24 replies to this topic

[FrupertApricot]

Certain light variants that have lots of ballistic slots are currently far less useful than their energy gifted brethren because machineguns do negligible damage right now. A machinegun needs to be the equivalent of 2/3 of a small laser in DPS or they will never be truly balanced. Their high fire rate makes them good at scoring some crits but that buff is not enough to give a spider with 4 mguns a fighting chance.

[Hou]

Actually, they desperately need their rate of fire tripled. MG balance is so far off it's old news. They're just flat broken and they take a number of cannon mech variants with them into the dark.

[Abrahms]

Balance you say? In MWO!!! The developers are scoffing at you this very moment!

But no really, MWO has some terrible weapon balance. I left MWLL for the same reason (why does a tiny battle armor laser do as much damage as a large laser in the game???) And MWO has terrible lag.

As of today only 1/3 or so of the weapons have any place in this game for competitive play. Some junior college kid in statistics can easily clean up this mess, but PGI wont pay him minimum wage to do it.

MWO is a highly delineated numbers game, it should be really easy to balance. Sure, travel speed, niche stuff like spread, etc, can all come in after the fact and may require fine-tuning but on its face right now the numbers are way off, the heat system is objectively mathematically broken, and the niche changes have little relevance.


The Machinegun in reality would be a strong weapon for its weight. It should be on par with a small laser when it comes to threat. Large quantities should be very scary. Just look at weapons of today like the A-10 warthogs GauAvenger cannon that shreds tanks in half, or the AAA guns that turn planes into dust. It is NOT an infantry weapon... a pistol is an Infantry weapon. A giant machinegun array is designed to damage armored targets. You get what you weigh though... so obviously a .5 or 1 ton weapon will be... well.. around as scary as a small laser!

[Odins Fist]

Hou, on 22 January 2013 - 01:01 PM, said:

Actually, they desperately need their rate of fire tripled. MG balance is so far off it's old news. They're just flat broken and they take a number of cannon mech variants with them into the dark.

.
I thought the DEVs stated they wouldn't be sticking "STRICTLY" to cannon anyway..??
.
Yeah, they did, and I remember seeing all kinds of 1980's BT nerds foaming at the mouth in the forums, and I could swear I heard them banging their 1980's Battletech manuals on their desks as well... LOLZ

Edited by Odins Fist, 22 January 2013 - 01:14 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

Abrahms, on 22 January 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

The Machinegun in reality would be a strong weapon for its weight.

So how many 9mm bullets does it take to kill a MBT, anyway?

Vehicle and 'mech-mounted MGs are distinguished in BT as having enough firepower to be a threat to armored vehicles, and they certainly would tear the hell out of Primitive Armor - but they don't do a hell of a lot to post-spaceflight 'mech armor (much the same as a Medium Rifle, equivalent to a pre-spaceflight tank gun, is a peashooter in BT.)

So while I think the MG should be buffed to have similar DPS to the Small Laser, I don't think it needs to go any further than that. It is, after all, a half-ton weapon, not a substitute AC/20.

[Hou]

Odins Fist, on 22 January 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:

.
I thought the DEVs stated they wouldn't be sticking "STRICTLY" to cannon anyway..??
.
Yeah, they did, and I remember seeing all kinds of 1980's BT nerds foaming at the mouth in the forums, and I could swear I heard them banging their 1980's Battletech manuals on their desks as well... LOLZ

Well, sure - but they have been sticking to the weights/critslots of weapons. With more than a couple variants designed around having ballistic hardpoints that can only conceivably hold machineguns(4 of em on a spider?) having those weapons be useless is not only bad because the weapons are useless - they make the variant useless as well.

[Abrahms]

Solis Obscuri, on 22 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

So how many 9mm bullets does it take to kill a MBT, anyway?

Vehicle and 'mech-mounted MGs are distinguished in BT as having enough firepower to be a threat to armored vehicles, and they certainly would tear the hell out of Primitive Armor - but they don't do a hell of a lot to post-spaceflight 'mech armor (much the same as a Medium Rifle, equivalent to a pre-spaceflight tank gun, is a peashooter in BT.)

