1386 replies to this topic

[HammerSwarm]

In the last Ask the Devs Bryan Eckman addressed machine guns twice, this means two things, lots of questions were asked about them, he believes in their current (and I can't put enough quotes around this so I won't try) "function".

Bryan Ekman, on 08 April 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

CCQ 3: Why is Machine Gun damage so low?
A: Partly due to the nature of how MGs work in the TT rules, partially due to how we chose to make it useful. When equipping a MG, keep in mind that it is not meant to burn through armor but is very useful for tearing up internals (crits). Bumping MG damage will turn it into a laser that can be kept on with no heat penalty until it runs out of ammo. Now imagine the devastating effect that a 6 MG spider could do to the back of an Atlas! We are still investigating balance of the MG but don’t expect any significant increase in damage.

Maxx Blue: What is the desired role for machine guns, and do you feel they are currently working as intended? In casual play I'm having a hard time determining if they are hurting the enemy in any meaningful way.
A: They are working as intended. They do not pose a real threat to a fully armored `Mech, however once damage, machine guns are deadly against internal components.

The part I would like to draw attention to is the, "they don't pose a threat to a fully armored mech." So why have them? why invent a weapon that sucks at the primary function of weapons? Is the theoretical battle tech universe so littered with unarmored mechs that this would ever cross the mind of some inventor?

Bryan, some other dev, please! post the numbers you have supporting how useful it is so that we can know...Right now in the field we are telling you that it's just not useful. Range, Cone of Fire, Rate of fire, and Damage are all problems!

Everyone else please flood the next ask the devs with specific questions like:
"What is being done to increase server side issues causing machine guns to fire in the range of 8 bullets per second? this is a full 2 under what you ar calculating when you balance the damage."
"Even counting criticals to internals the measured dps of the average players in the Machine Gun Balance Feedback thread is 1/4th of the small laser. How can you say this is working as intended?"
"Why does the cone of fire mechanic exist? How does this factor into your measurement of damage output and balancing when we can't hit the exposed internals of a mech?"
"Why have ballistic weapons been left with a 0 to 6(7) ton hole while more light ballistics mechs have been added to the game? If we can't win any one on one encounters with other scouts what is the role of the light ballistic mech?"

Use the system my friends, if they're looking for trends flood Ask the Devs 36 with a "trend" of machine gun questions in addition to posting your data, hopes, and experiences here. Long Live the Machine Gun.

[stjobe]

HammerSwarm, on 12 April 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

IEveryone else please flood the next ask the devs with specific questions like:
"What is being done to increase server side issues causing machine guns to fire in the range of 8 bullets per second? this is a full 2 under what you ar calculating when you balance the damage."
"Even counting criticals to internals the measured dps of the average players in the Machine Gun Balance Feedback thread is 1/4th of the small laser. How can you say this is working as intended?"
"Why does the cone of fire mechanic exist? How does this factor into your measurement of damage output and balancing when we can't hit the exposed internals of a mech?"
"Why have ballistic weapons been left with a 0 to 6(7) ton hole while more light ballistics mechs have been added to the game? If we can't win any one on one encounters with other scouts what is the role of the light ballistic mech?"

Use the system my friends, if they're looking for trends flood Ask the Devs 36 with a "trend" of machine gun questions in addition to posting your data, hopes, and experiences here. Long Live the Machine Gun.

It'll have to be Ask the Devs 37, since MiSs just closed 36. But please do it for 37. They're wrong - pigheaded and wrong - about the MG and they need to be told so.

Also, I'd like to modify the question "Why does the cone of fire mechanic exist? How does this factor into your measurement of damage output and balancing when we can't hit the exposed internals of a mech?" to "Why does the cone of fire mechanic exist? How does this rhyme with your stance on removing RNG in favour of skill?"

Edited by stjobe, 12 April 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[Wildstreak]

My current position and some responses.

POINT 1:
The only comparison between Small Lasers and Maching Guns on BattleMechs is range that the MG has a 20m advantage in MaxRange. Now the Flamer that should have the same range, I don't know why it was shortened.

