HMG or MG

[27]

Quick question, does anyone know if the machine gun can serve the same purpose as the heavy MG for automatons specifically? I.E taking down gunships, killing hulks and tanks, destroying fabricators, etc.

[Eight-Six]

MG can drop gunships but it's not efficient at it, and it can't kill hulks or tanks from the front, AFAIK neither can kill fabricators.

[Myth Alric]

The heavy has more armor pen, so it is definitely better at killing gunships and hulks.

[27]

Originally posted by Myth Alric:

The heavy has more armor pen, so it is definitely better at killing gunships and hulks.

Shame, I hate the hmgs recoil and mag cap

[dyra55]

MG can't penetrate hulk's head
HMG can

MG can't shoot gunships down in chassis (But can in engines)
HMG can

MG can't penetrate Factory Strider
HMG can

MG can't penetrate Scout Strider's front armored plate
HMG can

I think MG also can't destroy Anti-Air cannons and Command Bunker turrets? i'm not sure

Neither can destroy fabricators, it needs explosions

[Cylixx]

I use 43 for bugs, cos it quickly downs everything except the heavy shells.

Need to see how HMG does on hulks and tanks, cos that sounds very useful.

[Woketrick_Star]

Heavy MG and Supply backpack is a solid duo and can do everything but clear fabs. Normal MG is more for fodder enemies and is more for bug swarms rather than bots due to light armour pen. Heavy MG is a symptom of power or feature creep. When the game started there were pretty much no anti medium armour weapons, or the ones that were there were very bad for swarms of medium armour enemies except for autocannon which was a must have on bots and still is. For swarms of devs; Recoilless was too slow and has small ammo reserve, railgun is too slow, Laser cannon was decent. It's more they wanted to have another weapon that fills the RoF niche
It came about due to needing a higher fire rate weapon to deal with medium armoured swarms.

[Kev]

Maybe it's not "meta", but I have fun bringing the HMG to bug missions. It can very quickly deal with walls of bile spewers and hive guards, it can destroy shrieker nests, it can kill a charger with about 20 shots to the butt (not insta kill, but it puts the charger in the bleed-out state), and if you're really good at dancing, you can kill a bile titan by dumping 2 magazines into its butt. Auto cannon can also work for all those situations, but HMG lets you bring a shield backpack. Just be prepared to run out of ammo a lot.

[tom five]

Originally posted by PrisRad:

Originally posted by Myth Alric:

The heavy has more armor pen, so it is definitely better at killing gunships and hulks.

Shame, I hate the hmgs recoil and mag cap

Put it on the slowest fire rate and treat it more like an AMR. Pinpoint single shots or short bursts.

[Mechaballe]

Originally posted by PrisRad:

Quick question, does anyone know if the machine gun can serve the same purpose as the heavy MG for automatons specifically? I.E taking down gunships, killing hulks and tanks, destroying fabricators, etc.

Id say you take the MG if you want some more chaf clear from your support, but for bots I think its better to just go HMG, take a supply pack and use it to kill everything that moves.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

MG doesn't do much for bots. You should really only be running it there if you literally don't have a support weapon and one is laying there on the ground. Even the stalwart is better because it can't pierce heavy armor either, but at least it has more raw firepower for things like killing small bots, berserkers charging you, and shooting hulk heatsinks.

HMG is however pretty great on bots. Just takes some getting used to with the handling (personally I always try to at least crouch before firing) and watch the ammo. Tap-fire at anything other than very close range.

[Enforcer]

I used the HMG in the defense mission, it's quite ok.
The machine gun is just better than the Stalwart because you can also deal with those pesky bugs hiding behind their thicker frontal armor when you start shooting at them.
Stalwart.....when you love hosing down enemies with bullets no matter if it has any effect or not

[Frost Spectre]

MG is general purpose, great against bugs but not as good against bots, though better handling allows you to headshot Devastators, but lacks punch against more beefier stuff, like Chicken walkers and doesn't even damage Hulks unless you get to flank them.

HMG however is better against bots, due to the amount of armor bots always have, Chicken walkers break when you break their engines and kills Devastators very efficiently, afaik a lucky hit on the head is insta-kill to every type of devastator.

And as far as I've experienced, Suppressing fire does nothing against the desired enemies, like Heavy Devastators, who will snipe you regardless if you sprayed lots of bullets at them, which hurts MG's performance further...

[rojogames371]

The HMG-203 sucks. (and always has sucked.)
The MG-43 meanwhile has twice the ammo efficiency, can mow down hordes of bots, and hordes of bugs, yes, including Scout Striders. (their lower bodies are only medium armored.)
The MG-43 is so good I regularly use it as my primary weapon.

[rojogames371]

So, many, people, forgot that the MG-43 penetrates medium armor.

[dyra55]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

Even the stalwart is better because it can't pierce heavy armor either

And it can't pierce medium armour, like body of Devastators or legs and middle section of Scout Striders, Tank Heatsinks and Gunship Engines