78 replies to this topic

[Remover of Obstacles]

I agree that MG could use some love. Back to 1.0 dps seems about right.

BJ-Arrow, JM6-DD, KGC-000 and technically a DWF could all run 6 MGs.
And technically, technically the Shadow Cat could run 7 at the exclusion of ECM and any reasonable mid to long range damage.

I would say that generally your team is ok with you bringing a 6 MG Arrow with 2 LPL, grimaces a bit at the garbage time clean up JM6-DD, and would gladly trade you to the other team if you bring any of the other mechs with 6 MGs.

[Fubl]

stjobe, on 30 May 2015 - 10:52 PM, said:

Not in MWO there isn't. The Piranha is ten years out of timeline.

Piranha were actually first stated in Invading clans which is dated right after the battle of Tukkayid also with the threser. Just like the shadowcat, Cauldron born, and the Hankyu which guess what is 3/4ths of the next pack.

[Bulletsponge0]

Eyepop, on 27 May 2015 - 03:32 PM, said:

The reason that I'm not so quick to campaign for flamers is that the benefit of working, viable MGs is so much greater. We already have 1-ton energy weapons that can be taken instead. But right now, ballistic slots on lights are pretty much worthless.

The MG state is so bad, that people actually take them off of the Pirate's Bane because the amount that they reduce your visibility with muzzle flashes reduces your damage more than having two more guns increases it.

except in the Adder

[stjobe]

Fubl, on 31 May 2015 - 07:15 AM, said:

Piranha were actually first stated in Invading clans which is dated right after the battle of Tukkayid also with the threser. Just like the shadowcat, Cauldron born, and the Hankyu which guess what is 3/4ths of the next pack.

Ah yes, I stand corrected. Clan Diamond Shark had them in 3051, and made use of them in the Tukkayid campaign. They weren't seen again until the 3060s though.



(Technical Readout 3058, p. 158)

[Deathlike]

stjobe, on 30 May 2015 - 10:52 PM, said:

At the moment, there's just two 'mechs that are even able to mount six machine guns; the JM6-DD and the KGC-000.

You forgot the Arrow (hero BJ).

[Burktross]

Eyepop, on 30 May 2015 - 10:32 AM, said:

Everybody say "hi" to Russ, he said he's gonna check out this thread ^.^

Russ, pls, gib non-useless MGs. Hell, on TT, 2 MGs and you were set for a damn well reliable backup weapon.
Now you need what, 6, for it to be not terrible. And at that point you're giving it so much weight as to get a disadvantage in your primary weapons as opposed to your secondary weapons.

[Mazzyplz]

what we need is only to make everything twice as big.

make the machinegun weigh ONE TON.
make the ammo only have HALF the bullets.
cut the fire rate in half
make the bullets do 2x dmg

there you have it. same dps as before - but now shooting and getting back into cover actually DOES something

[Lostdragon]

Ragtag soldier, on 30 May 2015 - 07:30 PM, said:

you're aware there's a clan mech with 12 machinguns, right? 12 should be scary. 6 should just be serious.

it's important to remember they have pretty much no heat, too. so they're like free damage between laser volleys.

I'm sure PGI will find a way to put ghost heat or negative quirks on it so it doesn't core an Atlas from behind in 3 seconds. Besides, it only weighs 20 tons. It has paper armor and will be easily one shot just like the lolcust and it will run through the ammo you can equip pretty quickly. With full armor and 3 ERML and 12 MG (which I think would be the best build) I think you'd have something like three tons left for ammo. 12 MG will chew through that pretty quickly. If you ditch the lasers or downgrade them you could take some more ammo but I don't think it would be worth it unless the MG got huge buffs.

And yes they have no heat, but they also still have all the negatives I mentioned previously and, as stjobe pointed out, they require face time to do damage. I don't think lack of heat is enough to offset that.

I would like to see one or two MGs be a useful part of a mechs armament since there are a lot of lights that have ballistic hardpoints but lack the weight to equip anything bigger. The SDR 5K used to be a fun mech for a minute when machine guns were decent but now even with 4 it is just not worth playing. You can do the same job a lot better with a mech that has some SPLs.

