124 replies to this topic

[Team Leader]

Gremlich Johns, on 31 March 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

In canon, Machine-guns are anti-infantry. Stop trying to get no-heat weapons to destroy mechs with.

Theyre not only for anti infantry. They are just extra effective against them.

[Sifright]

Gremlich Johns, on 31 March 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

In canon, Machine-guns are anti-infantry. Stop trying to get no-heat weapons to destroy mechs with. If that is what you really need, then you should be filling up every ballistic point you have with MGs. Frankly, seeing a mech doing the dakka dakka dance with MGs is really lame. And yes, I am entitled to not agree with your idea to use, and I repeat, anti-infantry weapons against mechs.

...

You were doing so well in other threads buddy.

Machine guns were for use against mechs before infantry even existed in battletech please don't keep bringing that old cannard up it's really bloody annoying.

[Tickdoff Tank]

MustrumRidcully, on 31 March 2013 - 05:20 AM, said:

Giant Walking Robots used for warfare will never make sense.
There is a magical reason why Battlemechs wearing armour can do it more effectively than other vehicles. That's the thin veneer that makes Battlemechs "work".

It's also quite illogical that Auto-Cannons lose range with damage. That is not how bullets or shells normally work.
PPCs describe no sensible weapon system.
Gauss Rifles being almost heat-less bears no resemblance to real world coil guns or rail guns.
Mechs shooting dozens of tiny missiles at "long" ranges of 1000m doesn't make sense.
---

Game-wise, the Machine Gun needs a damage buff. But if they buff its range as well, they damage buff might be acceptable if it's not as big as some suggest.

I'd say a Normal Range of 180m and a Max Range of 540m could make the Machine Gun competitive and useful even at 0.8 damage per second. Maybe even 120m / 360m could work.
Keep its ammo efficiency low (80-120 damage per ton) as it is, and it will also scale well when boated (that means you need to invest a lot of tonnage that is comparable to other weapon's need in heat sink investment if you want to get similar DPS. ).

You have some good points, but the MG has always been range limited and I think it should stay that way. The MG just needs a damage buff, if they do that then I think it will be a decent, though not great, weapon.

[MustrumRidcully]

our all favorite website for battletech info said:

The Machine Gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon, issuing a stream of bullets at a high rate of fire to cut down opposing soldiers,

ZOMG! It's useless against mechs, right here it says it's anti-infantry.

Quote

while still being effective at damaging BattleMechs. It should be noted that despite their enhanced effectiveness against infantry, BattleMech machine guns are perfectly capable of stripping the armor off any BattleMech.

ZOMG! It also works against Battlemechs!
Machine Gun Production information Type Ballistic (Anti-Infantry) Tech Base Clan / Inner Sphere (IS) Year Availability Pre-spaceflight Technical specifications Heat 0 Damage 2

Autocannon/2 Production information Type Ballistic (Direct Fire) Tech Base Inner Sphere Year Availability 2300 (TH) Technical specifications Heat 1 Damage 2

OMG! The machine Gun is an anti-infantry wepaon that's useless against battlemechs, just like the AC/2
OMG! The machine gun is useful against mechs just as the AC/2


*insert Volkswagen Beetle next to big fracking gun picture here*

Also, the Machine Gun is highly effective against infantry in MW:O. Whenever I equip a Machine-Gun, no infantry man is standing at the end of the match.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 31 March 2013 - 09:01 AM.

[Training Instructor]

Gremlich Johns, on 31 March 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

In canon, Machine-guns are anti-infantry. Stop trying to get no-heat weapons to destroy mechs with. If that is what you really need, then you should be filling up every ballistic point you have with MGs. Frankly, seeing a mech doing the dakka dakka dance with MGs is really lame. And yes, I am entitled to not agree with your idea to use, and I repeat, anti-infantry weapons against mechs.

In canon, machine guns got bonuses vs infantry, but still did full damage (2) to mechs.

A weapon with almost no range, that has to be constantly trained on a mech, and has ammo that can explode and kill you. It would hardly be devastating to have machine guns actually do real damage. It might actually make two variants fully viable though.

[Sephlock]

At the very least, we need to upgrade the technology currently being used.

http://www.youtube.c...?&v=r_8wRpgvhyg

Edited by Sephlock, 31 March 2013 - 03:35 PM.

[FupDup]

MustrumRidcully, on 31 March 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

ZOMG! It's useless against mechs, right here it says it's anti-infantry.

Actually, "quintessential" means the perfect embodiment of, most pure form of, etc.


Translated:

Sarna said:

The machine gun is the quintessential perfect embodiment of an anti-infantry weapon...

That means that MGs are super-duper good against soldiers and are the "posterboy" of anti-infantry weapons...but it doesn't say "sucks against anything other than infantry."

Of course, the "trololol MGs are anti-infantry only, brah!" crowd doesn't bother looking up the definition of that word.

Edited by FupDup, 31 March 2013 - 03:47 PM.

[Roland]

MG's need a damage buff, not a range buff.

Their entire purpose is to be a light weight, extremely short range ballistic weapon.

[PANZERBUNNY]

You do realize that mechs aren't just made out of steel right?

