Many players don’t like overheat mechanic. So here are my thoughts how to improve it.
Purpose of overheating: stop players from holding the trigger for too long.
Change how fast guns overheat
Currently it’s far too fast. I’d increase the time/bullets it takes to overheat 1.5 - 2 times what we have now.
Personally I’d say that 100% overheat should be reached after firing: 150 rifle rounds, 100 ~12mm rounds and 75 20mm rounds. But those values are based on my guts and astrology so don’t take them too seriously.
The point of overheating is not to stop ppl from shooting but from mindlessly holding the trigger.
Change what overheat does
Currently overheat simply stops you from firing. Imo it would be better if it worked more gradually by increasing dispersion. I know it’s controversial but hear me out.
How would it work:
Dispersion should increase only when overheat reaches above 75%. Then it linearly scales to 150% dispersion at 100% overheat.
Should gun stop firing at 100%? I think yes due to irl reasons but if we talk about the pure gameplay, it may not be necesarry.
Why do this?
If dispersion increases too much, player will stop shooting. But if there is an emergency, he is still allowed to deffend himself. He will probably die anyway but at least he had a chance.
Though I’m affraid that ppl will get frustrated due to debuffs instead of being frustrated due to inability to fire. So it may be just a swap of one issue to another. But I don’t have any better ideas.
Will this cause ppl to not complain about overheating? I seriously doubt.
But imo it’s a good improvement over the current system.
Your idea is definitely better than the current botched implementation that completely nerfed any stationary MG however those mgs will still be inferior to mobile handheld MGs since they never overheat and lose accuracy while continuously firing, you can shoot 200 times with m2 stinger or 100 with m1919 and many soviet lmgs.
According your new balance after ~112 shots (75% overheat) they will increase MG’s dispersion while handheld lmgs will still have same average dispersion at over 100 rounds, they just need to quickly reload their guns.
I don’t think trading 12 more bullets for “unlimited ammo” but slow cooling time and constantly looking at the overheat meter to see if it’s at over 70% to not lose accuracy is worth it, reloading is always faster and M2 Stinger can just keep shooting till it reaches 200 rounds fire with no punishment for doing so. It’s also way more mobile than even apc/tanks, it’s less exposed you can go prone or change window you are camping at.
It will be a great change for the tanks/apcs but a very poor change for current buildable/stationary MGs those need to be even better than m2 stinger since they are way more risky to play and need often than not spend time and engineer resources to build them.
Remember a single soldier with a bolt rifle can murder your trooper that is using that stationary MG and it’s not hard to do.
They are also super useless when the current frontline just moved into different part of the map, some stationary mgs should be pickable and be used by your infantry. In perfect would we would also be able to move them or command our ai to dismantle it, carry them and then rebuild with nice animation but it’s too much work for DF and not many people would want to roleplay as the real MG squad.
In my opinion reworking overheat isn’t really worthy. It seems like really complex and challenging issue.
The easiest solution would be just get rid of overheat (there wouldn’t be need to rework whole weapon class) and just implement reload to all other MGs.
Tank MGs are already artificially “balanced” by dmg reduction anyway.
So they could be artificially tweaked if needed anyway.
Everything would be better than current system which is basically pure anti fun.
Barrel being damaged is too extreme imo. And what would players do with MGs without barrel changing mechanism?
But it’s tempting as MG34 and MG42 would suddenly become top of the top (German bias intensifies)
Barrels can be easily fixed using existing mechanics. Engineers can “reload” AT and AA guns, or replace the Machine Gun on the Nest. Tankers can fix broken parts using a Repair Kit on their tankers. The only thing missing is an exact 'Replace Barrel" animation, but we also aren’t replacing individual tracks on tanks either.
But personally, I think MG and Heavy MG nests need limited ammo. That’ll slow down any MG spam already going on (which, let’s be honest, is already pretty rare), and also give Engineers slightly more use.