POINT 2:
The MG is a no heat generating weapon compared to anything else, that is an advantage, comparing it to the Small Laser that generates heat you have to take that into account, cannot be ignored. Further, there is proof in BT supporting NOT comparing Lasers and MGs to equal damage.

Infantry carry Laser rifles or Machine Guns among their weapon choices. It takes 3-4 Infantry with Laser Rifles to do the same damage as a BattleMech MG, it takes 5-7 Infantry with MGs to do that damage. The fact you need double the number of MG using Infantry to do the same damage as Laser using Infantry supports that in BT, Lasers and MG of equal weight do NOT do the same damage, Lasers always do more then MG when weight is equal.

Why should the no heat MG do equal damage to a SL? It shouldn't, stop comparing the Mech MG to SL for damage.

POINT 3:
Damage, if you want to compare equal damage the BEST comparison is the how many MG shots equal how many AC/2 shots. From canon, damage wise, 1 Mech MG shot did the same damage as an AC2 shot.

So how much MG ammo does equal damage to how much ammo from a AC2? Bear in mind point 4 following when figuring this out.

POINT 4:
Ammo wise, MGs got a x10 buff over TT values. Let's look at other ammo weapon buffs:
AC2s got a x1.67 buff.
AC5s got a x1.5 buff.
AC10s got a x1.5 buff.
AC20s got a x1.4 buff.
Gauss got a x1.25 buff.
LRMs got a x1.5 buff.
SRM6s got a x1.11 buff.
Other SRMs inclusing SSRM2 got NO BUFF ammo wise.
Having a x10 ammo buff is considerate comapred to other ammo using weapons. So if you want some benefit, you are OBVIOUSLY going to have to lower your ammo buff else you are being selfish. After all, ACs and Gauss have the same damage values as TT with a much less ammo buff, Missiles got nerfed for pete's sake, but you want more buffs to the weapon with x10 ammo and crit seeking (didn't have that in TT), please.

Note I am not saying everything has to compare to TT but comparisons being made here are completely inaccurate rationally.

Buffing MGs will not only affect Light Mechs, it will affect ANY MECH WITH BALLISTIC HARDPOINTS whether you admit it or not, it is true.

No arguments yet regarding this data.

shintakie, on 11 April 2013 - 06:48 PM, said:

You mean other than the fact that there are currently 3 mech variants that absolutely need MG's to be viable in order to do any sort of meaningful damage without ignorin their ballistic slots completely isn't a good reason to buff them? How about a fourth variant added on top of that when the Flea gets released.

Face it. MG's need to be viable to give a reason for ballistic light mechs (and my beautiful Cicada) to exist.

I know of 2, SDR-5K and CDA-3C, the third is either the HBK-4G or the JM6-DD.
See this topic for that, that is a wholly separate argument about why the hardpoints should be changed on those Mechs, does NOT justify changing the MG.

Face that.

General Taskeen, on 11 April 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

Haha.

The MW3 is a direct translation of the Battle Tech MG. How is that "Wrong" or are you just daft?

Haha back.

MW3 took place after Operation Bulldog that happened in 3059 so the year of MW3 is 3060 that was when the MG Array was created by Davion in the BT timeline. MWO is in 3050 so there IS NO MG ARRAY BECAUSE IT IS 9-10 YEARS AWAY. How is that "Wrong" or are you too daft to look this stuff up?

Terror Teddy, on 11 April 2013 - 09:10 PM, said:

I can tell from your post:
-That you never play in light ballistic mechs
-That you never face other light mechs while using a ballistic light mech
-IF you do use a LBM you gimp the build to get a larger energy weapon or heavier ballistic weapon squeezed in
-Have never compared the sources they got the weapon from to what they did with them
-See nothing wrong with the SL doing 1/3 the ERPPC DPS at 1/14 the weight...Compare that to the MG doing 1/10 DPS at 1/12 the weight of the AC/2
-Believe that a 500 kilogram weapon is a .50 caliber machinegun

