19 replies to this topic

[Knightshadowsong]

Okay. Let me start by saying that this IS NOT a troll message. I'm a long time MechWarrior fan. and in every other game Machine Guns weren't as damaging as they are Now. I understand the arguments agenized what people are saying that the MG's need a Nerf.

so, let me recap on what people are saying before I go into my thoughts on this.
The MG's range, is lousy. the max I believe is 250M. and that's doing who knows what damage. However! Key word here HOWEVER: a light mech can easily close that range in an insane amount of time.
There damage is 1HP per Bullet, at 10 Bullets a second. People have said that MG's don't do any damage to armor. but I've gone into the Trial mode and checked. this is untrue. I can core an atlas in almost 50 seconds WITHOUT USEING LASERS!!!, the thing is that they do an insane amount of Damage to components. (Weapons, heat Sinc's ect) and with a mech that moves faster then most mech's can turn, even a light charging a lance of Mech's can core at least 2 mech's before dyeing. I've seen that for myself. However. the fire rate means that if even half those shots hit, your doing as much or MORE damage then an AC-5.
Lastly. my thoughts on them are as follows. There not BAD per say. But there damage needs to be a bit more balanced. as they don't cause any heat, a simple way to balance them would be to add a random Jam chance to them. This would balance them out as at present. I've seen Assault Mech's carrying 6 of the blasted Things. There Range and damage are okay, But adding the jam (Even todays MG's Jam from time to time) would be a balancing effect on them.
That's my thoughts. Hopefully I've presented this in a professional Manner.
That said. I'll see you on the Battle Ground.

[Vassago Rain]

No.

[MustrumRidcully]

Your damage figure is wrong. If you would actually deal 1 damage per bullet and shoot 10 bullets per second, you would not need 50 seconds to kill an Atlas. YOur figures imply 10 DPS per MG, and an Atlas has a maximum of 124 armor on the CT and 62 internal armor, so you'd need (124+62)/10 = 18.6 seconds (and that is the best possible case for the Atlas, some armour will usually be distributed to the rear.)

If you need actually 50 seconds, the damage output must be something else. And it is. IIRC, a single MG currently has 1 DPS.

But you only achieve that if you hold your fire button and look the enemy in the CT. See how long you fare against any mech with that strategy, and how long you'll actually be allowed to aim at the CT before the enemy takes some defensive actions (aka "torso twisting").

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 12 November 2013 - 03:11 AM.

[Lord Perversor]

Knightshadowsong, on 12 November 2013 - 02:58 AM, said:

Okay. Let me start by saying that this IS NOT a troll message. I'm a long time MechWarrior fan. and in every other game Machine Guns weren't as damaging as they are Now. I understand the arguments agenized what people are saying that the MG's need a Nerf.

so, let me recap on what people are saying before I go into my thoughts on this.
The MG's range, is lousy. the max I believe is 250M. and that's doing who knows what damage. However! Key word here HOWEVER: a light mech can easily close that range in an insane amount of time.
There damage is 1HP per Bullet, at 10 Bullets a second. People have said that MG's don't do any damage to armor. but I've gone into the Trial mode and checked. this is untrue. I can core an atlas in almost 50 seconds WITHOUT USEING LASERS!!!, the thing is that they do an insane amount of Damage to components. (Weapons, heat Sinc's ect) and with a mech that moves faster then most mech's can turn, even a light charging a lance of Mech's can core at least 2 mech's before dyeing. I've seen that for myself. However. the fire rate means that if even half those shots hit, your doing as much or MORE damage then an AC-5.
Lastly. my thoughts on them are as follows. There not BAD per say. But there damage needs to be a bit more balanced. as they don't cause any heat, a simple way to balance them would be to add a random Jam chance to them. This would balance them out as at present. I've seen Assault Mech's carrying 6 of the blasted Things. There Range and damage are okay, But adding the jam (Even todays MG's Jam from time to time) would be a balancing effect on them.
That's my thoughts. Hopefully I've presented this in a professional Manner.
That said. I'll see you on the Battle Ground.

Lies!! all LIES!!

1st they are mostly effective when using 3-6 of them and there is only like 10 variants able to carry such ammount ( and no NO ASSAULT CAN CARRY 6 that's a Jagermech DD Heavy 65 tons)

2nd they can dmg armor yes, but with 1x DPS that's not seriously OP and just considering you can keep the reticle in the same spot of the **enemy moving mech** and not even considering the cone of fire they suffer.

