116 replies to this topic

[Imagine Dragons]

Now only if I can shoot down missiles with MGs... that would be... nice...


NO, IM TOTALLY NOT THINKING MACROSS!

Evinthal, on 03 October 2012 - 02:33 PM, said:

Against armor they kind of suck, but they are very good at ripping into internals and causing criticals from what I understand.

Does not work that way in MWO bro.

Edited by XenomorphZZ, 26 October 2012 - 07:47 PM.

[Assad]

Ballistic weapons underperform across the board. The RAC ULTRA/AC5 were some of my favorite weapons in the older versions of the MWO games. Now they are pretty much a waste of slots. The AC series isn't much better. Machine Guns are a massive disappointment. They do so little damage they are a waste. This should be fixed. Ammo cooking off etc. makes ballistics so hard to manage its a wonder why they even bothered including them in the game at all? At least give them a sizeable advantage in their destructive power proportional to the hazard of using them.

[De La Fresniere]

OK, just in case my previous math was not convincing enough, I figured since there's a wipe on Monday I'd use the opportunity to try it myself.

Did 2 games. Didn't live very long in either of them, but while I was alive I did get some pretty decent time firing the 4 MGs at random targets.

First time I did a grand total of 22 damage. That's right. 22.

Second time I thought I'd done better... but it turns out I did 18.

Machine Guns are garbage, plain and simple. I don't think doubling their damage is going to be enough to balance them properly.

EDIT: Added a Large Laser just for fun. Despite dying pretty quickly again (had two Hunchies, one Jenner and one Atlas all focusing on me), damage went up to 141.

I repeat. Machine Guns are utter garbage.

Edited by De La Fresniere, 26 October 2012 - 06:45 PM.

[Jason1138]

the only thing they could do to make MGs viable is add infantry to the game. short of that there was never much reason to use them in TT either

[BadKitty]

Actually... recently I've fought some machinegun equipped mechs including one that I was laughing at.. it was carrying nothing but machineguns.. and chewed my back amror in seconds... yeah... face on they are not much use.. but in a fast mech with some well placed shots on the legs and back.. owies!! They are less useless than you'd think yeah...small guns.. but then so are Streak 2's but I've cored mechs using my streaks .
Today I met a Cicaida with nothing but machineguns..... and it was funny and laughable.... til it peeled your back armor off...

[Melcyna]

streaks are anything but useless... in fact it's one of the most effective weapon in the game as it has the tracking that negates lag shield, it does a med laser damage for the full salvo (good dps for it's weight) and it has a decent range.

machine gun is the opposite, it does so little damage that one would do more effective work and do more criticals even with a small laser...

I originally thought that the machine gun would be an excellent way to smash their internals and destroy components once you carve the armor open... WRONG...

this was most painfully obvious when we tested it on an Atlas that was AFK, we rip it's armor to pieces with lasers then SHOWERED the exposed atlas with 8 machine gun fire in total with our team non stop on that exposed internals...

after 10 seconds of non stop rain of MG bullet, one of us FINALLY did one component critical destruction....

Then our gauss cat just shoot the atlas and in one salvo he blew several internal components at once (it looks quite impressive, with the mixture of the gauss slug spark mixing with the component destroyed)...

he took another 1 salvo or two and cored the mech...

so yeah, MG? pretty damn close to useless, i strip out most of my mech that came with MG and just use the 1.5 or 2 ton for something else much more useful like a ******** AMS or extra heatsink, ANYTHING but MG.

[GaussDragon]

CobraFive, on 03 October 2012 - 04:46 PM, said:

The cool thing about MGs is it instantly lets you know who's a bad player.

Lol I just burst out laughing. +1

[Nighpher]

I spent an entire 60 seconds shooting 4 machine guns at the back of an awesome who was not moving, (AFK) Which is the damage is 2 per second, should come out to 480 damage, my damage grand total at end of game? less then 230. And the Awesome still did not die!

[IIIuminaughty]

Syllogy, on 26 October 2012 - 06:46 AM, said:

They still be useless.

However, whether it might be because you are just terrible at piloting or a lack of firepower is anyone's guess.

LOL me terrible pilot you funny dude you should do stand up lol...ME a terrible pilot...LOL...LOL...LOL
funny people that plays this game LOL

all get at me

[Rozav]

I don't know of a mech with something absurd like 8-10 ballistic HPs, but if they did make one I just want to outfit it with 10 MGs.

Damage problems (rather, lack there of) aside, there's something very VERY satisfying about firing arrays of MGs.

The sound them in the stock Raven 4x is satisfying, so if they roll out Atlas ASD-MG with 30 MG HPs + 40 tons of ammo? Yes please. Shut up and take my money already.

[Lorcan Lladd]

It's a real piece of scrap metal.

You can't deal any serious damage unless you mount a whole lot of those weapons, but you can't keep them firing for long if you do, as you'll run out of ammo exceedingly quickly, even if you should outfit your 'Mech with tons and tons of it.
Not to mention, of course, the amount of tonnage lost to multiple CASE modules or, even worse, the potential ammo explosions across the whole 'Mech (there are simply not enough critical slots to put 10+ tons of ammunitions in any given single part of a Battlemech, forcing you to spread your ammo supply thorough).

I think they should be given a damage boost, to compensate, if nothing else, for their drawbacks.

Edited by Lorcan Lladd, 27 October 2012 - 08:49 AM.

[Melcyna]

I don't think a straightforward damage boost is a solution honestly given that they never were meant to create any real damage...

but it would be nice to have it at least do good critical on the internals once it's exposed...

that way it's not a strictly speaking lethal weapon since it still does jack all nothing on armor, but it serves a purpose once the armor is breached and the internals are exposed.

