139 replies to this topic

[Znail]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

As I already mentioned.. that spider can destroy components faster than your jenner can kill

what's more helpful to your team.. one dead enemy mech, or two mechs with 80% of their firepower gone

That is not quite true. It will actually take a few seconds to clear an Atlas torso locations as they tend to have plenty of stuff in them. Wich pretty much matches the time it would take for a Jenner to kill an unarmoured Atlas. It is actually likely to take longer time to clear the torso's for the simple reason that it will be difficult to spend a perfect amount of time for each torso. This also leaves the arms, which means some energy weapons and even just 2 ERPPC is hardly harmless.

So, no, not even in ideal conditions are MG's really that good. They have been buffed to be better then nothing for those that have the balistic slots, but they are still worse off then mechs with other hardpoints.

[Carrioncrows]

Well I guess the only thing left to do is wait six months for the devs to come to the same conclusion most of us did here.

Good bye MG's and flamers.

[Gaan Cathal]

Carrioncrows, on 22 February 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Well I guess the only thing left to do is wait six months for the devs to come to the same conclusion most of us did here.

Good bye MG's and flamers.

My own playtesting does suggest that they managed not to nerf the MG's ability to be really, really irritating. So there's that. Excellent weapon for those who want to sink their ELO so they can stomp, then blame it on the weapon later. Valuable weapon role that.

[MustrumRidcully]

Roland, on 21 February 2013 - 04:37 PM, said:

No dude, because even the machine gun doesn't generate critical hits EVERY SINGLE TIME.
The effective damage for the machine gun, when you calculate the percentage of critical hits and the "damage" multiplier, is only around 2.5.

So that means 4 full seconds of CONCENTRATED fire (meaning you are allowed to just stand there and dump every single round into the exposed section), which is not actually going to happen in the real world... In practice, since you're gonna be running around and spraying fire, it's going to take significantly longer.

Oh, and it's only the case if it's the ONLY component in that section. If there are two components? Then that means the damage is gonna be spread over both of them.. which means that on average, it'll take around twice as long before either one of them accumulates the full damage required to destroy one.

So, if that target has, say, two ammo bins in that section and nothing else...Even standing perfectly still, it'll take around 8 full seconds of concentrated fire for either one to accumulate enough damage to destroy it because the "damage" is gonna spread over them both. And, since most folks don't just let you sit there and shoot exposed sections, that's really not ever gonna happen.

Seriously, it is not useful. You are fooling yourself.

Not to forget - a single AC/10, PPC, Gauss or AC/20 crit would take out one one bin (or any item basically) completely as well.

That doesn't help you on a Spider, but on a heavier mech that can use such weapons, it means the MG is still useless, as it doesn't really add much to your "crit-damage".

[MustrumRidcully]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

oh, I did the math...


33% of the time, no crit hit
25+14 = 39% of the time, one crit hit for 0.5 (0.04*12.5) damage ((0.39*(10*0.5) = 1.95 DPS)
14+8 = 22% of the time, two crit hits for a total of 1.0 (2*(0.04*12.5)) damage ((0.22*(10*1.0) = 2.2 DPS)
3+3 = 6% of the time, three crit hits for a total of 1.5 (3*(0.04*12.5)) damage ((0.06*(10*1.5) = 0.9 DPS)

total? 5.05 DPS against items

result.. one item destroyed every two seconds, on average per machine gun

two machine guns? one second per item.. four machine guns? half a second per item

of course that's under ideal circumstances.. you arent likely going to be able to get every round of the machine gun on the exposed internals..

4 MGs won't destroy 1 item every half second. They will likely destroy 4 items every 2 seconds. Due to the way the damage is spread, it will be spread close to evenly across all components. It may mean little difference, but if you consider that other weapons will destroy an item on the first crit...

It still leaves the problem that if you need 2/3 of all the damage you deal to destroy armour. Only the last third will hit internal and components. If you multiply the damage for the last 1/3, you will still never break even if you significantly lost on the first third.

The MG deals about 1/2 or 1/3 damage other weapons with its weight investment would deal (accounting for heat or ammo). That means the first 2/3, it needs twice the time. If the normal time is 2t, and the last third t, then the MGs will need 4t + 1/12th t for the same goal - destroying everything inside a component. That's still 4t vs 3t.
The only way for the MG to be genuinely useful here would be if there was a way to ensure that only the last 1/3 mattered for your job.

