443 replies to this topic

[Critical Fumble]

DocBach, on 06 February 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

Spoiler

This science fiction universe says that their machine guns are for anti-infantry and light vehicle duty only. I come from a knowledge base that lets me know that machine guns are useless in Battletech because the rules FASA decided to implement regarding them, so they'd most likely be useless in a Mechwarrior game as they aren't intended to be main weapons against other 'Mechs.
"The Machine Gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon, issuing a stream of bullets at a high rate of fire to cut down opposing soldiers. Vehicular-scale machine guns mounted on BattleMechs can lay low entire platoons in just a few passes thanks to their high rate of fire, though they are more commonly found on Combat Vehicles and ProtoMechs. These weapons are much heavier than those typically carried by infantry, but can be used by them when placed on a static mount, where they are called Support Machine Guns. Battle Armor can also carry machine guns, typically upgraded versions of infantry-support weapons, which can rival their larger vehicular-scale cousins." - Sarna.net (I hate using a wiki as a source but I'm at school right now and can't get to the actual books)
I'm not stuck on the name of the thing, I'm stuck on the intended purpose of the equipment.
If we're going to talk about weapons that could use a buff against critical items, why don't they look into making LB10-X pellets more effective against structure? That weapon is supposed to do critical damage to components by the source material, but its largely ineffective here.

Sorry, but quintessential does not mean exclusive. Quintessential means "A perfect example of". It does not mean that it can only do that one thing.

Now, in TT would you want to rush a mech to MG them up? Absolutely not. You're well within the kill zone for almost all the better weapons before you can even fire them, and then you have to worry about melee attacks as well. But, if you were to find yourself in MG range of a mech, you would fire them, because they cost no heat and do - wait for it - 2 damage on a mech hit.

Now if PGI had done hard points by weapon crits, or if they had actual critical hits, or if the grass were greener, we could pretend that having hardpoints you can't mount a decent weapon on isn't an issue; but it is.

[Gaan Cathal]

Kousagi, on 06 February 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

I guess you don't have a clue what the word Based on means.... Back in the 80's Lasers were still being researched, So no, they didn't know Exactly how lasers would work in 2013

Er...lasers in their complete and functional form were around in the 60's, with most major advances completed with the advent of the room-temperature diode laser in 1970. Since then it's all been refinement. And Einstein could and did tell you in 1917 the properties they would have in terms of coherence and particle composition (the only two factors affecting 'range').

Jack Corvus, on 06 February 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

Mechs are, at their core, extremely lightweight because they are built like people - a skeleton wrapped with muscles. In this case, electrically operated ones. An Atlas' frame only weighs ten tons, and it ends up weighing a hundred in the end because it 'wears' a multitude of weapon systems and armour like we wear organs and skin.

The adult male human skeleton weighs ~20% of total body mass by average in a healthy case, the larger the animal the more % is devoted to skeletal mass to support musculature. There are diminishing returns in effect here that provide an upper limit to animal size correlating fairly well with atmospheric oxygen content. This isn't really a refutation of your point of course, but if we want to get really technical the big stompy war mech is invalid not because of physics, but because of inherent design failures as a war machine. Tanks aren't as cool as big stompy war mechs, however, and thus Mechwarrior.

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

And yes, someone in the military has looked at the Hadron collider and said: "How can we use it to stop our enemies from doing us harm?".

Getting further and further off topic but that is possibly the most generous interpretation of high-level military thinking I've ever heard.

Thirdstar, on 06 February 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

No I really don't think so. Because that's not what a particle accelerator does. It simply isn't. They may be working towards weaponizing effects discovered or derivative research. But a particle accelerator as we know it? Not built for it. Which is what the person I quoted stated. If had injected some nuance into his argument I wouldn't have pounced on him so hard.

"there is a real life particle accelerator in the world right now. Its too big to be used as a weapon, and they are still trying to figure out how to make it a weapon"

There are particle accelerators that sit happily on the end of a car construction robot. They'd be weaponisable against soft targets in no time if a) soft targets were worth it and the power required vs kill time ratio wasn't infinitely better for a gun. Particle accelerators however are not particularly uncommon. Or necessarily huge.

Evidence: http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Cyberknife

DocBach, on 06 February 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

This science fiction universe says that their machine guns are for anti-infantry and light vehicle duty only. I come from a knowledge base that lets me know that machine guns are useless in Battletech because the rules FASA decided to implement regarding them, so they'd most likely be useless in a Mechwarrior game as they aren't intended to be main weapons against other 'Mechs.

And back on topic.

It doesn't say only though does it? It says better-than-at-killing-mechs. And no-one's asking them to be main anti-mech weapons any more than the small laser is. In the BT universe, battlemech-mounted machine guns are capable of damaging mechs. That's not disputable. They do barely less damage than a small laser.

