443 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Thirdstar, on 06 February 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

Amazed that you had the patience to reply to that. I just facedesked really hard.

I am still waiting for someone to suggest a Neutrino Cannon to disintegrate heavy armour.

[MustrumRidcully]

Kousagi, on 06 February 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

So, found Solaris rule book. Basically, by Mechwarrior RPG rules ( theres a note in it that they can be adapted to Battletech as level 3 rules if the GM so wishs) that each round is 2.5 seconds. MG's are one of the weapons that can fire every round, but so are small lasers.

So going by that, in MWO, small lasers had their "round" bumped to 3 seconds. So long as the MG is brought in around this same level, it should be fine. So with a damage buff to .066 per bullet its at 3 secs for 2 damage, or .08 per bullet for 2 damage in 2.5 secs.

Unfortunately, the Mechwarrior RPG / Solaris Ruleset basically breaks the entire weapon model from the table top. A Medium Laser can suddenly deal 10 damage and 6 heat in 10 seconds ,while a PPC is stuck with 10 damage and 10 heat. The power levels between weapons changes significantly. I don't know why the FASA guys didn't understand math. Maybe because they didn't have calculators or Excel back then....

[HC Harlequin]

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

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.

heh.. you are comparing a 30mm Vulcan autocannon to a 7.62 COAX?

[Sifright]

HC Harlequin, on 07 February 2013 - 01:16 AM, said:

heh.. you are comparing a 30mm Vulcan autocannon to a 7.62 COAX?

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

[Lykaon]

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.

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.

This idea is painfully stupid.Bypassing armor..bah sheer idiocy!

[Sifright]

Lykaon, on 07 February 2013 - 03:17 AM, said:

This idea is painfully stupid.Bypassing armor..bah sheer idiocy!

Yeeeeeeeep

[Trauglodyte]

stjobe, on 06 February 2013 - 03:27 PM, said:

I don't agree and I don't appreciate you stating this as fact when you just finished lecturing me on needing to state "in my opinion".

What is a "tertiary weapon" anyway? For a Locust, with a Medium Laser and two MGs, the MGs are secondary weapons, not tertiary. For a Thunderbolt, with a Large Laser, LRM-15, 3 Medium Lasers, a SRM-2, and 2 MGs, they may be tertiary, but putting it in a blanket statement like that is being just a little bit dishonest.

The AC/2 does ten times the damage of the MG currently. My proposal would reduce that to only doing about three times as much - and with a much reduced range at that, and a lot higher spread due to higher rate of fire.

That's why I'm deliberately leaving out the crit damage buff any time I present my opinion of how to buff the MG. I don't think it needs a crit damage buff, just a damage buff. "Crit weapons" are a bad idea from the get-go, in my opinion.

Any light 'mech with a ballistic slot (yes, currently only two, but the Flea is on its way and I'm sure there'll be more) depend on them to not be gimped. Many mediums with ballistic slots could use a viable secondary weapon as well.

I used the term "tertiary" in the scope of weapons used by the mechs available in the current MWO universe. But, you're right, mechs in TT often use the MG as its primary weapon. And Mallan is correct in his quoted statement below that the CDA-3C is one of the few mechs where the MG isn't used or quoted in fluff as being used for anti-infantry.

The point that I was trying to make is that, in this game, only the Spider 5K, Cicada 3C, and the soon to be introduced Flea are reliant upon the MG. And, as I stated before, if you bump the MG up to 0.075 damage per round, you end up 0.75dps and 150 damage per ton of ammo like every other ballistic weapon in game. Add to that a crit damage boost and you've got a light weapon that has some punch that is close to that of its energy cousin, the Light Laser, and is dangerous when armor is stripped.

Would I love the MG to do 4dps? Hell yes I would. Am I behind you and others in their desire to get the weapon buffed? Hell yes I am. But I'm willing to meet PGI in the middle by giving the weapon a bit of a kick, balancing it by way of damage per ton of ammo, and taking a slightly reduced crit bonus. I'd really like my 3C to be somewhat acceptable without going to stupid extremes of dumping Auto Cannons on it. And I'm sure Spider and soon to be Flea drivers would like their machine guns to be something more than just empty hard points.

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

You know the Cicada is the only Mech with Machine Guns that does not specify they are for Anti-infantry use...? That I have read yet.

[CECILOFS]

I can see the MG doing the same dps as a small laser, the balancing factor being you need ammo vs heat sinks for the small laser.