Mustrum "I believe I am repeating myself" Ridcully
Mustrum "I believe I am repeating myself" Ridcully

[Znail]

Thontor, on 22 February 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

not long at all, if the torso armor is gone, the four machine guns will only take half a second per item... so however many items there are, divide it by two and that's how many seconds it will take


true some atlases have heavy energy weapons in the arms, but most seem to have just a medium laser in each arm

But it takes 3 seconds for a Jenner to do 60 damage. Wich is aproximately what is needed for a kill on an unarmoured Atlas. So if there are more then 6 items spread out of the torso's so will it actually take longer for the MG to disable the Atlas. And that even assumes that you have pefect knowledge about how long you need to shoot at each torso to be done with it.

[Adrienne Vorton]

in one match all my 3 kills were made with MG´s... after softening up the targets with erppc´s,i fired 2MLAS+ 2 MG´s ... the MG´s got the kills... at least at those 3 targets i wouldn´t wanna have missed my MG´s

they are not great (anti infantry weapons after all) but i wouldn´t say they are entirely useless...

just like the LB10 (in MWO at least) MG´s are sidearms...so yes, MG-only mechs are not exactly damage dealers

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 23 February 2013 - 03:50 AM.

[Moromillas]

SpiralRazor, on 21 February 2013 - 05:52 PM, said:

You have no idea what you are talking about.

No, you have no idea what you are talking about.

See how annoying that is.

[Gaan Cathal]

Adrienne Vorton, on 23 February 2013 - 03:48 AM, said:

in one match all my 3 kills were made with MG´s... after softening up the targets with erppc´s,i fired 2MLAS+ 2 MG´s ... the MG´s got the kills... at least at those 3 targets i wouldn´t wanna have missed my MG´s

You're right. No way you'd've got those kills without those two tons of dead weight. Nosir.

Adrienne Vorton, on 23 February 2013 - 03:48 AM, said:

they are not great (anti infantry weapons after all) but i wouldn´t say they are entirely useless...

Stop. This. 2 Damage. AC/2. SRM. Etc, ETC. This has been done to ************* death.

[Carrioncrows]

shintakie, on 21 February 2013 - 08:28 PM, said:

You have to think of this in the larger picture than that though. Bringin a 4 MG spider/Cicada to the match absolutely can help you strip enemy equipment, sure. However to do that your team will have 1 mech that is quite literally useless except as a distraction for the entirety of the fight that its not tryin to strip internals.

Against equally skilled teams (which elo is meant to do), the team that brings the Spider to the fight will be outgunned by the opponents up to the point that your team can start fully strippin armor from the other team.

edit



How exactly is a weapon that runs out of ammo after 20 seconds of continuous fire remotely comparable to a laser, especially a laser that has over twice the effective range and no bullet spread? Add on 3 more and a ton of ammo lasts all of 5 seconds. 5 seconds of bullet spread and 90m of effective range.

That totally sounds comparable to a medium laser doesnt it? Oh...wait. No it doesn't. Even if you want to compare it to that, the amount of crit spaces you'd need to devote to ammo would be horrendous, not to mention the weight. You'd quite literally be turnin your mech into a gigantic walkin bomb just waitin for a lucky crit to send the mech sky high.

It does and you know what? It's INFINITELY better than what we have now.

AC20 has 7 shots a ton. That's 28 secs of ammo.

Would you pack 2 AC20's and only have 1 ton of ammo? No, so why would you do it with machineguns.

Machineguns are 90m point blank weapons. If you are using them full time you best pack ammo for it otherwise they make a nice DPS dump.

Now you don't have to but taking 4 machine guns with 1 ton of ammo would indeed be 8 dps a sec and only 5 secs of ammo. But you'd also pump out 40 damage in 5 secs.

For 3 tons that is an amazing amount of DPS.

[Asmosis]

I'm running large energy weapons on my K2 currently (switching between LL, LPL and PPC) and the machine guns serve their purpose.

For my config its not even about the crit damage, its just about keeping the mech lit up so he can't see how much damage hes taking. Its also zero heat so if they panic and turn away, i can stop firing the LL's and cool down a bit and they wont even know. Some pilots do crack and panic when they take constant damage regardless of how much it is (or isnt in case of MG's).

With a single ton of ammo i can keep them firing almost the entire time im engaged too so its a pretty decent investment for 2 tons.

Edited by Asmosis, 24 February 2013 - 04:24 AM.

