1386 replies to this topic

[Prezimonto]

What about doing something like this:

MG's fire lots of small AP rounds... the metal plates on a mech probably aren't uniform (or they wouldn't be able to move and probably wouldn't have the fancy geometries they do. An MG does listed damage like normal, but bypasses armor when it crits. Then adjust the crit rates to something sustainable.

So while you'll never kill a mech with an MG you might be able to kill components without stripping armor.

[Esplodin]

Terror Teddy, on 17 April 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

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.

Directly conflicts with

Terror Teddy, on 17 April 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

The weapon would would also be in line with light lasers and function as a light mech self defense weapon

The weapon needs to be useful. A 1 DPS cone of fire weapon is not useful for anything.

[FireSlade]

The sad part is MWO is still in Beta testing. The developers invited us with the Open Beta. I don't see very much testing going on in terms of getting things dialed in. What I do see is them trying to get the game engine to run right and look flashy so that they can release a game, that won't really be ready by their schedule, so that they can make money. Honestly with 26+ pages in the forums you'd think that they would look into it to try to balance things. In Tribes 1 when we modified the game to create custom mods all weapon values, names, paths to skins, etc. were kept within a single script that the server would check to determine everything that was needed for the player to interact with it. I know something very similar is used in MWO since it would be really stupid not to use it. It would be very easy for the Devs to say "Hey we're going to try something for a few days/week and we would like your feedback." All they would need to do is change a few values, restart the servers and then we could try the MG with new values to see if it would make sense in game if not on paper; no glitches to introduce, no risks other than maybe getting an OP weapon that people would abuse, at which point the Devs could dial it back or restore the original values. This would make a lot of people happy since "Hey we at least tried", and all very easy to do; they even proved that they could do it with the emergency missile patch when they found out that splash damage was broken and they changed the damage values of the missiles. I bet that didn't take them more that a few hours to plan, do the math, and implement. I'm not sure about the other Beta Testers/Players on here but I would be happy with seeing a change made to the damage of between 0.08 - 0.1 per round = 0.8 - 1 DPS; add 0.08 Heat (or what ever would work for a balanced weapon); and change the ammo per ton value to 1000 rounds (0.8DPS) or 800 rounds (1.0DPS); and maybe a faster velocity to help with aiming. If the Devs ever see this why can't we give this a try for a week and see what happens? Won't hurt and they won't lose players over a weeks time; Heck they may get some back. They are supposedly doing it with the ELO system so what is the difference?

[Maxx Blue]

At this point, if they don't want to change MG's well OK. Fine. In that case, they need to add a ballistic weapon between the 6-ton/4-DPS AC2 and the 0.5ton/0.4-DPS MG. FFS, my AMS does more damage than an MG! Ballistic-heavy lights are the ones who are getting screwed by this. I don't really care if my Cat looses out on some DPS because the two stock MG's are uselesss, but what the hell are you supposed to do with an SDR-5K or an RVN-4X? At least on the Raven you can load up two heavy energy weapons, but the spider only has ONE non-ballistic hardpoint so what the heck do you do with it? Drop all ballistics and stick a large pulse laser in your CT? Heck, even the CDA-3C is a little gimpy because of the huge gap between MG's and the AC2 and that mech has 40 tons to work with.

So, if the devs don't want to change MG's ok, whatever. In that case, please add Heavy MG's or something like that which do more damage (around 0.25 or 0.5 DPS) with no crit specials and have the normal 150-200 damage per ton of ammo. Weight and range can stay the same and I don't care if you add heat or not, but PLEASE give the light players a choice between the 'can't remove armor' MG's and a more normal light ballistic.

[Esplodin]

FireSlade, on 17 April 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

I'm not sure about the other Beta Testers/Players on here but I would be happy with seeing a change made to the damage of between 0.08 - 0.1 per round = 0.8 - 1 DPS; add 0.08 Heat (or what ever would work for a balanced weapon); and change the ammo per ton value to 1000 rounds (0.8DPS) or 800 rounds (1.0DPS); and maybe a faster velocity to help with aiming.

