20 replies to this topic

[Knightshadowsong]

I've said it before, i'll say it again. a .50 cal would not do damage to a mech. at least not in the way it dose now. I've made jokes about Machine guns being OP out of humor, but the fact is that they ARE OP!
for one thing, a Mech is made of Endo-steel, which is according to sarna, Lighter then steel. and about 300 times as strong. a regular .50 cal is made to go through conventional armor, IE, Tank armor NOW! Shooting a Mech with a .50 cal would be like shooting a tank with a .22 calaber and thinking it'll do more then scratch the paint, the way MG's work now just dosen't fit. I could understand the rounds damageing weapons. weakening there effectiveness, damageing feed systems for ammo, maybe cooking off LRM's in the tubes. but compleatly taking out a limb with just a few glanceing shots? No.
I propose making the damage MG's do half of 1 point of damage per 3 hits. with there high fire rate this makes then viable as a weapon. HOWEVER! MG's Can NOT destroy components. IE Legs, arms ect. They can damage or even destroy weapons with critical hits, But they cannot cripple legs. as i said before. MG's are Anti-ground forces weapons in BT. Not Anti mech. yes. Some mech's mount them by default, IE the Spider, but that machine is made for anti infintry work. not dukeing head to head with mech's per say.
Basicly what i'm asking is a slight buff to dammage, But removeing the destroying components part of there effect. weapons and ammo i'm totally okay with. because once the armor is gone, MG's would do damage to critical systems. But taking out a Fusion reactor? really? yeah no. i cant see that.
Maybe i'm over thinking it but really, i cant stand seeing mech's mounting like 6 MG's and a LPL and somehow manageing to kill 8 mech's (and yes i did see that. GG to that guy)
I'm okay with PGI saying they want to keep MG's as they are, but like i said. realisticly, i cant see MG's doing damage to more then weapons and ammo systems ect.

[IraqiWalker]

Knightshadowsong, on 18 September 2015 - 01:05 AM, said:

I've said it before, i'll say it again. a .50 cal would not do damage to a mech. at least not in the way it dose now. I've made jokes about Machine guns being OP out of humor, but the fact is that they ARE OP!
for one thing, a Mech is made of Endo-steel, which is according to sarna, Lighter then steel. and about 300 times as strong. a regular .50 cal is made to go through conventional armor, IE, Tank armor NOW! Shooting a Mech with a .50 cal would be like shooting a tank with a .22 calaber and thinking it'll do more then scratch the paint, the way MG's work now just dosen't fit. I could understand the rounds damageing weapons. weakening there effectiveness, damageing feed systems for ammo, maybe cooking off LRM's in the tubes. but compleatly taking out a limb with just a few glanceing shots? No.
I propose making the damage MG's do half of 1 point of damage per 3 hits. with there high fire rate this makes then viable as a weapon. HOWEVER! MG's Can NOT destroy components. IE Legs, arms ect. They can damage or even destroy weapons with critical hits, But they cannot cripple legs. as i said before. MG's are Anti-ground forces weapons in BT. Not Anti mech. yes. Some mech's mount them by default, IE the Spider, but that machine is made for anti infintry work. not dukeing head to head with mech's per say.
Basicly what i'm asking is a slight buff to dammage, But removeing the destroying components part of there effect. weapons and ammo i'm totally okay with. because once the armor is gone, MG's would do damage to critical systems. But taking out a Fusion reactor? really? yeah no. i cant see that.
Maybe i'm over thinking it but really, i cant stand seeing mech's mounting like 6 MG's and a LPL and somehow manageing to kill 8 mech's (and yes i did see that. GG to that guy)
I'm okay with PGI saying they want to keep MG's as they are, but like i said. realisticly, i cant see MG's doing damage to more then weapons and ammo systems ect.

Are you drunk? If not, can I smoke whatever it is you're smoking?

MGs are the second weakest weapon in the game, with the weakest weapon being the FLAMER. If anything, MGs need a buff. You not liking how a weapon functions is your own problem. MGs are functioning weaker than canon MGs did.

