Talk:Quirks

Ok, most of the quirks are pretty straightforward and sensible, but there's one I'm struggling to get my head around... Laser duration. Case in point, FS9-K has "laser duration: -10%". What does this mean? Does it deal the same amount of damage per burst, in less time (good), or does the damage per time stay the same, and thus damage per burst is reduced (bad)? - Zergling_man 223.207.79.143 13:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Lasers don't do instant damage. They fire for a length of time, with the listed damage divided over that length of time. For example a Medium Laser has a duration of 0.9 seconds and does 5 damage. If you're firing at someone and kind of slice across them, going from the LA, LT, CT, RT, RA, and then missing them entirely for a bit before the laser stops firing, then that 5 damage gets divided between those five areas and no damage. The amount of that 5 damage that goes to each is determined by the percentage of the 0.9 seconds that it hit that area. If you want to do all five damage to a single section, then you have to hold the beam on that section for the full 0.9 seconds. That can leave you vulnerable. The recycle time (to fire again) also doesn't start until the laser stops firing. So, with a -10% laser duration perk, a Medium Laser will have a duration of 0.81 seconds instead of 0.9. The shorter the duration, the easier it will be to apply the full 5 damage to your target. Pulse lasers have much shorter duration times to begin with, which is the main reason people choose them. You can more aiming, shooting, and moving, rather than aiming, shooting, waiting... and then move. I believe it does still affect pulse lasers, but you get less out of it since they have a shorter duration to start out with. ER Large Lasers will get the most out of it, followed by regular Large Lasers, then Medium, then Small, then Large Pulse, Medium Pulse, and Small Pulse, in that order. The Clan lasers have considerably longer duration than the Inner Sphere lasers, so they would love that quirk, but I haven't seen any Clan 'mechs that have it (so far at least). You also get a slight increase in DPS and HPS (heat per second) since the true time between shots is recycle time + duration. In the Firestarter's case, when you're trying to keep moving, a shorter laser duration should be quite helpful. --Trifler500 (talk) 14:07, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay, that answered my question and much more. Awesome! Is there somewhere on this wiki I can find more of this? Or is this sort of knowledge just passed around? - Zergling_man 223.207.79.201 05:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Hmm... More of this? Not sure what you mean. Do you mean more about quirks or something else? If you think I should list all of the quirks and a description of each, I could do that I suppose. --Trifler500 (talk) 11:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


 * More about technical details in the game. Things like how heat actually works, angles that LRMs fire at (and thus their actual flat max range), crit rates of weapons (and thus why machine guns don't suck), etc. - Zergling_man 223.207.77.45 15:14, 14 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I don't have the answers for any of those things. I know MGs are all about crits, but I don't have any numbers. --Trifler500 (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2015 (UTC)