146 replies to this topic

[Thomas Covenant]

A machine gun large enough to be fitted to a mech, is large enough to take some form of armour piercing rounds.

Lets look at the balance of small laser and machine gun as you mentioned.

small laser
pro: more damage, no ammo
con: more heat

machine gun
pro: less heat
con: requires ammo, ammo explodes, less damage

Ammo being a ton, the weight of two additional small lasers, I find myself thinking the balance should be:

small laser
pro: no ammo
con: more heat, less damage

machine gun
pro: less heat, more damage
con: requires ammo, ammo explodes

[Joseph Mallan]

AP rounds are available to an M-16... doesn't mean it will go though 10" of armor.

[Gamgee]

Why does this stupid topic crop up from time to time by people who are almost always wrong? So wrong it isn't even funny. Oh well, MG sucks still gg not going 2 use till buff /end post.

[GingerBang]

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

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

Here's a hint: If that same mech had energy hardpoints, it would be 1/12 the number of small lasers (not counting the weight for AC2 ammo). And the AC2 doesn't do 12 times the damage...

My roommate uses a gauss on his spider and i roll faces with it. I can't wait until i have a better computer and can run light reliably.

Edited by GingerBang, 06 June 2013 - 11:09 AM.

[GingerBang]

Thomas Covenant, on 06 June 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

A machine gun large enough to be fitted to a mech, is large enough to take some form of armour piercing rounds.

Lets look at the balance of small laser and machine gun as you mentioned.

small laser
pro: more damage, no ammo
con: more heat

machine gun
pro: less heat
con: requires ammo, ammo explodes, less damage

Ammo being a ton, the weight of two additional small lasers, I find myself thinking the balance should be:

small laser
pro: no ammo
con: more heat, less damage

machine gun
pro: less heat, more damage
con: requires ammo, ammo explodes

But MG's are supposed to be worse than small lasers by nature. If you make them equals what is the point of having both? Oh yeah people think ballistic mechs require MG's for some reason that's right.

[OneEyed Jack]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

My roommate uses a gauss on his spider and i roll faces with it. I can't wait until i have a better computer and can run light reliably.

Yeah, as long as no one so much as looks at you, since you don't have the speed to get away or the armor to take a hit.

Dayum. It all makes sense now. If you're playing in a low enough bracket for that build to make sense, then it would explain why you have no concept how how weapons work... or how they should work.

[One Medic Army]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

But MG's are supposed to be worse than small lasers by nature. If you make them equals what is the point of having both? Oh yeah people think ballistic mechs require MG's for some reason that's right.

By your argument since Large Lasers exist we don't need Small Lasers.

[Esplodin]

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

Did not bother reading hundreds of posts on MG, but still think my opinion matters/has value.

Herp derp. MG suck because an alive mech with no weapons can still be combat effective. Thanks for playing, please try again.

[Jonathan Paine]

Yet another "expert" on the fictional technology of 3050.

We need MG's to be a viable anti-mech weapon because:
1. There is no other ballistic weapon available that weighs less than 6 tons sans ammo.
2. There are many lighter mech's that rely on ballistic hard points.
3. Who cares if there is a weapon that rivals the all-mighty small laser?

[Waking One]

lol

[General Taskeen]

Heavy Machine Gun Does 3 Damage, same as Small Laser? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?

[JP Josh]

mg's in my opinion are a heatless small lazer or should be.

their con is they rely on ammo while small lazers have unlimited...and the arm or torso their mounted on can still be destroyed so why are people complaining again?

[Curccu]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 07:33 AM, said:

ballistic mechs have AC 2's, 5's, 10's, 20's, and Gauss to work with. What game are you playing? Sounds like ****.


Honestly i think ballistics are more powerful than lasers. You get pinpoint damage. Everyone i know who thinks there is a "gap" simply is god awful at aiming, or more importantly, can't hit the same spot on a mech twice to (literally) save their lives. My roommate let me use his AC/2 Dragon, and this thing is GOD TIER. The AC/2's act like BIG machine guns, and DESTROY armor incredibly quick if you actually have the talent to aim it.

When 12 man drops come soon™ most ballistic mechs that manage to survive whole game will run out of ammo before enemies.
There are no AC/2 Dragons @ God Tier.

General Taskeen, on 06 June 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

Heavy Machine Gun Does 3 Damage, same as Small Laser? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?

