146 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Eleshod, on 06 June 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

To add a bit more to Skyfaller's post, the A-10 thunderbolt is nicknamed the tank buster and was LITERALLY built around the GAU-8 gattling gun. It's nicknamed the "Tankbust" because that GAU-8 tears through all modern tank armor like tissue paper...

https://en.wikipedia...i/GAU-8_Avenger

Machine guns are effective against armor =P just not in mechwarrior it seems.

However the GAU-8 is an Auto Cannon not a Machine Gun.

[Lil Cthulhu]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 07:24 AM, said:

They rock. They do tons of damage to internals already. Any more and they will be a small laser without a heat penalty. Machines have always been nothing more than a spare tonnage filler. I think all the CoD players hear the phrase machine gun, and think of the damage they do to human flesh, not tons and tons of steel armor. a machine doesn't do {Richard Cameron} to a solid steel wall. Why do you think the US Army has anti-tank artillery, and not just 6 guys with M249's.

Hate to rain on your parade, not really but, http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Machine_Gun , http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon/2
Take a look at the damage, looks to me like the machine gun should basically be a short range AC/2

And based off your meme, I'm going to assume you have never played a mechwarrior game in your life.

Edited by Lil Cthulhu, 06 June 2013 - 08:19 AM.

[B0oN]

Hmmm.
Sprayed an open, deep red shoulder of a pop-tarting `phract while passing close by with a very short burst of MG (~0.4-0.6 of a sec).
´Phract was undamaged otherwise.
´Phract popped.

Was very satisfying and made me deem the MG´s viable, but that is just my opinion.

[Eleshod]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 June 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

However the GAU-8 is an Auto Cannon not a Machine Gun.

this is a good point and how I would assume Mini-autocannons would function.
The Gau-8's rounds are only 10 MM larger then the machine guns we use in game...

This also raises a very good point. BT was written and made ways back, near 1984.

We have a massive tech gap from when the writers first made it and todays tech. We need to start "inventing" tech that can fit more closely to todays.

Granted we have a habit of nuking our tech away, but we need to start "Finding" it again.

[Belorion]

GingerBang sounds like the title of an X rated short.

[Monky]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 June 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

However the GAU-8 is an Auto Cannon not a Machine Gun.

Actually, in battletech, it would be called a primitive mech scale machinegun. An Autocannon is a completely different beast.

Part of this entire shitstorm is that people can't seperate what 'we' consider a machinegun/cannon from what battletech considers a machinegun/cannon.

A modern 120 mm Abrams tank, for example, would deal an AC2's worth of damage to mech grade ablative armor. Given 90 meters effective range for a machinegun, which is equally effective as that, rough weight/size comparisons, etc, the GAU8 is about as practical a fit for 'machinegun' that we have to compare to.

[Joseph Mallan]

Eleshod, on 06 June 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

this is a good point and how I would assume Mini-autocannons would function.
The Gau-8's rounds are only 10 MM larger then the machine guns we use in game...

This also raises a very good point. BT was written and made ways back, near 1984.

We have a massive tech gap from when the writers first made it and todays tech. We need to start "inventing" tech that can fit more closely to todays.

Granted we have a habit of nuking our tech away, but we need to start "Finding" it again.

10mm in my line of work is a HUGE difference.

[Sam Slade]

malibu43, on 06 June 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

And how many AC2's can you realistically fit on the ballistics Spider?

2 AC2s with 3 tons of ammo... it's pretty fun

[Joseph Mallan]

Monky, on 06 June 2013 - 08:22 AM, said:

Actually, in battletech, it would be called a primitive mech scale machinegun. An Autocannon is a completely different beast.

Part of this entire shitstorm is that people can't seperate what 'we' consider a machinegun/cannon from what battletech considers a machinegun/cannon.

A modern 120 mm Abrams tank, for example, would deal an AC2's worth of damage to mech grade ablative armor. Given 90 meters effective range for a machinegun, which is equally effective as that, rough weight/size comparisons, etc, the GAU8 is about as practical a fit for 'machinegun' that we have to compare to.

BattleTech all MGs are 20MM or less. Real life Auto Cannons can be anything over 20MM an fires Shells not Bullets. Pretty clear distinction.

[Fate 6]

@OP You do realize that each of these machine gun rounds weighs about a full pound, right? That's a pretty big bullet. That's 10 times heavier than a .50cal round. That's going to put holes in things, or at the very least some large dents.

[General Taskeen]

These discussions are really getting old. But if we must educate the masses, then I guess there is at least one positive point to these discussions.

1. You can not hold a Battle Tech Machine Gun in your hand or fire it from the hip, this is something mounted on large vehicles, aircraft, or mechs.
2. A Battle Tech Machine Gun Destroys Armor in Battle Tech. This is fact.

So what if BT was written in 1984. They still imagined that a 'Machine Gun' is twice the size of a man that was written in stone tablets to do damage to armor, and even stated, as with Autocannons, it is a loose classification for types of guns that are huge and used on every type of vehicle, whether it be a Tank, Aerospace Jet, or a Battle Mech, where in any case it destroys armor. That's the way it is, and doesn't change.

And yet they already 'imagined' "Machine Guns" as 20-30mm Rotary and/or "Gatling" Cannons in Battle Tech 'fluff.' In reality, a 20-30mm Autocannon, Gattling Gun, or Rotary Cannon incredibly powerful weapons. They've been used on aircraft for the last century. Even in WW2, Germans strapped enormous slow-firing 30 to 75mm autocannons on Prop Planes to destroy tanks.

Realism is besides the point. This is a game, Mechs vs. Mechs. I recall the MW3 Machine Gun, because it was the best and my personal favorite of the 'Machine Gun' of Battle Tech being interpreted in a Mech Warrior game. It did damage to armor, like I expected it to. 2 MG's were nearly perfectly balanced and an acceptable weapon to use.

