339 replies to this topic

[AlanEsh]

Buff MG damage to make them useful. If this means they need to be balanced by reducing the ammo per ton, so be it. The game needs a useful light secondary weapon for ballistic hardpoints.
Crit seeking is stupid -- once the armor is gone it's a matter of seconds before a -real- weapon can simply remove that section of the mech with -real- damage output.

[TungstenWall]

The Machine Gun is a half Tun weapon!
Seriously! What would a half tun Machine gun do to armor? Maybe scrape the paint off?


Obviously anti infantry.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 January 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

Also... 12 of ANY small weapon in the game is going to be "effective". [...]

12 Small lasers do to. So do 12 SSRM, Boating in this magnitude is death by paper cuts.

Well... Not in MWO.

12 Small Lasers = 12 DPS, initial hit 36 damage. That's not a paper cut, that's a sword to the throat.
12 SSRM-2 = 17.16 DPS, initial hit 60 damage (but spread). That's not a paper cut, that's a shotgun to the chest.
12 MG = 4.8 DPS, initial hit 0.48 damage. Well, now that's a paper cut.

12 MGs do just 20% more DPS than a single AC/2, for the same weight. Funnily enough, in BattleTech a single MG and a single AC/2 had the exact same damage/DPS. In MWO the MG does a tenth of the DPS of an AC/2.

Not that any 'mech in MWO can boat more than 4 MGs (versus 9 energy or 6 missile weapons).

In fact, let's make that comparison:
9 SL = 9 DPS, 27 damage per hit.
6 SSRM-2 = 8.58 DPS, 35 damage per hit (spread)
4 MG = 1.6 DPS, 0,16 damage per hit. That's the same DPS as a single Medium Pulse Laser, by the way.

Why can't there be a viable light ballistics option? How will that kill the game?
There was (and is) a viable light ballistics option in Battletech, it's called the MG. Let's have that in MWO as well, thank you.

Edited by stjobe, 10 January 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 10 January 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

Well... Not in MWO.

12 Small Lasers = 12 DPS, initial hit 36 damage. That's not a paper cut, that's a sword to the throat.

You are right. In the MMO, with weapons convergence, that would aptly describe that damage.

making the MG a Mech scale weapon will not tip the scales any more than never having one in the first place. The TT game plays just fine without ever having a MG on a Mech. Would losing the Machine Gun ruin the game when there are 7 other choices? Has not having ER Mediums ruined the game so far? What about the RACs? Infernos? All weapons used on TT we don't have (yet in some cases). Has the game collapses?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 January 2013 - 08:56 AM.

[Jesus Box]

I have an idea. Let's allow the Machine Gun to shoot down missiles.

[Joseph Mallan]

TungstenWall, on 10 January 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

The Machine Gun is a half Tun weapon!
Seriously! What would a half tun Machine gun do to armor? Maybe scrape the paint off?


Obviously anti infantry.

CANNON
cannon
Cannon
and
Cannon

not a Machine gun but a Cannon.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 January 2013 - 09:03 AM.

[Deadoon]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 January 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

CANNON
cannon
Cannon
and
Cannon

not a Machine gun but a Cannon.

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Machine_gun

Quote

Machine guns are generally categorized as submachine guns, machine guns, or autocannons.

Ignorance a go-go

[Daekar]

Given the proposed changes, I still fail to see why I would want to take MGs over Small Lasers. It doesn't make sense to take a weapon designed to finish off an opponent when the vast majority of the HP of a mech is in the doubled armor. Given that even small lasers work just fine and at the same ranges against armor and internals, how is it a good choice to choose a weapon that will reduce your efficacy against the majority of your opponent's protection? Crit seeking might help the LBX a bit, since it's only marginal... but the MG is completely useless. A few crits on internals won't be enough, such that the only time you might see them is on heavier mechs that have elected to use non-ballastics as their main weapons and need something to fill hardpoints. They will be completely useless in light mechs, which lack the tonnage for anything but primary weapons.

[Joseph Mallan]

Deadoon, on 10 January 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Machine_gun

Ignorance a go-go

So Wikipedia trumps the National Museum of the US Air Force???

Quote

On Nov. 16, 1970, the Air Force issued a request for proposal for a 30mm rapid fire cannon to use in the A-X Close Air Support aircraft.

not a rapid fire Machine Gun. That would just be... redundant.

Who is showing more ignorance. 5 Sources for Cannon v Wiki Machine Gun. using Wiki AC 20s are just Machine Guns.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 January 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[Deadoon]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 January 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

So Wikipedia trumps the National Museum of the US Air Force???

not a rapid fire Machine Gun. That would just be... redundant.

Who is showing more ignorance. 5 Sources for Cannon v Wiki Machine Gun

So an automatic cannon is not an automatic gun?

Seriously, you must have failed english class.
All rotary autocannons are autocannons, all autocannons are machine guns.