In BT AC/2 does 2 damage, same as machinegun.
In MWO AC/2 does 4 DPS.... Can I have 4 DPS MG plz?
(Seriously I don't want OP MG, just viable.)

[MustrumRidcully]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 June 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

AP rounds are available to an M-16... doesn't mean it will go though 10" of armor.

Either you are arguing that Machine Guns in MW:O can't be like an M-16s, or you are arguing that Battletech armor is not even 25cm thick. I don't know which it is, but these are the two logical conclusions from the fact that a TT Machine Gun deals 2 damage to mech armor, indicating that it can penetrate mech armor.
Considering that it's also capable of inflicting through-armor criticals, it seems to have pretty good armor penetration abilities.

Considering its effective range is only 90m, we should not be surprised that it's not like an M-16 - the M-16 might not be able to penetrate 10'' armor, but it can kill infantry far further away.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 06 June 2013 - 10:30 PM.

[Deathlike]

JP Josh, on 06 June 2013 - 07:55 PM, said:

mg's in my opinion are a heatless small lazer or should be.

their con is they rely on ammo while small lazers have unlimited...and the arm or torso their mounted on can still be destroyed so why are people complaining again?

Because, to use the MG effectively... you need to do the following:

1) Continue to expose yourself - and this is almost always a bad idea, especially in a light mech like the Spider-5K. Lasers fire for its duration and you can leave to avoid being shot back until the weapon+heat is dealt with. MGs need to keep hitting the target to actually reach its stated DPS, despite generating no heat.

2) Ammo explosions - MG ammo depletes at a far slower rate than any other ammo. If you get an ammo explosion, it's pretty much a death. Each ton of ammo is 80 pts of potentially explosive damage... slowly being consumed 10 bullets/sec which only reduces the damage by .8/sec (which is really really slow).

3) Not enough damage - It's still worse than a Small Laser in every comparable way. This doesn't even factor the minimum of 1 ton of ammo required to feed the MG.

Edited by Deathlike, 06 June 2013 - 11:37 PM.

[El Bandito]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

Machines don't come close to laser damage and shouldn't. Bullets suck against steel walls.

That is cowdung. I remember back in MW2 and MW4 Machineguns killed mechs much faster than Small Lasers. My 7 MG Thor had killed other mechs easily enough.

Even if MGs are changed to put out same damage as Small Laser, Small Laser will still be superior since it can dump the 3 damage right away, while you have to hold the MG for 3 seconds to achieve that. MGs have cone of fire which makes them EVEN WORSE. PGI needs to buff MG damage to 1.2.

This thread is bad and this Ginger Liao guy should feel bad.

Edited by El Bandito, 07 June 2013 - 12:08 AM.

[stjobe]

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

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

In today's nomenclature, sure. But a 'mech-mounted "Machine Gun" in the BattleTech Universe is nothing at all like a "machine gun" in today's parlance. It is, in fact, what we today would call a (rotary) autocannon.

As for the BattleTech Autocannon, according to the fluff it is a development of the Rifle, which in turn is a development of modern-day main battle tank guns like the 120mm smoothbore gun on the M1A1. Funnily enough, the Rifle family of weapons have a -3 damage modifier against 'mech armour, meaning that the Light Rifle cannot damage 'mechs at all - and still the Machine Gun does 2 damage against 'mechs.

So a weapon derived from modern-day tank guns cannot damage 'mechs, but the MG can. Make of that what you will - to me that means that MGs aren't anything like what we today would call "machine guns", and any arguments based on real-life machine guns or real-life armour fails by default.

Edited by stjobe, 07 June 2013 - 12:09 AM.

[TexAce]

Please stop feeding this troll thread and let it sink into the deep dark forum nirvana for ever. Thanks.

[Lil Cthulhu]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

But MG's are supposed to be worse than small lasers by nature. If you make them equals what is the point of having both? Oh yeah people think ballistic mechs require MG's for some reason that's right.

I don't know where you are getting this misinformation about MG's are supposed to be worse than small lasers but they aren't and you're either just wrong or you're lying (to yourself, because the rest of us seem to understand how machine guns are supposed to function)

[Treye Snow]

GingerBang, on 06 June 2013 - 07:33 AM, said:

My roommate let me use his AC/2 Dragon, and this thing is GOD TIER. The AC/2's act like BIG machine guns, and DESTROY armor incredibly quick if you actually have the talent to aim it.

I lol'd right there. A dragon with AC2's is god tier. Oh my.

My faith in this post just died.