62 replies to this topic

[razenWing]

Like I get it, you want to create a video game weapon that "crits" or take out enemy components...

But like, what is the basis of them being a "crit" weapon? It's obviously very hard to debate how a fictional weapon "should" work, but with certain things, you kind of expect how a certain things would work based on popular pop culture references such as movies, tvs, other games, and etc.

And of course, some real world experiences too.

The way I see crit... is like this... say you have a tank. What is the best way of killing the crew inside? Is it:

A: Fire a bunch of small arms and hope one bullet would "crit" and kill the crew inside?
B: Fire a big armor penetrating round that pierce the armor and shred the crew inside?

Most people would pick B right? Cause, in reality, that's how it works. That's honestly what a Gauss Rifle round should do. It should be the one that's penetrating armors and shredding the internal components.

Ironically, with knowing armor in BTech being ablative, you expect machine guns to be MORE effective against armors, by shredding and peeling away those armors designed to absorb big kinetic blast by falling off (which, machine guns essentially are just a bunch of small kinetic rounds), than the ability to puncture a steel support and what not. So, it's exactly the opposite of how the game works.

Imagine if we apply these expectation and rework the damage mechanics...

Gauss rifle will split damage between armor and internal, and the internal damage always have a chance to crit. This will justify the weight investment.

Machine guns do 2x damage against armor, but regular damage against internal, but no chance of crit. Thus, turning it into a more DPS oriented weapon in situations, and not a component stripping weapon (one of the biggest complaint).

And bam, expectation met, gameplay balanced...

The fix is honestly right infront of our noses all the time, we just have to re-think whether something makes sense if they work a certain ways. While we on the topic, I like to again call for an idea I raised before about Machine Gun array. It's twice the weight of regular machine guns. You basically swap tonnage for slots. The advantage being that it will give bigger bulkier mechs that can fit the weight to have a filler weapon in the limited ballistic slots.

If we change the current machine gun to the way discussed in this game, then the machine gun array would complement that. Would it fix the PiR issue we have now? Nope, that poop fish is OP and just got to be nerfed, but it's a separate issue all together. (and it's not just a PiR going around stripping back armor, it's about how it completely outclassed other light mechs like Myst Lynx, Locust, ACH, and etc with it's commando esque shiftyness, small stature, torso mounts, and vastly superior firepower. I tried to fight one 1v1 with my MLX yesterday, it's not possible to win if both pilots are on equal grounds) But the gameplay alteration would "fix" machine gun for time yet to come.

[El Bandito]

PGI created this mechanic specifically for LBX and MG, for this game. Judging from how reluctant they change things that they "invented", I do not foresee crit mechanic being removed from MGs.

[Savage Wolf]

They did it to make the weapon worth taking despite it's pitiful DPS. This also created a new battlefield role for some to be the finishers. Not that I for a second would give PGI enough credit to realise this and how to manage it, like most interesting game design choices they make, they tend to be accidental.

So short version: They did it to make MGs worth taking.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Because people would cry even more if MGs had their canonical performance.

Remember, MG-boating was invented in tabletop.

[Hauptmann Keg Steiner]

razenWing, on 24 April 2018 - 03:38 AM, said:

a bunch of small arms

which, machine guns essentially are just a bunch of small kinetic rounds

I love this meme.

You are aware that those 'small arms' normally weight half a ton each (four times the weight of, say, an M61 vulcan cannon) and fire 'small kinetic rounds' that weigh about a pound (0.45kg) each in rapid succession, with velocity fast enough that you don't need to lead targets? Anything you're hitting that's softer than armor should be torn to absolute shreds by that.

[Battlemaster56]

IdToaster, on 24 April 2018 - 04:23 AM, said:

I love this meme.

You are aware that those 'small arms' normally weight half a ton each (four times the weight of, say, an M61 vulcan cannon) and fire 'small kinetic rounds' that weigh about a pound (0.45kg) each in rapid succession, with velocity fast enough that you don't need to lead targets? Anything you're hitting that's softer than armor should be torn to absolute shreds by that.

I swear it should be quite obvious these are not infantry mg's you see them carrying or have mounted on top of jeeps and other vehicles, I mean what the last time we saw a guy carrying 1klb weapon?

[razenWing]

IdToaster, on 24 April 2018 - 04:23 AM, said:

I love this meme.

You are aware that those 'small arms' normally weight half a ton each (four times the weight of, say, an M61 vulcan cannon) and fire 'small kinetic rounds' that weigh about a pound (0.45kg) each in rapid succession, with velocity fast enough that you don't need to lead targets? Anything you're hitting that's softer than armor should be torn to absolute shreds by that.

