339 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

Rushin Roulette, on 09 January 2013 - 06:47 AM, said:

Trippling the damage output would be overkill imo because you are not considering other factors in your calculation. The MG does not cause any heat at all as opposed to the laser. On the other hand, the laser does not need to rely on amunition.

A compromise to the damage for the MG would be to double it (0,8 DPS) which would still put it below the small laser in terms of damage, but would be a viable alternative because it would still cause no heat to the mech at all.

I didn't take heat into consideration because it's a red herring.

The Small Laser weighs 0.5 tons and generates 2 heat when firing. The MG also weighs 0.5 tons but needs at least 1 ton of ammunition to be usable, so to make the comparison fair, we'll give the Small Laser a heatsink - now both weapons are 1.5 tons.

The Small Laser now generates 2 heat when firing, and dissipates at least 2.475 heat during its recycle (11 heat sinks = 1.1 heat dissipation per second * 2.25 recycle), making a single Small Laser shot heat neutral - just like the MG. In fact, the Small Laser is heat neutral even without the extra heatsink.

Then there's the risk of ammo explosion for the MG. 1 ton of MG ammo is 2000 shots * 0.04 damage = 80 damage. The Small Laser has no such risk.

Not to mention that after firing the MG for 3 minutes 20 seconds it's useless weight, whereas the Small Laser will never cease to be useful (unless it's destroyed).

[Joseph Mallan]

Mahws, on 09 January 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

Reconfiguring each and every stock variant that includes a machine gun would take far more time and effort than just balancing it. It did the same damage vs. mechs in tabletop as an AC2 and 2/3 that of a small laser. It currently does 1/16th of the AC2 and 1/3 of the SL in MWO. It was no more pointless against mechs than either of those weapons in TT but has been needlessly nerfed in MWO.

Or has it been corrected for use in a real time video game. We can't have it both ways people. Through out Battletech Canon the machine gun is always referred to as an anti-Infantry weapon. So the DEVs made it what it is meant to be PBI killer.

[Bluescuba]

stjobe, on 09 January 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

Here's what Paul said on Dec. 12th:

source: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1591483

I'm seriously worried about this, because the MG will not become a viable weapon by either "a very slight damage increase" or "crit at a higher rate with a crit damage boost". It needs a substantial damage boost, even in conjunction with a crit boost.

Let's start with where we are now: The MG does 0.04 damage per round, 10 rounds per second, for a total of 0.4 DPS. This means it takes 2.5 seconds to do 1 damage, and 25 seconds to do 10 damage. Crit-wise, it has the same crit chance as any other weapon, but it only does 0.04 damage per crit, so it would take 4 minutes and 15 seconds of non-stop critting to destroy a single component. If every crit was three hits (a 3% chance per shot) and they all hit the same component, it would still take 1 minute 23 seconds to destroy that component.

Clearly the MG is underpowered and needs a buff, and it's good that the devs see it that way too. However, this buff needs to be huge, not "very slight". It needs to be on the order of a 300% damage increase.

Here's why: Compare the MG to the Small Laser. The Small Laser does 3 damage over a beam duration of 0.75, and has a recycle time of 2.25 seconds, giving it a DPS of 1.0.

The MG, with its continuous-fire mechanism, does 0.4 DPS. Let's say we buff this to 1.2 DPS, a 300% increase, by increasing the damage per round from 0.04 to 0.12. Would this make the MG overpowered?

The answer is no. To understand why, we need to look a bit at how different weapons deliver their damage:

Instant-hit weapons like ballistics or PPCs deliver their damage all at once, and then recycles for a long period. This means that to do your full damage you need only to keep the weapon on-target for an instant as you press the trigger. There is no partial damage with instant-hit weapons.

Beam weapons like lasers deliver their damage over a short period of time, and then recycles for a long period. This means that to do all your damage you need to keep the weapon on-target for the beam duration, but not for the recycle.

Now the continuous-fire weapons like the MG deliver their damage in a constant stream. This means that to do all your damage you need to keep the weapon on-target for as long as it takes. Any time not on-target is lost damage (as opposed to the other weapons where you can go off-target for the whole recycle duration without losing any damage).

What does this mean for the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG? Let's again compare it to the Small Laser. In 0.75 seconds, the Small Laser delivers 3 damage. In the same 0.75 seconds, the 1.2 DPS MG delivers 0.9 damage, a full two-thirds less than the laser.

