Chem lasers suck, and I’d pass on rifles tbh.

CHem Lasers.....lasers that require ammo....like lolwut?
Rifles just look like they are painful to use, due to hilarious reload times compared to a same tier autocannon....

Chem lasers produce a lot less heat. Rifles are cheaper tonnage boom sticks that have a longer cool down. They have their uses, my brother didnt mind chem lasers, but theyre situational. I like rifles due to cheaper tonnage. Can work with different builds.

Hit and run mechs benefit from rifles if you are strapped for tonnage.
Chem lasers are mainly only useful in hot areas, but good heat management mitigates it anyways.

Rifles are good if youre putting more into lasers. Then you can just get an extra shot off every now and again for cheap tonnage. AC's are better DPS overall.

On an Orion-K (with a STD 300 engine, no ferros or endo yet) Im running 4 Large Lasers and a medium rifle for a bit extra damage, but the lasers are the work horse with this one. So more think of it as a way to compliment a build with the rifle. But if you want dakka, you go AC's. You have to make the choice on which will be the dominant part of the build.

You can shoot 3 Large chem lasers to 1 large laser in heat production (3.9/4.45). So its good for alpha builds in a pinch for hotter builds. Chem lasers shoot slightly faster also due to lower duration and cool down. but at lower damage, Large chem is 9 to normal 13.75. So its good if you want interesting alpha builds. But again, i can be mindful of heat build up, so i can do without.

Originally posted by BRRM:

Chem lasers produce a lot less heat. Rifles are cheaper tonnage boom sticks that have a longer cool down. They have their uses, my brother didnt mind chem lasers, but theyre situational. I like rifles due to cheaper tonnage. Can work with different builds.

Hit and run mechs benefit from rifles if you are strapped for tonnage.
Chem lasers are mainly only useful in hot areas, but good heat management mitigates it anyways.

Rifles are good if youre putting more into lasers. Then you can just get an extra shot off every now and again for cheap tonnage. AC's are better DPS overall.

On an Orion-K (with a STD 300 engine, no ferros or endo yet) Im running 4 Large Lasers and a medium rifle for a bit extra damage, but the lasers are the work horse with this one. So more think of it as a way to compliment a build with the rifle. But if you want dakka, you go AC's. You have to make the choice on which will be the dominant part of the build.

You can shoot 3 Large chem lasers to 1 large laser in heat production (3.9/4.45). So its good for alpha builds in a pinch for hotter builds. Chem lasers shoot slightly faster also due to lower duration and cool down. but at lower damage, Large chem is 9 to normal 13.75. So its good if you want interesting alpha builds. But again, i can be mindful of heat build up, so i can do without.

this was basically my thoughts on them.
chem lasers are a great option for some laserboat builds, but i can't see using them if i'm just mounting a small group.

and i do really like the rifles as a ballistic choice on something with a slot, but not enough weight for a proper AC. the long reload sucks and i wouldn't want to have it as my primary weapon(s), but the dmg per shot is great and it just feels good finishing things with them.

Chem Lasers are a killer choice for the Hunchback HBK-4P variant - basically non-stop disco show every second.
Medium and Heavy Rifles are a good choice for sniping the cockpits while your teammates distract the enemies.

Medium rifles are actually pretty good, the other versions are less efficient stat-wise.
Chem lasers I never really saw the point. High grade regular lasers are efficient enough on heat that I would never want an ammo limitation.

The Thunderbolt-5S has two small gun hardpoints on the left arm. Its supposed to be for Machineguns, stock, but I don't love those and often use Light Rifles instead. As for Chem lasers, when I do use them, I use the Large ones. Regular Medium Lasers are fine, regular Large Lasers produce a LARGE amount of heat per shot, and have a relatively short cooldown for that, so they can overheat you in a hurry. Large Chem Lasers can fire just as fast with less heat buildup, and the weight you devote to the ammo for them is basically one heatsink worth of weight.

Thanks for the input guys, not sure I will use them but at least now I have an idea of when I would want to. I don't know if its smart or not but I normally run a king crab with a large laser, 15 lrm and two guass rifles. On another note what year does the ferros and endo start to show up and I assume it is listed in the mec description?? Can you purchase them as separate equipment?? Thanks, happy gaming, I am old so when ever I play I still think of all the fun my gaming group had playing the original game with mini's back in the late 80s. I had a med lance of two axemen and two hatchets all with pulse lasers. Folks hated me:):)

Armour type can't be changed, unless you're using a mod.

