48 replies to this topic

[Zerikin]

Machine guns certainly need to be made viable. There are alot of light and medium mechs that desperately need a viable light weight ballistics weapon.

[RoboPatton]

I say take them out until there is something small enough to shoot at. Either that or keep MG a joke weapon (maybe my TT experience is jading me).

Flamers on the other hand...

[HammerSwarm]

I support pegging it at 1 DPS with the crit seeking intact. This way with constant fire from a JM6-DD you would be at 6 DPS. Not stunning for the size of the mech and the hard points. on a Spider K it's more reasonable by the size but not nearly over powered. 1DPS would make it relevant.

[Falconic]

General Taskeen, on 26 March 2013 - 07:34 AM, said:

There are ways to make Machine Guns better, and it starts with giving them a cool down.

HMG - 1 Damage - 0.4 CD - 2.5 DPS
MG - .8 Damage - 0.4 CD - 2 DPS
LMG - .6 Damage - 0.4 CD - 1.5 DPS

The DPS of the Machine Guns would then be in line with Autocannons, or rather as Mini-Autocannons.

MGA Example - 4 Pack Regular Machine Guns - .8 Damage Each x 4 Totaling 3.2 Damage every 0.4 Seconds.

Sorry I didn't quote the whole page. I like the idea of MGs having sustainable fire. I think this alone makes them a unique weapon and requires you play with them differently that other weapons. I do not support the idea of machine guns with cooldowns.

[RealityCheck]

I agree with Falconic, machine guns with continuous fire are better (especially with the way they sound, its just amazing). However, if giving them cooldowns means an improvement to their overall combat capability, I'm all for it.

Also, there are a couple questions about machine gun balance in the "Ask The Devs - 35!" thread from the Ask the Devs forums. Would be nice to see if and how they are answered. Pass it along to anyone interested in the subject!

RealityCheck

[Terror Teddy]

Ok, idea.
Burst damage: 0.25
Recycle: 0.25 [DPS 1]
Damage per tonne:150
Crit bonus vs Internals: Yes

Thats 150 seconds of fire as compared to the 80 damage in 200 seconds we have now. The more mgs we have the more ammo hungry it gets.

[Pinselborste]

MGs shouldnt have a cooldown, they just need the damage per shot from 0.04 up to 0.1 problem solved. if they are still to weak than increase it a bit more till we have a good value.

flamer needs a damage buff too, compared to the medium laser, wich weights the same its useless, its even useless compared to a small laser.

[CloaknDagger]

The DPS should be about 2/3 the DPS of the small laser.* That would make it balanced.

* This is AFTER accounting for the effective reduction making it fire non-stop gives it. It's inherently harder to do the full damage when you are forced to keep it on target the entire time. So the actual damage when you shoot a stupid, non-moving enemy should be somewhere around the FULL DPS of a small laser, or even as much as 4/3 the DPS of a small laser.

Edited by CloaknDagger, 27 March 2013 - 10:53 AM.

[RealityCheck]

Exactly right CloaknDagger. The only other thing the devs would have to consider is the crit modifiers already in place. They would naturally have to be tweaked to fit a new damage value. With what you suggest, it will still take a good amount of skill to focus the damage on a single component (it would be easy to spray the whole mech in bullets). That is what makes the machine gun so unique. The damage is largely dependent on the user, more so than most other weapons.

RealityCheck

[General Taskeen]

Falconic, on 26 March 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

Sorry I didn't quote the whole page. I like the idea of MGs having sustainable fire. I think this alone makes them a unique weapon and requires you play with them differently that other weapons. I do not support the idea of machine guns with cooldowns.

I think people just like the constant stream cuz "Dakka" and the sound actually isn't that amazing. Every Mech game ever has given MG's a cool down. Its the only effective way to make it deal closer to single digit damage up front, very fast in a Mech Warrior game. No cool down, means incredibly low damage and huge damage spread, as it is now. Its too difficult to balance that way, especially with double armor. A constant firing MG even at .1 or .2 would actually swing it in the other direction. An MG did .2 damage, for instance in MW3, with a 0.625 CD and it could still chew through armor with ease.

[Falconic]

General Taskeen, on 27 March 2013 - 07:16 PM, said:

An MG did .2 damage, for instance in MW3, with a 0.625 CD and it could still chew through armor with ease.

