1386 replies to this topic

[shintakie]

Bishop Steiner, on 30 June 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

But then, at least the Lights that (and low end mediums) will have a viable weapon for ballistic hardpoints, so people on here quit crying for a useful non-canon light ballistic.

It's asinine, when that weapon already exists in canon and is just being ignored and or tweaked in all the wrong places.

A lot of us jumped on the noncanon light ballistic bandwagon because PGI originally seemed dead set on the idea that the MG should only be good for crits, which very obviously left any light mech (and cicada) with a ballistic slot fairly hosed.

It was basically a compromise to try and give light ballistic mechs some actual use. Luckily PGI has backed off the idea of the MG bein 100% useless and the need for non canon light ballistic weapons has gone with it.

[Bishop Steiner]

shintakie, on 30 June 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

A lot of us jumped on the noncanon light ballistic bandwagon because PGI originally seemed dead set on the idea that the MG should only be good for crits, which very obviously left any light mech (and cicada) with a ballistic slot fairly hosed.

It was basically a compromise to try and give light ballistic mechs some actual use. Luckily PGI has backed off the idea of the MG bein 100% useless and the need for non canon light ballistic weapons has gone with it.

well, almost.

But I suppose my point would be that having all the energy spent on the actual needed fix would have been more productive (though slow like molasses, thanks PGI) than the dozens of "gimme mah light AC or AC/1!!!!! posts.

[Lord of All]

stjobe, on 30 June 2013 - 08:39 AM, said:

I'm not the one trying to rewrite history here....

Bishop Steiner, on 30 June 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

I played in Battletech Tournaments at conventions all around California for over a decade, ..

You guys keep pointing out clan tech. I am speaking of before clans. I played tt tournaments around the country in the late 80's and early 90's and quit when clans ruined the game.

There is no clan tech yet. If and when Clan tech is introduced this game will be so broken no-one will play it anymore. It can't even be balanced now!

Edited by Lord of All, 01 July 2013 - 06:57 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Clan tech machine gun has same stats as the inner sphere one. It simply weighs half as much. And I hate been playing since 1987, and almost always play pre-Clan invasion by choice. A Locust, or a Stinger or Firestarter, with dual machine guns, very much used those against other Light Mechs and Vehicle. Many lights only had about 4-6 pts of armor on the limbs. So 2 MG could strip the armor completely from that limb.

At close range, combining those MGs with my Small Lasers on my Warhammer, when dealing with lights, particularly when my PPCs needed a cool off. MG were never meant for front line, primary combat, but are very useful still.

[stjobe]

Lord of All, on 01 July 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

You guys keep pointing out clan tech

I'm not talking about Clan MGs. They're cheese, like all things Clan-related. I'm talking about IS MGs. Mounted on such 'mechs as the Locust, Stinger, Thunderbolt, or Battlemaster.

For the Locust or Stinger, those MGs were potent weapons, primarily against other lights. For the Thunderbolt and Battlemaster, they were potent weapons against lights, and heat-less crit-chances against non-lights.

FYI, I am as much an opponent of the Clan cheese as anyone. My preferred BattleTech is TRO:3025 and no freaking Clans.

Edit: And I see Bishop Steiner beat me to it. Nice to see we agree

Edited by stjobe, 01 July 2013 - 07:42 AM.

[Lord of All]

Bishop Steiner, on 01 July 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

Clan tech machine gun has same stats as the inner sphere one. It simply weighs half as much. And I hate been playing since 1987, and almost always play pre-Clan invasion by choice. A Locust, or a Stinger or Firestarter, with dual machine guns, very much used those against other Light Mechs and Vehicle. Many lights only had about 4-6 pts of armor on the limbs. So 2 MG could strip the armor completely from that limb.

At close range, combining those MGs with my Small Lasers on my Warhammer, when dealing with lights, particularly when my PPCs needed a cool off. MG were never meant for front line, primary combat, but are very useful still.

My point exactly.

stjobe, on 01 July 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I'm not talking about Clan MGs. They're cheese, like all things Clan-related. I'm talking about IS MGs. Mounted on such 'mechs as the Locust, Stinger, Thunderbolt, or Battlemaster.

For the Locust or Stinger, those MGs were potent weapons, primarily against other lights. For the Thunderbolt and Battlemaster, they were potent weapons against lights, and heat-less crit-chances against non-lights.

FYI, I am as much an opponent of the Clan cheese as anyone. My preferred BattleTech is TRO:3025 and no freaking Clans.

Edit: And I see Bishop Steiner beat me to it. Nice to see we agree

I'm glad we all see clan tech in the same light, AFA Mg on mechs like Battlemaster, Really? you thought they were viable? I would have taught you the error of carrying that ammo around pretty quick in a tourney.

[Bishop Steiner]

Lord of All, on 01 July 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

My point exactly.

except you missed the first half of the post, and the final part of the sentence. Cherry picking things means you don't have an answer. They are not going to be a credible threat by themselves to an Assault Mech. THEY ARE A CREDIBLE THREAT TO LIGHT MECHS. Yet they do less than HALF the damage they should do, before one counts the DOUBLED ARMOR of MWO.




