39 replies to this topic

[Sir Ratburger]

Machine guns are not used much, there is a good reason why... they suck.

they do 0.04 damage per shot... 0.04! now lets put that in perspective.

say you load 2 machine guns with 1 ton of ammo... it equates to 2 tons, you do 0.08 damage a shot which means you have to point blank hit someone with them accurately for about 12.5 seconds to do 1 damage! <--- thats insanely bad!

you whack a medium lazer that weighs 1 ton (with infinite ammo) on your mech and you do 5 damage with 1 shot... or if you take our little example here and weigh it ton for ton you get 2 meduim lazers and do 10 damage a shot with a very low recharge time.

You know what, i love machine guns, they sound great, there is nothing quite like peppering someone with lots of nasty bullets and running away (with my little fast cicida by the way) but its just not worth it.

I stood behind a Catapract for about 30 seconds blasting away with 4 machine guns and he didnt even notice, nor did I do anything accept scratch his armour however it did all but destroyed my ego... he turned around and whacked me with 5 meduim lazers on my leg (lucky shot) and the rest is pretty much self explanitory.

Make machine guns worthy!

Edit - I just did a quick example on the testing grounds, it takes about 3800 bullets to down an Atlas if you shoot it point blank in the chest for about 3 minutes with 4 machine guns.

Edited by Sir Ratburge, 01 April 2013 - 12:35 PM.

[Khobai]

In Battletech, machine guns do 2 damage, and small lasers do 3 damage... So a machine gun should do 2/3rds the dps of a small laser.

So 0.07 per bullet instead of 0.04 seems about right.

[Yokaiko]

Khobai, on 01 April 2013 - 01:12 PM, said:

In Battletech, machine guns do 2 damage, and small lasers do 3 damage... So a machine gun should do 2/3rds the dps of a small laser.

So 0.07 per bullet instead of 0.04 seems about right.

I'd say more like 0.2.

AC2s were buffed to 4 DPS (theoretically, the server isn't fast enough) and quad/hex AC2s aren't exactly ruling the roost. At 2DPS and a hard 90m range it would "almost" make up for the x3 weight and and risk of ammo explosion.

They would still have the issue of uptime. There is no burst like a laser, you sit and target or you do no damage.

Edited by Yokaiko, 01 April 2013 - 01:15 PM.

[stjobe]

Khobai, on 01 April 2013 - 01:12 PM, said:

In Battletech, machine guns do 2 damage, and small lasers do 3 damage... So a machine gun should do 2/3rds the dps of a small laser.

So 0.07 per bullet instead of 0.04 seems about right.

It may "seem" right, but it's wrong. 0.7 DPS would keep the MG firmly in "useless weight" land.

1.2 DPS (triple the current per-projectile damage) is an absolute minimum.

Continuous-fire mechanic means any time off-target or missed projectiles drastically lowers the effective DPS.

My current effective DPS with MGs is less than 0.2 (322 damage from 18,744 shots fired).

[Troutmonkey]

Yes, buff MGs. They are useless.
Speaking of useless, buff Flamers by either making them do damage or by making them do a lot more heat damage.

[Sir Ratburger]

Glad to see all the support for getting the Mg's damage changed, another thing I left out is that you have to be pretty close to use Machine guns which ups the risk and gives even more reason to make the damage more.

I also totally agree about the flamethrowers... logically they should do a lot of heat damage but probably not much physical damage as all you are really doing is spraying fire over metal which will just make it hot.

[Pinselborste]

Sir Ratburge, on 02 April 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

I also totally agree about the flamethrowers... logically they should do a lot of heat damage but probably not much physical damage as all you are really doing is spraying fire over metal which will just make it hot.

since the flamers arent using chemicals, but the heat from a Fusion engine, they would be hot enough to melt armor, and if you think about it they should reduce your heat when you fire them and get stronger the hotter your mech is.

