Mell42, on 22 August 2023 - 07:39 PM, said:
REPLY to JumpingHunter
I did an internet search before I posted my suggested feature change. I found out that, as a general rule of thumb, larger calibre bullets have a longer range. I also learned that the shape of the bullet, the amount of gun powder, and the type of powder used affect the range. You can do your own internet search if you don’t believe me.
The longer optimal ranges for the MG (machine gun) and HMG (heavy machine gun) would not make it OP for most mechs because they lack enough ballistic hardpoints to make it a problem. Cauldron members would likely reduce the DPS of the MG and HMG in order to keep the game balanced. Every weapon in the game has both pros and cons. The downside of LMG, MG, and HMG is the face time required to do damage. This leaves the mech more susceptible to receiving damage from an enemy mech.
Craels can be dealt with by destroying the arms, side torso, and legs. Craels can be more of a problem for Tier 5 players because they lack the skill and teamwork to quickly destroy the mech.
I consider Piranhas to be a type of mech that kills my enjoyment of the MWO video game. The mech’s small hitboxes plus the video game’s latency make it difficult to destroy the mech. What makes it worse is Piranhas relatively high damage output for a light mech. The longer optimal ranges for MG and HMG would likely result in a reduction in the DPS for MG and HMG by Cauldron for game balance.
The longer optimal ranges for MG and HMG may make it more likely for a player using a Piranha to attack at a longer distance. Would you rather a Piranha attack your (assault or heavy) mech at a distance or attack the butt of your mech at a near-touching distance? Given a choice, I would rather the Piranha attack from a distance. At least I would have a higher chance of destroying the light mech.
“ Bigger machinegun is absolutely the last thing MWO needs right now. If you want everyone who doesnt have 30-35 rear armor to suddenly and inevitebly lose all their side torsos and equipment from 500-600 meters to backline sneaking MG boat, this is exactly what will cause this. Some LMG boats already can do that with range and RoF quirks and skills, and now you want every MG mech to do that. It will kill the balance completely, its already hard enough to deal with piranhas and craels... “
by JumpingHunter
There are plenty of other weapons in the game that can quickly destroy the rear armour of your mech if you are not careful. I have destroyed assault mechs by attacking the rear armour with lasers and/or SRM using light or medium mechs.
Thanks for some IRL research that wasn't necessary at all, because every conventional ballistic weapon in BT (conventional means that Gauss Rifles and Rail Guns are excluded) having inverted proportion between caliber and range - the bigger caliber weapon has - the more damage it deals and the less range it has. It is a BALANCING treatment of weapons, NOT just done for whatever reason by BT's original creators from 80s. Imagine AC20 having range of Gauss Rifle or longer simply because it's realistic. Hell, imagine how realistic Lasers that deal more damage than AC10 cannon shell does. Not even talking about PPCs... So don't bring up IRL physics, unless you wan't to also get rid of PPCs, most of lasers, aside from TAGs and maybe Micro Lasers, Gauss Rifles and other things that don't alllign with real life mechanics of various weaponry. Should i mention that MG bullets don't even suppose to deal considerable damage to armor that can withstand multiple strikes of armor-piercing AC20 shots, or gauss rifle bullets? The whole concept of 5.56 bullets dealing more DPS than a specialized armor-priecing heavy weapons to heavily armored targets AT THE SAME RANGE is just wrong from the beginning to the end in terms of realistic weapon behaviour.
Now to machineguns. First off, the face time. You simply ignore the fact that face time is NOT when mech is just standing still and shooting. It's when mech is running around, jumping, WHILE also tracking his target with his weapons. Now remember what you said about piranhas, and combine 2 and 2. If you have small mech with 14 ballistic hardpoints (or how much it has, i dont want to even know exactly) that can run around at 120 KPH, can jump around, have hitboxes smaller than most other mechs (sometimes to the point that projectiles don't deal damage to small enough mechs when they are moving too fast or jumping - and yes, it is PRESENT bug that still exists), and also have enough torso twist speed and angle to keep his crosshair on target while moving quickly, you get a CONSTANT DPS that is not really affected by the increased face time.