Possibly adjust the amount of ammo per ton and/or the rate it gets consumed to balance further.

[stjobe]

Trauglodyte, on 07 February 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

I used the term "tertiary" in the scope of weapons used by the mechs available in the current MWO universe. But, you're right, mechs in TT often use the MG as its primary weapon. And Mallan is correct in his quoted statement below that the CDA-3C is one of the few mechs where the MG isn't used or quoted in fluff as being used for anti-infantry.

Nobody has claimed the MG is a primary weapon, I specifically referenced the Locust as having two MGs as secondary weapons to its main armament, the Medium Laser.

And Joe has some irrational aversion to MGs since his TT days, him and me have been over that ground a few times now - he always stripped them off his 'mechs, I always used them to good effect on mine. That the lore references anti-infantry is such a big red herring it's almost too big to see. The MGs could be anti-horse weapons in the lore for all I care, the game mechanics that lore supplements still say the MG does 2 points of damage to a 'mech, and therefore they are anti-'mech weapons.

Trauglodyte, on 07 February 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

The point that I was trying to make is that, in this game, only the Spider 5K, Cicada 3C, and the soon to be introduced Flea are reliant upon the MG.

So it's okay to have these suck because it's only a few variants? Wouldn't it be better to have these variants be viable by making the MG viable?

Trauglodyte, on 07 February 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

And, as I stated before, if you bump the MG up to 0.075 damage per round, you end up 0.75dps and 150 damage per ton of ammo like every other ballistic weapon in game. Add to that a crit damage boost and you've got a light weapon that has some punch that is close to that of its energy cousin, the Light Laser, and is dangerous when armor is stripped.

At 0.75 DPS the MG isn't "close to [...] the Light Laser", it's vastly inferior and not worth mounting. No amount of crit bonus is going to make a MG worth mounting if it's ineffective by design for the first three quarters of a match.

Trauglodyte, on 07 February 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

Would I love the MG to do 4dps? Hell yes I would.

Nobody is arguing for a 4 DPS MG. Stop insinuating that.

Trauglodyte, on 07 February 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

Am I behind you and others in their desire to get the weapon buffed? Hell yes I am. But I'm willing to meet PGI in the middle by giving the weapon a bit of a kick, balancing it by way of damage per ton of ammo, and taking a slightly reduced crit bonus. I'd really like my 3C to be somewhat acceptable without going to stupid extremes of dumping Auto Cannons on it. And I'm sure Spider and soon to be Flea drivers would like their machine guns to be something more than just empty hard points.

Why, if you're willing to have the MG become a viable weapon, are you muddying the waters with your talk about a 4 DPS MG? Why are you so fast to write the MG off because it only affects two current 'mechs?

[Trauglodyte]

Cause I think it is ludicrous to bump it up 3x the current dps like you want. Just like I think it is rediculous to reference that the MG did 2 damage in TT just like the AC/2. I don't think that the 5K or 3C should suck because of the MG. In fact, I'm all for a boost to the MG. Your issue, apparently, is that I'm not on board with your decision to make it stronger than the Small Laser because it doesn't have a cool down.

[Gaan Cathal]

Trauglodyte, on 07 February 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

Cause I think it is ludicrous to bump it up 3x the current dps like you want. Just like I think it is rediculous to reference that the MG did 2 damage in TT just like the AC/2. I don't think that the 5K or 3C should suck because of the MG. In fact, I'm all for a boost to the MG. Your issue, apparently, is that I'm not on board with your decision to make it stronger than the Small Laser because it doesn't have a cool down.

How about 0.9 DPS?

Seriously though, arguing about very specific numbers is fairly pointless in these sorts of threads, PGI aren't going to just glance in a thread and copy-pasta the numbers into the live build. They'll run them on their test servers and adjust them as needed, or leave them as is and send someone to tell us he used the up-damaged ones to rear-core an Atlas in three seconds.

Direct comparison between the small laser and MG is problematic anyway because they use different hardpoints. By design there is no point at which you should be debating whether to fit a small laser or a machine gun. This is especially true given that the energy weapon slot has low-weight alternatives to the small laser (SPLAS, MLAS, MPLAS) and there's no similar alternative to the machine gun. The weapon fitting dynamic in MWO isn't solely dependant on damage/tonnage/slots/heat. Right now the fact that the SLAS, abominably crap through it is, is infinitely better than an MG matters exactly nil to my RVN-4X because I can't put a SLAS in the damn ballistic hardpoints. If there was an MLAS equivalent ballistic, folks would just be fitting that and the MG would languish with the SLAS, but at least the mechs would be usable.

