157 replies to this topic

[Josef Nader]

Machine guns have a very specific niche. Once you're through armor, they can knock out all the components within that section very quickly.

"But why would I do that when I could just destroy the section?" you cry.

Simple. Destroying the section won't kill the mech. You might want to get rid of that AC20/Gauss, or all if their SRMs. 2+ machine guns can do that reasonably quickly, while you can use your slow-cooldown weapons (like your AC20/gauss) to knock away other sections of armor. 4 seconds of MG fire (the cooldown of the big ballistics) is enough to knock out a few components if you have a couple machine guns.

In addition, some mechs have far more ballistics slots than they can take advantage of. The Dragon 5N, HBK-4G, Spider 5K, Raven 4X, and the Cicada 3C, for example, don't have enough tonnage to take real advantage of all their ballistic hardpoints. Sacrificing 2 tons to a weapon that can fire without generating heat and can actually do quite a bit to strip the enemy of their weapons (once you're through armor) can be quite useful, if done properly. A 3C with 4 MGs and a PPC, for example, can peel open a mech from behind, strip his section of weapons, and be gone before he can retaliate.

They're not a primary weapon, for sure, but they do have a niche and they can be worth the ton and a half or more it takes to pack them on.

Edited by Josef Nader, 07 March 2013 - 07:36 AM.

[Mavairo]

Or you could simply use your secondary weapons on those internals and then when ''big bore'' comes up again, resume surgery.

Or even better you can do this thing called focus fire on the same components

[Darwins Dog]

Gevurah, on 07 March 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

I was using them effectively as a form of crowd control on my dragon 5-N. Use bigger weapons (LLas, SRM6, etc) to strip armor, use 2 MG's to strip components. I literally had two mechs in the same match who had a clear advantage in terms of fire power (1 UAC5x3 Ilya, 1 awesome) run away once their armor was stripped due to the sudden loss of components. They still had 1-2 chunks left with armor left and at that point it seemed pretty obvious they wanted to keep their few remaining components.

Machine guns are NOT something that can stand on their own, but they do function admirably as a support weapon when used intelligently.

The problem is that there are two mechs right now where they HAVE to stand on their own. The CDA-3C, and the spider (I forget the chassis) have 4 ballistic and 1 energy point each. You can't run AC/2s without sacrificing speed, and the one large pulse laser or ER PPC is not enough to stand on by itself.

It's great for a dragon with lots of other options, but PGI released two MG boats that currently only serve as a really annoying mech to grind through for efficiencies.

Edited by Darwins Dog, 07 March 2013 - 07:41 AM.

[Josef Nader]

Mavairo, on 07 March 2013 - 07:34 AM, said:

Or you could simply use your secondary weapons on those internals and then when ''big bore'' comes up again, resume surgery.

Or even better you can do this thing called focus fire on the same components

Ah, but secondary weapons:

1) Tend to generate heat. This can be problematic for certain builds
2) Are -not- effective at knocking out components. More often than not, you have to destroy the entire section before you destroy the weapons. Remember, critical chance is rolled per shot. A small laser, the definition of a backup weapon, fires once every 2.25 seconds. The machine gun fires 10 times a second. That's 22.5 chances to score a critical hit and damage a component for every 1 chance the small laser has AND it has a significantly higher chance to actually strike a component and deal damage to it. Two machine guns get 45 chances per small laser shot to hit a component. Three? 67.5. Four? 90. 90 critical chances every 2.25 seconds. For three tons. That's respectable.The small laser is -far- more likely to just deal 3 damage to internals, rather than crit out equipment.
3) MGs have no cooldown, and there is no penalty -at all- for laying into your opponent constantly. No heat, ammunition is never a concern, and it is actually rather disorienting for your opponent (their paper doll never stops flashing, and they never stop getting a damage indicator, so it's hard to tell where the big hits are coming in).
4) Ballistics are extremely heavy, and it's often not worth trying to devote 7 tons to cramming an AC2 onto your build. MGs let you use up those slots without eating up tonnage, and they do enough to make it worth your time.

These things combine to give the MG a useful niche and a reason to exist, I think.

Edited by Josef Nader, 07 March 2013 - 07:47 AM.

[General Taskeen]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 07:41 AM, said:

3) MGs have no cooldown, and there is no penalty -at all- for laying into your opponent constantly. No heat, ammunition is never a concern, and it is actually rather disorienting for your opponent (their paper doll never stops flashing, and they never stop getting a damage indicator, so it's hard to tell where the big hits are coming in).

These things combine to give the MG a useful niche and a reason to exist, I think.

