48 replies to this topic

[Raalic]

These changes are all great, and they feel pretty tight/fair. I do wish they'd move a little faster on PPC's, but everything else looks good.

[Karyudo ds]

Zyllos, on 15 November 2012 - 01:03 PM, said:

The fragility of the Guass Rifle is NOT a way to balance it.

Really? Because the Battletech rules for the weapon exploding would tear a Gaussapult in half. It doesn't kill the performance but it would finally include an actual drawback like it's supposed to have. Right now it's like a PPC that generates no heat.

I would like the cool down tweaked a bit but I'd have to see what happens after they start to explode. Something those hot PPC's don't usually do.

[Sandpit]

Karyudo ds, on 15 November 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Really? Because the Battletech rules for the weapon exploding would tear a Gaussapult in half. It doesn't kill the performance but it would finally include an actual drawback like it's supposed to have. Right now it's like a PPC that generates no heat.

I would like the cool down tweaked a bit but I'd have to see what happens after they start to explode. Something those hot PPC's don't usually do.

Yea, Gauss were notorious for ammo exploding in the weapon itself destroying it.

[Clay Pigeon]

So all I need is one flamer to make it so no one near me can ever fire w/o shutting down? That makes sense.

[Karyudo ds]

Sandpit, on 15 November 2012 - 01:53 PM, said:

Yea, Gauss were notorious for ammo exploding in the weapon itself destroying it.

The ammo never exploded due to being inert. The weapon being made of a series of magnets on the other hand is the exact opposite.

[themoob]

The LBX still needs some tweaking I feel... how many people do you even see use them? And they're the most expensive weapon in the game.. for what?

[Sandpit]

Clay Pigeon, on 15 November 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

So all I need is one flamer to make it so no one near me can ever fire w/o shutting down? That makes sense.

Show me where at any point it says one flamer will do this?

Karyudo ds, on 15 November 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

The ammo never exploded due to being inert. The weapon being made of a series of magnets on the other hand is the exact opposite.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle

Since the Gauss Rifle fires solid metal slugs, with neither propellant nor explosive, Gauss Rifle magazines are not susceptible to ammunition explosions. However, if the weapon itself is struck by enemy fire, the capacitors that power the electromagnets will release their stored energy, with an effect similar to an ammo explosion. (In game terms, a critical hit on a Gauss Rifle is equivalent to a 20-point ammo explosion.)

themoob, on 15 November 2012 - 02:04 PM, said:

The LBX still needs some tweaking I feel... how many people do you even see use them? And they're the most expensive weapon in the game.. for what?

LBX are horrible for direct damage (if you're using LBX ammo) they were never intended for this. They are great for getting crits against enemy mechs though

Edited by Sandpit, 15 November 2012 - 03:27 PM.

[Xander Pappyson]

I might need some more explaining. From a few patches ago criticals were described as either x2, x3, or x4 damage increase, correct? So an LBX 10 shoots 10 little rounds into a bad guy mech and each round has a chance to do either 2, 3, or 4 damage vs the one damage if it gets a crit. and 10 little shots are 10 times more likely of getting one crit. Am I on track?

Added: What I mean is each of the 10 slugs have a chance of getting a crit and 10 chances at once is better then one chance from a AC 10 round. on that not however wouldn't an AC 20 have the opportunity of doing 40, 60, or 80 damage on a crit?

Edited by Xander Pappyson, 16 November 2012 - 11:51 AM.

[shintakie]

Mmmm...MG buffs. Should be somewhere around .08 damage per pellet to keep it balanced. You could technically go for a .1 to make it equal to the SL in terms of damage, but I doubt they'll go that far.

For those at home, it'd still be fairly inferior to the SL due to the way the damage actually works. Between the spread and the long "beam time" it will be mostly impossible to get full damage out of a MG into a single point, unlike that of a small laser boat.

[MustrumRidcully]

Finally a reason to equip MGs might be interesting.

Alexandrix, on 15 November 2012 - 12:53 PM, said:

How hilarious would it be if they ridiculously over powered MG's for a few days like they did artemis and LRM's? everyone running around spraying MG bullets of insta death everywhere.

"whoops we put machine damage at 8 damage per bullet instead of .08 per bullet like we meant to.Our bad."

It be like Solaris all over again! I am sure RAM would be delighted.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 16 November 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[AlexWildeagle]

machine guns are over-powered :-P

[Manny Rhyde]

what about the LBX 10? will it get any buffs/nerfs in the future?

[Comassion]

Vermaxx, on 15 November 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

MG will probably get raised to something like 0.8 damage per bullet. Still pretty worthless, considering they are supposed to apply two damage to a single armor facing with one shot.

MGs at that damage would absolutely rip you apart. That would give them 8 DPS - that 4-ballistic Cicada would crush the world with a constant stream of face-smashing 32 DPS bullet insanity. That's an Atlas dead in 5 seconds, from the front.

