Seeing as they are reviewing weapons, I thought I'd put this up again. I analyzed the NC Carbines here: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...lip-size-too-small.101936/page-2#post-1436427 I'll share the analysis I did before but include the new (ish) NS-11C in the discussion and bring some info from the SMG and AR analysis into the discussion as well. I also corrected an error in my spreadsheet that gave some wrong info regarding kills per magazine. CURRENT STATE Shots to kill: The AC-X11 is the only carbine that can kill a target with 5 shots. However, to do this, all shots have to hit for 200 damage and the target cannot have any form of damage mitigation. Under these same ideal circumstances, the Mercenary, Gauss Burst, Gauss S and Razor can kill in 6 shots, and the GD-7F and NS-11C in 7 shots. If even a single bullet does not hit at maximum damage, or the target possesses some form of damage mitigation, shots to kill increases by 1 across the board; 6, 7 and 8 (respectively). I found the shots to kill curve interesting. The AC-X11 can kill in 6 shots if 4 or 3 shots land at maximum damage; any fewer and the AC-X11 requires 7 shots to kill. The Mercenary, Gauss Burst, Gauss S and Razor can kill in 7 shots if 5, 4 or 3 shots land at maximum damage; otherwise these guns require 8 shots to kill. The GD-7F and NS-11C can kill in 8 shots if 6, 5, 4, or 3 shots land at maximum damage; otherwise the GD-7F and NS-11C require 9 shots to kill. Kills per magazine: Assuming you were able to land all shots at maximum damage and the target possessed no damage mitigation, the AC-X11 and GD-7F are both capable of 4 kills per magazine; the Mercenary, Gauss Burst, Gauss S, Razor and NS-11C are all capable of 5 kills per magazine. This is obviously an ideal situation and would rarely, if ever, occur. The AC-X11 is capable of 3 kills per magazine as long as 4 or 3 bullets hit for maximum damage and in a situation where 2 or fewer shots do maximum damage, the AC-X11 is capable of 2 kills per magazine. This is the fewest of any of the carbines. The Mercenary, Gauss Burst, Gauss S and Razor are capable of 4 kills per magazine as long as 3 bullets do maximum damage; when 2 or less bullets hit for maximum damage, these carbines are capable of 3 kills per magazine. The GD-7F is capable of 3 kills per magazine in all situations outside of the ideal situation. The NS-11C is capable of 4 kills per magazine as long as 3 bullets hits for maximum damage. If 2 or fewer bullets land for maximum damage the NS-11C is capable of 3 kills per magazine. Analysis: The AC-X11 "advantage" of killing a target in 5 shots only exists under ideal conditions, and the 20 round magazine handicaps the gun in the majority of situations. Under ideal conditions, the AC-X11 is capable of killing 4 targets with a full magazine, which is the same amount kills most of the other carbines can accomplish under the majority of conditions. In situations where the AC-X11 is being used at range, which it should excel at, it has the fewest kills per magazine possible. Changing the magazine size to 25: This puts the kills per magazine of the AC-X11 identical to the Mercenary, Gauss Burst, Gauss S, Razor and NS-11C in situations where at least 2 shots lands at maximum damage. Changing the min damage of the AC-X11 damage to 167 has a couple affects (Reaper DMR Stats): 1) Obviously, the max damage isn't changing with this suggestion, so the AC-X11 can still drop a target in 5 shots under ideal conditions. What does change is the fact the AC-X11 can drop a target with 6 shots even if no shots hit at max damage. 2) The AC-X11 can still only drop 4 targets per magazine under ideal conditions, but can drop 3 targets under all other conditions. Changing the minimum damage to 167 increases the kills per magazine from 2 to 3 when no max damage shots land on the targets. Changing the reload time of the AC-X11 to 1.8s/3.03s (Reaper DMR stats): This actually changes very little in terms of how the AC-X11 performs relative to the other carbines. It makes the AC-X11 the fastest gun to cycle 2 magazines assuming short reload times, and the second fastest assuming long reload times. Currently, the AC-X11 is the second fastest assuming short / long reload times. I don't like using DPS as a comparison metric (as it is so dependent on rate of fire) but decreasing the reload time increases the AC-X11 max and min DPS over 2 clips (looking at short & long reload times) to a level competitive with the other carbines. The AC-X11 is still the worst, but by a smaller margin. Final Thoughts: I would prefer (and this is solely my opinion based on how I enjoy playing) to see a 25 round magazine and a reduced reload time implemented. I can deal with the lower minimum damage (and I think it fits, given the design of carbine rifles). If I had to choose one single aspect to be looked at, it would be the magazine