97 replies to this topic

[Jun Watarase]

This is not a "MGs are OP" thread.

Ive been using a ACH-E with 6x LMGs and 3 heavy medium lasers, and ive been surprised at how easy it is to burn through structure.

I just did a test in the testing grounds on frozen city. I went to the AS7-D and took a video to see how long it would take to burn through the rear CT structure.

The stock AS7-D has 28 rear CT armor and 62 CT structure. I used the lasers to do 30 damage to the rear armor then LMGs to finish the CT off. In theory, the LMGs would have to eat through 60 CT structure which should take them about 14.3 seconds.

According to the video I took however, it actually ate through the CT structure in about 6.5 seconds. I started with 4582 LMG ammo and the atlas died with 4198 ammo remaining. Thats 384 ammo used for 6 LMGs, a LMG uses 10 rounds per second, so about 6.4 seconds worth of ammo was used.

In short, the LMGs actually did more than twice the expected DPS against structure. How is this possible? I remember that you do extra damage to structure for critical hits, but i also remember it being a very minor bonus...something like 10% extra damage to structure on average for a LBX-20 or some such.

I did the same test with a LBX-20, making sure all the pellets hit the CT, and this time used 4 med pulse lasers to do precisely 28 damage to the rear CT armor. 2 shots dropped the CT structure to dark red, which is a lot more than 40/60 damage would suggest, but the bonus damage that the LBX had vs structure is way less than what the MGs had. If the LBX did double damage against structure like what the LMGs did, two shots would have cored the atlas, which it didnt.

Anyone wanna try do some testing of their own?

[Smites]

Didn't you know?

MGs are super effective against the backs of Atlai.

It's why the 6MG Spider is so feared!

[El Bandito]

MG in general does twice the damage against structures thanks to crits. I thought it was already well known.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 August 2017 - 05:11 PM.

[Snowbluff]

El Bandito, on 23 August 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

MG in general does twice the damage against structures thanks to crits. I thought it was already well known.

Is this accurate? I thought it had double crit damage, as in a crit does 30% structure instead of 15% extra.

[El Bandito]

Snowbluff, on 23 August 2017 - 05:12 PM, said:

Is this accurate? I thought it had double crit damage, as in a crit does 30% structure instead of 15% extra.

It's what I remember.

[Spheroid]

That is a poor test. Shoot legs with nothing in them to measure internal structure damage. Other body segments introduce bonus crit transfer damage that spoils any experimental data.

[Jun Watarase]

Spheroid, on 23 August 2017 - 05:21 PM, said:

That is a poor test. Shoot legs with nothing in them to measure internal structure damage. Other body segments introduce bonus crit transfer damage that spoils any experimental data.

What is this bonus crit transfer thing? We are taking about more than double the DPS vs structure here. Something LBXs dont have even though they both get bonus crits.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 24 August 2017 - 03:28 AM.

[Tarogato]

LMGs have a CritDamMult of 14, which means they deal 14x the amount of damage to structure compared to other weapons. On average, they deal 270% damage to structure. Regular MG deal 204% damage to structure, and HMG deal 170%.


If they didn't have this property then they would be worthless.

[Jun Watarase]

Tarogato, on 24 August 2017 - 03:43 AM, said:

LMGs have a CritDamMult of 14, which means they deal 14x the amount of damage to structure compared to other weapons. On average, they deal 270% damage to structure. Regular MG deal 204% damage to structure, and HMG deal 170%.


If they didn't have this property then they would be worthless.

Why is this not mentioned in the mechlab? That seems like pretty important info.

Oh right, PGI.

Ive never seen crit damage multipliers listed in li song's mechlab or on smurfy's site. Are they listed somewhere?

Edited by Jun Watarase, 24 August 2017 - 04:00 AM.

[Ruar]

Tarogato, on 24 August 2017 - 03:43 AM, said:

LMGs have a CritDamMult of 14, which means they deal 14x the amount of damage to structure compared to other weapons. On average, they deal 270% damage to structure. Regular MG deal 204% damage to structure, and HMG deal 170%.


If they didn't have this property then they would be worthless.

If they got rid of the crit multiplier and boosted the ammo per ton then MGs would still have a place as 0 heat, high DPS weapons.

[Tarogato]

Ruar, on 24 August 2017 - 04:01 AM, said:

If they got rid of the crit multiplier and boosted the ammo per ton then MGs would still have a place as 0 heat, high DPS weapons.

You'd be surprised at how low DPS they actually are when you consider how little time they spend actually dealing damage to intended components in a fight. If you boosted the damage on them then they would just become more same-y. At least as a crit weapon they are unique. I'd like them to stay that way.