[ICEFANG13]

Small Laser, higher burst damage (easier to use overall, easier to torso twist too), range 90-180, .5 tons, 1 slot, really no heat alone (2/3 HPS)=DPS 1, damage 3

Machine Gun, no burst damage at all (have to keep on target the whole time, no twist at all), range 90-200, .5 tons (plus 1 ammo min), 1 slot (plus 1 ammo min), has no heat at all=damage .04 and DPS .4

Ok so if I said, damage .1 and DPS 1, who here would start bringing MGs on any mechs OTHER than the ones that can carry 4 and go really fast? I mean I agree with this minimum, at least DPS 1 needs to happen. I made a lot of suggestions for changes for my MG thread already why it could be a better weapon for every class and ballistics if we changed it to 2 DPS and nerfed it in other ways (weight, heat, ammo) it to make it a close range weapon that everyone would consider using for a back-up. Right now, NO one should use it, at DPS 1, 2 mechs will, and maybe a couple others, at DPS 2 (and nerfs as well, I do not want a DPS 2 MG like it is right now), a lot of mechs could consider it for close range protection and a back up weapon.

Lets just remove it otherwise, it would be so humorous to see Spider-5Ks and Raven-4Xs and Cicada-3Cs have nothing at all (woo fear my medium laser, 2 medium laser SRM-6, PPC builds of doom). I don't get all the dislike to make it a real weapon. Why would we even want it in the game then?

[Ashnod]

Mg's need a cool down and should deal 2 damage or a rapid burst of 2 total damage

[Joseph Mallan]

Something that just came to me.
We are trying to get a 0.5 ton Ballistic weapon to do comparable damage A ballistic weapon that in the MMO is doing 4 damage per second and weighs 6.0 tons (12 times its size). Weapon damage increases with size.
To make the weapon do comparable damage to a small laser, it should do no more than 0.66 damage per second (2/3). Then it would be in line with how much damage its energy counter part is doing.

[Unemployed]

Damn, now that I think about it, the last time I took out a mech with MGs was in Mech Assault.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Something that just came to me.
We are trying to get a 0.5 ton Ballistic weapon to do comparable damage A ballistic weapon that in the MMO is doing 4 damage per second and weighs 6.0 tons (12 times its size). Weapon damage increases with size.
To make the weapon do comparable damage to a small laser, it should do no more than 0.66 damage per second (2/3). Then it would be in line with how much damage its energy counter part is doing.

Nobody's trying to make the MG into what the AC/2 is, we're just using the AC/2 to counter your arguments that the MG shouldn't do damage to 'mechs. It does, in TT, do just as much as an AC/2. Nobody wants the MWO MG to do as much damage as the MWO AC/2. That would be horribly overpowered.

And as for the SL comparison - I've been trying to tell you (and others) in a multitude of posts in quite a number of threads that you can't just look at the raw DPS number.

The Small Laser does its damage over 0.75 seconds - during those 0.75 seconds it has an effective DPS of 4 - with a 2.25 second cooldown (during which it has an effective DPS of 0), so when you measure over an extended period of time the effective DPS becomes 1.

The MG is a continuous-fire weapon, meaning it has no cooldown. It also has a very high rate of fire at 10 rounds a second. If you fire a 0.66 DPS MG for 0.75 seconds it will only do 0.495 damage - a sixth of the damage the Small Laser does in the same time frame.

In ten seconds, a Small Laser does 12 damage in four 0.75s beams. In ten seconds, a 0.66 DPS MG would only manage 6.6 damage, just over half the damage of the Small Laser, and needing to be held on target for over three times as long (10 second versus 3 seconds for the Small Laser.

So you see the comparison isn't as easy as just saying it should do 2/3rds of the Small Laser DPS - if you use those numbers you'll end up giving the MG only half the DPS of the Small Laser.

The continuous-fire mechanic of the MG means it needs a higher raw DPS number to do the same effective DPS as a direct-damage or beam weapon.

And that's not even going into stuff like the MG needing 100% time on target to deliver its full DPS whereas the Small Laser only needs 25% time on target to deliver its full DPS, or the extension of that meaning that you can't twist away to avoid incoming damage, maneouvre to get a better shot angle etc etc.

