39 replies to this topic

[EmperorMyrf]

Ralgas, on 05 April 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

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.

I was continuing your example where you had two. Yes, 1 takes 2.5, 2 takes 1.25. And I'm very certain that the MG shares firing behavior with lasers, not ballistics (you'll notice the HSR effected lasers, MGs, and flamers because they have the same firing mechanics), so that ROF issue is non-existent.

[Hellboy561]

MGs could do with a small damage boost, but i've been playing in my founders atlas this weekend which has 2MGs on it, and lets just say they do the job

Just strip the armour down and let the MGs loose, constant dps with NO heat buildup whilst your other weapons are cycling. On my Atlas i find them very handy, as loosing weapons and heat sinks in a duel with someone is not a good thing, and it can give me an advantage in a heated battle.

Admitedly on light mechs the MGs may not be worth their tonnage, but if you play with your teammates, 4 MGs on a spider speeding past an armoured foe will rip weaponry off in seconds.

Edited by Hellboy561, 06 April 2013 - 06:27 AM.

[RealityCheck]

Machine guns really do need a damage buff. Its more for the lighter end of the mech spectrum then anything else. Mechs like the Cicada and Spider with ballistic heavy varients need a light weight dependable ballistic option.

The fact that in TT the machinegun and AC2 had equivalent damage values (i.e. 2) also should be kept in mind. Right now (on paper) the AC2 does 20 damage per 10 seconds. The machinegun does 4 damage per ten seconds! Now I know PGI isn't strictly following TT (which is fine) but the machinegun doesn't even have a quarter of the AC2's damage potential...

RealityCheck

[Tenzek]

Ralgas, on 05 April 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

recheck you math .4 dps takes 2.5 secs to do 1 dmg not 1.25

Note he was responding to a person who said there were two MGs firing at once. One MG does 1 damage in 2.5 seconds as you said. Two would do it in 1.25 as he said.

[Eternal Hunter]

focuspark, on 05 April 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

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.

I like that idea!
Keep a low armor dps, and increase internal damage. As you said, crits aren't really important.
(Unless the poor sucker got a gauss rifle, but then anything will kill it once armor is breached, heh)

[Ralgas]

EmperorMyrf, on 06 April 2013 - 06:18 AM, said:

I was continuing your example where you had two. Yes, 1 takes 2.5, 2 takes 1.25. And I'm very certain that the MG shares firing behavior with lasers, not ballistics (you'll notice the HSR effected lasers, MGs, and flamers because they have the same firing mechanics), so that ROF issue is non-existent.

I'll concede the dmg time, however the rof is an issue, unless mg's are doing higher dmg than advertised. The proof is in the ammo count over time.

[MajorAkita]

Machine guns suck bad...
Don't change them, please add a few extras to close the gap between the AC guns, smallest at 6 tons, and the machine gun at 0.5 ton.

Seems like a couple more like a 2 ton machine gun and a 4 ton with according damage or fire rate would do nicely...

Mechs like the Jager-DD would have a nice choice from there on, right now it's just a bad purchase...

[RealityCheck]

The way I see it, three things are preventing a machine gun buff:

1. Fear of boating - this makes sense because in previous MW titles this has been a source of abuse. However, with PGI's hardpoint system boating masses of mgs is off the table. Four to Six mgs is a solid cap for boating right now.

2. No heat generation - Essentially, the machine gun can be fired forever until the ammo bins run dry. Zero heat is a powerful ability. However, it is quite lackluster compared to mechs equipped with a multitude of DHS and weapons with better range and damage.

3. The new crit seeking ability - A good step forward for the mg, very useful for larger brawlers who need something while the big punch is on cooldown. This, however, has little impact on the lighter mechs primarily equipped with ballistic slots. They can wait on the outer rim of the fight to jump in on a wounded adversary, but I feel this hurts your team more than anything else.

RealityCheck

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

I love my MG. They are not for damage. They are for taking out internals and weapons.
I love watching someone think oh look a 4x, 3c easy target. As I strip their armor with lasers then take out their weapons and internals and watch them overheat faster and faster tell dead.

[MasterErrant]

the alreadt buffed them by giving the a crit chance for each bullet on internals.

[Pinselborste]

MasterErrant, on 07 April 2013 - 10:31 AM, said:

the alreadt buffed them by giving the a crit chance for each bullet on internals.

they dont damage the internals, they damage internal components like weapons and so on, PGI just didnt write it clear enough for everyone.

so yes, they Need a 200-300% damage buff to become viable.

[stjobe]

MasterErrant, on 07 April 2013 - 10:31 AM, said:

the alreadt buffed them by giving the a crit chance for each bullet on internals.

Every weapon has a crit chance for each hit on internal components; what the MG got was a slight increase in that chance (from 42% to 67%) and a large increase to the damage done to internal components - they do 0.5 - 1.5 damage per projectile to internal components instead of 0.04 - 0.12.

However, they still do 0.04 damage per projectile to armour (and internal structure), so getting to those internals may prove difficult for e.g. a SDR-5K which has four ballistic hardpoints and a single energy hardpoint.

