1386 replies to this topic

[Critical Fumble]

MustrumRidcully, on 22 April 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

Maybe one should ask:
"What are your intentions for the Machine Gun?"
- "To make it a noobie trap?"
- "To ensure that no light mech utilizing 3-6 ballistic slots has a chance of using them for something good?"
- "To have a few non-viable weapons lying around just in case-"
- "To give the complicated crit-system some use in which a mech can lose a hit location in 1/2 the time it took the enemy to click the armour on that location away?"
- "To avoid it being as effective as in Mechwarrior 3 or 4"
- "To avoid it being as overpowered as it was in the broken Solaris rules?"

I really would like some feedback feedback myself.

The only thing we actually know about the devs' perspective is a situation where a mega-n00b Atlas pilot gets taken down by a light pilot standing behind them. Never mind that mechs are supposed to go down like a man with one too many shots of vodka in him if they don't respond to threats from the rear; and that the situation implied that they would be over powered with a buff.

-Is it that a no-heat weapon has no real limit on firing time? Because there's a hard cap on how many you carry, and to make a continuous weapon dangerous you have to stay exposed.
-Is it that its so light? There's a hard cap on how many you can have.
-Is it that the crit system is a shadow of what the full implementation will be. Because I'm unconvinced that it can be made to be both worth having and not frustrating to play against. Not to mention how annoying it is to have to have that system rather than just dealing reasonable damage.
-Is there at least one decent light ballistic waiting to be implemented? If there were I'd still disagree with how MGs were handled, but I'd let it slide if it stopped adversely effecting the game.

[Kmieciu]

We don't want the machine gun to become a ballistic small laser. We want diversity.

Small laser has high alpha (3 damage) and decent DPS (1 damage per second).
IMHO Machinegun should have 2 DPS, so that is would better than a SL against slow targets, while the SL would be better against fast targets.

The Small laser would be a safer weapon (no risk of ammo explosion), and more universal (it uses heat sinks that benefit all other weapons), while the Machine gun would have more raw backstabbing power.

Edited by Kmieciu, 23 April 2013 - 02:26 AM.

[RealityCheck]

It would be nice, since it's such a short ranged weapon, that it actually did good damage. Honestly, I'd like there to be another weapon to compete with the quintessential brawling weapon: the SRM.

RealityCheck

[General Taskeen]

Curccu, on 22 April 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha


"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 3 second 6 MG Spider has nothing on the 12 MG Piranha lol.

[RealityCheck]

At 20 tons, I don't think the Piranha would be that broken. The ammo requirements for 12 machine guns must be staggering...


RealityCheck

Edited by RealityCheck, 23 April 2013 - 06:40 AM.

[stjobe]

RealityCheck, on 23 April 2013 - 06:30 AM, said:

At 20 tons, I don't think the Piranha would be that broken. The ammo requirements for 12 machine guns must be staggering...

A single ton of MG ammo supplies a single MG for 200 seconds.
That means it supplies the Piranha for 16.67 seconds.

And it still only does 80 damage during those 16.67 seconds.

[Deathlike]

stjobe, on 23 April 2013 - 07:13 AM, said:

A single ton of MG ammo supplies a single MG for 200 seconds.
That means it supplies the Piranha for 16.67 seconds.

And it still only does 80 damage during those 16.67 seconds.

So you're saying it takes 12 MGs to finally deal less than 5 DPS? When we do get the 12 ballistic light mech?

[Terror Teddy]

RealityCheck, on 23 April 2013 - 06:30 AM, said:

At 20 tons, I don't think the Piranha would be that broken. The ammo requirements for 12 machine guns must be staggering...

Let's see what the Piranha would be like with those OP MG's.

6,0T - MG's
2,0T - X2 Clan ER ML
0,5T - X1 Clan ER SL
5,5T - XL 180 Engine
3,0T - 3 Additional required heatsinks

TOTAL: 17 Tonnes

Endo steel saves up LESS than 1,5 tonnes but it has it. I'd wager at 0,5 tonnes since a commando gains 1 tonne and the spider gains 1,5 tonnes.

So now we are at 16,5 tonnes and need MG ammo, and Armor. I would wager that the Clan 180 XL engine would be slightly lighter so say 1 tonne lighter. Now we have 15,5 out of 20 tonnes and need at least 2 tonnes of ammo.

Edited by Terror Teddy, 23 April 2013 - 09:52 AM.

[Ghoulsby]

There is no reason MGs shouldn't be capable of doing 1-2 DPS each. Sure they cause no heat, but they're range is 90/180. Or if it is such a big deal that they don't cause heat, them give them a heat value. Nobody has any need for a weapon that causes no heat if it also is incapable of doing noticable damage, ever, even with 6 of them.

What's the big deal with a Jagermech potentially doing 6-12 DPS if they can get within 100m of you without you blowing their XL engine sky high?

Either adjust MG damage drastically in the upwards direction, or at least lower the tonnage on AC/2s from 6 to 4 so that for once I could fill my -DD's 6 ballistics slots with something useful without turning it into a half-armored, waddling joke.

[Deathlike]

Someone finally heeded the whines:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2281857

[DemonRaziel]

Terror Teddy, on 23 April 2013 - 09:52 AM, said:

Let's see what the Piranha would be like with those OP MG's.

