1386 replies to this topic

[CG Oglethorpe Kerensky]

Amsro, on 24 June 2013 - 10:10 AM, said:

That is the problem they shouldn't be. Lights should be just as effective using small laser's, medium laser's, streaks or machine guns. in their ideal range.

Removing the cone of fire should fix this. Let the ballistic be a ballistic, enough of the charade!!

It is a machine gun, it is a half-ton heatless weapon with a very short range and limited damage output. There is nothing about this that justifies a role as a primary weapon system.
It might be a primary weapon for an elemental trooper but not a battlemech, there is a reason why the machine gun is not in the autocannon family with the rest of the projectile weapons.

[stjobe]

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 24 June 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

It is a machine gun, it is a half-ton heatless weapon with a very short range and limited damage output. There is nothing about this that justifies a role as a primary weapon system.

With MWO's implementation, you're sort of correct. However, the MWO implementation is the only one I'm aware of that treats the MG so step-motherly; most other implementations of the BattleTech Universe seem to treat it in a much more lore-friendly way; like a very short-ranged AC/2.

I have no idea why the PGI devs decided the MG should be worthless, disregard that it should do as much damage as an AC/2, and then turn around and give the AC/2 the biggest buff they've ever given a weapon: 20 times its BattleTech damage output (the rest of the weapons are at about 2-3 times their BT damage output).

It just seems so... Random.

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 24 June 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

It might be a primary weapon for an elemental trooper but not a battlemech, there is a reason why the machine gun is not in the autocannon family with the rest of the projectile weapons.

Seeing as we only have three "families" of weapons; energy, ballistics, and missiles, I wonder where you get your idea that the MG isn't in the same family as the rest of the projectile weapons?

Edited by stjobe, 24 June 2013 - 03:02 PM.

[Lord of All]

stjobe, on 24 June 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

....Seeing as we only have three "families" of weapons; energy, ballistics, and missiles, I wonder where you get your idea that the MG isn't in the same family as the rest of the projectile weapons?

So "TAG" is a laser? And whats a Flamer?

[General Taskeen]

Both TAG and Flamer's are energy...

And guess what machine guns are main weapons. Enter the Jackrabbit description:

"The main weapon is also the Jackrabbit's main drawback, as while class 2 autocannons have longer effective ranges than most other weapons, they inflict the same damage as a machine gun at the cost of considerable weight.."

Hmm, an AC/2 that's a main weapon that inflicts the same damage as a machine gun. So, they're interchangeable! Magic. To all that believe MG's are not main weapons, there are MANY Mechs that mount them, practically half of the Clan Mechs use them. You lose, admit defeat. Now stop arguing that the MG remain weak.

MW3 made the MG a potent weapon like it's supposed to be, end of story.

Edited by General Taskeen, 24 June 2013 - 06:17 PM.

[FupDup]

Lord of All, on 24 June 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

So "TAG" is a laser? And whats a Flamer?

Plasma (heat from mech's reactor).

[ICEFANG13]

I know I've said it before, but even with spread, these .8-1DPS machine guns are better than a SRM-2. Honestly, if the Raven-4X could use a 300 engine, I would probably be piloting it. I miss useful missiles.

[Amsro]

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 24 June 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

It is a machine gun, it is a half-ton heatless weapon with a very short range and limited damage output.  There is nothing about this that justifies a role as a primary weapon system.
It might be a primary weapon for an elemental trooper but not a battlemech, there is a reason why the machine gun is not in the autocannon family with the rest of the projectile weapons.

You incorrect about it being an autocannon, machineguns are automatic weapons fire from a small canon.
As well I would be very impressed to see ANY trooper pick up a 1/2 ton (1000 lbs) weapon and start using it.

Face it there is no reasonable or sane argument why a weapon included in this game should not be an effective weapon. Crit seeking is ineffective dice rolling and should be frowned upon by fellow team mates when you bring in said mech.

In 125 matches with 4xMG they have managed to rack up a whopping 3788 damage. Thats 30 dmg per match, were it not for my ER Large Laser doing 12,876 damage (103 per match)  I would have been completely useless to my team every game.

