1386 replies to this topic

[FireSlade]

Per TT rules the machine gun does 2 damage every round and has 200 ammo PGI took this and change the ammo to 2000 rounds (10 x more) and reduced the damage by 5 times, (considering that damage per turn equals damage per second). At 10 rounds a second PGI (probably) figured 200 rounds would only last 20 seconds so they buffed the ammo count and nerfed the damage, to balance it out. They (probably) figured by increasing the ammo by 10 times and reducing the damage by only half the buff that they were actually buffing the weapon and on top of this the crit system would further increase the buff. All good ideas to keep a weapon that wouldn't be great against armor (since its a anti infantry/power armor weapon and we'll never see those so it became a mech damaging weapon) and take out internals. Problem is two fold the Players/Beta testers want a weapon that's light and can deal decent dps (which is fine but then makes it viable against armor which PGI doesn't want) the other being that the crit system is flawed. Ammo and weapons/equipment are all that has crits to damage but they have relatively high hp to defend against the more powerful weapons, that do much more damage, so that they aren't destroyed in 1 random hit. What makes more sense to us is use the stronger weapons that are easier to aim and destroy the mech quicker than qimping it with support weapons. Now if the machine guns actually hurt and gave the enemy negative side effects it would bring it into line as a support weapon like the flamer. Before anyone jumps on the flamers suck bandwagon they are not meant to be a dps weapon only a support weapon used to make the enemy pilots life miserable (namely keep him/her overheating so that a: they shutdown or b: can't use their powerful weapons against you). And those that use the small laser argument to push the machine guns need more dps; how does a support weapon compare to a half ton energy weapon whose purpose is to add to the overall dps with a low impact to heat, weight, and slots on a mech that doesn't have much room, weight, and heat capacity to spare? Hopefully this gets enough posts/views that the devs decide "Ok we need to take another look at the machine gun and figure out how to make them worth using." so that when we decide is it worth taking up 1.5 tons, we'll actually have a choice that is worth making.

[Prezimonto]

General Taskeen, on 16 April 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

As it as already been explained. They will never make it possible for an Engine to suddenly die and be destroyed by "chance" by crits if its internal damage health is already high. Do you know how frustrating that would be for someone to roll a virtual dice, 2D6, and suddenly you're dead in a Mech Warrior game? Whoops too bad, because rolling dice.

Explained by the Devs? I missed that one... link?
That's why I suggest adding in the engine heatsinks to be destroyed right along side the engine, it would greatly decrease the chance of critical hits blowing an engine up. Also, that's what a critical hit SHOULD do.... kill a mech or destroy its usefulness. Pilots would quickly learn to cherish and protect that center torso as soon as the armor is gone.

[stjobe]

Anti-infantry crit-seeking weapon?



Anti-infantry crit-seeking weapon?



Anti-infantry crit-seeking weapon?

Edited by stjobe, 16 April 2013 - 09:52 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

I wonder, considering some cries about PPCs and Gauss Rifle Snipers/PopTarts/JumpSnipers, would anyone think that lowering their crit chance by 50 % and lowering their crit damage by 90 % would be a meaningful "nerf"?

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 16 April 2013 - 10:24 PM.

[Deathlike]

MustrumRidcully, on 16 April 2013 - 10:23 PM, said:

I wonder, considering some cries about PPCs and Gauss Rifle Snipers/PopTarts/JumpSnipers, would anyone think that lowering their crit chance by 50 % and lowering their crit damage by 90 % would be a meaningful "nerf"?

All it would do is make the weapons less likely to fall off, which is the situation with the HBK-4P vs MGs until the side torso is totally gone...

Edited by Deathlike, 16 April 2013 - 10:31 PM.

[Kmieciu]

Having played 3 hours yesterday using 2xAC20 Jagermech I can safely say that no amount of Machine gun buffing will ever help the Spider-K. I was able to kill that mech in a single salvo to the side torso or the rear torso. I was able to leg it while it was jumping.
If you try to shoot machineguns at my mech, you will be dead in seconds. HSR for ballistics just made all ankle-biters obsolete.

Edited by Kmieciu, 16 April 2013 - 11:18 PM.