Over ten seconds, the Small Laser will deliver 12 damage in four beams with a total of 3 seconds duration. In 3 seconds, the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG would deliver 3.6 damage. Only if you can hold it on-target for the full 10 seconds would you do as much damage as the Small Laser.

I don't think it's overpowered to have the MG do as much damage as a Small Laser over 10 seconds.


Now let's have a look at that crit increase. A "higher [crit] rate with a crit damage boost" is what they're looking at, so let's look at a huge boost to that; let's make the MG crit 100% of the time, and always do three hits (which is normally a 3% chance per hit). So 100% crit rate and 3x damage boost.

With a buff that huge, it would still take (10 / 0.04 * 10 * 3 ) = 8.3 seconds of continuosly hitting the same location and the same component to destroy that single component. That's not really enough to make the MG viable, is it?

With the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG and the above crit buff, the time taken to destroy a single component would become (10 / 0.12 * 10 * 3) = 2.8 seconds.

So you see, not even with a 300% damage increase, a 100% crit rate buff, and always doing three hits per crit would the MG be overpowered. It would, however, become a viable back-up weapon, and the crit-seeking weapon it is sometimes referred to as.


In closing I must plead to the developers to not underbuff the MG. As the above shows, the MG needs a substantial damage boost to make it even comparable to the Small Laser - and even with that substantial boost, it still won't do as much damage as the Small Laser unless you can hold it on target for prolonged periods of time.

Oh, and to the "'mechs shouldn't mount MGs" and "MGs are anti-infantry weapons" crowd: In Battletech, the MG does exactly as much damage to a 'mech as an AC/2 - a 4 DPS weapon in MWO. In TRO:2750, fully a fifth of the 'mechs mount MGs. So let's try to refrain from the discussion on whether MGs should even be in MWO or not; they are in-game so they should be a viable choice. At the moment they aren't, and I fear that with a too small buff they still won't be.

Sorry but you are wrong....

People with a little inside knownledge have confirmed that an increase of just .01 makes the mgs almost too effective.

Furthermore when a crit occurs it does not simply impact the weapon's damage and each bullet has a chance of criting up to 3 times.

[Mahws]

Sorry, but you are wrong...

Straight from the Devs:

Quote

2) Each time the internal structure of a Mech takes damage, there is a chance that the hit will cause at least 1 critical hit. There is a 25% chance of causing 1 critical hit, a 14% chance of causing 2 critical hits, and a 3% chance of causing 3 critical hits (for a total of a 42% chance of any sort of critical hit). Each critical hit will randomly hit a weapon or piece of equipment in that location; the chance of a particular piece of equipment being hit is proportional to how many critical slots it occupies. Each critical hit damages the weapon/equipment an amount equal to the damage that caused the critical hit.

Crits do the damage of the hit that caused them. Which means each machine gun crit does 0.04 damage.

Joseph Mallan, on 09 January 2013 - 07:07 AM, said:

Or has it been corrected for use in a real time video game. We can't have it both ways people. Through out Battletech Canon the machine gun is always referred to as an anti-Infantry weapon. So the DEVs made it what it is meant to be PBI killer.

You know we've had this exact same argument before? I remember the sig.

They have a bonus against infantry. That does not mean that they are useless against mechs. They do 2 damage a turn against mechs, just like the AC2 and were in the rule books before they even added infantry. If you want to argue that machine guns should stay useless or the devs should waste time rewriting every stock variant that had them you need a better argument than 'the lore says so', especially considering that the stats in the rulebooks certainly don't say anything of the sort.

Edited by Mahws, 09 January 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[stjobe]

Bluescuba, on 09 January 2013 - 07:13 AM, said:

Sorry but you are wrong....

People with a little inside knownledge have confirmed that an increase of just .01 makes the mgs almost too effective.

Furthermore when a crit occurs it does not simply impact the weapon's damage and each bullet has a chance of criting up to 3 times.

I'm sorry that you quoted my whole post without reading it.

Please show me the math where a 0.01 increase in MG damage makes it "almost too effective"; I've shown you math where a 300% increase doesn't.

Also, please revisit how crits work; once armour is gone, a hit on that location applies weapon damage (0.04 in the case of the MG) to the location's internal structure. Then, it checks for crits. There's a 25% chance of one crit, a 14% chance of two crits, and a 3% chance of three hits. Every critical hit applies weapon damage (0.04 in the case of the MG) to a crit slot, randomly determined. If that damage takes the health of the component hit below zero health, it is destroyed. All components have 10 health, except engines (15 health) and Gauss Rifles (3 health).