I can tell from your post:
- That you do not know how to look up what a Mech variant was designed for, see link above.
- That you make piles of assumptions about people, you do not need to have operated something to know how to analyze it, different skill set, even happens in, gasp, RL.
- If someone does that, big whoop, thier choice.
- See point 1 that keeps getting ignored.
- So all smaller weapons have to have the same comparisons to bigger weapons? Yeah, right, moving on right after you consult the source material in BT about Lasers and MGs as I did above.
- Never knew I served in the military plus researched the subject so I know a lot more than you think or may even know.
- Like to do that Internet thing where people make assumptions about others to push their agenda instead of discussing the point. I see that on these forums a lot including this topic.

Conraire, on 11 April 2013 - 11:54 PM, said:

One of the biggest issues with MG's in this game is player and dev perception of what they are in Battletech and Mechwarrior lore. When most people think MG's they're thinking M249SAW, M240B, or the M2 Browning (ma deuce) at the most. The problem is, that BattleTech MG's aren't that type of Machine gun.

Not only did you assume about others, I cannot believe you named the M2 without listing the M60, I would expect people not specifically knowledgeable about military matter to know the second before the first.

HammerSwarm, on 12 April 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

what is the the ballistic option for less than 6 tons that does anything?
That's the reason. Lights and mediums need the option. Even in my Jager-DD I have trouble filling the hard points with anything useful. A guild mate runs 6 machine guns and 2 er ppcs. He laughs and says that he has a ppc boat. I personally run mine with 4x uac5s and ignore those other hard points.

If machine guns were useful this wouldn't be a thread. You should try using them before you thread dump here. Thanks for the bump. (If you do use them please post your stats)

Request a change to hardpoints based on design of the variant as I did here in this topic. Requesting a weapon change solely based on a few variants is silly, you change the variants, not the weapon since a weapon change will affect ALL Mechs with Ballistic hardpoints. See my data above for that.

[stjobe]

Merchant, on 12 April 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

Ammo wise, MGs got a x10 buff over TT values.

Among the numerous factual errors and curious omissions in your post, I'll just point out this one.

Yes, the MG got a x10 buff to the number of projectiles in a ton of ammo. It also got a x100 buff to the rate of fire, meaning that instead of firing once per ten seconds from a 200 round ammo ton, it fires 10 times per second from a 2,000 round ammo ton.

That's a 90% nerf in ammo per ton, not a x10 buff.

Edited by stjobe, 12 April 2013 - 11:14 AM.

[RealityCheck]

Merchant, on 12 April 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

Infantry carry Laser rifles or Machine Guns among their weapon choices. It takes 3-4 Infantry with Laser Rifles to do the same damage as a BattleMech MG, it takes 5-7 Infantry with MGs to do that damage. The fact you need double the number of MG using Infantry to do the same damage as Laser using Infantry supports that in BT, Lasers and MG of equal weight do NOT do the same damage, Lasers always do more then MG when weight is equal.

Why should the no heat MG do equal damage to a SL? It shouldn't, stop comparing the Mech MG to SL for damage.

Machine guns for infantry and battlemechs are completely different, at any rate SL does 3 damage in TT and MG 2. I am not advocating the MG to beat the SL damage wise. I just want it to be better than it currently is. Furthermore, in my proposal a few pages back, I mentioned cutting the current ammo per ton to 1000 rounds in exchange for 0.08 damage per bullet. Also added in a decrease to crit modifiers too. Machine guns need a buff and neither you nor PGI can convince me otherwise.

RealityCheck

[Conraire]

@Merchant, when you quoted me and said what you did, you pretty much just killed your own argument. Don't call people ignorant when you don't know what experience they really have. I'm not making assumptions or assuming anything. I'm observing what people are comparing MWO MG's to. Most of them are thinking of them as handheld weapons, or LMG's that are carried by modern troops. Or the vehicle mounted M2. I could of listed the MG34 and MG42(german ww2, Maxim, Vickers, M134 Minigun, Mk46, M60, M60E4, MG36, Etc... I figured it'd be a waste to list every machine gun thats been made in the last 100 years, since none of them actually apply to the weapon we're discussing.


