Heavy machine gun is worthless

[Roy]

So i like using machineguns, especially the stalwart.

The heavy machine gun doesn't shine in ANY situation, it's ridiculously bad in every scenario.

• Small enemies? kill about 5~10 max before your mag is empty and you won't get the chance to reload until the next wave
  
• Medium/heavy enemies? HA! Bots with chainsaws just ignore your shots and heavy bugs don't give much of a damn either
  
• Heavy elites? Yeah nice if you get behind a hulk, but not better than any other weapon with enough penetration to take it down

Seriously i took the thing with an ammo pack but it's still absolutely worthless, the magazine is empty within seconds even on the lowest firerate and the fire"power" doesn't compensate whatsoever.
This is a meme weapon.

[Caramel_Clown]

Against specific medium armor enemy types it deals more than twice the sustained damage compared to an LMG, and who knows how much over Stalwart due to it having pathetic pen values. Issue is it's very situational. If you're looking for an all purpose support weapon that acts as a primary this ain't it. I think they should tweak it a bit to make it more viable in more scenarios, but in specific cases it is FAR FAR more powerful than other two machineguns.

[Dealman]

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Against specific medium armor enemy types it deals more than twice the sustained damage compared to an LMG, and who knows how much over Stalwart due to it having pathetic pen values. Issue is it's very situational. If you're looking for an all purpose support weapon that acts as a primary this ain't it. I think they should tweak it a bit to make it more viable in more scenarios, but in specific cases it is FAR FAR more powerful than other two machineguns.

I strongly disagree, Stalwart is superb at dealing with chaff and can deal a fair bit of damage rapidly if you hit weakspots - such as the rear of a Charger.

The HMG may seem viable on paper, but in practice it is rather awful because the hilariously small magazine size.

For reference the normal MG has 150 rounds and the Stalwart 250. The HMG has 75 while also not having a crosshair and a lot of recoil.

The sustained damage argument falls flat on its face because of how frequently you have to reload and you become a huge target while doing so.

It in my honest opinion is currently that hands-down worst support weapon in the game. I've never seen anyone other than me use it as of late, I really do want to like it. But it is pure and utter garbage.

[dskpnk]

Yeah this one is pretty bad, this weapon need medium penetration because actually it's just non sens (they probably forgot to put the meduim pen cause this weapon is just so obviously bad the way she is now that it can only be a mistake)

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Against specific medium armor enemy types it deals more than twice the sustained damage compared to an LMG

Which ones? The game does an absolutely piss-poor job of communicating enemy armour values or weapon armour penetration.

[Caramel_Clown]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Against specific medium armor enemy types it deals more than twice the sustained damage compared to an LMG

Which ones? The game does an absolutely piss-poor job of communicating enemy armour values or weapon armour penetration.

Like brood commanders and bile spewers. This is a bigger overarching issue of game not explaining it's systems, and displaying things in a completely nonsensical fashion. This extends to so many things. Like armor penetration being displayed as 3 tiers, while there are many more. Like player's equipment having armor value, while all players have armor value fixed at 0, and completely different system calculates how much your "armor" protects you for.

[Caramel_Clown]

Originally posted by Dealman:

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Against specific medium armor enemy types it deals more than twice the sustained damage compared to an LMG, and who knows how much over Stalwart due to it having pathetic pen values. Issue is it's very situational. If you're looking for an all purpose support weapon that acts as a primary this ain't it. I think they should tweak it a bit to make it more viable in more scenarios, but in specific cases it is FAR FAR more powerful than other two machineguns.

I strongly disagree, Stalwart is superb at dealing with chaff and can deal a fair bit of damage rapidly if you hit weakspots - such as the rear of a Charger.

The HMG may seem viable on paper, but in practice it is rather awful because the hilariously small magazine size.

For reference the normal MG has 150 rounds and the Stalwart 250. The HMG has 75 while also not having a crosshair and a lot of recoil.

The sustained damage argument falls flat on its face because of how frequently you have to reload and you become a huge target while doing so.

It in my honest opinion is currently that hands-down worst support weapon in the game. I've never seen anyone other than me use it as of late, I really do want to like it. But it is pure and utter garbage.

It's not about you agreeing or not. Against some types of enemies HMG is vastly superior than other two machineguns. Not by a bit, but by a landslide. It's just there aren't many of them, and for that it seems you pay for a fairly poor performance against everything else.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Like brood commanders and bile spewers. This is a bigger overarching issue of game not explaining it's systems, and displaying things in a completely nonsensical fashion.

If only we had an UFOpedia for enemies. Or maybe better hit indicators for armour penetration than the barely-perceptible hit confirmation indicator that doesn't even play half the time...

