443 replies to this topic

[Abrahms]

Seems that MGs have gotten some QQ attention lately (at least, from my infrequent and rare forum sifting). While not as gamebreaking as, say, the floundering mathematical fail known as the heat system, its still relevant to the issue of: why is PGI so bad at balance?


You say infantry only? Says who? Why cant a .5 ton weapon... well, fit in the math equation as worth its weight? The small laser is .5 tons and similar range, but its actually useful.

Look at it this way. Battletech is math - look at a weapon's range and damage, and both causally effect a change in tonnage and crit slots. Shorter range? weighs less. Less damage? Weighs less. MORE HEAT? Weighs less!
Why is the AC20 so powerful for 14 tons? well, its short range. Why is the large laser so much more than a small? Because 1)more range and 2)more damage.

Now, its not always a linear change. Sometimes double the range is worth more than double the weight. Leave it to BT and your role on the battlefield to dictate what you choose, as long as all options are viable. We saw real time negate some of the range values, but more than anything the tripled heat is what harmed longer range weapons.

--

Heavy Machine Guns in real life have no problem harming armor. 50 cals and miniguns easily shred softer targets, even when made from armor. The A-10 Gau Avenger cannon easily rips a main battletank in half. All are high rate of fire, smaller caliber weapons compared to a 120 smoothbore cannon.

Machine guns are not necessarily infantry weapons. The boost versus infantry in BT TT can easily be explained away - high rate of fire is good against many light targets, regardless of weapon power. Why should it then be useless in MWO, and not worth its weight? Why have it? Flavor? naw, it should be useful for its status in tonnage, dmg, heat, etc - right now its not worth... anything! Its only possible quality is being annoying.

Easy fix? While your busy hiring the local junior college kid in stats to fix your game, toss the MG in the mix. Figure out the DPS/DMG needed to make a .5, low heat short range weapon valuable. Basically, put the stupid thing on par with the small laser, it still needs a ton of ammo as well which needs to be in the equation.

---

(heat in battletech rates relatively the same in MWO (1 ton to remove 1ht per 10sec), except rate of fire was roughly tripled, meaning that for every point of heat a weapon generates, it now weighs 2 more tons in MWO for the same effect - so a Gauss gained 2 tons and a PPC gained 20 tons (now 16 after buffs) which takes what was a 1:1 ratio in tabletop and at best makes the PPC now weigh twice as much) - we have since seen changes to PPC heat, and tampering with DHS, but the underlying problem persists, just to a lesser degree... see below


-and lastly-
If I explained everything, this post would be too long, but generally account for:
weight, heat, range, ammo, etc.

Example:
-PPC = 7 tons + 10 heatsinks in TT to fire every round = 17 tons for 10 dmg,
-Gauss is 15 + 1 + 4ammo = 20 tons for 15 dmg.
-Meaning, 30 (3x) dmg in ppcs = 30 (2x) dmg in Gauss in weight (in TT, of course MWO broke this). ((17*3 = 51 - 10 engine hs = 41 tons versus 20*2 = 40 - heatsinks = 38 tons))
-so heat neutral, all game PPC v Gauss is the same, now its up to you to tinker with the extra benefits like, do you have spare heat? Use DHS therefore have tonnage and slots for ammo in leg? etc
Are the weapons the same? NOOOOPE - PPC can run hot for less weight, and also benefits greatly from required engine heatsinks. Taking 2 gauss and a PPC is more weight efficient than 3 gauss because your forced to take 10 heatsinks anyway. Also, hardpoints influence these decisions.
-you also dont have to be heat neutral, but remember that being too hot can greatly harm your DPS versus a component in a game that has doubled armor - there are no one shot kills except maybe on a light, but good luck with the lagshield and the 2 minute cooldown and minuscule end-game damage.
MWO by tripling rate of fire, increased the heatsinks weight of the PPC for the same effect we see above by around 3 - so what weighs 41 tons now weighs well over 90, even with engine HS considered! - of course, PPCs have been buffed. Its only 45 tons now instead of 51

Having decisions is fun, not having decisions because one weapon is clearly and vastly superior to another is not as fun.