[Gremlich Johns]

Pinselborste, on 04 April 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

since the flamers arent using chemicals, but the heat from a Fusion engine, they would be hot enough to melt armor, and if you think about it they should reduce your heat when you fire them and get stronger the hotter your mech is.

Heck with flamers - bring on the Infernos!

[Sir Ratburger]

Pinselborste, on 04 April 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

since the flamers arent using chemicals, but the heat from a Fusion engine, they would be hot enough to melt armor, and if you think about it they should reduce your heat when you fire them and get stronger the hotter your mech is.

Dunno you know, you need a pretty intense and concentrated flame to cut through metal from which Ive seen from my buddies who do metalwork and welding... using it as a wide flamethrower just produces a lot of heat in a big area. In fact it would probably melt the flamethrower barrel first before doing damage anywhere else if the gasses are so hot.

I wonder why the flames stick and burn if its just heat from the fusion engine? <-- I'm really interested in this one.

As for cooling down a mech when expelling gasses from the engine, why would venting your reactor (engine) cool down your large lazer on your arm? I see what you mean and I think its a great suggestion but I'm just looking for the logic in it.

[Ralgas]

I'll make the same suggestion as in most threads, mgs should be around the .2 per shot dmg, or effectively (due to the same sever lag fire rate issue as the ac2) around 1.8 dps.

any more and the spider 5k/ jagger dd become too dangerous ( and i get the odd mg kill in it now using 6mg/2erppc)

[Pinselborste]

Sir Ratburge, on 04 April 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

As for cooling down a mech when expelling gasses from the engine, why would venting your reactor (engine) cool down your large lazer on your arm? I see what you mean and I think its a great suggestion but I'm just looking for the logic in it.

its not the large laser thats getting hot when firing, but the engine cause it has to produce the energy to fire the weapon.

[focuspark]

What about keeping the "MG are good vs unarmored targets" mentality and doing the following:

MG vs armor = 1.2 DPS
MG vs internals = 4 DPS (on par with other ballistics)

Drop the lame crit bonus thingy.

Similar rules for Flamer as well.

[stjobe]

Pinselborste, on 05 April 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

its not the large laser thats getting hot when firing, but the engine cause it has to produce the energy to fire the weapon.

What? It's a *fusion reactor* - it operates at several million degrees. I don't think it's going to get any warmer by firing a large laser mounted a couple of meters away.

[Pinselborste]

stjobe, on 05 April 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

What? It's a *fusion reactor* - it operates at several million degrees. I don't think it's going to get any warmer by firing a large laser mounted a couple of meters away.

its battle(Magic)tech


and focuspark, your idea is good, but i think 4dps might be a bit too much. i think 2 might be better, maybe also reduce the heat of the small laser by 0.5 than to Keep them in line with each other.

Edited by Pinselborste, 05 April 2013 - 12:32 PM.

[stjobe]

Pinselborste, on 05 April 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

its battle(Magic)tech

It's still wrong. The largest source of heat in a 'mech is its energy weapons firing:

Quote

A great deal of heat is released by the engine, which can negatively affect the vehicle's pilot or even the vehicle itself. Simply moving the vehicle creates heat, though this is often a small amount. The greatest source of heat comes from firing the vehicles weapons, especially energy weapons.

source: http://www.sarna.net...i/Fusion_Engine

Pinselborste, on 05 April 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

and focuspark, your idea is good, but i think 4dps might be a bit too much. i think 2 might be better, maybe also reduce the heat of the small laser by 0.5 than to Keep them in line with each other.

The MG is *currently* at 5.182 DPS against internals, and it's still useless. How on earth would reducing it to 4 DPS be "a bit too much"?

Edited by stjobe, 05 April 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[Pinselborste]

stjobe, on 05 April 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

The MG is *currently* at 5.182 DPS against internals, and it's still useless. How on earth would reducing it to 4 DPS be &quot;a bit too much&quot;?

its 5 dps vs weapons and other equipement, but not against internal structure.

and about the heat, if the heat would come directly from the weapon than you would still be able to walk, cause your engine wouldnt be affected at all.

the post on sarna just says that firing a weapon causes more heat than moving. but it doesnt say wich part gets heat up if you fire for example.

