157 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

See the video I posted immediately before your post.

And yes, MGs do nothing against armor. Zero. I've lost fights to stock commandos in my 4 MG spider because he had too much armor. This is why I was very specific in saying that the 5K makes a good operating partner. Teamed with a larger mech, it can give the larger mech a significant leg up by knocking out all of his enemy's components.

Opportunity Cost. You can partner up with someone that really helps you once the enemies armour is gone. Or you can partner up with someone that helps you take that armour of and keeps helping afterwards.

Let's say an MG instantly destroys all internal components in a section.
Let's say you're enemy is fully armored, that means his armor is twice his internal structure.
If the internal structure points are X, that means it takes 2 X to get to the internals, and 3X to kill also the internals.

A guy dealing Y DPS has the choice between an MG Cicada that deals 1/4th Y DPS, or a Medium Laser Commando that deals 1/2 Y DPS.
So total DPS of the teams is either 1.25 Y or 1.5Y.

Time to chew through armour is then
Cicada: 2X / (1.25 Y) = 1.6 X/Y
Commando: 2X / (1.5 Y) ) = 1.33 X/Y
Time to chew through internal structure would be:
Cicada: 0.8 X/Y
CommandO: 0.66 X/Y

Total Time:
Cicada: 2.4 X/Y with disabling of items in component at 1.33 X/Y
Commando: 2 X/Y

If your enemy really has all its weapon in the very section you kill him through, congratuations, the Cicada is better (assuming MGs really destroy items instantly.)
But if you just take out a part of the enemies firepower, you now have to deal with 0.4 X/Y more time the enemy can shoot at you, your team mate can overheat, enemies can join the fight...

And these were conservative assumptions on the relationship between damage. In this case, the "partner" mech never contributed more than 50 % that of the primary mech. If the two mechs are of equal weight, the contribution of the partner becomes more critical...

[Jman5]

Shumabot, on 07 March 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

That's not how they end up working mathematically in the game itself. They don't strip out components that quickly, not even remotely close.

They sure do. I've been screwing around with one in the last few games and you rip weapons out pretty quickly. I'm starting to see when and where they shine most.

Hint: big assaults that have a lot of internal Hitpoints, and a handful of ultra powerful weapons.

[Skyscream Sapphire]

Terror Teddy, on 07 March 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

emty

Teddy, I see you are from Sweden so big props for presumably being bilingual, but for your future reference it is spelled (and pronounced) empty.

[Shumabot]

Jman5, on 07 March 2013 - 10:56 AM, said:

They sure do. I've been screwing around with one in the last few games and you rip weapons out pretty quickly. I'm starting to see when and where they shine most.

Hint: big assaults that have a lot of internal Hitpoints, and a handful of ultra powerful weapons.

An ac20 would take five solid seconds of fire to one area to strip with good odds. In that timeframe I could have just hit it with 18 SRMs's and killed it entirely.

Edited by Shumabot, 07 March 2013 - 11:00 AM.

[Hamm3r]

I've started playing with a 4MG Spider paired with an MPL, its fun to run up to a stalker that has his side torso and arm armor stripped and open up with the MG, then watch the Weapon list light up half red. Just in general its fun to run through a big melee firing the MGs stripping weapons and lighting off ammo stocks.

Side note: I know its a non moving stock config, but the Atlas D in the testing grounds is fun, use the MPL to strip the armor on the LT then hit it with the MGs, the LRM and SRM go red and the ammo cooks off a second or two later taking the whole Mech with it! Kinda fun!.

[Terror Teddy]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

You're missing the point. With 4 machine guns, you've destroyed two standard HP components per second of fire. They don't hurt armor. They almost instantly destroy weapons, heat sinks, ammo, ECM, BAP, gyros, and engines. Unfortunately, engine destruction does absolutely nothing right now. When/if it ever gets implemented, you're going to see an AWFUL lot of machine guns running around.

no, no. I get that. The problem is that by making MG's (half a tonne MG's that can be X5 100 kilogram 40mm MG's) a strict internal crit weapon nullifies their use on chassis where it is presented as a PRIMARY weapon.

The Spider for example has 4 ballistic points for MG's and 1 energy weapon. As long as ANY other mech has plenty of armor he is USELESS if he gets stuck in a stand up fight.

He CAN do damage but he needs the TIME for it that he most likely will not have against a similar weight class - hell, a 25 tonne commando is more lethal with 3 medium lasers and a SSRM.