Edited by Abrahms, 06 February 2013 - 02:51 AM.

[Abrahms]

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[MustrumRidcully]

The point was made before, but it may be a point worth making. We'll see what we get.

The latest we heard on the issue was that both a crit buff and a damage buff was in the workings. I am highly skeptical on the crit buff - I am afraid the developers overestimate crits in MW:O. You basically need a 5+ damage in-one-shot weapon to have a decent hope of killing an item, unless the item really occupies a lot of crit slots like the AC/20 (or someone equipped only one item in a section). Otherwise, the individual damage packets of the weapon will spread the damage across all items and it will take a lot more time to destroy one.
A damage buff is more likely to reach the goal of making the MG worth it. They should probably also consider raising its range (in turn, maybe not raise its damage quite as much). Someone suggested a range of 800m in another thread, I'd say that is too much and probably would not be a range people would be able to utilize - but 200m could be usable.

BTW, regarding the weapon comparisons:

It might be fairer to compare the PPC against either an AC/10, or the Gauss Rifle against a PPC with Double Heat Sinks. Then you stay on the same tech level.
AC/10: 12 tons, 3 Heat => 15 tons + Ammo. PPC 7 tons, 10 heat = 17 tons. 2 tons of ammo per AC/10 would normally be enough in the table top game. That's ammo for 20 turns!

PPC with Double Heat Sinks: 10 Damage / 12 Tons ~= 0.83 DMG/Ton
Gauss Rifle with 2 tons of Ammo and 1 HS: 15 Damage / 18 Damage ~= 0.83 Dmg/Ton
About equal.

It's quite astounding how often the math works out. But even more astounding where it doesn't work out like that at all (AC/2, AC/5).

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 06 February 2013 - 03:03 AM.

[Kanatta Jing]

Word is that the Machine Gun will soon have the magical ability to destroy internal components bypassing armor.

Meaning that Spider's will soon be out in force looking for people who have hidden their ammo in their legs.

We'll have to start using CASE. It's terrible.

[Novawrecker]

Abrahms, on 06 February 2013 - 02:48 AM, said:

The small laser is .5 tons and similar range, but its actually useful.

Ah this debate again ...

Reminder:

Small laser - 3 damage, 2 heat, 2.25 sec cooldown (balanced for a .5 ton weapon).

Unlike the MG which has 0 heat and virtually 0 cooldown. And you still want it to do more damage, or are you still blind to the making it broken by increasing it's damage with out changing it's coolddown/heat ratio?

The fact that they are increasing it's damage multiple when critting is more than sufficient.

Edited by Novawrecker, 06 February 2013 - 03:15 AM.

[pistolero]

like it or not .... this game is based on the old battletech rules

and honestly the only use i found for machine guns back in the day was against infantry ...

you can name as many "real world" examples as you like ( and i honestly think that calling the A 10 Gau a machine gun is complettly out of reality) ..... we are still in the battletech universe .... a place where machine guns simply are not a good choice against an armored target

but if you like " real world" examples so much ... imagine to fire a . 50 cal heavy machine gun on a modern day battle tank
the only result will be funny "pling" and "plong" noises ...

if you realy dont like to use machine guns in the battletech universe just use something else

[MustrumRidcully]

Whenever it comes to discussing crits, I feel the need to be very elaborate, but since i already did so today in another thread, I wil just point out this guide by a different user: http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

Quote

Small laser - 3 damage, 2 heat, 2.25 sec cooldown (balanced for a .5 ton weapon).

Combined with its 0.75 seconds beam duration, the Small Laser has an effective DPS of 1. The MG has an effective DPS of 0.4.
To maintain the Small Lasers DPS, you need to hold the beam constantly for 0.75 seconds every 2.25 seconds. To maintain the MGs effective DPS, you need to sustain the MG fire constantly. No pauses.
That means with small lasers, you have 2.25 seconds intervals where you can aim, where you can perform evasive torso twisting and maneuvering. You don't have that luxury with an MG.

