106 replies to this topic

[Jon Hasselblad]

Just a thought.

I've seen machine guns loading 7.62mm rounds, tear a 1 foot thick wall of concrete down in about 7 seconds at 100 yards.

M16s used in the early 1960s have an effective range of 450 yards, better after it was improved.

If a mech uses a machine gun, i'm sure it would load larger calibre bullets and have a longer range.

For the sake of balance, would it be feasible to let it have a range of 270-380 metres, and up its dps slightly, instead of its measly 90m range.

Just my cents.

[Antony Weiner]

Jon Hasselblad, on 01 December 2012 - 12:32 AM, said:

Just a thought.

I've seen machine guns loading 7.62mm rounds, tear a 1 foot thick wall of concrete down in about 7 seconds at 100 yards.

M16s used in the early 1960s have an effective range of 450 yards, better after it was improved.

If a mech uses a machine gun, i'm sure it would load larger calibre bullets and have a longer range.

For the sake of balance, would it be feasible to let it have a range of 270-380 metres, and up its dps slightly, instead of its measly 90m range.

Just my cents.

Dude,

bullets fall down after 90m, because they run out of fuel.

[Orkhepaj]

More? That assumes they are viable , what is false.

[ferranis]

What do we want?

Better Machineguns!

What do we never use?

Better Machineguns!


Sorry i couldnt resist.
But honestly, wo builds a mech around Machineguns? Cheesebuilds yes.

A heatefficient ppc would be a better wish.

[NinjaCool]

The devs have told us they plan to increase the damage of machineguns soon but thats all the info we currently know about it.

[Thorn Hallis]

The only way to make machine guns viable is to introduce unarmored infantry.

[Dudeman3k]

Well, to put some realism into the picture:

A .50 Caliber Anti-Aircraft MG weighs at a mere 86lbs.... so its safe to say the HALF TON model in BT is of a MUCH higher caliber.

the 20mm Anti-Aircraft MG (developed during WW2) shot faster (x4 faster), larger rounds that went (effective range) of 970 meters. But this system still only weighed at 200 lbs... no where even close to HALF a TON... and we still see this weapon today... it can quite easily tear a hole in any modern day armor.

SO

BT mech's use a HALF TON machine gun, which would be more powerful and more advanced so why would it still only do chicken scratch to bi-pedal tanks???

It's simple.... the creators of BT have never actually shot a .50 or 20mm MG, so they just believe a MG should be an anti-personnel weapon. But, if thats the case, they should lessen the TONNAGE to about .2 TONS.

ALSO!

the weight of a 20mm round is 1lb. so 1 TON would actually be 2,000 rounds (like in game)... so its safe to assume the creators had the 20mm MG in mind...... but still, it only weighed in at 200 lbs

Edited by Dudeman3k, 01 December 2012 - 12:59 AM.

[Viper217]

I always try to keep in mind that the MG you can mount on your mech isn't an assault rifle or man sized weapon, but a half ton automatic weapon with rounds weighing 1 pound apiece. While I never expect them to tear mechs apart by themselves, if they were brought up to about small laser dps it would be good (1.5 tons for a MG + 1 ammo vs 1 small laser + 1 std heatsink) and provide a ballistic weapon to fill slots on the mech without needing 7 tons minimum (6 for ac2 + 1 ton ammo).

[SteelWarrior]

The stupidity in this thread actually made me go through the extra effort to log in and post.


Theres 2 ways to look at this.

1. Game play. In classic battletech machine guns were designed to counter infantry and light vehicles. The theory was not to shoot a ppc at a lonely platoon of troopers. The weapon as a game play item was never intended to wreck havok on another mech. Futher more from a balancing perspective it had to be pretty useless to stop people from stacking them. If you look at CBT's weapon charts there are some very effective weapons with amazing stats. For example a medium laser does 5 damage for 3 heat and costs 1 ton. A large laser does 8 damage, costs 5 tons and causes 8 heat. So who the hell takes a large laser over the more "effective" medium. Someone who has an application for range. A MG is setup like it is so you cant take an atlas and boat it with 35 machine guns, that only would require 3-4 tons of ammo, and 0 heat sinks to use. In terms of MWO theres no mech that can field enough of them to make it a primary source of damage. So technical aspects aside its a stupid idea.

