[Darkstar]

in the Mechwarrior games I never mounted them as the heat/dps ratio was not to my liking. Then again, I always did cheese builds with only medium lasers on mechs that could vent almost all the heat and fire nearly continuously. It helped that the AI was a bit... pants on head retarded too.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by muddball:

Originally posted by wendigo211:

Personally I think it's too heavy and generates too much heat compared to the Large Laser, LRM-15 and AC-5.

PPCs and AC5 are the two different approaches to the same problem. One uses ammo and is low heat, the other is ammoless at the cost of high heat.

Large Lasers have slightly shorter range and Hairbrained took a little something off the PPCs damage base in order to add in a little on-hit targeting fuzz. (I'm not sure if I like that, but that's my own personal taste.)

AC5 is actually good now, what a world to live in! Though the big thing to probably keep in mind about the PPC isn't the debuff. It's the fact it's sporting 20 stability damage.

AC5 is competive with the PPC in every other way now, but it's only got 10 stability damage on hit. PPC does as much stabilty as the AC10, or ten LRMs hitting a target.

Knockdowns being one of the few ways to allow called shots against a target, along with the fact it hurts the pilot.

On that note, remember that AI pilots have the same skills you do, so they can also get 4 health up from 3 for cheap. A fact I've noticed old hands to Btech overlooking when they demand newbies to the series streaming for pre-launch bend over backwards for a "sure thing" pilot kill.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by muddball:

Originally posted by wendigo211:

Personally I think it's too heavy and generates too much heat compared to the Large Laser, LRM-15 and AC-5.

PPCs and AC5 are the two different approaches to the same problem. One uses ammo and is low heat, the other is ammoless at the cost of high heat.

Yeah, but the PPC used to be balanced against the AC-10. 7 tons, 3 critical and 10 heat vs. 12 tons, 7 critical, 3 heat and 10 shots per ton of ammo. If you add 7 heat sinks to the PPC and 2 tons of ammo to the AC-10 you end up with 14 tons, 10 critical and 3 heat for the PPC vs. 14 tons, 9 critical, 3 heat and 20 shots for the AC-10. It's pretty even, the PPC even has a little longer range.

Against the new AC-5, it's not really a close comparison anymore. They both have the same range. The PPC does 10 more stability and 5 more damage, but the AC-5 is 4 tons lighter than the AC-10, generates less heat and has more ammo per ton. On top of that the PPC generates 33% more heat than tabletop. The PPC might still win if you're only fielding one long range weapon. But as soon as you want to add something more to your mech that AC-5 is looking a lot more attractive. I guess there are recoil penalties to the AC-5, but I don't think it's even close.

[ImHelping]

Yeah In this game AC5 is 8 tons. PPC is 7 tons.

That said, you can still end up better off in tonnage with a single AC5 because one tone of ammo is 15 shots. You're probbaly gonna need more than two extra heat sinks to cope with a PPC added to a mech.

Still, even with built in CASE essentially (common sense isn't lostech, wow). Ammo explosions are still a thing.