0.1 - 0.12 would be a pretty good damage value for them, though I do think it would be cool if they left armor damage low, but bumped their internal damage, to give the weapon some flavor.

Edited by Comassion, 16 November 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[Sandpit]

As long as they actually do SOME damage I'd be happy. There's lots of designs I have that I don't use simply because at this point MGs are completely useless for damage. I'd still like to see them implement a rapid fire option for them that increases damage through rate of fire but also increases heat and causes them to jam

[Ptom]

My Single ac/20 cat is getting even stronger?

Hell yes.

Can't wait till machine guns are viable. The sound they make is sooooooo satisfying

[Half Fast]

Disclaimer: I'm still fairly new at this game and have not experienced the entirety of what is offered. I realize I'm probably missing much, but I'm sure there are several who will be willing to point out my shortcomings

Question: What is the fire rate of the MG? the numbers I'm finding on the web suggest a DPS of either 4 or 40 (different numbers at different sites). 40 I discount, even 4 seems high.

My thoughts:

Flamers
- The way I see Flamers working is that they fill the air around the target mech with massive amount of heat. This causes the outside of the target mech to heat up, and heats the air moving across/through the heat sinks so they no longer work as effectively.
- When we start up on the Cauldron map, we have a bit of heat percentage on our scale - 'environmental heat'. It seems to me that flamers should simply add to that scale...from the bottom - simply slide the present heat level up, but the effect is not additive over time (for one flamer, more on that next). Once you've 'super-heated' the mech, or a specific area of the mech, you can't really force that much more heat into it. Once the flamer is removed, that additional 'environmental heat' is gradually (or quickly) removed from the scale.
- As for multiple flamers - I think additional flamers should have a reduced effect. There will be some 'overlap' of the area where the flamers are 'hitting' and an upper limit of how much you can heat an object/material (perhaps this is where damage can come in, after you've reached full heat effect of the flamer). Now, I don't suggest these actual number should be used, but they make for easy math...have the first flamer on target quickly raise the 'environmental heat' 10%, the second - 9%, the third - 8%, etc. A most these numbers would raise the heat scale 55% with 10 flamers all hitting a mech at the same time. You could not lock down a mech, but you could make things tough. With a more reasonable 2 flamers, you won't necessarily cripple a mech, but you might push a hot mech over. And the effect shouldn't be removed immediately upon removal of the flamer - it should be gradual...or as the heat sinks can do so.

PPCs
- I have an Awesome with 6 PPCs. It's not terribly effective (I made it in as an exercise in what's possible), but it does work...and teaches a hard lesson in heat management. With the proposed changes (reduced heat, EMP effect, maybe damage boost) I think it would rock...and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

There, my thoughts.
Return fire expected .

[De La Fresniere]

That's a rather old thread you just necro'd. Five weeks or so?

MGs currently fire 10 bullets per second, for 0.04 damage per bullet (0.4 DPS). They fire bullets rather erratically though, so it's difficult to aim at a specific section with them.

Can't say how they'll end up balancing Flamers exactly, but it's been brewing a while.

6 PPCs is pretty crazy... it does a lot of damage (60) but only once in a blue moon. It's generally better to balance damage and heat generation/dissipation to maximize damage.

[Sug]

Vermaxx, on 15 November 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

MG will probably get raised to something like 0.8 damage per bullet. Still pretty worthless, considering they are supposed to apply two damage to a single armor facing with one shot.

2 damage per shot in the 10 second window that is TT gaming.

Currently they do 0.04 damage per shot, with 10 shots a second.

Over the 10 sec TT window that is 4 damage (0.04 x 10 x 10) So they're already doubled over TT values.

[De La Fresniere]

Sug, on 21 December 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

2 damage per shot in the 10 second window that is TT gaming.

Currently they do 0.04 damage per shot, with 10 shots a second.

Over the 10 sec TT window that is 4 damage (0.04 x 10 x 10) So they're already doubled over TT values.

Makes sense.

And since MWO uses a triple speed model over TT, that means the MG is only doing 2/3 of what it would normally have if it'd followed the conversion.

But I'm still expecting damage to be at least doubled, too. The 50% it would take to bring it in line with the MWO speed model doesn't sound like it'd be enough to make them viable. They have terrible range, require you to keep constant aim at the target, have high spread that makes it hard to aim at a section even at 90m range, has a natural deficiency at doing crits...

Triple current damage sounds like it'd be in the ballpark IMO, but I'm pretty sure they'll just double it and see if it's suddenly OP for some unexpected reasons.

[Half Fast]

De La Fresniere, on 21 December 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

That's a rather old thread you just necro'd. Five weeks or so?

6 PPCs is pretty crazy... it does a lot of damage (60) but only once in a blue moon. It's generally better to balance damage and heat generation/dissipation to maximize damage.

Yeah, well....you come in late, search for information...and feel a need to weigh in

I realize the 6PPCs are crazy, that was the point of the experiment . What I was trying to say is that the proposed changes to PPCs make it a little less crazy.