383 replies to this topic

[Pyrrho]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:47 PM, said:

No reason to bloat the stats on an anti-infantry weapon.

You keep calling it that, but the only thing you've linked to support this assertion is a Wiki article about tanks in WWI...

[Jman5]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

Tell me why they need to be useful.

Because it's good for a game to have a wide variety of choices and customization. It gives it more depth. Am I being trolled because this argument you are making is rather silly. Who gives a crap about how it works in previous games. There is no point putting the massive amount of man hours into designing and implementing a weapon only to make it useless in the context of this game.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

It's a half-ton weapon that gets 1000 shots per ton of ammo with zero heat (that's the most important part)... it really shouldn't be all that useful, but a critical damage boost to meager base damage is probably no big deal.

I want to re-iterate that the zero heat thing is what you really need to keep in mind when considering how far machine guns should be buffed. Also keep in mind how bad it could be when people start boating (3+) them.

Edited by Warrax the Chaos Warrior, 12 December 2012 - 01:55 PM.

[General Taskeen]

Why is this even a discussion. Where is the ability to play an infantry soldier or use some other vehicle, that can take MG damage, in this game? There isn't. Who cares if it is an "anti-infantry weapon" when no infantry exists in this game. The developers decided to include stock builds, that were equipped with MG's, into this game and now they need to be re-worked for Mech vs. Mech combat. That's all there is to it.

If the MG is going to be in this game, it needs to be re-developed altogether by starting with a 1 or 2 damage per bullet (like the TT value, every weapon in this game (besides the flamer and MG) have a TT damage value. Once that is done, 'balance' it from there.

[TruePoindexter]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

Speaking of that, please give me a reason that, "Machine guns either need to be useful,or removed."

There are lore builds that rely on them and because we need a ballistic weapon that doesn't require 7 tons of weight.

Edited by TruePoindexter, 12 December 2012 - 01:54 PM.

[Red squirrel]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:

Considering that armored fighting vehicles were specifically designed to defeat machine guns in trench warfare, I think I know what I'm talking about.

Oh, and let's look at BT lore MGs. Two points of damage to armored vehicles, MASSIVE BUFF AGAINST INFANTRY.

At least we can agree on this. They should do as much damage as an AC2 if you are <90m.
And that really is all people are asking for because right now they do no nearly that much damage (0.02).


On the other point - consider that we are not talking about an AK47. The BT MG is a 500kg machine gun array. So it's more like an array of 5 Gatling guns with 20mm caliber and explosive ammunition.
It's still not great against an armored mech, but on close range does some damage.

Edited by Red squirrel, 12 December 2012 - 01:56 PM.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Shard Phoenix, on 12 December 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

The MG's in MWO are obviously not the AN/GAU-8a 30mm Avenger. If they were, instead of 2 points of damage, they would bypass armor completely causing AC/20-like damage to internal structure.

Stats given for the average MG in BT lore usually list them as being anywhere from .50 in to 20mm in caliber. Rounds that are useful for punching through light armor at best, but are generally considered useless for trying to penetrate a tank.

[J4ckInthebox]

Quote

Quote

MGs are not dedicated anti-infantry weapons.

You need to do some research.

You too, I am afraid. TT machine guns have indeed a bonus against infantry, but otherwise they work like ac/2's against 'mechs at close range.

Edited by J4ckInthebox, 12 December 2012 - 01:56 PM.

[Tvae]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

You mentioned that MGs do the same average damage as a AC/2. Remember that is spread out over a 10 second window, If they want to buff the damage to MGs a bit, I could care less. "Crit Buffs" are just silly and make no sense, however.

Actually, Crit. Buffs would make quite a bit of sense.

As is always stated in conversations about MGs, in the lore they are quite ineffective against armored targets. They are a rapid fire weapon - large numbers of weak attacks. So why would this make them effective against internals? Internal components are, logically, much less armored than the outside of mechs (except in situations such as CASE, where the ammo is specifically self-contained). Therefore, MGs should be as effective against the internals of a mech as any other weapon - if not moreso. "Why would they be more effective?" Well, the reason for that is the same reason they're so effective against infantry.

