550 replies to this topic

[hashinshin]

Ohgodwhyohgodwhy?

Why has it been over a year and still to this day I can't load a mech up with 4 MGs and go to town on anything within 200m of me?

Why are mechs with more than 1 ballistic slot handicapped from MGs being so worthless?

Why is there only a single 3x ballistic slot mech that is competitive?

Why god why can't you just increase the projectile speed of MGs, and triple their DPS?

Why is PGI so opposed to letting people use MGs? They were intended to be used on battlemechs to kill other battlemechs. We aren't asking for anything more than that. 2 DPS per MG is all we want.

Consider:

Q. WHAT, MGS AREN'T MEANT TO KILL MECHS WTF!
A. MGs were in BT before infantry were. As has been stated many times armor in the BT universe chips away rather than trying to deflect shots. There's no way to deflect a 160mm AC20 round so rather the armor was designed to tear away at the point of impact to save the rest of the mech. High grade high caliber MGs can also tear away at mech armor.

Q. But giving them 2 DPS would make them so OP!
A. The average HIT RATE for a MG is fairly low, 50% on average. ADDITIONALLY, due to their crit space requirements (2 medium lasers is 2 crit spaces, 2 MGs is 3+ crit spaces depending on how much ammo you want) and their tendency to blow up (ammo exploded) they actually have big liabilities. ADDITIONALLY the 100% uptime on aim requirement (you can never look away) drastically reduces your survivability while at the same time giving tons of counterplay in that any movement of their torso forces your damage off taret.

Q. I still think 2 DPS would be OP!
A. In fact, they should probably be at 3 DPS to be balanced. Machine guns are: A. Slow projectile traveling, B. Ammo reliant, C. Require 100% uptime, D. Crit space intensive for a low quality weapon, and lastly E. Have very few mechs that can utilize more than 2 MGs and most of them on the torso which makes it hard to use. Oh also F. The ammo can kaboom.

Q. But that's so unrealistic for a machine gun to hurt a mech!
A. As I have explained above, read that. Additionally, machine guns in BT (mech mounted ones) are not firing tiny little bullets. They're firing these:

As a machine gun. These are MASSIVE mech mounted DOOM cannons. The machine guns found on mechs are ANTI MECH weaponry that just *happens* to be useful against infantry. It is not the other way around. They are NOT anti-infantry weapons that can also hurt mechs.

Q. I still am not convinced because I am hard headed!
A. A car weights about 2 tons. The MG in game weights 0.5 tons. This MG is 1/4 the weight of a freaking car. I don't understand whats not to get here. This is not a 50 pound rifle, this is a 1000 pound anti mech machine gun.

Q. Why not just make it do bonus damage to internals so it kills faster!
A. Because people want to use the machine gun as a weapon, a real weapon. And it's supposed to be. There are 3 variants out there that are DESIGNED to boat MGs and use them as their main weapons. MGs are supposed to be the light ballistics weapon you take on those ballistics slots. You know the Dragon with 3 ballistics in its arm? What sense to those make? They don't unless MGs do good damage.

Q. THIS WOULD BREAK DA GAME!
A. So let us try it. See if that's true. If it's really true then fine, nerf it again and we'll drop it.

Q. But whyyyyyyy? Why buff THIS weapon?
A. On the TT the AC/2 and MG were both lower tier weapons, but at least they did 2 damage each. In MWO the MG does LESS than 1/8 of what the AC2 does. Yeah. "But why?" Is the correct question to why MWO nerfed the MG so bad. And I'm not a TT player, I HATE the TT fundamentalists, but you still have to question why if they used the TT as a jumping off board for balance was a weapon that was ALREADY lower tier nerfed for MWO?

Edited by hashinshin, 16 March 2013 - 11:33 AM.

[OneEyed Jack]

I think 2 DPS might be a wee bit high. I agree that they need more damage and that the ballistic class needs something small to fill slots and give a short-range backup weapon. But double the DPS of a small laser for no heat might be a bit much. As for projectile speed, I believe MGs are hit scan weapons, though I admit I'm not sure.

[Sifright]

OneEyed Jack, on 14 March 2013 - 02:14 AM, said:

I think 2 DPS might be a wee bit high. I agree that they need more damage and that the ballistic class needs something small to fill slots and give a short-range backup weapon. But double the DPS of a small laser for no heat might be a bit much. As for projectile speed, I believe MGs are hit scan weapons, though I admit I'm not sure.

to be honest, 2dps on a weapon that requires 100% on target shooting to achieve that dps at that range wouldn't exactly be over powered. at least other weapons have the ability to take evasive action and still maintain their DPS. every time you dodge and torso twist away from an enemy is less dps with an mg.

[hashinshin]

Sifright, on 14 March 2013 - 02:21 AM, said:

to be honest, 2dps on a weapon that requires 100% on target shooting to achieve that dps at that range wouldn't exactly be over powered. at least other weapons have the ability to take evasive action and still maintain their DPS. every time you dodge and torso twist away from an enemy is less dps with an mg.

we all have to pretend that the 100% uptime requirement of AC2s and machine guns is no big deal.