Simply removing the cone of fire and trading the crit seeking mechanic for REAL damage is what is needed. At this point its a MPL Mini Pulse Laser with no heat, no damage, and dice.

Edited by Amsro, 25 June 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[CG Oglethorpe Kerensky]

Amsro, on 25 June 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

You incorrect about it being an autocannon, machineguns are automatic weapons fire from a small canon.

The system makes a distinction between a machine gun and an autocannon, it is not an AC/2, it is a machine gun. The machine gun can be described as little more than a .50 caliber, rapid-fire, firearm.
It is not a cannon, which is different from a machine gun in that a cannon is an artillery piece designed to have a much greater range than typical small arms.

A machine gun is half a ton, the closest possible comparison is the AC/2 which over an order of magnitude greater in mass, generates a huge amount of heat, and can fire at vastly increased range. Which when you take into account of all you realize that the only thing these two weapon systems have in common is that they use ammunition.

Quote

As well I would be very impressed to see ANY trooper pick up a 1/2 ton (1000 lbs) weapon and start using it.

Part of the weight of the MG is housing and equipment needed to mount it to the mech and the ammunition feed system. .50 caliber machine guns are weapons in our own modern military.

Quote

Face it there is no reasonable or sane argument why a weapon included in this game should not be an effective weapon.

Effective weapon? I never said they weren't effective weapons, a weapon does not need to be a primary weapon to be an effective weapon.

[FupDup]

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 25 June 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

The system makes a distinction between a machine gun and an autocannon, it is not an AC/2, it is a machine gun. The machine gun can be described as little more than a .50 caliber, rapid-fire, firearm.
It is not a cannon, which is different from a machine gun in that a cannon is an artillery piece designed to have a much greater range than typical small arms.

A machine gun is half a ton, the closest possible comparison is the AC/2 which over an order of magnitude greater in mass, generates a huge amount of heat, and can fire at vastly increased range. Which when you take into account of all you realize that the only thing these two weapon systems have in common is that they use ammunition.



Part of the weight of the MG is housing and equipment needed to mount it to the mech and the ammunition feed system. .50 caliber machine guns are weapons in our own modern military.

What, exactly, are you basing the conclusion of .50 caliber from? The only caliber mentioned in BT fluff is 20mm...

Are you just fixating on the name rather than how lore describes it or the in-game mechanics it had in TT? By the way, "machine gun" IRL is actually a blanket term for any weapon will fully automatic fire. Autocannons are classified as a sub-division of machine guns (by their use of explosive shells and higher caliber rounds). If the BT MG really is 20mm like lore says it is, that means BT uses a different classification system than real life does (real life considers 20mm to be an autocannon)...meaning that we shouldn't hold Battletech to real life's weapon standards. It's a fantasy land in space with giant stompy robots.

FASA just named the weapon wrong. They should've just called it a Micro Autocannon or something and nobody would have complained about it like they do about the MG even if they kept the exact same stats.

Edited by FupDup, 25 June 2013 - 07:21 PM.

[Utilyan]

Sheeeeeet......I wish it was a .50 caliber. Then i'd be pinging folks from like 2000 -3000m instead of 200m. And that ain't no cone fire neither.


So a fellah has armor missing and he's 2000m away......He's dead if I got 50 caliber machine guns.

If we stick to consitency, then a mech who for example lost its ct armor.....then that ct is now a unarmored target and at the mercy of a completely effective 50 cal.

Now I'm just talking about WWII 50 cals.........we talking about 1000 years into the future.....

current MG I shoot 10 shots a second...........

You want to give us 50 Cals....... hoo hoo hoo hoooo......ha ha haaaaa.....
Rate of fire
485–635 rounds/min (M2HB)^[3][4]
750–850 rounds/min (AN/M2)
1,200 rounds/min (AN/M3)
Muzzle velocity 2,910 ft/s (890 m/s) for M33 ball

Effective range 1,800 m (2,000 yd)^[3]
Maximum range 6,800 m (7,400 yd)


And i'm just giving it regular slugs, but you could look up armor piercing rounds........and then just advance the technology about a 1000 years.

