4 replies to this topic

[Richard Hazen]

I want to put a machine gun on my Huntsman, I put the heaviest on it recently but I dunno if its the right one, which would be most useful?

Edited by Will Hawker, 07 December 2021 - 02:18 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Light machine guns have range, heavy machine guns shred. Both require fielding en masse to be brutally effective, and are best when you open up armor with some other weapon and use the machine guns to gut the equipment inside.

On a Huntsman, two MG might do okay for crit seeking, and if you're working with other weapons longer ranged than small or micro, light machine guns will allow you crit open armor sections. But if you're only fielding a single MG, the tonnage might be better spent on something else like AMS.

[KaptinOrk]

ScrapIron Prime, on 07 December 2021 - 03:13 PM, said:

Light machine guns have range, heavy machine guns shred. Both require fielding en masse to be brutally effective, and are best when you open up armor with some other weapon and use the machine guns to gut the equipment inside.

On a Huntsman, two MG might do okay for crit seeking, and if you're working with other weapons longer ranged than small or micro, light machine guns will allow you crit open armor sections. But if you're only fielding a single MG, the tonnage might be better spent on something else like AMS.

I'd take a single AMS over a single MG in a heartbeat. I wish more players took the effort to fit it into their builds, three or four AMS on a single team really makes a difference sometimes.

[panzer1b]

When it comes to MGs on a non-light, i prefer the LMG since it gives you options that dont involve forcing you into point blank range.

A good example is one of my shadowcats with the 7 LMG 2HLL build, its mostly a mid range poker, but it can start to crit stuff and bring some extra heat-free DPS to the fight at around 350m or less which is imo far more useful then the ability to once in a blue moon tear something apart with regular/HMGs at point blank (if a point blank situation actually happens its usually very late game and the game is about to end regardless of what you do or dont do provided you didnt cower and arent fully fresh).

The only exception to this rule is when the medium is a pure point blank brawler build with rapid reloading energy such as SPL/uRL/uPL, as those builds cant truly shield that much due to the rate of fire of their weapons and they are already forced to be under 200m for good effect, in this case HMGs or MGs depending on how much tonnage you can afford are a better idea as there is no good justification for LMG range when you already are forced into sub 150m ranges with the other weapons.

One more thing, this assumes that you have at least 4 hardpoints for the MGs as running any less is a waste of space on like any mech. Most of the good choices have 6+ hardpoints (shadowcat, arrow are the only 2 mechs that come to mind off teh top of my head), and realistically to truly make use of a MG build you should look for mechs that can fit that many or stick to quad HMGs since they are the only high DPS choice for low hardpoint builds (even then less then 4 is not a good idea). The reasonf or that is while even 2 HMGs are not bad DPS wise (and heat free), the damage they deal forces you to stare 100% of the time and that makes is way easier for the enemy to core you out. If you have to stare, you need to be in a build that can get enough DPS from that staring to offset the inherent risk of doing so (or you need to backstab, but there are better choices for backstabbing then MGs which are more of a crit potential weapon). That said, go ahead and experiment, nothing stopping you from doing so as if you kaput just jump in another game...

[Meep Meep]

For medium mechs that are primarily energy based a couple of lmg works great for crits on components you opened with the lasers. Plus you have enough range to stay about 250~300m out. Mg and hmg are more for direct damage en mass like on a piranha.