[Erei]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Like brood commanders and bile spewers. This is a bigger overarching issue of game not explaining it's systems, and displaying things in a completely nonsensical fashion.

If only we had an UFOpedia for enemies. Or maybe better hit indicators for armour penetration than the barely-perceptible hit confirmation indicator that doesn't even play half the time...

Also, add a "simulation" like in warframe/planetside 2 when you can have a room with enemies of your chosing and access to all your weapon/stratagem for testing purposes. With option, like "no ai" or "god mode"

[Mathias Giovanni]

If it had a backpack, the sights were fixed, a slight increase to magazine size or heavy pen it would be a solid weapon. I've tried playing with it but it is a weapon that fights you. And losing an extra call in slot for a backpack is huge. If it could shred heavies easily that would be one thing.

And it doesn't give you that crazy machine gun feel that people want because the mag size is too small. They need to give third person sights on it though. It should work like the other machine guns because that is what you would expect.

[onewhofound]

As much as I hate the lack of information in the game, I think it is some brilliantly subtle marketing because it enables people on YouTube to endlessly research and theorycraft about what is going on behind the scenes.

I don't think it would work unless the game was already pretty popular, but right now it is working fine.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by dskpnk:

Yeah this one is pretty bad, this weapon need medium penetration because actually it's just non sens (they probably forgot to put the meduim pen cause this weapon is just so obviously bad the way she is now that it can only be a mistake)

It has medium penetration.

I'm not saying it's good, my attempt to use it was terrible (though I wasn't using recoil reduction armor, which obviously it wants). But it did kill devastators and scout stalkers from the front successfully exactly how a light penetrating weapon simply wouldn't.

The one thing it had that seemed good was enough impact to stagger devastators.

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Which ones? The game does an absolutely piss-poor job of communicating enemy armour values or weapon armour penetration.

Like brood commanders and bile spewers.

Those aren't medium armor enemies, maybe excepting a few dorsal plates on the spewer. You can hose them down with basic primaries, and the MG43 should be doing full damage. Actual medium armor targets simply shrug off non-penetration weapons like the (non-pen) Liberator, Defender, or Sickle.

[Derg Zaks]

Heavy mg is great it just needs a larger mag

[Mechaballe]

Originally posted by Roy:

Originally posted by JuX:

They are not useless, just use them for their intended role.

It appears you do not even know their capabilities. The new machine for example can frontally take out a hulk. You can make this process incredibly easy with stun grenades and crouch perk armor.

I had all that except for the stun grenades.
So basically you're saying if you have all of the following, it will be useful;

• Stun grenades (4 max)
  
• Recoil reducing armor
  
• Ammo pack (you didn't mention it but it goes without saying)
  
• Lucky aim and noone shooting you as you carefully aim at the smallest weakspot with the most inaccurate weapon ingame

You're not wrong, it might work, but it's still worthless against the chainsaw bots and most of the other enemies, while other weapons will keep you mobile, leave more slots opem and take on more enemies.

Like i said, i like machine guns, i know their limitations but this thing is just not good at anything imo.

You dont "need" the ammo pack. Lots of maps have plenty of ammo laying around. You could bring it to kill more things with the HMG, or you could bring some type of eagle strike to use a combination of HMG and those to kill things.

[Roy]

Originally posted by vargtass7:

Originally posted by Roy:

I had all that except for the stun grenades.
So basically you're saying if you have all of the following, it will be useful;

• Stun grenades (4 max)
  
• Recoil reducing armor
  
• Ammo pack (you didn't mention it but it goes without saying)
  
• Lucky aim and noone shooting you as you carefully aim at the smallest weakspot with the most inaccurate weapon ingame

You're not wrong, it might work, but it's still worthless against the chainsaw bots and most of the other enemies, while other weapons will keep you mobile, leave more slots opem and take on more enemies.

Like i said, i like machine guns, i know their limitations but this thing is just not good at anything imo.

You dont "need" the ammo pack. Lots of maps have plenty of ammo laying around. You could bring it to kill more things with the HMG, or you could bring some type of eagle strike to use a combination of HMG and those to kill things.

Granted the ammo supply isn't it's main flaw regarding reloads, it's the lack of ammo per magazine.

Even on low firerates you'll be constantly reloading which is a slow and dangerous process, even with the supply pack this was the main hinder.

[Mechaballe]

Its a support weapon. It can dish out some serious damage in bursts. Ues it correctly and it can do very usefull stuff. If you want lots of ammo and easier reloads bring a stalwart instead, oh wait that one cant kill heavies. Congratulations on having discovered weapon balancing.