For the record, the Pontiac 100 AC 20, considered the deadliest of the bunch, fired 100 rounds within 10 seconds, each dealing 0.2 damage, and they were 25mm rounds. So I'm not seeing the problem with 50 cals damaging mechs.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 18 September 2015 - 01:23 AM.

[SnagaDance]

The OP seems to be under the impression that the machine guns fire simple lead bullets and at similar velocities to current .50's

[Goombah]

Actualy, battlements MGS are designed to destroy other mechs. In bt lore they are effective at destroying armor. They simply get a bonus against infantry. It's a misconception that MGS are exclusively anti infantry.

That being said, I would love to have infantry in the game to give my locust something to fire mg rounds at.

[Mcgral18]

Fun fact, the BattleTech MG weights more than the GAU-8 Avenger; a dedicated Tank Buster that fires 30mm bullets.


That goes without saying that a 50 cal has no problem damaging the Ablative armour mechs use. Don't blame PGIs art decision here.

Edited by Mcgral18, 22 September 2015 - 07:12 AM.

[wanderer]

Yep. Common 'Mech MG's are actually 20mm, which are roughly .78 caliber rounds.

With a nice high fire rate and multiple barrels, which canonically can actually be "spun up" into an overheating, ammo-devouring rapid-fire mode. And that isn't even the HMG. (An LMG is more along the lines of a 50-cal gun).

So yes. It'll chew up a 'Mech just fine.

[Goombah]

Also, mech armor is so hard it shatters like glass for no reason. It's also glued to a layer of softer materiels to hold onto the broken bits. But yeah, MGS should actualy work.
If most mechs cap out at about 3 balistic, and a few boats get 6 points or so, MGS need to be vastly improved, or we need targets that are weak to mgs.

[wanderer]

You could always give them the aforementioned "spin-up" rule.

There's a rule in tabletop that gives MG's two modes- the normal fire rate and a less accurate, "hot" mode that burns ammo at much higher rates for more modest gains in damage.

There's certainly cases where I'd trade a bit of heat for delivering a good deal more firepower downrange, especially when I have an exposed section to chew on.

[IraqiWalker]

Goombah, on 18 September 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

Also, mech armor is so hard it shatters like glass for no reason. It's also glued to a layer of softer materiels to hold onto the broken bits. But yeah, MGS should actualy work.
If most mechs cap out at about 3 balistic, and a few boats get 6 points or so, MGS need to be vastly improved, or we need targets that are weak to mgs.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha

[The pessimistic optimist]

https://en.wikipedia...s_VW_Type_1.jpg

It not a 50 cal buddy.

[Anachronda]

Mcgral18, on 18 September 2015 - 07:32 AM, said:

Fun fact, the BattleTech MG weights more than the GAU-8 Avenger; a dedicated Tank Buster that fires 40 mm bullets.


That goes without saying that a 50 cal has no problem damaging the Ablative armour mechs use. Don't blame PGIs art decision here.

Agreed, I was pretty sure the MGs in this game were bigger, but I didn't have stats at hand.

[FupDup]

If I had a penny for every time somebody assumed that 500-kilogram future-cannons were only 50 caliber, I would have enough money to buy a fleet of Predator drones to bomb the houses of those same people.

[Thunder Child]

It's always hilarious when people say "Oh, but 'x' weapon was only meant to be used for 'y' purpose".

Flamers and Machine Guns were both in the battletech game LONG before Infantry or vehicles. They have ALWAYS been intended to be used against mechs. The only reason they were re-classed as Anti-Infantry weapons, was because they were generally inferior to anything else that people chose to mount. So FASA gave them a whole heap of buffs that made them excel at Anti-Infantry work.

Fun-Fact: In TT, Machine Guns have the same DPS as AC2s. Now imagine that in MWO. Those are some Machine Guns I would pay MC to use!

[totgeboren]

If we were to imagine that MGs were balanced with other weapons (and not weak like they are now), I would like them to have half the fire rate, but twice the damage per round.

The high fire rate they have now makes them feel so small. These are still huge weapon systems, and a slower fire rate would make them feel more like light autocannons rather than infantry-held machineguns.

[Sereglach]

Thunder Child, on 22 September 2015 - 07:20 PM, said:

It's always hilarious when people say "Oh, but 'x' weapon was only meant to be used for 'y' purpose".