[Burktross]

Mazzyplz, on 31 May 2015 - 09:33 AM, said:

what we need is only to make everything twice as big.

make the machinegun weigh ONE TON.
make the ammo only have HALF the bullets.
cut the fire rate in half
make the bullets do 2x dmg

there you have it. same dps as before - but now shooting and getting back into cover actually DOES something

Brb breaking stock builds

[Eyepop]

Mazzyplz, on 31 May 2015 - 09:33 AM, said:

what we need is only to make everything twice as big.

make the machinegun weigh ONE TON.
make the ammo only have HALF the bullets.
cut the fire rate in half
make the bullets do 2x dmg

there you have it. same dps as before - but now shooting and getting back into cover actually DOES something

That:

1) Breaks stock mechs hugely
2) Is completely unhelpful

Oh, no your one-shot burst of MG death deals a whopping .16 damage. If you look at someone for as long as the burst of a SPL (since they're the same weight, not counting that you need ammo for the machine gun), you get to fire TWICE, dealing .32 damage. The SPL deals 4 damage in that time.

Actually, know what? Sorry for taking the bait, pretty sure that's a troll post xD

[Spleenslitta]

I use MG's a lot on my Kit Fox and i'll say this.
It's true that they don't do so well against armor....but once you get to the internals by using other weapons the MGs are very deadly.
A single MG won't do much even with exposed internals.
But if you can get 3-4 MG's they are absolutly lethal in late part of the match when almost everyone has exposed internals.

If there is a ballistic weapon that needs a boost it's all the AC2 whether it's IS or Clan version.
Lower heat is good but not enough. Some say lowering weight would cure the AC2 but PGI is stubborn about that part...so i made this thread once.
Clan/is Ac2 Fix Without Touching Heat Or Weight.

[Eyepop]

That may be how it feels, but remember, that for the 2-3 tons you had to spend on those 3-4 machine guns, you could have gotten 2-3 small lasers (if you had the hard points) and done even more damage, both against internals and against armor. If you were an IS mech, that would be 3-4 tons, and even more in favor of just taking small lasers.

[Spleenslitta]

Eyepop, on 31 May 2015 - 12:07 PM, said:

That may be how it feels, but remember, that for the 2-3 tons you had to spend on those 3-4 machine guns, you could have gotten 2-3 small lasers (if you had the hard points) and done even more damage, both against internals and against armor. If you were an IS mech, that would be 3-4 tons, and even more in favor of just taking small lasers.

But in return i would get more heat and MG's have that critical hit damage multiplier. How high was it again? I think someone mentioned 7x damage on a critical hit.
It might not sound like much since a single MG bullet does so little damage, but the constant stream of bullets makes up for it.
Critical hits is scored very often at that firerate.
Combine that with a targeting computer mk.1 and there is a 32.25% chance of critical hit to single component.
21.25% to crit 2 components...what was the chance of a triple crit again?

In either case one thing is for certain. Ever since i started using 4 MG's on my Kit Fox the amount of components i destroy averagely per match has definitivly at least doubled.
This is without a targeting computer too. In any case i'm satisfied with the current MGs.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 31 May 2015 - 12:23 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Spleenslitta, on 31 May 2015 - 12:20 PM, said:

But in return i would get more heat and MG's have that critical hit damage multiplier. How high was it again? I think someone mentioned 7x damage on a critical hit.
It might not sound like much since a single MG bullet does so little damage, but the constant stream of bullets makes up for it.
Critical hits is scored very often at that firerate.
Combine that with a targeting computer mk.1 and there is a 32.25% chance of critical hit to single component.
21.25% to crit 2 components...what was the chance of a triple crit again?

In either case one thing is for certain. Ever since i started using 4 MG's on my Kit Fox the amount of components i destroy averagely per match has definitivly at least doubled.
This is without a targeting computer too. In any case i'm satisfied with the current MGs.

TCs do not add to MGs; they only add to the 1x crit multiplier.

MGs get a 9x crit damage multiplier; 0.08 damage to 0.72 critical damage (different to damage), to a random location.
That's with a CoF.

MGs have a flat 52% crit chance, to 42% of other weapons (and that increases to 49.25% with a TC1).


MGs are considerably worse at critting than normal weapons, even with that 9x multiplier. cERPPCs have a 49.25% chance to instantly destroy any item that's not an AC20(which is only 17%).

MGs require 13 crits to destroy most items, and all those crits need to hit the same item (if they crit pad...good luck).

MGs are at the will of RNJesus in so many regards.