Second, machineguns do not get ANY drawbacks for dealing their damage. They do not produce heat, they do not jam, they do not run our of ammo in 90% of the time, unless you literally have your fire trigger pulled the whole match time. Not a single downside. Thanks to PGI i now have a weapon to compare machineguns with: an X-Pulse lasers! X-Pulse lasers, being rather balanced weapons, not only have limited range (like machineguns) but also produce heat, a lot of heat for stream-firing weapons that require face time. And, unlike machineguns, they do not get insane crit damage multiplier, so even if they will strip your armor from back, you won't lose TOO much equipment before you turn around. Plus, they weight a lot more than machineguns.
That was my point - machineguns are NOT punished for dealing constant crit-damaging DPS. And while you are right in that most mechs can't make use of them due to lack of harpoints, there are SOME mechs that are literally build by PGI to boat MGs in large numbers. And THAT is a problem.
Third, you are right, any weapon can strip your rear armor in one or two shots, or in just a second, if it's RAC or X-Pulse array. However, machineguns not only deal overwhelmingly more crit damage than most other weapons, they also do not have any drawback for doing so. So stripped rear armor agaunst light mech boating maachineguns means death in about 2-3 seconds even for mechs like Atlas. Unless you have someone to back you up or wall to stick to, meaning that now game LITERALLY require either second mech to deal with fast light MG boat, or giving up your torso twisting ability as a whole, simply to not get 50 crits in your back. Just think about it - it takes 2 heavily armored mechs to deal with just light 25-ton mech boating usual 5.56 or 7.62 armaments, at the range where in TT any of attacked mechs would literally kick the sh!t out of the light mech and broke his legs. yet here in MWO sometimes we can't break his legs at all because they dont receive damage. And now, instead of making MGs more of a finisher type of weapon for damaged targets, you opt for making them a viable sniping weapon. A non-heating, non-jamming hitscan mid-range sniping weapon that weights 0.25 tons and comes in 10-14 packs on one light mech. Amazing. That would get rid of last chances of dealing with MG boat by breaking it's legs, because now it would sit at somewhere around 400-500 meters and snipe safely, dealing more crits that every other players on server combined.
My suggestion is to make MGs unable to deal damage to armor, only damaging structure, OR give them a considerable chance of considerably long jam, considerable heat and decreased ammo values in one-ton ammo bin. THEN it will be much more ok to increase their range. Otherwise it's just too powerful for 5.56 bullets.
Sorry if tone of reply is angry, but it's very frustrating to have to defend the common sense arguments in the face of someone basically saying "i wanna my dps buzz saw being able to reach something at 400 meters because i just want to". For now light MG boats take unbelievably low skill to use effectively, compared to any other mech in MWO. It's not hard to run in someone's back if you have ECM, smallest hitboxes and size in game and 120 or more KPH of speed. Range of machineguns is also a skill-requiring factor, pilots have to know how to get out of someone's face if they got caught. Increaseing MG range will get that last bit of skill-requirement from the mech, making something like piranha literally a noob weapon. Would have said that i didn't mean any offense to piranha pilots, but sometimes i actually do mean to offend them, thats how annoying and common they are.
EDIT: Forgot about Craels, you are in your right on this topic, they are dealable with. However the fact that a bunch of machineguns are EXPECTED to be used in similar fashion as some actual mech weapons like ACs, heavier lasers and missle launchers are just so god damn stupid. It was supposed to be anti-personnel weapon, yet PGI forgot to get the personnel that MGs were designed to deal with into the game, and now we have to live with that abomination of a mech that crael is. It's not overpowered, i agree, at least when it's not in groups of 4 and literally melting mechs in seconds, but it's very annoying nontheless.
Edited by JumpingHunter, 25 August 2023 - 06:26 AM.
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