Flamers and Machine Guns were both in the battletech game LONG before Infantry or vehicles. They have ALWAYS been intended to be used against mechs. The only reason they were re-classed as Anti-Infantry weapons, was because they were generally inferior to anything else that people chose to mount. So FASA gave them a whole heap of buffs that made them excel at Anti-Infantry work.

Fun-Fact: In TT, Machine Guns have the same DPS as AC2s. Now imagine that in MWO. Those are some Machine Guns I would pay MC to use!

No kidding. The number of times I've bumped into that same mentality in discussions over Flamers is mind-boggling. Flamers and Machine Guns have always worked on every type of unit in the game . . . the fact that they've been pigeon-holed into anti-infantry weapons is a joke. Frankly, the mentality of the OP is right along those lines.

The reality of the matter is that one of the blessings (and curses) of Battletech is the rules being set in such a way so everything is effective against everything else. It's a blessing because theoretically you can use whatever you want and nothing is obsoleted. It's an extreme curse because it creates absurd piles of "compatibility rules" and insane levels of rules bloat from all of the piles of equipment that never go away (no matter how junky they become in the long run . . . why do primitive components still exist?).

IraqiWalker, on 18 September 2015 - 08:31 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha

Oh that glorious clan Battlemech. I'm not a huge fan of Clans, overall, but I do love the Piranha. If it ever gets put into MWO that will be so much fun. It's probably a mech that nearly everyone will run completely stock (except for meta-tryhards who put 2 c-ERLL on it).

Sadly, though, if PGI did implement it I wouldn't be surprised if they forcibly dropped the number of weapons on it. I don't think they'd do it for any forms of spite or "balance" (after all, the Firestarters came into the game with an unprecedented mandatory 8 hardpoints on most variants). On the other hand, one needs to question if the UI can even support 15 weapons on a mech, as well as how the mech could/would be physically modeled with PGI's universal "dynamic weapons visualizations". Don't get me wrong, I want to see the Piranha in its full glory (let alone in the beautiful MWO art style), but it may be very difficult for PGI to do.

. . . but oh how I want a Piranha to run around in with 12 Machine Guns of glory . . . and they need to do it, too . . . after all, they are Piranha Games.

[IraqiWalker]

totgeboren, on 03 October 2015 - 12:10 PM, said:

If we were to imagine that MGs were balanced with other weapons (and not weak like they are now), I would like them to have half the fire rate, but twice the damage per round.

The high fire rate they have now makes them feel so small. These are still huge weapon systems, and a slower fire rate would make them feel more like light autocannons rather than infantry-held machineguns.

Have you seen a GAU-8 Avenger firing? It's rate of fire is ludicrous. These are bigger versions of it, so I can see them having crazy fast fire rate.

Spoiler

Sereglach, on 03 October 2015 - 03:10 PM, said:

On the other hand, one needs to question if the UI can even support 15 weapons on a mech, as well as how the mech could/would be physically modeled with PGI's universal "dynamic weapons visualizations". Don't get me wrong, I want to see the Piranha in its full glory (let alone in the beautiful MWO art style), but it may be very difficult for PGI to do.

. . . but oh how I want a Piranha to run around in with 12 Machine Guns of glory . . . and they need to do it, too . . . after all, they are Piranha Games.

I have a Nova with 16, it can support 15 weapons.

[Sereglach]

IraqiWalker, on 04 October 2015 - 04:35 AM, said:

I have a Nova with 16, it can support 15 weapons.

Gah! I completely forgot about that mech. Yeah, the right omnipods give you quite a pile of hardware. Well then . . . bring on the Piranha, so that people will properly fear machine guns.

[Tarogato]

Thunder Child, on 22 September 2015 - 07:20 PM, said:

Fun-Fact: In TT, Machine Guns have the same DPS as AC2s. Now imagine that in MWO. Those are some Machine Guns I would pay MC to use!

