550 replies to this topic

[hashinshin]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 03:50 AM, said:

You also forget that the MG has the best control in the entire game. No weapon give the use as much control over were and how they put the damage. Not that it is a huge advantage but it still is a very noteworthy feature.

But what the heck, knock your self out. We are still in beta. I personally feel that they will be a bit too good if they get a meaningful buff. But as noted that is pure gut and no maths. I have been wrong before.

it's like you intentionally say the opposite of the truth for some reason

[Joseph Mallan]

hashinshin, on 14 March 2013 - 02:58 AM, said:

The MGs they're firing aren't tiny little human carried machine guns.

They're shooting THESE ROUNDS

AS A MACHINE GUN.

This actually is firing a Bullet. It is not acting like a machine gun though. As the shooter has to "****" the weapon after each shot. So long as it fires a bullet, i am satisfied that it could be a Machine gun. the down side of your video is that you don't see what the weapon is being fired at. So we don't see how effective it is v 6-12 inches of armor.

Also this:

Quote

The Lahti L-39 is a Finnish 20 mm anti-tank rifle used during the Second World War. It had excellent accuracy, penetration and range, but its size made transportation difficult. It was nicknamed "Norsupyssy" "Elephant Gun", and as tanks developed armour too thick to be penetrated by even this large, powerful rifle, its uses switched to long range sniping, tank harassment and with the L-39/44 fully automatic variant, an improvised anti-aircraft weapon

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 14 March 2013 - 04:13 AM.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2013 - 04:09 AM, said:

the down side of your video is that you don't see what the weapon is being fired at. So we don't see how effective it is v 6-12 inches of armor.

Seeing as 'mech armour is supposed to be ablative I don't see how your musings on modern-day plate armour is relevant.

[Sifright]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2013 - 04:09 AM, said:

This actually is firing a Bullet. It is not acting like a machine gun though. As the shooter has to "****" the weapon after each shot. So long as it fires a bullet, i am satisfied that it could be a Machine gun. the down side of your video is that you don't see what the weapon is being fired at. So we don't see how effective it is v 6-12 inches of armor.

Also this:

good thing weapons technology didn't advance in the next 400-500 years that mg for btech was made in.

christ is there even descriptions of what these bullets are made from? complaining they shouldn't do damage based on real weapons is about the silliest thing imaginable.

Edited by Sifright, 14 March 2013 - 04:26 AM.

[AlexEss]

hashinshin, on 14 March 2013 - 04:04 AM, said:

it's like you intentionally say the opposite of the truth for some reason

not really

i can start and stop firing at any given moment (unlike every other weapon that is either a duration weapon like the lasers or have a trajectory.. Ok the MG technically have a trajectory too but at 90 M it is to short to actually matter ) giving me optimal control over ammo consumption and (not so) friendly fire accidents. (In a pug situation this is a good thing)

As is aid it is not a huge advantage but a noteworthy feature that need to be taken in to account. Now i can understand that people want to do the ol boating of MG's.. It is fun and it makes a simply divine sound.

[Elizander]

0.66 to 0.69 dps is good.

[Mahws]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 03:50 AM, said:

You also forget that the MG has the best control in the entire game. No weapon give the use as much control over were and how they put the damage. Not that it is a huge advantage but it still is a very noteworthy feature.

But what the heck, knock your self out. We are still in beta. I personally feel that they will be a bit too good if they get a meaningful buff. But as noted that is pure gut and no maths. I have been wrong before.

Whut?

That's the exact opposite of what they do. A Small Pulse Laser gives you control over where you put your damage, 0.5 second duration and hitscan. The machine gun by comparison is not hitscan and requires constant aiming, it is terrible to control where you put your damage because you need to keep that location in your sights at all times rather than for half a second every three seconds. Which considering neither you nor your opponent ever stands still in a fight also never happens.

[Sifright]

Elizander, on 14 March 2013 - 04:28 AM, said:

0.66 to 0.69 dps is good.

no it isn't 50% more damage still makes it worthless.