I'm glad we all see clan tech in the same light, AFA Mg on mechs like Battlemaster, Really? you thought they were viable? I would have taught you the error of carrying that ammo around pretty quick in a tourney.

Talk is cheap. And the MG ammo is any bigger an issue than the SRM ammo (yes the MG did more damage, but 1 ton of almost any ammo will gut most mechs)? Or did you just remove ALL non energy weapons from your mechs?

And again, there are better uses for a pure Assault mech to use 2 tons. Of course, in competitive TT tourneys, you also had Infantry to deal with, hence many units still carrying them for that. But you fail to address their viability and usefulness amongst Light Mechs. I wonder why?

[Lord of All]

Bishop Steiner, on 01 July 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

except you missed the first half of the post, and the final part of the sentence. Cherry picking things means you don't have an answer. They are not going to be a credible threat by themselves to an Assault Mech. THEY ARE A CREDIBLE THREAT TO LIGHT MECHS. Yet they do less than HALF the damage they should do, before one counts the DOUBLED ARMOR of MWO.

No light with half a brain would EVER get within Mg range of a battlemaster.

Quote

Talk is cheap. And the MG ammo is any bigger an issue than the SRM ammo (yes the MG did more damage, but 1 ton of almost any ammo will gut most mechs)? Or did you just remove ALL non energy weapons from your mechs?

And again, there are better uses for a pure Assault mech to use 2 tons. Of course, in competitive TT tourneys, you also had Infantry to deal with, hence many units still carrying them for that. But you fail to address their viability and usefulness amongst Light Mechs. I wonder why?

Mg ammo stayed around a hell of alot longer than SRM. Tourney's I was in never used infantry. AFA the rest well I'm calling it the way I played it and won that way so you can play it anyway you want. AFA boating in TT, yes in custom battles I had a 80 (or 85 can remember anymore) tonner that did 200+ strike running 4/6 but all tourneys I did were with stock variants. Ahh the good old days Of crushing awesomes with battlemasters. Lol As a matter of fact just about all my custom lances were filled with boats.

I'm not going to keep beating a dead horse. We have fundamental differences of opinion. That is what makes these games worth playing. I can't believe I keep wasting my time in this thread, I must be a *********.

[Bishop Steiner]

Lord of All, on 01 July 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

No light with half a brain would EVER get within Mg range of a battlemaster.

one doesn't always have a choice. Also, it does nothing to invalidate the Light v Light aspect of MGs, or even the fact that en masse, they could be used by lights to harass and even hurt the Big Boys.

Regardless, this point has been beaten like a baby seal for how many pages now? Oy vey.

[Amsro]

Until I can run a light mech (any ballistic light) with machine guns only and have at least a chance against other lights then they are broken.

No other form of debate can argue this point.

Every EVERY other light weapon can be boated and used effectively on lights.. (Streaks, MPlas, Mlas, Slas, SPlas, SRM4) why not machine guns?

4 MG Locust wants answers!!

[Bishop Steiner]

Amsro, on 01 July 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Until I can run a light mech (any ballistic light) with machine guns only and have at least a chance against other lights then they are broken.

No other form of debate can argue this point.

Every EVERY other light weapon can be boated and used effectively on lights.. (Streaks, MPlas, Mlas, Slas, SPlas, SRM4) why not machine guns?

4 MG Locust wants answers!!

Flamers. Pretty flaming useless, ATM, also.

[SixBottles]

jesus guys... please stop arguing with stuff and facts from the TABLETOP-GAME.

if u didnt noticed this is mechwarrior ONLINE.

i understand that u want some canon in here, and ultimatly this game should be BASED on the tabletop. but it doesnt mean that every frikkin single aspect should be ported 1:1 into a REALTIME ONLINE SHOOTER.

[Kmieciu]

Right now the machineguns only need a reduction in spread (from 1.5 to about 0.5), and a fix for the ROF bug.

[stjobe]

SixBottles, on 02 July 2013 - 01:15 AM, said:

jesus guys... please stop arguing with stuff and facts from the TABLETOP-GAME.

if u didnt noticed this is mechwarrior ONLINE.

i understand that u want some canon in here, and ultimatly this game should be BASED on the tabletop. but it doesnt mean that every frikkin single aspect should be ported 1:1 into a REALTIME ONLINE SHOOTER.

Nobody's arguing that; we are exactly arguing that based on the depiction of the MG in the BattleTech universe, the MWO MG is broken. Compare it to any other incarnation of the BattleTech universe - be it computer games, novels, tabletop, whatever - nowhere but in MWO is a MG designed to be useless against armour.

Most of us arguing for a better MG are well aware of the fact that you cannot just translate tabletop rules 1:1 to a real-time computer game; what we're trying to achieve is a MG that's worth mounting on a light 'mech; an MG that's worth mounting in less than packs of six. It doesn't have to be true to TT rules - in fact it's pretty certain it cannot be - but it should be *useful*.

