LocationOn your six, chipping away at your rear armour.
Posted 04 March 2013 - 08:58 AM
Colonel Pada Vinson, on 04 March 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:
Exactly. MG & flamer are both "filler" weapons. you take them alongside your big guns, so when the big guns are recycling your wrecking havoc on the enemy with other stuff. imho MG are working just great now, and flamers..well...wait and see
Except for light 'mechs with ballistic hardpoints, who cannot carry any "big guns".
Look at the SDR-5K: 4x ballistic hardpoints, 1x energy hardpoint. What "big gun" does that carry?
No, for lights the MG (and to a lesser degree the flamer) is if not a primary weapon system (although in the case of the SDR-5K it can be argued that it is indeed the primary weapon system), then a secondary weapon system. It's not a "filler" weapon at all for these 'mechs - and this is why it needs to be a viable damage-dealer and not some joke "crit weapon".
If you are going to change the name, dmg, heat, more or less everything about a weapon. Why not just lower the weight to make it better?
at 6 tons + ammo an AC/2 will likely never be used. But if you dropped the weight to say 2-3tons now you have an excellent backup weapon that can engage an enemy at any range, does decent dps, just lacks pure knockdown. not to mention you might actually see the ballistic lights with a weapon they can use effectively.
Simple - if you can have stock mech variations importable into the game (espeically if you already build so much around them), why break it. You have so many other variables.
I don't know if, had i implemented MW:O, I would have cared to make stock mech configurations "work". But I know that if I wanted to do it, it would be possible to do so, because there are other variables to tune.
Of course, I would have not just made stock variants "mechanically possible": I also would have tried to keep them close to how they worked in the table top. Which means the Awesome 8Q or the Hunchback 4P would also be as heat efficient as they were in TT.
As a fun mental exercise for myself, I am writing weapon and equipment tables that should be more balanced than the TT stats were.I have no problems changing weight there. I am even going so tomake Auto-Cannons gain rangewith increased damage! But I do it under the assumption that this game will have "new" stock mechs (possibly being set in a future of Battletech, a few centuries after the last events.). I am pretty interested in what Catalyst Games will do in that regard, as they have announced a new age to play BT in...
Colonel Pada Vinson, on 04 March 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:
Exactly. MG & flamer are both "filler" weapons. you take them alongside your big guns, so when the big guns are recycling your wrecking havoc on the enemy with other stuff. imho MG are working just great now, and flamers..well...wait and see
Folks who think MG's are useful are fooling themselves.
You are wasting the tonnage if you're loading up MG's. And frankly, it's a non-trivial waste of tonnage. Minimally, you're spending a ton on the ammo. If you're packing 2 MG's, then you're wasting at least 2 tons total. Those two tons would be better spent on pretty much ANYTHING else in the game.
I mean, if you really want to take them, go nuts.. but you're basically just putting garbage on your mech, just like the folks who have fooled themselves into thinking that their LBX10's are anything other than a waste of tonnage compared to other much more effective weapons.
Interestingly enough, these are also often the same folks who then complain about cheese builds.
Folks who think MG's are useful are fooling themselves.
You are wasting the tonnage if you're loading up MG's. And frankly, it's a non-trivial waste of tonnage. Minimally, you're spending a ton on the ammo. If you're packing 2 MG's, then you're wasting at least 2 tons total. Those two tons would be better spent on pretty much ANYTHING else in the game.
I mean, if you really want to take them, go nuts.. but you're basically just putting garbage on your mech, just like the folks who have fooled themselves into thinking that their LBX10's are anything other than a waste of tonnage compared to other much more effective weapons.
Interestingly enough, these are also often the same folks who then complain about cheese builds.
Well then I suppose the people who like cheesebuilds will be happy if the machinegun lets the spider maul an atlas with 4 machine guns
Colonel Pada Vinson, on 04 March 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:
Well then I suppose the people who like cheesebuilds will be happy if the machinegun lets the spider maul an atlas with 4 machine guns
at 0,4 DPS it's a pretty lackluster weapon and even with 4 of them it's 1,6 DPS while the SLX4 has 4 - ok, it has 8 heat instead but they dont run out of ammo. I it would be nice to have a LITTLE more DPS. Find me a chassis that ALLOWS for more than 4 guns.
I would like if the space for a weapon is based on the STOCK design critical slots used. So the basic Hunchback would be able to fit about 8-10 MG's in the right torso instead of the AC20.
I presumed you were mistaking DPS for the damage it does per round because no one in the history of any where in the forum has asked for such a stupidly large buff.
you know that damage doesn't have to be a whole number right? I'm going to assume you know that which begs the question as to why the hell you think every one asking for the MG to be buffed would mean the minimum they could increment the damage up would be to 1 damage per round of mg fire when most people who have 'run the numbers' are asking for between 0.08 and 0.12 as the damage per shot?
