48 replies to this topic

[Aesthetech]

MGs should do at least 1 DPS, preferably higher.. Looking at the facts:
They have the shortest range in the game along with small lasers and flamers. Entirely useless in all but close brawls.

They require constant exposure to achieve their DPS potential. If you're only firing, say, half the time with MGs, then you're cutting down, say, 2 DPS to 1, as opposed to their closest energy equivalent, small lasers, which can do their damage in a short burst, go in and out of cover, another burst, and be at full DPS potential with decent timing.

An MG + a ton of ammo is 1.5t. If you figure 1 ton of ammo for every 2-3 MGs, then 6 MGs (the most any mech can mount) is going to be 5-6 tons. Meanwhile, 6 small lasers are going to be 3 tons on their own, so let's throw in 2-3 DHS to get the tonnage to equal out to 5-6 tons, then compare the weapon systems:

• Same long range, MG with a longer max range (though dropoff gets pretty brutal outside double).
  
• Both have 1 DPS.
  
• The small laser generates heat, and the MG does not (but 12-13 DHS.. 10 in the engine + 2-3.. can easily handle 6 small lasers).
  
• The small laser requires exposure of 1 second every 2 seconds or so.. so basically, the small laser needs to be exposed 1/3 of the time as the MG to do its full damage potential. This not only applies to dodging between buildings and such, but also for things like twisting to spread damage and juking.
  
• The small laser fires directly to the crosshairs; the MG requires at least a small amount of lead judgement.
  
• The MG has limited ammo and is worthless afterwards. The small laser only has a minor amount of heat to contend with, and heat can always be dissipated.
  
• Having an MG means adding something to your mech that can cause it (or a part of it) to explode earlier than its internals give out.
  
• I think it's also worth pointing out that any DHS you add for the small lasers can also serve as DHS for weapon systems in another bracket (for example, you could run 2 PPC and 6 small lasers and obviously have 2 distinct brackets, with the DHS you add serving as cooling for either bracket) whereas ammo added for an MG only serves as ammo added for an MG (well, and as a chance to explode. That's always nice).
  
  I think these comparisons makes it obvious that an MG even at the same DPS as a small laser is a significantly weaker weapon system on the whole than the small laser. I would propose a DPS of somewhere from 1.25 to 1.5.. wouldn't want to go higher due to no heat and the complementary effect that could stack up with other weapon systems. Higher direct weapon tonnage used than the SLs (as you must have ammo for the MGs but don't have to add HS for the SL), the need for constant exposure for full DPS potential, limited shots, and a chance for your mech to explode should equal the MG having a higher reward than SLs in the same range bracket and the same base tonnage..

[Falconic]

I am glad this topic is still being brought to the table. Machine guns currently do .04 dmg. You should triple that and drop the crit seeking or leave it. Someone might actually consider using this long term rather than dropping it for AMS or a larger engine.

Something else that was brought up. Machine guns in larger machines are harder to keep on target when you are juggling AC weapons, PPCs, or lasers for that matter. Small laser/pulse has a really fast duration that is easier to juggle.

[Ralgas]

a simple buff to .1 puts them almost on par with slas dmg (needs 100% uptime though) and gives a potential 200 dmg yeild per ton of ammo (which is on par with most other ballistics). given nothing uses just 1, this would prob be enough to not be totally useless on the setups that use them (ie the 5k)

Edit: when straight comparing mg's to other weps you also have to consider that boating them can multiply the dam output very efficiently for very little extra weight. 2000 rounds is still enough for almost a minute of sustained fire for 4 mgs, which is enough for most matches if you're not trigger happy.

Edited by Ralgas, 23 March 2013 - 01:35 AM.

[Alternate22]

Agreed. Currently making them 1DPS and equivalent to a small laser at least gives options to the spider 4K, the Raven 4x, the CTF-4X, etc. Basically any mech that has a ballistic slot instead of a laser would benefit greatly from this - and in truth we kind of need it. I can fill out every hardpoint slot on every other mech except ballistics and still keep it viable. Hell, the 4P is fairly decent even with small lasers; while the J-DD is more or less useless compared to a J-S given the two extra energy slots would give you more damage/ton than the 2 extra ballistics.

Edit: Also, right now I run a 6-MG setup on my DD, simply because tis the only ballistic with HSR. As my ping varies from 240-300+ these days, a pair of ER Large and MGs are the only viable weapons I have on that mech - ANY buff to MGs would make life for EU players a hell of a lot better.

Edited by Alternate22, 23 March 2013 - 08:27 AM.