1) There is no aiming for a cone of fire weapon. It's all spray and pray.
2) 150 damage per ton of ammo, whatever that works out to be in shots fired I don't care.
3) 0.8 - 1.0 DPS is still a clown weapon. All other ballistics are about 4 DPS, as well as doing damage to one location.
4) That level of heat is irrelevant. See the 6 small laser Jenner.
5) Cooldown is a benefit when heat is added when couples with effective light piloting, which is shoot 'n scoot.

Why is this hard to visualize, when myself and others have posted time accelerated video that show even with 4 DPS a MG is barely useful?

[Nihtgenga]

Next patch, seems to be no change again.

[LackofCertainty]

Esplodin, on 17 April 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

1) There is no aiming for a cone of fire weapon. It's all spray and pray.
2) 150 damage per ton of ammo, whatever that works out to be in shots fired I don't care.
3) 0.8 - 1.0 DPS is still a clown weapon. All other ballistics are about 4 DPS, as well as doing damage to one location.
4) That level of heat is irrelevant. See the 6 small laser Jenner.
5) Cooldown is a benefit when heat is added when couples with effective light piloting, which is shoot 'n scoot.

Why is this hard to visualize, when myself and others have posted time accelerated video that show even with 4 DPS a MG is barely useful?

I agree with 1, 2 and 5 (somewhat) but disagree with 3 and 4.

3.All other ballistics weigh between 6x and 30x as much as an MG. Squeezing in 7 tons for an AC2 is difficult, so it is rewarded with high dps. Finding 1.5 tons to squeeze in a MG is a lot easier. Additionally, 1 ton of AC2 ammo doesn't go far if you start boating (2 AC2's go through a ton in less than 19 seconds of firing) whereas 1 ton of MG ammo can keep a pair of MG's going through most of a match. (100 seconds of continuous firing)

4.Heat is always important, because of opportunity costs. Sure, the heat from 6x small lasers doesn't bother a jenner much, but the heat would definitely be a bother to say... my K2. If I want a close range backup weapon on my K2, a pair of 1.0 dps MG's with 1 ton of ammo would make more sense than a pair of SL's + a heatsink. The extra heatsink dumps .14 heat per second, but the SL's generate 1.34, so I'd overheat much more quickly when using the SL's and my PPC's than I would if I were using the PPC's and MG's.

Esplodin, on 15 April 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

Blah, blah, blah. FFS, look at the GD video where time has increased to a 24 DPS spider( 4DPS would be 16 DPS for the math challenged in a normal 5K, so 24 DPS is 6 MG). Against a STOCK COMMANDO. I couldn't follow through with the whole 6MG Spider vs. an Atlas joke BECAUSE I COULDN'T CARRY ENOUGH AMMO TO PULL IT OFF. 10,000 rounds for that video. Let that sink in. That is how seriously idiotic the weapon is. Yeah, the video is in a lighter vein but even then it is of LIMITED USEFULNESS.

0.8 DPS is a sick joke and not worth a Dev's time to update the XML file. Serously. The only difference is now the MG has been "ballanced" by the dev team and shuffled to the bottom of the pile.

Bad hyperbole troll is troll.

Y'know what? You're right. You are being a bad troll.

Every time I've suggested .8DPS, I've also suggested increased accuracy and range for MG's. I find it funny that you accused me of strawmaning, if you're going to be cherry-picking my suggestions in your replies.

If you time lapse a video to simulate higher dps mgs, then you also have to divide the ammo by the same factor. At 10x speed, sure, you're simulating 4.0DPS MG's, but that 10k ammo you burned through becomes 1k, or just half a ton of ammo. Not sure if you were intentionally trying to mislead with that, or if it just slipped you mind. (unless your suggestion is to buff rate of fire for MG's, but that'd be silly since the game can't even handle the 10 round/second mg's we have now)

The devs often make several tweaks in a row to a weapon after a major balance change, so they could easily tweak it up if it wasn't enough. That's kinda how balance works. Devs try something, we try it out so the devs get our feedback/game stats, then the devs tweak again. LRM's, for example, have had their damage values tweaked numerous times since CB. I expect .8 dps to be a little on the light side, but I'd rather them slowly tweak a weapon to perfection rather than do ridiculous buffs that break the game until they're hotfixed out.

I think I'm done feeding you, Esplodin. Go find someone else to troll.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 17 April 2013 - 03:55 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.