[Lonestar1771]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 02:56 AM, said:

Yes you are right, but it is also a fact that the rounds are way to small and carry way to little mass to do any real damage on mech armour. What they are good at is tearing up internal structure.

And that is how they work in-game. you can use them to slowly flay away armour on a mech but it will take you a lot of time. But use it at a place that have not outer amor left and they become a lot more efficient.

If you want a good damage fast fire weapon the AC/2 is your weapon of choice...

MGs should work like a sand blaster. Right now they do not work that way and are more or less useless.

[Nubsternator]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 02:56 AM, said:

Yes you are right, but it is also a fact that the rounds are way to small and carry way to little mass to do any real damage on mech armour. What they are good at is tearing up internal structure.

And that is how they work in-game. you can use them to slowly flay away armour on a mech but it will take you a lot of time. But use it at a place that have not outer amor left and they become a lot more efficient.

If you want a good damage fast fire weapon the AC/2 is your weapon of choice...

The only problem for this comes into view when you try to mount them on a might or medium or light mech. The thing weighs six tons. Mediums might load three at most, but lights would be lucky to mount one, two if they don't want any other weapons. As it stands, lighter mechs don't have any alternative than MGs to use ballistics slots.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sifright, on 14 March 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

good thing weapons technology didn't advance in the next 400-500 years that mg for btech was made in.

christ is there even descriptions of what these bullets are made from? complaining they shouldn't do damage based on real weapons is about the silliest thing imaginable.

Absolutely. My goodness if Weapons technology out stripped armor technology I don't know what would happen? Half mass logic does not work sir. If weapons are advanced in the 30th Century it would beg the fact so is armor technology.

Now give the machine gun a damage buff up to .8 and a cool down equal to the AC2 and you will have an effective 0.5 ton machine gun.

[Sifright]

Nubsternator, on 14 March 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

The only problem for this comes into view when you try to mount them on a might or medium or light mech. The thing weighs six tons. Mediums might load three at most, but lights would be lucky to mount one, two if they don't want any other weapons. As it stands, lighter mechs don't have any alternative than MGs to use ballistics slots.

18 tonnes before ammo on a medium is an awful lot of weight to give up for what amounts to 12 dps theoretically with 6hp/s generation.

[MustrumRidcully]

I don't know.

Maybe the Devs fear that it's the only completely heatless weapon and is per se overpowered. After all, they increased the heat production of all weapons basically by a factor of 2.5 to 20...

Maybe they are really in love with their critical hit system and want something to exploit what it can do, and are unwilling to realize that critical hits are not deemed valuable enough for this.

Maybe they plan to create a 24 Ballistic Slot mech and fear that anything that could deal more than 10 DPS with 24 MGs would be OP.

---

There are so many ways to improve the MG.
Variant 1: Keep Continous Firing Mode
Lower the extra crit-damage bonus to a 1.5 multiplier.
Keep the higher crit rate.
Raise the effective damage per second to 1.2.


Variant 2: Ditch Continous Firing Mode
Lower the extra crit-damage bonus to a 1.5 multiplier.
Keep the higher crit rate.
Give the weapon a 0.5 second duration and a 0.5 second cooldown.
Raise the effective damage per second to 0.8.
Raise Projectile Speed to that of the AC/2.
The weapon no longer requires to target the enemy continiously, which gives you more opportunity for damage bursts, and allows you to move defensively between salvos. Projectile Speed being the same as the AC/2 also means that the AC/2 and the MG can be used together well, requiring the same lead.

And that's just 2 out of a countless of options. And whatever you do, the next step is:

Observe and Adjust
If people start playing 4 MGs Cicadas and 4 MG Spiders and people complain about them being OP, nerf. If you still don't see many of them (particularly in the high ELO brackets), buff some more.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 14 March 2013 - 05:02 AM.

