What happened to MCs?

RedwoodLynx · Aug 23, 2019

Long time player returning to Elite- last time I was here it was early 2017 (nothing like a personal carrier coming soon to get me excited).

Back in the day I played around quite a lot with PVE in a combat cutter (I know, I know, go get a vette you scrub, etc- I just love those imperial bulkheads too much), and last time I logged in I remember my build being able to sit in a High CZ and blow stuff up with ease. I run a cutter with:

-Huge gimbled MC (overcharged, incendiary)
-2 Large gimbled MCs (both overcharged, 1 corrosive)
-2 medium turret beams (efficient thermal vent)
-2 medium gimbled beams (efficient thermal vent)
-SLF with beams

While my cutter can still laugh off any damage thrown at it, I'm running into some serious trouble actually killing anything. The beams and huge mc rip through shields with ease, but once I switch to the two large mcs+the huge mc for hull damage, It suddenly starts taking forever to kill anything.

Did MCs get changed somehow? Has there been a nerf to corrosive or incendiary rounds? Should I be using different weapons for hull damage? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Rick6549 · Aug 23, 2019

Nope. CZs are for engineered ships and everyone there is hull tanked to andromeda and back.

Morbad · Aug 23, 2019

RedwoodLynx said:
The beams and huge mc rip through shields with ease, but once I switch to the two large mcs+the huge mc for hull damage, It suddenly starts taking forever to kill anything.

Why are you not firing all of your weapons at the hull?

Old Duck · Aug 23, 2019

Rumor is that NPCs became bullet sponges in some recent update. I too noticed that MCs were not much better against hulls than my efficient beams, though I think some of that has to do with just how often my size 3 gimbaled MCs miss the target these days (despite being trained on it).

I've pretty much given up on the size 3 MCs unless I have to use them due to power / distributor constraints. I use my beams to target the power plant and smile when a Cutter blows up with 80% hull

RedwoodLynx · Aug 23, 2019

Morbad said:
Why are you not firing all of your weapons at the hull?

I should have been more clear- I do. The turrets do their own thing and shoot constantly, while I keep constant fire from the MCs and use the gimbled beams as my distro allows.

RedwoodLynx · Aug 23, 2019

Old Duck said:
Rumor is that NPCs became bullet sponges in some recent update. I too noticed that MCs were not much better against hulls than my efficient beams, though I think some of that has to do with just how often my size 3 gimbaled MCs miss the target these days (despite being trained on it).

I've pretty much given up on the size 3 MCs unless I have to use them due to power / distributor constraints. I use my beams to target the power plant and smile when a Cutter blows up with 80% hull

Huh- so if you're just farming a CZ is it that much more efficient to target down the powerplant instead of just blowing up the hull?

GraphiteGB · Aug 23, 2019

As posted above War conflict zones are full of engineered to hell and back war ships now... prismatic shields can show up on AI as well...
As can Experimental phase sequence lasers which go through shields so damage to hull needs to be countered not just shields any more..
Pay per kill has been adjusted to reflect this in conflict zone, eagles no longer pay 9K but now have a random figure from some thing like 25k-50K...
corvettes/Cutters now pay the likes of 125k to the pay out of 330K+, Routing the capital ship went up to 500K, but its offence of the capital ship was nearfed making it very easy...
Wing missions to kill 40+ ships got a big pay bonus as well they are way over the single user mission pay out...

RedwoodLynx said:
Huh- so if you're just farming a CZ is it that much more efficient to target down the powerplant instead of just blowing up the hull?

If the ship is medium to large yes. small nope. they will spin and move to easy...

Old Duck · Aug 23, 2019

GraphiteGB said:
If the ship is medium to large yes. small nope. they will spin and move to easy...

I concur. On the other hand, my beams make fairly quick work of smaller ships, and in my experience they do a better job than MCs because I can fire them constantly and rarely miss the hull (unlike 3C MCs which often miss and have long reload time). Often my toughest opponent is another Vulture, and then I target the frameshift drive so he doesn't escape when I finally whittle down his hull.

Disclaimer - I'm comparing a pair of G5 efficient beams to G5 short range MCs on a Vulture. If I were using unengineered beams vs. unengineered MCs, well that may be a very different story. I also might have a better hit ratio if I went with long range MCs but only fired them at closer range, due to the increased shot speed. Still, having tried just about everything on that Vulture, I keep returning to my gimbaled beams and clever subsystem targeting.

DragonIV · Aug 23, 2019

Autoloading MCs are the thing I like to use, as least on the big guns on the top of the vette. As soon as the beams do their work on the shield, it's hammer time.