MGs require you to face the target and have pitiful range, in return they get very little.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

I've been wanting the MGs to get the modern GAU treatment that US aircraft get, which means they fire in an extended burst. Specifically the GAU-61 firing a 70 round burst (at least when he was in the USAF in the 80s and 90s) over the course of 1 sec.

So I wish the MGs in MWO were like this:
-0.05 damage per bullet
-0.5 sec burst
-fired 30 rounds per burst
-3000 rounds per ton
-120m range
-1.0 sec cooldown between bursts
-keep it's COF

So comparing an IS MG to an IS SL:

0.5 ton for MG w/ 1/2 ton of ammo VS 0.5 ton for an IS Small Laser

1.5 damage per MG burst VS 3 damage per IS SL shot

No heat VS 2 heat

120m VS 135m

1 DPS VS 1 DPS

As they are right now, they fire continuously at 10rps at 0.08 damage per round for a DPS of 0.8. Imagine how much less of a nuisance a SDR-5K would be if every time it let a burst off with it's 4 MGs that did 6 damage every 1.5 seconds.

[Spleenslitta]

Mcgral18, on 31 May 2015 - 12:36 PM, said:

TCs do not add to MGs; they only add to the 1x crit multiplier.

MGs get a 9x crit damage multiplier; 0.08 damage to 0.72 critical damage (different to damage), to a random location.
That's with a CoF.

MGs have a flat 52% crit chance, to 42% of other weapons (and that increases to 49.25% with a TC1).


MGs are considerably worse at critting than normal weapons, even with that 9x multiplier. cERPPCs have a 49.25% chance to instantly destroy any item that's not an AC20(which is only 17%).

MGs require 13 crits to destroy most items, and all those crits need to hit the same item (if they crit pad...good luck).

MGs are at the will of RNJesus in so many regards.


MGs require you to face the target and have pitiful range, in return they get very little.

If you say those are the MG stats you're probably correct...but the fact still remains- I destroy more components with MG's than any other weapon.
I'm serious and sincere about this part. I'll trust in my results over the words of others and that is that.
Regardless i think the AC2 family and Flamer needs more care than the MG.

[3xnihilo]

I have a hangar full of mechs begin for a mg buff:
Spider 5k - Anansi
Locusts 1v - 3v - PB
Urbies

You know all the OP mechs.

[Lostdragon]

Spleenslitta, on 31 May 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

If you say those are the MG stats you're probably correct...but the fact still remains- I destroy more components with MG's than any other weapon.
I'm serious and sincere about this part. I'll trust in my results over the words of others and that is that.
Regardless i think the AC2 family and Flamer needs more care than the MG.

MGs are not nearly as powerful as they used to be against exposed components. When the nerfs happened it was definitely painful to many builds that rely on MGs to the point where I don't even bother to consider more than one ballistic hardpoint when I'm looking at pods for a new Clan light build. My SDR 5K sits unused and my Lolcust 1V was sold long ago.

MGs are just not worth the opportunity cost.

[SirNotlag]

I think that a problem with MWO, that causes it to feel so samey, is that they have so many things that nobody uses because they aren't worth bringing or they don't do anything. the 2 primary weapons that spring to my mind for that are the MGs and the flamers. You can argue all you want about how good the things are supposedly on paper but there is proof that the things don't work simply because you don't see them. any mech that relies on MGs is just not played at all and any mech that has ballistic and energy slots will never equip MGs.

The Firestarters are the best example of this because that is a good light chassis with both energy and ballistic hardpoints on the H variant but if you ever see an H variant its only running lasers. Its the same for the raven 2X I have never seen one using its arm for MGs but I've seen several people running an AC2 and medium lasers on the thing, which is bizarre and hilarious to me.

So Yes I Feel the MGs desperately need a buff they have to many draw backs to even be considered with the pitiful damage they currently do; short range, ammo dependant, requires target to be held, requires face tanking, and isn't even precise damage. They don't even stand up to small lasers which have a dps of 1.0 and have the advantage of dishing out all their damage in a short burst making it more concentrated and allows torso twisting, plus if you consider the weight used for ammo as heat sinks for the small lasers im pretty sure they would run fairly cool.

while they are at it could they make the flamer useful to I want to actually burn things with my adders.

Edited by SirNotlag, 08 June 2015 - 01:27 PM.