[Carrioncrows]

Or you could just get 2 more heat sinks and do more damage over the length of the engagement and spend less time cooling down.

[Adrienne Vorton]

Gaan Cathal, on 24 February 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

You're right. No way you'd've got those kills without those two tons of dead weight. Nosir.

i was close to a shutdown at the last one...so yes,getting that kill if i wanted to keep on moving and not being a standing focus target would have been not as easy with any other weapon... waiting a few seconds would have enabled him to run to cover and maybe to his friends... say what you want, but the MG´s did their freakin job in that situation...

btw: as far as i can see, most AC´s deal about 4-5 dps... thats 10X as much as an MG... BUT... AC´s weigh up to 28!!! times as much (AC20, 5 dps)...for the same (10) slots) and 9 tons less weight you could deal 1 dps less than an ac20 for NO heat, if you were allowed to boat MG´s... luckily we are not...

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 24 February 2013 - 04:53 AM.

[valrond]

From a gameplay POV, the machine gun is worthless. Not even the crit damage increase is worth anything because it still does almost no damage. The MG did 2 damage, same as an AC/2 and 1 less than a Small Laser. They should at least double, or better yet, triple the damage output of the weapon. It wouldn't still be a good weapon, but a viable one that had some uses.

As it is does 0.4 DPS. And that's counting that the whole second you keep the aim steady on the target. The damage is also sprayed all over the enemy mech. For comparison sake, the one weapon that did the same damage, the AC/2, does 4 damage per second. That's 10 times for a weapon with much longer range. Granted, it get hot and the MG does not, but still, it's 10 times the DPS.

Now, if you up the damage to 1.2, you could do, what, 12 damage in 10 seconds if you keep your aim steady during 10 seconds on target?. which just doesn't happen unless it's a huge immobile target. Even if you put 4 MGs, it's a max of 48 damage (more like 40 or less due to the target moving) in 10s, again, sprayed all over the target. That is something that would make the MG useful.


In real life, the MG would be a bigger GAU-8, the A10 cannon, that weighs 281 kg, a bit more than half the 500 kg the BT MG weighs:

http://en.wikipedia..../GAU-8_Avenger4

This thing was made to destroy tanks, so a bigger and more modern version of it should be able to deal some good damage to the 31st century walking tanks.

[Caviel]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 06:27 PM, said:

that Spider will have stripped every item from that Atlas's torso before the Jenner can fire his second shot...

That's assuming that someone with armor damaging weapons got the Atlas to that point that the MGs had their opportunity to shine. That's the MechWarrior equivalent of letting the Spider pilot ahead of you in line at the grocery store because they only have two items compared to your shopping cart full of stuff.

Signal27, on 21 February 2013 - 06:34 PM, said:

I'm not too proud or ashamed to admit that I was driving an Atlas, got my back armor stripped off, and then a Spider snuck up behind me and tore me a new @$$hole with a machine gun(s). I didn't die but a lot of my weapons and heat sinks went red.

Granted, It's just one case of anecdotal evidence, but I'm starting to become a believer.

I'm not any closer, another mech had to do the heavy lifting for the Spider to becoming annoying and actually be useful. My question is, why didn't the mech that stripped off the rear armor finish the job? Or the bigger point, if that Spider was carrying lasers, or was a bigger light mech that could pack small or medium lasers and SRMs, you would have been dead and not just mostly disabled.

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 06:53 PM, said:

kills and damage aren't everything

Stripping items helps the team win, by reducing the amount of damage the enemy can dish out.

Disabled mechs do help your team, but dead mechs deal no damage.

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

As I already mentioned.. that spider can destroy components faster than your jenner can kill

Yes, although it's still dead after the Jenner's three seconds which is still better than a partially or even fully disabled opponent. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I would much rather devote the tonnage on my mechs to weapons that are useful all the time that can kill anything, anytime, over a weapon that is only good for destroying items once more useful weapons have already stripped off the armor.

Quote

what's more helpful to your team.. one dead enemy mech, or two mechs with 80% of their firepower gone

The third option you are not acknowledging of two dead mechs.

Destroyed mech > disabled mech.
Destroyed section > destroyed components.
Why is that so hard to understand?


I was in an optimal flanking situation last night in my Atlas and I was able to rear-core a PPC sniping Cataphract in about 3-4 seconds, taking out the entire array of weapons that mech had. Want to guess how many machine guns I had on my mech? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

Again for comparison:

Machine Gun Spider: Hey, it's the rear of an enemy mech that has no armor left!
Laser/missile light mech: Hey, it's the rear of an enemy mech!