Hence - the damage output of the MG should be increased. Considering the heat investment of the Small Laser, maybe just doubling it to 0.8 could be sufficient. The drawback of needing to sustain your fire constantly to reach the theoretical DPS might also be a good reason to raise its DPS to 1 or 1.2

I could see a DPS of 0.8 coupled with a crit damage buff and a small range buff (say 180m with the typical ballistic damage drop-off down to 0 damage at 540m) could lead to a balanced weapon.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 06 February 2013 - 03:27 AM.

[Novawrecker]

The point being is that the small laser, for a .5 weapon, is balanced by the very points you mentioned above.

If the MG was given a similar damage with it's current 0 heat, .1 cooldown, you create a very broken weapon.

Edited by Novawrecker, 06 February 2013 - 03:32 AM.

[Signal27]

Kanatta Jing, on 06 February 2013 - 02:58 AM, said:

Word is that the Machine Gun will soon have the magical ability to destroy internal components bypassing armor.

That's not what I heard. I heard MGs might get a significant boost to their ability to damage internal components, yes, but only if all the armor has been stripped off that limb first. Otherwise, against armor, it will perform the same way it does now.

[MustrumRidcully]

Novawrecker, on 06 February 2013 - 03:30 AM, said:

The point being is that the small laser, for a .5 weapon, is balanced by the very points you mentioned above.

If the MG was given a similar damage with it's current 0 heat, .1 cooldown, you create a very broken weapon.

I am not sure if you understand that I mean by DPS. DPS means damage per second. It doesn't matter if a weapon's cooldown is 2.25 seconds or 0.1 seconds if you talk about its DPS. A weapon with 1 DPS and a cooldown of 2.25 seconds would deal 2.25 damage per shot*. A weapon that has a cooldown of 0.1 and a DPS of 1 would deal 0.1 damage per shot.

*) Yes, the Small Laser deals 3 damage per shot. But it's effective cooldown also isn't 2.25, but 3, because it needs 2.25 seconds to recharge per shot, and then 0.75 seconds to unload its 3 damage, meaning its average damage per second has to be calculated as 3 damage / (2.25 + 0.75) seconds = 1 damage/second.)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 06 February 2013 - 04:34 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

BerryChunkz, on 06 February 2013 - 04:51 AM, said:

The erason u don xpect a hanmd held MG to do dmg to a tank irl is coz force of bullet cant overcome inertial mass of armor on tankz, otherwise killing tanks irl wood be ezpz with assault rifles.

Then why does it inflict damage at all?

[EmperorMyrf]

How many tons does it take to field 3 machine guns? 2.5-3.5 tops and you can fire all day, ammo permitting, with 1.2 DPS
The SL in order to fire nonstop needs about 6.5-7.5 tons, with 1 DPS. If it wasn't for hardpoint limitations and difficulty of use, the MG would be hugely overpowered. When/if MGs get a damage boost, they need to have some heat along with it to prevent abusive builds in the future, where there are more ballistic hardpoints available (mainly the piranha).

Edited by EmperorMyrf, 06 February 2013 - 05:06 AM.

[Critical Fumble]

MustrumRidcully, on 06 February 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

Then why does it inflict damage at all?

Because magic.

Anyone else read the but about balancing the MG by giving it an internals crit boost, and then either laughed or cried?

Cried because its already a limited weapon, and making marginally effective in a single situation (no armor opponent, inside 90m) won't make it any more effective than a 24 hour Barney channel.

Laughed because its totally illogical that a bunch of little MG holes would be more effective against internals than a big hole from other projectiles, a laser making a gash, or a missile making one decent sized hole and a bunch of shrapnel creating a bunch of little holes.

[MustrumRidcully]

EmperorMyrf, on 06 February 2013 - 05:05 AM, said:

How many tons does it take to field 3 machine guns? 2.5-3.5 tops and you can fire all day, ammo permitting, with 1.2 DPS
The SL in order to fire nonstop needs about 6.5-7.5 tons, with 1 DPS. If it wasn't for hardpoint limitations and difficulty of use, the MG would be hugely overpowered. When/if MGs get a damage boost, they need to have some heat along with it to prevent abusive builds in the future, where there are more ballistic hardpoints available (mainly the piranha).

