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.
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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.
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(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.