42 replies to this topic

[VonBruinwald]

I haven't seen too many many Fire-Ants around recently. So it got me think, what do they need to encourage their prevalence. And then it hit me, it was so simple and so obvious, and totally not OP! All it needs is one more little quirk:

+100% MG ROF!

See, doesn't make sense. It would only have the equivalent of a paltry 12MGs and 3 energy slots for backup so it wouldn't be able to chew through mechs with any notable speed, and while it may not be able to match the speed of it's fellow 20 tonners MASC would give it that little boost to compensate provided you're prepared to spend the tonnage. Now I know what you Clanners are thinking FA-OP-Please nerf! but you have to remember it has to run an ISXL which makes it an inevitable glass cannon even with those armour quirks. Ultimately, you'd have to be a really skilled pilot to make use of this 'mech, it's not something anyone could just pick up and do relatively well in. Might as well give the Flea-19 a +50% MG ROF quirk at the same time...

[Racerxintegra2k]

Nothing the IS fields is comparable to the PIR-1 period.

[Eisenhorne]

While I agree it would make the flea as deadly as a PIR-1, IS has worse lights right now and clans have worse assaults. Seems unfair to fix give IS better lights without fixing clan assaults. Give the KDK, EXE, DWF some armor quirks at the same time, and baby you got a balance patch there.

[MechaBattler]

How about just buffing IS machine guns in general? Why should they weigh twice as much with no appreciable gain?

[B L O O D W I T C H]

MechaBattler, on 27 September 2018 - 12:42 PM, said:

How about just buffing IS machine guns in general? Why should they weigh twice as much with no appreciable gain?

They have more then double the health of a clan variant.

[MechaBattler]

So only after my armor is opened does the advantage of IS MGs come into play? Seems like a poor gain for paying twice the weight.

[Chados]

The FLE19 needs it worse!

[Jackal Noble]

The more posts I read of yours, the more I'm convinced you've lost your marbles.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

MechaBattler, on 27 September 2018 - 12:56 PM, said:

So only after my armor is opened does the advantage of IS MGs come into play? Seems like a poor gain for paying twice the weight.

You don't run maschine guns... only pir does, and it's a manical glass cannon which easily gets obliterated by IS burntime, single shell acs, heavy gauss bs and whatever weapons. Even regular dual gauss is garanteed to rip a part off of any pir, even with maxed out survival tree.

That is your tradeoff using and boating clan maschineguns which are utterly worthless on almost all other clan mechs.

Honestly, why should a mech which dedicated 3-4 tons to maschineguns even remotely equal a pir-1 which is dedicating almost half it's weight for 120 meter max range yolo glasscannon playstyle.

[Bud Crue]

If the once upon a time 20% rof quirk on the 6MG running Arrow was considered by the Lord of Balance to be power creep that necessitated a much needed nerf, then what would a 100% rof quirk on the Flea be considered? Bestowing godhood?

Sorry these people call a 5% change in something "moderate" or even "substantial". A weapon quirk as proposed by the OP will never be seen ever again in this game.

[FupDup]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 27 September 2018 - 01:07 PM, said:

You don't run maschine guns... only pir does, and it's a manical glass cannon which easily gets obliterated by IS burntime, single shell acs, heavy gauss bs and whatever weapons. Even regular dual gauss is garanteed to rip a part off of any pir, even with maxed out survival tree.

That is your tradeoff using and boating clan maschineguns which are utterly worthless on almost all other clan mechs.

Honestly, why should a mech which dedicated 3-4 tons to maschineguns even remotely equal a pir-1 which is dedicating almost half it's weight for 120 meter max range yolo glasscannon playstyle.

The Piranha's weaknesses are all fine and dandy, but that's a separate discussion from the Machine Guns themselves. If we had an IS Piranha (same scaling, mobility, etc.) filled up with IS tech it would suck popsickles barring strong quirks. If you think the Clan Piranha is bad, then an IS Piranha would be soooooooooo much worse.

[MechaBattler]

It's simple math. IS MGs weigh twice as much as their Clan counterparts with the only gain being higher component health. Even when PGI issues MG quirks they're just 25% at most and on mechs with no where near the number of MGs for it to really matter. Like the Osiris and Uziel variants 20% rate of fire, but only 2 ballistic points each.

[Jackal Noble]

FupDup, on 27 September 2018 - 01:24 PM, said:

The Piranha's weaknesses are all fine and dandy, but that's a separate discussion from the Machine Guns themselves. If we had an IS Piranha (same scaling, mobility, etc.) filled up with IS tech it would suck popsickles barring strong quirks. If you think the Clan Piranha is bad, then an IS Piranha would be soooooooooo much worse.

well assuming it would absolutely receive great quirks, it's absolutely doable.
https://mech.nav-alp...#62ba0602_PIR-1

[FupDup]

Jackal Noble, on 27 September 2018 - 02:16 PM, said:

well assuming it would absolutely receive great quirks, it's absolutely doable.
https://mech.nav-alp...#62ba0602_PIR-1

That linked build isn't a proper comparison because it's still using more compact Clan equipment. You'd lose 7 slots from FF, 7 from Endo, 2 from XL, and 3 from your DHS (although you can do SHS on a pure MG boat anyways). Also the Clan FF is lighter in weight, too.