So a single MG crit would take e.g. an Arm Actuator or a Medium Laser from 10 health to 9.96 health; three crits would take it from 10 health to 9.88 health.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mahws, on 09 January 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

You know we've had this exact same argument before? I remember the sig.

They have a bonus against infantry. That does not mean that they are useless against mechs. They do 2 damage a turn against mechs, just like the AC2 and were in the rule books before they even added infantry. If you want to argue that machine guns should stay useless or the devs should waste time rewriting every stock variant that had them you need a better argument than 'the lore says so', especially considering that the stats in the rulebooks certainly don't say anything of the sort.

Could just be that the TT DEVs didn't want a weapon that did 1 damage! A weapon that is always described as being put on for Anti-Infantry use shouldn't do respectable damage v a Mech. AC2 uses Depleted Uranium ammo which is an easy explanation/excuse why IT does solid damage v Mech armor and MG ammo does not. I am as much a BattleTech fanboy as the next Neckbeard. I never used MGs on TT, and I don't need them on my Mechs in the MMO. So if they are useless in MWO I say good, and good riddance.

[Mahws]

So they just added machine guns in the first edition because they felt like including a weapon that didn't have any purpose (as infantry didn't exist yet). But just for a lark they then gave it a practical damage output to make it worth considering as small back up weapon. Sounds legit.

We get it, you don't like machine guns. No one is forcing you to use them by making them moderately effective. I don't like Small Pulse lasers but I don't burst into flames whenever someone talks about their balancing problems or chooses to use them in game.

[Bluescuba]

I have to reiterate you are wrong.

Each bullet has a chance of doing .04, .08 or .12 points of damage. So when you say that it only does .04 damage you are wrong.

Best case scenario all 10 bullets crit for the x3 multiplier 1.2 damage to the equipment (10 hitpoints) that is 12% damage per second now if it was a dragon 5N which was boating 3 mgs it would be a maximum of 36% damage meaning destruction of the equipment in less than 3 seconds.

Now I am not saying the above scenario is likely, I am merely putting it up as a counterpoint to your 1 minute 23 second crazy calculation.

[Joseph Mallan]

Space filler. Had plans for including infantry in the pipe. Take your pick.

i have hardly burst into flames sir. if you want to use an anti infantry weapon against a mountain of armor by all means please do. Just be ready to hear me continue to say what I think about the weapon. I am not name calling being insulting or any other form of belligerence behavior, I am simply discussing whether MGs should or should not be buffed.

But I will again point you in the direction of my point:

Quote

The -5K Spider removes one of the Medium Lasers and replaces it with two arm mounted Machine Guns for anti-infantry use.

Not Anti Mech use... for killing PBI! Says this in the 3025 TRO which was out prior to CityTech being released. CityTech introduced infantry to Battletech IIRC.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 January 2013 - 07:39 AM.

[stjobe]

Bluescuba, on 09 January 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

I have to reiterate you are wrong.

Each bullet has a chance of doing .04, .08 or .12 points of damage. So when you say that it only does .04 damage you are wrong.

Best case scenario all 10 bullets crit for the x3 multiplier 1.2 damage to the equipment (10 hitpoints) that is 12% damage per second now if it was a dragon 5N which was boating 3 mgs it would be a maximum of 36% damage meaning destruction of the equipment in less than 3 seconds.

Now I am not saying the above scenario is likely, I am merely putting it up as a counterpoint to your 1 minute 23 second crazy calculation.

There's really no difference between "one bullet doing 0.04 damage up to three times" or "one bullet doing 0.04, 0.08, or 0.12 damage", but the devs have stated a single bullet can hit one, two, or three components when critting, and does weapon damage with each hit.

Also, thank you for finding an error in my OP, it is corrected. The current MG takes 8.3 - 25 seconds of constant critting to destroy a single component. Since there's a 42% chance of critting, on average it'd take almost double that.

Joseph Mallan, on 09 January 2013 - 07:37 AM, said:

I am simply discussing whether MGs should or should not be buffed.

That's not up for discussion as the devs have stated the MG is getting a buff. How much of a buff it should be is what's up for debate here, with me trying to show that it needs a pretty major buff.

Edited by stjobe, 09 January 2013 - 07:47 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Fair enough StJobe. I will continue to support the opposing opinion. Nothing personal.

