General Taskeen, on 13 December 2012 - 02:07 AM, said:
A Micro Small Laser does 2 damage. Small Laser 3. ER Small Laser 3 (Clan 5). Not sure what you are suggesting, but the MG definitely needs to be redeveloped. The only reason people are suggesting to bring its damage value up is because every other weapon so far has the perceived 'balance' of retaining its TT damage value. It could be done, but the fire rate would have to be adjusted to make it work right, possibly a burst of bullets (4 bullets consumed in 1 shot, doing 2 damage for instance). Right now the damage of an MG bullet does 0.04 damage, which is pretty hilariously bad.
I'm agreeing with you, just changing the MG's DPS or damage per round would make it not function properly because of the way they implemented weapons. In the direct fire weapon family there are:
The click-BOOM! Weapons, like the AC/2-20, gauss rifle, SRM launchers, and the PPC; these require you to aim, then fire, and do their work while you line up another shot or duck into cover.
The single beep-fwoosh-BOOM! Weapon, the streak launcher. Track your target until you get a lock and then fire.
The laser weapons, which require you to target, fire, and then track your target for the beam's duration.
All of the above groups have a noticeable weapon cooldown; that while you can't fire them continuously, you only have to keep a target in your sights for as long as it takes to finish firing, letting you do full damage mechs that run away, as well as letting you strike and fade without doing less damage. You could argue that that is less true with the AC/2 and SSRM launchers, but there is some cooldown using an AC/2, and the SSRM has unerring accuracy after you get a lock.
Then there's the nutty uncle of the party, the MG, the only weapon that can sustain continuous fire, so long as it still has ammo. That "continuous fire" implementation is where the problems arise. Assuming that they changed the numbers so that the on-paper DPS of machine guns fell within reason of their TT model, the pilot would have to hold on target until its target was dead to achieve something close to that. With other direct fire weapons you fire once, and then you have a cooldown period to reposition, sip your coffee, do a barrel roll, or whatever, without having to keep your target lined up.
They could try to fix that by buffing MG damage so that it does damage comparable to a TT machine gun over a roughly one second interval. That would make it effectively on par with the small laser in terms of fighting fast mechs. However, it would also break it, as ~2 DPS would let you shred slower mechs that don't have the luxury of disengaging.
What I'm suggesting is that PGI needs to make MGs function more like the other weapon systems they've implemented if they want them both useful and balanced. My personal preference is to give them a charge meter like the static MGs in most FPS games have. Call it barrel heat, call it fire rate exceeding the mech's ability to reload it, but the weapon needs to function in bursts.