River City Skirmish, most of the enemy decided to fight us from the water while we're in the buildings, so we obliged them. One of the last ones left was a Flea darting around. I led the shot, and right as I pulled the trigger, all 4 LB-10X shots connected with a friendly light's back as he darted across my field of fire.
Yeah, I got put in the penalty box for that one.
On the other hand, I managed to leg another Piranha with those quad LBXs earlier in the match, so score.
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
I believe it's heat and damage spread that's the trade off. While medium lasers are pretty much always efficient, large lasers on the other hand don't seem nearly as worth it, and missiles spread damage vs. pinpoint.
Thats a solid performance for a k2, which imo kind of struggles right now. While clan stuff is often easier to be good with there are lots of IS builds that are top tier. 3xRac2 shadowhawk for instance
eeh. not bad. but IS mechs are woefully undergunned it seems.
It really depends on the mech. There are a lot of things you can say about the Annihilator, but "undergunned" is not one of them.
Pre-Helm Memory core variants tend to be fairly anemic in terms of hardpoints, yes. But after that they tend to have enough.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
They're like 5 years in the timeline before the IS catches up with the Clan more or less.
The timeline is about right for releasing Compact heat sinks...
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
I believe it's heat and damage spread that's the trade off. While medium lasers are pretty much always efficient, large lasers on the other hand don't seem nearly as worth it, and missiles spread damage vs. pinpoint.
That's a good point on the damage spread. But missiles also seem to knock mechs over if you fire enough of them (I love that).
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
I believe it's heat and damage spread that's the trade off. While medium lasers are pretty much always efficient, large lasers on the other hand don't seem nearly as worth it, and missiles spread damage vs. pinpoint.
Large Lasers are just fine now with the lowered heat values. They are especially good when you use a bunch of them in a slower mech that has plenty of room - their long range means you don't need to get close. Just slapping one LL in a frontline brawler gives less impressive results.
Autocannons are very heavy for their damage and I wouldn't use a 60 damage AC10 past the early game. If you can find AC10+s with 65+ damage those can be used to fish for headshots, since it takes 61 damage to destroy the cockpit.
In general weapon balance is fairly good now I think. There's some use for almost any weapon ... except AC2. :P
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
It seems like unless you are packing in multiple ACs you plan on firing early and often, it's just not worth the heat savings. Unless you are going for a jokey Sleepy Awesome build, a lot of big long range energy weapons don't scale up as well as ACs do. So basically until you are packing heavy or assault mechs head to toe with ACs, a LLaser or a PPC is better on your average light or medium mech. At least IMHO.
Battletech, early game. I'm running a Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Blackjack and Centurion for my lace for context.
Scene: Dropship command room after a mission.
Me: Darius. What the hell is with these contracts? The last four in a row have been "Hey boss, probably an ambush" right as we dropped."
Darius: And I was right, right? Besides, it worked out ok.
Me: The last mission I had TWO WARHAMMERS out for my personal ass! My griffin is missing a leg, most of the head, one torso and an arm!
Darius: Hey, it has great ventilation now right? New windows!
Me: Darius if all my arms weren't in casts I'd hit you.
(that last mission was in fact two warhammers and a blackjack, all of which fired on the PC's mech every time they had a chance to the exclusion of the other lance mechs. It felt like an assassination attempt. o.O Ended when the weaponless Gryffin DFA'd the last Warhammer, making it's pilot panic eject. So I've got most of two Warhammers in parts at least)
Regular AC10s are pretty crap. Kali Yama AC10s with +damage. That's a completely different ballgame.
In vanilla I had a King Crab with 2xAC10++s and a full brace of SRM missiles. I called it "The Headhunter", because if you aim for the head you have about 30% chance of decapitation and an almost surefire shot at inflicting pilot damage.
Fiendishrabbit on
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
Big guns to crack the shell, missiles to scoop out the gooey centers.
I like to bring a mech with a big ballistic for the weight class and a LL or PPC. He stands back and shoots side by side with an LRM boat. The more launchers the better. Then ill have 2 quicker guys with ML and SRMs and maybe one built for punching with SL.
Looks like the game really has a "too good salvage" crash bug, headshot an Atlas with my 205 ton lance and got my first post-1.3 patch crash. Will to play waning for sure.
So I got some event where an old friend wants you to hire a buddy of his as a pilot. Weird, but why not. This dude is absolute garbage. 2/2/3/1 or something horrible. So I pop him in my PPC panther that I just put a +4 accuracy PPC in.