No. Bad Game Balance Design.

Any supporters of currently programmed MG's should be forced to play Spider-5K's, Raven-4X's, or Cicada-3C's, and you can't customize them.

MG's have no cool down, because it was a poor design choice. Simple as that. Balancing around that is notoriously difficult and pointless, hence stupid 'niche' crit seekers in MWO.

MW3:

200 Ammo Per Ton
.2 Damage Per Bullet (fired in bursts of 4, totaling .8 damage per shot)
0.625 Cooldown

Well wouldja look at that! A cooldown, solving 0 heat MG balance in one broad stroak.

Edited by General Taskeen, 07 March 2013 - 07:47 AM.

[Josef Nader]

My favorite light mech is a SDR-5K. I also use machine guns on my Marmoset ('cause I hate the 3 UAC5 build, and those arm slots are useless if you mount a big ballistic) and on my Trebuchet 7K.

Trust me when I say MGs have a role, and it's an interesting one. As long as you don't run into any other light mechs and you have an operating partner, the 5K is actually an extremely useful mech. Your buddy opens up that splat cat's ears with his PPCs or AC20, you blitz in and strip those SRMs out before he can do any real damage. Meanwhile, your buddy is stripping the armor from the other ear. In less than 10-15 seconds, you can completely disarm a splat cat and move on to do other things without sustaining any damage to yourself.

Ever land a nice rear-armor shot on an Atlas or something and had him react before you could finish knocking out the section? In comes the 5K to steal that AC20 before he can kill you dead with it.

No, it's not a damage-heavy build. No, it's not a build that is going to see tournament use any time soon. Yes, it is an insanely fun build to play, and yes, it can work effectively if you play smart.

Edited by Josef Nader, 07 March 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[Xenophontis]

I like the part were they strip back armor faster than they kill the internals, that's like the opposite of how they should be working.

IMO they should be near useless versus armor (pretty much already are) and shred internals much faster than they currently do.

Edited by Xenophontis, 07 March 2013 - 08:00 AM.

[Rippthrough]

A single small laser build can be fun to play and work if you play smart. Doesn't mean it's any good.

[Phoenix Gray]

Phoenix Gray, on 07 March 2013 - 07:04 AM, said:

You sound like you're playing a game for fun or something. That's just crazy talk.

Unless they've fixed this, I understand if you lock your MG's into multiple firing groups and press the groups together, you get multiplied rates of fire.

[Josef Nader]

Xenophontis, on 07 March 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

I like the part were they strip back armor faster than they kill the internals, that's like the opposite of how they should be working.

IMO they should be near useless versus armor (pretty much already are) and shred internals much faster than they currently do.

Pay close attention to the video in the OP. Notice how his medium lasers disappear -long- before he dies to internal destruction?



Again, pay attention. Notice how his lasers disappear almost instantly after we get through his rear armor (and stopped running circles around him long enough to actually land hits on his rear CT)?

That's what machine guns do. If that was his right torso, we could have knocked out his AC20 and gone off to shoot at more productive things (like his CT or LT). MGs don't destroy internal structure. They knock out components and weapons. There's a difference.

Edited by Josef Nader, 07 March 2013 - 08:12 AM.

[Mavairo]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 07:41 AM, said:

Ah, but secondary weapons:

1) Tend to generate heat. This can be problematic for certain builds
2) Are -not- effective at knocking out components. More often than not, you have to destroy the entire section before you destroy the weapons. Remember, critical chance is rolled per shot. A small laser, the definition of a backup weapon, fires once every 2.25 seconds. The machine gun fires 10 times a second. That's 22.5 chances to score a critical hit and damage a component for every 1 chance the small laser has AND it has a significantly higher chance to actually strike a component and deal damage to it. Two machine guns get 45 chances per small laser shot to hit a component. Three? 67.5. Four? 90. 90 critical chances every 2.25 seconds. For three tons. That's respectable.The small laser is -far- more likely to just deal 3 damage to internals, rather than crit out equipment.
3) MGs have no cooldown, and there is no penalty -at all- for laying into your opponent constantly. No heat, ammunition is never a concern, and it is actually rather disorienting for your opponent (their paper doll never stops flashing, and they never stop getting a damage indicator, so it's hard to tell where the big hits are coming in).
4) Ballistics are extremely heavy, and it's often not worth trying to devote 7 tons to cramming an AC2 onto your build. MGs let you use up those slots without eating up tonnage, and they do enough to make it worth your time.

These things combine to give the MG a useful niche and a reason to exist, I think.