6,0T - MG's
2,0T - X2 Clan ER ML
0,5T - X1 Clan ER SL
5,5T - XL 180 Engine
3,0T - 3 Additional required heatsinks

TOTAL: 17 Tonnes

Endo steel saves up LESS than 1,5 tonnes but it has it. I'd wager at 0,5 tonnes since a commando gains 1 tonne and the spider gains 1,5 tonnes.

ES will save 1t - 5% of the 'Mech's weight rounded down to the nearest increment of 0.5t.
FF armor will probably weigh ~4t for full protection (rough guess, not sure what is the exact armor limit for 20t 'Mechs).

The sad thing is, this build still only utilizes 1/2 its ballistic hardpoints. OTOH by dumping all the MGs and packing just the 3 E weapons, the Piranha will pack about as much punch as the Spider And the Atlas' rear armor would once again be safe...

Edited by DemonRaziel, 23 April 2013 - 11:22 AM.

[Terror Teddy]

DemonRaziel, on 23 April 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

The sad thing is, this build still only utilizes 1/2 its ballistic hardpoints.

No,no,no. 6 tonnes for 12 MG's - fully loaded mech here.

[DemonRaziel]

Ahh, my bad there, read the post wrong.

[stjobe]

Deathlike, on 23 April 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

Someone finally heeded the whines:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2281857

From that post:

Quote

Currently under review:
MG range, RoF, and spread, slight damage adjustment.

Let's see what we can do to make a viable MG under those restrictions?

Range: 90m/270m max
RoF: 25
Spread: none
Damage: 0.08

Hey presto, 2 DPS MG

[Deathlike]

I sincerely think the ROF can't be better if its failing to deal the posted 10 bullets/sec when it's actually like 8 or 9 bullets/sec.

[General Taskeen]

stjobe, on 23 April 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

From that post:

Let's see what we can do to make a viable MG under those restrictions?

Range: 90m/270m max
RoF: 25
Spread: none
Damage: 0.08

Hey presto, 2 DPS MG

The problem, that I still see with the stream-bullets, is not taking into account any future weapon possibilities, such as LMG or HMG. The LMG would be largely very bad between 0.02 or 0.04, if the regular MG is only 0.08. The LMG mainly, because its damage is "1" in TT. A future Flea variant, for instance, uses an array of LMG's.


I wouldn't say what PGI dev posted is a restriction, it is more or less just a start that they are acknowledging the MG is bad. And now we must provide all think tank possibilities, either within the limits of "stream MG" or changing MG to an actual ballistic shot (but very fast).

Edited by General Taskeen, 23 April 2013 - 11:10 AM.

[DemonRaziel]

Range: 90m/270m max
RoF: 5 (yes, only five, as even now the ROF is hardly ever 10)
Spread: none
Damage: 0.2
Ammo: same or half its current amount (if someone feels the damage/ton of ammo would be too high with these changes)

=> DPS 1

Still enough room for LMGs and HMGs in my book. If this still doesn't make the weapon viable, buff the ****** some more.

[stjobe]

General Taskeen, on 23 April 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

And now we must provide all think tank possibilities, either within the limits of "stream MG" or changing MG to an actual ballistic shot (but very fast).

They have 48 threads and over 7,000 posts of "think tank possibilities" already provided... All linked from this thread.

[FireSlade]

Not sure how to quote other posts like this but this is good news to see just saying that these things are under review assures the community that at least we aren't being ignored even if the changes don't happen right away.

"Sorry it's been a while but I'm inundated with other tasks at the moment. But it's high time I updated you on the next incoming set of numbers.

Currently under review:
MG range, RoF, and spread, slight damage adjustment.
LBX/10 Spread.
LRM speed adjustment (This has nothing to do with trajectory and clustering, just something that is needed overall).
AC/5 Range and possible dmg adjustment.
BAP improvements.

No, you can't have numbers, and no you can't have dates. They are under review at the moment and initial testing is being ramped up. This post is just so you know stuff IS still happening on the weapon balance front.

Edit: We are also looking into increasing damage caused by Air Strike/Artillery. This may be done by either increasing the damage per shell/bomb or by increasing the splash damage radius so it does more damage before falling off to 0." -Paul Inouye

Edited by FireSlade, 23 April 2013 - 12:17 PM.

[Curccu]

Terror Teddy, on 23 April 2013 - 09:52 AM, said:

Let's see what the Piranha would be like with those OP MG's.

6,0T - MG's
2,0T - X2 Clan ER ML
0,5T - X1 Clan ER SL
5,5T - XL 180 Engine
3,0T - 3 Additional required heatsinks

TOTAL: 17 Tonnes

Endo steel saves up LESS than 1,5 tonnes but it has it. I'd wager at 0,5 tonnes since a commando gains 1 tonne and the spider gains 1,5 tonnes.

So now we are at 16,5 tonnes and need MG ammo, and Armor. I would wager that the Clan 180 XL engine would be slightly lighter so say 1 tonne lighter. Now we have 15,5 out of 20 tonnes and need at least 2 tonnes of ammo.

Piranha is clan mech so clan MG ,25t each = 3 tons for 12 MGs