It's outright said in canon, these battle mech mounted MG's are 20mm Gatling cannons. Thats from the ORIGINAL battletech rules, far before the 3050s. The idea I mentioned earlier, would make them fire properly. And fit in better with the way the game plays. It would be an overall nerf to the weapons damage per round fired, but, and overall buff to the weapon dmg output, putting it back inline with where it should be. At doing the same amount of dmg as the AC2, just at a much shorter range. And it could still be a crit seeking weapon, as say if it fired 10rnds per burst, that's 10 chances to crit. Which makes it similar to the LBX10 in the way it works.

Hmmm rewording that. 2dmg per volley / 10rnds per volley would equal 0.20 dmg per round. Current mechanics have the MG firing 10rnds per second at 0.04dmg per round. So, it would take 5 seconds of firing to equal out to what the MG should actually be doing. So I guess my idea would be a fairly heavy buff.

Edited by Conraire, 12 April 2013 - 11:34 AM.

[DemonRaziel]

Merchant, on 12 April 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

I know of 2, SDR-5K and CDA-3C, the third is either the HBK-4G or the JM6-DD.

Raven RVN-4X.

I decided to only comment on this part of your post since other people has already commented on other parts and pointed out some of your factual errors...

Edited by DemonRaziel, 12 April 2013 - 11:23 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

Quote

I know of 2, SDR-5K and CDA-3C, the third is either the HBK-4G or the JM6-DD.

See this topic for that, that is a wholly separate argument about why the hardpoints should be changed on those Mechs, does NOT justify changing the MG.

So instead of balancing weapons we should balance the hulls and keep broken weapons broken.

Quote

- That you do not know how to look up what a Mech variant was designed for, see link above.

A mech variant and a weapon system are two different things. The topic is simple. A weapon that could damage mechs and did (in my opinion) too much damage in the TT game has now become USELESS. The weapon is not balanced, it's as simple as that.

Quote

- That you make piles of assumptions about people, you do not need to have operated something to know how to analyze it,

I make the assumption based upon the data you deliver. Your point had no data, facts or anything that brought anything IMPORTANT to the discussion, just a short comment about your opinion.

Quote

- See point 1 that keeps getting ignored.

I agree about it, the ranges should be equal. But of you state that the damage between SL and MG should be different why do we have the damage difference on a scale of 10 to 1 on the AC/2 then?

Quote

- So all smaller weapons have to have the same comparisons to bigger weapons? Yeah, right, moving on right after you consult the source material in BT about Lasers and MGs as I did above.

Good, so I did. I have posted the facts several times that you disagree or ignore them is not my problem. Even if we ignore the facts it boils down to that this is a game where weapons and equipment are supposed to be viable to be FUN. MG's are not FUN, they are at best extreme borderline usefullness if you are lucky.

Quote

- Never knew I served in the military plus researched the subject so I know a lot more than you think or may even know.

Bragging wins no point with me about real world military which I have been a part of as well. This is about game balance.

Quote

- Like to do that Internet thing where people make assumptions about others to push their agenda instead of discussing the point. I see that on these forums a lot including this topic.

If your post had included facts to back up your opinion you would have been given a better response, like you provided in this post.

Quote

POINT 2:

The MG is a no heat generating weapon compared to anything else, that is an advantage, comparing it to the Small Laser that generates heat you have to take that into account, cannot be ignored. Further, there is proof in BT supporting NOT comparing Lasers and MGs to equal damage.

Oh I agree. Not having heat IS an advantage, but you also have no BENEFIT from the 10 DHS you might have in your engine - which is essentially ammo regen for lasers.

Now, Small Lasers and MG's did NOT have equal damage, hell, the SL had MORE damage than the AC/2 and the MG. A +50% damage (3 to the MG's 2 and AC/2's 2.)

Quote

Lasers always do more then MG when weight is equal.

Not a problem really. The issue I DO have is based on several points.

-MG's was RADICALLY changed from all the other weapons in terms of DPS, Damage per tonne and damage per shot.