As promised. I played my 4mg spider tonight. I feel I must disagree with the assessment that no amount of buffing will make it useful. I did get routinely pwned, but that stopped after I put useful weapons onboard. About four or 4 games in I got shot to pieces due to the following:

1a) 2 fewer jumpjets than the 5d, made dodging fire significantly more difficult.
1b) Can't use poptart rush (run at someone, use JJ's top go completely over them, use that time to get a good shot.... that extra 12m makes a huge difference)
2) no ecm. everything that can't touch my 5d with streaks ripped my 5k a new one.
3) must stay twice as close and circle strafe to be useful in comparison to 5d
4) no meaningful firepower one LL isn't enough to carry a mech. holding it on somebody while ducking HSR autocannons is difficult at best. I had a highlander completely ignore me while I shot him in the back with the MG's and LL. Once his armor was dark orange, he bothered maneuvering a little.


So, above I said I put useful weapons in and stopped getting pwned. The best non-mg build was actually a UAC5, 2 tons of ammo, and 1ML. Gutted the JJ's and armor to make it all fit. I basically had a mini-yenlo. Why was I suddenly not getting pwned despite a jank build?

1) I could do meaningful damage at normal brawling ranges.
2) Because I was packing a weapon people respect, they would actually take cover (therefore stop shooting my teammates for a second) when I opened fire on them with it. The same thing happened when I had a single AC2 until they noticed it was a spider with a single ac2.
3) I could stick and move.

Dear PGI, that's how support fire works.


My thoughts on how to balance the weapon:

Buff effective range to 180m
Remove the cone.
Raise DPS to 2. I know I've been advocating 1, but I can simulate 6mg @ 1dps in another mech and it is insufficient.
Cut ammo to 1000 per ton. (200dmg/ton)



I recognize the meaningful choice people and the decision for SL's or MG's in larger mechs. It's in a K2, it's 2 SL's for a ton and 2 slots vs 2mg's and a ton of ammo for 3 slots and 2 tons. That difference is on par with taking a ASRM4 vs SRM4. Whatever disadvantage MG's get should not be crippling since there is that ton of ammo that can explode.

Assuming it didn't immediately happen every time I pulled the trigger, I'd be okay with something like a jam mechanic like the UAC5. Maybe instead of it being based on RNG, the weapon has an internal heat value that doesn't spread to the rest of the mech, once the weapon gets too hot, it is jammed until it cools and can unjam itself. This idea isn't canon to TT, but so much we are already trying is not.

[HammerSwarm]

Xelah, on 18 April 2013 - 12:58 AM, said:

This idea isn't canon to TT, but so much we are already trying is not.

Canon wasn't a real time first person shooter. Canon involved RNG dice rolls. In canon MG were useful. We can accept a non canon solution that is also useful.

In my readings of this thread responders think:
Damage needs to be buffed somewhere to a number between 1-4 dps.
Cone of fire needs to be removed because it's RNG dependent, removes skill from the equation, causes dps to be lower.
Heat does not need to be 0.
Range/ammo/rate of fire are negotiable if DPS and Cone are fixed.

If your solutions meet that bar I think you won't get flamed too much.

I've come to the conclusion that machine guns need to have a range of 90m effective dropping to 0 damage out to 270. Being 0 heat isn't as important as being low heat and having reasonable DPS..

[RealityCheck]

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

...snip

I like your logic. Also agree with a 0.08 - 0.1 damage per round buff.

Xelah, on 18 April 2013 - 12:58 AM, said:

...snip

Though I don't agree with all the suggestions made in your post, I do like your willingness to compromise on non-canonical (and non-preferable, but I'll live with it) concessions in exchange for a meanful buff. This is exactly the kind of attitude we should have in pitching this idea to the devs. They have a particular idea for the machine gun and each one of us has a different idea in mind.

That being said, the devs can still have their crit-seeking "niche" weapon. You can give it a damage buff, keep the crit-seeking, and adjust the crit-modifiers accordingly. Furthermore, if you absolutely have to have a unique niche weapon, why not look at the FLAMER?!?.

No offense, but how much more "niche" can you get with a weapon that even in BT Canon was VERY niche in the first place?

RealityCheck

[Terror Teddy]

The problem with the "crit seeker niche" would be the equivalent of taking the Small Laser and calling it a TAG laser - because right now that is what they have done with the MG.

