139 replies to this topic

[General Taskeen]

Splinters, on 21 February 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

I think they have a place now in an organized group

-S

What if a new player comes in and tries the future latest flavor Trial Mech SPD-5K? They just want to try the game, but should they be forced into an organized group to make their MG useful?

[Roland]

Folks seem to be under the mistaken impression that "crit damage" actually does something against internal structure.
It doesn't. It's just damage to internal components.

It doesn't help you destroy a section, even after all of its armor is gone.

[ElLocoMarko]

Znail, on 21 February 2013 - 01:28 PM, said:

...
PS. I have to retract some earlier posts where I suggested that MG damage should be doubled, but I actually over valued the current damage. It is 0.04 and I thought it was 0.4. It is more like a ~20 times buff is what is needed.

You had it right the first time. It currently is 0.4 damage per second because it is 10 shots per second. x20 and you now have an 8 DPS weapon for zero heat. But it looks like you wanted 0.8 DPS... OK.

Edited by ElLocoMarko, 21 February 2013 - 01:45 PM.

[Roland]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

It does if there's ammo or a gauss rifle in that component

If you are able to hold a machine gun on target for 4 full seconds, then you may have destroyed that component... as long as it was the only one in that section.

THAT IS NOT USEFUL.

[Znail]

ElLocoMarko, on 21 February 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

Dude. It currently is 0.4 DAMAGE PER SECOND because it is 10 shots per second. x20 and you now have an 8 DPS weapon for zero heat. That seems a bit much...

I heared differently, but it should be possible to try it out I guess.

[Bhael Fire]

Roland, on 21 February 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

Folks seem to be under the mistaken impression that "crit damage" actually does something against internal structure.
It doesn't. It's just damage to internal components.

It doesn't help you destroy a section, even after all of its armor is gone.

A mech engine is an internal component.

[Vassago Rain]

Roland, on 21 February 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

If you are able to hold a machine gun on target for 4 full seconds, then you may have destroyed that component... as long as it was the only one in that section.

THAT IS NOT USEFUL.

Also, the 'may.' You 'may' destroy the thing in question. Or you don't do anything, even after you hold your gun on it for 10 seconds.

Because it's luck based.

Bhael Fire, on 21 February 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

A mech engine is an internal component.

Engines don't take damage, period. It's not implemented. How can you have been around this long and not know this? The only way to 'kill' an engine is to ruin the section it's in, aka by removing all the lifepoints of the mech.

[Caviel]

Splinters, on 21 February 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

With crit damage on MG's being up to 12.5x on internals, this is a great fill-in after a SRM volley or a Gauss round opens up a particular location.

...or you could take a couple lasers for the same tonnage and wipe out the entire section and all the components instead.

The machine gun's only advantage of crit seeking is offset completely (And then some) by the fact that any other weapon in the game beyond the Flamer is more useful in more situations. This in turn means you are better of investing in those weapons by carrying more of them or the equipment to support them over the Machine Guns.

Compare these two statements to hopefully get the point:

"Cool! My machine guns took out that AC/20 in the side torso on that Atlas."
or
"Cool! My lasers took out the side torso, arm, and the AC/20 and energy weapon in them on that Atlas."

[Tahribator]

I bought a Cicada 3C today, oh god why did I do this? Machine guns suck horribly, even against targets stripped of armor. Just remove it from the game along with the flamer and be done with this.

Edited by Tahribator, 21 February 2013 - 02:03 PM.

[Davers]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

But the engine does take critical hit damage... It just doesn't get disabled when its hit points reach zero... Basically turning it into a giant crit pad for the moment

I can only imagine at some point it will be damageable. Add in TACs and then maybe crit seeking weapons might have a niche.

[Bhael Fire]

Vassago Rain, on 21 February 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

Engines don't take damage, period.

Engines do indeed take damage...15 hit points worth (unlike other internal components, which can only take 10).

[Caviel]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

But the engine does take critical hit damage... It just doesn't get disabled when its hit points reach zero... Basically turning it into a giant crit pad for the moment

In other words, the machine gun crit bonus is rendered useless by the fact that it is pointless on a CT unless there is other equipment there. Even less of a reason to bring one, the way I see it.

