Lochnager:
Only one shot which deals 225% of the normal damage
No Recoil
-90% Turning speed
250 dmg to own gun
-60% arming time
-50% AoE
Having used this ammo type since 1.2 when I first started experimenting with it, you just pushed the correct buttons to bring me here. lol.
Okay, so yes, this is what Loch does. Let's continue.
Echidna:
Even under arming time range this gun deals more damage per second and per clip with standard ammo than with Lochnager, scratch it from the list.
Agreed, fully.
Lumberjack:
Would only make sense on very short ranges on which the reduced turning speed and (after two shots with a repair in between) reduced reload time would make the gun useless, scratch too.
Here is where the High Risk/Reward shows itself for the first time, you have an ammo type that sacrifices a lot in order to allow your gun to shoot at a very short range that would be impossible otherwise. This ammo type sacrifices DPM (per magazine, not minute) for Burst damage, you have to think wether you can finish the deal with the burst it gives you or wether it would be optimal to keep firing something else, if you can do it, it rewards you with a balloon insta-pop at near point blank ranges for this gun. Lochanagar is more than fine on the LJ.
Hellhound:
Loch can be used alternating with Heavy Clip on ranges where other ammo would be useless. Here the damage increase per clip would be mere 25%, arguable wether that is worth or not to relinquish another ammo type. On close ranges Charged gives a boost of 30% per shot resulting in 260% damage of a single shot in the clip, does not loose turning speed nor damages the gun, so it is superior to Lochnager up close.
This is the only gun in which Loch was viable even back in 1.2, not only can it be used at max range with 0 recoil, it can be alternated with Heavy clip for an over all DPM increase, it delivers 2.25 shots in one and does so 1.2 seconds earlier than if you had to fire both, it saves you time, creates confusion due to the burst, can instakill balloons to spread confusion and generaly makes the gun MUCH faster. Charged is in absolutely NO way superior to Lochnagar, it's slower and much more inaccurate that you need to be VERY close if you want all pellets to hit the same spot, especially when dealing with ships like a Pyramidion's armored balloon or slim profile ships like the Junker.
Charged is an 'option' in no way superior, but can be considered if you want that close range prowess, which is still slower firing and in the race against the repair clock, I wonder if it's realy worth it.
Mercury:
Other than on the Hellhound, here the rate of fire decrease of Charged has a serious impact on this gun. If another player is free to do repairs with the shooter, Loch might actually result in a higher damage per second than Charged. If not, fixing the gun would decrease the rate of fire with reload too much for Lochnager to be useful.
Again, Burst vs DPM, you could take down an armor that would have enough time to be repaired if you were using something else, especially since Charged makes the RoF of this gun much slower. A Lochnagar that couldn't kill light guns in one shot was tested and it was ridiculous on the Merc, Loch on Merc has a niche and works just fine.
Typhoon:
When the enemy is too close for other ammo types, Lochnager enables the AoE damage to be applied and increases the damage of the shot, resulting in a single shot dealing more than double the damage that two shots under arming would deal. Though on ships that use the Typhoon usually are guns that allow to strip enemy ship's hulls from afar so it is arguable wether or not enemies even come into Lochnager distance without coming from a direction that is out of the Typhoons gunarc anyways.
Same deal as the Heavy Carronade, 2.25 shots in one, over all increases cycling efficiency, reduces arming time to get instakills where you previously couldn't, if it hits you don't have to worry about a second one hitting, it can get the kill just before the armor would go up (if you had two shots them the second would just hit on the armor instead of finishing the ship).
Phobos:
The only gun in which Lochnager actually and definitly is "High Risk - High Reward". The Risk being even greater because the Lochnager mine arms with barely any distance from the ship. The Reward being that a single mine can strip all ships but the Galleon (which is left with 3% armor), even dealing hull damage to all ships with less than 500 armor (Spire, Goldfish, Squid). The reduced AoE allows for denser minefields without the mines setting one another up - on the other hand it makes it harder to make multiple mines explode to damage the same ship that triggered on mine. It also makes it harder to disable multiple components on enemy ships.
No objections here, Lochanagar working as intended, agreed.
What I'm saying is, the Lochnager is described as a "High Risk - High Reward" ammo type. The way it is now it's inferior to other ammo types in most situations - the Phobos being the only exception. I'm not saying "buff Lochnager" since that would mean raising or changing a single statistic of the ammo type, it actually needs a lot more done before it becomes a viable ammotype.
What I'm saying is that this ammo type is very useful on 3/4 of the Heavy guns and can be used on at least 2 other light guns, that's 5 guns total. I don't see your point, the ammo type IS high risk/reward, it even damages yoru weapon to make it even more obvious and it works as intended in many guns. The whole point of it is 'Burst damage NOW and HERE' or you keep loading something else and keep your 'Overall damage'
I agree that in 1.2 where it was only viable on the Hellhound and somewhat the Mercury it needed changes, but now it's viable on at least 5 guns, that's mighty fine.
TL;DR (just for you!): Lochanagar emphasizes on Burst damage versus Overall damage of a magazine, utilizing it correctly is a high risk move that can nail high rewards on most guns mentioned here except the Light Flak.
EDIT: Here is a tweak, well, 'addition' I wanna see though, can we make Lochanagar create a special effect when you fire it so your gun can shoot an actual bomb with a fuse on it? Would be awesome.