[Amsro]

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 25 June 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

Effective weapon? I never said they weren't effective weapons, a weapon does not need to be a primary weapon to be an effective weapon.

It does if it is your only option for weapons, I'd like to see a "competitive loadout for a spider 5k or ballistic light mech. See the newly introduced Locust.

Why do you insist to stick to a current world view of machine guns rather then gun balance in this game? Give light mechs an alternative to MG or make MG useful as a WEAPON!!

I mean when was the last time you saw a AC/2 mech and thought hide!!

Let the MG be a range gimped AC/2 as it should be. If I'm within 100m of an enemy mech I deserve a little bit of firepower. Currently MG are annoying headphone destroyers.

[Enigmos]

Viterbi, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

Rest assured that your Community Representatives will be monitoring this thread and forwarding your feedback to the developers accordingly. Recall that Bryan has noted that Machine Guns are working as intended, but as with all feedback threads we will continue to review your concerns.

If you could please come back to the discussion regarding Machine Guns itself, we would greatly appreciate a minimal meta-discussion. Posting off-topic, creating duplicate threads, and making nonconstructive remarks, greatly increases our workload and prevents us from time that would normally be spent reviewing your feedback and generating reports of your concerns for our developers.

Sanctions will be placed on accounts that violate our Code of Conduct. Critical feedback can be valuable, but it must be posted in a way that does not undermine other users or our efforts.

Now... back to the discussion on Machine Guns...

In 26 matches I have run MG (many of those were pre-patch). In all I fired 8254 MG rounds. 5004 hit, for a 61% accuracy rate, causing 277 damage. That means each round cause0.055356 damage. Cycle time on the MG is 0.1, so in ten seconds (1 round) there are 100 cycles (RoF). In those ten seconds then, if every round fired hits the MG has historically caused 5.535572 damage per ten seconds. Applying my 61% accuracy that translates to 3.3559486/10 second interval. If I run four of them on a Jaeger DD that would give me 4 X 3.356 or an added 13.423795 damage in ten seconds. If I am running a pair of Gauss at short range (4 second cycle time) 13.42 more damage, in just a little more time than it takes my Gauss to fire twice, I have nearly pumped out the damage of another gauss round. Where my energy hardpoints are filled or missing, I have tonnage and ballistic hardpoints available, and upping my engine and armor is of dubious value then machineguns make sense. Since most of those matches were pre-MG patch the damage output would be higher.

[Lord of All]

OriginalTibs, on 26 June 2013 - 06:13 AM, said:

In 26 matches I have run MG (many of those were pre-patch). In all I fired 8254 MG rounds. 5004 hit, for a 61% accuracy rate, causing 277 damage. That means each round cause0.055356 damage. Cycle time on the MG is 0.1, so in ten seconds (1 round) there are 100 cycles (RoF). In those ten seconds then, if every round fired hits the MG has historically caused 5.535572 damage per ten seconds. Applying my 61% accuracy that translates to 3.3559486/10 second interval. If I run four of them on a Jaeger DD that would give me 4 X 3.356 or an added 13.423795 damage in ten seconds. If I am running a pair of Gauss at short range (4 second cycle time) 13.42 more damage, in just a little more time than it takes my Gauss to fire twice, I have nearly pumped out the damage of another gauss round. Where my energy hardpoints are filled or missing, I have tonnage and ballistic hardpoints available, and upping my engine and armor is of dubious value then machineguns make sense. Since most of those matches were pre-MG patch the damage output would be higher.

Nice Post, 4 MG makes a pretty cheap Gauss.

BUT we have a huge problem from here on and if PGI wants correct information as opposed to seat of the pants then we are going to have to have the pre patch data and extrapolate from there. Sounds more like a job than a game to me. Do we get paid for this? Any Data after a patch that effects that weapon is instantly rendered WORTHLESS.

Any Critical Thinker can explain that and the DEVS should certainly know it.
PGI should either reset the stats on a weapon that gets a rework or add a new one with a patch version added.

Just like all my missile data is worthless since adding Artemis.