Right now it does jack all nothing on either.. you could fire it for ages on armor or even downright exposed internals and do very little of anything at all...

[TwoFaced]

anyone notice a lag issue when attacked by machine guns?

I noticed jumping of my screen when getting attacked by machine gun boat.

I have notice the number of machine guns I hear is increasing...so noobish players or smart tactic, some damage is better than no damage.

[De La Fresniere]

Lorcan Lladd, on 27 October 2012 - 08:49 AM, said:

It's a real piece of scrap metal.

You can't deal any serious damage unless you mount a whole lot of those weapons, but you can't keep them firing for long if you do, as you'll run out of ammo exceedingly quickly, even if you should outfit your 'Mech with tons and tons of it.
Not to mention, of course, the amount of tonnage lost to multiple CASE modules or, even worse, the potential ammo explosions across the whole 'Mech (there are simply not enough critical slots to put 10+ tons of ammunitions in any given single part of a Battlemech, forcing you to spread your ammo supply thorough).

I think they should be given a damage boost, to compensate, if nothing else, for their drawbacks.

10 tons of MG ammo is overkill, though. Even with 4 MGs running simultaneously, a single ton of ammo gives you 50 seconds of continuous fire. 10 tons of ammo would let you fire them all, nonstop, for over *8 minutes*. You'd run out of ammo maybe one game out of a thousand.

Let's say you "only" invested in 4 minutes of ammo and risk running out to save weight. That still adds up to 7.5 tons. Why not get two Medium Lasers, five heat sinks and some more armor instead?

You're right in sayign that space is a big issue, but weight is even more serious.

Truly, I just can't get over how bad they are.

I'm reading a lot of comments about how, in lore, these are only meant to be used against infantry. If that's correct, then why include them at all in a game that's mech VS mech only? At best it adds a bit of flavor, at worst some people are actually going to think they're useful and a team will basically be left with one less functional mech.

[Gen Kumon]

Those comments about how they're only for use against infantry are *wrong*, lore-wise and game-wise. Quite a few hot-running mechs use them for a close in weapon, since a small laser would just add more heat. There's even one design that mounts *12* of them to replace the melee ability it loses by not having hands. But anyway, ignoring that...

Basically, the problem with them in MWO? Every weapon in the game got an effective damage boost over TT, due to rate of fire (and some got a damage boost per hit too, like LRMs, which do double damage PLUS have a much increased rate of fire). The machineguns...got the lowest boost in the game. In the orignal, they did 2 damage a shot, i.e. 2 damage per 10 seconds. In MWO, they do 4 damage per ten seconds. All other weapons got anywhere from a 3x to something like an 8x damage boost, compared to MGs 2x. MGs were also heavily nerfed by adding in the spread it has, so that small amount of damage is now spread *all over* the target. Since they had such a low damage to start with...in effect, rather than getting a boost in relation to every other weapon, it got a damage *reduction* and a secondary nerf making it impossible to focus them on a body section, making them even more useless.

Simple solution? Tighten up the spread and double damage. At .8 DPS, they'll still be lower than the small laser's 1. With a tighter spread, they'll do more focused damage, but still won't math the small lasers/small pulse in the area of pinpoint strikes. And they'll still be heavier due to requiring potentially explosive ammo (not to mention the extra .5 ton for CASE, 1 full ton if you have ammo in both side torsos), so I think they're remain quite balance while actually becoming useful. For example, the CDA-3C would become an excellent light mech hunter, while not being able to do insane damage against larger targets. Same with a 3x MG Dragon or Hunch. Effective against smaller targets, workable, though not optimal against larger.

Edited by Gen Kumon, 27 October 2012 - 12:40 PM.

[Vermaxx]

Change machine guns to lead lasers. Single click fires the streak. They can either count every hit (I vote no) or make the first shot apply all the damage. Set the duration and cooldown so it fires the same rate as a small laser, and only does 2 damage in the same timeframe. OR, it fires twice in the same time as a small laser, for one damage each. Weapon fixed.

Having them be fully automatic sustained fire weapons means they are never going to be useful, because making them useful in short bursts would make them absolutely overpowering in banks on constant fire.

Edited by Vermaxx, 27 October 2012 - 12:44 PM.

[twibs]

My friend found use for the MG.

Yen-Lo-Wang has two ballistic slots in it's hand. Take one MG and one Gauss and use the MG as make shift laser sight. When the MG hits, the gauss is pretty sure to hit too.

[Obadiah333]

I use one for a coat rack back at the barracks. it's useful there at least.

[Romulus Stahl]

MG's on a Mech are like MG's on a Tank.
Good for infantry/soft skin vehicles (or a Mech with no armor), not something one would use on an enemy Tank/Mech.

In an effort to avoid the argument, "if they are in the game the game they need to do more damage", they function as designed at the moment, not the way some may want to use them. Also if they weren't in the game the devs would hear the wailing of why not. If the game grows (single player/infantry/etc) they may have a good purpose.

Edited by Romulus Stahl, 08 November 2012 - 05:05 AM.

[Imagine Dragons]

Romulus Stahl, on 08 November 2012 - 05:05 AM, said:

MG's on a Mech are like MG's on a Tank.
Good for infantry/soft skin vehicles (or a Mech with no armor), not something one would use on an enemy Tank/Mech.

In an effort to avoid the argument, "if they are in the game the game they need to do more damage", they function as designed at the moment, not the way some may want to use them. Also if they weren't in the game the devs would hear the wailing of why not. If the game grows (single player/infantry/etc) they may have a good purpose.

Its a half ton MG ffs, its almost twice as heavy as a freaking GAU-8