I've tested some configs with FAST mechs with 1 Rotary AC5 and 1 Rotary AC2 + doubled/tripled ammo + 1 Pulse Medium laser or some flamers for jam-time, and I think it is workin really perfectly -> I can rip apart during 1 minute of dance with much bigger mech some legs or arms. Are you usin' some Rotary ? Especially for brawling or cmedium (400-500m) fight. Why not ? or if yes I'm wondering if Rotary (single or double) knocks mid weight sniper at close range?.

moth

Try a hunchback with 3 RAC2s and shoot at people from a 1000m. That will annoy people.

A fair number of da boys love to pack on the RACs.....





the bastards. (go get on Ronin. you'll see why I said that)

I can attest to that beware of NoGut's 6 RAC annihilator.... PURE EVIL <_<

Until it jammed up on him and i assault lasered him in his flashy red CT. Which is why I never use RAC's, I get too trigger happy and they jam at the worst possible moment. Of course, before they jammed on him, I was being knocked 6 ways to sunday.

I would say what I'ld like to do with all RACs but I ain't allowed to...

Yup but playin so big mek with plenty boated weapon is always destructible (when it manages to his).... but I was wandering about small brawler/harraser.... whitch can always cover if RAC is jam. You know 100 Km/h runnin mech witch is shootin long series with RAC and hiddin behind the mountain.... etc.

IS RAC disturbing ? I mean if it shakes FE. sniper or jump sniper....

moth

well typically when I use Rac's I usaully have em all boated on a ansulat 'mech. Though the idea of having em on mech that cant boat them does give me a couple of ideas OFF TO THE MECHLAB!!

Hrmm.... Ya know, I can't say much primarily because I'm a pretty lousy pilot no matter the chassis you put me in, however I've found that RACs can be utilized very successfully as harrasment weapons in a medium to fast heavy chassis. You won't be able to pack enough of a load on to do the kind of massive damage a boater will, per say.... but if you're good enough, and comfortable enough with them, you will be able to create enough knock and distraction to genuinely ruin someone's day- especially the snipers and pop-tarts, because their window of available shots is limited. Of course, you have to have equally good timing, but the RAC is very effective in that role.

Regarding range- I could be wrong, but my experience is that I've seen RACs best used as medium to long range weapons, rather than right in the furball duking it out. Because of the way RACs will jam up, you want to be clear enough to find the cover to hide behind until you're clear, and that's practically impossible to do when you're right in the middle of a brawl.

You'd probably enjoy doing "drive by's" with RACs..... just charge in straffing the enemy and keep on trucking, turn around, wash, rinse, repeat. Leave the heavy duty brawling to guys packing the LBX's and such- your job would be stripping as much armour off as possible in each pass, so the big guns can punch right on through.





Good lord. Why in the hell can't I play like I can suggest others do?

You'd miss them by 100 meters, RAC2's only go 900.

Now that explains why I was missing

3 rac 5 hunchie!!!! thats the only one.

Can't speak for long range players but as an utter brawler, the only time RAC's ever really bother me with knock is when they're boated or there's 3 or more of them mounted, but that's 'cos I usually mount LBX which won't be winning any awards for "Surgically Precise Weapon of the Year" and I aim for big targets (CT and Legs). The way RAC's ruin my day is if I get caught in the open outside of LBX 20 range. Then they're annoying.

I dunno about the RAC2 (The only time I've heard or seen people using 'em is with 3 or more) but 1-2 RAC5s can knock your target just enough to make them miss. Though the RAC 5 is way easier to jam. Probably give a burst with the RAC (5-8 seconds) followed by a heavy hitter, then follow up with the rac while your big gun recycles.

Proverbial Mech
Bushwacker
1 RAC5+1 ton ammo
1 AC20/LBX20/Guass/UAC20
1 HML (for a backup if you jam the Rac while your big gun is recycling)

Rac2 and a uller.... GENIOUS!

Hell with RACs, always lockin.... that I can say after today....