[Xelah]

Kmieciu, on 16 April 2013 - 11:18 PM, said:

Having played 3 hours yesterday using 2xAC20 Jagermech I can safely say that no amount of Machine gun buffing will ever help the Spider-K. I was able to kill that mech in a single salvo to the side torso or the rear torso. I was able to leg it while it was jumping.
If you try to shoot machineguns at my mech, you will be dead in seconds. HSR for ballistics just made all ankle-biters obsolete.

That could be bad piloting on the part of the spiders. Prior to HSR for ballistics, I had some bad habits regarding how I attacked AC loaded mechs and would frequently just charge in at 150kph knowing they weren't going to hit me. After getting my face ripped off two games in a row in my 5D by autocannons, I started attacking the same way I go after laser and SRM boats. I have since not been easily killed by anyone... except Streakecm-3L pilots.

[stjobe]

Xelah, on 17 April 2013 - 12:19 AM, said:

That could be bad piloting on the part of the spiders. Prior to HSR for ballistics, I had some bad habits regarding how I attacked AC loaded mechs and would frequently just charge in at 150kph knowing they weren't going to hit me. After getting my face ripped off two games in a row in my 5D by autocannons, I started attacking the same way I go after laser and SRM boats. I have since not been easily killed by anyone... except Streakecm-3L pilots.

The trick to attacking ballistic 'mechs is the same as with any 'mech really: Know the cooldown time of their weapons. Jink and ride your throttle to throw off their aim when they're about to shoot - after the shot, you have lots of time to line up your own shot.

Just don't get caught travelling in a nice predictable path when their guns are off cooldown and you're good.

[Kmieciu]

My point is... it only takes one unlucky 2xAC20 salvo to destroy a Spider.
Without HSR the closer you were, the harder it was to score a hit, because I had to compensate for firing delay.
Now, when a Spider is inside the 90 meters range, I don't even have to lead him since the travel time from the muzzle to his side torso is exactly 0.1 second (AC20 Speed: 900 meters/sec - range: 90 meters). It's just BOOM! Dead mech.

I'm talking about machinegun Spiders, not the ERPPC 800-meter sniper Spiders.

Edited by Kmieciu, 17 April 2013 - 01:11 AM.

[Xelah]

Kmieciu, on 17 April 2013 - 01:11 AM, said:

My point is... it only takes one unlucky 2xAC20 salvo to destroy a Spider.
Without HSR the closer you were, the harder it was to score a hit, because I had to compensate for firing delay.
Now, when a Spider is inside the 90 meters range, I don't even have to lead him since the travel time from the muzzle to his side torso is exactly 0.1 second (AC20 Speed: 900 meters/sec - range: 90 meters). It's just BOOM! Dead mech.

I'm talking about machinegun Spiders, not the ERPPC 800-meter sniper Spiders.

Yeah, I can't speak for the 800-meter sniper spider or the 4mg spiders, but I can speak for the 180m 2MPL/1ML brawler spiders. Stick and move. Don't do anything that will let the other guy line up his crosshairs on you. I was wrecking shop on a erppc cat about 10 minutes ago. would have won if the raven hadn't shown up. Schooled a 4AC2 jag the match before that. Overall, I have to say that I am glad we have the HSR for ballistics. I'm being a better pilot and not getting careless when I see a certain mech build popup in my hud. I must confess that I was pretty surprised the first time I took gauss fire to any part of my torso earlier though.


As for the 4mg spider, I'll play mine tomorrow night.

stjobe, on 17 April 2013 - 12:27 AM, said:

The trick to attacking ballistic 'mechs is the same as with any 'mech really: Know the cooldown time of their weapons. Jink and ride your throttle to throw off their aim when they're about to shoot - after the shot, you have lots of time to line up your own shot.

Just don't get caught travelling in a nice predictable path when their guns are off cooldown and you're good.

Yeah, that's generally how I attack laserboats. The smart ones set to chainfire.

[stjobe]

Xelah, on 17 April 2013 - 01:29 AM, said:

The smart ones set to chainfire.

I hate the smart ones

[Galathon Redd]

My, how things have changed in a month. I got introduced to APB: Reloaded two months ago and haven't looked back; today was the first time I've opened MWO in a month, and only the third time I've played in the last two.