The very first shot of his Mechwarrior career blows off the head off a pristine 4 pip evasion Locust.
So I got some event where an old friend wants you to hire a buddy of his as a pilot. Weird, but why not. This dude is absolute garbage. 2/2/3/1 or something horrible. So I pop him in my PPC panther that I just put a +4 accuracy PPC in.
The very first shot of his Mechwarrior career blows off the head off a pristine 4 pip evasion Locust.
The best part? He sounds like a mafia hit man.
I kinda liked that guy. I was a little sad when he died in my game. Not sad enough to reload, but sad.
I was wondering if that event was one of the cameos for the Legendary MechWarriors that are supposed to be in now
Looks like the game really has a "too good salvage" crash bug, headshot an Atlas with my 205 ton lance and got my first post-1.3 patch crash. Will to play waning for sure.
Manned up, did the same battle again and this time headshot a Highlander instead. 3/4 parts, then hopped into Argo and travelled to the Liao faction store since I had seen a Highlander part there before. It had one again! My first assault mech, about time too.
Man, you guys are teching up in career mode so much faster than I am. I just finally put together a 4th medium, although I can sense the game rapidly opening up now that I have it. I'm not far off from a few heavies.
I mean, it's probably my own dumb fault for picking 5 parts per mech and perma-mech death if the CT goes. I wasn't totally insane though and unchecked ironman mode. So far I haven't reloaded once however. I enjoy it as more of a gentleman's agreement than a hard rule.
I figure if the game gets to crash and deny me my hard won salvage, I should get to "crash" it and deny it the lucky first round critical headshot it got out of the darkness.
Neither of which have happened to me personally yet. But I enjoy reserving myself the option.
I've used reload to fix a bug (readying a Jenner made my Firestarter vanish), to check what sort of stuff the Liao faction store can spawn (reloading and then re-entering the system) and once when I was tired and saw that the mission was a total clusterfuck (three enemy lances all in top of each other in a lowlands map) I quit and reloaded an earlier save. The two latter things aren't that important but in a game that's not 100% bug free having the option to counter bugs by reloading a save is alone worth not going Ironman IMO. I've had one good pilot die, didn't reload that because that's part of the game. My Firestarter vanishing into thin air on the other hand isn't.
Man, you guys are teching up in career mode so much faster than I am. I just finally put together a 4th medium, although I can sense the game rapidly opening up now that I have it. I'm not far off from a few heavies.
I mean, it's probably my own dumb fault for picking 5 parts per mech and perma-mech death if the CT goes. I wasn't totally insane though and unchecked ironman mode. So far I haven't reloaded once however. I enjoy it as more of a gentleman's agreement than a hard rule.
I figure if the game gets to crash and deny me my hard won salvage, I should get to "crash" it and deny it the lucky first round critical headshot it got out of the darkness.
Neither of which have happened to me personally yet. But I enjoy reserving myself the option.
no joke. Finally have 3 mediums in my lance after buying yet another 3 parts of a blackjack. Every mission i get where i finally run into mediums i have 1 priority salvage selected.
Man, you guys are teching up in career mode so much faster than I am. I just finally put together a 4th medium, although I can sense the game rapidly opening up now that I have it. I'm not far off from a few heavies.
I mean, it's probably my own dumb fault for picking 5 parts per mech and perma-mech death if the CT goes. I wasn't totally insane though and unchecked ironman mode. So far I haven't reloaded once however. I enjoy it as more of a gentleman's agreement than a hard rule.
I figure if the game gets to crash and deny me my hard won salvage, I should get to "crash" it and deny it the lucky first round critical headshot it got out of the darkness.
Neither of which have happened to me personally yet. But I enjoy reserving myself the option.
no joke. Finally have 3 mediums in my lance after buying yet another 3 parts of a blackjack. Every mission i get where i finally run into mediums i have 1 priority salvage selected.
I think my biggest problem is I always end up coring everything. Trying to punch up with a mostly light lance, when you have perma-mech-death turned on means you really can't afford to play with your food. Although I did get a few lucky headshots and leggings.
Man, you guys are teching up in career mode so much faster than I am. I just finally put together a 4th medium, although I can sense the game rapidly opening up now that I have it. I'm not far off from a few heavies.
I mean, it's probably my own dumb fault for picking 5 parts per mech and perma-mech death if the CT goes. I wasn't totally insane though and unchecked ironman mode. So far I haven't reloaded once however. I enjoy it as more of a gentleman's agreement than a hard rule.
I figure if the game gets to crash and deny me my hard won salvage, I should get to "crash" it and deny it the lucky first round critical headshot it got out of the darkness.