I would be fine with the ammo and make it shoot FASTER so I do more damage in a shorter time but have to conserve ammo.

http://www.ussslater.../20mm/20mm.html
THAT gun has a range of 1 kilometer and is made in the 1940's weighting in at about 100 kilograms.

Now, imagine the spider with a 1000 year more ADVANCED ballistic weapon and he has the equivalent of 20 of them.

And it's primary function is to make criticals on damaged targets because it takes to long to chew throught it.

Skyscream Sapphire, on 07 March 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

Teddy, I see you are from Sweden so big props for presumably being bilingual, but for your future reference it is spelled (and pronounced) empty.

That's called typing to fast and missing a typo. I know how it spells.

My fingers are just faster than my brain.

Edited by Terror Teddy, 07 March 2013 - 11:05 AM.

[Pihoqahiak]

FupDup, on 07 March 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

1. Infantry don't magically make MGs useful. It's called use a f*cking Medium Laser to click-and-drag over a whole squad of them and murder them all instantly. Why does nobody actually try to picture this playing out before they say that infantry make MGs useful?

I'm pretty sure Stormwolf's statement is based off the Battletech rules origins of the MG. It does 2 damage per attack against vehicles, buildings and mechs, but it deals between 2 and 12 damage to infantry platoons that it hits (the sum of a roll of 2 six sided dice). Each point of damage dealt to an infantry platoon kills one member of the platoon. Using your example of a medium laser against an infantry platoon in Battletech, it would deal 5 damage, killing 5 infantry. a MG would have the capability to kill more than twice the amount of infantry than a medium laser, or only half, but the average amount would end up more than the 5 of a medium laser. This is where most posters are coming from when they state that MGs in Battletech/Mechwarrior are the most effective anti-infantry weapons overall.

[Terror Teddy]

Pihoqahiak, on 07 March 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure Stormwolf's statement is based off the Battletech rules origins of the MG. It does 2 damage per attack against vehicles, buildings and mechs, but it deals between 2 and 12 damage to infantry platoons that it hits (the sum of a roll of 2 six sided dice).

Which means that it is not an anti-infantry weapon since it is an anti armor weapon that is just more efficient against infantry due to it's rate of fire.

[Vodrin Thales]

MaddMaxx, on 07 March 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

So the MG can do 400 damage per ton, or are you factoring in some miss percentage?

You do realize that the craziest weapon, that is currently not a missile based type, does only 140 damage per ton right?

In the table top game the damage per ton was equally imbalanced. It was basically considered ok because of the limited range of the weapon.

[Josef Nader]

Shumabot, on 07 March 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

An ac20 would take five solid seconds of fire to one area to strip with good odds. In that timeframe I could have just hit it with 18 SRMs's and killed it entirely.

His AC20 is gone before my AC20 has finished recycling. I fail to see how this isn't giving me an insane advantage over him in a fight. If I ambush an Atlas and get that volley off before he reacts (very likely), I've suddenly robbed him of his heaviest hitter, and he's stuck trying to burn me with lasers and SRMs. Still scary, but the playing field is a lot more level than it would have been without the machine guns.

Edited by Josef Nader, 07 March 2013 - 11:12 AM.

[Phoenix Gray]

"If we could mount an energy weapon on a ballistic hard point, then this would be good advice."

Extension cords are apparently lostech....

[Shumabot]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

His AC20 is gone before my AC20 has finished recycling. I fail to see how this isn't giving me an insane advantage over him in a fight. If I ambush an Atlas and get that volley off before he reacts (very likely), I've suddenly robbed him of his heaviest hitter, and he's stuck trying to burn me with lasers and SRMs. Still scary, but the playing field is a lot more level than it would have been without the machine guns.

I think you forgot about the part where he exploded in the first video. You also got pretty lucky on crit hits shooting an unmoving low armor target, that was much faster than mathematically average.

Your build is also kinda questionable, any of the more popular ac cat builds would have killed that atlas in about the amount of time it took you to strip that ac20.

Edited by Shumabot, 07 March 2013 - 11:15 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

Esplodin, on 07 March 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

I get the feeling that the resistance is really about making sure light pilots with ballistic hard points are gimped to ineffectiveness by denying them the ONLY ballistic weapon that will fit their weight. Terror indeed.

THIS. So many people are bent on controlling how other people play.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 07 March 2013 - 11:15 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Vodrin Thales, on 07 March 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

It was basically considered ok because of the limited range of the weapon.

