21 replies to this topic

[Jonathan Paine]

Balancing Ballistics.

Most ballistics weapons are somewhat nerfed due to PGI doubling armor, without doubling shots per ton. Also, there are some disrepancies between guns making some less useful than others.Consider these tweaks a "step in the right direction"

MG: Currently does 0.4 damage (spread) per second. No heat! Damage potential for 15 minutes of continuous fire is: (60sec*15min*0.4dam) 360 points. One ton of ammo 1000 rounds, which equals 40 damage.
Suggestion: Damage multiplied by 3, shots per tonnage reduced to 750. Damage potential for single MG fired for 15 minutes is now 540 (still mostly a joke), damage per ton rises to 90.
HP tweak: lowered from 10 to 5 (MG's should not be as solid as an AC20!)
Note: I fully suspect that this will leave a single MG a weak weapon. Quad MG might be somewhat useful now.

AC2: Currently does 4 damage per second. 2 Heat per second. 75 rounds per ton. Suggested tweak: lower heat per shot from 1.0 to 0.95. Increase shots per ton by 5 to 80. Damage per ton is now 160.
HP: Lowered from 10 to 7. Lightest and smallest (1 crit), should not be as solid as other AC's

AC5: Currently does 2.94 damage per second. 0.59! heat per second. 30 rounds per ton. Suggested tweak: increase heat to 1.1 per shot, HPS is now 0.65. Increase shots per ton by 4 to 34. Damage per ton is now 160.
HP: Remains 10. Solid no nonsense AC. Suggest increasing basic range to 600, slight increase of projectile speed (UAC5 balancing)

UAC5: Currently does 4.55 damage per second. 0.91 heat. 25 rounds per ton. Suggested tweak: Increase shots per ton by 5 to 30. Damage per ton is now 150.
HP: Decrease to 8. A more complicated AC, prone to jamming. Decrease basic range to 540, slight decrease of projectile speed (AC5 tweaking - also, harder to be accurate with something that can double fire)

AC10: Currently does 4.0 damage per second. 1.2 heat per second. 15 rounds per ton. Suggested tweak: Increase shots per ton by 2 to 17. Damage per ton is now 170.
HP: Increased by 2 to 12. As solid as AC5, but more crit spaces. Suggest increasing basic range to 540, slight increase of projectile speed (LB10X balancing)

LB10X: Currently does 4.0 damage per second. 0.8 heat per second. 15 rounds per ton. Suggested tweak: Tighten spread. Increase damage per pellet by 0.1. Increase shots per ton by 1 to 16. Damage per ton is now 166.
HP: Increased by 2 to 12. Shotgun! Suggest decreasing basic range to 450, slight decrease in projectile speed (AC10 balancing, and honestly why does a shotgun have better range than a solid round?)

Gauss Rifle: Currently does 3.75 damage per second. 0.25 heat per second.Beautiful weapon!
HP: Increased from 3 to 6 (fragile, but not silly!). Introduce minimum range of 30 meters to better match other high damage sniping weapons (also, risk of point blank jam blowing up the weapon!)

AC20: Currently does 5.0 damage per second. 1.5 heat per second. 7 rounds per ton. Suggested tweak: Increase shots per ton by 1 to 8. Damage per ton is now 160.
HP: Increased to 14. Big, solid but with lots of crits. (thanks for the buff PGI!)

Updated with correct damage for MGs

Edited by Jonathan Paine, 14 April 2013 - 01:50 PM.

[focuspark]

I'd rather see the DPS / (HPS + 1) come out to somewhat equal as should the damage potential per ton of ammo.

Oh, and I'd argue that a machine gun is far more robust than an AC/20 which is huge with many moving (and breakable/jamable) parts.

With above math AC/20 does 5.0 DPS @ 1.5 HPS, for a ratio of 2. Therefore a MG with a heat of zero should do 2.0 DPS, meaning each MG round should do 0.2 damage (MG fires 10 round per second). If a ton of AM/20 ammo has 7 round (140 damage) then a ton of MG should hold 700 rounds of ammo (140 damage). All other AC should conform to this, with UAC being the outlier and needing special handling.

Edited by focuspark, 23 January 2013 - 02:10 PM.

[Divine Retribution]

For machinguns I'm partial to tripling damage per shot and cutting ammo per ton in half. 1.2 DPS is reasonable for a .5 ton weapon with no heat, making 4 mg mechs useful. The potential damage per ton would be 120, fairly close to the potential damage per ton of other ballistics.

[Selbatrim]

I have to add I got blown up by an MG the other day. I'd lost all my weapons. Had my left torso exposed and a SDR-4K spent about 4 minutes shooting at me with 4 MGs. But there is was, finally, at the very end of the causes of death list. Damage by MG... booom

Crank up the damage on the MG PGI. Make it a viable weapon. Half a ton of MG should do something to a Mech. The board game had it at almost Small Laser damage...

[Golfin Man]

I like what you've said but having a minimum range on a gauss rifle doesn't make sense to me. I understand that battletech doesn't have to make sense but even in the world of battletech I can't see any explanation for a gauss round being anything but effective directly out of the barrel.

[blinkin]

Golfin Man, on 25 February 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

I like what you've said but having a minimum range on a gauss rifle doesn't make sense to me. I understand that battletech doesn't have to make sense but even in the world of battletech I can't see any explanation for a gauss round being anything but effective directly out of the barrel.

i am pretty sure in the tabletop it was an issue with accuracy at close range. the gauss is unwieldy so it is hard to aim at near targets.

[Jaxass]

Oh no you're not touching my UACs negatively like that, they're already hard enough to shoot. Suggested tweak, lower jamming rate and increase heat slightly, I'd gladly trade some heat for more reliability.