Edited by Pinselborste, 05 April 2013 - 01:23 PM.

[focuspark]

Pinselborste, on 05 April 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

... and focuspark, your idea is good, but i think 4dps might be a bit too much. i think 2 might be better, maybe also reduce the heat of the small laser by 0.5 than to Keep them in line with each other.

Remember that the MG needs to keep on target for a full second to deliver its full DPS potential, where as other ballistics deliver it all in an instant. Giving MG 4.0 DPS would be far from over powered - I think it's something people need to try to understand how limiting this would be.

[EmperorMyrf]

Sir Ratburge, on 01 April 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

Machine guns are not used much, there is a good reason why... they suck.

they do 0.04 damage per shot... 0.04! now lets put that in perspective.

say you load 2 machine guns with 1 ton of ammo... it equates to 2 tons, you do 0.08 damage a shot which means you have to point blank hit someone with them accurately for about 12.5 seconds to do 1 damage! <--- thats insanely bad!

Keep in mind it's 0.04 per bullet, not per second. They fire 10 times a second, so the dps is 0.4, meaning you do 1 damage in 1.25 seconds, not 12.5.

Sir Ratburge, on 01 April 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

you whack a medium lazer that weighs 1 ton (with infinite ammo) on your mech and you do 5 damage with 1 shot... or if you take our little example here and weigh it ton for ton you get 2 meduim lazers and do 10 damage a shot with a very low recharge time.

And 8 heat per shot, double what a SHS engine can handle. The MG fires for free, ammo permitting. Not saying they should stay as is, but something like 4 DPS is absurd.

Maybe if ammo exploded more often they would be more attractive. I know I've dropped an atlas from critting his ammo while in a spider, but it rarely every happens so it can't be a reliable way to do damage. Something does need to be done to them for lighter mechs that depend on them, but nothing near as drastic as what's being suggested so far.

[Ralgas]

EmperorMyrf, on 05 April 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

Keep in mind it's 0.04 per bullet, not per second. They fire 10 times a second, so the dps is 0.4, meaning you do 1 damage in 1.25 seconds, not 12.5.




And 8 heat per shot, double what a SHS engine can handle. The MG fires for free, ammo permitting. Not saying they should stay as is, but something like 4 DPS is absurd.

Maybe if ammo exploded more often they would be more attractive. I know I've dropped an atlas from critting his ammo while in a spider, but it rarely every happens so it can't be a reliable way to do damage. Something does need to be done to them for lighter mechs that depend on them, but nothing near as drastic as what's being suggested so far.

recheck you math .4 dps takes 2.5 secs to do 1 dmg not 1.25, also the rof server lag (same issue that hold the ac/2 back from real figures) means your only getting ~9 shots/sec atm, not 10.Add to this it's effectively a beam wep with a 1 sec duration to do that dmg means keeping it focused is quite difficult when on the move.

In that light even the 1.8-2 dps suggested could be a little low when play tested but any higher and the jaggers/mg lights could become a problem. Also note most people in favor of this buff also admit ammo/ton needs to come down with any change, which then also even out weight /damage somewhat

[Sir Ratburger]

Interesting calculations and arguments.

The main thing I want is my machine guns to be better than they are now, I really like what someone suggested on a previous post of them being able to shoot down incoming missiles too. I think it would be fair to lower thier ammunition to 1k per ton and make 2 of them do the same damage per second as a medium laser (because in fairness you wont generate heat) - this will balance everthing out nicely and add the benifit of shooting down missiles which will be proportional to the medium lasers never running out of ammo.

I really hope the developers like this idea to and implement it into this amazing game. they have done a really good job balancing most things out so far.