You can try to take apart my semantics all you want, except what I said still holds true. These are rapid fire kinetic weapons with purpose more in line of wasting away your ablative armor than actual penettation (eg critical)

So while you think you are being clever, you are not.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

In TT we have ligjt armored vehicles and infantry ...here not and mgs useless with no new role of the battlefield ...its a good idea thats
A mg make internal dage when the armor is gone ...massive stream of bullets thats hits internal electric installations....ammunition ...loading mechanism ...shrapnell thats destroyd many internals thats not armorex

[razenWing]

Old MW4 Ranger, on 24 April 2018 - 04:42 AM, said:

In TT we have ligjt armored vehicles and infantry ...here not and mgs useless with no new role of the battlefield ...its a good idea thats
A mg make internal dage when the armor is gone ...massive stream of bullets thats hits internal electric installations....ammunition ...loading mechanism ...shrapnell thats destroyd many internals thats not armorex

Right I thought about that except pretty much any exposed wired and what not are blown up fairly easily by ANY weapons. It's not like blunt kinetic weapons like ACs or penetrating rounds like Gauss rifle produce no shrapnel. Still, is kinetic based weapon better at internal damage or something that can pierce and go through a few layers of water tanks, actuators, wires, and etc?

Again the point of ablative armor is to fall off on impact. That seems like the exactly type of things out machine gun is intended to strip, not space age super hardened alloy being used on internal component and skeletal frames. (Which would require specialized shell to penetrate)

Edited by razenWing, 24 April 2018 - 04:58 AM.

[Hauptmann Keg Steiner]

So the Gauss Rifle, which is a pure kinetic weapon that only fires solid blobs of metal and still has to ablate armor away to reach internals, has the 'specialized shells' to penetrate structure and components, which are super duper spaceage magic alloys that apparently suck at being armor (otherwise why use this lame ablative crap?), but machineguns, which (you have apparently forgotten) can and do have explosive armor-piercing cartridges, don't?

wut

[Prototelis]

I like to imagine the crits as bullets bouncing around inside an enemy mech.

[Nightbird]

In real life, the tonnage of MG is equivalent to the nose gun on this tank killing aircraft:
https://en.m.wikiped..._Thunderbolt_II

In Battletech, MG does the same DPS and Damage as the A/C2, with the only difference being a lot less range for a low less tonnage. PGI did not want to give it the same DMG or DPS as the A/C2, so they gave it crit as a gimmik.

[Mawai]

Since this is Battletech physics we are free to make up whatever explanation we like

However, "machine guns" in Battletech/MWO weigh 1/2 ton or 500kgs, the ammunition contains 2000 rounds/ton. This makes EACH round weigh in at 0.5 kgs or over 1lb for each projectile. For comparison a M242 Bushmaster autocannon fires 25mm rounds that weigh in at 500g.

http://www.inetres.c...eapon/M242.html
https://en.wikipedia...M242_Bushmaster

So ... Battletech machine guns are actually more like small calibre autocannons firing 25mm shells. In Battletech terms these do not do that much damage to armor (since great armor! lol). However, in theory, a large number of high velocity 25mm shells rattling around inside the structure of a battlemech have a greater chance of hitting something critical (despite the hardening and the armored internal structure) than one large hit from a larger calibre autocannon or laser.

This at least could be a possible explanation for a greater chance of critical hits from an MWO machine gun. However, I need to mention that all comparisons between Battletech and reality are pretty much BS since there are lots more physics issues than the capability of a "machine gun".

[yrrot]

Ablative armor doesn't have to be destroyed by smaller rounds than it was designed to defeat. Armor that is designed to be destroyed by a gauss round (to absorb its kinetic energy), for example, might still just shrug off machine gun fire.

A kinetic penetrator, like a gauss round, could completely miss individual components, despite puncturing armor.

I think the thought is that a BT scale machine gun fires enough rounds to ensure sensitive parts of equipment are hit.

That, and what Nightbird said about the gameplay concerns. Ha, imagine a Piranha with 12 MGs with the same damage as AC/2s...

[Wil McCullough]

Asym would be a great person to shed light on this as iirc, he has a career in this (maybe i'm misremembering though).

From what i read, in historical tank battles, penetrators were actually kinda meh. In ww2, sherman ap rounds just booped neat little holes in tiger tanks and the tigers more often than not, just kept trucking unless the sherman crew got lucky and took out something critical. Eventually we developed shells with delayed fuses so the ap round would penetrate, then the payload would blow and mash up everything inside.

Bt is kinda medieval though, so we're stuck with plain old hole punchers or shotgun pellets, neither would be very effective in vehicular combat by themselves.