So while I think the MG should be buffed to have similar DPS to the Small Laser, I don't think it needs to go any further than that. It is, after all, a half-ton weapon, not a substitute AC/20.

Isnt that what I said?

Also a 9mm v tank armor is a much wider gap than were looking at.

Its roughly the value of a small laser. 20 or so machine guns would however start to rival an AC20, however, it would be spread damage and still a high rate of fire (think of AC2 v AC20 mechanics).

But yeah, right now it simply isnt worth the .5 tons. Its DPS and value is on par with a weapon that is literally weight free and has unlimited ammo at no cost. Clearly needs a buff.

[Xigunder Blue]

Having MG damage equal to a small laser and spread over locations would help. The duration mechanic could help balance it a little but I really love the sound and animation of the MG, as it is, as well. Letting it do .5 damage per second might also make it a more useful weapon as most targets are moving already and damage would spread but be dangerous enough to force movement from other mechs. Just a few ideas, no forum pvp necessary.

[Elizander]

I'd be happy with doubling the MG range.

[Stingz]

Solis Obscuri, on 22 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

So how many 9mm bullets does it take to kill a MBT, anyway?

Pretty sure Mech-Sized MGs are around .50 Cal, since they're called "Support MG" for infantry, and need a mount + team. (9mm is a hand-held SMG/pistol round.)

Edit: Ok looked around, and 30mm Minigun is more of a Battlemech .5 ton MG. Recoil dampeners, and mount add extra weight.

Edited by Stingz, 25 January 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[CygnusX7]

Too bad there isn't a mech with 50 ballistic hardpoints.
You'd be carrying 25 tons of guns and have a DPS of 2.

[TheFlerg]

Stingz, on 25 January 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Pretty sure Mech-Sized MGs are around .50 Cal, since they're called "Support MG" for infantry, and need a mount + team.

(9mm is a hand-held SMG/pistol round.)

I'm impressed that they made a half ton .50 cal when today a Browning M2 weighs 84 lbs.

Machine guns of that time and weight should be shooting larger than 30mm. Even though today a 30mm weighs nearly 300 lbs.

Of course, here's the weapon from the A-10:

http://en.m.wikipedi...i/GAU-8_Avenger

Even that is less than half a ton.

Edited by Chris Brinzo, 25 January 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[FrupertApricot]

Honestly the AMS/MGuns shoudl be a bout the same 25/30mm caliber and should have DPS equivalent to 2/3 of a small laser to make up for them having greater tonnage but no heat and ammo stores. Let us do some bloody damage with our machineguns not just eat up internals. Having 4 of the ******** should give equivalent damage potential as an SRM4 according to the game! this seems balanced as it eats up 4 ballistic points vs 1 missile point.

[Heeden]

CygnusX7, on 25 January 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Too bad there isn't a mech with 50 ballistic hardpoints.
You'd be carrying 25 tons of guns and have a DPS of 2.

DPS of 20, MGs fire 10 shots per second. Of course you'll burn through a tonne of ammo in 4 seconds with that build, but not a bad trade-off when you don't have to worry about heat.

My Cent-D has two machine guns in the arms plus a tonne of ammo, it's roughly the equivalent of a SLas - the extra weight is more than made up for by the zero heat generation and the slightly lower DPS counteracted by the constant fire.

The second biggest thing in favour of the MG with my build is I only had 2 tons and 2 ballistic slots spare on my mech, in that situation the MG is the most favourable metric no matter how you analyse the underlying maths.

The biggest thing is, of course, the fact that constantly firing twin machine-guns is damn good dakka, and I'm seriously tempted to get a 4xMG spider for more dakka.

[CygnusX7]

Heeden, on 25 January 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

DPS of 20, MGs fire 10 shots per second. Of course you'll burn through a tonne of ammo in 4 seconds with that build, but not a bad trade-off when you don't have to worry about heat.

My Cent-D has two machine guns in the arms plus a tonne of ammo, it's roughly the equivalent of a SLas - the extra weight is more than made up for by the zero heat generation and the slightly lower DPS counteracted by the constant fire.