-It is the slowest weapon to deliver 80 points of damage (200 seconds)

-It is the ONLY viable ballistic weapon for light mechs without crippling a build

Quote

Why should the no heat MG do equal damage to a SL? It shouldn't, stop comparing the Mech MG to SL for damage.

Yea, we could do that, but at the same time it would be nice to gain answers to WHY they radically changed the way that weapon does damage. I can fully understand if PGI dont want the MG to be a short ranged AC/2 but giving it 1/10 of the DPS and 60% of the damage per tonne was crippling.

The reason for it to have MORE damage (not much, just more) is due to the extreme spread the weapon has, it's almost nigh impossible to hit a specific location when shooting a moving enemy at more than 50 meters with machine guns. The damage will spread out over multiple locations or miss.

So even if it got 2 DPS it would perhaps be 0,4 damage hitting the location you aim at. Personally I think 2 DPS is too much but 1 to 1,5 DPS with bullet spread and slower bullets than the lasers beam makes the weapon far harder to use than the small laser.

Quote

POINT 3:

Damage, if you want to compare equal damage the BEST comparison is the how many MG shots equal how many AC/2 shots. From canon, damage wise, 1 Mech MG shot did the same damage as an AC2 shot.

So how much MG ammo does equal damage to how much ammo from a AC2? Bear in mind point 4 following when figuring this out.

3750 rounds of MG ammo is the equivalent of the AC/2 damage per tonne.

It takes the AC/2 37,5 seconds to deliver said damage

It takes the MG 375 seconds to deliver said damage

6,25 MINUTES to deliver 150 points of damage compared to 37,5 seconds.

And the MG needs 87,5% more ammo load to manage that

Quote

POINT 4:

Having a x10 ammo buff is considerate comapred to other ammo using weapons. So if you want some benefit, you are OBVIOUSLY going to have to lower your ammo buff else you are being selfish. After all, ACs and Gauss have the same damage values as TT with a much less ammo buff, Missiles got nerfed for pete's sake, but you want more buffs to the weapon with x10 ammo and crit seeking (didn't have that in TT), please.

Of course we need to lower ammo load. I want a balanced viable weapon not something bastardized that we have now.

IF we made it 1DPS it could look like this:

Damage per tonne: 150

Cycle: 0,25 [Yes, the gun could do with a cycle rate]

Damage: 0,25

Ammo: 600

Now we have a 1 DPS weapon that does 4 hits per second instead of 10 so the crit chances are fewer but damage is slightly greater - and if that doesnt work we can CHANGE it because we are in a BETA.

Quote

Note I am not saying everything has to compare to TT but comparisons being made here are completely inaccurate rationally.

Oh, of course. So you DO agree that buffing the AC/2 to 4DPS which is essentially 20 TIMES the DPS it had in the TT is completely wrong then? Unlike the MG which got a X2 DPS boost and THEN THEY DOUBLED ARMOUR VALUES.

Cant you see the flaw in your argument here? By your own logic the AC/2 is wrong as well. The comparisons are made from the bloody source and we simply ask the devs WHY they deviated so extremely on ONE weapon.

Hell, when will you call the SL OP since it has 1/14 the weight of the ERPPC but has 1/3 the DPS (and no, I dont find the SL op, I do find MG's awfully underperforming.)

Quote

Buffing MGs will not only affect Light Mechs, it will affect ANY MECH WITH BALLISTIC HARDPOINTS whether you admit it or not, it is true.

So? How is that BAD? Is the Jagermech with 6MG's suddenly gonna become a deathmachine when we have people boating far more efficient weapons yet no-one has a problem with it, but this, the weakest weapon in the game and the ONLY light ballistic weapon available for under 30 tonne mechs will become OP if it is buffed?

Edited by Terror Teddy, 12 April 2013 - 11:41 AM.

