550 replies to this topic

[AlexEss]

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

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.

Thirdstar, on 14 March 2013 - 04:43 AM, said:

*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.

I give up. It seems my communication skills fails me today and i am not going to try any more.

I just wanted to point out that there are more things then just raw DPS that goes in to good balance. We are talking about giving them a buff are we not.

Edited by AlexEss, 14 March 2013 - 04:53 AM.

[Thirdstar]

MustrumRidcully, on 14 March 2013 - 04:42 AM, said:

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.

The issue with that is that ECM equipped light mechs are still clear forerunners and none of those boat MGs.

[Mahws]

AlexEss, on 14 March 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:

I give up. It seems my communication skills fails me today and i am not going to try any more.

I just wanted to point out that there are more things then just raw DPS that goes in to good balance.

Yes, which is why you'll notice those are being discussed too. Things like heat generation, slot usage, tonnage, fire rates, range, etc. And when you take all of those into account MGs are still rubbish and would be by no means OP if they were given the ability to actually cause more damage than a feather duster.

[Thirdstar]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 14 March 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

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

Man, I knew this 'crit seeker' fad would be bad back when the Devs said that they'd buff MGs in this fashion. Devs throw playerbase a fancy sounding bone and people are falling over themselves trying to justify it.

Oh no, crit seeking is great, if you or your team can strip armor and you blow up some ammo or maybe a big weapon and specially when the stars align and Venus is in the fifth firmament and the sound of a dying star can be heard from a conch shell. So yeah, MGs are awesome! Remember to sacrifice that chicken too. But no you can't outright kill a mech because you can never blow up the actual engine. So uh yeah.

MGs AWESOME!

Snark aside, it's not that MGs aren't amazing vs armor, it's that they do negligible enough damage that it's not hyperbole to say they do NOTHING versus armor.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sifright, on 14 March 2013 - 04:43 AM, said:

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.

My buff keeps it on par with other .5 ton weapons 0.8 damage at 20 bursts per turn is 16 damage. where a Small laser does 4.4 damage per turn(2.25 cyclic) and an SRM 2 delivers roughly 4 damage per turn(3.5 cyclic)
So again how is 16 damage possible per turn somehow worse than other 0.5 ton weapons?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 14 March 2013 - 05:16 AM.

[Fehrir]

Another thought. Have the weapon deal bonus damage to the structure itself, seeing as it apparently can't destroy an engine, and it's often easier to just level enough firepower at a section to blow it off with the weapons you used to remove the armor in the first place.

[Tombstoner]

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.

BTW real weapons development has out striped armor protection. That is why the MBT has seen its end in future battles
much like armored knights where rendered obsolete by gunpowder. The next generation of anti armor weapons will be in the form of charge assisted rail guns. Future vehicle designs are multi wheeled medium armor vehicles.

Weapon/armor tech in the 30th century is what ever we want it to be, since its science fiction. as an abstraction of real life just about anything goes. so everyone opinions are not inherently wrong.

[xhrit]

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

I know what they are shooting... Did i ever say it was a 50 cal you had on your mech... No i did not. I was just poiting towards the fact that in the BT games MG's are designed to take out light / fast vehicles or groups of PBI. they CAN be used against Mechs but are not all that effective in that role and carry to little mass to do any real harm... That is the lore.. Like it or not but that is the way it is.

Except it is not the way it is.

"The Piranha's main threat is its twelve Series XII Rotary Machine Guns. These are a serious threat on such a speedy 'Mech to any foe, especially if a Star of Piranhas operate in a pack."

In Tabletop, twelve machineguns are a serious threat to any foe. In MWO, not so much.

Edited by xhrit, 14 March 2013 - 05:40 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Tombstoner, on 14 March 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

BTW real weapons development has out striped armor protection. That is why the MBT has seen its end in future battles
much like armored knights where rendered obsolete by gunpowder. The next generation of anti armor weapons will be in the form of charge assisted rail guns. Future vehicle designs are multi wheeled medium armor vehicles.

Weapon/armor tech in the 30th century is what ever we want it to be, since its science fiction. as an abstraction of real life just about anything goes. so everyone opinions are not inherently wrong.

a fair argument, but if the DEVs of the game say Machine Guns are anti infantry weapons, give them paltry damage v hardened vehicles, isn't it their fictional abstraction of what a Machine Gun should do???

I have given a suggestion which puts a MG on par with both 0.5 ton weapons... in fact the MG is 1 ton and can do as much damage and a medium laser in a turn. 3*5=15 Medium laser 0.8*20=16 machine gun. Fair and balanced.

xhrit, on 14 March 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

"The Piranha's main threat is its twelve Series XII Rotary Machine Guns. These are a serious threat on such a speedy 'Mech to any foe, especially if a Star of Piranhas operate in a pack."

Twelve machineguns are a serious threat to any foe.

Boating always makes weapons more powerful. I have a variant that boats 12 ER Small lasers and has dubs, It is a monster on TT.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 14 March 2013 - 05:40 AM.

[Roland]

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

they CAN be used against Mechs but are not all that effective in that role and carry to little mass to do any real harm... That is the lore.. Like it or not but that is the way it is.

No, this is incorrect.

In Battletech, MG's are clearly designed to kill mechs (just like every other weapon in the game).