Neither of which have happened to me personally yet. But I enjoy reserving myself the option.
no joke. Finally have 3 mediums in my lance after buying yet another 3 parts of a blackjack. Every mission i get where i finally run into mediums i have 1 priority salvage selected.
I think my biggest problem is I always end up coring everything. Trying to punch up with a mostly light lance, when you have perma-mech-death turned on means you really can't afford to play with your food. Although I did get a few lucky headshots and leggings.
Yep, same thoughts here.
That said, once you get 4 mediums it does indeed feel like the game opens up a bit, for better or worse. The time from 4 lights to 4 mediums was much longer for me than 4 mediums to 4 heavies.
Also, I took a 3 skull mission with my heavies...I expected at least a smattering of mediums and heavies. Instead it was mostly lights and lighter mediums. Boy it sure was fun to run up to a locust and punch it straight through the core.
So I got some event where an old friend wants you to hire a buddy of his as a pilot. Weird, but why not. This dude is absolute garbage. 2/2/3/1 or something horrible. So I pop him in my PPC panther that I just put a +4 accuracy PPC in.
The very first shot of his Mechwarrior career blows off the head off a pristine 4 pip evasion Locust.
The best part? He sounds like a mafia hit man.
I kinda liked that guy. I was a little sad when he died in my game. Not sad enough to reload, but sad.
I was wondering if that event was one of the cameos for the Legendary MechWarriors that are supposed to be in now
The Legendary MechWarriors show up as people hiring you to do Flashpoints. You'll know them when you see them. Identities in the spoiler below:
Man, you guys are teching up in career mode so much faster than I am. I just finally put together a 4th medium, although I can sense the game rapidly opening up now that I have it. I'm not far off from a few heavies.
I mean, it's probably my own dumb fault for picking 5 parts per mech and perma-mech death if the CT goes. I wasn't totally insane though and unchecked ironman mode. So far I haven't reloaded once however. I enjoy it as more of a gentleman's agreement than a hard rule.
I figure if the game gets to crash and deny me my hard won salvage, I should get to "crash" it and deny it the lucky first round critical headshot it got out of the darkness.
Neither of which have happened to me personally yet. But I enjoy reserving myself the option.
no joke. Finally have 3 mediums in my lance after buying yet another 3 parts of a blackjack. Every mission i get where i finally run into mediums i have 1 priority salvage selected.
I think my biggest problem is I always end up coring everything. Trying to punch up with a mostly light lance, when you have perma-mech-death turned on means you really can't afford to play with your food. Although I did get a few lucky headshots and leggings.
I've had a few headshots, leggings and pilot incapacity. But with only 1 priority salvage, lots of mixed matched mechs in my bay.
I will say I FINALLY just got the 3rd Enforcer piece I needed and another Firestarter operational again. Went to outfit the Enforcer only to notice I have no AC10 ammo and the planet I'm on has no store or black market.
So it's Blackjack, Blackjack, Centurion, Firestarter for a bit longer while I clear the last bit of this planet out.
2.5 star missions were piles of lights with a couple mediums. Now they're throwing locusts mixed with some mediums and a heavy. And they're all shooting better. Bah!
My settings are Ironman/Hard/3 salvage/unequipped mechs, as that lets me interact with the things I find the most interesting in the game but also keeps things a little scrappy at first. It does mean that things escalate super quickly though, after that Victor last night I've now got an Atlas, a Highlander and two Orions to boot because the game throws mad shit at you.
I also never go into a mission with less than 3 picked salvage, especially given that you can scrap partial mech salvage in the hangar now. Like... I don't understand why you'd do that ever, except to make yourself feel sad sometimes?
I wonder when they'll go with maximum masochism mode, and require you to have mech parts on hand to repair missing arms and legs. Might not be terrible if you could use any old part from the same weight class.
2.5 star missions were piles of lights with a couple mediums. Now they're throwing locusts mixed with some mediums and a heavy. And they're all shooting better. Bah!
I noticed missions got significantly harder when they started throwing wolf packs of lights at me with pilot skills. 1 locust is whatever, a mosquito at best, but 3+ locusts with evasion pips out the ass and every turn sensor locks? That shit got dicey fast. So now you can't hit anything in vision because everybody has crazy evasion pips, and focus fire now takes 2 + turns to remove a light mech off the field. And you can't protect your own lance because everybody keeps getting sensor locked and eating 4-6 turns of enemy damage.