The internals of mechs are weak, but there's lots of them. It doesn't take much to wreck a mechs internal functions, but mechs tend to be big, so even high powered weapons might not hit that one vital component. MGs are mass-fire weapons - they might not do as much to the internals, but if the armor is opened enough to let the shots in, they're going to tear **** up.

And this same analogy could be used in regards to other armored vehicles, as well. A high powered shot may penetrate the tanks armor, but fail to hit anything important. Now an infantryman runs up and sticks his machine gun into that opening - the inside essentially becomes a death trap. The weaker bullets can wreck anything on the inside, but are still too weak to penetrate the outer armor - meaning they ricochet, with the potential to deal even more damage to the internal workings.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Jman5, on 12 December 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

Because it's good for a game to have a wide variety of choices and customization. It gives it more depth. Am I being trolled because this argument you are making is rather silly. Who gives a crap about how it works in previous games. There is no point putting the massive amount of man hours into designing and implementing a weapon only to make it useless in the context of this game.

We are going to get dozens of new and differing weapon systems over the next few years in this game, all of which will have unique abilities in their own right. Again, please tell me why we need to inflate the abilities of an anti-infantry weapon.

Oh, and by the way. It's not trolling just because you say it is. If you think not immediately agreeing with someone is trolling, then I'm not sure what to tell you.

[Scarlett Avignon]

J4ckInthebox, on 12 December 2012 - 01:55 PM, said:

You too, I am afraid. TT machine guns have indeed a bonus against infantry, but otherwise they work like ac/2's against 'mechs at close range.

They do the same average damage as an AC/2 over a 10 second period in TT.

[J4ckInthebox]

Which they don't in MWO. they need a buff, case closed, next troll.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Tvae, on 12 December 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

Actually, Crit. Buffs would make quite a bit of sense.

As is always stated in conversations about MGs, in the lore they are quite ineffective against armored targets. They are a rapid fire weapon - large numbers of weak attacks. So why would this make them effective against internals? Internal components are, logically, much less armored than the outside of mechs (except in situations such as CASE, where the ammo is specifically self-contained). Therefore, MGs should be as effective against the internals of a mech as any other weapon - if not moreso. "Why would they be more effective?" Well, the reason for that is the same reason they're so effective against infantry.

The internals of mechs are weak, but there's lots of them. It doesn't take much to wreck a mechs internal functions, but mechs tend to be big, so even high powered weapons might not hit that one vital component. MGs are mass-fire weapons - they might not do as much to the internals, but if the armor is opened enough to let the shots in, they're going to tear **** up.

And this same analogy could be used in regards to other armored vehicles, as well. A high powered shot may penetrate the tanks armor, but fail to hit anything important. Now an infantryman runs up and sticks his machine gun into that opening - the inside essentially becomes a death trap. The weaker bullets can wreck anything on the inside, but are still too weak to penetrate the outer armor - meaning they ricochet, with the potential to deal even more damage to the internal workings.

MGs naturally get a "crit bonus" due to their extremely high rate of fire. If weapons have a 1% chance to crit (I actually don't know that the crit chance for a weapon is, because PGI hasn't ever really told anyone) the bonus come from the fact that they get that bonus about 20 times a second, vs the average weapon that gets it fare less because no ROF is anywhere near the MG.

J4ckInthebox, on 12 December 2012 - 02:01 PM, said:

Which they don't in MWO. they need a buff, case closed, next troll.

Do you even know what troll means?

[Barbados]

MACHINE GUN
Though rarely carried by BattleMechs, the high rate of fire
produced by machine guns makes them excellent anti-infantry
weapons.
Heavy Machine Gun
The Clans have developed a higher-caliber machine gun
that inflicts increased damage, but at a 33 percent reduction in
effective range.
Light Machine Gun
The light machine gun represents another advancement
from the Clans. This weapon has twice the range of standard
machine guns, but its lower-caliber shells inflict only half the
damage.

