383 replies to this topic

[Pyrrho]

I, for one, welcome our new Machine Gun overlords.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Rofl, on 12 December 2012 - 02:46 PM, said:

That should be obvious. Compare any modern weapon system with it's BT equivalent.

Ok. I'm going to be super-earnest here. No trolling. You just said that in a thread where people are using the weight of a BT machine gun to prove that BT machine guns are comparable to A-10 guns...

[Jman5]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 01:59 PM, said:

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.

Yes, and when those "dozens" of new weapons get here years from now, we can revisit the balance on machine guns to fit in the game. However, in the meantime we do not have those "dozens" of weapons so their stats and abilities are meaningless in the present.

I and many others have told you why they need to make machine guns viable multiple times. They are not currently balanced in the context of the game, so PGI needs to change them. This is important because choices and depth are inherently good for a game that relies on customization. The fact that they are anti-infantry is irrelevant because there are no infantry in MWO.

Look, just because you refuse to listen to anyone doesn't make you right. You're just being stubborn and closed minded. I don't know why you even started a thread because it's pretty clear you are not looking to listen and consider the opinions of others.

I'm out of here.

Edited by Jman5, 12 December 2012 - 02:54 PM.

[Pyrrho]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:50 PM, said:

Ok. I'm going to be super-earnest here. No trolling. You just said that in a thread where people are using the weight of a BT machine gun to prove that BT machine guns are comparable to A-10 guns...

So, this is an admission of the trollificness(patent pending) of every other correspondence you have put forth so far?

[Deadoon]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

Do you really think they just seal off a section and pour bullets/missile in?

What about energy-based mechs? Do they have "integral ammo transport system[s]" that transport no ammo, or do those just have no weight?

Pretty much, that's what they do according to canon. Also they probably leave the ammo transport sytems in to allow for easier repair or refit. Probably some of the weight of ammo is a casing around it so it doesn't bump into other ammo.




Also on subject of machine guns being anti mech weapons http://www.sarna.net...aut_(BattleMech) an arena mech, yes, but it mounted 12-16 machine guns or 12 magshots in a later version.

Edited by Deadoon, 12 December 2012 - 03:08 PM.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Pyrrho, on 12 December 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

I, for one, welcome our new Machine Gun overlords.

I'm not even worried about MGs becoming OP. I really doubt that giving them a 10x boost to crits would make them OP.

As I said from the beginning: WHY?

There are so many weapons in the game right now. There are dozens more to come in the following months and years. Why do we have to take the quintessential anti-infantry weapon and give it a nonsensical buff to make it do something it never, ever has done?

Pyrrho, on 12 December 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

So, this is an admission of the trollificness(patent pending) of every other correspondence you have put forth so far?

No. I was making it very clear that, if I ever had been trolling (I did one time, to be fair, but I even said I was) this was not the tiem I was doing it.

Seriously, though. you need to learn what trolling is. It's not simply disagreeing with another person.

Edited by Franklen Avignon, 12 December 2012 - 02:57 PM.

[Red squirrel]

Pyrrho, on 12 December 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

I, for one, welcome our new Machine Gun overlords.

Obey and we shall let you live.

[AlexWildeagle]

in case you missed it

•I've been looking at Machine Guns lately (because they're equipped on my griefer Mech) and decided to make each bullet do 500 damage. Ok.. seriously I'm looking into either a very slight damage increase or to make them crit at a higher rate with a crit damage boost. What does that mean? When you blow off the armor on a component on an enemy Mech, every shot done to internals from a machine gun has a chance of doing much higher damage than normal. I'll be working with the engineers on this and will update you as we progress on this.
http://mwomercs.com/...apon-balancing/

[Pyrrho]

Red squirrel, on 12 December 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

Obey and we shall let you live.

My Cicada-3C is called the Arbeh Plague for a reason.

[Rofl]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:50 PM, said:

Ok. I'm going to be super-earnest here. No trolling. You just said that in a thread where people are using the weight of a BT machine gun to prove that BT machine guns are comparable to A-10 guns...

You compared them to WW I weapons. I thought we were supposed to be completely ******** in this thread. It was more an example to NOT use modern weapons. I did say this in a post about 10 down from the SAME post you are referencing...