[Terror Teddy]

OneEyed Jack, on 14 March 2013 - 02:14 AM, said:

I think 2 DPS might be a wee bit high. I agree that they need more damage and that the ballistic class needs something small to fill slots and give a short-range backup weapon. But double the DPS of a small laser for no heat might be a bit much. As for projectile speed, I believe MGs are hit scan weapons, though I admit I'm not sure.

I would actually say 3DPS.

Why?

Increase RPM so we emty 1 tonne in 50 seconds and give 150 damage per tonne to put damage per tonne in line with all other ballistics.

Damage: 0,075
Bullets per second: 40
Damage per tonne: 150

The weapon will be powerful but has an actual drawback to some weapons:
1- it gains no BENEFIT from heatsinks or double heatsinks (unlike small lasers that essentially have unlimited ammo)
1-Four MG's on a spider runs out of 1 tonne of ammo in 12,5 seconds so ammo conservation is a must.

OR give it 2DPS (0,050 damage i think per bullet) and keep the crit bonus.

Edited by Terror Teddy, 14 March 2013 - 02:34 AM.

[Jonathan Paine]

Try doubling the damage of the MG. If they fail to make an impression, double it again. If you need to visualize a weapon that can damage a mech at extremely close ranges, imagine the gun firing miniature round saw blades spinning madly. As the blades rapidly lose their spin, they lose the ability to cut through mech armor.

[stjobe]

1, 2, 3, or even 4 DPS; it matters little what the exact figure turns out to be, but it's clear as day that the crit buff experiment failed and it's time to roll that back and do a damage buff experiment instead.

Personally, I think we should start high and adjust downwards if it turns out to be OP, instead of starting low and adjusting upwards. Why? Because of the continuous-fire mechanic of the MG which means any time off-target, even a tenth of a second, decreases the effective DPS.

With the new stats in place, I can sadly see that I'm only hitting about 50% of the bullets I fire with my MGs, putting my effective DPS at 0.2 - and the slog to level the SDR-5K seems neverending...

[Sifright]

Terror Teddy, on 14 March 2013 - 02:32 AM, said:

I would actually say 3DPS.

Why?

Increase RPM so we emty 1 tonne in 50 seconds and give 150 damage per tonne to put damage per tonne in line with all other ballistics.

Damage: 0,075
Bullets per second: 40
Damage per tonne: 150

The weapon will be powerful but has an actual drawback to some weapons:
1- it gains no BENEFIT from heatsinks or double heatsinks (unlike small lasers that essentially have unlimited ammo)
1-Four MG's on a spider runs out of 1 tonne of ammo in 12,5 seconds so ammo conservation is a must.

Don't agree with an ROF increase. Rate of fire increase means the damage per tonne of ammo is still terrible and you end up increasing the calculation load on the server which with state rewind is non-trivial.

SRM = 250 damage
AC/20 = 140 damage
AC/10 = 150 damage
UAC/5 = 125 damage
AC/5 = 150 damage
AC/2= 150 damage
MG = 80 damage

See a problem with the mgs damage per tonne?

[Terror Teddy]

Sifright, on 14 March 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:

MG = 80 damage

See a problem with the mgs damage per tonne?

All other ballistic deliver the damage per tonne in 37,5-51 seconds.

MG's take 200 seconds - they NEED to deliver the damage faster due to how fast engagements are. So not only do they less damage per tonne they take 5 times as LONG to do it.

EDIT:
If the recycle rate is 0,025 per second and 0,075 per bullet we reach 150 damage in 50 seconds per gun.

EDIT2: Also, we could keep the 0,1 and just use bursts of 10 with multiple crit chances per "shot"

Edited by Terror Teddy, 14 March 2013 - 02:46 AM.

[AlexEss]

To be honest they should not have been in at all.

But to use them smart is to use them at exposed areas. They are still very weak but there at least they do some good.

Using them on mechs is like attacking a modern tank with a 50 cal... sure you migh get lucky and if you can shoot at a place without armour you might stop it. but beyond that it is mostly annoying.

[Terror Teddy]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 02:48 AM, said:

To be honest they should not have been in at all.

But to use them smart is to use them at exposed areas. They are still very weak but there at least they do some good.

Using them on mechs is like attacking a modern tank with a 50 cal... sure you migh get lucky and if you can shoot at a place without armour you might stop it. but beyond that it is mostly annoying.

I'm sorry but you are wrong.

MG's: 20mm vulcan guns
AC/2: 25-35mm autocannons

These are not .50 calibers these are vulcan guns that wipe out platoons with a sweep of fire.

They ARE anti-vehicle weapons with added anti-infantry BONUS.

[hashinshin]

stjobe, on 14 March 2013 - 02:37 AM, said:

1, 2, 3, or even 4 DPS; it matters little what the exact figure turns out to be, but it's clear as day that the crit buff experiment failed and it's time to roll that back and do a damage buff experiment instead.