Am I asking them to be leveled up to match in-game AC/2s? No, since AC/2s have benifited disproportionately from the overall damage buff weapons have received (and, incidentally, are a good example of why raw DPS doesn't make or break a weapon). Slightly worse than a small laser though, is reasonable.

And, again, we currently have 3 chassis variants rendered arbitrarily useless by the failure to correctly transcribe (i.e. in line with other weapons) from TT rules the only weapon one can reasonably expect to arm a substantial proportion of their hardpoints with. From a game design perspective that is just plain bad.

As canon-adherents are you really telling me that an AC/20 or AC/10-wielding RVN-4X is more lore-appropriate than one running a pair of lasers, an SRM and a pair of MGs? They're supposed to be auxiliary weapons, yes, but at the moment they're not even that.

[Sifright]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

One why are you yelling?

Two, ever seen a bullet go thru ballistic jelly?


This is what happens when a bullet hits steel plate (aka armor)

and that explains why the mg does the same damage as the AC/2 in TT.

Ahuh?

Keep hiding from the obvious.

[FupDup]

Real-life and canon logic aside, we still have the issue of a few light mechs (and a medium) that have a lot of ballistic hardpoints but no way to use them all on something other than MGs without severely gimping itself by using the smallest engine, minimal armor, most of its tonnage dedicated to just 1 or 2 Autocannons, etc. MGs as they stand pretty much just waste hard drive space and make the game take slightly longer to load. Either remove them (and replace them with something else of similar size but actually useful) or make them not garbage.

I don't really care what the weapon is, but we need something that can fill up all of the ballistic slots on the Spider 5K, Raven 4X, and the Cicada 3C. Would the canon fans mind if we made up an AC1 or something that weighs around 1-2 tons, did 0.5-1 damage per shot, 100 rounds per ton, etc. etc.?

Or, if we fast-forwarded to 3072, we could use the Magshot: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Magshot

Edited by FupDup, 06 February 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Sifright, on 06 February 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

and that explains why the mg does the same damage as the AC/2 in TT.

Ahuh?

Keep hiding from the obvious.

The obvious is I'm playing a video game dude, not the TT. You should go play MW: Tactics if you're looking for that kind of experience.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 06 February 2013 - 09:28 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

One why are you yelling?

Two, ever seen a bullet go thru ballistic jelly?


This is what happens when a bullet hits steel plate (aka armor)

ballistic jelly... that was cool.

When a bullet hits one inch of steel plate without the normal slant armored vehicles use to increase armored protection. Did I see 0 penetration of those bullets BTW...? Is armor made from Cold Rolled Steel? My inner Tool maker is asking.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 February 2013 - 09:31 AM.

[Esplodin]

I honestly don't understand all the negative passion about a MG buff. Anyone who thinks it is a dumb idea I DARE you (triple dog even!) to level a Spider 5K. I'm doing it and it is nasty, nasty business. Dumped a ton of ammo into the back of an Atlas with the 4 MG while I was being ignored. My ammo ran out, and the Atlas walked away.

So, what's a pilot to do in order to unlock elite for the moderately less (currently!) useless Spiders? Added another ton of ammo (for the prolonged dakka), and keep grinding the chassis 100 or 300 XP at a time.

[Sifright]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

The obvious is I'm playing a video game dude, not the TT. You should go play MW: Tactics if you're looking for that kind of experience.

U iz trollin

Machine guns are supposed to be useable against mechs stop being an asshole

any one stating machine guns should not be massively damage buffed is an asshole

why am I surrounded by assholes?

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 09:35 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

FupDup, on 06 February 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

Real-life and canon logic aside, we still have the issue of a few light mechs (and a medium) that have a lot of ballistic hardpoints but no way to use them all on something other than MGs without severely gimping itself by using the smallest engine, minimal armor, most of its tonnage dedicated to just 1 or 2 Autocannons, etc. MGs as they stand pretty much just waste hard drive space and make the game take slightly longer to load. Either remove them (and replace them with something else of similar size but actually useful) or make them not garbage.

I don't really care what the weapon is, but we need something that can fill up all of the ballistic slots on the Spider 5K, Raven 4X, and the Cicada 3C. Would the canon fans mind if we made up an AC1 or something that weighs around 1-2 tons, did 0.5-1 damage per shot, 100 rounds per ton, etc. etc.?

First paragraph is dead on, but why add a whole new ballistic so there's a useful one for those mechs when we already have a useless one? There is no point in having the MG in the game at the moment, so keeping it dead code and adding more code to validate those mechs is the least efficient solution to the problem.

Seriously. It fixes a hole in the game. It matches TT, where the devs are apparently deriving their design ethos. The fact that TT devs gave it an inappropriate name doesn't matter in the slightest in comparison with either factor.