[Armorpiercer M82]

still waiting for MG buff----

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 January 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

Fair enough StJobe. I will continue to support the opposing opinion. Nothing personal.

I'm sure we can disagree without getting personal about it

If you think a "very slight damage increase" or "crit rate and damage" buff is sufficient to make the MG a viable weapon, I'm actually interested in hearing your reasons why, as I can't see that myself. Any way I crunch the numbers I come up with the MG needing a very big damage increase, regardless of whether it also needs a crit buff.

If it's just the old "MG's shouldn't be anti-'mech weapons" you're missing the point, since the MWO devs have decided they should be (if not explicitly then implicitly by acknowledging they need a buff).

[Gigastrike]

I'd like to see a significant boost in critical chance for the machine guns.  Maybe then the CDA-3C would actually be viable as a fire support/ critical-based striker.  Of course, the critical buff would have to be significant.

On a side note: the LB-X 10 should probably get a similar buff.

Edited by Gigastrike, 09 January 2013 - 08:43 AM.

[stjobe]

Gigastrike, on 09 January 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

I'd like to see a significant boost in critical chance for the machine guns. Maybe then the CDA-3C would actually be viable as a fire support/ critical-based striker. Of course, the critical buff would have to be significant.

I argued in my OP that even making the MG crit 100% of the time and always doing three crits per hit still wouldn't make it viable, as it would still need 8.3 seconds of continuous firing and hitting the same component to destroy a single component.

In short, they would need to come up with a serious crit damage buff if they were to go that route. Personally, I hope they don't go with the crit buff but go with a serious damage buff instead.

[MaddMaxx]

Under the current setup, I would, if I carried MG's, be very mindful of any Cats on the field that have mounted GR. At 3 HP, the MG seems perfectly suited to knock them out once one sees that the Side Torso armor on said K2, has been thusly stripped.

[Fat Samurai]

Not going to enter into "Machineguns are supposed to be bad weapons" or "should be modified to be viable". Just trying to clear the math a little, because as someone has already pointed out, your math is wrong.

Ignoring the crit-part, just basic DPS:

stjobe, on 09 January 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

Let's start with where we are now: The MG does 0.04 damage per round, 10 rounds per second, for a total of 0.4 DPS. This means it takes 2.5 seconds to do 1 damage, and 25 seconds to do 10 damage.

Agreed.

stjobe, on 09 January 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

The Small Laser does 3 damage over a beam duration of 0.75, and has a recycle time of 2.25 seconds, giving it a DPS of 1.0.

Also correct.

stjobe, on 09 January 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

What does this mean for the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG? Let's again compare it to the Small Laser. In 0.75 seconds, the Small Laser delivers 3 damage. In the same 0.75 seconds, the 1.2 DPS MG delivers 0.9 damage, a full two-thirds less than the laser.

What? No. A Small Laser does 1 DPS. You have already calculated it. Why are you ignoring the cooldown time of the laser, during which you cannot shoot, and, to use your own words, are losing damage? Suddenly you have moved a 1DPS weapon to a 4DPS weapon. And yes, a continuously firing laser that does not overheat would be an overpowered weapon compared to a 1.2 DPS machinegun. But that's not what's happening.

In order to use your numbers the situation would have to be like this: two mechs square off, shoot for 0.75 seconds and then stop firing until the Single Laser cooldown timer wounds down. After those 2.75 seconds they both shoot again for 0.75 seconds, and stop again. It ignores that while the Small Laser robot is cooling of his weapons the Machine Gun mech will keep on pouring on it.

It's either a very polite MG mech that waits until the other guy is ready, or an uber pilot Small Laser guy that can keep his mech away from an enemy line of sight whenever he's not shooting.

During 3 seconds (the full fire/coldown period of a small laser), your hipothetical MG will do 3.6 Damage. In a 12 second cycle, your buffed MG does 14.4 damage, while a SL does 12. Your MG does way more damage than the Small Laser you are comparing it with, not way less.

You can consider that a MG is heavier, that its ammunition explodes and is consumed or that it spreads its hits, but please DO get your maths right when you're trying to make a point.

Still, the MG is a horrible weapon as it is, and any mech fielding it should be put against a wall and shot. With Lasers.

Edited by Fat Samurai, 09 January 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[Gigastrike]

stjobe, on 09 January 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

I argued in my OP that even making the MG crit 100% of the time and always doing three crits per hit still wouldn't make it viable, as it would still need 8.3 seconds of continuous firing and hitting the same component to destroy a single component.