[Znail]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

as I said in the earlier post, the best use of the mg as it is now would be to go ammo crit hunting

Because your heavier hitting weapons might destroy all the internal structure before critting any ammo. And an ammo explosion has the potential to be much more devastating than losing just the one or two components

People love to put ammo in their legs, and at the same time they reduce the leg armor... Strip the leg armor then go crit seeking with machine guns

I just want to clarify, I have not actually done this. I am just hypothesizing.

That only works against poor players as the main reason to put ammo in the legs is because they can have so much armour.

[Caviel]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

Because your heavier hitting weapons might destroy all the internal structure before critting any ammo. And an ammo explosion has the potential to be much more devastating than losing just the one or two components

Moot point, destroying the internal structure also destroys the ammo and can trigger the same ammo explosion.

Until the damage tracking changes where engine crits matter or further tweaks to the MGs happen, they are still not good enough.

[shintakie]

Thontor, on 21 February 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

destroying the internal structure does not destroy the ammo.. the ammo is only destroyed if it is critically hit.

Does critting ammo actually do anythin at the moment though? Been hearin reports about how it isn't actually explodin for damage when hit, though I'm not sure how much of that is false observations.

[Carrioncrows]

So at the end of the day here is the buff that MG's Need:

DMG: 0.2 dmg a shot - 0.1 dmg from 90m to 200m
ROF: 10 rounds a sec
Ammo: 200 rounds a ton.

At 2 DPS a sec and 20 secs of fire the MG fills it's purpose of being a inefficient raw dps dump.

Exactly 1/2 the DPS of the AC2 but for a lighter weight. The inefficient comes in when you factor only 20 secs of firing time per gun the hard point limitations and the range of 90m - 200m

Do that and the game is fixed, machineguns are useful and potato chips rain down from the sky making everyone happy.

Then we can move on to fixing pulse lasers, flamers and the LB10-X which takes another 3 minutes 22 secs.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

FupDup, on 19 February 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

What doesn't make an excellent harassment weapon? I do the same thing with medium lasers and streaks (Raven 3L, haters gonna hate) and actually do damage. The Streaks are heat-neutral on every map, including the caldera on Caustic Valley. I can streak all day long without worries of heat. Sometimes I have to stop firing the ML's for a moment or two but otherwise I have no heat issues with my 3L harasser.


And are you sure that the MGs on your mech are even improving your performance? Chances are that using such a bad weapon simply made you a much more skilled player than the guy you're tickling with the MGs.


EDIT: In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that MGs are a terrible harassment weapon. They require you to hold down your fire on the target for quite a few moments for the damage to add up. A simple laser (or even streak) can deal all of its damage much faster and thus allow harassers to take cover while the enemy figures out what just happened.

the fact the you said skill and streaks in the same post means you could need to "re-think" how great you are.

[Orzorn]

The MGun and LB 10-X still need damage increases to be useful, although I imagine that would come with a critical multiplier decrease (more damage means faster component destruction, and based on tests we conducted, a single mgun can destroy a component in under 5 seconds).

[PropagandaWar]

Broceratops, on 19 February 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

no one said mgs and flamers would be tier 1 weapons. or even useful. just better

exactly they should be next to useless. Sounds like peeps want to run around with 4 MG spiders and crit kill everything in 5 seconds.

Edited by PropagandaWar, 21 February 2013 - 03:35 PM.

[Znail]

Carrioncrows, on 21 February 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

So at the end of the day here is the buff that MG's Need:

DMG: 0.2 dmg a shot - 0.1 dmg from 90m to 200m
ROF: 10 rounds a sec
Ammo: 200 rounds a ton.

At 2 DPS a sec and 20 secs of fire the MG fills it's purpose of being a inefficient raw dps dump.

Exactly 1/2 the DPS of the AC2 but for a lighter weight. The inefficient comes in when you factor only 20 secs of firing time per gun the hard point limitations and the range of 90m - 200m

Do that and the game is fixed, machineguns are useful and potato chips rain down from the sky making everyone happy.

Then we can move on to fixing pulse lasers, flamers and the LB10-X which takes another 3 minutes 22 secs.

Why the absurd ammo reduction? That means one ton of ammo of constant fire is insufficient to taking out the head of a mech even, much less any other locations. The ammo have already been nerfed compared with the TT, so there is no need for more. In the TT so is 1 ton of ammo emough to do a total of 2000 damage while in MWO so would 1 ton do a total of 40 damage. 100 with your suggested buffed DPS. This is hardly excessive and much less then any other weapon.