~ Quoted from PDF of rule book

[Ryolacap]

Useless haha, go fire a 1/2 ton machine gun then talk about how useless they are, make sure to throw in some depleted uranium tipped ammo. Hell, 1 ton of ammo is 2000 rounds, meaning each round weighs a freakin pound. You should be tearing the crap out of people. It wold be a great anti infantry weapon, because it has high rate of sustained fire. fyi an anti armor shell can also kill infantry

Edited by Ryolacap, 12 December 2012 - 02:13 PM.

[Red squirrel]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

No, I linked to an article that supports my point. It's called backing an argument up with facts.

Speaking of that, please give me a reason that, "Machine guns either need to be useful,or removed."

Nice WW1 article you linked there ... but then you know .... do I really have to write it?


The second one made my day. Really nice I laughed for a few minutes before I was able to answer. Yes what rason could there be to make equipment implemented into a game useful?

So once more - PGI I order you to implement the pillow thrower (also add explosive pillows)

[LaserAngel]

I thought we would be happy with the Machine Gun ending up at something like 1 DPS.

[J4ckInthebox]

Quote

MGs naturally get a "crit bonus" due to their extremely high rate of fire. If weapons have a 1% chance to crit (I actually don't know that the crit chance for a weapon is, because PGI hasn't ever really told anyone) the bonus come from the fact that they get that bonus about 20 times a second, vs the average weapon that gets it fare less because no ROF is anywhere near the MG.

I see where the problem is.

Crits in mwo don't work like in TT. when a shot crits, it does 3 times its normal damage.
a MG bullet deals 0.04 damage, a crit bullet deals 0.12 damage. Even if the MG's crit rate was of 100%, it would take roughly 85 bullets, roughly 8.5 seconds of fire to destroy a component.

If we take the critical rate to a theoretical 25% (it is probably not that high) it would take 340 bullets, more than 30 seconds of continuous fire to destroy a component.

Talk about a "crit-seeking" weapon.

Edited by J4ckInthebox, 12 December 2012 - 02:12 PM.

[Tvae]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

MGs naturally get a "crit bonus" due to their extremely high rate of fire. If weapons have a 1% chance to crit (I actually don't know that the crit chance for a weapon is, because PGI hasn't ever really told anyone) the bonus come from the fact that they get that bonus about 20 times a second, vs the average weapon that gets it fare less because no ROF is anywhere near the MG.

Except that's only half the story of how criticals work. Critical components also have health values, and they stop working when they're completely broken - so just randomly hitting something doesn't mean it's taken out. This is how the Gauss nerf worked - they didn't make it easier to hit, they just made it so it's more fragile and can't take as many hits before going boom.

That's the issue with MGs, though - they should be fully effective against internals, but currently they are far below their canon damage levels, even against internals. In essence, the proposed buff is that MGs would stay pretty weak against armor (logical), but would get their anti-infantry bonus against the internals of mechs - since the reasoning behind why they would do more against internals is the same reason they do more against infantry.

Edited by Tvae, 12 December 2012 - 02:12 PM.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Red squirrel, on 12 December 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

At least we can agree on this. They should do as much damage as an AC2 if you are <90m.
And that really is all people are asking for because right now they do no nearly that much damage (0.02).


On the other point - consider that we are not talking about an AK47. The BT MG is a 500kg machine gun array. So it's more like an array of 5 Gatling guns with 20mm caliber and explosive ammunition.
It's still not great against an armored mech, but on close range does some damage.

And I have no problem with them buffing the damage of the weapon. I just think it flies in the face of all logic to give them some type of crit bonus over other weapons.

As far as the weapon's weight goes, remember that the weight of a gun includes mounting equipment, servo controls for targeting control, and ammunition feed systems. Most of the weapons in BT likely weigh far less by themselves. No, it's not an AK-47. In most BT lore, they state that most mech-mounted MG's are between .50 in to 20mm in caliber.