C'mon, man. You're not even trying anymore.

[Gabrielpendragon]

Machine guns, cause you totally only fire one bullet in a ten second window...By my calculations of balancing its more like ten rounds in ten seconds. One round per second for a 2 damage per round by TT values, that is looking at a damage of .2 for straight TT conversion, with the damage buff looking at about .4 damage per bullet to be about the same as other weapon changes.

Oddly enough the AC/2 fires faster, which just seems odd...MG is on a 1 sec cd, while AC/2 is .5 sec. I think these numbers should be reversed personally. That would put the MG to 20 rounds per ten seconds, leaving the damage sitting at about .1 or .2 damage per bullet to be on par with the AC/2.

The weapon on the a-10 would be a rotary AC by comparison which is also loaded up with anti armor bullets.

People complain about a lot of things, but very few take the time to make logical and mathematical arguments.

[Red squirrel]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

I'm not even worried about MGs becoming OP. I really doubt that giving them a 10x boost to crits would make them OP.

As I said from the beginning: WHY?

There are so many weapons in the game right now. There are dozens more to come in the following months and years. Why do we have to take the quintessential anti-infantry weapon and give it a nonsensical buff to make it do something it never, ever has done?

OK then let's also forget the PPC. While - as several posts have clearly stated - a 500kg MG is effective against armored vehicles. An accelerated particle gun is just plain nonesense.

So plz redirect your weapon balance rage at the PPC.
(At least it would show that your argument that you care about what is realistc is not an excuse for beeing stubborn)


Also feel free to comment on the PTC (pillow thrower cannon)

[Smeghead87]

Do you find yourself overwhelmed by an abundance of infantry right now? I know I don't.
So the Dev's are trying to find a niche for a weapon that currently doesn't really have one. And if you notice what they did with the gauss rifle, they are trying to do it in ways that doesn't just change the core numbers of damage/heat/rate of fire/range.
They are looking for more inventive ways to do things. Lowering the health of the gauss rifle and making it a glass cannon moved it from the premier brawling weapon slot into a sniper rifle, putting the AC20 back in its rightful place.

I believe they are trying to make the machine gun a viable weapon, but only after the armour has been stripped by other weapons. This makes it useless to boat it, but extremely powerful in the right situation (ie, to finish off a weakened opponent at short range).

So in short, theres no infantry for this primarily anti infantry weapon to fire at, so Dev's are testing out a new purpose.

Edited for spelling

Edited by Smeghead87, 12 December 2012 - 03:03 PM.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Deadoon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:

Pretty much, that's what they do according to canon. Also they probably leave the ammo transport sytems in to allow for easier repair or refit. Probably some of the weight of ammo is a casing around it so it doesn't bump into other ammo.




Also on subject of machine guns being anti mech weapons http://www.sarna.net...aut_(BattleMech) an arena mech, yes, but it mounted 12-16 machine guns or 12 magshots in a later version.

1. Please show me the cannon where they say they just dump ammo into empty spaces in a mech.

2. If a mech has no ammunition-consuming weapons, why would you even build an "integral ammo transport system" into it?

3. Your link goes to a dead article. (Not saying this means your wrong, just thought you should know.) As far as arena mechs go, in the lore, there are often many things that happen in the arenas that are of zero practical use, but are showy. Look up the Sternacht pistol.

[Scraper]

I thought the idea of MG's was to pierce already molten armor. So it should mostly plink off cool/normal state armor, but get some penetration on pre-molten(ed?) armor. Also, I like that the side effect in game is the trolling factor. Alot of people seem to get annoyed by MG fire.

Also as previously mentioned, the A10 and a few other aircraft carry quasi-machine guns... though we call them auto-cannons usually... and they do destroy pretty thick armor.

Edited by Scraper, 12 December 2012 - 03:08 PM.

[stjobe]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

As I said from the beginning: WHY?

There are so many weapons in the game right now.

Really?
There's 27 distinct weapons, in three broad classes, each containing one or two subgroups and some specialist weapons.

Ballistics: 6 ACs, Gauss, and MG
Lasers: 7 lasers, 2 PPC, and flamer
Missiles: LRMs, SRMs, and Streaks.