It's like someone thought that since:
TAG exists for laser
NARC exist for missile

Then for some reason they think that CRIT-SEEKER need to exist for Ballistics.

[Esplodin]

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

3.All other ballistics weigh between 6x and 30x as much as an MG. Squeezing in 7 tons for an AC2 is difficult, so it is rewarded with high dps. Finding 1.5 tons to squeeze in a MG is a lot easier. Additionally, 1 ton of AC2 ammo doesn't go far if you start boating (2 AC2's go through a ton in less than 19 seconds of firing) whereas 1 ton of MG ammo can keep a pair of MG's going through most of a match. (100 seconds of continuous firing)

So you are advocating a nerf for the small laser (even though it is barely useful) because it does 1/3 the damage of a Large Laser for 1/10th the weight? Nerf for the Med Laser because it does a bit more than half the damage of a large laser at 1/5 the weight? Straight tonnage comparisons are not useful, since the weight per damage curve is exponential.

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

4.Heat is always important, because of opportunity costs. Sure, the heat from 6x small lasers doesn't bother a jenner much, but the heat would definitely be a bother to say... my K2. If I want a close range backup weapon on my K2, a pair of 1.0 dps MG's with 1 ton of ammo would make more sense than a pair of SL's + a heatsink. The extra heatsink dumps .14 heat per second, but the SL's generate 1.34, so I'd overheat much more quickly when using the SL's and my PPC's than I would if I were using the PPC's and MG's.

Ammo vs. heat. Most you can do in my ideal MG is 150 points of damage per ton - just like all the other ballistics. And one SL is effectively heat neutral, since you have 10 free in the engine. Your K2 with no extra heat sinks other than the free 10, DHS, means you are dissipating all the heat the SL generate. Just firing your SL you will never overheat, and as a backup weapon, you'll likely never shoot those until your main ballistics are dry. Even then SL would be the better choice, since you have those lovely ears to soak damage during the 2 seconds of cool down.

In fact, the ONLY time it it would even make sense to swap the SL for MG would be if the time on target for the MG gave you more DPS than time on target for the SL. A 3DPS MG would be just about the break-even point from a purely DPS standpoint. In reality it would have to be higher because of the tonnage for limited ammo and other damage profile negatives.

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

Y'know what? You're right. You are being a bad troll.

I might be bad, but never a troll. It boggles my mind how people just can't comprehend that a 4 MG spider will still be the clown of the MWO circus with a DPS only doubled - even WITH no cone of fire.

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

Every time I've suggested .8DPS, I've also suggested increased accuracy and range for MG's. I find it funny that you accused me of strawmaning, if you're going to be cherry-picking my suggestions in your replies.

It was a strawman. Putting a point of debate up (10DPS machine gun) that is not being argued only to tear it down, even for pointing out "obsurdity" is the very fracking definition of the strawman logical fallacy.

Straw man – an argument based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

If you time lapse a video to simulate higher dps mgs, then you also have to divide the ammo by the same factor. At 10x speed, sure, you're simulating 4.0DPS MG's, but that 10k ammo you burned through becomes 1k, or just half a ton of ammo. Not sure if you were intentionally trying to mislead with that, or if it just slipped you mind. (unless your suggestion is to buff rate of fire for MG's, but that'd be silly since the game can't even handle the 10 round/second mg's we have now)

Ammo counts would have to be adjusted to reflect 150 damage per ton. However that is split in rounds I could care less. I only mentioned it because using my regular stick and move tactics against a stock commando with crap armor it took almost 5 tons of ammo to kill. In reality it would take MORE because the target was not actively trying to avoid getting hit.

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

The devs often make several tweaks in a row to a weapon after a major balance change, so they could easily tweak it up if it wasn't enough. That's kinda how balance works. Devs try something, we try it out so the devs get our feedback/game stats, then the devs tweak again. LRM's, for example, have had their damage values tweaked numerous times since CB. I expect .8 dps to be a little on the light side, but I'd rather them slowly tweak a weapon to perfection rather than do ridiculous buffs that break the game until they're hotfixed out.

What game are you playing? Granted I wasn't part of CB, but I started at the beginning of open beta. There have been a handful of weapon tweaks, and none of them have been revisited except for game breaking bugs. A loltastic 0.8 DPS "buff" will get set and then maybe looked at in a year is not ideal in any sense. Personally I'd like to see more frequent balancing, but I'm also aware of higher priority issues in the current game state.