[Sifright]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

Absolutely. My goodness if Weapons technology out stripped armor technology I don't know what would happen? Half mass logic does not work sir. If weapons are advanced in the 30th Century it would beg the fact so is armor technology.

Now give the machine gun a damage buff up to .8 and a cool down equal to the AC2 and you will have an effective 0.5 ton machine gun.

Except the lore which you are so fond of states the MG is an effective anti mech weapon for its weight and even better vs infantry...

Armour tech is also ablative...

your buff Joe stills gives you no reason to take the mg if you can take a different mech at the same weight category with laser hardpoints you will every time because the ballistic mechs are crap.

[Thirdstar]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 04:22 AM, said:

not really

i can start and stop firing at any given moment (unlike every other weapon that is either a duration weapon like the lasers or have a trajectory.. Ok the MG technically have a trajectory too but at 90 M it is to short to actually matter ) giving me optimal control over ammo consumption and (not so) friendly fire accidents. (In a pug situation this is a good thing)

As is aid it is not a huge advantage but a noteworthy feature that need to be taken in to account. Now i can understand that people want to do the ol boating of MG's.. It is fun and it makes a simply divine sound.

*blink blink*

So you're saying the weapon that does no damage can do no damage very accurately... at under 90m

Did just seriously mention friendly fire with regards to MGs...........

Am I reading this right?

I think I'm getting a headache.

[Corvus Antaka]

Current damage is 0.04 per bullet, for a total damage potential of 80 damage from 2000 rounds.

If instead damage was 0.4 per bullet, the same 80 damage would be achieved firing only 200 rounds (btech standard ammo amount for the machien gun)

the question then becomes how long does it take to dump 200 rounds of machinegun ammo to achieve 80 damage?

imho cutting ammo to 200 rounds per ton and upping damage to 0.4 per bullet may well be way too much given how fast the machinegun pumps rounds out right now.

However, the gun would then suffer sever ammo issues rather than 1 ton being enough for any situation.

perhaps 200 rounds with 0.2 dmg per round, giving a total of 40 damage output would be viable.

However, I still disagree with the MG being useless, its a solid crit seeker, it shouldnt be amazing vs heavy armour of battlemechs.

[MustrumRidcully]

1.) Friendly Fire isn't.
2.) MG is friendly fire.

[Znail]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2013 - 04:09 AM, said:

This actually is firing a Bullet. It is not acting like a machine gun though. As the shooter has to "****" the weapon after each shot. So long as it fires a bullet, i am satisfied that it could be a Machine gun. the down side of your video is that you don't see what the weapon is being fired at. So we don't see how effective it is v 6-12 inches of armor.

Also this:

I don't know the statisitcs for this specific anti-tank gun, but Russians also used anti-tank guns and it forced the Germans to add extra steel plates on the sides for protection:
http://upload.wikime...C_Panzer_IV.jpg
The important thing to note is that they were not mainly used for trucks or something weak like that, but against actual tanks.


As for this thread, I think 1 dps should be enough, 2 dps seems a bit much too me. I also don't see any reason to change the ammo rate usage. The thing is that you can have multiple MGs use the same ton of ammo and that is fine.

[Nubsternator]

Sifright, on 14 March 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

18 tonnes before ammo on a medium is an awful lot of weight to give up for what amounts to 12 dps theoretically with 6hp/s generation.

Exactly. The person I quoted said that AC2s should be mounted, but these lighter mechs can't mount a whole lot of them. Lights and Mediums need some ballistics to use, not just what MGs are now.

[stjobe]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 04:22 AM, said:

Now i can understand that people want to do the ol boating of MG's

Boating of MGs are controlled by hardpoints. Currently there's no 'mech in-game or announced that can mount more than four MGs.

Incidentally, the only way to get a DPS over 1 (the DPS of a Small Laser) is to take 2.5 tons of MGs and ammo (3 x MG = 1.2 DPS). A single Small Laser weighs 0.5 tons.

Edited by stjobe, 14 March 2013 - 04:49 AM.