[stjobe]

Some more facts about the MG's transition from BattleTech to MWO:

* As I said above, it got it's Rate of Fire increased by a factor of 100, from 1/10s to 10/1s.
* It got its ammo increased by a factor of 10, in effect an ammo per ton nerf of 90%
* It got its damage decreased by a factor of 50, meaning it got a 2x buff compared to BT. All other ballistics got more; starting from the AC/20 at 2.5x to the AC/2 at 20x.
* No other ballistic got their damage decreased, they all kept their BT values and increased their RoF by a factor of 2-3 (or in the case of the AC/2, 20).
* It got the slowest projectile speed of all ballistics at 100m/s; the same speed as LRMs. The other ballistics have projectile speeds between 900m/s and 2,000m/s.
* It got its max range treated as that of a energy weapon: 90m effective, 200m max; where all the other ballistics have a max range of 3x effective range the MG only has a bit over 2x.
* No other ballistic weapon has a random spread to its projectiles; the MG has a VERY pronounced spread, enough that you'll be hard pressed to even hit what you're aiming at ranges over 45m.

There's more, but I think you see my point; the MG was treated VERY differently to any other weapon in the game, and it has resulted in this useless weapon we currently have. Fortunately, the fix is simple: A substantial per-projectile damage buff (on the order of 3-4 times the current value) should be enough to make the weapon viable again.

[Terror Teddy]

Is the forum completely ****** when it comes to quotes or does it have a maximum limit because this drives me NUTS.

[stjobe]

Terror Teddy, on 12 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

Is the forum completely ****** when it comes to quotes or does it have a maximum limit because this drives me NUTS.

I think it does have an actual limit. I know it complains if it finds that the post has mismatched quote-unquote pairs.

[Deathlike]

Kmieciu, on 12 April 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

<3 Jenners

Anyways people are forgetting the Dragon-5N, which has 3 ballistic slots, and probably not that usable to have a 3rd AC2 in it (perfect for the MG, except, Dragons would not be optimal for MGs by design).

[Abledime]

Machine Guns dont need a increase in damage, what they need is a increase in the rate of fire and range to say 300m , and a cone effect like the LBX-10. Drop the amount of ammo per tonne to 1000 rounds. remove ability to crit.

let them do 4200 rounds per min (akin to GUA-8 in the AC-10) , one tonne of ammo would last 14 seconds of continuous fire but do 40 points of damage (if it hits).
if the machine gun is continuously fired the cone gets larger so pilots would need to use short controlled bursts.

machine gun boats would be very ineffective due to high rate of fire eg six MG with 6 tonnes of ammo would still only give 14 secs of ammo, and make each MG that fires together adds to the inaccurate fire eg cone of damage gets bigger due to chasse shake.

this would give a 1 sec burst approx 3 damage compared to the 0.4 damage now

Machine Guns would require skill to use eg hold down the button firing wildly suddenly no ammo. short controlled burst could decimate armor.
multiple machine guns would need tonnes of ammo to be effective and inaccurate due to chasse shake.

Another thing to consider is to remove separate ammo for MG make each MG 1.5 tonnes and hold ONE tonne of ammo per gun .

this would make machine guns a viable weapon if used properly and fun too.

[Harmin]

DemonRaziel, on 10 April 2013 - 04:57 AM, said:

I am getting the impression that they balanced MGs with Flamers in mind.


From what I am reading here, you are not trying to break your keyboard on your head and eat your mouse after every match, therefore I assume you are getting a lot more enjoyment from playing the 5K than I did some time ago.

Okay, I did all the basics on the 5K so I put my money where my mouth is.

Here are my final stats:
SPIDER SDR-5K 23 12 11 1.09 10 8 1.25 3,174 14,523 02:23:29

12 wins / 11 losses 1.09 Win / loss
10 kills / 8 deaths 1.25 Kill / death

Had some good runs. In essence, I am playing the 5K this way; Holding way back at the beginning of the game, then once there's a fat brawl I start engaging and seek targets of opportunity which I then laser and machine gun to hopefully death.

Not my favourite mech, but it's more or less viable if you play it carefully.

