154 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

Yokaiko, on 21 April 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

Do you forget, MGs damage was actually doubled once.

So you're saying the "there, fixed it for you" part has already happened? That would explain a lot, actually...

[Yokaiko]

stjobe, on 21 April 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

So you're saying the "there, fixed it for you" part has already happened? That would explain a lot, actually...

I'm saying its been ******......and their "fix" did nothing.

[shabowie]

The machine gun already in the game is supposed to be a "machine cannon" capable of damaging mechs.

They should just remove the extra crit bonus nonsense and bump up the DPS again to around 1 per machine gun. It still requires you to constantly face your target to get all those shots on target so that's a fine trade off with being able to roll your mech like with energy weapons, SRMs and heavier ballistics.

Edited by shabowie, 21 April 2013 - 02:33 PM.

[stjobe]

shabowie, on 21 April 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

The machine gun already in the game is supposed to be a "machine cannon" capable of damaging mechs.

You know that, I know that, everyone knows that - except the devs actually making this game.

[TOGSolid]

Yokaiko, on 21 April 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

I'm saying its been ******......and their "fix" did nothing.

On a related note, PGI was recently asked to add a wheelchair ramp to their building:

[Taemien]

Keifomofutu, on 21 April 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

Why don't you just create a new thread for you to create strawmen and then knock them down. You won't even need another poster to do it. Nobody asked for 4dps mgs. The highest I've seen from a serious poster is 2 dps. And most seem to agree on 1.2dps.

1.2 is too low. If you actually read my earlier posts (which the troll above hasn't either), you would understand that for a Single Hardpoint you can never have Machine Guns have enough DPS without being OP for their no-heat output and tonnage. 2dps is too low still. You would be doing 4 DPS with a spider, but at only 90m and IF, IF you can maintain all 10shots per second on the same location.

So what do you do? Bump it to 2 or higher DPS? You're treading on making the weapon imbalanced at that point. SSRM2s don't do that and neither do small lasers or small pulse lasers.

That's why I suggested the machine gun array that holds multiple machine guns per hardpoint. That way you get more DPS without making an individual weapon OP and pay for the damage in tonnage and criticals making it a balanced weapon. With my system the Spider could hold 3-4 machine guns per hardpoint giving it 12-16 machine guns, weighing 6-8 tons and dealing more DPS without simply having only 3 tons of weapons.

This helps mechs like the Cicada, Hunchback, and Jaegermech. In addition to the future Blackjack.

The point is, there is a threshold to what a .5 ton weapon can do in damage. The problem can be fixed by allowing more machine guns per hardpoint instead. Thats the only thing that currently limits them. Damage could be adjusted from there in smaller increments.

[TOGSolid]

Except you never suggested any of that before. For some of your post you're just parroting what other people have been saying now and the rest is just you, once again, setting up a strawman for you to beat up on even though everyone has pointed that out repeatedly. Once again, by your own logic, small lasers would also require a massive buff since they do low dps, have to be held on target, and have limited range.

PGI is sticking to the timeline with weapons and mechs and the machine gun array doesn't come out for another 18 years and HMGs don't come out for nine so neither are a viable solution. Nothing about what you have said is relevant to balancing the game as it currently exists.

A spider can, at best, hold three medium lasers. The ballistic variant can hold 4 ballistic and one medium. MGs being on par to small lasers would be completely fair as you will then be doing the equivalent dps of three medium lasers. Anything more than that would be dumb.

Edited by TOGSolid, 21 April 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[stjobe]

Taemien, on 21 April 2013 - 02:50 PM, said:

The point is, there is a threshold to what a .5 ton weapon can do in damage.

There might well be, but look at the alpha damage per ton and DPS per ton of the MG compared to the Small Laser:
MG: 0.08 damage/ton, 0.8 DPS/ton
SL: 6.0 damage/ton, 2.0 DPS/ton

The SL has 2.5 times the DPS/ton of the MG; and as we've established elsewhere it's also much more effective in actually utilizing that DPS.

Perhaps I should mention also that the MG is useless without ammo which come in 1-ton lots, so you can get three Small Lasers for the weight of one MG. That's 7.5 times the DPS per ton for a single Small Laser compared to the MG.

So... Still think 1.2 DPS is too low?

Edited by stjobe, 21 April 2013 - 03:16 PM.

[jeffsw6]

Hatachi, on 21 April 2013 - 03:13 AM, said:

Well, these are the test server. It's beta and all. I wish they would take more risks now instead of waiting for launch.

QFT

Dr Killinger, on 21 April 2013 - 04:02 AM, said:

Right now a ballistic [slot] acts as a premium slot- it's earmarked for a big gun. Energy slots are able to provide your small arms needs. Missiles as well, but we know how that they're sub-par lately.

That is only because there are no useful guns other than big ones.