2. Reality. Arguments have been made that a half a ton machine gun should be more powerful. Okay well who the **** says the gun itself is half a ton. So is there not a feeding mechanism for the ammo or is it just a good old WW2 era chain belt that magically loads and unloads. I mean if i put a MG in my right arm and the ammo is in the right torso i guess none of the connection equipment has a weight value then. Not to mention brackets to bolt the gun into place to handle vibration and such. This entire argument doesnt take into account that a mechs armor isnt current day steel overlay. so how can you compare the effects of a modern day machine gun and armor impact to something made 1000 years in the future. I mean a PPC blast is essentially man made lightning and anything over 35 tons can take a blast or two before the armors stripped. If you imagine the heat involved in that then what can a mere anti personnel machine gun do. Allow me to enlighten the lost ones.

"An Autocannon is a type of rapid-firing, auto-loading direct-fire ballistic weapon, firing HEAP (High-Explosive Armor-Piercing) or kinetic rounds at targets in bursts. It is, basically, a giant "machine gun" that fires predominantly cased explosive shells though models firing saboted high velocity kinetic energy penetrators or caseless ordnance do exist. Among the earliest tank/BattleMech scale weaponry produced, autocannons produce far less heat than energy weapons, but are considerably bulkier and are dependent upon limited stores of ammunition."

Your anti mech machine gun is called an autocannon. Theres no need to buff MG because they are what they should be.


PS: Battletech ranges arent the limitation of the weapons its the limitation of the aged, lost tech involved with the targetting systems. Its been stated a hundred times over in the canon materials that the weapons can physically shoot farther then they do, just without any accuracy....

Edited by SteelWarrior, 01 December 2012 - 01:54 AM.

[Deedsie]

I saw an enemy get killed off by one of my team mates firing machine guns into them in an earlier match.

[SteelWarrior]

I actually enjoy taking a pair of them on a mech and just holding down the trigger lol. alot of fun as a filler gun. and get some good kill steals too

[Dudeman3k]

"If you imagine the heat involved in that then what can a mere anti personnel machine gun do"

I lol'd - I put reality into the picture not BT cannon. Nerd.

20mm is currently anti armor buddy. Hahahaha, it's actually a "war crime" to use it on persons.

For BT cannon reason I agree the MG isn't used on mech's themselves, however; like I said, the "creators" were a bunch of dudes who never shot a weapon in their lives, so the misconception of a 20mm MG can easily be found.

200 lbs + belt feeding system = 242lbs..... yeah, still not HALF a TON.

if the MG is usless, why have it in game??? so, if this were infact a replicated 20mm MG.... which is very compareable to the AC/2... like in TT..... then a dmg buff is warranted.

[Ursh]

Let's look at things like the A-10 Thunderbolt *aka The Warthog*

It uses a 30mm gatling gun firing at insanely fast rates that makes it a more effective and accurate armor piercer than any large bore cannon.

I'm sorry, but machine guns are ridiculously underpowered in this game. They're supposed to be comparable to the ac/2, but they're not even close. On my YLW, if I mount 3 machine guns, when I close on someone I should be able to tear up their armor and, eventually, their internals. Instead, they laugh at me Meanwhile the ac/2, which was a loser weapon in tabletop, causes insane cockpit rocking, making it a cheese weapon. *Yes, I know the developers have said they're going to adjust this*

[Retu81]

People are comparing apples to oranges here. By definition, any fully automatic weapon with a caliber larger than 15mm is an autocannon. So if you're going to talk about machine guns, then leave guns mounted on A-10s and alike out of it.

[Ursh]

Small bullets moving really fast have greater kinetic impact than large bullets moving slowly. This is simple physics.

Cannon or machine gun, the firing rate indicates that it's a relatively small caliber compared to the autocannons in this game. They need to seriously adjust the damage.

Also, most of the cheese light mechs don't have ballistic hardpoints, so adjusting machine guns won't be giving idiotic jenner pilots another weapon.

Edited by Ursh, 01 December 2012 - 02:20 AM.

