1386 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

The whole heat issue is moronic. In the light/medium chassis that can use enough machine guns to be worth even considering, you'd never generate enough heat for it to matter vs. the integral 10 DHS, and no matter how much you buff the dps (within reason obviously) they're not going to matter on larger mechs anyways.

The suggestion that MG's should such because they generate no heat is frankly stupid.

Take the small laser - it generates heat. Does anyone using up to 4 have any heat issues whatsoever? No. Because 10 DHS easily counters it.

As Deathlike noted above, then, you could add heat. It would be irrelevant though just like the lack of heat is irrelevant now.

I'm not saying this because I want machine guns to be OP, but because the whole heat issue is a huge red herring that derails the discussion uselessly, and shows a distressing lack of understanding in how the whole system works.

[Wintersdark]

TOGSolid, on 27 April 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Are you seriously suggesting that a weapon that hits like a small laser and would still require you to bring along ammo that wastes tonnage and space is as horrifying as the current PPC?

Really?

Really?

No, he's not saying that at all.

He's saying that hits like a small laser, requires you carry heavy, spacious, EXPLOSIVE ammo, requires 100%time on target leaving the firing mech extremely vulnerable, and has a huge cone of fire splashing it's pathetic damage everywhere is as dangerous and as powerful (overpowered?) as a PPC.

Pay attention!



(Really, it's almost painful.)

[Utilyan]

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


Look the above is what sarna USED to say, it doesn't say that anymore. A change makes me think theres some wierd crap goin on.

I can picture 2 kids behind the scenes with bias for or against machine guns.

I'm curious if anyone can get the official complete BT book description of MGs. (the stats imply damage, but im talking about a description like the one above......"effective against battlemechs" ect.)


Seriously for someone to go out of the way to add to add or get rid of it in the sarna....lol.
Thats a conspiracy theory right there^


I'm in full support of the designer's vision, I just wished it was shared. If MGs are meant to be a filler that has some useful purpose. I'm good with that. If its meant to be a more direct weapon I'm good with that too.



If the MG is suppose to just being annoying and not a "danger".....might aswell make it effectively annoying.

I'd take PLUS 400-800m to max range over 4x damage.



I don't know what thier vision on this. Like maybe they don't want a dangerous MG which is fine with me.

But for the tonnage effectiveness equated with 1.5 tons. Same tonnage of a bap, a ecm, a streak missle system........ect.

If its a taunt/bark no bite weapon. I think it should have colorful tracers, maybe even costomizable, across the map reach at least in terms of what is SEEN so maybe NOT accross the map damage (although even if it did, prob still worst weapon). The Ballistic-Tag in sense of visuals.


As an all bark no bite weapon it should add to battle-feel. Like when I see mg fire I could be like whats he shooting at? and see tracers in the direction of enemy that might not be targetable .......but now I see them.

I could spot a friendly shooting his mgs at a rock.....so now possibly there is a untargetable enemy behind the rock. Theres little communications you can get from just tracer mgs fire.


Look at pop-tarts for example. They fly up and now imagine bright MG tracers flying around them its a slightly harder shot, its like throwing bit of sand to the face, draws attention to who is shooting the mgs, and denies a "clear" shot.



Let me be clear on my personal bias, I love mgs. I got the dd, 5k, 3c. But i'm in greater support of a Creative Fun MG then I am for a POWERGAMER's competative MG.

I already KNOW that if MGs were "great" in terms of what a POWERGAMER wants, you'd hate this game.

I'm suprised theres not like a test server......cause if you could log in with "buffed" machine guns I'm pretty confident you'd hate it, it would take too much away from the other weapons.

When I first started playing with mgs i'd get about 150 damage a round.

Back in febuary I think, when they released the trebuchet, that was the peak of MGs. I was doing like 250 damage a round with MGs and a Flamer, 3 kills a game in a cicada 3c. It was going through internals like hot knife thru butter. It was really like half a BUFF.......cause it was beating up internals.