The MG predates the introduction of other vehicles and infantry. They were in the game when the only target was gonna be other mechs.

And they are perfectly effective against other mechs. Their primary limitation is their RANGE. But if you are within 3 hexes, MG's will tear up any target. At that range, they are effectively identical to AC/2's.

[Pinselborste]

up damage to 0.1 damage per bullet, adjust ammo so its 140-150 per ton like the other balistics and its fine.

you cant even focus on a location at 40 meters range cause they start to spread the bullets, so upping the damage wont make them overpowered.

[stjobe]

Roland, on 14 March 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

And they are perfectly effective against other mechs. Their primary limitation is their RANGE. But if you are within 3 hexes, MG's will tear up any target. At that range, they are effectively identical to AC/2's.

QFT.

This is what everyone in the "MGs are just for anti-infantry use" crowd seems to conveniently forget.

[R E A V E R]

a sml lazer can pew pew all day. MG needs ammo, so its tonnage is automatically more then the .5 tons of the laser. I see this is forgotten as people spit DPS values in compare to a sml laz. if anything it is more comparable to medium laz in weight with ammo.. lack of heat gen is compensated for by ammo dependence. small laz still be pew pew when ur ammo drum runs dry

Edited by Hammur, 14 March 2013 - 05:56 AM.

[Critical Fumble]

Roland, on 14 March 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

No, this is incorrect.

In Battletech, MG's are clearly designed to kill mechs (just like every other weapon in the game).

The MG predates the introduction of other vehicles and infantry. They were in the game when the only target was gonna be other mechs.

And they are perfectly effective against other mechs. Their primary limitation is their RANGE. But if you are within 3 hexes, MG's will tear up any target. At that range, they are effectively identical to AC/2's.

I don't think people realize what they're saying when they say "Because it was an anti-infantry weapon in TT". In TT you could field infantry, sure. But each of those is manually controlled. Matching, say, 60 seconds worth of mech BV could take, what five minutes with infantry?

Thirdstar, on 14 March 2013 - 05:00 AM, said:

Oh no, crit seeking is great, if you or your team can strip armor and you blow up some ammo or maybe a big weapon and specially when the stars align and Venus is in the fifth firmament and the sound of a dying star can be heard from a conch shell. So yeah, MGs are awesome! Remember to sacrifice that chicken too. But no you can't outright kill a mech because you can never blow up the actual engine. So uh yeah.

I hereby steal this.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 14 March 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

No, this is incorrect.

In Battletech, MG's are clearly designed to kill mechs (just like every other weapon in the game).

The MG predates the introduction of other vehicles and infantry. They were in the game when the only target was gonna be other mechs.

And they are perfectly effective against other mechs. Their primary limitation is their RANGE. But if you are within 3 hexes, MG's will tear up any target. At that range, they are effectively identical to AC/2's.

TT 1 ton machine Gun 2 damage v 0.5 ton small laser 3 damage. Tear up what again? The only perk a machine gun has over its competition is no heat.

Do you want a Machine Gun to do 40 damage per turn like an AC2? A 0.5 ton weapon doing the same damage as a weapon 12 times it size?

[Thirdstar]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

TT 1 ton machine Gun 2 damage v 0.5 ton small laser 3 damage. Tear up what again? The only perk a machine gun has over its competition is no heat.

Do you want a Machine Gun to do 40 damage per turn like an AC2? A 0.5 ton weapon doing the same damage as a weapon 12 times it size?

I think he was just making the point that MGs aren't useless in TT. That they can be used to kill mechs.

[Critical Fumble]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

Do you want a Machine Gun to do 40 damage per turn like an AC2? A 0.5 ton weapon doing the same damage as a weapon 12 times it size?

At spitting range, contingent on you facing directly at the target. Meaning you could not torso twist, and using cover to protect yourself is a non-option.

Granted, a full 4 DPS might be over the top, given how easy it is to close with a target here.

[Thirdstar]

Critical Fumble, on 14 March 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

At spitting range, contingent on you facing directly at the target. Meaning you could not torso twist, and using cover to protect yourself is a non-option.

Granted, a full 4 DPS might be over the top, given how easy it is to close with a target here.

Indeed. The MG isn't even close to a brawl weapon. At that range, staring straight at an enemy and continuously holding him in your sights is very very risky. But yeah, 4 DPS may be a bit much.

[Joseph Mallan]

Critical Fumble, on 14 March 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

At spitting range, contingent on you facing directly at the target. Meaning you could not torso twist, and using cover to protect yourself is a non-option.

Granted, a full 4 DPS might be over the top, given how easy it is to close with a target here.

It would be. Its part of why I keep getting involved in this topic. I am willing to see the MG get a Buff, but it needs to stay in balance with other 0.5 ton weapons like the Small laser or SRM2. That will be fair and balanced.

Thirdstar, on 14 March 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

I think he was just making the point that MGs aren't useless in TT. That they can be used to kill mechs.

They were next to it on our TT. If you got close enough to use a MG or Small laser something was done very wrong. just saying. Pulse and streak weapons had a very back affect on light Mechs in my experience.

[Fehrir]

Screw all the old rules/lore/etc. All of it is irrelevant to the fact that the MG isnt worth a damn in -this- game. I want to love it so badly, but it needs to be LEGITIMATELY useful in some capacity.