Personally, I think we should start high and adjust downwards if it turns out to be OP, instead of starting low and adjusting upwards. Why? Because of the continuous-fire mechanic of the MG which means any time off-target, even a tenth of a second, decreases the effective DPS.

With the new stats in place, I can sadly see that I'm only hitting about 50% of the bullets I fire with my MGs, putting my effective DPS at 0.2 - and the slog to level the SDR-5K seems neverending...

this.

I think honestly 3.0 DPS would be a good starting point. It becomes very obvious to any 4x AC/2 boat that while your DPS looks impressive, and your end of round stats look good... all you really did was ding up random body parts which racks up a decent (not amazing) damage score of meaninglessness.

Weapons with 100% uptime facing requirement make you EXTREMELY killable, they tear your DPS away which in turn reduces your damage per ton drastically.

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 02:48 AM, said:

To be honest they should not have been in at all.

But to use them smart is to use them at exposed areas. They are still very weak but there at least they do some good.

Using them on mechs is like attacking a modern tank with a 50 cal... sure you migh get lucky and if you can shoot at a place without armour you might stop it. but beyond that it is mostly annoying.

Armor in the battletech universe chips away, rather than trying to block.

From the beginning of the universe MGs were an effective anti-mech weapon because of how armor in BT is designed. There's no feasible way to repel a 160mm cannon (an AC20) so they just made armor segments break away so the blast didn't tear the entire mech apart. The obvious side effect is high caliber high grade MGs can tear it away too.

[Terror Teddy]

hashinshin, on 14 March 2013 - 02:50 AM, said:

this.

I think honestly 3.0 DPS would be a good starting point. It becomes very obvious to any 4x AC/2 boat that while your DPS looks impressive, and your end of round stats look good... all you really did was ding up random body parts which racks up a decent (not amazing) damage score of meaninglessness.

Weapons with 100% uptime facing requirement make you EXTREMELY killable, they tear your DPS away which in turn reduces your damage per ton drastically.

Also, by just looking at the stats for weapons gives us a rather dissapointing values.

Average 4 damage per MG per match for 30 matches. At BEST I had 67 damage where my SINGLE flamer did 24 of that. A 6 minute match where I survived and had CONSTANT fire on enemy mechs and weaved around them while my team died.

[Harmin]

hashinshin, on 14 March 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

Ohgodwhyohgodwhy?

Why has it been over a year and still to this day I can't load a mech up with 4 MGs and go to town on anything within 200m of me?

Why are mechs with more than 1 ballistic slot handicapped from MGs being so worthless?

Why is there only a single 3x ballistic slot mech that is competitive?

Why god why can't you just increase the projectile speed of MGs, and triple their DPS?

Why is PGI so opposed to letting people use MGs? They were intended to be used on battlemechs to kill other battlemechs. We aren't asking for anything more than that. 2 DPS per MG is all we want.

Because those battle mechs are using bad-*** armor and your mg bullets are useless against it. MGs are useful against infantry and exposed mech internals and personally I'd prefer if they stay the way they are. They are too light and too cool-running to be anything else.

[AlexEss]

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...

Edited by AlexEss, 14 March 2013 - 02:56 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Harmin, on 14 March 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Because those battle mechs are using bad-*** armor and your mg bullets are useless against it. MGs are useful against infantry and exposed mech internals and personally I'd prefer if they stay the way they are. They are too light and too cool-running to be anything else.

MG's = 20mm vulcan guns
AC/2= 25-40mm autocannons

MG's= Anti-Vehicle with damage BONUS against infantry PLATOONS.

Cool running also means that they gain no BENEFIT from double heatsinks unlike small lasers that does 10 times the damage per match.

Get your facts straight.

[Sifright]

Terror Teddy, on 14 March 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

All other ballistic deliver the damage per tonne in 37,5-51 seconds.

MG's take 200 seconds - they NEED to deliver the damage faster due to how fast engagements are. So not only do they less damage per tonne they take 5 times as LONG to do it.

EDIT:
If the recycle rate is 0,025 per second and 0,075 per bullet we reach 150 damage in 50 seconds per gun.

EDIT2: Also, we could keep the 0,1 and just use bursts of 10 with multiple crit chances per "shot"

Times the damage of a shot by six give it 2/3rds the fire rate set ammo to 500 rounds

for
0.24 damage a shot

for 1.6 damage per second

for 83 seconds to empty that tonne with one mg

for 120 damage per tonne.

Seems pretty fair to me

Edited by Sifright, 14 March 2013 - 03:06 AM.

[hashinshin]

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

They're shooting THESE ROUNDS

AS A MACHINE GUN.

[Sifright]

Harmin, on 14 March 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Because those battle mechs are using bad-*** armor and your mg bullets are useless against it. MGs are useful against infantry and exposed mech internals and personally I'd prefer if they stay the way they are. They are too light and too cool-running to be anything else.

Go find another thread to be useless in thanks. also please explain why the small laser does 1dps whilst the mg does 0.4 dps.

[Sifright]

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.

Your opinion is invalid because lawl head cannons