-Armin

[HammerSwarm]

Abledime, on 12 April 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

Machine Guns dont need a increase in damage, what they need is a increase in the rate of fire and range to say 300m , and a cone effect like the LBX-10. Drop the amount of ammo per tonne to 1000 rounds. remove ability to crit.

let them do 4200 rounds per min (akin to GUA-8 in the AC-10) , one tonne of ammo would last 14 seconds of continuous fire but do 40 points of damage (if it hits).
if the machine gun is continuously fired the cone gets larger so pilots would need to use short controlled bursts.

machine gun boats would be very ineffective due to high rate of fire eg six MG with 6 tonnes of ammo would still only give 14 secs of ammo, and make each MG that fires together adds to the inaccurate fire eg cone of damage gets bigger due to chasse shake.

this would give a 1 sec burst approx 3 damage compared to the 0.4 damage now

Machine Guns would require skill to use eg hold down the button firing wildly suddenly no ammo. short controlled burst could decimate armor.
multiple machine guns would need tonnes of ammo to be effective and inaccurate due to chasse shake.

Another thing to consider is to remove separate ammo for MG make each MG 1.5 tonnes and hold ONE tonne of ammo per gun .

this would make machine guns a viable weapon if used properly and fun too.

Don't like your ammo nerf, the game can't handle more projectiles per second, and the cone is part of the problem and it should be left out of any solution.

I like outside the box thinking though,

[Deathlike]

Abledime, on 12 April 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

Machine Guns dont need a increase in damage, what they need is a increase in the rate of fire and range to say 300m , and a cone effect like the LBX-10. Drop the amount of ammo per tonne to 1000 rounds. remove ability to crit.

You can't increase ROF, when the optimum value from it's current design is 10 bullets/sec, but it can't even get there under "Training Ground conditions", let alone real time. It already has a cone of fire.

Quote

Another thing to consider is to remove separate ammo for MG make each MG 1.5 tonnes and hold ONE tonne of ammo per gun .

NO. Don't make it like MW4 (ammo is attached to the weapon and runs only for it specifically). All weapon ammo is shared between the systems and your suggestion nerfs the weapon even further.

[SweetWarmIce]

Kmieciu, on 12 April 2013 - 05:54 AM, said:

Snip

The 5 x AC/2 Jager has to make serious concessions which is why it's not seen often.

That 2 x AC/2 build you linked would be effective given time and range. But it has an XL engine, still requires leading and is vulnerable to crits. It has weaknesses that stop it from being popular.

The 6 x MG Jager would 86 KPH, max armour, standard engine durability with on-demand, no heat, hit-scan 4.5 DPS. There is lots of ammo to explode but CASE would stop it from killing you.

Which one of the above would appeal to most people? It's not the DPS I'm worried about. What I am worried about is that if machineguns get too good. Then everyone will want to boat them. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but apparently it happened in previous MechWarrior games.

Edited by SweetWarmIce, 12 April 2013 - 04:15 PM.

[Alilua]

Machine guns are a joke weapon now, there is no denying it. They are not hitscan weapons, and actually are slow projectiles. If you're worried about them boating weapons after a buff you have to realize they might be as useful as a small pulse laser. Sure you could fit the max amount of them on a mech, but they would still be limited by range, ammo, etc as well as doing very little damage. Constant firing weapons are also a disadvantage in this game as it exposes you to damage more.

Look at the flamer, it got a buff, yet is still hardly used. Machine guns could go through the same process, but sadly we have to rely on pgi to balance/buff them.

[Deathlike]

Alilua, on 12 April 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

Look at the flamer, it got a buff, yet is still hardly used. Machine guns could go through the same process, but sadly we have to rely on pgi to balance/buff them.

Flamer buff? It existed briefly, but it's back to what it was.. more or less.

[Falconic]

Using a Cicada 3C almost exclusively lately.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...31217e70ee47da9

I found it to be mildly useful because of the ac2s. The machine guns I just hose down mechs with as a "always on" while I aim the ac2s. If I wasn't trying to prove to myself that the machine guns are useless I would've replaced them with more ammo for the ac2s already, but I am hoping something happens from this debate.

I have yet to top 350 damage. Most maps hovering around 160 to 180.