And if you had weapons there......It went from red to black in seconds.....just gone....



The next hot patch nerfed it to like 8-20 damage a round LOL


You know some skilless elitist with pull had to QQ that one.

They nerfed the hell out MGs. Its like it got "buffed" to hide the fact they want to nerf it.

I know about MGs, I know I need 3900 bullets to core a atlas, figure it takes 13 minutes if you got 1 mg, Assuming the mg shoots 50 rounds in ten seconds (i think its less).


I think we need to look away from damage increases and buffs. Change course, count it as tried and failed.


Think of something fun and new for machine guns to do.

Edited by Utilyan, 27 April 2013 - 07:43 PM.

[The Mech behind you]

I don't know if anyone already posted a suggestion similar to mine, but this are my 2 C-Bills:

I was thinking about all the stats of the weapons in TT and how they were translated into MWO and that brings me to the point that MGs in MWO are out of sync with all the other weapons. I'll explain why.

I heard a round in TT is like 10 seconds. The average cooldown or cycle rate (laser beam duration + cooldown) in MWO is about 3 or 4 seconds. That's a factor of about 3 compared to TT. Now let's take a look at MGs. MGs do 2 damage in a round (10 sec) in TT. That's 0.2 damage per second. Let's triple that to bring it in line with the average Rate of Fire in MWO. Ending with 0.6 DPS. That's 0.2 DPS more than we have now.

Also MGs get compared a lot to Small Lasers. Both weapons have the same weight and range. In TT a Small Laser is doing 3 Damage / Round. MG's doing 2 Damage / Round. So MG's doing 2/3 of the damage of Small Lasers at the same duration. The cycle rate for a Small Laser in MWO is 3 seconds. 3 damage in 3 seconds. That is 1 damage per second. The MG doing 2/3 of the damage of a Small Laser should do about 0.67 DPS.

As you see the MG damage is out of sync with the other weapons. My suggestion would be to boost the MG damage to 0.7 DPS or 0.07 damage per bullet.

But that means the Ammo / ton needs to be reduced. Let's again take a look on TT numbers. In TT the number of bullets / ton multiplied with the damage / bullet for ACs give a total value of 100 damage per ton. MG's have 200 bullets / ton. Firing 10 bullets / round means a total of 40 damage / ton. That's 40 % of ACs.

In MWO the number of bullets / ton multiplied with the damage / bullet for ACs give a total value of 150 damage (or 140 for AC 20s). 40% of that is 60 damage for a ton of MG ammo. 60 damage / 0.07 damage per bullet = 857 ammo / ton. So the Ammo / ton for a 0.7 dps MG needs to be reduced to 800 or 900 ammo / ton.

TL;DR:
My suggestion for the MGs to bring it in line with the other weapons would be to boost the damage / bullet to 0.07 damage and reduce the ammo / ton to 800.

[Critical Fumble]

Norman Kosh, on 28 April 2013 - 01:26 AM, said:

Spoiler

I don't know if anyone already posted a suggestion similar to mine, but this are my 2 C-Bills:

I was thinking about all the stats of the weapons in TT and how they were translated into MWO and that brings me to the point that MGs in MWO are out of sync with all the other weapons. I'll explain why.

I heard a round in TT is like 10 seconds. The average cooldown or cycle rate (laser beam duration + cooldown) in MWO is about 3 or 4 seconds. That's a factor of about 3 compared to TT. Now let's take a look at MGs. MGs do 2 damage in a round (10 sec) in TT. That's 0.2 damage per second. Let's triple that to bring it in line with the average Rate of Fire in MWO. Ending with 0.6 DPS. That's 0.2 DPS more than we have now.

Also MGs get compared a lot to Small Lasers. Both weapons have the same weight and range. In TT a Small Laser is doing 3 Damage / Round. MG's doing 2 Damage / Round. So MG's doing 2/3 of the damage of Small Lasers at the same duration. The cycle rate for a Small Laser in MWO is 3 seconds. 3 damage in 3 seconds. That is 1 damage per second. The MG doing 2/3 of the damage of a Small Laser should do about 0.67 DPS.