size, as I feel the AC-X11 is unfairly handicapped by the 20 round magazine in terms of its killing potential. Despite the higher damage of the rounds, the slow velocity, high recoil & long reload times compounds the effects of each of these balancing features resulting in a gun that has excellent potential, but is unfairly handicapped. The Reaper DMR assault rifle provides the closest analogy to the AC-X11 carbine. The Reaper is a 200 maximum damage gun, similar to the AC-X11. However, the Reaper possesses faster reload times (1.8/3.03 seconds vs 2.3/3.05 seconds) and less damage drop off (200 to 167 vs 200 to 143). Both guns possess 20 round magazines. However, the Reaper is capable of 4 kills per magazine under ideal situations, and 3 kills per magazine under all other situations. This is due to the higher minimum damage. I am not advocating increasing the minimum damage of the AC-X11 because all of the carbines have similar damage drop off between their max/min damage in comparison to their assault rifle equivalents. This is purely my opinion, but a slow firing, high damage gun that can equip a compensator, advanced foregrip and high velocity ammo is suited to mid to long range engagements. However, due to the magazine size and damage drop off, at long range the AC-X11 has the lowest killing potential of all the carbines. This seems counter-intuitive to me. The only other weapon capable of 2 kills per magazine is the Cyclone; a sub-machine gun that is designed for close-quarter-combat that is clearly not suited to long-range fights. Anyhoo, just my 2 cents. If you actually graph out the kills per magazine of the carbines and assault rifles, the assault rifles are balanced according to what the guns offer in terms of trade-offs. The carbines are balanced as well, with the exception of the AC-X11, whose performance at range sticks out like a sore thumb. The AC-X11, due to its minimum damage and magazine size, is effectively balanced to have similar performance at range as a SMG. I sincerely doubt this was the intention of this gun, given the rate of fire, recoil, damage, and available add-ons to the weapon.
I still be happy if they just improved the AC-X11's bullet velocity. It is really silly that one of the NC's dedicated long range carbines has the slowest bullet velocity in the NC carbine arsenal.
Can't really fault the logic of the OP's post and it's certainly one of the reasons I've stopped using mine. I had not noticed it came with the lowest velocity too: you can buy HVA so for 100 certs but you get the additional recoil (on a high-recoil gun) and merely bring the velocity up to slightly-above average.
Yep, IMO the slow bullet speed is the biggest drawback of this weapon. The AC-X11's bullet velocity is merely 480. Meanwhile the Razor GD-23, the AC-X11's main competition for long-range carbine, has a velocity of 560. That's a huge difference. Honestly, I don't see why the AC-X11 hasn't be brought up to par with the Razor.
Yea, a bullet velocity buff would go a long way to make the gun actually worth choosing over the default Mercenary.
AC-X11 is allready 1 of the best weapon that NC has to offer if u can handle it and ur play style isnt pray and spray, iv been playing with Blitz since the day it came.. yesterday and today been playing again with ac-x11 and i rly had forgot how good that weapon is. But yeah, higher bullet speed would be nice, but i can understand why it has slow one... ppl wont use it on sniping atm
At least the NC have the choice to trade off magazine capacity for perfect ADS accuracy, an increased range, and higher damage than any other carbine, making it unparalleled at ranges where single shots are required. The TR 'long range' carbine doesn't get a range increase, or a damage increase, and still has 3x worse ADS accuracy as the default NC carbine. And for all these awesome features, I get slower ttk than any NC carbine. And I can get my choice of mag size, as long as my choice is 40. Be grateful for some variety.
Fair enough, but the higher damage is only valuable inside 10 metres. Outside that, the higher recoil, slow bullet speed and slow rate of fire more than balance out the higher damage. I can land 8 shots with any of the other carbines before I can land the 7 the AC-X11 needs. That said, the improvements to compensators and the increased reload times will benefit the AC-X11 quite a bit. I'll play with it a bit to see how it feels and put the new data into my analysis.
It comes at place 13. I'm sure the UBGL is why gauss compact s gets the highest place of NC carbines, then comes the gd-7f which is a nice weapon. I like the idea of having a small magazine, makes it different. It could use buffs in other areas though to justify the smaller magazine+lower ROF. The damage is higher but that's not enough. Some other buffs would be nice. Velocity or accuracy stuff. Keep magazine size the same.