PS. Like I said before.... I'm a bit new here and to merc..... WHY TACTICS are always the same.... people on wholer ser doin the same things..... sniping you with ERl or Gaus/PCC... that's boring

Things such as sniping with ERL's, Gauss/PPC's are some common becuase I think people have an easier time shooting from distancee and not getting damaged, than get up close, shoot, and get shoot back. Beucase when you are sniping or poptarting you can see you enemy advancing towards you , plus sinpers ultilze cover is close by. Taking a brawler in situations were almost everyone and their grandmother is poptarting leaves you as an opem target, so people will tend to fight poptart with poptart. Thats just my opinon though

*EDIT thanks for catching that NGNG

I've been using a Uller with a RAC5 & SRM4. It works great against heavy & assult mechs.
Also I love sneaking up on poptarts with this and wailing on them up close an personal.

Speaking of poptarts & snipers using er lasers ppcs & guass's.
If it's a map that there's no way to sneak up on them I go with Light Guass rifles.
They have a 1200 range longer than any beam weapon or any other Guass rifle.
Only missles have the same range.
And with some practice you can nail poptarts in mid air.

4LG Templar=Poptart headaches...

Ok here is my 2 cents.
RAC5s. I don't use them. Apart from the additional knock they do they are worse than RAC2s.
If you do the math you'll find that they do less damage per second per ton (damage/recharge time/weight) than RAC2s and they are only two thirds of the range!


They reduced the knock from RAC2s in the very first patch after they were introduced so not to make them too good but they are still very usable.

Good points
Able to build up a lot of damage quickly at long range

Bad points
They Jam
Practically useless at small fast targets such as Fleas
Very little knock
Heavy ammo usage (the only direct fire weapon in the game where I always take an extra ton)

To sum up, they are great if you know you are fighting assaults (especially slow ones) but not so good if fighting enemy mechs smaller and faster


If you have problems jamming then here is a tip. Some people get around this by cycling through the RACs or using chain fire but you lose some damage potential doing this and i have a different method. Its not perfect but give it a whirl

1 If you are using a RAC2 mech then find yourself an extra 2 tons and mount a Clan medium and an IS medium on it
2 Put the Clan med on the same firing chain as the RACs and the IS med on its own firing chain.
3 When you start firing hold your fire button down (do NOT do burst fire). What you will see is the green laser fire (dont worry if target is out of range) and the RACs damaging your target. Hold down fire until you see the green laser fire again.
4 As soon as you see that green laser that second time release fire
5 Now press your fire button for the IS medium and hold down fire
6 When you see that red laser for a second time release fire and start on number 3 again

What this does is have a consistant cooldown time for the RACs. It's not perfect and you do get the occaisional jam if youre a bit quick in the change over but it does maximise your damage.



Alternatively just cry Banzai and fire everything until it jams but have a back up weapon such as a rocket launcher to knock your target around until you unjam

Only a crappy, no good, can't aim, loser, N00b, would make the decision to load-out RAC's, besides, everyone knows that they only function correctly when backed by a 500ms lag shield:)

Ares- 3 rac 2's and a erpl "all time fav hvy"
bushy- 2 rac 2's and an erpls "only when I can't take a hvy"
dragon-just talk to the Evil One about it because it's kinda "for experts only use" and I tend to get killed in it too often
thor- -yup, you guess it


Smoke - banzai's own resident N00b......

I use rac2s consistently with good results hence I get called "gay rac boater" sometimes. And you know what? I let them jam. A lot. I squeeze the trigger and just let the depleted uranium fly. When the racs jam I just find a nice hill and let the metal cool down. Exactly what you would do in a 4 laser ryoken or in a gauss sniper: you cool down and wait for the reload. With racs you wait for the weapon to unlock.

I believe that somewhere in our guides we mention that you shouldn't run straight for the enemy. That's one reason why the rac2 is useful: people ignore that advice or think their heavy mechs can withstand the damage per second the rac does. That's not exactly true. Any mech under 80 tons with a yellow CT armor will get destroyed by 3 rac2 even before the weapon jams.

So use the terrain to find a good firing place, a good cool down place, and look for the overconfident pilot. A good thing of the reduction of the knock power of the rac2 is that people take too long in realizing they're being shot at with it. Use that to your advantage. And use ECM whenever possible: that will keep you alive a little longer.