[Jun Watarase]

Tarogato, on 24 August 2017 - 04:06 AM, said:

You'd be surprised at how low DPS they actually are when you consider how little time they spend actually dealing damage to intended components in a fight. If you boosted the damage on them then they would just become more same-y. At least as a crit weapon they are unique. I'd like them to stay that way.

? I have no problems getting several seconds worth of MG fire in. Its very easy when enemy mechs are engaged with your team. When assaults are duking it out at close range, they arent going to shoot a light mech.

[Ruar]

Tarogato, on 24 August 2017 - 04:06 AM, said:

You'd be surprised at how low DPS they actually are when you consider how little time they spend actually dealing damage to intended components in a fight. If you boosted the damage on them then they would just become more same-y. At least as a crit weapon they are unique. I'd like them to stay that way.

If they have to keep the crit aspect then either the crit bonus has to be tuned way down, ROF reduced, or heat added to balance. Right now the ability to just shred through internals is too much.

[Tarogato]

Jun Watarase, on 24 August 2017 - 04:11 AM, said:

? I have no problems getting several seconds worth of MG fire in. Its very easy when enemy mechs are engaged with your team. When assaults are duking it out at close range, they arent going to shoot a light mech.

Against fat assaults maybe. But against 50% of the mechs in the game I'd wager that you're only dealing damage to the intended component 50% of the time you have the trigger down. Since when can anybody keep their aim pixel perfect on a Stormcrows leg as his moving and you're moving and things are moving around you and between you and you have other weapons to worry about and you're worried about getting shot at...

Ruar, on 24 August 2017 - 04:17 AM, said:

If they have to keep the crit aspect then either the crit bonus has to be tuned way down, ROF reduced, or heat added to balance. Right now the ability to just shred through internals is too much.

I think the ability for the LMG to insta-crit internal items (like weapons, ammo) is too much. But I don't necessarily think that the LMG's ability to deal damage to structure is too much.

[Ruar]

Tarogato, on 24 August 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

Against fat assaults maybe. But against 50% of the mechs in the game I'd wager that you're only dealing damage to the intended component 50% of the time you have the trigger down. Since when can anybody keep their aim pixel perfect on a Stormcrows leg as his moving and you're moving and things are moving around you and between you and you have other weapons to worry about and you're worried about getting shot at...



I think the ability for the LMG to insta-crit internal items (like weapons, ammo) is too much. But I don't necessarily think that the LMG's ability to deal damage to structure is too much.

Internals and structure all feel the same. Right now if I'm into structure and see a MG mech I know I can kiss that area goodbye. No amount of twisting can keep them from popping that area faster than I can do damage in return.

I think being the best short range DPS weapon in the game is enough of a trademark, there's no need to also add in best internal/structure killer. However I do realize ammunition would have to be increased since it would take longer to chew through structure without the bonus.

[Jun Watarase]

Not just fat assualts, when both teams are poking at each other you can get a few seconds worth of burst on one component. Its actually easier than keeping high duration lasers focused on one component because you can simply hold the trigger down and not worry about things like heat, and if you are in a light you have godlike positioning ability and most of the time nobody is shooting you.

Anyway it looks like crit damage is in the weapon.xml file, i had an old one extracted and it says LBX does 2x crit damage while the MG does 9x, but thats very outdated. I forgot how to extract the weapon.xml file though.

[Ruar]

Just look at the tech release patch notes, pretty sure it lists the bonus.

[Jun Watarase]

Ruar, on 24 August 2017 - 04:27 AM, said:

Just look at the tech release patch notes, pretty sure it lists the bonus.

What patch number are you referring to?

[Ruar]

Jun Watarase, on 24 August 2017 - 04:29 AM, said:

What patch number are you referring to?

The one a month ago when they pushed out all the new tech, including the MGs. When PTS went down Chris talked about the changes he was going to make and I'm fairly certain the MG numbers were in the notes. If nothing else you can check the PTS forums, I know someone pulled the .xml data about the MGs there. I think it was in a thread I started talking about how the new MGs were OP on PTS.

[Jun Watarase]

Well i figured out that the weapons.xml file is in gamedata.pak. Looking through it, it seems that gauss/PPC now only does 7.5 crit damage on a critical hit, LBX does 2x which seems to translate to roughly 25% more damage vs structure, LMG does 14x (which translate to moe than 2x DPS vs structure), MGs do 9x and HMGs do 6x. Flamers do 1.1x and everything else seems to do 1x critical damage.