I've never had -any- problem using just 2LLs an AC10 and SRM4/6 on a dragon to perform said surgeries. I almost rack as many component destruction bonuses as I do kills and assists.

I'd never use an AC2 for component destruction or for much of anything really, not on the mechs I tend to pilot. (not enough tons to get the mandatory 3 AC2s it takes to make something really sing and stay cool afterwards).

MGs should have the critting aspect removed, and their dps should measure up to a Small Laser or AC2 when grouped together. As it is right now they don't. If it takes you 4 seconds to lay into a component to kill it with MGs, that's still by definition worse than having a mainstay weapon lay into it and very likely leaving the guy a smoldering wreck afterwards in one shot.

When a fatty does manage to react and start twisting away from me (and usually I'm fast enough as it is to keep up), usually one of my partners (generally a Medium as my two most common offline friends also play MWO and both prefer Mediums) has the golden opportunity. If the visual in your mind of what me and my 2 buddies fighting a fatty resembles a game of maypole you might just be correct. I've used that analogy when they started out to get them the idea.

I don't care if I bag the Fatty or not, All I care about is the team downing the fatty in the first place or removing it's dangerous equipment. Usually that starts with his ''big bore'' weapon and then we move from there to the other ST or his legs.

I might try an MG someday if I could ever find 2 tons on my builds (maybe I'll drop a DHS or something dunno. I'd never field just 1 MG) to see what happens, but if past experiences of Cicadas trying to pepper spray me to death has shown anything to me it's that the MG doesn't really do much.

Edited by Mavairo, 07 March 2013 - 08:18 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

In conclusion, the small laser is OP.


Sorry, I've given up on the machine gun. For PGI, it now seems to be a matter of principle. They don't want to change it. It's a waste of tonnage, and there's no indication of them making any kind of significant change any time soon.

And this "niche" that people keep talking about, about crits and destroying components, is just silly talk. I'm sure the MG is more effective taking out components than actually destroying mechs, but as the OP clearly shows, you're better off with a small laser anyway.

Destroying a mech and its weapons > destroying a mech's weapons

Oh, and how many small lasers and heat sinks can you get for the space and tonnage of 4 MGs with 2-4 tons of ammo? More than one.

PS: I still keep 2 MG's on my Catapult K2. It's only for the nice sound.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 07 March 2013 - 08:22 AM.

[Josef Nader]

You're still missing the point. Your surgury with Large Lasers and Autocannons isn't critting out their weapons, it's destroying sections. You get all those component destruction because you've blown out the section the weapons are housing. What I'm trying to get across is that you more often than not have to blow out a section to destroy a weapon in it. If that weapon is the only thing of interest in that section, it can take far more time than you have to get rid of it. Machine guns can get rid of that weapon and let you move on to something else in very short order. His right torso might still be in the yellow/orange, but his AC20 is gone. This lets you swing over to his CT/LT whatever, because you've done everything you needed to do in his right torso. I often leave enemy mechs with all of their sections still attached completely stripped of weapons with my Marmoset. Atlai with yellow internals and healthy front armor and not a single weapon left inside their torsos ineffectually swinging around two arm-mounted medium lasers while my team moves on to do something more productive. It's often a lot faster and a lot easier than trying to knock through the Atlas' massive internal structure and blow off all of it's bits, especially because people tend to completely discount machine guns as a threat... at least until their AC20 disappears long before their torso sections do.

Alistair Winter, on 07 March 2013 - 08:22 AM, said:

Oh, and how many small lasers and heat sinks can you get for the space and tonnage of 4 MGs with 2-4 tons of ammo? More than one.

That really depends on how many hardpoints you have and what you're doing with them, doesn't it? There are quite a few mechs that can't mount as many small lasers as machine guns because they don't have the hardpoints for it.

[Galathon Redd]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 07 March 2013 - 07:18 AM, said:

You might have noticed, but the mechs with guns in their CTs lost those right quick after their armor dropped. That's the main purpose of MGs. Use your SL to strip armor and your MGs to blow components. Or, better yet, drop your ammo (8k rounds seems like way too much) and upgrade to a ML or MPL or something. Use that to do damage and your MGs to rip out components.

Better yet, use any other weapon to rip out the entire location just as fast or faster. No CT means no weapon there... also means no mech there. Why strip a laser off someone's left arm with 5 seconds of MG fire when another 5 seconds of laser, AC, or PPC fire will rip the whole arm off?

Sorry, man, MGs have no purpose on the battlefield; at least none that can't be filled better by any other weapon in the game. Clearly, balance is needed.

