65 replies to this topic

[Wolfways]

Ralgas, on 15 September 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

Well they could be doing the same dps to both armor and internals as the ac2 if they moved closer to their tt translations, would you prefer that?

Actually making the MG closer to TT would make it much worse than the AC2 as in MWO the AC2 does twenty times more damage than it did in TT.

[Khobai]

The only problem with the MG now is it that gets too much ammo per ton.

When they increased the damage from .4 to 1 they shouldve decreased the ammo per ton from 2000 to 800

[Wolfways]

MustrumRidcully, on 16 September 2013 - 03:50 AM, said:

You can probably find a few competitive ballistic weapons in M:WO that are as powerful or more than energy weapons, but damn it, that ammo explosion really makes them too risky for my taste.

The worst ballistic (not including the MG) is the AC5 with a dps of 3.33. The best energy weapon is the LPL with a dps of 2.75.
I find that if i'm at the point where i'll get ammo explosions i'm also at the point where im so damaged i'd be losing lasers anyway.
My Jager with 2xAC5's and 2xAC2's will destroy any mech in seconds, and with the games current "balance" i see no reason for lasers to exist other than backup in case your real weapons run out of ammo or are destroyed.

[Joseph Mallan]

OneEyed Jack, on 16 September 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

To respond to your horribly formatted quote from the BT Wiki (note, it's a freaking Wiki), MGs get a bonus vs infantry and... I guess they're cheap enough to waste on shooting at light vehicles (?)(Not really sure of the reasoning there). So, if you're going to build a mech, with mech weapons, to combat infantry, it only makes sense to use weapons that are particularly effective vs infantry. That doesn't make it a purpose-built anti-infantry weapon.

If you look on YouTube, there's video of a US Army unit calling in support from an A-10 to fire on an infantry position. It makes maybe a 1-second burp and pretty much wipes out the target infantry unit. It was not built to shoot at infantry.

Yeah I fixed the formatting. Copy paste-fu isn't the best! The A-10 uses an AUTO CANNON, not a Machine gun. There is a distinction, minute but it is there. In BattleTech Machine guns are 20mm and under.

The point is, a Battletech MG is supposed to be a weak anti Mech weapon. A normal Mech carried 1-2. Unless it was a Mech designed for Anti Infantry roles then it carried 2-4 and maybe a flamer or two. The point is, you needed 10 of them to equal an AC20 in damage. Hence it being a subpar, last resort, got nothing else weapon. To keep it in scale a Mech should ave to bat a ton of them to be scary, 4 should not be any more dangerous than 4 small lasers. Since Machine guns are a spray weapon they should have a burst similar to energy weapons with damage being delivered in a like manner. It should not be so hard for PGI to do.

[MustrumRidcully]

Wolfways, on 16 September 2013 - 04:51 AM, said:

The worst ballistic (not including the MG) is the AC5 with a dps of 3.33. The best energy weapon is the LPL with a dps of 2.75.
I find that if i'm at the point where i'll get ammo explosions i'm also at the point where im so damaged i'd be losing lasers anyway.
My Jager with 2xAC5's and 2xAC2's will destroy any mech in seconds, and with the games current "balance" i see no reason for lasers to exist other than backup in case your real weapons run out of ammo or are destroyed.

Oh, damn, I mistyped. I meant "Table Top" where I wrote M:WO. in the table top, ammo explosion can happen much easier and earlier.
- Heat
- Through Armor Crits
- Regular Crits

In M:WO, ammo explosions only trigger with a 10 % chance, so they are neglibile. Raising that chance would probably be horrible.

[Pale Jackal]

OMFG, are people really complaining about machine guns? Have you tried piloting a Cicada 3C (1 ERPPC or LPulse with 4 MGs) or a Jaeger DD with 2 UAC5 with 4 MGs?

I'm tempted to rip the MGs out of the Jaeger for more UAC5 ammo. A weapon with 120m max effective range AND requires constant fire on the target to achieve a staggering... 1 DPS?

Really, guys? MGs are not absolute trash anymore, but I'm still not convinced they're a good option. Piloting the 3C was a painful experience, even when MGs had 1 DPS. Granted, this was during the long-range meta, so things are probably a bit better now.

Don't touch MGs.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

Yeah I fixed the formatting. Copy paste-fu isn't the best! The A-10 uses an AUTO CANNON, not a Machine gun. There is a distinction, minute but it is there. In BattleTech Machine guns are 20mm and under.