As you see the MG damage is out of sync with the other weapons. My suggestion would be to boost the MG damage to 0.7 DPS or 0.07 damage per bullet.

But that means the Ammo / ton needs to be reduced. Let's again take a look on TT numbers. In TT the number of bullets / ton multiplied with the damage / bullet for ACs give a total value of 100 damage per ton. MG's have 200 bullets / ton. Firing 10 bullets / round means a total of 40 damage / ton. That's 40 % of ACs.

In MWO the number of bullets / ton multiplied with the damage / bullet for ACs give a total value of 150 damage (or 140 for AC 20s). 40% of that is 60 damage for a ton of MG ammo. 60 damage / 0.07 damage per bullet = 857 ammo / ton. So the Ammo / ton for a 0.7 dps MG needs to be reduced to 800 or 900 ammo / ton.

TL;DR:
My suggestion for the MGs to bring it in line with the other weapons would be to boost the damage / bullet to 0.07 damage and reduce the ammo / ton to 800.

First, its nice to see some newcomers actually post some analysis and discussion. I'm going to point out a couple things, some of which we've been over previously.

With the way the MG works (knife fighting range, continuous fire) a DPS that's "fair" with most weapons would be pathetic. It comes down to engagement time and active aiming duration. To reach "max DPS" with a continuous weapon, you must stay engaged and keep your aim over the target at all times. Compare with the SL/ML which only need active aiming about one third of the time, and heavier projectile weapons that only need an instant. Making even DPS between these different weapon classes would result in extremely unfavorable conditions for weapons that need longer engagements and aiming times.

Because of this, making MGs have even 2 DPS wouldn't necessarily have a major influence on the game. The current "hard cap" on MG DPS is six times the DPS of a single MG (a Jagermech). 12 DPS for no heat sounds good, but you also need to be at immediate range and have to have ammo to fire (direct tonnage consumption versus heat which regenerates based on invested tonnage) by the time the Jagermech can do any damage, though, it would have to pass through a hail of fire from every other weapon system, making it incredibly risky to do. A better MG boat would be a 4xMG Spider or Cicada, however they would have to stay exposed to enemy fire, which is suicide in something with so little armor. They would possibly eat solo mechs alive, but that happens now anyway.

You are also badly mistaken about how MGs in TT, or possibly TT in general, works. The listed "ammo per ton" on Sarna is how many instances of firing you can have per ton of ammo. Notice how the APT in the LRM-10 is twice that of the LRM-20. MGs in TT deal 2 damage to one location for one point of ammo, and only fire once per round. It has 400 potential damage per ton. This was a non-issue by most accounts in TT because of the limitations of the weapon (translates to MW:O in the ways I explained in the previous paragraph) and because each MG had to have a to-hit and hit location roll independent of each other (translates to MW:O in the hardpoint limitations).

Short version: MGs are horrible. Trivial buffs would make them less horrible on a trivial level. Being concerned about how a buff that could be toned down with an easy hotfix is ridiculous when the systems are built to make smaller weapons competitive versus large weapons while simultaneously limiting how many of them you can carry.

[Thundercles]

Heh, the machine gun page on Sarna does seem to be the focal point of an editing war... check out the history tab for it.

[Lord of All]

Thundercles, on 28 April 2013 - 03:29 AM, said:

Heh, the machine gun page on Sarna does seem to be the focal point of an editing war... check out the history tab for it.

And here is where it started when IP 96.255.72.183 added ", while still being effective at damaging [[BattleMechs]].".

http://www.sarna.net...95197&diff=prev

[FupDup]

Utilyan, on 27 April 2013 - 07:41 PM, said:

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


Look the above is what sarna USED to say, it doesn't say that anymore. A change makes me think theres some wierd crap goin on.

I can picture 2 kids behind the scenes with bias for or against machine guns.