In my mind there's no question about it; the MG needs a damage buff versus armour. Considering the continuous-fire nature of the MG, its ammo-dependency, and its low range, I think at a minimum the per-projectile damage needs to be tripled.

[Utilyan]

MasterErrant, on 07 April 2013 - 10:31 AM, said:

the alreadt buffed them by giving the a crit chance for each bullet on internals.

Thats how they NERFED it. prior to febuary patch doing about 150 damage with MGs with a cicada 4mg/flamer. When feb patch happened and they introduced trebuchet.......250damage a round that day I was killing 3 people a round with MGS, it was gutting out unarmored like hot knife through butter. Very next patch/hotfix. nerfed. 11 damage a round. highest i've done is about 140 damage.......the dude was afk, I didn't kill him.

Even if we follow the logic that against Armor MG worst, vs UNarmored its good.......

Machine guns right now is THE WORST weapon against UNARMORED.


Edit: Also AMMO is indestructible.....Machine gun fire CANNOT blow up ammo. Ammo only might blow up if the body part blows up. You could test this yourself go offline shoot the stocks where they keep ammo, like catapult right left torso, atlas left right torso.


The Logic behind NOT fixing MGs? Only thing I can think of is a programmer milking a designer.

Edited by Utilyan, 07 April 2013 - 01:43 PM.

[Zerstorer]

I think the best way to buff machineguns is to double the rate of fire. As it stands now, it looks quite pathetic for a 30th century weapon. Right now its just noisy nuisance that seems to last forever on 2000rounds of ammo.

Double the rate of fire, but keep heat generation the same as currently. Perhaps they will finally find a use.

[Sir Ratburger]

I don't think the servers could handle or accurately calculate hits with more than the current speed of firing at the moment. If it is possible, hell yeah! - I'm all up for crazy fire rate machine guns.

[RealityCheck]

Sir Ratburge, on 08 April 2013 - 12:03 PM, said:

I don't think the servers could handle or accurately calculate hits with more than the current speed of firing at the moment.

I'm in total agreement with the above. Rate of fire isn't really something I think should be looked at. The only exception being to tweak them once they (hopefully) buff the damage (i.e. lower it if they become broken). Right now the rate of fire is solid in my opinion.

RealityCheck

[Johnjw72]

mg were for infantry and light armored vehicals that we do not at present have in mwo
I think you should double the rate of fire and distace to 180 m as even WWII larg mg had ranges of 2000 m
and above 50 cal retain most of the energy for 300 m
If we had to deal with infantry it would be a valuable tool be we are only going after mechs

[Utilyan]

This is a repost, Despite how easy it is to buff MGs ect. We shouldn't touch them.


"....while still being effective at damaging [color="#b27204"]BattleMechs[/color]. It should be noted that despite their enhanced effectiveness against infantry, BattleMech machine guns are perfectly capable of stripping the armor off any BattleMech."


Thats what BT-Sarna says. I love machine guns, I got a cicada-3c and Jag-dd.....both with machineguns and flamers.

As much as I love them and every now and then itch at them being better...........WE MUST SAY NO TO BUFF.

There is a boring version of mechwarrior where machine guns were good and you would actually calculate the damage left vs a center torso and pretty much guarantee yourself a ZIP boom kill with machine guns. They used to be 400 damage on 200 ammo so you could guarantee yourself 3 mech kills with proper management.

Its better to push for machine guns to be more fun. Maybe less damage little more range...... but not anything that would discourage anyone.

The ammo was streatched out 2000 from 200..... the damage in proportion was streatched out......and the dps was nerfed beyond. The truth is this is ok.

Its better to push for "cosmetics" differ options of color tracer rounds, differ options of sound effects, think of it as a toy.

Same with flamers there was a time you can just keep a mech shut down with flamers..... I rather put on a show have flamers light buildings on fire.....or make smoke screens.....or have fire woosh on the ground like in BACKDRAFT.


If they gonna make machine guns "GOOD" the best way is let it stay useless against armor, good vs unarmored.........right now its the worst vs unarmored.


Its one of those things you had to be there before machine guns got nerfed. It would be discouraging to many players. In short it was lame.

Like if they buff MGs to something like small lasers........it would be around for like 2 days....after day one everyone would be in jaggers......day 3 they would get rid of it.


I still ride my MG cicada even tho they "suck". I rather the weapons be fun and suck then good and lame.

[MustrumRidcully]

If they fear boating of heatless weapons ,they always have to consider three things
- How many ballistic slots would this require to be op? Do such mechs even exist?
- Small and Medium Lasers can also be boated and despite causing heat, with double heat sinks allow rather large numbers to "boated". A Jenner can easilly run 6 small lasers (even with Single Heat Sinks, this was possible and in fact a common build), and we also have 5 ML Cicadas or 7 ML Hunchback.
- Machine Guns also need ammo. Where energy weapons require lots of heat sinks, Machine Guns require ammo instead - just lower the ammo/ton count if you fear that boating has no limitations.

[Hayashi]

We have to consolidate all the threads on Machine Gun feedback because there's too many of them at present. Please continue here.