36 replies to this topic

[PlagueDoctor]

While playing on my Bruiser, I noticed that the Vulcan is still really only good at generating heat, and basically being used as a long range melee weapon. The solutions to both those problems, I think, lays within both the problems.

The first solution I brainstormed was, with scaling heat, effective damage range increases. At no heat, damage range is the same, within the yellow bracket of heat, damage range is increased by some amount, (25%_) and in the red bracket of heat, the damage range is increased further. (50%_ 75%_)

This would allow the Vulcan to do what its supposed to do, which is suppression. In this case, the enemy has to be sure to stay away from the front of the Vulcan so that they don't take as much damage, even if they're at a range that normally would be safe. However, for the user of the Vulcan, they have to manage their heat, so that once they attain red bracket heat, they can keep it there. Anyone that's used a Vulcan for any amount of time knows that its really easy to accidentally over-heat when trying to stop firing before shutdown.

The second solution would be that, with heat, total damage increases. Obviously, the damage boost from this would have to be small to avoid walking laser-cannons from roaming around, but I believe that this, too, could be a viable solution. Perhaps to compensate, starting/no heat damage would have to be reduced. However, the damage gradient would remain the same, so that even though it would gain effectiveness at mid-range combat, at long range it would still be impractical.

Currently, the Vulcan really is only good at very short ranges, and I believe either of these changes could make it more competitive in the long run, bringing it in line with other weapons, and raising the skill ceiling of the mechs it belongs to.

[Timemaker]

This is a Good Post^TM about a Bad Gun^TM

[h0B0]

I agree vulcan needs just a tiny wee bit more work.

I like your idea it would much needed dept to the somewhat redundant nature of bullet type weapons.

[Lithium03]

The Vulcan was supposed to get a heat buff, but that seems to have not been put into the game yet even though the tooltip was updated. The heat meter goes yellow immediately from its ~25% opacity grey/blue, to clearly show you heating up, and the red is to further inform that you're about to overheat. So you'd basically always have a damage boost(which it doesn't really need), and only have about 1 maybe 2 seconds of red fire before going to 0 from overheating, else you run and cooldown, still causing you to stop. Try out the Vulcan again once they fix its heat generation.

[PlagueDoctor]

The heat buff won't make it be out-healed by a person repairing though. I feel that It does need a damage boost. The thing is a peashooter at best. There is no reason for every other gun to out-perform it in every way. It has extremely low damage for the amount of heat if produces. (I'm looking at you, miniflak)

[Lithium03]

It actually has the 3rd highest dps behind mini flak and regular flak, all of which are best at close range. The heat it produces now is basically too much, it's why they tried to buff it, but for some reason it didn't take. The point of improving the heat was to allow it to dps for long enough to be useful. With regards to repair, the base rate is 35 + 15 internal +9(3 points in defense tree) = 59/second at best, the Vulcan still does 40 dps over that plus your special weapon, which due to having a stationary target is an easy 216 damage. Assuming you're not trying to snipe with the vulcan, it can still be effective, they just need to fix that heat issue.

[Avlaen]

bit less heat would do it find imo.

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

The problem with the Vulcan wasn't the weapon per sé, it was with the classes that got to use it...
AND THAT IS STILL THE PROBLEM.
Berserker _
Should not have a Vulcan.
Assault _
SHOULD NOT HAVE A VULCAN !!
Seriously, you go up against a lvl 20 assault with one of these, you lose.
They spin up, wait for heat to go into the reds, hit F, presto : overpowered Mech that can kill anything else, even several other Mechs at once.

[Avlaen]

Didnt the vulcan get removed from the assault_ i havent seen any with it in CBE 3. agreed the vulcan would be op on the ass with his ability.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Avlaen, on November 26 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Didnt the vulcan get removed from the assault_ i havent seen any with it in CBE 3. agreed the vulcan would be op on the ass with his ability.

I haven't seen any Lvl. 20 assaults, or talked to anybody who owns one or seen one.

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

Played against one earlier tonight.
And i'm sure it was an Assault, double checked both the looks (Fred) and the type of the player's Mech in the Scorelist.

[Avlaen]

I havent either TBH but i distinctly remeber a dev saying the assault wasnt meant to have the vulcan ever, so i assumed they fixed it for this beta.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Dread_Lord_Pitr, on November 26 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

Played against one earlier tonight.
And i'm sure it was an Assault, double checked both the looks (Fred) and the type of the player's Mech in the Scorelist.

Oh wow. Really_
Assault wasn't even supposed to have the Vulcan in CBE2, and that it was "a bug."
I'd have assumed they fixed that.

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

Well either it's back, or it wasn't fixed...
Or there's iffy things going on.
If i run into the guy again i'll try and capture it with FRAPS.

[fwip]

I thought that I ran into a vulcan-toting Assault a few days ago, but I wasn't sure enough to post and say so. (I didn't realize till afterward that Assault wasn't listed in the lvl-20 weapons thread.)

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

http://community.pla..._20#entry104462

Looks like it's confirmed...
And coincidentally, i think it was the guy i ran into (and slaughtered me and half my team) that posted that.

[Sythorian]

I have a lvl 20 Assault with a Point-D, so yeah, I have a Vulcan.

I use the SMG because the vulcan just doesn't give me that "challenge" that I crave. It lowers the skill cap.

On a bruiser it's a really pathetic weapon though, without the weapon cooldown ability. The SMG is actually more useful.

[KungfuDojo]

Hey I just met you ... and this crazy, but I agree.

[PlagueDoctor]

Lithium03, on November 25 2012 - 11:08 PM, said:

It actually has the 3rd highest dps behind mini flak and regular flak, all of which are best at close range. The heat it produces now is basically too much, it's why they tried to buff it, but for some reason it didn't take. The point of improving the heat was to allow it to dps for long enough to be useful.

The other problem with the vulcan is its damage drop-off. At short-range, where it's most effective, it is out-classed by the miniflak and flak. At mid range, its out-classed by the the AR. However, if What Adhesive wants to happen is to have side grades, the weapon needs to be something other than "puts a lot of bullets down range" Because honestly it doesn't even do that very well.

Every single time I try to make the thing useful I just switch to my scout because that way I can actually kill things. I just end up as hell-fire support guy, and If I wanted to do that I would play rocketeer, because I could actually kill things.

[Saunders]

PlagueDoctor, on November 23 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:

The first solution I brainstormed was, with scaling heat, effective damage range increases. At no heat, damage range is the same, within the yellow bracket of heat, damage range is increased by some amount, (25%_) and in the red bracket of heat, the damage range is increased further. (50%_ 75%_)

This is a cool idea.

We've updated the vulkan internally (not to the above haha), but it should feel a lot better now.  I hope to roll out that change (and a bunch of other weapon changes) to you guys later this week after we do a bit more playtesting