[MechaBattler]

They should buff all IS MGs RoF 25% as a compromise. But give the Flea MG variants another 25% to make them equal to the Piranha. Then maybe the Flea too can have it's own thread about how OP it is.

[Jackal Noble]

https://mech.nav-alp...#ee40a945_PIR-1
How's that? Is that better?

[FupDup]

Jackal Noble, on 27 September 2018 - 02:48 PM, said:

https://mech.nav-alp...#ee40a945_PIR-1
How's that? Is that better?

You're getting warmer, but that linked build still doesn't have enough slots. It's got 11 slots free with Clan tech. IS Endo brings that down to 4. IS FF brings that down to -3. IS XL brings that down to -5.

[FupDup]

In terms of what specific actions to take to make IS MGuns more worth the weight relative to Clam versions, I'd rather try an "asymmetrical" kind of thing rather than "heavy gun is gud gun little gun is weak gun."

Look at SRMs for a case study of how this approach has failed spectacularly, with Clan SRMs needing to have utterly obnoxious spread to compensate for their halved tonnage requirements yet equal performance in most other attributes (besides that aforementioned horrible spread). Besides the issue of potentially making one side's weapons crap it's also just super boring to make everything a linear hierarchy of more tonnage is better.

Some ideas include...
A. One faction gets more range and lower spread, other faction gets more raw DPS.
B. One faction gets to keep strong critting abilities, other faction gets crits heavily reduced or removed but better anti-armor damage.
C. One faction keeps high-DPS rapid-fire MGs, other faction gets MGs that fire in a burst (with a cool-down time between bursts, basically mini Clan ACs).

I'd not want Option C though because that infringes on niches of the future Magshots and AP Gauss Rifles.

Edited by FupDup, 27 September 2018 - 02:56 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

FupDup, on 27 September 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

You're getting warmer, but that linked build still doesn't have enough slots. It's got 11 slots free with Clan tech. IS Endo brings that down to 4. IS FF brings that down to -3. IS XL brings that down to -5.

https://mech.nav-alp...#ee40a945_PIR-1
there, with standard armor.

[Y E O N N E]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 27 September 2018 - 12:52 PM, said:

They have more then double the health of a clan variant.

That has a near-zero impact on the gameplay and you know it. Nobody ever decided to take an MG over a cMG because the former has more health.

Jackal Noble, on 27 September 2018 - 03:02 PM, said:

https://mech.nav-alp...#ee40a945_PIR-1
there, with standard armor.

So 10x MGs with 7200 rounds after skills and no lasers and the MASC still has to get left behind. You do realize that a Fire Ant already does 9.24 DPS before skills, right? And it has MASC.

Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather keep dropping in my Ember than take that mess, shite torso pitch and all.

Spoiler

Just focusing on MG builds for a moment, the real-world application is that IS have to sacrifice armor penetration power and speed to approach what cMG boats can do; the MGs soak up too much weight for their output. I think, then, what I'd do is increase their raw power and decrease their crit power; the IS MG boats need to be better at chewing armor than they are. And like Fup, I prefer a more asymmetrical approach. I don't think I'd double their damage (through either RoF or base), but I think I'd split the buff between damage and range instead, something in the ballpark of:

LMG: 0.875 DPS @ 220 meters, debuff to crits
cLMG: 0.75 DPS @ 200 meters (yes, I buffed their damage..0.7 is not quite enough)

MG: 1.15 DPS @ 150 meters, debuff to crits
cMG: 1.00 DPS @ 125 meters

HMG: 1.65 DPS @ 125 meters, debuff to crits
cHMG: 1.5 DPS @ 100 meters

I would prefer to achieve those damage buffs through Rate of Fire increases rather than an increase to the base damage value. That way, IS don't gain a buff to damage potential, just a buff to damage application. That said, ammo per ton for HMGs on both sides desperately needs to be increased; they soak up so much tonnage on any 'Mech you think you might want to run them on that the overall build, counting in supplemental weapons, ends up either worse or par with a standard MG build in DPS while being worse in range. I'm thinking 1500 rounds; three tons of that, with the +200 you get from the ammo nodes, gives you 5100 rounds with 3 tons; that's plenty sufficient given their damage.

With these changes, a Fire Ant would still have inferior DPS to even a Mist Lynx, being only ~10.5 DPS after a nominal skill tree build, but it would be able to engage from slightly further away and the MASC gives it some power in a different way. The FLE-19 would actually be inferior to the FA to the tune of 0.1 DPS despite having two extra MGs, and it doesn't have MASC (note: this deficiency is present in the current game anyway).

The Arrow would actually have a reason to take HMGs, since its quirks would give it 10.9 DPS at 156 meters from the MGs alone, the same range its current standard MGs can reach, making them actually dangerous and not a troll build.

Locust 1V with 4x HMGs would get a respectable 7.26 DPS out of its ballistics; with the higher RoF on that laser, that gives it 9.04 DPS if you max out the cooldown and laser duration...which is equivalent to the FLE-19 in the current game with 8x MG and a single Small laser.

The Ember would be the real monster, with 8.25 DPS from its torso HMGs and still having 4x MedLas to punch through armor; this is MLX-levels of power, possibly enough that its torso pitch woes might not matter any more.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 27 September 2018 - 06:27 PM.