Seran Jinkar
Sanmatar Kelkoons
Minmatar Republic
214
   |
Posted - 2012.08.03 14:06:00 -
[2] - Quote
Okay, after some more threads about the Mass Driver I decided to invest time to reach Mass Driver Proficiency and the Freedom Mass Driver. After all we are here to test and I wanted to test the MD as good as I can. Here is my feedback:
1. Possible roles:
Suppressive Fire
This role of the Mass Driver in the current state is extremely limited. It can be used to lay down psychological suppression on a single point, BUT only if you are using a nanohive. This role is quite limited as the projectile speed is to slow for long distances and the actual effectiveness too low to actually be anywhere near an enemy. so you are stuck to a high elevation on medium distances. Though if you stick to this role you will not gain ANY SP as the splash radius is much to small to actually hit anyone with splash on a medium to long distance so that you might get assist SP. You will just stand there and see those black ants running about having fun with your fireworks.
Fire Support
The second role is giving fire support to heavies or assault groups. Unfortunately the hit detection problem showed an extraordinarly high amount of dud rounds AND not registering splashes and direct hits. Even when the projectile explodes in about 1m distance, most times the hit is not registered. This increases with the angular speed of both the target and the shooter. Which makes the weapon useless when strafing or moving fast in an infantry firefight or even CQC. Right now the best hit registering efficiency is occuring when standing still and shooting on a slow or standing target, but still does not go above 80%to 90%. I'm basing this on test shots on a blaster installation and stationary tanks. Not to mention that even IF the hit detection would work out even Scout suits are shaking (laughingly) at the dealt amount of damage compared to projactile speed and clip size, not to mention a decent assault or militia heavy. The last DO only laugh at the damage form a prototype(!) class weapon which costs 20 times more than the basic variant (not to mention the SP costs) and provides only the most marginal improvement in efficiency and damage.
Anti-Vehicle
This is the worst role I tried with the Freedom Mass Driver. The only way to hit a vehicle is when they are standing still or trying to squash you with a dropship. But still then it needs about 5 to 6 shots with the Freedom MD to down a militia DS. LAVs and HAV are much to resilient to be seriously damaged by a MD. See Fire Support for hitting gunners in a LAV, it's no use there either as the infantry damage is too low.
2. Stats
Concerning the stats of Mass Driver it simply doesn't seem to apply with the current hit detection routine. Esspecially Splash damage does not seem to apply at the given distance. If the splash radius is slightly below 4m and the average model is 2m high the splash should register in a distance that is two times the size of the enemy. Right now it seems to be much less. I'll look some more into that though. (Maybe test it on a CRU.)
3. Variants
Concerning the roles I tested I suggest following Variant of the MD:
Suppressor - lower damage, large splash area
Support - medium damage, medium splash and a 2x multiplier against infantry
Puncture - medium damage ( like 2x the damage of one swarm missile), very small splash and low splash damage, 1.5 damage multiplier against vehicles, Increased projectile speed
4. magazine
The magazine should be either remodeled or the clip size be increased to 6 rounds. |