[Rubidiy]

Completely agree with initial post, BUT actually I don't think it's just a matter of machine gun being completely useless.
Today we don't really have a full line of ballistic weapons at all. Developers are right in their desire to create three different weapon mechanics to distinguish lasers from ballictics.
in our desire to offer descent game models for different ballistic weaponry we should also think about the way any weapon delivers it's damage and make sure that this way is somehow unique.
This does not lead to any outstanding solutions while talking about MGs, cause they already have their uniqueness and the only question is balance, but what do we have in other weight categories??? Almost nothing.
I just cann't understand why energy weapons are almost completely deprived of any size restrictions, missiles are restricted only by quantity of missile shafts (which is usually not that a big deal) and ballistics always come in high prise of weight and space?
Why can we easily install 6 PPCs in STALKER (and have a big problems because of our stupidity)? But we CAN do this! I know that all 6 of them will hardly ever hit same part of enemy mech, but in case of severed half-torso they will. Now we really have 4 PPCs positioned in hands of STALKER to hit one spot, and thus we have our massive AC20s, wich are currently the only well balanced ballistic weapon in the game, because the weight and space we spend on it gives us REAL fighting ability which is also needs a bit of skill to be attached. So we have 4x10 dmg for PPCs hitting one mech component and 2x20 dmg of a bit hot AC20s or 15x2 dmg of Gauss rifles wich will blow your own mech quite frequently, but you can fire them non stop for they don't generate any heat at all.

OK. But what with AC10? Why if they're considered as middle-long range one shot cannons, they weight so much? Why AC10 uses so many slots that we can't install 'em even we're reckless enough to do so???
Same goes to LBX-10. I just can't understand why middle or light mechs should undergo a severe nerf to their armor and mobility to be able to carry one ludicrous ballistic like AC5, AC10 or LBX-10??? Those are just a weapons with no real advantages. Their damage per ton is fetile compared to missiles not to mention lasers. They're highly skill dependant but still they weight unreasonably a lot. SRM6+Artemis does ~15 dmg (splash damage included), It's weight is 4 tons. 2 medium lasers do same dage just for same 4 tons of their own weight + 2 DHS. So how come LBX-10 weights 11 tons? Why won't we buff it to 6 ton? Why a mech with ballistics is always desperately slow and unarmored just for no reason at all but the fact that instead of 10dmg of missiles or 10 dmg of energy it uses 10 dmg of gunfire??? Because lasers are difficult to aim at one spot??? But same goes to ballictics with persistent firing model (AC/2, AC/5, ultra AC5).

No matter the firing model currently the game entirely lacks ballistics for light and middle classes. I succesfully used 5 PPCs on cataphract but was unable to install 4 AC10s. And their heat generation doesn't balance their weight and unability to use 4 of them. 2,5 seconds is a time which can be of use only for close combat situations and therefore being taken into account for LBX-10 balance but not for AC10. If devs want to differ AC10 from PPC, they already have thier counter ECM ability of PPC hits, they already have difference in their delays, trajectory, distance et.c.
So it's 2.5sec reload time is useless, it weights too much and it can be installed by 2 in one component. I suggest:
AC/10
1. Change AC10's slots down to 5
2. Change reload time to 3,25 seconds
3. Damage drop start down to 270m
4. Weight down to 9 tons
Thus it will weight much more than 1 AC20. You still won't be able to install 4 of them into any existant mech except for Jagermech. Wich will lead to huge engine, armor and ammo restrictions.

My fingers are bleeding so I'll just write down my further suggestions to ballistics. The only thing I just have to add that I used mouse macross (just for investigation, I'm not abusing it) to prevent ultraAC5's from jamming to test their real firepower and real battle abilities. And those tests were taken into account, although I recommend devs to turn off it's ability not to jamm if fired after reload...

LBX-10AC
1. weights 6 tons
2. reload time is 3.25sec

ultra AC/5
1. takes 5 slots
2. weights 7 tons

AC/5
1. takes 3 slots
2. weights 6 tons

AC/2
1. weights 3 tons
2. Reload 1 sec

This is the simpliest way to create ballistics for everyone. Spread, heat generation et.c. don't change.

Edited by Rubidiy, 23 March 2013 - 11:41 AM.

[focuspark]

IMO ballistic weapons should do about 4 DPS (all but MG currently do this). The MG is very light and generates no heat, so to balance that it has piddling range and requires a full second of focused fire to actually do its n DPS.

Since the devs seemingly want the MG to be "special" here's what I suggest: raise MG damage to 0.2 per round or 2 DPS vs. armor and 0.5 per round or 5 DPS vs internals. Drop the crit bonus thing. Set the ammo at 150 damage per ton (just like other ballistic weapons), so: 300 rounds (@ 0.5 per round rate).

Edited by focuspark, 23 March 2013 - 01:42 PM.

[Falconic]

2 DPS for 1 MG... 12 DPS no heat Jager DDs with 2 energy slots for LPL or PPCs... and 8 dps no heat Cicadas with 1 energy slot... 8 DPS spiders... I hear you TT lovers, and I'm all for MGs, but that seems like it would be abused like a step-child. Keep it around 1 DPS per MG and I'll be a happy man.

[Aesthetech]

Falconic, on 24 March 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

2 DPS for 1 MG... 12 DPS no heat Jager DDs with 2 energy slots for LPL or PPCs... and 8 dps no heat Cicadas with 1 energy slot... 8 DPS spiders... I hear you TT lovers, and I'm all for MGs, but that seems like it would be abused like a step-child. Keep it around 1 DPS per MG and I'll be a happy man.