Not all machine guns are autocannons, and not all autocannons are rotary autocannons.

Maybe we need to know the definition of a machine gun?
Oh wait, any gun that can fire more than one round per trigger pull.

Yeah, people tend to forget that the term machine gun is a umbrella term, just like pistol or rifle is.

[Joseph Mallan]

Then every Source I quoted doesn't know a machine gun from a Cannon? Cause even the Air Force calls the GAU-8 a Cannon.

Oh and even Wiki says:

Quote

The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger is a 30 mm hydraulically-driven seven-barrel Gatling-type cannon that is mounted on the United States Air Force's Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. It is the largest, heaviest and most powerful aircraft cannon in the United Statesmilitary. Designed specifically for the anti-tank role, the Avenger delivers very powerful rounds at a high rate of fire.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 January 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[stjobe]

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 09 January 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

MG will become the first critical hit weapon. The LBX will get the same treatment as well.

It will be given a huge critical hit multiplier similar to what it does in TT rules.

So against armor the MachineGun will remain useless (but fun to use dammit!). But as soon as armor is gone and it starts tearing into 'flesh' it will be given a big critical hit damage multiplier.

It will literally rip apart the insides of a unprotected component.

Dammit, I can't let this go. It's been bugging me all day.

Let's start with that "huge critical hit multiplier", because that's the easiest one to show not being viable. Let's make it so huge that MGs crit 100% of the time. Yes, each and every hit with an MG against an unarmoured location will crit. Will this be enough to make the MG "literally rip apart the insides of an unprotected component"?

Let's see: Of the 10 rounds that hit in a second,
* 6.8 will be single crits, for a total of 0.272 damage
* 1.4 will be double crits, for a total of 0.112 damage
* 0.3 will be triple crits, for a total of 0.036 damage

Which totals out to 0.42 damage. Less than half of a single point of damage. At 100% crit rate, the MG does less than half a point of crit damage per second.

At that rate, it'll take 23.8 seconds to destroy a single component IF you manage to only crit on that single component.

It's clear that even giving the MG a 100% crit rate won't be enough to make it "literally rip apart the insides of an unprotected component".


Let's move on to the "big critical hit damage multiplier".

I showed in my OP that even at 100% crit, a 3x crit damage buff wasn't enough (it'd take 8.3 seconds of continous critting on the same component to actually destroy it), so it must be larger than 3x. Let's go HUGE:

10x crit damage: Will make each hit do 0.4 damage, and a full second of firing would do
* 6.8 single crits for a total of 2.72 damage
* 1.4 double crits for a total of 1.12 damage
* 0.3 triple crits for a total of 0.36 damage

Grand total? 4.2 damage. Less than a single Medium Laser hit (and unlike the ML, the MG will spread its damage randomly throughout the components in the hit location), and just about half of what's needed to actually *destroy* a component.

So 10x crit damage can't be what they mean, because that won't "literally rip apart the insides of an unprotected component". At least when I hear the words "literally rip apart the insides of an unproctected component", I don't think "oh, they must mean almost Medium Laser kind of power".

Is it possible they're looking at making it 20x crit damage? That would mean it would do 8.4 damage in a second, almost as much as an AC/10. That would meet the definition of "literally rip apart the insides of an unprotected component", no doubt. But I seriously doubt they're looking at increasing crit damage by that much.

So why? Why go through all this to make a weapon that's useless by design for most of the match, when instead you could just increase the base damage of the weapon 3x and be done with it? It would become a viable weapon for the low-end ballistics, comparable to the Small Laser for low-end energy. It would make the ballistic hardpoints on light 'mechs useful, and it would not overpower larger 'mechs.

I just cannot see the sense in the decision to make the MG a "crit weapon", and I can't really see how it's going to work out either.

Please reconsider your decision, I beg you.

Edit: I just noticed I made an error in my calculations: There's normally only a 25% chance of a single-hit crit, whereas I've put it at 68% (there's normally a 58% chance to not crit at all on a hit on exposed locations). I'll let the numbers stand as written for now, and adjust it in a later post..

Edited by stjobe, 10 January 2013 - 09:51 AM.

[Karr285]

TungstenWall, on 10 January 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

The Machine Gun is a half Tun weapon!
Seriously! What would a half tun Machine gun do to armor? Maybe scrape the paint off?
Obviously anti infantry.

this is a joke right? the Weapons mounted on the A-10, f-18 and F-22 and almost every modern aircraft weighs between .25 and .5 tons (weapon only not ammo). They have their uses. if you want anit infantry machine guns you could mount 5-10 smaller better anit infantry weapons for the same weight.

[Deadoon]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 January 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

Then every Source I quoted doesn't know a machine gun from a Cannon? Cause even the Air Force calls the GAU-8 a Cannon.

Is it automatic?
Is it a cannon?
It is an autocannon.