The second biggest thing in favour of the MG with my build is I only had 2 tons and 2 ballistic slots spare on my mech, in that situation the MG is the most favourable metric no matter how you analyse the underlying maths.

The biggest thing is, of course, the fact that constantly firing twin machine-guns is damn good dakka, and I'm seriously tempted to get a 4xMG spider for more dakka.

Ahhh right.. per bullet. Cool.
12.5 MG's for a DPS of 5.

Need a mech with at least 12 ballistic hardpoints.
If hardpoints would double with half the weight we could have 8 MG's on a Cicada. lol

[Stingz]

CygnusX7, on 25 January 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

Need a mech with at least 12 ballistic hardpoints.

Piranha: x12 MGs, x2 ER.Med, ER.Small [20 tons | 151 k/ph]

12 MGs in TT pump out 24 damage(all over the place), probably even more in MWO. I really want this mech.

Edited by Stingz, 25 January 2013 - 08:22 AM.

[Apoc1138]

Stingz, on 25 January 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

Piranha: x12 MGs, x2 ER.Med, ER.Small [20 tons | 151 k/ph]

12 MGs in TT pump out 24 damage(all over the place), probably even more in MWO. I really want this mech.

3051 date, so next year maybe

Edited by Apoc1138, 25 January 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[Hou]

Heeden, on 25 January 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

DPS of 20, MGs fire 10 shots per second. Of course you'll burn through a tonne of ammo in 4 seconds with that build, but not a bad trade-off when you don't have to worry about heat.

My Cent-D has two machine guns in the arms plus a tonne of ammo, it's roughly the equivalent of a SLas - the extra weight is more than made up for by the zero heat generation and the slightly lower DPS counteracted by the constant fire.

The second biggest thing in favour of the MG with my build is I only had 2 tons and 2 ballistic slots spare on my mech, in that situation the MG is the most favourable metric no matter how you analyse the underlying maths.

The biggest thing is, of course, the fact that constantly firing twin machine-guns is damn good dakka, and I'm seriously tempted to get a 4xMG spider for more dakka.

2 tons, 2 hardpoints, and additional ammo space that needs to be under CASE or risk going critical that almost equal 1 small laser in dps while requiring constant stream on target from under 90 meters instead of being able to twist is a poor trade off. 4 steps up in engine rating would be more valuable if you aren't capped on size. An extra 2 tons of heatsinks for weapons that do something other than praise the dakka for the dakka's sake would be more valuable. An AMS would be more valuable. The only time(dakka aside) a MG is anything other than the worst possible allocation of loadout on a mech is when the chassis/build is so poor to begin with you simply don't have any other options(ok, NARC is a contender). And no, a "quirky" little application of dakka that only does something to exposed components isn't going to fix it. Time on target is important and people tend to ignore it in balancing. Why do so many mechwarriors prefer a single AC20 to 2 AC2s which have more dps/range and are smaller/lighter? Raw dps numbers aren't everything.

The dakka is best praised through advocating meaningful dakka, not merely playing with your dakka after you swiped your mother's moisturizing cream. Triple MG RoF already boys!

Edited by Hou, 25 January 2013 - 08:28 AM.

[Phades]

Stingz, on 25 January 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

Piranha: x12 MGs, x2 ER.Med, ER.Small [20 tons | 151 k/ph]

12 MGs in TT pump out 24 damage(all over the place), probably even more in MWO. I really want this mech.

Clan mech...

[Stingz]

Hou, on 25 January 2013 - 08:26 AM, said:

The dakka is best praised through advocating meaningful dakka, not merely playing with your dakka after you swiped your mother's moisturizing cream. Triple MG RoF already boys!

You better x10 the ammo then, or x3 ammo at the least. I want to actually be able to use that dakka.

Phades, on 25 January 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

Clan mech...

Second-line Clan mech, Diamond Sharks. Could probably be made with IS tech, but at 30-35 tons.

Edited by Stingz, 25 January 2013 - 08:30 AM.