I used to be one of the biggest champions on this forum. "Give them a chance," I'd say. "It's just a beta," I'd say. But now, in hindsight, I don't miss MWO, despite how much I loved it.

Issues like this one show how little care is given to making this game stand out. I now understand all those people I once called "QQers". Our voices are swept under the rug; we say, "Hey, your machineguns are junk, fix." They say, "Naw, we like that they're useless wastes of tonnage." We say, "ECM is OP, non-canon, and un-fun." They say, "We don't really care. We'll give it a few nerfs that won't really hurt it; four months later, we might under-nerf it again, but we won't take it back." We say all kinds of things trying to do our jobs as beta-testers; they just sit there, smiling through their teeth, make inflammatory attacks on us (like the one back when they were discussing the plan for consumables; after we told them how bad the idea was, they gave us those "cute" cartoons depicting us as a caricature called "Mr. P2W" like WE were the clueless a$$holes. Oh, I've learned not to miss the way we get treated, and I've learned not to miss the way my beloved Battletech is getting treated here as well.

I'll keep checking in every few weeks or months. Maybe. With luck, eventually I'll see a well-balanced game shaping up, with bugs that actually get addressed in less than two months' time, a community that gets treated with respect (not that it isn't a two-way street, mind you), an engine that doesn't blow chunks, bugs not appearing in every other match, not calling it beta despite being willing to charge my credit card, apologies for stealing our build ideas and calling them Champion Mechs to earn a quick buck, and, Heaven forbid, machine guns that are actually worth the weight and hardpoints they take up, that do what my favorite TT weapon is effin' supposed to - STRIP ARMOR OFF OF MECHS, as the original BT manuals said.

I just don't really miss MWO. And from the looks of what "hot topics" I've been missing in the past few months, I certainly can't start now. This ***** just keeps getting worse and worse.

[stjobe]

What is the MG in BattleTech?

It's basically a severely range-limited AC/2, with the low range being balanced by low weight and having no heat. It's not a crit-seeker, it's not incapable of damaging armour, it's just a low-weight, low-range, low-damage, no-heat ballistic weapon.

So, as a thought experiment, let's restrict the weight, range, and heat of the AC/2 to create that in MWO:

Weight: 0.5
Damage: 2
Cooldown: 0.5 (RoF: 2)
Heat: 0
Range: 90m
Ammo: 75

This is an MWO AC/2 with its weight, range, and heat set to that of the MWO MG. Now this would be a truly fearsome weapon inside 90m; 4 DPS per MG. Four of them would be 16 DPS; six of them 24 DPS. That would really have the devastating effects to the back of an Atlas the devs were talking about, so let's fiddle with the numbers a bit:


Weight: 0.5
Damage: 1
Cooldown: 0.5 (RoF: 2)
Heat: 0
Range: 90m
Ammo: 150

Now that's basically an AC/1. 2 DPS per MG, 8 DPS/4MG, and 12DPS/6MG. Sounds good? Let's fiddle a bit more:


Weight: 0.5
Damage: 0.2
Cooldown: 0.1 (RoF: 10)
Heat: 0
Range: 90m
Ammo: 750

With the increased RoF, that's more "machine-gun"-like, but the damage is still 2 DPS. This RoF-increase also introduces another balancing factor: Continuous fire. Basically, like the current implementation of the MG, you'll have to hold it on-target 100% of the time to get those 2 DPS. Each projectile that misses drops the DPS by 0.2, and in practice you're not going to get more than about 50% of your on-paper DPS.


Weight: 0.5
Damage: 0.1
Cooldown: 0.1 (RoF: 10)
Heat: 0
Range: 90m
Ammo: 1500

We're almost done here. This is a 1 DPS MG that's severely range-limited, has continuous-fire issues, and is ammo-limited. One final step, let's nerf the damage:


Weight: 0.5
Damage: 0.04
Cooldown: 0.1 (RoF: 10)
Heat: 0
Range: 90m
Ammo: 2000

This is our current MG. 0.4 DPS, 80 damage/ton ammo, continuous-fire issues, ammo-limited, and no real use to anyone. Add some RNG spread and we've completely destroyed what was a useful weapon.