[VXJaeger]

Remove UAC complitely. That would solve it's erratic behaviour, 'cause it's the most bugged piece of **** in the whole game. In one game they work perfectly w/ out jammings, in another they jam constantly, and devfucks are not going to do anything 'bout it.

Edited by VXJaeger, 26 February 2013 - 10:39 AM.

[focuspark]

I didn't see it corrected but MG damage is 0.04 per shot @ 10 shots per second, or 0.4 damage per second.

That's 10x your numbers, or 360 damage after 15 minutes of continuous firing. Potential per ton is still only 80 damage, which is subpar for any ballistics weapon (others have ~150 per ton). This leads to believe that MG should do 0.075 per round, or 0.75 DPS - still a paltry amount but at least it would be better.

Better yet, MG ammo should be reduced to 1000 rounds and damage increased to 0.15 per round (1.5 DPS).

blinkin, on 25 February 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

i am pretty sure in the tabletop it was an issue with accuracy at close range. the gauss is unwieldy so it is hard to aim at near targets.

The Gauss should converge at say 25% normal speeds. That would help simulate it in MW:O.

VXJaeger, on 26 February 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Remove UAC complitely. That would solve it's erratic behaviour, 'cause it's the most bugged piece of **** in the whole game. In one game they work perfectly w/ out jammings, in another they jam constantly, and devfucks are not going to do anything 'bout it.

UAC5 just needs to be predictable. I've suggested allowing 3 shots before jamming and requiring jamming to take double cooldown. So you could shoot, cool, shoot, cool, ad infinium or shoot, shoot, shoot, unjam, cool, repeat.

[blinkin]

focuspark, on 26 February 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

I didn't see it corrected but MG damage is 0.04 per shot @ 10 shots per second, or 0.4 damage per second.

according to MWO wiki the machine gun does 0.04 damage per second.

[focuspark]

blinkin, on 26 February 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

according to MWO wiki the machine gun does 0.04 damage per second.

I'm working off of smurfy's data which is supposedly pulled directly from the game files:

MACHINE GUN 0.04 - - 90 200 1 0.5 100 2,000 0.40 - - 0.001 10.00

[Adridos]

blinkin, on 26 February 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

according to MWO wiki the machine gun does 0.04 damage per second.

You couldn't kill a fly with that.

It's 0.4 DPS.

[focuspark]

Adridos, on 26 February 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

You couldn't kill a fly with that.

It's 0.4 DPS.

... and you can't kill a fly with that. I know, I've tried with 4 at a time. Fly, er Spider, didn't die after 2 tons of ammo where emptied into his torso. Target was disconnected and about 3m away, so I know the rounds connected.

MG are a complete joke today, but I love 'em.

[blinkin]

focuspark, on 26 February 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

... and you can't kill a fly with that. I know, I've tried with 4 at a time. Fly, er Spider, didn't die after 2 tons of ammo where emptied into his torso. Target was disconnected and about 3m away, so I know the rounds connected.

MG are a complete joke today, but I love 'em.

i have been preaching the benefits of flamers, so i won't fault you for that.

[Adridos]

focuspark, on 26 February 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

... and you can't kill a fly with that. I know, I've tried with 4 at a time. Fly, er Spider, didn't die after 2 tons of ammo where emptied into his torso. Target was disconnected and about 3m away, so I know the rounds connected.

MG are a complete joke today, but I love 'em.

You can't kill a fly, but you can disarm entire enemy team in a moment.

I once had a really ****** battle when a Spider with 4xMGs diarmed me when he sneaked up behind me and showered me for a few seconds. All LRMs and MLs gone... only the TAG was left.

[Donas]

focuspark, on 26 February 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

UAC5 just needs to be predictable. I've suggested allowing 3 shots before jamming and requiring jamming to take double cooldown. So you could shoot, cool, shoot, cool, ad infinium or shoot, shoot, shoot, unjam, cool, repeat.

DIsagree. The UAC5 jamming is working perfectly. If you fire them at their reccomended cooldowm rate, they are perfectly reliable and don't jam. The higher rate of fire, along with the risk of jamming it is suposed to be a risk, an unpredictable 'oh sh*t' button. UAC5's are not intended to be continuously fired at max firing rate. Its just an emergency measure that is an option in a pinch. The unpredictability of 'overclocking' them is the balance factor.

[focuspark]

Donas, on 26 February 2013 - 02:06 PM, said:

DIsagree. The UAC5 jamming is working perfectly. If you fire them at their reccomended cooldowm rate, they are perfectly reliable and don't jam. The higher rate of fire, along with the risk of jamming it is suposed to be a risk, an unpredictable 'oh sh*t' button. UAC5's are not intended to be continuously fired at max firing rate. Its just an emergency measure that is an option in a pinch. The unpredictability of 'overclocking' them is the balance factor.

Not true - they have a chance to jam on the first shot. I've had it happen. I've also gone twenty shots in sequence without a jam. Completely unfair weapon either way.

[rgreat]

Adridos, on 26 February 2013 - 11:38 AM, said:

You can't kill a fly, but you can disarm entire enemy team in a moment.

That a wet fantasy.

Quote

I once had a really ****** battle when a Spider with 4xMGs diarmed me when he sneaked up behind me and showered me for a few seconds. All LRMs and MLs gone... only the TAG was left.

If it was Jenner - you would be dead, not just disarmed.

Edited by rgreat, 26 February 2013 - 03:31 PM.

[Donas]

focuspark, on 26 February 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Not true - they have a chance to jam on the first shot. I've had it happen. I've also gone twenty shots in sequence without a jam. Completely unfair weapon either way.

Ah. That sounds like a bug that needs corrected. It should not jam at all if you are letting it reload fully before hitting it again.

[Jonathan Paine]

Updated OP with correct damage per second for MGs - thanks for the heads up