The distinction is useless when discussing 1000-years-in-the-future weaponry. What we call "machine guns" is obviously not the same thing as a 1000-years-in-the-future 500kg 'mech mounted weapon, and neither are what we call "auto cannons" the same as the 1000-years-in-the-future weaponry mounted on 'mechs - unless you want to explain the fluff that says BT autocannons evolved from Rifles which in turn evolved from modern-day main battle tank guns...

Joseph Mallan, on 16 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

The point is, a Battletech MG is supposed to be a weak anti Mech weapon. A normal Mech carried 1-2. Unless it was a Mech designed for Anti Infantry roles then it carried 2-4 and maybe a flamer or two. The point is, you needed 10 of them to equal an AC20 in damage. Hence it being a subpar, last resort, got nothing else weapon. To keep it in scale a Mech should ave to bat a ton of them to be scary, 4 should not be any more dangerous than 4 small lasers. Since Machine guns are a spray weapon they should have a burst similar to energy weapons with damage being delivered in a like manner. It should not be so hard for PGI to do.

Perhaps you have a point arguing from fluff, but you sure don't have a point by game mechanics - or you just choose to ignore crits altogether.

I know you've stated time and time again that you never played with MGs in TT if you could at all help it, so I'm not really surprised you cannot see the advantages of them.

(and round and round we go )

[Wolfways]

MustrumRidcully, on 16 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

Oh, damn, I mistyped. I meant "Table Top" where I wrote M:WO. in the table top, ammo explosion can happen much easier and earlier.
- Heat
- Through Armor Crits
- Regular Crits

In M:WO, ammo explosions only trigger with a 10 % chance, so they are neglibile. Raising that chance would probably be horrible.

Yeah in TT ballistics had a real drawback. In MWO they have very little drawback, if any at all.
Low chance of ammo explosion.
Weight is negligible as energy weapons need loads more heat sinks due to the increased rate of fire. Even with the ballistic RoF being vastly increased they still need less heat sinks than lasers.
And of course, the heat scale has been removed.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 16 September 2013 - 05:21 AM, said:

The distinction is useless when discussing 1000-years-in-the-future weaponry. What we call "machine guns" is obviously not the same thing as a 1000-years-in-the-future 500kg 'mech mounted weapon, and neither are what we call "auto cannons" the same as the 1000-years-in-the-future weaponry mounted on 'mechs - unless you want to explain the fluff that says BT autocannons evolved from Rifles which in turn evolved from modern-day main battle tank guns...


Perhaps you have a point arguing from fluff, but you sure don't have a point by game mechanics - or you just choose to ignore crits altogether.

I know you've stated time and time again that you never played with MGs in TT if you could at all help it, so I'm not really surprised you cannot see the advantages of them.

(and round and round we go )

So long as they are balanced according to other 0.5 ton weapons they will be fine St. I am ignoring the crit argument because I feel that is a different topic altogether. And my position is once you are through the armor, the spray from a MG should tear up the not so hard bits at a glorious rate. You are firing a lot of brass at squishy things after all.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 16 September 2013 - 05:28 AM.

[Fut]

Lynx7725, on 15 September 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

MG was never intended to be anti-mech. I don't have an issue with the current implementation since my understanding of the situation both lore and implementation is that it isn't supposed to be anti-mech. I also don't have an issue if PGI wants it to become anti-mech, but then they'd have to scrub the entire current setup and redo.

I find it both amusing and annoying that people are still perpetuating this misunderstanding.

Straight from Sarna- Machine Guns:

Quote

The Machine Gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon, issuing a stream of bullets at a high rate of fire to cut down opposing soldiers, while still being effective at damaging BattleMechs.

So yeah, it's great at chopping down troops on the ground, but it's still effective at damaging Mechs. Done, case closed. Stop trying to convince people that MG rounds should be bouncing off of Mechs.

Edited by Fut, 16 September 2013 - 05:38 AM.

[Gallowglas]

I believe that the pre-nerf MG's were indeed too good. I'm not sure how the current implementation could ever be viewed as OP. Good in certain situations or on certain builds? Sure, but definitely not over the top.

I find the arguments that it should be a bad weapon baffling. If this is the case you might as well not even have it in the game. People won't take something if it's bad. There will always be a better use for tonnage.

[Monky]

Machineguns get bonuses vs infantry. They don't get penalties vs mechs.

Seriously stop with the reading comprehension fails guys.

Just because it's called a machine gun doesn't mean it doesn't have bite. It is a MECH-SCALE machinegun.