[KuruptU4Fun]

@ Joseph, most armor used on tanks like the Abrams these days is ceramic/composite armor.
http://en.wikipedia..../Chobham_armour

[FupDup]

Gaan Cathal, on 06 February 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

First paragraph is dead on, but why add a whole new ballistic so there's a useful one for those mechs when we already have a useless one? There is no point in having the MG in the game at the moment, so keeping it dead code and adding more code to validate those mechs is the least efficient solution to the problem.

Seriously. It fixes a hole in the game. It matches TT, where the devs are apparently deriving their design ethos. The fact that TT devs gave it an inappropriate name doesn't matter in the slightest in comparison with either factor.

I only offered the choice of adding a new weapon as a compromise (i.e. to shut them up) for the crowd that is so passionate against an MG buff that it seems they were inappropriately touched by one in their childhood. I agree that the easiest/best approach would be to just buff the MG.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Sifright, on 06 February 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

Machine guns are supposed to be useable against mechs stop being an asshole

any one stating machine guns should be massively damage buffed is an asshole

why am I surrounded by assholes?

Hahaha that's funny because I point out that currently why an MG does not effectively do any damage to a mech (nor should it), and therefore I'm an ***. Well, personally I'd rather be an *** than being:
http://www.urbandict...ically%20Stupid

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 06 February 2013 - 09:40 AM.

[Sifright]

FupDup, on 06 February 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

I only offered the choice of adding a new weapon as a compromise (i.e. to shut them up) for the crowd that is so passionate against an MG buff that it seems they were inappropriately touched by one in their childhood. I agree that the easiest/best approach would be to just buff the MG.

At least some of the forum population isn't stupid thank god for that.

[Joseph Mallan]

Yup and over 1" thick. that was my point. this guy was using cold rolled steel from the look of it. I can tear that up with a hand drill!

Sound like the linked info would resist most things I use to cut steel with!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 February 2013 - 09:40 AM.

[Sifright]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

Hahaha that's funny because I point out that the MG does not effectively do any damage to a mech, and therefore I'm an ***. Well, personally I'd rather be an *** than being:
http://www.urbandict...ically%20Stupid

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

The sound of my point going over your head like a ballistic missile.

Every one knows machine guns in real life dont do **** to tank armour.

Battle tech machine guns aren't real life ones jerkwad.

They ARE supposed to be useful.

Stop being obtuse.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 February 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Yup and over 1" thick. that was my point. this guy was using cold rolled steel from the look of it. I can tear that up with a hand drill!

Sound like the linked info would resist most things I use to cut steel with!

It's how the damage is applied and what it's made out of, your drill does constant damage over time and is a hardened drill bit (I assume). A normal bullet hits a target and shatters because the armor is harder than the bullet, it also only hits that specific point only once. Now I'm sure you've seen armor piercing bullets that will tear thru that steel and then go completely thru what's under it.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Sifright, on 06 February 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

The sound of my point going over your head like a ballistic missile.

Every one knows machine guns in real life dont do **** to tank armour.

Battle tech machine guns aren't real life ones jerkwad.

They ARE supposed to be useful.

Stop being obtuse.

They are useful, as stated almost everywhere in technical readouts published, effective against infantry. Even vehicular scaled MG's are designed to kill infantry. Even the Heavy MG was an anti-infantry weapon. http://www.sarna.net...avy_Machine_Gun

MG's are a pointless weapon in this game or any other when you're shooting at an armored vehicle. So either PGI should remove them entirely since there is no infantry in this game. Or people should learn not to shoot them at something that will never be hurt by them.


Your obtuse point however can be countered by asking you what happens when you pee into the wind. The answer being YOU GET YOUR FEET WET.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 06 February 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[Sifright]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 09:52 AM, said:

They are useful, as stated almost everywhere in technical readouts published, effective against infantry. Even vehicular scaled MG's are designed to kill infantry. Even the Heavy MG was an anti-infantry weapon. http://www.sarna.net...avy_Machine_Gun

Your obtuse point however can be countered by asking you what happens when you pee into the wind. The answer being YOU GET YOUR FEET WET.

................... You are a miserable disgusting little pile of humanity.

You know there is no infantry in MWO why are you being such a prick?

You know there will never be any infantry.

You know that machine guns are supposed to be able to hurt other mechs.

******** troll :|

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

KuruptU4Fun, on 06 February 2013 - 09:45 AM, said:

It's how the damage is applied and what it's made out of, your drill does constant damage over time and is a hardened drill bit (I assume). A normal bullet hits a target and shatters because the armor is harder than the bullet, it also only hits that specific point only once. Now I'm sure you've seen armor piercing bullets that will tear thru that steel and then go completely thru what's under it.

Dependent on the thickness of armor and velocity of the round. Yeah. Word was our APCs would not stop a AK-47 round... Armored my dying Ash!

[Sifright]

ladies take your off topic conversation else where.

This is about the ingame MG and why it needs a buff to be useable. The discussion has already demonstrated that 'crit seeking' buffs will not do anything to make it a viable in game weapon.

Edited by Sifright, 06 February 2013 - 09:57 AM.