443 replies to this topic

[Sifright]

cdlord, on 06 February 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

NOT a machinegun..... More equivalent to a RAC/2.....

WEAPON IN PICTURE WEIGHS LESS THAN BTECH MG.

Seriously dude.

The BTech writers had no idea how much **** should weigh.

Based on the fact that it weighs half a tonne.

and does damage to mechs in TT.

The MG should actually be called something else. Btech writers were ignorant.

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 10:44 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Sifright you do know the difference is between a laser and a bullet when it hits any target correct?

Bullets are designed to hit a target and cause damage to it.

Lasers are burning thru the target to cause damage.

If a laser hits a piece of armor it's going to still burn into it, causing a small amount of damage and burning the paint.

If a bullet hits that armor it's going to flatten and do a small bit of damage and leave a small little ding where the paint was.

Now if you take that same small laser and go from one side to another across the object it's going to do the same amount of damage just not in the same place, making it ultimately ineffective. Since the MG is designed to hit an area instead of a specific spot it does the dame thing, making it an ineffective weapon.

So in a combat situation like we're in both the SL and the MG are ineffective, so simply remove both of them.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 06 February 2013 - 10:43 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sifright, on 06 February 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

and yet in the table top game that wouldn't be true.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha

If that mech got to you in close range it could shred you with the number of machine guns it fielded.

12. It takes 12 MGs to make that Mech respectable.

12 MGs=24 damage 0 heat
6 Clan ER Small Lasers=30 damage, 12 heat Or 0 heat with 10 clan doubles. and double the range!
this

Quote

[color=#000000]The [/color]Piranha'[color=#000000]s main threat is its twelve Series XII Rotary [/color]Machine Guns[color=#000000]. These are a serious threat on such a speedy 'Mech to any foe, especially if a Star of [/color]Piranhas [color=#000000]operate in a pack.[/color]

is again off set by this,

Quote

[color=#000000]For work against hardened targets, the [/color]Piranha[color=#000000] mounts a pair of Mk. 3 [/color]ER Medium Lasers[color=#000000] and a single Series 1 [/color]ER Small Laser[color=#000000].[/color]

And a Battlemech is a hardened target.

I like my Piranha better!

[Sifright]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

Sifright you do know the difference is between a laser and a bullet when it hits any target correct?

Bullets are designed to hit a target and cause damage to it.

Lasers are burning thru the target to cause damage.

If a laser hits a piece of armor it's going to still burn into it, causing a small amount of damage and burning the paint.

If a bullet hits that armor it's going to flatten and do a small bit of damage and leave a small little ding where the paint was.

Now if you take that same small laser and go from one side to another across the object it's going to do the same amount of damage just not in the same place, making it ultimately ineffective. Since the MG is designed to hit an area instead of a specific spot it does the dame thing, making it an ineffective weapon.

So in a combat situation like we're in both the SL and the MG are ineffective, so simply remove both of them.

wrong.

Small lasers splashed over a large area would do no damage because the absorbed thermal energy from the weapon would be distributed and dissipated by the armour before it's able to melt it.

Your lack of knowledge is showing through.

but this isn't real life.

I don't want realism in this game.

Otherwise I'm going to be asking for tanks to be introduced and for weapon ranges to not be stupid.

Realism arguments have no place in this game.

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 10:47 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Sifright I'm not against light mechs being usable. I love my Jenner especially playing Conquest mode where it's the most effective in it's role. What I'm stating is that it's pointless to have an MG on a mech because it's armor is too thick for it to do any real damage to said mech, even on the thin armor a light mech carries, let alone against something like an Atlas.

Right. Research on them intarwebz, and someone more BT-savvy than me please do correct me if I'm wrong here, tells me that the JR7-F has a stock frontal CT armour value of 15 (TT values here).

That would require 5 shots (rounds) from a single Small Laser to strip.
It would also require 8 shots (rounds) from a single MG to strip.
It would also require 8 shots (rounds) from a single AC/2 to strip.


Those MGs also deliver bonus damage against infantry, of course, but against mechs they do 2/5 the damage of a medium laser. A pair of them, to match tonnage, does 4/5 of the damage of a MLAS. They match the damage/ton of a SRM2.