THIS.

Most mechs armed with MG's will be lighter mechs that can't survive a straight combat - You need to get CLOSE and that is dangerous if you are fragile.

[StalaggtIKE]

Josef Nader, on 07 March 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

His AC20 is gone before my AC20 has finished recycling. I fail to see how this isn't giving me an insane advantage over him in a fight. If I ambush an Atlas and get that volley off before he reacts (very likely), I've suddenly robbed him of his heaviest hitter, and he's stuck trying to burn me with lasers and SRMs. Still scary, but the playing field is a lot more level than it would have been without the machine guns.

Nice demonstration and you make a good point. However, the AC20 would crit from a sneeze. I'd rather see tests with other weapons, before my opinion is swayed.

[Phoenix Gray]

Vodrin Thales, on 07 March 2013 - 09:47 AM, said:

What I really think they need to do with both the MG and the flamer is give each weapon a 0.75 second burst for 2 damage when each is fired and give it a 3.25 second cooldown between bursts. Change the MG ammo to 200 per ton and have each burst consume 1 ammo. It instantly makes both weapons at least somewhat viable while still allowing them to work effectively within current game constructs.

Liquid-cooled MG's don't need ANY cooldown IRL; they can run for hundreds of rounds. Look at the water-cooled .30 Browning and the water-cooled pre-Pearl Harbor .50 cal in the Navy.

[MustrumRidcully]

StalaggtIKE, on 07 March 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

Nice demonstration and you make a good point. However, the AC20 would crit from a sneeze. I'd rather see tests with other weapons, before my opinion is swayed.

The AC/20 will probably take 100 % of all crit damage in this scenario, since there is nothing else in the torso with it. But it also has now 19 hit points, so the AC/20 is getting destroyed about as fast as two items normally would.

I noticed one thing on the testing grounds - MGs destroy items usually in quick succession. The reason is probably simple statistics - the MG spreads its damage across all components, so it's basically evenly distributing the damage. So if you got 3 10 hit points item and a single MG (with an effective "anti-item DPS" of 5), it would take about 3 * 10 / 5 = 6 seconds to destroy the first item - but within a very, very short amount of time, the others will also fall.

It also teaches us the value of crit-padding. For the AC/20, 2 crits occupied by something else in its hit location basically boil down to a DR of 2/12th, basically 3 extra hit points for the AC/20.

[Jman5]

Shumabot, on 07 March 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

An ac20 would take five solid seconds of fire to one area to strip with good odds. In that timeframe I could have just hit it with 18 SRMs's and killed it entirely.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Of course 3 SRM 6s would do more damage. An AC/20 does more damage than a medium laser, but that doesn't mean the laser is bad. Most variants are not sacrificing missile hardpoints for a machine gun. Spider 5k for example has 4 ballistic hardpoints and no missile hardpoints.

Edited by Jman5, 07 March 2013 - 11:32 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Phoenix Gray, on 07 March 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

Liquid-cooled MG's don't need ANY cooldown IRL; they can run for hundreds of rounds. Look at the water-cooled .30 Browning and the water-cooled pre-Pearl Harbor .50 cal in the Navy.

Or they might have some good heat resistant ceramics in 1000 years that simply do not overheat or warp to make their guns out of.

I hardly think it's steel.

[Josef Nader]

Shumabot, on 07 March 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

I think you forgot about the part where he exploded in the first video. You also got pretty lucky on crit hits shooting an unmoving low armor target, that was much faster than mathematically average. Your build is also kinda questionable, any of the more popular ac cat builds would have killed that atlas in about the amount of time it took you to strip that ac20.

I got a lucky crit on his AC20 ammo in the first half of the video, because he's a stock atlas. No sane person stores ammo in their side torsos, so that never happens in practice. And no, a KC20 wouldn't have killed the Atlas, if the Atlas was any good. He'd have gotten one good hit to rear armor before the Atlas got all evasive and started fighting back.

You seem to not understand that the point is not necessarily killing the target, but removing his ability to fight back as quickly as possible. I stripped him of his main cannon in less than 4 seconds in the second half of the video. This is very respectable, and easily accomplished in a match. The first half, where I stand behind him and pummel him from the rear for over 12 seconds, is not.

Besides, you can't see the real strength of that build in the video, a standard 325. My little marmoset has enough speed to get behind larger mechs, and he can gobble up their weapons with ease. It's proven to be a very effective strategy.