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
AC/10's are kind of underwhelming until you get the +++ variants that give you extra damage and stability. Good builds I can think of are Triple AC5 Jagermechs, Quad AC5 King Crabs, Dual AC20 King Crabs.
I think the best use for ballistics is in combination with a PPC. You've got heat and a PPC is an AC10 that weighs less than an AC5. You've got heat on most ballistic boats, so it's worth using one to save a few tons and utilize the heat you have available. For example I eventually built my Jager as a 2 AC5, PPC build.
My general strat was to pound a target with as many missiles as possible at the start of the round, maybe an LRM mech and a SRM boat. Then follow up with a Called Shot from my ballistic boat that can punch through the weakened armor and possibly take a component out with the larger, more focused ballistic damage. If that fails, you will usually be able to knock them over anyway, opening them up for another FREE called shot from your fourth mech.
Posts
Niiiiice.
How bout the RACs?
If you can take the face-time with a target, twin RAC5 or triple RAC2 can lay down withering fire.
How are they, you ask? This was from a few weeks ago with my fellow mech nerds in here. This isn't my best game with the Dakka Mad Cat, either.
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
Video proof I killed a guy once!
XFIRE:redspo0n (Yep, Zero in there) XBL: Pinkspo0n
River City Skirmish, most of the enemy decided to fight us from the water while we're in the buildings, so we obliged them. One of the last ones left was a Flea darting around. I led the shot, and right as I pulled the trigger, all 4 LB-10X shots connected with a friendly light's back as he darted across my field of fire.
Yeah, I got put in the penalty box for that one.
On the other hand, I managed to leg another Piranha with those quad LBXs earlier in the match, so score.
Do folks have good build recommendations that incorporates Autocannons? I've got four heavies currently: Orion K, Orion V, Thunderbolt 5SE and Jagermech A.
I might just be bad at building stuff...but it just seems like the cost (in tonnage) per damage done with autocannons and PPCs is far outstripped by lasers and SRM/LRMs. Am I missing something obvious?
I feel bad because I keep hearing that AC/10s are great, and I'd love to use them, but geesh they're just so heavy for 60 damage.
I believe it's heat and damage spread that's the trade off. While medium lasers are pretty much always efficient, large lasers on the other hand don't seem nearly as worth it, and missiles spread damage vs. pinpoint.
It really depends on the mech. There are a lot of things you can say about the Annihilator, but "undergunned" is not one of them.
Pre-Helm Memory core variants tend to be fairly anemic in terms of hardpoints, yes. But after that they tend to have enough.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The timeline is about right for releasing Compact heat sinks...
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
yeah IIRC RACs are actually like 10 years early in the game, probably just to give the IS something.
Anyway, they balance clan mechs by making their default skin ugly as sin
Welcome back Pilot.
Steam: betsuni7
That's a good point on the damage spread. But missiles also seem to knock mechs over if you fire enough of them (I love that).
Large Lasers are just fine now with the lowered heat values. They are especially good when you use a bunch of them in a slower mech that has plenty of room - their long range means you don't need to get close. Just slapping one LL in a frontline brawler gives less impressive results.
Autocannons are very heavy for their damage and I wouldn't use a 60 damage AC10 past the early game. If you can find AC10+s with 65+ damage those can be used to fish for headshots, since it takes 61 damage to destroy the cockpit.
In general weapon balance is fairly good now I think. There's some use for almost any weapon ... except AC2. :P
It seems like unless you are packing in multiple ACs you plan on firing early and often, it's just not worth the heat savings. Unless you are going for a jokey Sleepy Awesome build, a lot of big long range energy weapons don't scale up as well as ACs do. So basically until you are packing heavy or assault mechs head to toe with ACs, a LLaser or a PPC is better on your average light or medium mech. At least IMHO.
Scene: Dropship command room after a mission.
Me: Darius. What the hell is with these contracts? The last four in a row have been "Hey boss, probably an ambush" right as we dropped."
Darius: And I was right, right? Besides, it worked out ok.
Me: The last mission I had TWO WARHAMMERS out for my personal ass! My griffin is missing a leg, most of the head, one torso and an arm!
Darius: Hey, it has great ventilation now right? New windows!
Me: Darius if all my arms weren't in casts I'd hit you.
(that last mission was in fact two warhammers and a blackjack, all of which fired on the PC's mech every time they had a chance to the exclusion of the other lance mechs. It felt like an assassination attempt. o.O Ended when the weaponless Gryffin DFA'd the last Warhammer, making it's pilot panic eject. So I've got most of two Warhammers in parts at least)
In vanilla I had a King Crab with 2xAC10++s and a full brace of SRM missiles. I called it "The Headhunter", because if you aim for the head you have about 30% chance of decapitation and an almost surefire shot at inflicting pilot damage.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Big guns to crack the shell, missiles to scoop out the gooey centers.