60mm · Aug 23, 2019

NPCs definitely became bullet sponges recently, and it's not just in CZs. I've had a handful of times in Assassination missions recently where I am pegging away at a Corvette vainly trying to escape (destroyed FSD) and it's ludicrous how long it takes sometimes. Bear in mind, this is with a pair of Large Short Ranged PAs, so ~300 damage per volley and I would take 0-1% per volley off their hull once they get ~12%. Not only did their hulls get heavily buffed, they have some kinda cheat hull going on. Nothing should be able to take that much absolute damage to drop their final 12% of hull. Just floating after them holding my trigger down lasts longer than the actual fight.

My initial thoughts was, 'perhaps I am just doing nothing but module damage now that the hull is so low', but that doesn't explain why this never happened until the last month-ish. I've done hundreds of Assassinations and never saw this before.

ALEX CAOS · Aug 23, 2019

GraphiteGB said:
As posted above War conflict zones are full of engineered to hell and back war ships now... prismatic shields can show up on AI as well...
As can Experimental phase sequence lasers which go through shields so damage to hull needs to be countered not just shields any more..
Pay per kill has been adjusted to reflect this in conflict zone, eagles no longer pay 9K but now have a random figure from some thing like 25k-50K...
corvettes/Cutters now pay the likes of 125k to the pay out of 330K+, Routing the capital ship went up to 500K, but its offence of the capital ship was nearfed making it very easy...
Wing missions to kill 40+ ships got a big pay bonus as well they are way over the single user mission pay out...

If the ship is medium to large yes. small nope. they will spin and move to easy...

Thats it you need a ton (nice thing S.H:ITton to what you see) of damage in cz time and income isnt realy worth it anymore you can make more credit 2 min mining than 20 min in cz. They overdone it there, Nice summery you wrote

RedwoodLynx · Aug 23, 2019

60mm said:
NPCs definitely became bullet sponges recently, and it's not just in CZs. I've had a handful of times in Assassination missions recently where I am pegging away at a Corvette vainly trying to escape (destroyed FSD) and it's ludicrous how long it takes sometimes. Bear in mind, this is with a pair of Large Short Ranged PAs, so ~300 damage per volley and I would take 0-1% per volley off their hull once they get ~12%. Not only did their hulls get heavily buffed, they have some kinda cheat hull going on. Nothing should be able to take that much absolute damage to drop their final 12% of hull. Just floating after them holding my trigger down lasts longer than the actual fight.

My initial thoughts was, 'perhaps I am just doing nothing but module damage now that the hull is so low', but that doesn't explain why this never happened until the last month-ish. I've done hundreds of Assassinations and never saw this before.

I appreciate this (and all the other) feedback- at least I know I'm not crazy. I'm gonna swap the 3C MCs for beams, and swap incendiary on the huge MC for autoloader or something else (I read elsewhere that incendiary got changed and now does 100% thermal- that would definitely hurt hull dmg)- hopefully that will make things more manageable.

60mm · Aug 23, 2019

RedwoodLynx said:
I appreciate this (and all the other) feedback- at least I know I'm not crazy. I'm gonna swap the 3C MCs for beams, and swap incendiary on the huge MC for autoloader or something else (I read elsewhere that incendiary got changed and now does 100% thermal- that would definitely hurt hull dmg)- hopefully that will make things more manageable.

That's the exact opposite to the solution you need. You need to scale back on the lasers and add more kinetic weaponry. I would start by swapping your SLF to the MC Condor. It puts out the kinetic DPS of a Huge MC.

GraphiteGB · Aug 23, 2019

RedwoodLynx said:
I appreciate this (and all the other) feedback- at least I know I'm not crazy. I'm gonna swap the 3C MCs for beams, and swap incendiary on the huge MC for autoloader or something else (I read elsewhere that incendiary got changed and now does 100% thermal- that would definitely hurt hull dmg)- hopefully that will make things more manageable.

Keep 1 corrosive multi cannon it helps with any thing hitting the hull no matter the weapon type... If they keep firing heat sinks then get an emissive multi as well to keep the target lock...
Get rid of turrets and move to gimbled on every thing so that you can focus 100% Fire on single target this is combining with your sides AI beam fire with your own beams on a target..