3rd the Structure hits it's the only thing that truly boost it's dmg after **armor it's gone** and even then you need to be lucky since sometimes the ******* weapons don;t want to crit and it takes even longer than firing over armor.

[Vassago Rain]

inb4 anti-infantry, because Sarna says so.

[FupDup]

Vassago Rain, on 12 November 2013 - 03:14 AM, said:

inb4 anti-infantry, because Sarna says so.

The sad part is that Sarna also says they do 2 damage to general targets, and sometimes the phrase "while still being effective at damaging battlemechs" is also edited into the first sentence. It's not really a Sarna issue so much as it's an issue of people with no imagination of space robots trying to categorize a space machine gun as they would a modern-day infantry-carried machine gun.

This whole "anti infantry" myth most likely exists because the BT designers decided to call it an MG instead of a Micro Autocannon, even though the functionality would be the exact same in the end.

Edited by FupDup, 12 November 2013 - 05:41 AM.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Mguns are alright, they are extremely good at finishing off stripped areas of a mech, and can be pretty nasty if allowed to focus on a stationary target for long. However mguns use a cone-of-fire effect alongside hit-scan making it spread its love a lot especially in a moving fight.

That being said, they also sound fun and look fantastic in those mechs with their ballistic ports near the cockpit (Blackjacks, Cicadas, ect)

[Shadey99]

MGs are often hit or miss. I run a 4xMG Locust 1V and even without armor (glowing yellow or even red internals) my targets can often live way to long for a Locusts safety margin. Other times I can eat through a damaged mech in a fraction of a second. The same goes for the Spider 5K (Which I also own, though it has a LPL to go with the MGs).

As already highly variable weapons they do not need new variation mechanics added.

[CDLord HHGD]

Technically, MGs are anti-infantry.... But so is an AC2 or any other weapon. Overkill is still kill.

I'm in favor of bumping the MG DPS to 2, but half the ammo and keep the crappy range. I also think there's a mechanic to make them more effective against internals versus armor. If so, that would need to go though. But this would buff the MGs while still keeping the AC2 viable.

Edited by cdlord, 12 November 2013 - 06:48 AM.

[Curccu]

Oh cool one of these threads again...

...and to actually contribute something instead of just trolling.

If PGI could remove this silly MG cone of fire, this weapon would be a lot better... no point having this new extra range when your cone of fire is so huge that some of the bullets miss standing still mech, while aiming to CT.

[stjobe]

Knightshadowsong, on 12 November 2013 - 02:58 AM, said:

<stuff>

As others have pointed out, you're factually wrong about the MG; it doesn't have 10 DPS, it has 1 DPS.

It also has a continuous-fire mechanic and random cone of fire, meaning you'll be hard pressed to even get that 1 DPS into a single location at anything other than knife-fighting range. And you'll be exposing your CT the whole time.

If anything, the MG needs a slight buff; a good start would be to remove the cone of fire so that we can actually hit what we aim at.

It's funny with so many people arguing against a cone of fire that they're perfectly okay with it on the MG. Either remove it from the MG or implement it for the ACs ("basically giant machine guns", firing "bursts" or "streams" of 10-100 projectiles); I prefer they remove it from the MG until they've implemented proper burst fire for both ACs and MG.

Edited by stjobe, 12 November 2013 - 07:32 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

Curccu pointed out one of the biggest issues and that is damage spread. You have to keep your crosshair in one spot and, even if you do, you're not guaranteed that the damage will go to where you're pointing.

Anecdotal case in point: Yesterday, I was Crimson Straight in an Assault match. We've got someone capping our base and someone on my team is capping theirs. So, being in a Locust and not wanting to get squashed, I roll to their base to help cap. As I get closer, I see that my teammate has the ECM blocked indicator above it and see that he (Raven 4x) is getting attacked by a Spider. When I finally get into range, he finishes off the Raven with his 3 Md Pulses while I unload a Large Laser into his chest. Now, the paper doll registered it (shocker, I know) and showed that all three torsos were stripped of armor with the left torso showing orange internals. We go head to head and I'm putting all three of my MGs into his chest/arm area. Now, I'm largely untouched by the time the fight starts. The fight ends with me getting double legged and him walking away with nothing really changing except for me stripping his arm.

Three machine guns against a stripped Spider vs 3 Md Pulse Lasers going through two Locust legs. That speaks to both the failure of the MGs and how stupid Spiders are.

[Amsro]

Machine Guns are still bad and PGI should feel bad for having them in this state for so long. They refuse to try anything new in the test server except long overdue half completed features.