I'm curious if anyone can get the official complete BT book description of MGs. (the stats imply damage, but im talking about a description like the one above......"effective against battlemechs" ect.)


Seriously for someone to go out of the way to add to add or get rid of it in the sarna....lol.
Thats a conspiracy theory right there^

If you remove the part about battlemechs, the Sarna description is a word-for-word copy-and-paste of the TechManual fluff description. I don't want to post a screencap of it because I got into trouble for the equipment table screencap (a moderator thought it was pirated material).


Regardless, the Inner Sphere Heavy Weapons and Equipment Table on page 341 still shows them as doing 2 damage to standard targets (vehicles, battlemechs, etc.) so that renders the whole description moot. People like to deliberately misread the sentence "quintessential anti-infantry weapon" and fabricate the false conclusion that they aren't good for anything else.

Edited by FupDup, 28 April 2013 - 06:42 AM.

[Wildstreak]

Loler skates, on 26 April 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

I loled +1 to troll post, you made me laugh pretty hard.

Would watch others get trolled again.

I don't do troll posts, you want to fantasize that's on you, I got done with people claiming their fantasies were real back in 1993.

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

It's not an assumption, I was mocking your "you are one of several people who can't seem to grasp how combat machines are built" sentence.

Thanks for clarifying why you should never be listened to again on anything.

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

I'm "ignoring" them because you brought them up as the original distraction. If we went back in time, you would see that my screencapped Inner Sphere Heavy Weapons And Equipment Table was not posted in reply to any specific poster. The post didn't quote anyone. It was a fresh post. You responded directly to it by using Sarna mech descriptions to dodge the fact that I posted that MGs do 2 damage to armored targets.

Again, assumption. Never learned that lesson on assumption did you?

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

... like the anti-MG crowd ...

Politics again, ignored.

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Your argument (paraphrased): "A number of Mech descriptions say that they carry Machine Guns for anti-infantry, therefore Machine Guns are not able to do any significant damage to Battlemechs."

Assumption again. Wow, you really like to fantasize what other people say.

What is actually happening here is this.

What Battletech players including myself know: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry while being able to damage a Mech."

What people like you hear: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry .... (your hearing aid dies due to loss of power)"

What people like you say: "Machine Guns are ....(silent pause).... able to damage a Mech."

Splitting the sentence in half and overemphasizing part of it doesn't make the irrational conclusion right.

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

I'll say it again: The LBX, Jagermech, and Rommel points all use your exact arguments but they replace weapon X and unit Y with different words. That's it. It's your own logic. And you haven't addressed this loophole yet.

No, they ignore the point thus rendering them irrelevent.

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

PS: Here is post from above you that mentions a SOLARIS BATTLEMECH DUELING ARENA battlemech equipped with Machine Guns for knife-fighting range:

As I said, show 1 Mech in game that can run 12 Machine Guns.
Further someone tried the exact same logic posting on the Piranha and I responded to it. Thus this Mech reference doesn't work.
Then there is the part where you cherry picked again as I clarified above. You focus on the MG and ignore the rest of that particular Mech's description including, "The modern R9T2 Juggernaut's main armament is a trio of Sutel Precision Line Large Pulse Lasers ....," along with, "Due to the 'Mech's lack of hand actuators,...."

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Don't standard "pinpoint" weapons just fire in a straight line (with bullet drop factored in at long ranges) instead of a geometric shape like a cylinder?

A bullet when viewed from the front or rear is a cylinder thus while traveling it follows a cylindrical path despite drop due to gravity.

FupDup, on 26 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

A natural instinct of mine. I have a foolish tendency of trying to stand up for what I believe in (...at least on the interwebz, I'm too cowardly to do it IRL) even when the other side isn't fully listening to what is being said.

Not foolish, a lot of people do it including me but you should do it in real life more instead of using the Internet to compensate. That's not mocking or trolling.

TOGSolid, on 26 April 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

picture snipped.

Glad you are signing up for them, when you finish come back and reread posts so you can see where you went wrong.