Budor, i'm disappointed you liked his post given the patently obvious straw man argument he was bringing forth in his initial post. I figured it was for more likely and reasonable that he had a misunderstanding of DPS rather than just bringing up a pointless and asinine argument to obfuscate and derail the discussion.
One of the things I find funny is how so many people keep miss representing the damage at 0.4 and always seem to forget that second zero for the correct 0.04.
Anyways the main reason in my view why MGs need to do more damage is that there are a number of low weight mechs that have these weapons as their primary weapon focus. Basically being forced to rely on others to open up the enemy so they can maybe destroy a item when if that target is opened up in the first place the mech that did the opening up will probaly be destoying that section in the next 4-5 seconds making your minimal efforts ultimately useless. Also if there is nothing to destroy in that section your back to pathetic damage. Like if your trying to leg a enemy that has a leg with no armor and in the yellow your going to be at it for awhile where as if you were using small lasers that leg will go so much sooner.
If they increased the damage to something close to AC2 values it's short range and huge spread pottential is whats going to keep it in balance. Basically I want to see it where if your a MG heavy light you can be a decent light hunter and a nuisance if ignored, where your capable of steadily stripping armor if you can keep a good bead on your target instead of frequent bursts of damage. Think about MGs as a DoT in other games and SLs and AC2 as a burst attack. There is a reason why most DoTs generally have a higher DPS because they take time to do all their damage. In MGs case unlike other MMO DoTs that are fire and forget you got too keep active use of them to get anything out of them.
Testing grounds ahoy! After extensively testing the Mg in testing grounds on CORED mechs (of all shapes and sizes), my conclusion is that MG's are utterly useless. I cored an AWESOME to orange, assuming that the MG would make short work of it's internals afterwards.
It then took 1600 (!!) rounds to finish off the AWESOME. I just don't see MG's being viable in any way, shape or form as they currently work.
The flamer doesn't seem to do a darn thing. I've sat there against shut down mechs who have had the armor stripped, flaming away and nothing really happened. I have yet to see a flamer destroy a component.
The flamer doesn't seem to do a darn thing. I've sat there against shut down mechs who have had the armor stripped, flaming away and nothing really happened. I have yet to see a flamer destroy a component.
Go ahead and test Mg's and Flamers on testing grounds. 2 machine guns, 10000 ammo and you can't take out a single piece on any mech.
Anyways the main reason in my view why MGs need to do more damage is that there are a number of low weight mechs that have these weapons as their primary weapon focus. Basically being forced to rely on others to open up the enemy so they can maybe destroy a item when if that target is opened up in the first place the mech that did the opening up will probaly be destoying that section in the next 4-5 seconds making your minimal efforts ultimately useless. Also if there is nothing to destroy in that section your back to pathetic damage. Like if your trying to leg a enemy that has a leg with no armor and in the yellow your going to be at it for awhile where as if you were using small lasers that leg will go so much sooner.
This is pretty accurate. There's very little reason for lights to crit-seek in this game even though there are several mechs that honestly have no choice but to fit for it. Hell, all you get for doing well at the end of a match is REDUCED salvage awards for destroying items.
I do find MG's working well at the medium weight level, where mechs can begin fitting enough damage to rip open a component but are still stressed for tonnage on their hardpoints. I've had success in my AC/20, 2x MG HBK-4G. It can rip out a backplating of 33 or less HP and can destroy 1-2 items before its AC/20 has recycled. That's useful because it isn't prioritizing crits, it's just layering them in when they can work. It's still a tight fit. I could also see this working on a TBT-7K (2x PPC, 2x SSRM, 2x MG) and DRG-5N (I dunno, AC/10, 2x MG, SRM6, 2 LL?).
It was actually pretty hard to go through the 30 some videos of the 3C to find good examples of a crit-seek. The 4G parts were from a collection of 5 videos. 4/5 were great crit-seeking games.
Darius Deadeye, on 05 March 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:
Testing grounds ahoy! After extensively testing the Mg in testing grounds on CORED mechs (of all shapes and sizes), my conclusion is that MG's are utterly useless. I cored an AWESOME to orange, assuming that the MG would make short work of it's internals afterwards.
It then took 1600 (!!) rounds to finish off the AWESOME. I just don't see MG's being viable in any way, shape or form as they currently work.
That isn't how MG's, or crits, work. Crits do not do additional damage to a component once it's unarmored. They destroy items within components.
LocationOn your six, chipping away at your rear armour.
Posted 05 March 2013 - 02:38 PM
Selfish, on 05 March 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:
That isn't how MG's, or crits, work. Crits do not do additional damage to a component once it's unarmored. They destroy items within components.
Even so, my limited testing of a 4xMG SDR-5K in the training grounds had me firing all four MGs at a COM-2Ds head for about 15 seconds before it toppled over, and I actually ran out of ammo trying to chew through an Awesome's center torso.