DragonIV · Aug 23, 2019

60mm said:
NPCs definitely became bullet sponges recently, and it's not just in CZs. I've had a handful of times in Assassination missions recently where I am pegging away at a Corvette vainly trying to escape (destroyed FSD) and it's ludicrous how long it takes sometimes. Bear in mind, this is with a pair of Large Short Ranged PAs, so ~300 damage per volley and I would take 0-1% per volley off their hull once they get ~12%. Not only did their hulls get heavily buffed, they have some kinda cheat hull going on. Nothing should be able to take that much absolute damage to drop their final 12% of hull. Just floating after them holding my trigger down lasts longer than the actual fight.

My initial thoughts was, 'perhaps I am just doing nothing but module damage now that the hull is so low', but that doesn't explain why this never happened until the last month-ish. I've done hundreds of Assassinations and never saw this before.

Weird, I did a bunch of assassination missions Monday night (you know, the dumb "hey all these missions are in the same system" followed by "why are there TWO corvettes attacking me?"

Anyhow, I'm not even bothering to target components. Those size 4 MCs are dropping them like flies once I knock the shields off. I don't think any of them lasted more than 60 seconds, which surprised me given how they were Deadly and Elite versions and how not very good my TOT is.

DragonIV · Aug 23, 2019

I should add I'm also using corrosive and emissive modifiers, too.

60mm · Aug 23, 2019

@dragoniv What has been strange about is the inconsistency of it. Sometimes they go down normally. Other times they get a sudden wind of incredible hull strength near the end and just refuse to die, floating along with their modules wrecked and just taking incredible damage like it's a joke.

I use corrosive on an MC paired with the dual Large Short Ranged Plasmas btw, and sometimes it is like flinging boogers at the enemy.

DragonIV · Aug 23, 2019

60mm said:
@dragoniv What has been strange about is the inconsistency of it. Sometimes they go down normally. Other times they get a sudden wind of incredible hull strength near the end and just refuse to die, floating along with their modules wrecked and just taking incredible damage like it's a joke.

I use corrosive on an MC paired with the dual Large Short Ranged Plasmas btw, and sometimes it is like flinging boogers at the enemy.

LOL, gotcha. Only did eight or nine Sunday night, so it's a pretty small sample group and the inconsistency would likely explain why I didn't see it. Guess I might have to wreck my relationship with the Xhosag Purple Brothers a bit more this week, since everyone in my home system wants a piece of them of late.

B.Roberts · Aug 23, 2019

RedwoodLynx said:
Long time player returning to Elite- last time I was here it was early 2017 (nothing like a personal carrier coming soon to get me excited).

Back in the day I played around quite a lot with PVE in a combat cutter (I know, I know, go get a vette you scrub, etc- I just love those imperial bulkheads too much), and last time I logged in I remember my build being able to sit in a High CZ and blow stuff up with ease. I run a cutter with:

-Huge gimbled MC (overcharged, incendiary)
-2 Large gimbled MCs (both overcharged, 1 corrosive)
-2 medium turret beams (efficient thermal vent)
-2 medium gimbled beams (efficient thermal vent)
-SLF with beams

While my cutter can still laugh off any damage thrown at it, I'm running into some serious trouble actually killing anything. The beams and huge mc rip through shields with ease, but once I switch to the two large mcs+the huge mc for hull damage, It suddenly starts taking forever to kill anything.

Did MCs get changed somehow? Has there been a nerf to corrosive or incendiary rounds? Should I be using different weapons for hull damage? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

NPCs did got better over the last few years. Definitely evolved since 1.0 lol. It looks like they also flying engineered ships every so often. I'm flying Cutter with somewhat similar configuration and overcharged MCs with corrosive ammo still a good choice when combined with efficient thermal vented beams. Most of the time it is enough to vaporize any NPC ship in no time, however I've also seen pretty tough ones. Not that long ago almost got my ass handed to me by Elite FDL in wing with 2 Vultures, which is not the end of the world usually.

Jpotter · Aug 24, 2019

RedwoodLynx said:
-Huge gimbled MC (overcharged, incendiary)
-2 medium turret beams (efficient thermal vent)
-2 medium gimbled beams (efficient thermal vent)

Did MCs get changed somehow? Has there been a nerf to corrosive or incendiary rounds? Should I be using different weapons for hull damage? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Incendiary was nerfed by removing a hidden damage bonus (Multicannon Nerf), OC incendiary multicannons are no longer the meta for thermal damage - there is no longer any point to running Incendiary multicannons unless you need an even more efficient pulse laser otherwise. I'd change that Huge MC back to straight OC'ed w/Autoloader or oversized. I would think all those beams eat though your distro and would change at least two to long range pulse lasers w/phasing sequence to get a head start on hull damage before the shields go down.