I didn't play MW3 so I will have to take your word for it. I do know from other comments that the game allowed a mech to mount 12-24 Machine guns at once. This game still has yet to give use the option of mounting over six. I think your argument for keeping the machine gun nerfed is based on a different game allowing the exploit. If this game were ever to change the way it does hardpoints maybe then it would be unbalanced.

This is Mech Warrior Online! Not Mech Warrior 3.

[Pinselborste]

General Taskeen, on 27 March 2013 - 07:16 PM, said:

I think people just like the constant stream cuz "Dakka" and the sound actually isn't that amazing. Every Mech game ever has given MG's a cool down. Its the only effective way to make it deal closer to single digit damage up front, very fast in a Mech Warrior game. No cool down, means incredibly low damage and huge damage spread, as it is now. Its too difficult to balance that way, especially with double armor. A constant firing MG even at .1 or .2 would actually swing it in the other direction. An MG did .2 damage, for instance in MW3, with a 0.625 CD and it could still chew through armor with ease.

how would a weapon that spreads damage and has the same dps as a small laser be overpowered?

[MadPanda]

MG's can be used to annoy your opponents and confuse them. Of course if you get some crits as well then all the better. Check out this build that use MG's:

[Pinselborste]

panda, replace mgs with ammo or heatsinks and you have an even better build.

[MadPanda]

Pinselborste, on 28 March 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

panda, replace mgs with ammo or heatsinks and you have an even better build.

Heatsinks aren't fun.

[Voivode]

Totally right. The idea of the MG criting a lot is interesting but ultimately you have too many mechs at the light end of the weight scale that are built around multiple ballistic slots. If you run one of these mechs you are waiting for someone else to do the work of stripping the armor so you can crit some internals. If you can't remove another mechs armor to get to the internals in the first place that makes your mech a wasted slot. Heavier mechs with multiple ballistic slots (4X, Jaegers, K2) can fit an array of ac2/ac5/ ac10/ac20 what have you. No dice for a spider 5K or cicada 3c, or even the hunchback 4g. The game needs a low weight ballistic weapon because there are low tonnage variants built around ballistic slots.

[Terror Teddy]

Pinselborste, on 28 March 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

panda, replace mgs with ammo or heatsinks and you have an even better build.

MG's weight half as much and protect a location just as well.

[General Taskeen]

Pinselborste, on 28 March 2013 - 07:41 AM, said:

how would a weapon that spreads damage and has the same dps as a small laser be overpowered?

If you can't figure it out yourself, why are you asking? If you have a constant stream of bullets, that is already like a laser with no cool down, that's .1 or .2 damage building up extremely fast. The MG is likely 0.04 DMG in the first place, because the Devs wanted a constant stream (copied MW:LL) and had to lower the damage drastically. The only way for the MG to be effective is to give it a cool down, and make it do closer to single digit damage, as a projectile, between .2 or .8 with a fire rate to match, like every other Mech game.

[RealityCheck]

Just recently I repurchased my old Cicada-3C, so I can master Cicadas. I love running 4 machine guns (plus large pulse laser for some punch), but they just weren't cutting it. My damage was generally low 0 - 200. My 2A and 2B get 0 - 400 (usually between 200 and 350). On a positive note, I managed to kill (finish off really) two mechs with them (CT kills). The component striping is noticable as well. However, damage wise I was definitely a weak link.

As much as I love the constant stream of bullets, the idea of mgs having cooldowns is beginning to grow on me. The question then is should they be a burst of bullets with a cooldown or a single round fired with a cooldown?

I like the idea of single shot cooldowns. Then it would be the AC2's mini cousin!
RealityCheck

[Nihtgenga]

Why adding an "AC/1" by giving it a cooldown? It will kill the unique characteristic. MGs are quite good, if you leave them constant-fire, because they can be damage-dealers on lights that in exchange force them to stick their head (or ***) out, being prone to fire - which is killing their primary advantage of hit-and-run tactics. As crit-seekers, they'd be useful on heavier mechs to round-out the loadouts with something that can dig well into predamaged sections. Seeing current patch levels, the MGs would be already ok with a simple small damage buff (in contrast to the AC/s)