[TOGSolid]

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

snip

At no point in your entire, meandering, pointless waste of bandwidth did you even attempt to intelligently refute anything anyone has said thus far. You just vainly tried to deflect everything with the long winded version of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming the same things over and over. In reality, all you did was make it appallingly evident that you have no actual true argument and are now resorting to pulling people's posts apart just to claim they're not worth of a response by calling them "politics."

Quote

You can rant about how battle machines are "really" built. You can debate the semantics of the word "quintessential." You can point to fluff that talks about machine guns being used to shoot mans. None of that changes the fact that Machine Guns A.) Do not suffer a penalty to shooting mechs and B.) Do the exact same damage as an AC/2. Nothing else you talk about means a ******** thing in this discussion. If we were playing table top in a tournament environment and I walked up and killed your mech with machine guns, do you really think anyone is going to give a **** that "MACHINE GUNS DON'T WORK THAT WAY, THEY'RE ANTI-INFANTRY ONLY!!!" Nope. They're gonna point at that weapon chart, then look up at you, and laugh.

You STILL haven't addressed this hard fact and until you do it's going to be a simple matter of just regarding everything you're saying as complete, time wasting *********. I'm willing to bet that in your next response you completely dodge it by quoting the first part of this post and calling it "politics" or some other inane crap.

Quote

What Battletech players including myself know: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry while being able to damage a Mech."

Fallacious. I can open my rulebook right now and take a cellphone picture of the page where it shows that MGs do 2 damage to mechs complete with my middle finger letting you know how god awful dumb your statement is.

Edited by TOGSolid, 29 April 2013 - 01:03 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

What Battletech players including myself know: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry while being able to damage a Mech."

Please stop. This is an important thread to game balance, As you have admitted to my replies to your posts that there is a gap between machine guns and the A/C2 that leaves small mechs with ballistics hard points at a disadvantage. You've long established that your feelings are that this is a problem with mech design not weapons design because it's easier to change some other design than to to change the way you perceive machine guns.

Nothing you say will change the opinion of any of the dozen's of proponents of this change because when we read the rules books we see a weapon with a range of three that deals 2 damage against mech armor. This is the same damage dealt by an A/C 2 against mech armor. We believe this to mean that A/C2s and Machine guns should deal the same damage in a given period of time. This would raise the machine gun to 4 dps.

Our other problems are cone of fire and server latency affecting rate of fire artificially pushing down damage per second.

Please stop trolling this important issue and obfuscating the good work people are doing here.

[Thundercles]

Lord of All, on 28 April 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

And here is where it started when IP 96.255.72.183 added ", while still being effective at damaging [[BattleMechs]].".

http://www.sarna.net...95197&diff=prev

Looks like that phrase actually went in a little earlier, with the aim of clarifying that the weapon does, indeed, inflict damage on armor. (According to the editor's notes anyway.) While anyone looking at the stat boxes on Sarna likely already knew that as a foregone conclusion, in the light of arguments like this thread I can understand the desire to make light of the fact.

Regardless of current interpretations (crit seekers), or even personal agendas, the original intent placed the MG on par with the AC2 and *just* behind the small laser in damage output. Against another mech or armored target. The lethality vs soft targets like infantry is above and beyond the basic stats... stacking with them, not overwriting them.

(EDIT: Forgot to add the link with the first appearance that I found for the phrasing - http://www.sarna.net...19&oldid=251369

Please note - just tossing it in for info purposes, not any sort of argumentative purpose. )

Edited by Thundercles, 29 April 2013 - 06:45 AM.

[FupDup]

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Thanks for clarifying why you should never be listened to again on anything.

So says he who claims MG proponents "aren't able to grasp how combat machines are built."

Also, if you really weren't listening, it would be kind of hard for you to keep making replies...

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Again, assumption. Never learned that lesson on assumption did you?

How the heck was that an assumption? I gave a specific and correct timeline on how our current debate came to happen. Here is a screenshot of the original post that you replied to (post #588 of this thread on page 30):

Notice how it didn't quote anybody. It was an independent point and the beginning of our current argument.