I'm personally for 1.33 DPS or so. 1 is too low, as you can see in my OP from the obvious comparison, but 2 would be way too high.

[Kmieciu]

The worst thing about them is the spread: at 90 meters you cannot repeatedly hit the same component. Do you know how many machineguns rounds it takes to kill a stock COM-1B on the trial grounds? 1600. Even If you have 4 of them, that's 40 seconds of constant fire at his center torso. If you have 4 small lasers, it takes 6 seconds to kill the same Commando.

They need a massive damage boost to become competitive.

[FrostCollar]

The "MGs should be more powerful" idea has been brought up again and again.

It's right every time.

[Deathlike]

Just the idea of "MGs sucking less", does not seem to get a legitimate response from PGI. That's all the majority is asking for. Right now, MGs being practically useless is where we're at.

Edited by Deathlike, 25 March 2013 - 06:54 AM.

[Attalward]

O agreee they need to reach atleast that 1dps

[RealityCheck]

I've posted before on a similar thread, but this is an issue I'd like to see resolved.

Machine guns NEED a buff. Just up the damage per shot and decrease the ammo per ton. Why can't we just do that? Its not like they'll end up as broken as LRMs have been pre-hotfix. They have 90m of range for crying out loud...

Please buff machine guns. Thank you.

RealityCheck

[HammerSwarm]

We can argue about how or how much they should be buffed but I think that the consensus of the majority is that they need to be buffed.

What's the worst that happens? It needs to be nerfed later? shucks.

Get this done already.

[Tombstoner]

Mg are unlikely to receive a damage buff because of the games design intent of having them be crit seekers. they will be buffed to the point where they are godly in that role just to get you to use them and thus balance is obtained.

I can see the day where MG's get a chance to buy pass armor and go strait for the critical hit. The chance to penetrate increases with increased damage to the section. so get used to your CT getting hit to yellow then the MG's will finish you off.

[Pinselborste]

Tombstoner, on 25 March 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

Mg are unlikely to receive a damage buff because of the games design intent of having them be crit seekers. they will be buffed to the point where they are godly in that role just to get you to use them and thus balance is obtained.

I can see the day where MG's get a chance to buy pass armor and go strait for the critical hit. The chance to penetrate increases with increased damage to the section. so get used to your CT getting hit to yellow then the MG's will finish you off.

and thats totally wrong, they are the main weapon of some mechs, so they should be as useable as the other main weapons of other mechs.

[HammerSwarm]

Tombstoner, on 25 March 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

Mg are unlikely to receive a damage buff because of the games design intent of having them be crit seekers. they will be buffed to the point where they are godly in that role just to get you to use them and thus balance is obtained.

I can see the day where MG's get a chance to buy pass armor and go strait for the critical hit. The chance to penetrate increases with increased damage to the section. so get used to your CT getting hit to yellow then the MG's will finish you off.

This is totally wrong as to both game balance (the only ballistic weapon weighing less than 6 tons) and game mechanics (some mechs have light weight ballistics as their only option)

[Deathlike]

Oh Spider-5K... oh how I don't want to grind thee...!

[RealityCheck]

Crit seeking was a unique and interesting idea, one that I supported at first. However, it is not all that advantageous to mechs like the Spider-5K and Cicada-3C which feature several ballistic and few other weapon slots. They don't have the tonnage to mount much else (without gutting the mech anyway). Mounting machine guns puts those mechs at an insurmountable disadvantage to "healthy" mechs. Machine guns need to be combat effective damage wish to be fair.

RealityCheck

[General Taskeen]

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

Some examples of other games

MW3:

.8 Damage (fired in bursts, 4 shells of .2 damage each)
0.625 Cool Down
200 Ammo Per Ton

MW4 (the machine gun array):

.2 Damage
.2 Cool Down (dakka dakka dakka!)
(AKA, the 1 DPS Machine Gun)
450 Ammo Per Ton IS, 600 Ammo Per Ton Clan

Somewhere in between MW3 and MW4 lies a good single MG that would work for MWO.

Examples:

(adjust damage, give cool down, lower ammo per ton)

0.8 - 0.4 - 2 DPS
0.6 - 0.4 - 1.5 DPS
0.3 - 0.2 - 1.5 DPS
0.2 - 0.2 - 1 DPS

DPS is relative after all, its dependent on the projectile hitting. An AC/2 does 2 Full damage to the location it hits. An MG doing .8 damage, for example, per hit would take 2 or 3 shots to get 2 Damage. A Small Laser would have already done 3 damage every 2.25 seconds. An MG, would be doing 1.8 damage every 2.25 seconds, if it hits the same spot.

If they fix ballistics state-rewind, and treat an MG as a projectile with cool down. You now have a Single MG that is worth fitting on a Light Mech or as a close range ballistic weapon for a heavier Mech, that is equivalent of a small laser.

I don't know what armor values the previous games had, but an MG approaching closest to single digits (since MWO has double armor) with a fast cool down, and a lower ammuntion amount would make it balanced and effective. If they can balance a single MG, they then have the ground work if Light MG's, Heavy MG's, and Machine Gun Array's are added later.

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.