Many mechs have 2 or even 3 ballistic mount points in one section. This is mostly useless because there are only three really good guns: AC/2, AC/20, and Gauss Rifle. Don't say UAC5 because it is trash without a macro mouse; and AC5 is just something you install if you can't fit anything better or use your tons/slots for something different.

Obviously you can't fit two AC/20 or Gauss in the same section of any mech, and AC/2 is a hot, heavy weapon that forces you to continuously aim at the enemy to use it effectively; so you aren't able to dodge or torso-twist as much.

The reason the big guns are the most popular is there are no useful small, light guns at all. There are 6 lasers (not counting flamer) that weigh 5 or fewer tons. There are no guns less than 6 tons (not counting MG.)

If they ever do add more light-weight gun selection in the future, it is going to be hard to balance the game, because a lot of mechs have numerous B slots they are not using for any gun at all today -- the needed space and weight is already occupied by an AC/20 or Gauss Rifle.

This is why they should be doing it now, not post-release.

[jeffsw6]

shabowie, on 21 April 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

They should just remove the extra crit bonus nonsense and bump up the DPS

I am pretty sure they don't understand how critical hits work IN THE GAME THEY ARE DEVELOPING (like numerous other things they seem not to understand.) It doesn't freaking matter if something which does 0.04 dmg lands a critical hit on a weapon or ammo because it's never going to get destroyed anyway.

It's just like lasers -- your lasers are landing crits sometimes, but they rarely blow up any armaments because the crits are spread out over dozens of crit-chances (exactly like an MG) and each one, if successful, will only lower the HP of the item it hits by a tiny amount.

Pulse lasers have an improved chance to destroy armaments vs regular lasers. PPCs, on the other hand, have a very good chance to blow up a weapon/ammo if they crit because they do so much instant damage -- just like a Guass Rifle or AC/20 -- because all that damage will land on one thing, not spread out to several.

Saying MG crit chance is buffed is like giving a high school basketball player a good pair of shoes and expecting him to dunk on Michael Jordan. Is his chance to dunk increased by the better footwear? No, because Michael Jordan is never going to let a high school player get close to the rim. Even if he does, he'll score 2 points to Michael's 80.

TL;DR: Equipping Machine Guns and hoping for crits is like trying to dunk on Michael Jordan. Maybe it'll happen once but you will still lose every game you play.

[Taemien]

TOGSolid, on 21 April 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

Except you never suggested any of that before. For some of your post you're just parroting what other people have been saying now and the rest is just you, once again, setting up a strawman for you to beat up on even though everyone has pointed that out repeatedly. Once again, by your own logic, small lasers would also require a massive buff since they do low dps, have to be held on target, and have limited range.

I did actually:

Taemien, on 20 April 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

If you want my opinion of PGI should do rather than you all as players. Then they could just put energy slots on some of those mechs. Or add in a means of machine gun arrays so multiple machine guns can fit in a single hardpoint. Get more damage at the cost of criticals and tonnage.

I wasn't setting up a strawman, I actually believe arrays could work. And I would probably use them. It would be great for those brawls where your main weapons are on cooldown and you can just chew on them with a dozen machineguns loaded up in arrays.

And no, I don't think small lasers really need a buff. I personally don't use them, but some people swear by 6 small laser Jenners, if they get results then more power to them. But I can't personally say that I've had the same success, but then again I haven't tried them. But I don't want to get into small laser balance here.

Quote

PGI is sticking to the timeline with weapons and mechs and the machine gun array doesn't come out for another 18 years and HMGs don't come out for nine so neither are a viable solution. Nothing about what you have said is relevant to balancing the game as it currently exists.

I think they could make an exception. If they are going by techbase, the 'tech' for an array was developed before 1950. It could also be called something else so it wouldn't be the Actual Btech component developed in 3068 but rather a MWO mechanic that allows us to mount multiple machine guns in a single hardpoint. Even if they made it so a machine gun took up a quarter or third of a hardpoint.

Quote

A spider can, at best, hold three medium lasers. The ballistic variant can hold 4 ballistic and one medium. MGs being on par to small lasers would be completely fair as you will then be doing the equivalent dps of three medium lasers. Anything more than that would be dumb.

With my suggestion a Spider with 3 mguns per hardpoint would deal about the same DPS as 3 medium lasers. It would cost 8 tons (2 tons of ammo included). But unlike 3 medium lasers they would generate no heat and would act differently. I think we can agree we don't want machine guns to fire like lasers. I like the idea of a continuous stream of lead. And just imagine the visual of a 12 mgun spider with someone just laying it down.

TOGSolid, I will argue a point with you civilly if you do me the same courtesy. Lay off the insults and I will do the same.