Where's this plethora of different weapons you keep talking about, and why do you wish to exclude the only light-weight ballistic weapon? Every other group of weapons has a light-weight option.

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

There are dozens more to come in the following months and years.

Dozens? Really? And WHEN? 30 years from now?

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

Why do we have to take the quintessential anti-infantry weapon and give it a nonsensical buff to make it do something it never, ever has done?

The real-life machine gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon. So is the BT machine gun, but it was also the quintessential backup weapon for many, many mechs. Most of the mechs in TRO 3025 had machine guns as backup weapons - because they did as much damage as an AC/2 at a much lower weight and severely reduced range. You could take two and a ton of ammo for two tons, and if you got in a sticky close-combat situation, fire away and do good damage.

At the moment, MGs are useless. They do 0.4 DPS, it takes 2.5 seconds of continuous fire to remove a single point of armour. 25 seconds for 10 armour. They don't need a slight buff to damage or a crit buff, they need a serious damage buff and that's it.

Edited by stjobe, 12 December 2012 - 03:12 PM.

[Gabrielpendragon]

My thought would be that the ammo transporting systems would likely be included in the weight of the weapons themselves, possibly the ammo containers, or just in the internal structure of the mech depending on the exact situation...

Take the calculation with .1 for the machine gun damage, likely to find the numbers a little more pleasing. The machine gun is supposed to fire 1 round per second. which seems really low with the AC/2 firing 2 per second.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Oh wow this thread blew up fast.

Not that anyone is listening to reason at this point, but I would point out that any comparisons whatsoever to real world weaponry are irrelevant. The more you scrutinize battletech physics, the more they fail to hold up to any measure of realism, and game balance always trumps realism anyway.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Smeghead87, on 12 December 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

Do you find yourself overwhelmed by an abundance of infantry right now? I know I don't.
So the Dev's are trying to find a niche for a weapon that currently doesn't really have one.

Again: WHY?

Are we finding ourselves short of weapons that are capable of making critical hits? Is there a dirth of mech variants in the game that mount machine guns as their main weapon system and are woefully under-powered? Is there even one? Are people being forced to mount anti-infantry weapons on their mechs and made to fight mechs mounting only the other 24 anti-armor weapons in the game? Are machine guns unable to be dismounted and replaced with more effective weapons? Weapons that were perhaps designed to be used against heavily armored targets? Is there no way that the machine gun is simply an anti-infantry weapon that is included on some of these designs because they operate in a universe where infantry exists, even though it is not included in this game?

[SteelPaladin]

Franklen Avignon, on 12 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

I'm not even worried about MGs becoming OP. I really doubt that giving them a 10x boost to crits would make them OP.

As I said from the beginning: WHY?

There are so many weapons in the game right now. There are dozens more to come in the following months and years. Why do we have to take the quintessential anti-infantry weapon and give it a nonsensical buff to make it do something it never, ever has done?

PGI has been pretty clear that they have 0 intention of any other combat assets on the battlefield except mechs in MWO. They haven't even hedged it as a pie-in-the-sky "one day" sort of thing; they out and out say "we're not looking at it." We're not going to see infantry in MWO, so being great at anti-personnel is absolutely meaningless; it's no different than saying it's great at anti-Cthullu, because it will never actually happen on the battlefield.

Weapons need to be good at something that will actually happen or it is pointless to have them in game. Having useless "trap" choices is horrible game design. Games don't get awards and good reviews for being "realistic" at the expense of gameplay unless they're hardcore sim games, which is not possible here since you can't have a hardcore sim of something made up in the first place.

Therefore, by default, MGs WILL be at least passable anti-mech weapons when the game is balanced. There's no other option because there is no other enemy. The HOW they reach that point is the only question.

Making them crit seekers means they remain largely useless until a mech's armor is breached, at which point they then become effective against the soft internals of the mech. Believe it or not, this actually retains their feel of being for "soft targets" better than buffing their damage, because other weapons would be needed to breach the battleplate before they can really do anything.

Otherwise, I'd be fine w/boosting their DPS to match an AC/2. They'd become a bit better at criticals just by virtue of the larger damage AND they'd be able to contribute reasonably well even against a fully armored mech.