A Piranha, boating twelve MGs, only needs to hit with 8 of them to strip that JR7-F CT in a single round of shooting (I'm aware of the improbability of landing 8 shots on CT in one round, but this is purely demonstrative of the ability to cause damage to mechs). Infact, according Sarna the MGs in question are:

"..are a serious threat on such a speedy 'Mech to any foe, especially if a Star of Piranhas operate in a pack. They are most deadly, however, to unarmored infantry, capable of wiping out an entire company in seconds."

Bolded element for emphasis. Better at killing infantry =/= cannot harm mechs.


Infact, if an MG burst can't hurt a Mech, then neither can not only an AC/2 but neither can a lone SRM (or SSRM).

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2013 - 10:44 AM, said:

12. It takes 12 MGs to make that Mech respectable.

12 MGs=24 damage 0 heat
6 Clan ER Small Lasers=30 damage, 12 heat Or 0 heat with 10 clan doubles. and double the range!
this

I like my Piranha better!

So because you would elect to replace the MGs with Lasers MGs should be nerfed from 'bad' to 'worse than if they didn't exist' bad?

Never mind the fact that, in terms of non-Omni IS mechs in MWO you can't make that Piranha. It has 12 ballistic slots, you cannot physically put those lasers in. Likewise I cannot swap the MGs+ton ammo on my RVN-4X for another pair of medium lasers. They do not fit.

TL:DR - We still need a viable light mech ballistic. A buffed MG is still the most logical solution. It being able to damage mech armour is still canonical.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 06 February 2013 - 10:55 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sifright, on 06 February 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

WEAPON IN PICTURE WEIGHS LESS THAN BTECH MG.

Seriously dude.

The BTech writers had no idea how much **** should weigh.

Based on the fact that it weighs half a tonne.

and does damage to mechs in TT.

The MG should actually be called something else. Btech writers were ignorant.

They new exactly how much stuff should weigh to fit their game.

And has been written off as being less powerful that we think come 2750.

The Abrams main gun(120mm) is said to be less powerful than a AC2. thanks to improvements in armor technology and materials.

[Sifright]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

They new exactly how much stuff should weigh to fit their game.

And has been written off as being less powerful that we think come 2750.

The Abrams main gun(120mm) is said to be less powerful than a AC2. thanks to improvements in armor technology and materials.

yet you keep describing a half tonne weapon as a .50 cal

our ability to destroy **** always increases at a pace beyond our ability to protect anything.

[KuruptU4Fun]

I'm not completely understanding why an A/C 2 using a single bullet wouldn't do any more damage than a MG firing for X amount of time would. All I know is that one is much better as a sniping type weapon from 200 meters away. The other is completely ineffective at the same range due to it's cone of fire.

[DEN_Ninja]

Y'all need to stop arguing about realism. It has NO PLACE IN A SCIENCE FICTION UNIVERSE.

What the main focus of this should be is HOW TO BALANCE THE MG.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Sifright, on 06 February 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

yet you keep describing a half tonne weapon as a .50 cal

our ability to destroy **** always increases at a pace beyond our ability to protect anything.

That's one point I completely agree with.

[CDLord HHGD]

Ok, so FROM THE BOOK, here is the MG, AC2, and SM Laser. Plus all the others for comparison.

Machine Guns ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN SMALL LASERS! Trade off is weight. Sm. Laser .5 ton, MG+ammo 1.5 tons.
Machine Guns DO THE SAME DAMAGE AS AC/2! Trade off is range. MG is very limited, AC/2 is long distance.

Discrepancies for FPS gameplay. You don't get 200 MG bursts with 200 ammo/ton. Pick a number, lets say 10 round bursts. So, the MG does 2 damage 20 times with 1 ton of ammo. Doesn't sound bad. But now we have to break it down farther. Per round, that is .2 damage. .2x10=2 So with a damage of .2 per round, you can now figure the MG's damage with RoF DoT. So, if I read correctly, I'd say the MG is due for a damage buff and an ammo nerf. Machine guns currently carry 1000 rounds per ton, not 200 that the lore says. All ammo consuming weapons have had their quantities increased, just not as much. So, drop it down to 400 rounds (higher than 200 per lore like everything else, but less than 1000). IMHO the Lore supports the damage buff argument.

EDIT: It's a book so there is a typo in SL damage. Supposed to be "1" NOT "13".......