LackofCertainty, on 17 April 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

I think I'm done feeding you, Esplodin. Go find someone else to troll.

Sorry, but the buff you are recommending is dead wrong about being useful. There are chassis that require a functional, low tonnage, ballistic weapon. 0.8 DPS is demonstrably useless, and the last thing we need is for your version to become reality.

[Writer]

PGI keeps talking about how they don't want to turn the machine gun into a heatless small laser, but I really don't understand their reasoning and thought process towards balance. 2 machine guns are at least 2-3 tons of weight on a mech once you add in ammo. The weight and slots taken should get the player something more substantive, especially when you look at the benefits to carrying small/ medium lasers and extra heat sinks instead. You get better mech synergy with small/ medium lasers and extra heat sinks than you do with machine guns.

There's no trade-off to make Machine guns competitive.

Boost their damage, reduce the amount of ammo per ton, and raise the crit rate back to around the accidental value it had when the buff first launched.

Give them a little teeth and you'll see a bigger debate over "2 Small lasers and 2 heat sinks, 1-2 medium lasers and one heat sink, or 2 machine guns and two tons of ammo."

Edited by Rhenis, 18 April 2013 - 02:04 PM.

[Sable Dove]

How 'crit-seeking' weapons work:
Deal virtually no damage to armour;
Gets lots of crits against internals, meaning they deal even less damage to internal structure than to armour, while not really having much chance to actually destroy anything important in the component;
End up killing the user due to ammo explosion.

Currently, machine guns are a liability; ignoring the tonnage and slots, machine guns aren't even powerful enough to offset the risk presented by their ammunition.

Not even going to bother offering a solution again, as there are dozens of viable solutions here already. pGI could throw darts at a board to pick one, and at least it would be an improvement.

[Esplodin]

Rhenis, on 18 April 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Boost their damage, reduce the amount of ammo per ton, and raise the crit rate back to around the accidental value it had when the buff first launched.

MG do 80 points of damage per ton, and you want to reduce that further?!? 150 Damage per ton. No less. JUST LIKE ALL OTHER BALISTIC WEAPONS. (for the record, the AC20 is a victim of rounding, and UAC5 - well, no idea there other then it being "ultra")

I will never support nerfs for a weapon system where every concievable measure of performance is an extra helping of wtf. The only aspect of the weapon that doesn't need a buff is the sound effect. It is that sad of a noob trap.

[LackofCertainty]

Esplodin, on 18 April 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

...

Ammo vs. heat. Most you can do in my ideal MG is 150 points of damage per ton - just like all the other ballistics. And one SL is effectively heat neutral, since you have 10 free in the engine. Your K2 with no extra heat sinks other than the free 10, DHS, means you are dissipating all the heat the SL generate. Just firing your SL you will never overheat, and as a backup weapon, you'll likely never shoot those until your main ballistics are dry. Even then SL would be the better choice, since you have those lovely ears to soak damage during the 2 seconds of cool down.

...

I guess I didn't clearly state what sort of K2 builds I was comparing, so I'll do that now.

2 PPC + 2 ML + 2 MG's +1 ton of mg ammo + heatsinks to fill (basically the default K2)
2 PPC + 2 ML + 2 SL + 1 DHS in place of the mg ammo + heatsinks to fill (basically the default K2 but SL's instead of MG's)

1. Firing a 2 SL's by themselves will never overheat anyone, however, other weapons generate heat too. The MG loadout would be able to continue firing it's weapons for longer than the SL loadout, because 2 SL's generate significantly more heat than the 1 extra DHS dumps. If you have other weapons that you actively use, heat (even from an SL) is significant, and cannot be ignored. You wouldn't want to throw extra SL's onto a mech that already runs hot, because your heatsinks are already having a hard time keeping up. Similarly, you wouldn't want to throw MG's onto a Mech that run like ice, because the no heat benefit of MG's would be wasted.

2. In the example I'm providing your "main ballistics" will never run dry, because they are PPC's. (Again, this is my fault, because I didn't make it clear what builds I was comparing.) They also generate a lot of heat by themselves, so any additional heat you generate is going to reduce how much you can shoot your PPC's without overheating.