Edited by Wil McCullough, 24 April 2018 - 05:50 AM.

[Dionnsai]

Prototelis, on 24 April 2018 - 05:27 AM, said:

I like to imagine the crits as bullets bouncing around inside an enemy mech.

I like to imagine the crits as magical glowing gerbils chewing on the wiring.

[Mainhunter]

Nightbird, on 24 April 2018 - 05:32 AM, said:

In real life, the tonnage of MG is equivalent to the nose gun on this tank killing aircraft:
https://en.m.wikiped..._Thunderbolt_II

Thats not a MG, everything above 20mm is called a gun/cannon.

[Asym]

Oh good grief, the MG and the OP MG discussion is about SALES..... It has nothing to do with caliber, or armor types or if it is Kinetic or chemical energy munitions... It's a game and the game survives on sales.... The PIR with 12 mg's is a sales gimmick and it's not the first time we've been down the MG's are OP: got to buy that route....

Look, if MWO was BT exact or real world oriented, no one would play this very silly game: most pilots wouldn't last 10 minutes in a "real physics" simulator.... A heavy Gauss KE round would knock many lights off their feet....ever see a mech get up? Remember, mechs are bipedal and one foot is off the ground a lot of the time and a 20 ton mech getting hit by a KE round displaying and expending 70 tons of energy on impact would............knock the little critter off it's un-balanced foot AND, the plasma envelope would most likely EMP the entire control system of that mech out of commission: no electrical system, no mech because they are stabilized systems that use electrical energy.... See the point.....

Think sales and enjoy the game and please, buy whatever is OP at the moment ! It's what keeps the game solvent.

[GBxGhostRyder]

razenWing, on 24 April 2018 - 03:38 AM, said:

Like I get it, you want to create a video game weapon that "crits" or take out enemy components...

But like, what is the basis of them being a "crit" weapon? It's obviously very hard to debate how a fictional weapon "should" work, but with certain things, you kind of expect how a certain things would work based on popular pop culture references such as movies, tvs, other games, and etc.

And of course, some real world experiences too.

The way I see crit... is like this... say you have a tank. What is the best way of killing the crew inside? Is it:

A: Fire a bunch of small arms and hope one bullet would "crit" and kill the crew inside?
B: Fire a big armor penetrating round that pierce the armor and shred the crew inside?

Most people would pick B right? Cause, in reality, that's how it works. That's honestly what a Gauss Rifle round should do. It should be the one that's penetrating armors and shredding the internal components.

Ironically, with knowing armor in BTech being ablative, you expect machine guns to be MORE effective against armors, by shredding and peeling away those armors designed to absorb big kinetic blast by falling off (which, machine guns essentially are just a bunch of small kinetic rounds), than the ability to puncture a steel support and what not. So, it's exactly the opposite of how the game works.

Imagine if we apply these expectation and rework the damage mechanics...

Gauss rifle will split damage between armor and internal, and the internal damage always have a chance to crit. This will justify the weight investment.

Machine guns do 2x damage against armor, but regular damage against internal, but no chance of crit. Thus, turning it into a more DPS oriented weapon in situations, and not a component stripping weapon (one of the biggest complaint).

And bam, expectation met, gameplay balanced...

The fix is honestly right infront of our noses all the time, we just have to re-think whether something makes sense if they work a certain ways. While we on the topic, I like to again call for an idea I raised before about Machine Gun array. It's twice the weight of regular machine guns. You basically swap tonnage for slots. The advantage being that it will give bigger bulkier mechs that can fit the weight to have a filler weapon in the limited ballistic slots.

If we change the current machine gun to the way discussed in this game, then the machine gun array would complement that. Would it fix the PiR issue we have now? Nope, that poop fish is OP and just got to be nerfed, but it's a separate issue all together. (and it's not just a PiR going around stripping back armor, it's about how it completely outclassed other light mechs like Myst Lynx, Locust, ACH, and etc with it's commando esque shiftyness, small stature, torso mounts, and vastly superior firepower. I tried to fight one 1v1 with my MLX yesterday, it's not possible to win if both pilots are on equal grounds) But the gameplay alteration would "fix" machine gun for time yet to come.

The real reason Machine guns have such high crit which is total insane balance is Russ wanted to get a kill once in a blue moon in his little piranha so he can be LEET like his buddies in comp play.

Edited by GBxGhostRyder, 24 April 2018 - 07:12 AM.

[Nightbird]

Mainhunter, on 24 April 2018 - 06:12 AM, said:

Thats not a MG, everything above 20mm is called a gun/cannon.

In BT it's a MG. Unless you think the mechs are mounting a 5 pound anti infantry weapon?