[One Medic Army]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Something that just came to me.
We are trying to get a 0.5 ton Ballistic weapon to do comparable damage A ballistic weapon that in the MMO is doing 4 damage per second and weighs 6.0 tons (12 times its size). Weapon damage increases with size.
To make the weapon do comparable damage to a small laser, it should do no more than 0.66 damage per second (2/3). Then it would be in line with how much damage its energy counter part is doing.

Personally, I'd love it if there was a 1-2ton ballistic with low range, but since we're only using period appropriate BT weapons we're stuck with .5ton MGs and 6ton AC/2s. Unless we bring in the *most definitely not for mech combat* light rifle, that is.

It's an unfortunate side effect of the current hardpoint system that there's just no decent low-weight options for ballistics, and PGI has exacerbated it by creating light chassis with stupidly large numbers of ballistic hardpoints.

[Thirdstar]

One Medic Army, on 07 February 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

It's an unfortunate side effect of the current hardpoint system that there's just no decent low-weight options for ballistics, and PGI has exacerbated it by creating light chassis with stupidly large numbers of ballistic hardpoints.

Ultimately, THIS is the problem. Everything else stems from this issue, not the other way around.

[ICEFANG13]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Something that just came to me.
We are trying to get a 0.5 ton Ballistic weapon to do comparable damage A ballistic weapon that in the MMO is doing 4 damage per second and weighs 6.0 tons (12 times its size). Weapon damage increases with size.
To make the weapon do comparable damage to a small laser, it should do no more than 0.66 damage per second (2/3). Then it would be in line with how much damage its energy counter part is doing.

So if I brought 4 I would have a DPS of 2+2/3? I would probably still bring an A/C-2 with much more range and a little more weight.

Small Lasers are not bad, Medium Lasers are far above average. I mean 2 Smalls will out damage and out DPS a Medium by a lot, and it weighs the same but has 2 weapon slots and 2 slots and less range.

To compare, a MG would weigh .5 tons and to the A/C-2, at 6, would have to have a DPS of .4, which is what its at right now. That's probably where they get that number from.

Small Laser=DPS 1
Medium Laser=DPS 1.25

2 Smalls vs 1 Medium (same weight)= 2/1.25 ratio
12 MGs vs 1 A/C-2 (same weight)= X/4 ratio

12X.4=4.8
4.8/4=2/1.25 (very nearly) to be dead on you would need another 4 MGs, which weigh more than 1 A/C-2 and of course getting 16 ballistic hardpoints on a mech (is there even a mech with 16 different weapons right now in MW stuff?) is insane.

Of course when you look at that, I mean we can only get a third/quarter of that. MGs have to be buffed, at a terrible minimum (even with crit seeking poop) to .533® to be even on weight. Now of course lasers and ballistics don't have to be even, but its a good place for seeking balance to start.

Now you have to factor in the amount of slots. At which you currently need 16 MGs to even the DPS ratio of (MG-A/C-2)/(SL-ML) at which you get a terrible ratio of 16/1 (MG vs A/C-2) vs 2/1 (Smalls to Mediums) To be perfectly even on slots, the MG would have to deal 2 DPS.

I suppose if we took an average at an attempt to start balance you would have (2+.5333)/2=1.2+(2/30)

I mean at .66 we are at half that and its only barely above the current .533 based on weight balance. And then there is the factor of how MGs require constant aim and limit your movement, as well as having the 2nd worst range in game right now (by 20 meters).

[Joseph Mallan]

Quote

[color=#959595]In ten seconds, a Small Laser does 12 damage in four 0.75s beams. In ten seconds, a 0.66 DPS MG would only manage 6.6 damage, just over half the damage of the Small Laser, and needing to be held on target for over three times as long (10 second versus 3 seconds for the Small Laser.[/color]

Ok...0.8 per second. that is 2/3 the damage of a Small laser.

Now... Explain why 6 tons of machine guns should be able to do more than twice as much damage as a 6 ton Auto Cannon in 10 seconds? 12 MGs in 10 seconds=96 damage 1 AC2 in 10 seconds=40...

i think THIS is what the Devs are trying to keep from happening. At a 0.4 DPS a MG does 4 points in 10 seconds or 24 points with 6 tons, compared to an AC2 (which fires a DU armor piercing round of much greater mass) which is still doing 40 in ten seconds. I think that is actually a good balance.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 07 February 2013 - 10:59 AM.