[VaeVict1s]

They are for anti personnel in canon, unfortunately we don't have personnel in this game... What I think could happen is just bring the DPS of one MG up to .8 or even a flat 1 (from .4), doubling the damage... meaning a couple of them could do pretty respective chip damage, but won't be OP or anything

right now they are just an annoying and you can almost always ignore some one using them while you kill their friends

honestly, I will just wait it out because the devs know they need a significant boost right now

[Hidirian]

A few facts to put out there since some people don't seem to understand:

1.The Machine guns in BT TT are equivalent to a GE M61 Vulcan gun used by the USAF fighters(go figure GE also makes weapons in the BT universe) (MG - scroll to bottom), they did 2 damage per round(firing 10 rounds in a burst in 10 seconds that means they should be doing 0.20 damage per bullet instead of the 0.04 per bullet that they do now), they did 2+1 to light armored vehicles(lightly armored trucks/tanks) and did 2+2 to infantry(hence why they were considered anti infantry weapons). In BT 1 ton of ammunition holds 4,000 rounds, broke down in 200 "shots" for gaming purposes. Each "shot" is a 10 rds burst, this was changed in MWO to straight ammo from "shots" and cut in half from what it should hold, now I could understand doing this for gameplay purposes IF they left the damage at 2dps(0.20 per bullet) but they didn't so It just doesn't make sense.

2. Mech Armor in the BT universe is ablative in nature Armor for BattleMechs/Vehicles, that means that it chips away with every shot/explosion similar to how our current bulletproof vests used by soldiers now. So a machine gun would be pretty damaging to a Mech especially a half ton 20mm one which is why they exist for mechs.

3. There are a few mechs in the BT universe that primarily used MG's, one being the Piranha.

Edited by Hidirian, 01 December 2012 - 03:03 AM.

[stjobe]

Machine guns are... machine guns. Let me show you:

Sarna says this about MGs:

Quote

The Machine Gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon, issuing a stream of bullets at a high rate of fire to cut down opposing soldiers. Vehicular-scale machine guns mounted on BattleMechs can lay low entire platoons in just a few passes thanks to their high rate of fire, though they are more commonly found on Combat Vehicles and ProtoMechs.[3] These weapons are much heavier than those typically carried by infantry, but can be used by them when placed on a static mount, where they are called Support Machine Guns.[4] Battle Armor can also carry machine guns, typically upgraded versions of infantry-support weapons, which can rival their larger vehicular-scale cousins.[5]

Following that link to Support Machine Guns, we get this:

Quote

Support Machine Guns are large crew-served support weapons mounted on vehicles or emplacement turrets. Too massive for a single trooper to carry, these guns fire large-caliber bullets at much greater ranges than most other ballistic weapons and with enough firepower to be a threat to heavily-armored vehicles. Support machine guns achieve superior accuracy at these ranges thanks to their stable, static mounts and built-in recoil compensation.[1]

And if we instead follow the link to "upgraded versions of infantry support weapons", we get this:

Quote

Essentially a generational improvement over the Heavy Machine Guns of the 20th Century this weapon fires High Calibre rifle rounds in the vicenity of 12.7 mm or 0.50 calibre. This calibre of round is better able to damage BattleMechs, BattleArmor and Combat Vehicles. Rarely used as a squads main weapon due to requiring a crew of two, it is more often used in a supporting role or Mounted on vehicles, in fortress turrets or emplaced positions. Extremely long ranged for a slug-throwing ballistic weapon.

There we go. 12.7mm (.50 cal) for the smaller versions, so likely the 'mech versions are 12.7 - 20mm gatling or chainguns.

Edited by stjobe, 01 December 2012 - 03:07 AM.

[Lavrenti]

It's true that MGs are pretty much useless in MWO at present. It doesn't seem unreasonable to imagine them as something like a .50cal, and the half tonne weight can be assumed to include mounting, ammo feeds, targeting equipment etc.If their damage was increased a little - say to 0.05 per round - and their spread tightened they would be a little better. But if a 14 tonne AC20 can fit in a single ballistic hardpoint, why not a twin or quad machinegun mount? A twin mount might weigh a tonne, a quad mount perhaps 2 tonnes. It's still relatively cheap in terms of tonnage and ammo, and it might actually make them useful.

[Solis Obscuri]

Bear in mind, some AC/5s use 120mm shells.

.50 machine guns, by comparison, are much less effective vs. the LoLwhut? armor of the 31st century.

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 01 December 2012 - 03:18 AM.