As you can see, there's ways of tweaking the MG that would make it more useful; my months-old suggestion still stands - just triple the per-projectile damage (from 0.04 to 0.12) and we're just about at the second to last of the MGs above.

[Kmieciu]

The most interesting thing about TT machinegun is that a single tonne of ammo lasted for 200 turns, while in comparison 1 tonne of AC20 ammo lasted for 5 tuns.

TT:
MG: 400 points of damage per tonne of ammo vs AC20: 100 points of damage pre tonne of ammo

MWO:
MG: 80 points of damage per tonne of ammo vs AC20: 140 points of damage pre tonne of ammo

With 0.04 damage per shot we should get at least 400/0.08 = 10 000 rounds per tonne.
I feel that something was lost in translation...

Edited by Kmieciu, 17 April 2013 - 04:25 AM.

[stjobe]

Kmieciu, on 17 April 2013 - 04:25 AM, said:

I feel that something was lost in translation...

Not something; everything.

I've listed all the ways the MG was treated differently (read: worse) than any other weapon in the transition from BT to MWO in a number of places, so I'll not do it again. Suffice it to say that it got a very severe treatment, the short end of the stick every time, and in fact I'm starting to believe someone at PGI has got something against it to mistreat it on every single point like they've done.

[Kmieciu]

In order for the machine guns to reach the table top damage potential, while maintaining the current 2000 shots per tonne, they would have to deal 0.2 damage per round. 2 DPS with the current ROF of 10 shots per second.

400 damage per tonne is a mixed blessing. It means that an ammo explosion has the potential to blow up an Atlas .

PS. How many tonnes can a Flea spare for ammo?

Edited by Kmieciu, 17 April 2013 - 05:06 AM.

[stjobe]

Kmieciu, on 17 April 2013 - 04:54 AM, said:

PS. How many tonnes can a Flea spare for ammo?

With max armour, XL170, Endo-steel, and 5 MLs: 0.69 tons.

[Esplodin]

stjobe, on 17 April 2013 - 12:27 AM, said:

Know the cooldown time of their weapons

I've got a mental timer for my JJ. They shoot, 3 count, jump. You can can survive in the middle of a whole team far longer than an atlas if you time it right. Oh the friendly fire I've caused.

Xelah, on 17 April 2013 - 01:29 AM, said:

Yeah, that's generally how I attack laserboats. The smart ones set to chainfire.

Shhhhh! All alpha, all the time!

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

So... It's not 200 rounds actually, but 200*(number of bullets fired during one turn)=shitload of ammo per ton.

And I tend to agree with stjobe. I think some of the devs have been playing previous MechWarrior games and one of them said to the others: "WE are making new MechWarrior game, so let's make it the way WE want. I'm always getting cored from behind in my Atlas when that sneaky light mech with machine guns gets close. I don't have time to check what is going on behind me, I'm piloting an Atlas FFS, they should be to scared to come that close! Hey, let's just make MGs basically worthless so I don't have to worry about that fearsome 6MG Spiders!" And then some other guy says: "Well, they keep killing me with missiles, so why don't we make something that won't let them lock on us? Something like Guardian ECM, but more powerfull!". And then everyone says: "Yay! Let's force everyone to play the way WE enjoy!"

[Terror Teddy]

Kmieciu, on 17 April 2013 - 04:54 AM, said:

400 damage per tonne is a mixed blessing. It means that an ammo explosion has the potential to blow up an Atlas .

Well, in combat we would have the problem with bullets spreading all over an enemy chassis since neither will stand still. Still, 400 is too much and keeping it in line with damage per tonne of other ballistics at about 125-150 is far better,

This would work
0,25 damage
0,25 cycle [4 shots instead of 10]
600 ammo
4 possible crits per second instead of 10
1 DPS damage
150 seconds to deliver damage per tonne instead of 200 seconds

So we get -60% critical chances with a +150% damage boost. The weapon would still keep it's spread so it's potential 150 damage per tonne would not do that much damage in reality unless the enemy stands still and ignores you.

The weapon would would also be in line with light lasers and function as a light mech self defense weapon but would still be the slowest ballistic weapon to deliver damage AND bullet speed.

Edited by Terror Teddy, 17 April 2013 - 06:55 AM.