Your reply to it was on page 31, post #609:

It contained references to a few MG-equipped mechs. My post made the claim that MGs did 2 damage to Battlemechs. Post #609 didn't refute that in any form. If you did not disagree with MGs in Battletech Tabletop doing 2 damage to mechs, you wouldn't be trying to refute that original post and every subsequent post of mine reinforcing the same point.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Politics again, ignored.

This whole thread is politics. The only difference between us here is that we're on opposite sides. As said above, if you were ignoring me you wouldn't be replying. You'd walk away and leave me to my own devices.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Assumption again. Wow, you really like to fantasize what other people say.

What is actually happening here is this.

What Battletech players including myself know: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry while being able to damage a Mech."

If that's how you truly feel, then why the heck do you keep disagreeing with my posts if that's what I've been saying the entire time? I've been preaching that they do 2 damage to mechs and 2D6 to infantry (the latter was brought up maybe once or twice but I've still said it previously). They're far better against infantry than mechs, but they are still able to inflict some decent pain on robots in Battletech. That's the whole damn point of every pro-MG post I've made.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

What people like you hear: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry .... (your hearing aid dies due to loss of power)"

What people like you say: "Machine Guns are ....(silent pause).... able to damage a Mech."

Splitting the sentence in half and overemphasizing part of it doesn't make the irrational conclusion right.

So first you say in the previous quotebox above that you do think MGs are able to do damage to Battlemechs, then you say it's irrational of me to conclude that MGs are able to damage a mech? Dafuq...

My original post with the weapons table screencap (see above) said "For those special few who still think Battletech MGs are anti-infantry only:" If you didn't believe they were anti-infantry only, there would have been absolutely no reason whatsoever for you to reply to that post. You have positioned yourself into that demographic through your own posting.

PS: I thought about mocking the "people like you" part (just like your "you are one of several people who can't seem to grasp how combat machines are built" thing earlier) but I decided that this sentence alone would do the job just fine.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

No, they ignore the point thus rendering them irrelevent.

No, they don't. All they do is replace the words "MG" and "anti-infantry" with "LBX/Jagermech/Small Laser" and "anti-mech/anti-aircraft/anti-infantry." Same exact line of reasoning. All I'm doing is plugging in different numbers to the logic-equation that you keep using against Machine Guns but don't want to apply to other circumstances of the exact same type.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

As I said, show 1 Mech in game that can run 12 Machine Guns.

Why does that even matter that in-game we can only carry a maximum of 6 MGs (for now)? This whole effin debate has been about how MGs have functioned in Battletech rules, which is not even remotely close to what PGI has done to them.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Further someone tried the exact same logic posting on the Piranha and I responded to it. Thus this Mech reference doesn't work.

The Piranha's description says explicitly "The Piranha's main threat is its twelve Series XII Rotary Machine Guns. These are a serious threat on such a speedy 'Mech to any foe, especially if a Star of Piranhas operate in a pack, and such a large array allows a Piranha to chew through an opponent's rear armor almost instantly."

The sentence directly after the ones above says that Piranhas are the most effective against infantry, but that doesn't contradict or overwrite their considerable anti-mech firepower.

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Then there is the part where you cherry picked again as I clarified above. You focus on the MG and ignore the rest of that particular Mech's description including, "The modern R9T2 Juggernaut's main armament is a trio of Sutel Precision Line Large Pulse Lasers ....," along with, "Due to the 'Mech's lack of hand actuators,...."

That doesn't dispute the point that the Juggernaut's 12 MGs are for knife-fighting. The reason those Large X-Pulse Lasers are the main weapons is because they do more total damage than the MGs (9 x 3 = 27 versus 2 x 12 = 24) and at vastly superior range (15 hexes versus 3 hexes). The lack of hand actuators for melee also doesn't do much to refute the point of MGs doing good damage for their weight.