[BlackIronTarkus]

Im sorry for you OP but you truely have no idea of what you are talking about.

[Finn McShae]

You know, I like the way they sound.

So my Thud still keeps its paired MG's so I can just hold down the button and dakka. I link the SSRM's to the same button so they go ahead and fly when I get a lock and I'm in range. It sort of works, and I've yet to manage to run out of a whole ton of ammo in a single match.. ever (I used to run a couple on a Jager for a bit as well).

Are they OP, god no. Are they good? Not really.

But they sound cool.

[Knightshadowsong]

IF you people had read my post FULLY! I said they had 1 damage a bullet, at 10 BPS. meaning that if ALL those shots hit (and a light mech will close to a VERY Close distance to eliminate the 'cone of fire') your doing as much damage as an AC10! All I'm saying is that I feel that they need a Nerf. I see WAY too many heavy and Assaults carrying them. That should tell you something. Though I will admit, I've noticed there use dumbing down over the last few weeks. I still say that adding a random Jam chance (Much like the Ultra AC5) would be a balancing thing. Though I'm willing to give and say that there damage at close range could be buffed to maybe 1.5.

But as someone else pointed out they would also need to Buff the AC2.

[TheMadTypist]

Knightshadowsong, on 12 November 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

IF you people had read my post FULLY! I said they had 1 damage a bullet, at 10 BPS. meaning that if ALL those shots hit (and a light mech will close to a VERY Close distance to eliminate the 'cone of fire') your doing as much damage as an AC10! All I'm saying is that I feel that they need a Nerf. I see WAY too many heavy and Assaults carrying them. That should tell you something. Though I will admit, I've noticed there use dumbing down over the last few weeks. I still say that adding a random Jam chance (Much like the Ultra AC5) would be a balancing thing. Though I'm willing to give and say that there damage at close range could be buffed to maybe 1.5.

But as someone else pointed out they would also need to Buff the AC2.

I... what?

No. Take a mech into the trial grounds with an ac10 and a machine gun. Test it yourself. Ten machine gun bullets vs an AC10, fired into opposite side torsos on a medium/heavy 'mech. Or if you want a more dramatic example, twenty vs an ac20.

The machine gun has a damage of 0.1 per bullet, not 1. That's 1 damage in 10 seconds, per machine gun. Half the damage of a single AC2 round, in ten seconds, with a random cone of fire that'll more than cover an atlas at the supposed 'max' range of 240 (and if you're using them over 180ish, you're doing it wrong).

EDIT: math fail. Ten bullets per second. One damage in one second. But still- one damage over 3-5 components, enemy movement depending, per second. I feel like a silly dunce now, don't I? Still worse than, say, a small laser, which does the same DPS, concentrates fire through the burst-downtime model, and is completely cooled by a single engine DHS at full rate of fire.

It's a filler weapon if you've got left over tonnage and hardpoints, or a light's desperate brawling tool when they don't get any other good hardpoints. At best it adds component critting ability, at worst it adds flashy distractions on the enemy HUD.

EDIT:

Knightshadowsong, on 12 November 2013 - 02:58 AM, said:

I've seen Assault Mech's carrying 6 of the blasted Things.

Wait. I missed this. Nevermind. I suppose the "not a troll post' disclaimer should have tipped me off.

Edited by TheMadTypist, 12 November 2013 - 07:11 PM.

[Kubernetes]

Oh man, if machine guns were 1 damage per bullet, I'd immediately unload all AC20s, LBXs, and UACs in favor of machine guns. 2000 dmg per one ton ammo? Sadly, no, a machine gun does not have double the dps of an AC20.

Quote

IF you people had read my post FULLY!

We did read your post fully. It was full of nonsense. If machine guns did 1 dmg per bullet, they'd be the most powerful weapons in the game. A Spider with 4 machine guns would be be pumping out 40 dps, the equivalent of 8 AC20s or 16 PPCs. A Jager could carry 6 and we could call it an AC240 Jager. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a Spider core an Atlas in under 5 seconds just with machine guns.

Edited by Kubernetes, 12 November 2013 - 07:16 PM.

[Otto Cannon]

'I'm not a troll' said the voice from under the bridge as the goats crossed...

[Deathlike]

And this is why the massive MG thread existed... to educate and edumacate people who didn't understand the MG and why it needed buffs... and also explain why the current MG design is poorly conceived vs armored targets.

If the damage per bullet was 1 pt of damage, everyone would have boated them and then some long ago and it would eat armor and blow up Lolcusts faster. Alas, it is not the case at all.