Or if you prefer:


Machine Gun Spider: Hey, it's the rear of an enemy mech that has no armor left. I'm going to strip out his weapons!
Laser/missile light mech: Hey, it's the rear of an enemy mech that has no armor left. I'm going to take the mech down!

[MustrumRidcully]

Caviel, on 25 February 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

That's assuming that someone with armor damaging weapons got the Atlas to that point that the MGs had their opportunity to shine. That's the MechWarrior equivalent of letting the Spider pilot ahead of you in line at the grocery store because they only have two items compared to your shopping cart full of stuff.



I'm not any closer, another mech had to do the heavy lifting for the Spider to becoming annoying and actually be useful. My question is, why didn't the mech that stripped off the rear armor finish the job? Or the bigger point, if that Spider was carrying lasers, or was a bigger light mech that could pack small or medium lasers and SRMs, you would have been dead and not just mostly disabled.

Not "bigger" light mech. A Commando is 5 tons lighter and delivers more damage here.

[MaddMaxx]

Quote

Then what the XXXX is the point of them being in game.

A shot in the dark here. Perhaps a player has an extra Ballistics slot open, 1.5t of weight and just wants to run something with "NO added HEAT!"

I wish all these armchair developers would get together and build the "perfectly balanced" MechWarrior game. Instead of all this incessant "******* and moaning" about how the "others" are doing it all wrong.

[Caviel]

MaddMaxx, on 25 February 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

A shot in the dark here. Perhaps a player has an extra Ballistics slot open, 1.5t of weight and just wants to run something with "NO added HEAT!"

Can you even realistically see that happening? Have you really said to yourself in the mechlab:

"Let's see...I am into the 1.5 range for heat efficiency, plenty of ammo for all my missile launchers and AC/Gauss so that there's no way I could POSSIBLY run out without purposefully wasting shots, C.A.S.E where I need it, my armor is maxed out, no more energy hardpoints, can't use jump jets or ECM, and I still have a ballistic hardpoint I could fill, two criticals free, and 1.5 tons left. Hmm..."

It would still be a poor choice over more armor, ammo, heat sink, or other weapons. Unless you are energy weapon or heavy ballistic weapon boating, heat should not be a concern with your mech builds and any halfway decent in-match firing discipline.

Quote

I wish all these armchair developers would get together and build the "perfectly balanced" MechWarrior game. Instead of all this incessant "******* and moaning" about how the "others" are doing it all wrong.

It isn't about PGI doing it wrong/PGI bashing, it's trying to get the point across that the selling points of machine guns are so marginal and specialized they really shouldn't be considered in the min/maxing environment, even with the recent improvements.

If people really want to run machine guns for fun I'm certainly not looking to get in the way of that. I will label it sub-optimal for more competitive play or min/max focused builds, though. Said another way, I'm not saying machine guns are worthless (i.e. they have no value), I am just saying they are far enough down the priority chain that they'll never make it into one of my mech builds.

[Pyrrho]

There isn't enough Dakka in the world to silence the unending stream of incessant crap piling onto this thread.

Caviel, on 25 February 2013 - 10:52 AM, said:

If people really want to run machine guns for fun I'm certainly not looking to get in the way of that. I will label it sub-optimal for more competitive play or min/max focused builds, though. Said another way, I'm not saying machine guns are worthless (i.e. they have no value), I am just saying they are far enough down the priority chain that they'll never make it into one of my mech builds.

^--- you sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. I didn't peruse every reply in this thread, but this bit right here... this is all I think is important. You don't need/like it, you won't need/use it; I do, and I will.

[Jetfire]

Yeah, not even going to argue MG's deserve spots in min/max builds. The 3L will be king until that NARC spot can't hold an SSRM2 and that doesn't seem likely in the near future. The Jenner and Commando 2D are almost competitive with the 3L, but not quite. Spiders and Fleas are unlikely to have any sort of prayer until they can drop the speed caps and let Spiders really crank up the speed.

However, you can do some real damage in a Spider with 4 MG's now. I was pushing out 200+ before the tune and can now drop 300+ damage a match. The combination of speed, maneuverability and constant firepower is pretty effective for so few tons.

Again, does not compete with a 3L, with current MM, is not an effective mech for serious competition. It is however a lot of fun and a serious challenge to pilot.