That is like saying an m16 isn't a rifle, but rather an assault rifle.
Or a pistol isn't a handgun.
Or even mountain dew isn't a soft drink.

Karr285, on 10 January 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

this is a joke right? the Weapons mounted on the A-10, f-18 and F-22 and almost every modern aircraft weighs between .25 and .5 tons (weapon only not ammo). They have their uses. if you want anit infantry machine guns you could mount 5-10 smaller better anit infantry weapons for the same weight.

Sarcasm, it was as thick as molasses.

Edited by Deadoon, 10 January 2013 - 09:47 AM.

[Viper69]

General Taskeen, on 10 January 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

You got your answer, yet now you make stuff up. Hurr durr, for the spectators, hurr durr. No, Joseph Mallan, as one of the spectators you'd be watching 12 machine guns shredding a Mech at knife-fighting range. Your trolling fuel is running on low.

In solaris 7 though the ranges were different. Tabletop solaris rules MGs were like 10 hexes compaired to 1,2,3 for normal Btech if I remember correctly. I know they were significantly farther than standard rules, so an MG mech in solaris would rain chaos on anything in front of it, not to mention the heat scaling in solaris is different as well I believe, its been a long time So MGs werent just knife fighting weapons on solaris..

Also, yeah people would scream bloody murder the first time their 4x cataphract blew up on an internal crit to its foot where two tons of ammo were stored.

[Joseph Mallan]

Deadoon, on 10 January 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

Is it automatic?
Is it a cannon?
It is an autocannon.

That is like saying an m16 isn't a rifle, but rather an assault rifle.
Or a pistol isn't a handgun.
Or even mountain dew isn't a soft drink.

Do Machine Guns fire explosive shells or bullets?

Again going to Wiki;

Quote

An autocannon or automatic cannon is a rapid-fire projectile weapon that fires an explosive shell, as opposed to the bullet fired by a machine gun. Autocannons often have a larger caliber than a machine gun (i.e., 20 mm or greater). Usually, autocannons are smaller than a field gun or other artillery, and are mechanically loaded for a faster rate of fire. They can use a variety of ammunition: common shells include high-explosive dual-purpose types (HEDP), any variety of armour-piercing (AP) types, such as composite rigid (APCR) or discarding sabot types (APDS).

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 January 2013 - 09:54 AM.

[paladin yst]

Quote

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.

I`m thinking the exact same thing but couldnt have dont it any better in explaining it than u lol, but yea nothing makes it a viable wep, NOT EVEN with a 500% dmg boost, honestly a 1.5 tonnes wep like that is doing less than 10% of a small laser which can fire infinitely and wayyyy more accurate.

1 small laser 0.5 tonnes > mounting 4 mg with 3 tonnes of ammo, 5 tonnes. 10 times more the weight no where close the output. Its just highly unlikely to hit much stuffs, it mg has one of the worse accuracy in game, u basically have to drag shot everything for it to actually hit and with that lousy range its nothing more than a tickle.

Not to mention its nowhere close to the next wep in line, u have to like mount 40 mgs with 10 tonnes of ammo to be able to get close to 1 ac2 effectiveness (range/accuracy/fast projectile) lol.

Dev should be looking at a 500% dmg, not like it gonna kill anything with less than 10,000 bullets (5 tonnes wasted for nothing) as for crit... by the time u crit any1 to death with mg, u couldve already mowed down 2 atlases lol

Edited by paladin yst, 10 January 2013 - 09:57 AM.

[Lorren Jaffray]

Honestly this is ten pages of **** that doesn't matter even a little bit. You don't need to look at table top, you don't need to look at real world ****. None of that matters, all that is important is A. Is the weapon in the game ( ) B. Do the developers intend for it to be more than a weapon included only because it exists in lore ( ) If yes to B balance the weapon based on its heat weight and range. The end. Whether or not you think a machine gun is effective against mechs or the fact that it "shredded people in no time flat" in table top are completely irrelevant to the goal of providing a well done balanced game.

[MustrumRidcully]

stjobe, on 10 January 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Dammit, I can't let this go. It's been bugging me all day.

*math*

I just want to warn you. I've used math in my argumentation before. It didn't take.

We're just tilting at wind mills, I am afraid.

[stjobe]

All right, I made an error in my calculations of crit damage in my post above, missing the fact that not every hit crits. This is what the 10x crit damage MG would be like:

5.8 no crits for 0 damage
2.5 single crits for 1 damage
1.4 double crits 1.12 damage
0.3 triple crits for 0.36 damage
Total 2.48 damage.

So that means not even 20x (total 4.96 damage) would be enough, they would have to go to 40x crit damage in order to make the MG "literally rip apart an unprotected component".

So my question still stands - why do this? Why not just buff the MGs damage 3x and have a viable weapon?

Edited by stjobe, 10 January 2013 - 10:00 AM.