This whole nonsense, that has been created, is a product of PGI trying their "make mg do internal damage" experiment. It is also a product of its programming, instead of making it very fast firing, short range, low damage, ballistic gun, it is actually a hitscan like a laser. Unless PGI changes this fundamental flaw for how it is featured, balance problems will persist. When an old game like MW3 already programmed it perfectly for a 10+ year old game, my mind is boggled here.

Edited by General Taskeen, 06 June 2013 - 08:37 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Fate 6, on 06 June 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

@OP You do realize that each of these machine gun rounds weighs about a full pound, right? That's a pretty big bullet. That's 10 times heavier than a .50cal round. That's going to put holes in things, or at the very least some large dents.

Yeah I know, But do we know if the Mech MG is using brass or a harder material? Also You are talking about a Bullet. ACs fire Shells an bullets(in the case of the targeting round).

[Budor]

[MustrumRidcully]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 June 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

BattleTech all MGs are 20MM or less. Real life Auto Cannons can be anything over 20MM an fires Shells not Bullets. Pretty clear distinction.

They can also be 20mm. At least that's what I take from the definition of Auto-Cannons I can find publically online, and the info I can find about the M61 (?) Vulcan Cannon.

[General Taskeen]

Budor, on 06 June 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

What a poignant image for this thread and MG apologists.

[FupDup]

This thread is bad and the OP should feel bad.

[Deathlike]

InRev, on 06 June 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

You really couldn't put this in the existing MG thread that's about 10 threads down?

Really?

At this point no.

Rad Hanzo, on 06 June 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

Hmmm.
Sprayed an open, deep red shoulder of a pop-tarting `phract while passing close by with a very short burst of MG (~0.4-0.6 of a sec).
´Phract was undamaged otherwise.
´Phract popped.

Was very satisfying and made me deem the MG´s viable, but that is just my opinion.

If you're glowing red in the CT or a side torso, even bumping into the mech is a viable option (I remember a spider with crit legs "ramming" into my mech's head with JJs to suddenly losing both its legs. MGs crushing a mech in this way is no different from small lasers, med lasers, and a host of other weapons in the same category from killing a mech.

Methinks the OP has taken the Spider-5K with 4 MGs seriously or has never used it.

If your excuse is that "it's not supposed to be powerful because the board game said so", then you clearly don't know how to balance the weapon "for the purposes of a online game".

Plus, the OP's pic is worthless since the MG was actually useful in MW2/MW3 (I didn't bother in MW4). The MWO version is just as powerful as a Flamer... still pretty much worthless.

Edited by Deathlike, 06 June 2013 - 10:22 AM.

[One Medic Army]

If you check Sarna MGs are described as 20mm cannons.
Mech MGs weigh 500 kilos, and ammo weighs .5kilos/bullet (5kilos per 2dmg burst in TT). It's an order of magnitude beyond a .50cal infantry MG, and is definitely an anti-vehicle weapon.
Mech armor is (in lore) ablative, it's not armor that needs to be penetrated, it's armor that sloughs off every time you hit it with a weapon until there is no more armor covering the internals. Through-armor crits are "penetrating" hits and aren't implemented in MWO.

There's the lore reasons why you're wrong.


As to gamplay just look at how many ballistic hardpoints you see on light and medium mechs. There's a Spider and a Cicada with 4 hardpoints each.
Ballistics need an equivalent weapon to the small laser/medium laser, something that's light enough to mount several even on small mechs. Said weapon needs to be able to damage enemy mechs because there is no other target to shoot at.
Crits don't actually deal any damage to the internal structure, they deal damage to internal components, thus MGs don't deal increased damage to internal structure, just components.
You can destroy weapons, heatsinks, ammo, ECM, BAP with an MG; you cannot kill mechs with one (effectively).
Even killing mechs by setting off their ammo doesn't work very well with the only 10% chance for ammo to explode when destroyed we have now.
MGs have the lowest potential damage/ton of any weapon in the game (except NARC), it's even lower than AMS ammo. MGs also suffer from inherent inaccuracy, and the fire rate/dmg per bullet means that the damage is hugely spread. TO even carry enough ammo to kill an enemy with MGs, or even to just strip their armor requires multiple tons of ammo, making them closer in weight comparison to a Medlas than a small.

There's the gameplay reasons MGs need to be viable for damaging armor/structure.

Edited by One Medic Army, 06 June 2013 - 10:58 AM.

[FupDup]

One Medic Army, on 06 June 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

Mech MGs weigh 1000lbs, and ammo weighs 1lb/bullet (5lbs per 2dmg burst in TT). It's an order of magnitude beyond a .50cal infantry MG, and is definitely an anti-vehicle weapon.

Battletech uses metric tons, not English. We use meters for distance measurement, so it makes sense to apply metric to mass as well. This means that the MG is 500 kilograms/1102 pounds and each bullet/burst (200 shots per ton) is 0.005 kilos or 11 pounds (stronger than what the English system makes it look like ).

[One Medic Army]

FupDup, on 06 June 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

Battletech uses metric tons, not English. We use meters for distance measurement, so it makes sense to apply metric to mass as well. This means that the MG is 500 kilograms/1102 pounds and each bullet/burst (200 shots per ton) is 0.005 kilos or 11 pounds (stronger than what the English system makes it look like ).

I thought that Btech MGs were 400shots/ton and 200shots/half-ton lot.
1metric ton=1000kilos=2204.6lbs, so they're pretty darn close.

[edit] Realized I was thinking of damage potential, which is 2/shot.
Yeah, it's 200/ton (400 potential dmg) and 100/half-ton (200 potential dmg).

Edited by One Medic Army, 06 June 2013 - 10:57 AM.