It's also interesting to note that the 'mechs that need MGs to be viable the most are the ones that are the worst at surviving long enough for the MG to be used in its intended role as component destructors, due to them having very little armour themselves.
I can't overstate how badly I want PGI to revisit the MG and just up its damage to something useful (triple current damage).
Edit: Also, the new stats show me at roughly a 50% hit rate with the MG - making that 0.4 DPS an effective 0.2 DPS (or 0.8 instead of 1.6 DPS for the quad-MG 5K). It's nice to have detailed stats, but they really highlight the inadequacy of the MG as its currently implemented.
Even so, my limited testing of a 4xMG SDR-5K in the training grounds had me firing all four MGs at a COM-2Ds head for about 15 seconds before it toppled over, and I actually ran out of ammo trying to chew through an Awesome's center torso.
It's also interesting to note that the 'mechs that need MGs to be viable the most are the ones that are the worst at surviving long enough for the MG to be used in its intended role as component destructors, due to them having very little armour themselves.
I can't overstate how badly I want PGI to revisit the MG and just up its damage to something useful (triple current damage).
Edit: Also, the new stats show me at roughly a 50% hit rate with the MG - making that 0.4 DPS an effective 0.2 DPS (or 0.8 instead of 1.6 DPS for the quad-MG 5K). It's nice to have detailed stats, but they really highlight the inadequacy of the MG as its currently implemented.
That's what I'm trying to tell you. An MG does .4 DPS against an armored component, and .4 DPS against an unarmored component. The damage value isn't changed. The buff change means it has 0 CDPS against an armored component, and 5 CDPS against an unarmored one.
Critical Damage and Damage are two separate things as they hit different parts of the mech. The unarmored component's HP is unaffected by crits. The items WITHIN the component (weapons, heatsinks, ammo, electronics, engine) all have their own HP values, and those are what crits target.
LocationOn your six, chipping away at your rear armour.
Posted 05 March 2013 - 03:14 PM
Selfish, on 05 March 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:
That's what I'm trying to tell you. An MG does .4 DPS against an armored component, and .4 DPS against an unarmored component. The damage value isn't changed. The buff change means it has 0 CDPS against an armored component, and 5 CDPS against an unarmored one.
Critical Damage and Damage are two separate things as they hit different parts of the mech. The unarmored component's HP is unaffected by crits. The items WITHIN the component (weapons, heatsinks, ammo, electronics, engine) all have their own HP values, and those are what crits target.
I'm fully aware how crits and the MG works, if you check my posting history you'll see that I've been fighting to get the MG buffed since forever. My stance is that they should just drop the crit malarkey and instead triple the damage of the MG. Instant viable low-end ballistic weapon.
Please note that my post wasn't disagreeing with you, just expanding on the uselessness of the MG as currently implemented with some anecdotal evidence from running a few drops on the training grounds.
After testing in the training grounds with my 3 mg/ 2 sl/ 1 flamer hunch 4G I've found MGs and flamers are useless.
My 3 MG's take literally 2-3 times as long on both stripping armor and detroying the section of body. The crit seek while fast wasn't a huge boon as my 2 SL's could destroy most exposed areas in 4-6 volleys(6-10secs) whereas the MG's would take 15-45 secs to destroy a section and about 3-4 secs for components. Even throwing in the flamer with the MGs was still noticably slower then just the 2 SL's.
The Flamers are absolute garbage. With 3 MG's and 3 flamers the flamers literally took 4-5 times longer then the MG's to do the same thing and their crit seek is pathetic I almost literally destroyed a atlas's side torso before the AC20 went. The heat 3 flamers generate is rediculous even with 20 double heatsinks. Flamers need mayor improvements while I couldn't test the heating component I'm pretty sure I got the worse end of it.
That's what I'm trying to tell you. An MG does .4 DPS against an armored component, and .4 DPS against an unarmored component. The damage value isn't changed. The buff change means it has 0 CDPS against an armored component, and 5 CDPS against an unarmored one.
Critical Damage and Damage are two separate things as they hit different parts of the mech. The unarmored component's HP is unaffected by crits. The items WITHIN the component (weapons, heatsinks, ammo, electronics, engine) all have their own HP values, and those are what crits target.
stjobe, on 05 March 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:
I'm fully aware how crits and the MG works, if you check my posting history you'll see that I've been fighting to get the MG buffed since forever. My stance is that they should just drop the crit malarkey and instead triple the damage of the MG. Instant viable low-end ballistic weapon.
Please note that my post wasn't disagreeing with you, just expanding on the uselessness of the MG as currently implemented with some anecdotal evidence from running a few drops on the training grounds.
Hehe.
stjobe, meet Selfish, the guy that wrote the comprehensive guide on crits.
Selfish, meet stjobe, the guy that knows very well that MGs suck and why the crit mechanics cannot really help it to become useful.
I probably should have done this earlier, but I missed it.
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Colonel Pada Vinson, on 04 March 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:
