5 replies to this topic

[Voq]

Question is fairly straightforward... I know machine guns are strong "crit seekers", but do they do damage when the enemy mech is armored? With no penalty?

[Viken]

MG's do .1 damage per shot, at 10 shots per second, for 1 DPS to any armored target. The "problem" with them is that it's conical fire. So, that means that you're not going 1dps to a specific component that you're aiming for, it'll still spread out.

To answer your question, they'll still do the .1 damage per shot as listed, but the crit seeking with the attack speed is where they truly shine.

Edited by Viken, 08 June 2014 - 05:18 PM.

[Voq]

Appreciate the detailed answer. Thank you very much.

[Throe]

[deleted by user]

Edited by Throe, 20 November 2018 - 11:57 AM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Throet, on 08 June 2014 - 06:22 PM, said:

The laser doesn't have an ammo limit, but it generates considerably more heat(especially since the MGun generates *no* heat). The MGun also has longer range.

Yeah kinda hard to do less heat than 0 is it not?


Having said that - the only weapon that really beats the MG for crit-damage is the LBAC - making the 6MG Arrow a (potentially - as I have not tried it yet) true terror as a vulture style fighter.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Viken, on 08 June 2014 - 05:17 PM, said:

The "problem" with them is that it's conical fire. So, that means that you're not going 1dps to a specific component that you're aiming for, it'll still spread out.

Fortunately, the cone isn't as bad as the visual spray of bullets makes it look. Also, you don't need to lead with a machine gun, which is a significant consideration- leading with a machine gun actually means missing, just like with a laser.



Machine guns do more damage when hitting internal structure, but that's more a relative thing, like Throet says.

The reason they do more damage is that every tick (and there are ten ticks per machine gun per second) of .1 damage has a chance of dealing a critical hit, and it's a higher chance than every other weapon (except an individual LB-X pellet) has of dealing a critical hit. With ten chances at to score a critical hit every second, you're racking up a large number of tiny critical hits with a machine gun. Additionally, machine guns have boosted damage on critical hits- while most weapons deal 1/15 of their weapon damage in additional structure damage for each critical hit scored, a machine gun tick deals an extra .14 or so damage- bringing that tick up to .24, .38, or .52 damage (respectively for one crit, two crit, red crit, blue crit, three crit).

If I recall critical hit chances correctly, normal critical hit chance is 58% no crit, 25% one crit, 14% two crits, and 3% three crits. Machine guns, having the boosted critical hit chance, have a 48% no crit, 31% one crit, 17% two crit, and 4% three crit chance per tick. Assuming all is average, that means that within the space of a one-second burst of fire with one machine gun, you'll have ten ticks and output roughly seven critical hits total, adding .98 damage to the 1.0 damage the machine gun deals anyways and making the thing roughly twice as damaging per second.

Since critical hits can only be scored on a component (or section) of 'mech after that component has been stripped of armor, the machine gun's damage ticks and critical chance combination means precisely zilch against armor, thus leading to the 'wimpy feeling' when firing on an armored target- especially when one takes into account that the critical hits also deal equipment damage, and two crits from a machine gun tick deals the same damage to equipment (not structure) that an entire small laser shot on target deals.

So now you know, and knowing is a significant portion of the armed conflict.

-QKD-CR0

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 10 June 2014 - 11:21 PM.