In short, they would need to come up with a serious crit damage buff if they were to go that route. Personally, I hope they don't go with the crit buff but go with a serious damage buff instead.

Which is pretty much what I was looking at. I guess I could have been more specific when I said "critical buff".

[stjobe]

Fat Samurai, on 09 January 2013 - 08:33 AM, said:

What? No. A Small Laser does 1 DPS. You have already calculated it. Why are you ignoring the cooldown time of the laser, during which you cannot shoot, and, to use your own words, are losing damage? Suddenly you have moved a 1DPS weapon to a 4DPS weapon. And yes, a continuously firing laser that does not overheat would be an overpowered weapon compared to a 1.2 DPS machinegun. But that's not what's happening.

In order to use your numbers the situation would have to be like this: two mechs square off, shoot for 0.75 seconds and then stop firing until the Single Laser cooldown timer wounds down. After those 2.75 seconds they both shoot again for 0.75 seconds, and stop again. It ignores that while the Small Laser robot is cooling of his weapons the Machine Gun mech will keep on pouring on it.

It's either a very polite MG mech that waits until the other guy is ready, or an uber pilot Small Laser guy that can keep his mech away from an enemy line of sight whenever he's not shooting.

During 3 seconds (the full fire/coldown period of a small laser), your hipothetical MG will do 3.6 Damage. In a 12 second cycle, your buffed MG does 14.4 damage, while a SL does 12. Your MG does way more damage than the Small Laser you are comparing it with, not way less.

You can consider that a MG is heavier, that its ammunition explodes and is consumed or that it spreads its hits, but please DO get your maths right when you're trying to make a point.

I don't know why it's so hard to distinguish between theoretical DPS numbers and practical time-on-target numbers, but apparently it is.

Yes, in a theoretical situation where the target and firer are both stationary, the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG does more damage to the target than the current 1.0 DPS Small Laser (at least after firing for 2.5+ seconds). However what I'm trying to show you (and apparently not doing a very good job of) is that in practice, the Small Laser only needs to be on-target of 0.75 seconds to do its 3 damage, whereas the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG needs to be on-target for 2.5 seconds to do the same.

I'll say it again to see if it sticks this time: With the Small Laser you only need to be on target 0.75 seconds out of 3, whereas the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG needs to be on target for the full 2.5 seconds to do the same 3 damage as the SL.

The Small Laser loses no damage after the 0.75 second beam, but the MG needs to hold on-target for another 1.75 seconds to achieve the same damage. Finally, if the MG manages to hold on-target for another half-second more, yes it will have done more damage than the SL - until the SL fires its next beam.

This means that even though the hypothetical 1.2 DPS MG indeed has a higher DPS than the current Small Laser, it will be a very rare occurance when it can actually achieve that DPS for any substantial amount of time.

Finally, even if it does achieve its full 1.2 DPS we're still talking Small Laser amounts of damage here. It's not like people will be quaking in their boots about it either way. It will be useful as a ballistic alternative to the Small Laser, but it won't be overpowered - unless you want to argue that the Small Laser is overpowered, but that's another discussion altogether.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 09 January 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

I'm sure we can disagree without getting personal about it

If you think a "very slight damage increase" or "crit rate and damage" buff is sufficient to make the MG a viable weapon, I'm actually interested in hearing your reasons why, as I can't see that myself. Any way I crunch the numbers I come up with the MG needing a very big damage increase, regardless of whether it also needs a crit buff.

If it's just the old "MG's shouldn't be anti-'mech weapons" you're missing the point, since the MWO devs have decided they should be (if not explicitly then implicitly by acknowledging they need a buff).

Could just be that the Text for Machine guns for 25+ years I've played with giant stompy robots say they are for anti infantry use. Could also be that I see them as obsolete just as I did when I first started playing TT. In all the years of playing this genre I have pulled MGs for more armor, heatsinks, medium laser anything but a pop gun. AC2s became PPCs or Large lasers also. I mean really why a space filler weapon? I mean seriously outside of using it to frazzle the nerves of an opposing warrior... MGs and AC2s are pretty pointless weapons.

Oh and also, unless there is something somewhere that says Mech Machine guns are using Depleted Uranium ammo. they would not have the same AP potential of an AC2. I've fired a lot of MGs at armor in my days... those rounds stripped pain and pinged the armor.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 January 2013 - 09:07 AM.