20 replies to this topic

[Starkad10]

Yo!
Well, I'm not new to this game, but got a question none the less, regarding firing multiple weapon groups.
Now I got this Nova mech, with 4 MGs, some C-ERML and a TAG. The lasers are weapon group 1, with chain fire (aka. everytime I smash my mouse button it quickly fires the next-in-line laser). Weapon group 2 are the MGs (not chained) and weapon group 3 is the TAG.

Now, what I don't understand is that when I fire my TAG or MGs continuously, and then I smash my mouse botton to fire group 1, the lasers, it will only fire one at the time, and it won't fire the next laser until the first laser is completely done firing... which decreases my rate of fire and damage output quite a bit.

How? Why? What? Why and can I change this? And how do I change it?
Hilfe plz!

[RazorbeastFXK3]

If your medium lasers haven't recycled, they won't fire again until they have. So if you fire all your medium lasers with chainfire and you reach the last one, if the first one hasn't recycled yet then there will be a delay until it does.

I haven't chainfired small/medium/large lasers in the same group so I don't know if it works in a way where if say you have two large lasers, three mediums and three smalls in the same group in that order.. Since medium and small lasers recycle faster than large lasers, if you'll be able to fire the medium lasers before the large lasers have recycled first or not. I'll have to try that out though to see if it works that way.

[Spike Brave]

If a weapon group is on chain fire it will always fire one at a time. To solve your problem you have three options. The first is to hit the "\" key which is bound to alpha strike by default. This will fire all weapons at once. The second is to set up two weapon group with all your lasers. Put one group on chain fire, lets call this group one, and the other group just leave alone, lets call this group two. Then you could fire group one when you want chain fire and group two if you want them all to fire at once. Finally you could just press the backspace key to toggle chain fire on or off.

[UrsusMorologus]

That's what chain-fire is supposed to do, one at a time.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

Okay, I tested it out with a TAG, Large laser, medium pulse and small pulse. Put the Large/MediumPulse/Small Pulse in one group on chainfire and the tag in another group without chainfire.

While holding the TAG it wouldn't let me fire the other three lasers rapidly as you mentioned.

When I wasn't holding the TAG I was able to rapidly fire the three lasers as they recycled as fast as I could tap the mouse button. Why it works that way I don't know.. Send an e-mail to the mods and they should have a better answer as to why it works that way.

I further tested it by setting the three lasers in group one off chainfire mode and they fired as they recycled so the small/medium lasers would fire more than once before the large laser recycled as I held the button for the TAG down.

[Wintersdark]

Yeah, the best workaround is to just have the lasers in a second group where they're not chained. Then you've got a fire button for them grouped and one for them chained.

Chainfire tends to get screwy when you're also firing (even if in another group) "constant fire" weapons like TAG or a Gauss Rifle charging. I haven't experimented with it often, though, because generally speaking chainfire is not good to use. Not that you want to always fire everything, but having all your lasers grouped, and your machine guns grouped, etc, then just firing the lasers together gets more damage output in less time and thus spread less across your target and requiring less face time preventing defensive piloting techniques.

If you're running too many CERML's to group fire them, consider two groups, group-fired. Then you can deliver a "one-two" punch, then twist.

[TheCaptainJZ]

If it's just your TAG laser you are trying to fire with your med lasers, what happens if you set TAG to chainfire too and fire both?

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Interesting. I haven't used Chain-Fire all that much to notice this effect yet.

I wonder if it is a game engine limitation or intended?

I've gotta check this out too, next time I get into the game and see what happens in Training Grounds at least.

[Eaerie]

If you have say 6ML's set to chainfire from 1 button you should be able to tap that button quickly to get them to fire off in rapid succession. the consecutive lasers will start firing as fast as you tap the button even if the first isnt done with its beam yet.

[ImperialKnight]

you're not interpreting the problem correctly

Eaerie, on 21 September 2014 - 10:22 PM, said:

If you have say 6ML's set to chainfire from 1 button you should be able to tap that button quickly to get them to fire off in rapid succession. the consecutive lasers will start firing as fast as you tap the button even if the first isnt done with its beam yet.

seems like a bug when you hold down one weapon group, it messes up the chainfire in another group. might want to report that. i don't think that's intended behaviour

[Arn0ldSchwarzenegger]

And I wouldnt recommend chain fire, all you do is spread damage across the mech whereas if you fired 6 lasers at onces who doing a lot more damage to the exactly same point across all the lasers. If your too hot maybe go down to groups of 3 but your really better off knowing your threshold getting into a bit of cover / rotating out of the fight and coming back when you've cooled off a little. chainfire is pretty pointless for low damage weapons.

[Modo44]

Some high-ping players use chain fire to get somewhat better hit registration. Their choice is between full salvos often disappearing for 0 damage or chain firing to get at least some damage in. If your ping is not high (>200 high), stick to firing all lasers, or at least half-alpha when running hot.

Edited by Modo44, 22 September 2014 - 03:45 AM.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

Thank you for bringing that up. I just tested that too with the TAG in its own group in chainfire mode and I still couldn't fire the other group of lasers as fast without having to wait for their duration to be completed. The only difference is with the TAG on chainfire you get a constant 'pew pew pew pew pew pew pew' sound.