They also have one tenth of the DPS of an AC/20. Those are machine guns that I would never use. =P

Actually, the other day I had this brilliant thought "ah, maybe the reason MGs suck is because they don't have the same damage/weight per ballistic ratio as tabletop!" so I went and math'd it out and I was right! PGI, compared to TT, nerfed the MG in terms of damage/weight compared to all other ballistics. Then I calculated how much it needed to be buffed by to reach the same standard as all the other ballistics...

... the figure came out to +0.06 DPS.

lol.

[Spleenslitta]

Here is something everybody should take a look at. As everybody knows lasers, SRM, AC have these chances to crit an internal component such as weapons and heatsinks when armor is gone.
http://mwo.gamepedia.com/Critical_Hit

- 25% chance to crit 1 component
- 14% chance to crit 2 components
- 3% chance to crit 3 components

But MG, LBX pellets and even the Flamer has a better chance of doing a critical hit.
- 39% chance to crit 1 component
- 22% chance to crit 2 components
- 6% chance to crit 3 components

But here is the really cool stuff. An MG bullet that crits does 1350%(1.08) damage with each crit.
And with that firerate it's pretty damn lethal against an opponent that's lacking armor somewhere.
It's a constant barrage that never rests so twisting doesn't do much to protect the weak spot.
After all as long as you face away from the MG user he can use his other weapons to create another weak spot.

[Sereglach]

Tarogato, on 04 October 2015 - 07:15 AM, said:

They also have one tenth of the DPS of an AC/20. Those are machine guns that I would never use. =P

I think the original point was that if MG's were buffed to have the same DPS output as an AC/2 in MWO that they'd be quite dangerous. If you do a TT comparison then the whole game is messed up across the board (you can't add arbitrary cyclic times to weapons that all did their damage over a 10 second period and call it good). However MWO, in general, requires a great deal of different balancing considerations since it is a simulator and not a turn based, dice-rolling game.

Tarogato, on 04 October 2015 - 07:15 AM, said:

Actually, the other day I had this brilliant thought "ah, maybe the reason MGs suck is because they don't have the same damage/weight per ballistic ratio as tabletop!" so I went and math'd it out and I was right! PGI, compared to TT, nerfed the MG in terms of damage/weight compared to all other ballistics. Then I calculated how much it needed to be buffed by to reach the same standard as all the other ballistics...

... the figure came out to +0.06 DPS.

lol.

The real sad point here is that, again, AC/2s and MGs are supposed to be the same damage in TT. Therefore, that whole concept on tonnage comparison is debunked from the beginning, because there's a 5.5 ton difference in two weapons that are supposed to have similar damage output just with drastically differing ranges.

Spleenslitta, on 04 October 2015 - 07:50 AM, said:

Here is something everybody should take a look at. As everybody knows lasers, SRM, AC have these chances to crit an internal component such as weapons and heatsinks when armor is gone.
http://mwo.gamepedia.com/Critical_Hit

- 25% chance to crit 1 component
- 14% chance to crit 2 components
- 3% chance to crit 3 components

But MG, LBX pellets and even the Flamer has a better chance of doing a critical hit.
- 39% chance to crit 1 component
- 22% chance to crit 2 components
- 6% chance to crit 3 components

But here is the really cool stuff. An MG bullet that crits does 1350%(1.08) damage with each crit.
And with that firerate it's pretty damn lethal against an opponent that's lacking armor somewhere.
It's a constant barrage that never rests so twisting doesn't do much to protect the weak spot.
After all as long as you face away from the MG user he can use his other weapons to create another weak spot.

Two things:
1. You're failing to mention the fact that the damage of those "crit-seekers" is drastically different. The Flamer is actually nerfed on crit damage (compared to others), only doing 110% (or .077 damage . . . the site is wrong on the .77, because Flamers calculate damage like an MG as a continuous firing weapon) for the crit, the LBX does 200%, and the machine gun is the internals shredder. While the LBX might do more damage on a crit (doing 2.0 per pellet), the MG only beats it through sheer volume of fire.

2. Most of us here aren't saying that the MG is horribly out of place (it could use a buff, maybe back to a solid 1.0 DPS or so), but the OP is saying that the MG needs to be basically nerfed out of existence, which is patently absurd.

Outside of that, it is a nice bit of info for people to take into consideration.