When you change on variable of an equation you cannot lump the resulting data into the existing pool. Doing so would get you laughed out of any scientific community from high school on.

[stjobe]

Lord of All, on 26 June 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

Nice Post, 4 MG makes a pretty cheap Gauss.

Well, except for the fact that the GR is 15 pin-point damage and the 4 MGs will spread their damage over 8-11 hit locations... Effectively cutting that "impressive" DPS number to an eight or so.

As we all know, pin-point damage > DPS. In fact, I'd go so far as to say DPS is nigh worthless.

[Enigmos]

Lord of All, on 26 June 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

Nice Post, 4 MG makes a pretty cheap Gauss.

BUT we have a huge problem from here on and if PGI wants correct information as opposed to seat of the pants then we are going to have to have the pre patch data and extrapolate from there. Sounds more like a job than a game to me. Do we get paid for this? Any Data after a patch that effects that weapon is instantly rendered WORTHLESS.

Any Critical Thinker can explain that and the DEVS should certainly know it.
PGI should either reset the stats on a weapon that gets a rework or add a new one with a patch version added.

Just like all my missile data is worthless since adding Artemis.

When you change on variable of an equation you cannot lump the resulting data into the existing pool. Doing so would get you laughed out of any scientific community from high school on.

It wouldn't be all that difficult if we are calculating these things anyway. I could just make a new row and subtract the current values from whatever the new values become and apply the calculations to the then-current values less the old values. I've only been doing this to judge the relative merits of a loadout so I doubt the difference will be significant enough to affect my decisioning.

[Kmieciu]

OriginalTibs, on 26 June 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

It wouldn't be all that difficult if we are calculating these things anyway. I could just make a new row and subtract the current values from whatever the new values become and apply the calculations to the then-current values less the old values. I've only been doing this to judge the relative merits of a loadout so I doubt the difference will be significant enough to affect my decisioning.

It would be nice if we could filter the data (last 24 hours, last week, last month, since the last patch). Right now all we can do is to copy them to an excel spreadsheet.

[Smoke Dancer]

Playing with weapon numbers id fine so long as it is clear that it is being done to re-balance a weapon. I doubt it is very difficult to edit a number in a file and issue a patch. Perhaps I'm wrong though.....

[TheCrazySteve]

Without getting into any of the arguments above... I'd be happy if they just increased the ammo per ton by 400-500. I really can't bring myself to allot more than a ton of ammo for every 2 machine guns, at that rate they weigh as much as a pair of medium lasers, and take up an extra crit. And lets be honest, with super light mechs, crit space and tonnage used for heat sinks isn't an issue because you are probably running the minimum ten anyways. With 2 machine guns per ton of ammo, I am lucky to finish the match having fired a machine gun shot in the second half of the match. I even run out of ammo when I lose half of my machine guns. Yeah, someone might say, well bring more ammo, but to be honest it is not worth paying 1.5 tons and 2 slots per machine gun, they just aren't good enough to invest that heavily into.

Edited by TheCrazySteve, 27 June 2013 - 07:26 AM.

[ICEFANG13]

TheCrazySteve, on 27 June 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Without getting into any of the arguments above... I'd be happy if they just increased the ammo per ton by 400-500. I really can't bring myself to allot more than a ton of ammo for every 2 machine guns, at that rate they weigh as much as a pair of medium lasers, and take up an extra crit. And lets be honest, with super light mechs, crit space and tonnage used for heat sinks isn't an issue because you are probably running the minimum ten anyways. With 2 machine guns per ton of ammo, I am lucky to finish the match having fired a machine gun shot in the second half of the match. I even run out of ammo when I lose half of my machine guns. Yeah, someone might say, well bring more ammo, but to be honest it is not worth paying 1.5 tons and 2 slots per machine gun, they just aren't good enough to invest that heavily into.

A ton of ammo has 200 damage potential, its true that the MG has spread and is still weak because of it, but it would be better to make the MG work better. All other ammo has a lower amount (150 damage, cept A/C-20 which is 140).

[Shadelen]

I would like to see MG go to straight damage with no crit if it gives them a up in damage! It would also make them more useful all around.