I tend to think one has to be careful, because MGs stack better than small lasers, but never forget - you need to constantly maintain your fire on your target to reach the MG's full damage potential. I believe that is not easy and comes with its own risk. You cannot twist your torso to escape an incoming laser fire, while he can use the weapon's cooldown to twist around.

Critical Fumble, on 06 February 2013 - 05:12 AM, said:

Anyone else read the but about balancing the MG by giving it an internals crit boost, and then either laughed or cried?

I don't think we two are alone in this regard. Also, your name is surprisingly apt for this situation.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 06 February 2013 - 05:15 AM.

[Mykaelous Wolf]

Signal27, on 06 February 2013 - 03:47 AM, said:

That's not what I heard. I heard MGs might get a significant boost to their ability to damage internal components, yes, but only if all the armor has been stripped off that limb first. Otherwise, against armor, it will perform the same way it does now.

I think this is a good plan. Have the MG do .5 DP but once internals are exposed(i.e. the armor has been stripped) have it do 2 DPS(that could be averaged out over its chance to crit).

[Komtur]

Abrahms, on 06 February 2013 - 02:48 AM, said:

Heavy Machine Guns in real life have no problem harming armor. 50 cals and miniguns easily shred softer targets, even when made from armor. The A-10 Gau Avenger cannon easily rips a main battletank in half. All are high rate of fire, smaller caliber weapons compared to a 120 smoothbore cannon.

The GAU-8 Avenger is a Gatling Gun and the weight is 2 tons. Also uranium ammo is used to kill tanks.

There is a big difference to the Mech MG.

Try to use a standard 20mm Mg to kill a real Battletank .... after 1000 shots there are some scratches on the Tank and you have to repaint it ;-)

Edited by Komtur, 06 February 2013 - 05:21 AM.

[Sifright]

Komtur, on 06 February 2013 - 05:19 AM, said:

The A-10 is a Gatling Gun and the weight is 2 tons. Also uranium ammo is used to kill tanks.

There is a big difference to the Mech MG.

Try to use a standard 20mm Mg to kill a real Battletank .... after 1000 shots there are some scratches on the Tank and you have to repaint it ;-)

2 tonnes loaded with ammo.

it weighs 600 pounds with out ammo.

about a quarter of a tonne

Also, material science in btech is clearly much more advanced than ours things weigh A LOT less than they should.

I can assure you a metal monstrousity like the atlas made with todays tech would weigh a hell of a lot more than 100 tonnes just for the structure and armour never mind everything else.

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 05:23 AM.

[Sifright]

EmperorMyrf, on 06 February 2013 - 05:05 AM, said:

How many tons does it take to field 3 machine guns? 2.5-3.5 tops and you can fire all day, ammo permitting, with 1.2 DPS
The SL in order to fire nonstop needs about 6.5-7.5 tons, with 1 DPS. If it wasn't for hardpoint limitations and difficulty of use, the MG would be hugely overpowered. When/if MGs get a damage boost, they need to have some heat along with it to prevent abusive builds in the future, where there are more ballistic hardpoints available (mainly the piranha).

Yea i'm so worried about how over powered that will be.

Why if i stand still for exactly 25 seconds my cockpit could be taken out!

or if im in an atlas they could take out my center torso in a mere 3 minutes!


TABLE TOP DAMAGE VALUES

AC-2 2 DAMAGE A HIT.
Machinegun 2 DAMAGE A HIT.

What don't we see in mwo?

AC-2 MWO = 4 DPS
MACHINEGUN = .4 DPS

MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 05:28 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I still don't think MGs should get a damage buff. They are not using DU ammo that ACs do. Now if the DEVs buff them I will test my armor against them and report my findings.

[Thirdstar]

Critical Fumble, on 06 February 2013 - 05:12 AM, said:

..... a 24 hour Barney channel.

Hmm, to watch or not to watch, that is the question.