[TexAce]

Can someone please make a test (I'm away from my gaming machine for the whole day) where he tests 4 MGs against a mech with equal armor and inner structure health points? (so for example 25 CT armor + 25 inner structure hp).

Why? because in the video of the OP the armor went off much faster than the inner structure. I know shooting them in the back means less armor there but I wanna compare how much better MGs are against inner structure than against armor and to see if this "crit seekness" is really worth it / working at all.

[Heeden]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Pay close attention to the video in the OP. Notice how his medium lasers disappear -long- before he dies to internal destruction?

<snip>video</snip>

Again, pay attention. Notice how his lasers disappear almost instantly after we get through his rear armor (and stopped running circles around him long enough to actually land hits on his rear CT)?

That's what machine guns do. If that was his right torso, we could have knocked out his AC20 and gone off to shoot at more productive things (like his CT or LT). MGs don't destroy internal structure. They knock out components and weapons. There's a difference.

I just gave the video a second look - it seems to take about 2 seconds from armour being penetrated (0:26) to both medium lasers going down (0:28). 23 seconds later the Atlas dies. The Centurion's go in a second.

---

Just popped on my SDR-5K and I can confirm MGs are an awesome use of 3 tons (4 guns + 1 ton of ammo). It also has the largest engine, ERLLas but skimps a bit on armour.

Started off dancing with a Muromets, not much damage done as I couldn't get a decent shot with the laser. Luckily a couple of heavier allies came to help out. As soon as I saw components exposed I opened up with the machine guns, bang went 2 UAC-5s almost instantly. Next up was a Gauss-Cat that almost took one of my legs with a snipe shot, after a bit of dancing I had his side torso stripped, dakka-dakka said my MGs. Kablooie said the gauss rifle. Boom said the Cat's engine as an ally finished it off.

Next was a beaten-up Dragon of some sort. I kinda messed up my throttle and turning here and found myself looking down the barrel of an AC-10 and a medium laser. One quick rat-a-tat later I was only tickled by the MLas.

[Alistair Winter]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

That really depends on how many hardpoints you have and what you're doing with them, doesn't it? There are quite a few mechs that can't mount as many small lasers as machine guns because they don't have the hardpoints for it.

Yes. But mechs like the Spider 5K and Raven 4X, which have ballistic hardpoints but so little free tonnage that the MG is usually the best option, are relatively rare compared to other variants. For example, it's always better to have a Raven 2X with 4 small lasers than a Raven 4X with 2 small lasers and 2 MGs.

And to be fair, we shouldn't really be talking about small lasers, because energy weapons have different options depending on how many tons you want to dedicate. 0,5 tons, 1 ton, 2 tons, 5 tons... As opposed to ballistic weapons, where it's either 0,5 tons or 6 tons and above. In other words, you usually have more options with energy weapons than ballistic weapons.

[Skyscream Sapphire]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Again, pay attention. Notice how his lasers disappear almost instantly after we get through his rear armor (and stopped running circles around him long enough to actually land hits on his rear CT)?

No, but I did notice how the medium laser disappears while the Raven's medium lasers are drilling into his back (0:46-0:48). Those lasers continue to focus the rear CT while he is shut down and the other medium laser is gone when he powers back on. So inconclusive...but I'd strongly suspect the ML over the MG. I also noticed how these same medium lasers actually bring down the mech (1:00). Again...real weapons doing all the work.

I'll go give them a try in the testing grounds because hey, why not, but I'm not convinced yet.

[TexAce]

I see I see...its not about destroying the mech but how fast it disarms them. More bullets mean more luck to crit. That's what i find interesting.

Pay attention to the OPs video. All ct mounted weapons are done in about 1-2 seconds of fire. I can't remember having such luck with non-MGs ever.

Might give em a try tonight in the training grounds.

OP tried to prove how bad they are but actually he made them look pretty decent... haha

Edited by TexAss, 07 March 2013 - 08:50 AM.

[Josef Nader]

Ignoring the fact that I killed the Atlas in the first half of the video thanks to ammo explosions (we all know that no sane pilot stores un-CASE'd AC20 ammo in his side torsos), this video very clearly demonstrates why MGs are useful. Both end up with the same result; his AC20 is gone. One takes almost 10 seconds, and costs me 3 AC20 shells. The other takes less than 5 and knocks it out almost instantly. If I was, say, ambushing that Atlas, I'd have just gained the upper hand by taking away his big gun before he had a chance to react. If the Atlas let me do what I demonstrated first, he's a dummy. He'd have a hard time reacting fast enough to keep me from doing what I did in the latter part of the video.

Edited by Josef Nader, 07 March 2013 - 08:52 AM.