Originally posted by gamer3213000:

Thanks for the input guys, not sure I will use them but at least now I have an idea of when I would want to. I don't know if its smart or not but I normally run a king crab with a large laser, 15 lrm and two guass rifles. On another note what year does the ferros and endo start to show up and I assume it is listed in the mec description?? Can you purchase them as separate equipment?? Thanks, happy gaming, I am old so when ever I play I still think of all the fun my gaming group had playing the original game with mini's back in the late 80s. I had a med lance of two axemen and two hatchets all with pulse lasers. Folks hated me:):)

it's been a long time since i played vanilla, but iirc it lists armor and structure type when you're looking at a mech, as well as if it has double heatsinks.
if it doesn't, well most hero mechs have some of the above, as well as rarer normal mechs. like the crab CRB-2(7?)SL.
i'm playing with merctech lite atm, and it lets me change internal engine heatsinks, so i always buy those and strip them out

Originally posted by gamer3213000:

On another note what year does the ferros and endo start to show up and I assume it is listed in the mec description??

it does usually follow battletech sarna wiki when stuff is available. Endo should start popping up around 3035, ferro 3040, XL engine is 3035 and 3041 for double heat sinks. While you can find it on some mechs earlier, these are around when shops will start stocking them.

Chemlasers are great on certain laser boats, especially where it is difficult to fit Dual Heat Sinks and when you have a lot of Medium Laser slots.

A tier 5 Large Chemical Laser has 1/3 the heat generation of a regular tier 5 Large Laser.
It deals slightly less damage per burst, but has a slightly better rate of fire as well, which is a common trait for all Chemical Lasers.

As for Rifles, they fire slowly, but has good Alpha strike and fairly low weight. They gain a lot for being tier 5.
The larger the Rifle, the longer the range and faster the projectile speed(so kind of inverse of the ACs).
Tier 5 Heavy Rifles are fairly reliable as a sniping tool, having the same weight as an AC5, with better range and projectile speed(but much slower rate of fire), and dealing more than 3x the damage per shot.
Their biggest downside is the massive amount of heat they generate when they fire, but then again, their rate of fire is quite low, so it should be managable for mech that relies on burst damage.
The Assault Mech called Corsair: Privateer is great with 2x Heavy Rifles(tier 5) and 2x PPC(tier 5) for coring or sniping mechs, as its weapons are fairly high mounted and grouped together.

I ran 3 mediums on a melee Centurion last time I played (with YAML mods). Hotseat, turbo, axe, 3 mediums, good bit of ammo. Could 1 shot most mediums and a lot of heavies if hit right, and if I didn't the axe did the rest.
4 Heavies on an Annihilator can also be fun. Hella devastating but also not the easiest to play around, tons of recoil and heat, and not very ammo efficient. I reckon this could also work on the Crab but might be harder to play as the arms are positioned lower.

As a rifle nut:
They are GREAT for spike damage. However, you want mechs with multiple slots so you can stack them to really get a nice WHACK out of them. 3 medium rifles will instantly strip a torso on most medium mechs, and even against heavy mechs will leave them quite weakened. Even if you are playing unmodded and have to abide the slot size requirements, the rifles provide an abnormally high amount of firepower relative to their tonnage cost, so long as you aren't prone to missing your shots, and it's CONCENTRATED firepower. Sure, a AC/5 firing 2-3x might do the same damage as a medium or heavy rifle (the specifics are fuzzy in my brain at the moment), but you have to stare for that damage, and the odds of landing repeat shots on the same component are much lower.

They aren't DPS race weapons, they are targeted threat removal weapons. As an example: Hunchbacks. I'd rather instantly crack the hunch and take out it's primary than have to chip at it. No other ballistic is going to provide that capability, without you already being in an assault mech.

Originally posted by Hykril Tynyx:

Chem Lasers are a killer choice for the Hunchback HBK-4P variant - basically non-stop disco show every second.
Medium and Heavy Rifles are a good choice for sniping the cockpits while your teammates distract the enemies.

yes my man. rifles are just gauss rifles of lower tiers really. also they weigh half as much as their AC counter parts. (chem lasers weigh more due to ammo requirements but they sound really good)