3. Both builds would have advantages and disadvantages. The downside of the MG setup would clearly be that it can't fire forever, and it would have lower Alpha damage. Its advantages would be that it would have a higher maintainable DPS when using all it's weapons, and the MG's would help finish off heavily damaged mechs with their crit bonus. The downside of the SL build would be that it would have more heat problems and lower maintainable DPS when using all its weapons. Its advantage would be slightly better heat dispersal when only firing it's PPC's, and better Alpha damage.

4. Torso twist is a downside for the MG, but not a game breaking one. The downside of the SL is that once you commit to shooting it, you need to hold it on the enemy for the next .75 seconds or you miss out on damage, the advantage you've already covered in that it can get out it's full damage and then look away. The downside of the MG is that it has no cooldown, so any time spent away lowers your DPS, but on the other hand it also means less punishing if you have to twist away at a bad time. You can stop firing instantly so that there's no waste. (whereas a laser shot at a bad time will continue to fire for its full duration and generate its full heat, even if your enemy ducks behind a building right after you clicked)

5. If the other buffs I suggested were implemented, (better accuracy on MG's and ballistic falloff range instead of energy) the MG would also have a range advantage on the SL, which is always useful.


Just to reiterate one point again:

Quote

In fact, the ONLY time it it would even make sense to swap the SL for MG would be if the time on target for the MG gave you more DPS than time on target for the SL. A 3DPS MG would be just about the break-even point from a purely DPS standpoint. In reality it would have to be higher because of the tonnage for limited ammo and other damage profile negatives.

The MG's would allow you to keep firing all your weapons for longer the SL's would. SL's would have an Alpha/burst advantage, yes, but it would fill up it's heat capacity faster, so it wouldn't be able to keep it's main weapons going for as long as the MG build would.

The extra heatsink only dumps .14 heat per second, whereas the SL's generate 1.34 heat per second. Therefore, the SL laser would generate a net of +1.2 heat per second more than the MG build. This means the SL build would overheat faster (which means lower maintainable DPS)

[ICEFANG13]

Small Lasers do not spread damage, and there is 0 disadvantage for having to hold for .75 seconds every 3 seconds over constantly, at all. At 1, I don't think we'd see them that often anyway without other changes too.

[Critical Fumble]

"Higher sustainable DPS" isn't really an advantage, necessarily.

The AC/2 has good on paper DPS, but given the [reasonable] choice, people will generally choose the AC/20 or Gauss Rifle over it. Given the crit slot and tonnage cost difference you could configure a much more long-lasting build using the AC/2; but the AC/2 requires constant exposure and aiming to get that DPS, while the AC/20 and GR give you the option to duck into cover between shots without much damage loss, as well as much higher damage concentration.

[Nexus Omega]

Choo Chooo

Buff MG Damage

[Kmieciu]

LackofCertainty, on 18 April 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

I guess I didn't clearly state what sort of K2 builds I was comparing, so I'll do that now.

2 PPC + 2 ML + 2 MG's +1 ton of mg ammo + heatsinks to fill (basically the default K2)
2 PPC + 2 ML + 2 SL + 1 DHS in place of the mg ammo + heatsinks to fill (basically the default K2 but SL's instead of MG's)

1. Firing a 2 SL's by themselves will never overheat anyone, however, other weapons generate heat too. The MG loadout would be able to continue firing it's weapons for longer than the SL loadout, because 2 SL's generate significantly more heat than the 1 extra DHS dumps. If you have other weapons that you actively use, heat (even from an SL) is significant, and cannot be ignored. You wouldn't want to throw extra SL's onto a mech that already runs hot, because your heatsinks are already having a hard time keeping up. Similarly, you wouldn't want to throw MG's onto a Mech that run like ice, because the no heat benefit of MG's would be wasted.

2 PPC + 2 ML + 2 SL is not a great example, because you only have 4 energy hardpoints total on the K2.
But, speaking theoretically, PPC are so ineffective inside 90 meters (linear damage drop), you should not fire PPCs and small lasers at the same time. So you are firing only 2xML+2xSL. Using 16 DHS (+ elite level cool run) it would take over 17 minutes to overheat your mech. Therefore 2xML+2xSL are heat neutral.

Edited by Kmieciu, 18 April 2013 - 11:32 PM.