[Sable Dove]

Taemien, on 21 April 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

With my suggestion a Spider with 3 mguns per hardpoint would deal about the same DPS as 3 medium lasers. It would cost 8 tons (2 tons of ammo included). But unlike 3 medium lasers they would generate no heat and would act differently. I think we can agree we don't want machine guns to fire like lasers. I like the idea of a continuous stream of lead. And just imagine the visual of a 12 mgun spider with someone just laying it down.

TOGSolid, I will argue a point with you civilly if you do me the same courtesy. Lay off the insults and I will do the same.

3ML + 5 DHS = 8 tons.
3.75 DPS
3 HPS (But the extra heatsinks make it virtually heatless anyways.)
Infinite ammo
270m range.

12MG + 2 tons ammo = 8 tons.
4.8 DPS
0 HPS
~33 seconds firing time. (160 damage potential)
90m range.
Ammo can explode.

Even 4 ML+ 4 DHS would not produce enough heat to be really significant in typical combat.

Even your idea of allowing MGs to fit 3 in a slot doesn't make up for the fact that they are still pathetically underpowered, and unless you could mount about 16-20 total, MGs would still be worthless; not to mention you'd have to take about 10 tons of ammo as well.

They need to buff MG damage, and reduce it to normal crit rates, since the higher critical chance on a low-damage, high-volume weapon actually reduces the damage it deals to internals.

I'd still be better off cramming an AC5/10 into my Spider.

Edited by Sable Dove, 21 April 2013 - 05:08 PM.

[HereticalPsycho]

Taemien, on 21 April 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

With my suggestion a Spider with 3 mguns per hardpoint would deal about the same DPS as 3 medium lasers. It would cost 8 tons (2 tons of ammo included). But unlike 3 medium lasers they would generate no heat and would act differently. I think we can agree we don't want machine guns to fire like lasers. I like the idea of a continuous stream of lead. And just imagine the visual of a 12 mgun spider with someone just laying it down.

Its a sound theory and an improvement over the current system, but Im not sure your ammo quantity is sufficient in that example (3Mg per hard point x 4 hard points = 12 MG's with 2 tonnes of ammo) I would be hesitant to take less then 1 tonne per 3 MG's which is 4 tonnes of ammo in that example which raises the total to 10 Tonnes. (I would prefer to run 1 tonne of ammo per 2 MG's to be honest (6 tonnes of ammo in that example: 12 tonnes), I'm spammy sue me, but I figure 1tonne/3MG's is the bare minimum).

I've seen how fast 1 tonne of ammo drops amongst 4 MG's, The thought of 1:6 (ammo:MG) ratio worries me from a reliable damage output view point

[FupDup]

For those special few who still think Battletech MGs are anti-infantry only:

Source: TechManual, page 341. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

[Taemien]

Sable Dove, on 21 April 2013 - 05:02 PM, said:

3ML + 5 DHS = 8 tons.
3.75 DPS
3 HPS (But the extra heatsinks make it virtually heatless anyways.)
Infinite ammo
270m range.

12MG + 2 tons ammo = 8 tons.
4.8 DPS
0 HPS
~33 seconds firing time. (160 damage potential)
90m range.
Ammo can explode.

Even 4 ML+ 4 DHS would not produce enough heat to be really significant in typical combat.

Even your idea of allowing MGs to fit 3 in a slot doesn't make up for the fact that they are still pathetically underpowered, and unless you could mount about 16-20 total, MGs would still be worthless; not to mention you'd have to take about 10 tons of ammo as well.

They need to buff MG damage, and reduce it to normal crit rates, since the higher critical chance on a low-damage, high-volume weapon actually reduces the damage it deals to internals.

I'd still be better off cramming an AC5/10 into my Spider.

That is because the AC5/10 is a better weapon system. But you're going to be severely limited by where you put the ACs if they get shot off they are gone. A lost location will only hit the mguns on that chasis by a quarter.

Boating the mguns probably isn't the best idea. The Spider plus the other mechs this would be good for have other hardpoints. Specifically the spider has a slot in the CT for energy which can mount a medium laser or a medium pulse laser. While this cuts down on the number of machine guns it can boat. It does diversify the mech's capability.

The Spider specifically isn't meant to put out heavy amounts of damage. Thats why you have the Jenner and Commando. It shines by being more maneuverable then those mechs. And should probably focus on capturing bases and recon (it can get up to places the Raven 3L cannot). Otherwise you have a Spider K that is just a cookie cutter mech. With my suggestion you have to choose between JJs or more weapons. Not simply load up 4 Mguns, 6JJs, max armor and whatever energy weapon will fit. Even with my suggestion, or even a DPS increase to mguns, I think it could use another energy slot.

However... on the Cicada and the Jagermech, my suggestion would be pretty good. With up to 24 machine guns, and only using about 16 tons (putting on the ammo) you get basically a close range heat free 9.6 dps. Thats like two gauss rifles continuously going. Because of the stream of bullets you can stop firing and resume. With a gauss its pretty much hit or miss and wait.