[Lostdragon]

Doing decent damage with a Spider-5K is not easy to do. A variant of the upcoming Locust will have a similar hardpoint setup also. Relying on MGs to do the bulk of your damage means you have to constantly be in people's faces. The difference in the amount of effort it takes to get 300+ damage in the K versus the D or any Jenner is pretty huge and it is really, really hard to do more than about 450 because of the sheer amount of time on target it takes to deliver that much damage.

Also, I have never seen a 6 MG Jager that didn't also have a couple of LLs or PPCs. Those do tend to help quite a lot in exposing your mech's squishy bits to those MGs. So if anything I would say MGs are currently ok to slightly UP. There is no need to nerf them and make the lighter mechs with lots of ballistic points useless (playing a Spider 5V is already punishment enough for how good the D is).

[Joseph Mallan]

Monky, on 16 September 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

Machineguns get bonuses vs infantry. They don't get penalties vs mechs.

Seriously stop with the reading comprehension fails guys.

Just because it's called a machine gun doesn't mean it doesn't have bite. It is a MECH-SCALE machinegun.

That removes 2 points of armor in 10 seconds fire(TT)...

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 16 September 2013 - 06:11 AM.

[Monky]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 September 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

That removes 2 points of armor in 10 seconds fire(TT)... 3.2% of a ton of armor in a turn.

This same logic can be applied to all weapons in MWO. EVERYTHING fires MUCH FASTER than it should if this where TT.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 September 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

That removes 2 points of armor in 10 seconds fire(TT)...

Unless I miss my mark, 1 ton of armour in TT is 16 points. That makes each point 62.5kg, and thus the MG removes 125kg of armour in 10 seconds.

In MWO 1 ton of armour is 32 points, and each point is then 31.25kg. The MWO MG removes 31.25kg of armour per second, or 312.5kg in 10 seconds (or 3.125kg per projectile).

That's a pretty good-sized chunk of armour if you look at it that way.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 16 September 2013 - 06:19 AM, said:

Unless I miss my mark, 1 ton of armour in TT is 16 points. That makes each point 62.5kg, and thus the MG removes 125kg of armour in 10 seconds.

In MWO 1 ton of armour is 32 points, and each point is then 31.25kg. The MWO MG removes 31.25kg of armour per second, or 312.5kg in 10 seconds (or 3.125kg per projectile).

That's a pretty good-sized chunk of armour if you look at it that way.

IIRC there is 1000kg per ton, 32 seconds to remove one ton of armor(1,000/31.25=32)... On TT 32 seconds is just over 3 turns ... 6 damage from a Machine gun or only 187.5 kg of armor...

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 September 2013 - 06:40 AM, said:

IIRC there is 1000kg per ton, 32 seconds to remove one ton of armor(1,000/31.25=32)... On TT 32 seconds is just over 3 turns ... 6 damage from a Machine gun or only 187.5 kg of armor...

You're mixing TT and MWO values. 3 hits from a TT MG strips 375kg.

MWO: 32 seconds to remove a ton of armour (1,000 / 31.25).
TT: 8 turns (80 seconds) to remove a ton of armour (1,000 / 125 for turns or 1,000 / 12.5 for seconds).

Or, if you want: 8 successful to-hit rolls in TT or 320 successful projectile hits in MWO will both strip a ton of armour from a 'mech.

Either way, that's a lot of armour to strip for a supposedly "anti-infantry" weapon

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 16 September 2013 - 06:50 AM, said:

You're mixing TT and MWO values. 3 hits from a TT MG strips 375kg.

MWO: 32 seconds to remove a ton of armour (1,000 / 31.25).
TT: 8 turns (80 seconds) to remove a ton of armour (1,000 / 125 for turns or 1,000 / 12.5 for seconds).

Or, if you want: 8 successful to-hit rolls in TT or 320 successful projectile hits in MWO will both strip a ton of armour from a 'mech.

Either way, that's a lot of armour to strip for a supposedly "anti-infantry" weapon

8 successful to-hit rolls with one machine gun on TT or 80 seconds of fire, almost 3x as long to remove one ton.
...
...
3x as long to remove the same amount of armor as TT.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 September 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

8 successful to-hit rolls with one machine gun on TT or 80 seconds of fire, almost 3x as long to remove one ton.
...
...
3x as long to remove the same amount of armor as TT.

Yes? Every single weapon in MWO has gotten a roughly 3x rate of fire boost - you can't be oblivious to that fact, Joe

Did you have a point or are you just arguing because you love arguing with me?