6 replies to this topic

[UberFubarius]

Currently, MG is fairly useless (unless your enemy already lost their armor, then you go for crit seeking).
However, trying to buff MG damage could quickly make them a problem when boated on lighter mech (a full 1 DPS MG on, say, a 4 ballistic hardpoints Spider-5K, means a 4 DPS monster).

In addition, it's arguably the point that the MG is a very efficient weapon in terms of how efficient it can "deliver" what damage it can do. With all other ballistic weapon (beside LBX-10), a miss means you lost all those damage potential and have to wait for a cooldown. And with lasers, once you start firing, you can't stop even if your beam went off track. With Machine gun, you can start or stop firing at any moment, allowing you to control exactly when you expend your MG's damage potential at any moment.

Unfortunately, the damage potential is... very low.

So this is my suggestion.
Whereas Flamer has the unique property of increasing the enemy mech's heat, the machine gun have a chance of bypassing armor and score an internal hit directly.

There will be a different chance of armor bypass based on which section you're aiming.

RA, RL, LA, LL: Each bullet has a 2% chance of bypassing the armor and hit internal directly. The idea is that the actuators in the arms and legs makes it very likely for an MG round to richochet into the internal structure through the joints.

Head: Each bullet has a 1% chance of bypassing the armor.

RT, CT, LT: Each bullet has a 0.5% chance of bypassing the armor.

So what does this mean for combat?
The section specific chance means that...
1. Hiding ammo in legs now has some danger, as MG equipped light can just hit the leg and make those ammo explode.
2. MG now serves a unique purpose, which is to de-leg or de-arm the enemy mech (or at least destroy the enemy's weapons/ammo stored within them).

[Critical Fumble]

1: I'm fine with some degree of randomness in the game, but this makes the MG and action-RPG weapon with a %chance to have an incredibly powerful effect.

2: MGs need a buff, but giving them a way to ignore a fundamental concept of the game is not the way to go.

[Phaesphoros]

Well I had a similar idea, namely to simulate "holes" in the armor:
If the armor is damaged, it's a bit thinner or there are some holes in it. So give a weapon (any or only tiny MG bullets) a chance to pass through the holes and damage internals. Chance is proportional to how damaged the armor is. May as well decrease damage to internals proportional to remaining armor.

Mind you, the 5K 4 MG spider is already TEH crit seeker mech, from my experience mastering it I can say 1) most often CT is cored where MGs have no effect (few weapons, no ammo, no engine crits) 2) even if one section is stripped, there are still enough sections containing weapons left. You won't see many cored arms.

Edited by Phaesphoros, 14 March 2013 - 11:27 AM.

[Phaesphoros]

UberFubarius, on 14 March 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

Currently, MG is fairly useless (unless your enemy already lost their armor, then you go for crit seeking).
However, trying to buff MG damage could quickly make them a problem when boated on lighter mech (a full 1 DPS MG on, say, a 4 ballistic hardpoints Spider-5K, means a 4 DPS monster).

Spider-5K a 4 DPS monster? You mean 4 DPS like one AC/2 at 200 m max range? Or 4 SL with no overheat?
4 DPS is not much. IMHO, even on lights, you need a high alpha dmg for a couple of shots (3-5 shots, like JR7 with 4-6 ML).

The problem of the 5K is that the MGs are its main weapons, and a single AC/2 isn't useful either (it's long range and too heavy).

As I said before, most of the time in my 5K, I encounter mechs with cored CT (-> MGs useless) or mechs with one cored side torso (wow I can take out 0-25 % of its weapons and then -- nothing, useless again). MG as a main weapon: useless, MG as a support weapon: somewhat useful.

Edited by Phaesphoros, 14 March 2013 - 11:48 AM.

[UberFubarius]

Phaesphoros, on 14 March 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

Spider-5K a 4 DPS monster? You mean 4 DPS like one AC/2 at 200 m max range? Or 4 SL with no overheat?
4 DPS is not much. IMHO, even on lights, you need a high alpha dmg for a couple of shots (3-5 shots, like JR7 with 4-6 ML).

The problem of the 5K is that the MGs are its main weapons, and a single AC/2 isn't useful either (it's long range and too heavy).

As I said before, most of the time in my 5K, I encounter mechs with cored CT (-> MGs useless) or mechs with one cored side torso (wow I can take out 0-25 % of its weapons and then -- nothing, useless again). MG as a main weapon: useless, MG as a support weapon: somewhat useful.

The reason I said it would be a "monster" was due to several issues.
1. It is a very light-weight weapon. AC/2 has 4 DPS, but at the cost of 6 tons, whereas MG uses half a ton (although both takes up 1 ballistic slot, this is where its usability sort of breaksdown). By DPS, the weight ratio is roughly in line (1/12 the weight, 1/10 the DPS).
2. AC/2 do have a range advantage, but MG has the advantage of a continuous fire weapon that's, essentially, similar to a continuous fire laser in that supposedly you can just sweep over faster mech and guarantee some damage. Granted, it is a very minor advantage due to the horrifically low DPS.
Actually, I think there's a suggestion regarding machine gun array that tries to solve the problem with individual machine gun taking up one ballistic slot.
So with an array, you can mount up to say 4 MG per ballistic slot.
So, spider 5k with its 4 ballistic slots can hold 16 MGs, which gives about 6.4 DPS for 8 tons.
Higher than AC/2, but would make it balanced considering AC/2 has much further range.
Also, it would mean that said Spider 5k would consume about 160 rounds/sec, which is about 12.5 seconds of continuous firing per ton.

[Neolisk]

Why not make it a 0.1% chance to instantly win the match? So you just aim at the ground, and give a chance for your team to win. Let more people have MG, and let them grind the victory!

No, does not sound cool to me.

[MustrumRidcully]

No armour bypassing please. Just buff the MG's base damage.