I'd like to see how my suggestion actually works before entertaining any DPS increases. Even then they'd only have to be slight. Like a .2 increase to .6 per mgun, upping the potential 12 on a Spider to 7.2

HereticalPsycho, on 21 April 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

Its a sound theory and an improvement over the current system, but Im not sure your ammo quantity is sufficient in that example (3Mg per hard point x 4 hard points = 12 MG's with 2 tonnes of ammo) I would be hesitant to take less then 1 tonne per 3 MG's which is 4 tonnes of ammo in that example which raises the total to 10 Tonnes. (I would prefer to run 1 tonne of ammo per 2 MG's to be honest (6 tonnes of ammo in that example: 12 tonnes), I'm spammy sue me, but I figure 1tonne/3MG's is the bare minimum).

I've seen how fast 1 tonne of ammo drops amongst 4 MG's, The thought of 1:6 (ammo:MG) ratio worries me from a reliable damage output view point

A spider with 12 machine guns plus two tons of ammo would take about 30 seconds to exhaust the ammo. But potentially dealing 160 damage. Which brings up another issue. Damage per ton on machine guns is half of most other ballistic weapons. I'm up for increasing the ammo per ton to compensate for that. For reference, an AC20 does 140 damage per ton, machine guns deal 80. Gauss deals 150.

Good call there though. I think we can agree that ammo per ton on Machine Guns needs to be doubled, at least.

FupDup, on 21 April 2013 - 08:38 PM, said:

For those special few who still think Battletech MGs are anti-infantry only:
Source: TechManual, page 341. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Just because something can be used against a Mech, doesn't mean it should. 2 dmg at one hex away before penalties is pretty anemic. But hitting infantry does some massive damage to the platoon in comparison. The reason people say they are anti-infantry only is because no one puts on MGs for the purposes of fighting mechs.

In fact its a common practice to jettison MG ammo at the beginning of the match on mechs with MGs and not fighting infantry. This is to prevent catastrophic 400 dmg critical hits. I wouldn't try to use TT to substantiate a point. I've been playing TT about once a week for the last year and have seen MG equipped mechs in every other game. I've never seen one actually hit. The +4 penalty to firing them at 3 hexes is rather limiting. But these facts don't have much bearing here. In MWLL with player controlled Mguns thats about all they were useful for but they were needed for that purpose.

We have to take a different approach in MWO for obvious reasons.

Edited by Taemien, 21 April 2013 - 09:34 PM.

[FupDup]

Taemien, on 21 April 2013 - 09:32 PM, said:

Just because something can be used against a Mech, doesn't mean it should. 2 dmg at one hex away before penalties is pretty anemic. But hitting infantry does some massive damage to the platoon in comparison. The reason people say they are anti-infantry only is because no one puts on MGs for the purposes of fighting mechs.

In fact its a common practice to jettison MG ammo at the beginning of the match on mechs with MGs and not fighting infantry. This is to prevent catastrophic 400 dmg critical hits. I wouldn't try to use TT to substantiate a point. I've been playing TT about once a week for the last year and have seen MG equipped mechs in every other game. I've never seen one actually hit. The +4 penalty to firing them at 3 hexes is rather limiting. But these facts don't have much bearing here. In MWLL with player controlled Mguns thats about all they were useful for but they were needed for that purpose.

We have to take a different approach in MWO for obvious reasons.

That's not the point of the chart. The point of the chart is to provide evidence against the people who claim that MGs can't ever damage Battlemechs in any way, shape, or form.

It's completely true that they are not the optimal weapon for fighting mechs due to range and ammo asplosions, the point is that they have the ability to do so even if other weapons are better at it.

Edited by FupDup, 21 April 2013 - 09:43 PM.

[Major Derps]

As said countless times before, just buff MGs.

[Taemien]

FupDup, on 21 April 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

That's not the point of the chart. The point of the chart is to provide evidence against the people who claim that MGs can't ever damage Battlemechs in any way, shape, or form.

It's completely true that they are not the optimal weapon for fighting mechs due to range and ammo asplosions, the point is that they have the ability to do so even if other weapons are better at it.

Yeah but you have to be in range where a 7ton protomech can flop around and do the same damage at the same range with its frenzy melee attack. This is why I don't like using TT to prove damage values. I like to use the spirit of the game/lore as a gauge instead.

[shabowie]

Taemien, on 21 April 2013 - 02:50 PM, said:

1.2 is too low.

My guess is they would be quite viable at that DPS in the lighter weight classes for zero heat and weight of 2-4 tons for 2-6 MG with one ton ammo, plus whatever extra ammo you want to bring.

Edited by shabowie, 21 April 2013 - 11:26 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Mokey Mot, on 21 April 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

As said countless times before, just buff MGs.

Are you really sure?