We want a light-weight ballistic weapon for our lights; we want a light-weight ballistic for all 'mechs. That light-weight ballistic should by long tradition be the MG - but here, in this game, the devs decided to do something else with the MG, something that hasn't worked out and has even backfired in that it robs every 'mech in the game of a ballistic option under six tons.

We want to change that.

Edited by stjobe, 02 July 2013 - 02:43 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

stjobe, on 02 July 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

Nobody's arguing that; we are exactly arguing that based on the depiction of the MG in the BattleTech universe, the MWO MG is broken. Compare it to any other incarnation of the BattleTech universe - be it computer games, novels, tabletop, whatever - nowhere but in MWO is a MG designed to be useless against armour.

Most of us arguing for a better MG are well aware of the fact that you cannot just translate tabletop rules 1:1 to a real-time computer game; what we're trying to achieve is a MG that's worth mounting on a light 'mech; an MG that's worth mounting in less than packs of six. It doesn't have to be true to TT rules - in fact it's pretty certain it cannot be - but it should be *useful*.

We want a light-weight ballistic weapon for our lights; we want a light-weight ballistic for all 'mechs. That light-weight ballistic should by long tradition be the MG - but here, in this game, the devs decided to do something else with the MG, something that hasn't worked out and has even backfired in that it robs every 'mech in the game of a ballistic option under six tons.

We want to change that.

Here here!!!!

[Kanatta Jing]

The recent changes to the Machine gun are pretty positive. I fully intend to use them on the Thunderbolt and Battlemaster while waiting for my heat to go down.

[Victor Morson]

Machine Guns will never be better until they either massively out-DPS small lasers or front load the damage. I'd take the latter.

If they were a weapon that could fire for a duration but overheat (the gun, not the 'mech), giving them brief 2-3 seconds bursts of a lot of firepower followed by a few seconds of calm, they'd be in far far far better shape.

In this situation it would let you make a pass, hose a target down, and then go evasive to counter their weapons fire.

Basically any weapon that forces you to point straight at a target for prolonged periods of time is at a huge disadvantage and it needs to be considered first when looking at the gun's other capabilities.

[Victor Morson]

stjobe, on 02 July 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

Nobody's arguing that; we are exactly arguing that based on the depiction of the MG in the BattleTech universe, the MWO MG is broken. Compare it to any other incarnation of the BattleTech universe - be it computer games, novels, tabletop, whatever - nowhere but in MWO is a MG designed to be useless against armour.

Except.. it's not. At all. Machine guns are used in the fluff to kill things all the time. Do you know why? Because they are really good weapons in Table Top.

This constant, persistent myth that they aren't is maddening. Their reputation is entirely based one fact: They were used, heavily, as a "nerf gun" in early BattleTech. i.e. something to have ammo that could explode, ruining your otherwise good 'mech. Thus people started dumping MG ammo, considering them trash, and coming up with these group think situations where people declare that it's not good against armor. But really, 1 ton of ammo with only 2 MGs is just doomed to failure right from the start, since there's no way the MGs could ever burn all that ammo (without advance ammo burn rules, and even then..)

Now, granted, this can be a cool take on it - Living Legends opted for this route, reducing their damage even more against 'mechs, but making them obliterate infantry and light armor, as well as be decent anti-air support. That is fine by me! I don't have to have everything like it was in BattleTech.

... but my point is it was NOT like that in BattleTech. MGs could deal ludicrous damage, and in reality you could support a bank of 6 of them off a half ton of ammo without any concern whatsoever.

Did you ever play with an MG boat? They're pretty rare, but they are absolutely devastating. In fact I'd dare say if you had to make any 3025 back stabber and could use any weapons you wanted, it'd be 8 MGs. 4 tons of guns, 1 ton of ammo and it would effectively have the firepower of 8 small lasers with no heat concerns. Do you know how ludicrous of a 'mech killer that'd be? That's a 16 point alpha that you could fit on a freaking Locust, say nothing of a Spider!

So yeah. Let this stupid meme die, right along with LRMs being a "softening up" weapon. Just because the fluff in some TROs state that does not make it remotely linked to anything else in the BattleTech universe. I mean they also state stuff like "A small laser was added to the rear of the 'mech to discourage pursuit." What bloody 'mech is going to be discouraged from a back shot by a small laser?

TRO fluff is just terrible and it's best to take it with a huge grain of salt compared to the actual systems. Again, in the novels, machine guns were used anti-'mech very often so stop bringing that out, too.

Edited by Victor Morson, 04 July 2013 - 12:46 PM.

[stjobe]

Victor Morson, on 04 July 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

[Long post basically agreeing with me]

You sure you quoted the right poster there, Vic?

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm very pro-MG

[Pinselborste]

MGs just Need a redesign so they work like a small AC with 1.4 dps.