Convince me somehow that the AF-4 Cyclone isn't useless..

DPM:
Cyclone: 4175 // ExMag: 5845
Blitz: 6250
Armistice: 3750 // ExMag: 5000
Hailstorm: 7500
Eridani: 3575 // ExMag: 5005
Sirius: 6250

Here's the thing; if you're encountering more than 2 alert people in an attack run, you're probably going to die. If they are oblivious people, then it really doesn't matter too much how many people you can kill in one go.

The Cyclone's practical number of people killed per magazine is about 3, accounting for misses and nanoweave. The Blitz is about 5, but I'd argue its more like 4 because of the wild recoil, and it takes longer to kill so victims have more time to start moving around. The difference isn't large, but Cyclone ExMags give the largest benefit out of the bunch. Maybe the Blitz can be better in a very narrow range band where the advanced laser can mean it can hipfire more effectively than the Cyclone can ADS or hipfire.

The TR love the Hailstorm so much because it is a MASSIVE increase over their normal gun, and has a faster full reload to boot. Its not a good comparison with the other faction choices.

When I'm shooting the Blitz, I feel like I'm shooting an air soft gun. The only reason the Blitz can get kills is through the sheer quantity of bullets alone. Each individual bullet is harmless, so the Blitz has to shoot them super fast to actually do any damage. This means that even though it has more bullets and a higher rate of fire, you have to shoot more bullets to get a kill, thus negating that advantage.

The Cyclone, on the other hand, has very good damage for an SMG. 167 damage is a huge advantage over the Blitz. Each individual bullet actually means something, and your target will really feel the sting when they get shot.

The Blitz with a advanced laser sight is a beast!. I love using it.

Which SMG does the most damage per shot?

It's easy to find the practical number of kills per magazine, all you have to do is take your average accuracy and figure out how many bullets on average it takes to kill someone. Lets take an average accuracy of 30%, which in this game is really good. It takes 6 shots to kill a player with the cyclone, using the average accuracy of 30%, and you get an average of 20 rounds to kill.

You're looking at 1.2 people per magazine with the cyclone, and around 1.85 with the blitz. The difference in TTK, and time to empty, is so minimal that there is a clear winner. The blitz has a 50ish% larger killing potential per magazine, that's huge. Of course with ext mags you're going to get closer to the blitz, but you're still not going to reach it. You're also giving up adv. laser, which in my opinion is a must have attachment for the SMG. There is no point in taking an SMG and not using the adv. laser. You're giving up what makes SMG's good to compensate for an issue that can be rectified using the other SMG.

Of course there are going to be some situations where the cyclone will be better. There are going to be situations where my commissioner is going to be better than my SMG. But like I mentioned earlier, if you're not an infiltrator you should NEVER be using the first batch of SMG's, you have much better options. And if you are an infiltrator, it's easy to force engagements you want to be in. This is where you can force unfair fights against multiple people in your favour.

SMG infiltrators shine when there are fights between bases for a number of reasons. In these battles you typically are engaging multiple enemies at once. This is where the larger magazine size will save your ***, and where you can flank 3-4 people at a time and easily kill them before they have a chance to react.

With all this being said, the cyclone and the blitz are the closest of the faction SMG's. But the cyclone is still a worse overall weapon.

just wanted to point out that that little cartoon girl isn't doing anything wrong... she is checking the barrel of a pistol while it is unloaded and has the slide locked back before use...