I like to bring a mech with a big ballistic for the weight class and a LL or PPC. He stands back and shoots side by side with an LRM boat. The more launchers the better. Then ill have 2 quicker guys with ML and SRMs and maybe one built for punching with SL.
The very first shot of his Mechwarrior career blows off the head off a pristine 4 pip evasion Locust.
The best part? He sounds like a mafia hit man.
I kinda liked that guy. I was a little sad when he died in my game. Not sad enough to reload, but sad.
I was wondering if that event was one of the cameos for the Legendary MechWarriors that are supposed to be in now
Manned up, did the same battle again and this time headshot a Highlander instead. 3/4 parts, then hopped into Argo and travelled to the Liao faction store since I had seen a Highlander part there before. It had one again! My first assault mech, about time too.
I mean, it's probably my own dumb fault for picking 5 parts per mech and perma-mech death if the CT goes. I wasn't totally insane though and unchecked ironman mode. So far I haven't reloaded once however. I enjoy it as more of a gentleman's agreement than a hard rule.
I figure if the game gets to crash and deny me my hard won salvage, I should get to "crash" it and deny it the lucky first round critical headshot it got out of the darkness.
Neither of which have happened to me personally yet. But I enjoy reserving myself the option.
no joke. Finally have 3 mediums in my lance after buying yet another 3 parts of a blackjack. Every mission i get where i finally run into mediums i have 1 priority salvage selected.
I think my biggest problem is I always end up coring everything. Trying to punch up with a mostly light lance, when you have perma-mech-death turned on means you really can't afford to play with your food. Although I did get a few lucky headshots and leggings.
Yep, same thoughts here.
That said, once you get 4 mediums it does indeed feel like the game opens up a bit, for better or worse. The time from 4 lights to 4 mediums was much longer for me than 4 mediums to 4 heavies.
Also, I took a 3 skull mission with my heavies...I expected at least a smattering of mediums and heavies. Instead it was mostly lights and lighter mediums. Boy it sure was fun to run up to a locust and punch it straight through the core.
The Legendary MechWarriors show up as people hiring you to do Flashpoints. You'll know them when you see them. Identities in the spoiler below:
Also, Mason's Marauders are a Flashpoint OpFor.
I've had a few headshots, leggings and pilot incapacity. But with only 1 priority salvage, lots of mixed matched mechs in my bay.
I will say I FINALLY just got the 3rd Enforcer piece I needed and another Firestarter operational again. Went to outfit the Enforcer only to notice I have no AC10 ammo and the planet I'm on has no store or black market.
So it's Blackjack, Blackjack, Centurion, Firestarter for a bit longer while I clear the last bit of this planet out.
2.5 star missions were piles of lights with a couple mediums. Now they're throwing locusts mixed with some mediums and a heavy. And they're all shooting better. Bah!
I also never go into a mission with less than 3 picked salvage, especially given that you can scrap partial mech salvage in the hangar now. Like... I don't understand why you'd do that ever, except to make yourself feel sad sometimes?
I noticed missions got significantly harder when they started throwing wolf packs of lights at me with pilot skills. 1 locust is whatever, a mosquito at best, but 3+ locusts with evasion pips out the ass and every turn sensor locks? That shit got dicey fast. So now you can't hit anything in vision because everybody has crazy evasion pips, and focus fire now takes 2 + turns to remove a light mech off the field. And you can't protect your own lance because everybody keeps getting sensor locked and eating 4-6 turns of enemy damage.
AC/10's are kind of underwhelming until you get the +++ variants that give you extra damage and stability. Good builds I can think of are Triple AC5 Jagermechs, Quad AC5 King Crabs, Dual AC20 King Crabs.
I think the best use for ballistics is in combination with a PPC. You've got heat and a PPC is an AC10 that weighs less than an AC5. You've got heat on most ballistic boats, so it's worth using one to save a few tons and utilize the heat you have available. For example I eventually built my Jager as a 2 AC5, PPC build.
My general strat was to pound a target with as many missiles as possible at the start of the round, maybe an LRM mech and a SRM boat. Then follow up with a Called Shot from my ballistic boat that can punch through the weakened armor and possibly take a component out with the larger, more focused ballistic damage. If that fails, you will usually be able to knock them over anyway, opening them up for another FREE called shot from your fourth mech.