Edited by cdlord, 06 February 2013 - 10:57 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Tichorius Davion, on 06 February 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Y'all need to stop arguing about realism. It has NO PLACE IN A SCIENCE FICTION UNIVERSE.

What the main focus of this should be is HOW TO BALANCE THE MG.

The only way you're going to be able to balance an MG to be effective against a mech is to put it on par with a ML or an A/C 5 and not an SL. Or simply remove it completely because based on the canon it's coming from, it's stated it's useless against mechs.

[Thirdstar]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

The only way you're going to be able to balance an MG to be effective against a mech is to put it on par with a ML or an A/C 5 and not an SL. Or simply remove it completely because based on the canon it's coming from, it's stated it's useless against mechs.

That's perfectly fine by me. It's better than having an utterly useless weapon system in the game.

[Joseph Mallan]

You know the reason a MG weighs a 1/2 ton? it's a game and the DEVs decided it. Right now the DEVs have decided MGs are not for hardened targets in MWO. If they change their minds, I will have to accept that change. For now they are on the same side of the fence I am. For now its up to others to accept the DEVs decision.

I point out that the Guardian "should not" block SSRMs, But it does. I work with what I got, until such a time that they change the rules for their game.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Cdlore, the only thing your chart doesn't take into account is the MG, is not a point to point weapon like an A/C 2 or SL. It has a cone of fire that spreads damage out over more than one area, the other point is that those MG buffs will do damage to the internal structure. Otherwise you're spot on

[DocBach]

Tichorius Davion, on 06 February 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Y'all need to stop arguing about realism. It has NO PLACE IN A SCIENCE FICTION UNIVERSE.

What the main focus of this should be is HOW TO BALANCE THE MG.

The machine gun is a tool in Battletech to kill infantry and soft targets. If you are using a machine gun as your main weapons and wondering why it isn't working, its because you are using the wrong tool for the job.







If you want to level your Spider 5K or Raven 4X, ignore the ballistics slots and carry better lasers. Those are tools designed to kill Battlemechs.

[DEN_Ninja]

So the Ballistic Slots on all Lights are effectively useless because no self respecting light pilot will put an AC/2 on it.

I would rather have a half decently balanced MG then none at all because I don't want my light to be purely limited to medium lasers and streak srm 2.

[Gaan Cathal]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

They new exactly how much stuff should weigh to fit their game.

Conversely, they knew exactly how much damage stuff should to to mechs to fit their game. In the case of the MG that is as much as a single SRM.

As an aside, regarding our disagreement over what the 'MG' represents in equivalent terms (modern MG vs modern Vulcan) the Piranha apparently carries "Series XII Rotary Machine Guns" which sound (and look, from the image on Sarna, but I don't know how much weight those pictures hold as regards 'canon fact') like a rotary cannon for an aircraft equivalent to me, barring the (IMO erroneous) 'machine gun' tag.

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

The only way you're going to be able to balance an MG to be effective against a mech is to put it on par with a ML or an A/C 5 and not an SL. Or simply remove it completely because based on the canon it's coming from, it's stated it's useless against mechs.

It doesn't state that anywhere I've seen. Infact, as has been pointed out, it has a damage stat. In Mech-to-Mech combat.

And I don't know where you're getting this 'ML or AC/5' stuff from, no-one wants a MLAS-damage 0-heat weapon in the game. It's a supplementary weapon which can work as a primary when massed, that's all.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 06 February 2013 - 11:09 AM.

[Sifright]

DocBach, on 06 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

The machine gun is a tool in Battletech to kill infantry and soft targets. If you are using a machine gun as your main weapons and wondering why it isn't working, its because you are using the wrong tool for the job.






If you want to level your Spider 5K or Raven 4X, ignore the ballistics slots and carry better lasers. Those are tools designed to kill Battlemechs.

you are a cretin.

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 11:07 AM.

[FupDup]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2013 - 11:02 AM, said:

Right now the DEVs have decided MGs are not for hardened targets in MWO.

Those are the only targets in MWO...


And how exactly is one supposed to fill up all 4 ballistic slots on a Spider 5K without using a single MG? The other smallest ballistic weapon is the AC/2, and those are 6 tons each. 4 of them means you would need 24 tons to fill up all of a 5K's ballistic hardpoints without using a single MG. That leaves you 6 tons left over for ammo, armor, and engine...um okay.

Edited by FupDup, 06 February 2013 - 11:09 AM.