TheCaptainJZ, on 21 September 2014 - 10:08 PM, said:

If it's just your TAG laser you are trying to fire with your med lasers, what happens if you set TAG to chainfire too and fire both?

[Wintersdark]

knightsljx, on 21 September 2014 - 10:31 PM, said:

seems like a bug when you hold down one weapon group, it messes up the chainfire in another group. might want to report that. i don't think that's intended behaviour

This is what happening, it's not intended behavior, and it's a known bug. Of course, more reports may well put more of a fire under their backsides to fix it.

I know I haven't bothered because, as I said, i don't really care: Chainfire is almost never worth using; excepting missiles in some circumstances.

[n r g]

You're making this incredibly more complicated than it needs to be.

Turn OFF chain-fire (that's for idiots)

You group each weapon group based on range or type, so longer range in separate groups or energy and ballistic seperate. There isn't a golden rule although there are some standards.

So to use an example, a Timberwolf 2largepulse 4medium laser may have the 2large pulse lasers on GROUP 2 (mouse button 2) and the 4 medium lasers on group 1 (mouse 1).

Obviously you could make an alpha group (although rolling your fingers from 2 to 1 works just aswell) or make other mini-groups incase you start getting hot i.e. you could make group (3) be just 2mediumlasers so you can fire 2large pulse THEN 2medium lasers if you're running hot and then do the standard 2 large pulse + 4 medium once you cool down again.

Again, there isn't a GOLDEN RULE so to speak about how to GROUP them, although I tend to favor separating them based on range i.e. You obviously don't want to alpha or fire largepulse + medium lasers at 800-900m since the mediums will generate alot of heat and do virtually no damage, thus you want to only fire the large pulse if anything.

I would avoid chain-firing at all times, and merely substitute "minigroups" if you get that hot. IMO, I would rather unlock the arms and torso twist and JJ to spread damage and merely cool down a bit then FIRE than waste meaninglessness chainfire shots staring at the enemy.

Anyway, I'll probably make a video soon elaborating on this.

[Starkad10]

Alright, thanks a lot for the answers!



First of all, I know quite well what chainfire does, thank you.

I'll report the problem later today, and hope it will get fixed sometime.

I group weapons typically based on weapon range, but I actually like chainfire quite a lot due to heat management. I unfortunately don't have the luxury of being able to use a lot of weapon groups, as I only have 3 buttons on my mouse (and then I use 4 on the keyboard for LRMs =P )

Anyway, thanks a lot! I'll report it and hope for a soon fix to easen my frustration!

[Vandax]

While spectating, I noticed a mech had 4 large pulse lasers, (2 per arm). All 4 were in the same weapon group, however, when they discharged, it fired out of the left arm, and shortly after, from the right arm. It was as if the weapons were grouped so that they staggered to prevent the heat spike. I seem to remember that this could be done in previous versions of MechWarrior, but I can't figure it out here. Any suggestions?

Also, I hear some disheartening comments about using chain-fire. I use CF to avoid heat spikes, and it also helps with mitigating damage (i.e. to the noob that decides my line of fire is 'perfect' place stand and takes one to the back). Sure, they'll learn eventually, meanwhile, I'm over-heated, and my intended target looks like he just stepped out of the garage. Just my two-cents.

[Rogue Jedi]

you do not see weapon groups accurately while spectating, the player had probably got 2 separate weapons groups and fired them one at a time.

[Koniving]

Starkad10, on 21 September 2014 - 12:51 PM, said:

Yo!
Well, I'm not new to this game, but got a question none the less, regarding firing multiple weapon groups.
Now I got this Nova mech, with 4 MGs, some C-ERML and a TAG. The lasers are weapon group 1, with chain fire (aka. everytime I smash my mouse button it quickly fires the next-in-line laser). Weapon group 2 are the MGs (not chained) and weapon group 3 is the TAG.

Now, what I don't understand is that when I fire my TAG or MGs continuously, and then I smash my mouse botton to fire group 1, the lasers, it will only fire one at the time, and it won't fire the next laser until the first laser is completely done firing... which decreases my rate of fire and damage output quite a bit.

How? Why? What? Why and can I change this? And how do I change it?
Hilfe plz!

This is a bug.

PGI has never really come to figure out exactly what causes it and clearly hasn't fixed it yet.
If you plan on doing rapid chain fire you should consider not using DPS-style weapons.

Otherwise, through the use of a macro and multiple weapon groups you could do a 'chain' fire sort of thing that allows you to overcome this bug.

[Vandax]

That's possible that they were using two groups. It's similar to how I sometimes set up groups myself. It just looked odd to see it all in group one, my room-mate (who also plays) agreed that there had to be something more to this. Still, I think it would be fairly simple from a coding aspect, for the programmers to make it work in conjunction with their current setup.

With regard to the macro for setting up stylized group-fire, I looked into a generic program, but it didn't seem to work. My mouse is a Blackweb gaming mouse, (5 button). I can't remember the program I tried to use, but it was supposed to set up keyboard strokes to be set as mouse buttons; it was also supposed to have an auto-click (timer) to be attached. Long story short, I couldn't get them to work together. I wasn't intending to bring up mice, but since chain fire timing can improve the ROF, maybe someone here has a quick thought about it.

Edited by Vandax, 25 December 2015 - 02:57 PM.