As for the tactics you see... well, the game is like 4 years old so people found in year 1 that they can hide behind hills and expose for very little time to fire then go back under cover. To me finding how to kill them is part of the entertainment. I mean, just standing there and shooting at each other becomes dull very fast. So I try to shoot at them first (hard due to my distance), or to flank them so they don't have cover and get them moving. I just love it when they need to exit the game to get another mech.



In addition to Smoke's list, I suggest a Hellhound with 3 rac2 (use ECM and stay at 800m).

Quite a nice Ryoken is RAC5s in the arms and a dual LRM15 combo. The LRM15s give you enough knock on your target to run like hell when the gun jams, and a decent damage for when you just want to cool them. If you need more ammo, downgrade the LRMs or drop one.

I've always liked RACs. Unless they're being used against me.

They're pretty good for practically any situation, but only if you have more than one. The knock from the RAC 5 can be pretty vicious, but don't count on it saving your hide when you're near point blank.

Going RACing on a Dragon can be tough unless you know what you're doing. It does tend to err......rack up the points pretty quickly though, and if you have more than one, you can easily chew through armor with concentrated bursts.

Part of the reason why the new Talos is so deadly.....

RACs are fun... just practice with them for a while and you'll be able to use them without jamming them. Until you get the feel for them, you could try bringing several and alternate fire with them, which is pretty much how I learned to use them.

me and druidking run the hunchie with rac5s on our tag drops, which are usually overrun with fast moving assaults. we mooch the cored mech pretty quick with it. it keeps up with gargs and cyclopsissisisss that run pretty quick. 6 rac5s will leg a mech quickly. the trick is not to use your zoom, (i dont usually, but druid says he does) to keep the bulllets flying on target. i use the burst thing "get some now" i say it slowly to get off between 6 - 10 rounds. but in my excitement i jam alot. i love the rac5 hunchie. i run that on an ares with JJs for opens. works great for me. OH and its pure tech...

I like to run RAC2's on a fast mech, preferably with ECM (Dragon is my favorite for this). More reticle-on-target-time is needed to cause significant damage with RACs than with other "one-shot" direct fire weapons so it's best to shoot at an enemy who isn't watching you. It will take him a few seconds to realize where the fire is coming from and adjust his aim or take cover. I also like to pair the RACs with some type of harder knocking weapon (Large Lasers of some type, or an HVAC10), because the RACs themselves, even paired, don't do much knock and if you can spoil your enemy's first return shot with your alternate weapon you'll have more time to continue RAC-spamming him and to find some cover before his next recycle.

yea, i usually pair the racs with other weapons of comparable range, ex rac5 with hvac20(dragon of mine), rac2 with hvac5 or lac2(on a diemos its vicious). that way when the racs jam you still have sometihing to shoot with. racs are great for the run n gun or the sneak up and hammer someone for 7 seconds from a odd direction kind of play.

Cougar, max speed, near max armour, 2 SLs in right arm, RAC2 i nthe other. Hours of fun

RAC's on just about anything is going to annoy people. Thats the best part about RAC's because they lose their concentration while everybody else moves in for the kill.

I've tried using rac, and the only way they can be really effective is if you use them in great numbers( like 4 or five) but if you do that you'll burn 40-50 tons that could have been used for more accurate, powerful, or longer range weapons. If you do try a five rac configurasion don't expect to get alot a ct shot, most of the time you'll just end up peppering the target which is just a waste of time, and ammo. Using them as secondy wep is a much better idea, but I think a erlrg pulse laser, and a few heat sink would do better than a lone rac5 as a secondery wep, because it has more knock/more damage/less weighs, and no glitchs (jamming).

After some time I have better opinion about racs.

Like before I'm still runing a bushi at close combat (lbx 20, 10 and heavy medium) but, switchin lbx for racs gives me MORE fun but LESS kills. But this game is about fun isint it ?

moth

Just a suggestion but if you want the constant fire, steady knock and a weapon that cores and kills. Try the AC5's, they have 800m range, fast recycle, not too restrictive on the weight and if you load the up on different triggers for the timing they will produce a constant stream of fire with 5 points of damage per strike.