We're talking advanced metallurgy here. 90m is probably the longest range low caliber ballistics even have a chance of doing damage to it.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Roland, on 31 March 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

MG's need a damage buff, not a range buff.

Their entire purpose is to be a light weight, extremely short range ballistic weapon.

I agree. Damage buff needs to happen.

One question though: Do MGs currently have 270m max range? (90 base + 180m like all other ballistics) or is it 180m max range? I honestly don't know. If it is only 180m then they need to increase it to 270m, if it is already 270, then disregard.

[FupDup]

Tickdoff Tank, on 31 March 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

I agree. Damage buff needs to happen.

One question though: Do MGs currently have 270m max range? (90 base + 180m like all other ballistics) or is it 180m max range? I honestly don't know. If it is only 180m then they need to increase it to 270m, if it is already 270, then disregard.

It's 200m according to MWOwiki.

Another fun fact: the MG projectile speed is currently the same as LRMs (100).

Edited by FupDup, 31 March 2013 - 03:54 PM.

[The Cheese]

I made 3 kills last night with machine guns. True story.

I like to think of what goes through a pilot's head when they look their 'final events' log and see that the very last thing on it was "Damaged by Machine Gun".

Please give them extra 'something'. They're fun as hell, but pretty terrible for doing anything.

Edited by The Cheese, 31 March 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[ShadowbaneX]

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the ranges in the original Battletech were much more realistic...the problem was that several tables were needed to effectively layout the several square kilometer engagement zone that things needed to be scaled down considerably to make it actually playable. Machine guns might have originally had a range of up to 2 km and the AC/10s ranges much further, let alone the missiles, but when things likely got scaled down, they probably had the scaled back range of only 90 meters or so.

While on there topic: there's another problem with the giant walking robot death machine that some people don't consider: the ground. Soils aren't exactly that effective at supporting giant point loads. Tanks at least spread out the weight along the entire width of their tracks, and hover tanks would likely do it even better. Mechs though tend ton concentrate it a little more, especially when moving at speed. An 18-wheeler might weigh as much as 36 tons, sure, but it's distributing that weight over 18 points, which is 2 tons per wheel. Not sure how big an Atlas' feet are, but I'm wondering what their point load would be.

Buildings are even worse though. Most of them are not built to take an additional 20-ton liveload. As a friend once told me though, we're a thousand years in to the Space 80s...they were bound to get some stuff wrong.

The Cheese, on 31 March 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

I made 3 kills last night with machine guns. True story.

I like to think of what goes through a pilot's head when they look their 'final events' log and see that the very last thing on it was "Damaged by Machine Gun".

Please give them extra 'something'. They're fun as hell, but pretty terrible for doing anything.

I know what mine was..."where the %$#! did that Stalker go!?" I was in a LRM Cat on top of one of the mountains on Alpine. A 2xLL, 6xMG Jagermech climbed up and came after me. I thought I'd keep it distracted while a nearby Stalker pounded the sob...turns out the Stalker wasn't that great of a pilot and fell off the bloody mountain. My 2 MLs weren't going to cut it versus 2 LLs. The MGs weren't much of a concern, but they did finish me off. The pilot of the Jager was than of course as classy as you'd expect: "LLOOOOLLL!! I just scared of two mechs with MG's! LLLOOOOOLLLL!" *sigh*

Edited by ShadowbaneX, 31 March 2013 - 04:03 PM.

[Zordicron]

Lolpingu, on 31 March 2013 - 05:02 AM, said:

From what I can gather, the Machine Guns in TT fire a caliber that ranges from .50 caliber (12x99/107mm) to 20mm. In real life, those kinds of calibers have MASSIVE ranges.........

Yeah this is already a lost cause. While I understand the idea of plausibility to get a player's mind to rationalize the game, it really doesnt go that far in mechwarrior. Missiles fly through the air, lasers go pew pew, mechs cant move like gundams, good enough. MG just need some dmg. I wont say no to a little range increase(like to 150M) but they need some dmg.

[IIIuminaughty]

you all are crazy MGs are freaking OP!

[Team Leader]

StrataDragoon, on 31 March 2013 - 04:10 PM, said:

you all are crazy MGs are freaking OP!

I saw a Jaeger DD core an afk atlas after a solid 3 minutes of shooting. NERF THEM ASAP MACHINE GUNS SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO HURT AN ATLAS!

[Sifright]

Team Leader, on 31 March 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

I saw a Jaeger DD core an afk atlas after a solid 3 minutes of shooting. NERF THEM ASAP MACHINE GUNS SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO HURT AN ATLAS!

Was that atlas under armoured?

[WhupAzz]

Realistically people need to stop making posts about MG's ...

A mech with 19 tons of armor should not have to worry about a machine gun at any time.

[Team Leader]

WhupAzz, on 31 March 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

Realistically people need to stop making posts about MG's ...

A mech with 19 tons of armor should not have to worry about a machine gun at any time.

1) Never. It's a cause worth fighting (occasionally typing) for!
2) you're wrong, they are in the original game for a reason, to kill mechs at close range. They should worry about "machine guns", I'm tired of these ignorant posts.

[Cest7]

Their range is 64m*3 with a lateral damage falloff from 64m (0.04dmg) to ~191m (0.001dmg)

The damage needs to go up, range is effective.