Melee actually deals relatively low damage, with the strongest melee weapon--the hatchet--dealing 1 damage per 5 tons of weight. This means that the strongest possible melee blow is 20 points of damage, dealt by any 100-ton mech with a hatchet (i.e. an Atlas).

Edited by FupDup, 29 April 2013 - 05:01 PM.

[Lord of All]

Thundercles, on 29 April 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

Looks like that phrase actually went in a little earlier, with the aim of clarifying that the weapon does, indeed, inflict damage on armor. (According to the editor's notes anyway.) While anyone looking at the stat boxes on Sarna likely already knew that as a foregone conclusion, in the light of arguments like this thread I can understand the desire to make light of the fact.

Regardless of current interpretations (crit seekers), or even personal agendas, the original intent placed the MG on par with the AC2 and *just* behind the small laser in damage output. Against another mech or armored target. The lethality vs soft targets like infantry is above and beyond the basic stats... stacking with them, not overwriting them.

(EDIT: Forgot to add the link with the first appearance that I found for the phrasing - http://www.sarna.net...19&oldid=251369

Please note - just tossing it in for info purposes, not any sort of argumentative purpose. )

You are absolutely correct. It was added by Anonymous. My researching skills came up short on that one. Wonder if Anonymous was ip 96.255.72.183.

Revision as of 12:43, 19 April 2012 (edit)
LittleWolf (Talk | contribs)
(No citations in Description, so I rewrote it with cited sources)
← Older edit
Revision as of 09:34, 18 March 2013 (edit) (undo)
Anonymous (Talk)
m (Added the fact that it does damage BattleMechs, as well as Infantry.)
Newer edit → , while still being effective at damaging [[BattleMechs]].

[ICEFANG13]

No one can say that MGs should not deal damage to mechs because they are MGs, and no one can seriously think that they are good weapons. If this bothers you so much, we will rename them to Anti-Mech Small Ballistics (ASB).

[Barghest Whelp]

Merchant, on 28 April 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

I don't do troll posts, you want to fantasize that's on you, I got done with people claiming their fantasies were real back in 1993.


Thanks for clarifying why you should never be listened to again on anything.


Again, assumption. Never learned that lesson on assumption did you?


Politics again, ignored.


Assumption again. Wow, you really like to fantasize what other people say.

What is actually happening here is this.

What Battletech players including myself know: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry while being able to damage a Mech."

What people like you hear: "Machine Guns are treated primarily as Anti-Infantry .... (your hearing aid dies due to loss of power)"

What people like you say: "Machine Guns are ....(silent pause).... able to damage a Mech."

Splitting the sentence in half and overemphasizing part of it doesn't make the irrational conclusion right.


No, they ignore the point thus rendering them irrelevent.


As I said, show 1 Mech in game that can run 12 Machine Guns.
Further someone tried the exact same logic posting on the Piranha and I responded to it. Thus this Mech reference doesn't work.
Then there is the part where you cherry picked again as I clarified above. You focus on the MG and ignore the rest of that particular Mech's description including, "The modern R9T2 Juggernaut's main armament is a trio of Sutel Precision Line Large Pulse Lasers ....," along with, "Due to the 'Mech's lack of hand actuators,...."


A bullet when viewed from the front or rear is a cylinder thus while traveling it follows a cylindrical path despite drop due to gravity.


Not foolish, a lot of people do it including me but you should do it in real life more instead of using the Internet to compensate. That's not mocking or trolling.


Glad you are signing up for them, when you finish come back and reread posts so you can see where you went wrong.

OK, here: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Light_Rifle

That is the only weapon that actually states that it doesn't do any damage to mechs or armoured vehicles. Now please show me where it states something of a similar nature in regards to machine guns.

Just because a weapon is extremely effective at one thing does not mean it can't do damage to other things. A molotov cocktail is extremely effective at killing living things, but less effective against armoured targets. Throw enough of them on a tank however, and it will eventually burst in to a huge ball of fire.

