47 replies to this topic

[bonapartist1]

My recent playtesting of both the flamers and MGs yield that they are both practically worthless.

It's amazing PGI can tweak something so many times and still fail so miserably at the end of the day. They're WORTHLESS. Comical troll weapons chosen to mess with people.

[Tolkien]

bonapartist1, on 20 June 2013 - 09:39 PM, said:

My recent playtesting of both the flamers and MGs yield that they are both practically worthless.

It's amazing PGI can tweak something so many times and still fail so miserably at the end of the day. They're WORTHLESS. Comical troll weapons chosen to mess with people.

I actually think machine guns are getting into the zone where cost benefit of carrying around that exploding ammo makes sense. Keep in mind that currently machine guns are firing and random rates, not actually 10.0 rounds per second. On my machine they are usually around 8 rounds per second, so if they just fix that issue it's another 25% buff.

Flamers on the other hand are kinda trash. I know they don't want stun locking but the weapon is just not worth the risk right now. You have to be up the other guys nose in plain sight of the enemy team and you have a giant flare attached to you that says 'please shoot me'.

I recall someone did tests where they loaded a hunchback 4sp up with flamers and they overheated before a commando with 10 heatsinks hit 90% or something. Why indeed would someone use a weapon that hurts them more than their enemy....

[Dalziel Hasek Davion]

Until you can set fire to forests to create smoke and heat, I'm not planning on running flamers. Until you get hordes of infantry with shoulder-launched SRM2s where I can roll 2D6 for how many of them I can mow down in a second, I'm not running MGs.

I've tried to love them - I really have. But they just suck me into getting too close to the enemy and forgetting about positioning and the rest of my team - seducing me with the dakka dakka and the ping of bullets off of armour or the plume of plasma fury blinding me and the target. The make me forget about staying on the move in my Light 'Mechs, or equipping sufficient heat sinks in my heavies.

Even if they launched a Piranha Hero 'Mech I must be strong.

There must be some kind of patch I can get for this kind of thing. I mean like a nicotine patch - not a buff/nerf.

[Aslena]

Well... first off MG were never intended to be killing other mechs... there for killing infantry and mobile artillery... we just don't have those in this game yet...

Secondly if they are so bad why am I constantly hearing there annoying sound effect...

[Tolkien]

Aslena, on 21 June 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

Well... first off MG were never intended to be killing other mechs... there for killing infantry and mobile artillery... we just don't have those in this game yet...

Secondly if they are so bad why am I constantly hearing there annoying sound effect...

You're hearing them more since they've had a 250% damage and 33% range buff inside the last month. People are testing them out to see if they're starting to get good enough to keep the extra explody ammo on hand.

I find your statement that machine guns were never meant for mech combat to be a canard, since machine guns were introduced in the original battletech (battledroids? or a little later...) before infantry was in. So as I understand the timeline they were in for mech combat then given special anti infantry rules later (they kill 1 or 2 d6 infantry that are caught out of cover I think).

In the games pulse lasers have the same effect in that for each point of pulse laser damage they kill an infantry man if caught out of cover, yet I similarly wouldn't call these an anti infantry weapon.

In the games there are AP pods that go on mech legs - *these* were never intended for killing other mechs and they can't even damage them. Machine guns on the other hand are meant for damaging anything that is silly enough to be within 3 hexes of you... they, pulse lasers, and flamers just happen to excel at it.

[lshtaria]

I think MGs are where they need to be now. Running a 2 LL / 6 MG Jager and it's pretty awesome. Any more of a damage buff and they're going to start becoming OP.

[Blue Shadow]

I too like how the MGs are right now, they don't feel useless anymore but they are still a light weapon and they do what you'd expect for a light weapon, although you still need at least 2.... my Cicada with x4 MGs is now my favorite Cicada variant!

[Asmosis]

People seem to get confused about "these weapons were really good for killing infantry when it was introduced" and "these weapons were designed for killing infantry"

They may have become the default for killing infantry (SL probably should be there too) but that's only because shooting a human with a large laser or ac10 is just overkill. The fact is machine guns are a very light weapon that could be fitted on just about anything (mechs, tanks, BA) etc later on.

Also match with the above mentioned erppc/MG jagger. I went back and counted the er ppc shots, if all the ones that looked like they connected did, about 500/870 damage was ER PPC, the other 470 was machine guns.

I think it makes a good point as well. If your mech is already running at 100% heat capacity MG's can contribute a significant amount of DPS over the match. Plus they are fun as hell.


*edit*

If someone could tell/PM me how to embed a youtube link correctly i'd much appreciate it lol

Edited by Asmosis, 22 June 2013 - 02:14 AM.