In fact, if you manage to throw it down the hatch, it's suddenly extremely effective at taking down that tank.

[Esplodin]

Lord of All, on 29 April 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

<Wiki editing FTW>

And if we go back to March 2012 the description makes it even clearer before all the fluff is added:

http://www.sarna.net...56&oldid=246014

Side by side comparison with the current version. It amazes me how many people pay attention to the fluff, yet ignore the mechanics box IN YELLOW off to the right. There is no upper bound on stupid.

[Utilyan]

The description I think is most helpful towards whatever vision you got in mind. It would be nice to get a official description from MWO so we got an idea what thier vision is.

Stat-wise TT effectiveness......just 2/3 the small laser right? 2/3 small laser's dps. with the shooting time equivelent of 400 damage. So just as much time it takes a small laser to achieve 600pts of damage is how much firing time 1 ton of ammo should give you.


Even if we went off the description that would appear most biased AGAINST its ability vs Armored Mechs......... It would totally be a greater weapon then the one you got right now. In fact it would be to the Anti-MG crowd's HORROR.

It would have HIGH rate of fire, enough to down entire platoonS in few passes. Its range would be LONG. Point it starts to damage mechs would be along the current ranges, but the actual travel would across the map. You shoot a 50 cal its going 2 miles. (truth is a ww2 era 50 cal is prob more dangerous then the mg we got right now)

Finally......a mech who has lost its armor is not a armored mech. He's swiss cheese. AND the effective range against unarmored is prob around 2 miles not 200m.

So if a mech has lost his CT armor........gots all his internals untouched and perfect........ he's on a peak on alpine waving......... All the way across 3000m away.........MG mech opens fire. Swiss cheese , guy on peak.

Edited by Utilyan, 29 April 2013 - 01:32 PM.

[Lord of All]

ICEFANG13, on 29 April 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

No one can say that MGs should not deal damage to mechs because they are MGs, and no one can seriously think that they are good weapons. If this bothers you so much, we will rename them to Anti-Mech Small Ballistics (ASB).

No one has said MG's should do no damage that is a straw man argument (If you people don't know what straw man and red herrings are take a critical thinking course). The argument that they should not be buffed is that they are not designed for mechs and therefore should do negligible damage as they do now.

Esplodin, on 29 April 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

And if we go back to March 2012 the description makes it even clearer before all the fluff is added: http://www.sarna.net...56&oldid=246014 Side by side comparison with the current version. It amazes me how many people pay attention to the fluff, yet ignore the mechanics box IN YELLOW off to the right. There is no upper bound on stupid.

Not really I quoted the edit that added "while still being effective at damaging [[BattleMechs]]." which is at the core of the argument.

Also I have never edited the wiki so don't accuse me of such.

[FupDup]

Lord of All, on 29 April 2013 - 06:28 PM, said:

The argument is that they should not be buffed is that because they are not designed for to be used against mechs and therefore should do negligible damage as they do now.

They weren't designed to be used against mechs all right...which didn't stop them from doing 2 damage to mechs and other armored units in Tabletop.

PS: I cleaned up the word-choice issues of the post in the quote box because I'm a grammar N@zi.

Lord of All, on 29 April 2013 - 06:28 PM, said:

No one has said MG's should do no damage that is a straw man argument.

The end result of no damage and negligable damage is the same: a practically useless weapon that causes all mechs with ballistic slots to suffer for no good reason if they're low on tonnage and/or crits and want to add in more weapons (this hits lights and some mediums especially hard) and also goes against the Battletech lore which this game is based on.

"No damage" is pretty much just a hyperbole, because it exaggerates the effect of leaving MGs as they are now. The current damage is so low (even against exposed components they suck eggs) that it seems to not exist at all, hence the exaggeration of "no damage." They aren't completely useless, but they're not very far from that point. They're not nearly useful enough to warrant being equipped on anything of any weight class or role unless the player using them is in the steering wheel underhive Elo tier.

Edited by FupDup, 29 April 2013 - 06:54 PM.