LMG Stats & Balance / Rework ideas.

Torq the Rhino!

Can we TORQ the TORQ and have a Super TORQ?

1 dmg per bullet at 10k rounds per minute and a clip of 10 million? sure

Better yet TORQ the MCG. Or, and hear me out here...TORQ the Lasher.

the MCG should be faster to be honest - a chaingun gets outfired my an MCG and several carbines. Im all for increasing the MCG to 1000RPM and dropping the damage to match the T4 AMP. that seems fair.
the Lasher? i dunno about making that faster. cuz than the splash damage would have to be lowered and than it turns into the Orion

this is the reason why IMHO you can't compare stat-wise the CQC LMGs for BR100 and say "see? Orion is outperformed even there". BR100s don't use Orion only because they use the BG, which is a better Orion.

I like the ideas (no SMG/.75 LMG's) but, IMO as a user of the heavy class, a good solution to tone down the heavy abuse would be to remove the ability to chug a medkit while your shield is activated (like an infil cant chug while cloaked).

the cooldown timer on medkits idea has been passed around the past 3 years, i dont think its getting anywhere

Perhaps, and looking back at the stats - Directives hit in august of 2014, and there is no BR 100 data until just after that - whether it wasn't tracked, or that stat wasn't available in the API yet, i'm not sure. The best publicly available data is the BR76-100 data, as that includes the most skilled users overall, while still excluding the hoards of newbies taking away from the BR 1-100 stat pool due to noobishness with a default gun.

The KPU for BR 76-100 (With updated numbers from today, 10/1/2015 )

• Orion:15.88 (Kills: 6362.46 Uniques: 397.143)

• MSW-R: 21.34 (Kills: 9982.64 Uniques: 465.464)

• Anchor: 24.85 (Kills: 10140.8 Uniques: 406.214)

• Betelgeuse 45.9 (Kills: 22207.7 Uniques: 479.5)

If we assume that the Betelgeuse is flat out triple the performance of the Orion (which it appears to be from the KPU. Only so much of that extra performance boost is due to the skill accountable to the BR 100s using the Betelgeuse rather then the Orion. (BR 100 use of the Orion yields approximately 25% increase in KPU, up to 19.56)

BR100 only numbers:

• Orion: 19.56 (Kills: 2832.75 Uniques: 143.536)

• MSW-R: 26.95 (Kills: 6133.96 Uniques: 226.321

• Anchor: 26.92 (Kills: 6366.25 Uniques: 235.429)

• Betelgeuse: 43.29 (Kills: 13684.7 Uniques: 314)

The Difference in BR76-100 Orion users does indeed show that the most skilled VS HAs are moving on to the Betelgeuse.
If we assume that the NC / TR HAs are just as good as the VS HA's, lets look at proportional increase in performance (While assuming that the Orion is identical in performance potential to the Anchor and MSW-R, which I do not think it is.)

From BR 76-100 to BR100 only...
The MSW-R went from 21.34 KPU to 26.95 KPU, a 21% increase.
The Anchor went from 24.85 KPU, to 26.92, a 8% increase.

(This tells me that either the NC have an easier to use CQB LMG then the TR, or the NC are already used to dealing with the high recoil of CQB weapons in general, so they find adapting easier... anyway, moving on.)

Apply the 21% increase the TR's MSW-R KPU to the Orion, and we get 19.2148 KPU, which is actually less then the actual KPU of 19.56 of the BR100 Orion. Roughly, we can say that the Orion user base improved to the same degree as the MSW-R's.

Unless the VS are more skilled then the TR (Which I do not think is the case) then despite the supposition and extrapolation above, it's fairly safe to assume that even if the Betelgeuse users were all using Orions, the BR100 Orion KPU stats wouldn't increase by all that much. Bear in mind that I don't believe that this is absolute, but rather a general indicator of predicted performance, given generally equal skill of the user bases of all four weapons in question. (BR 76-100 overall, and BR100)

All that said, I draw these tentative conclusions from the above.

• The Orion is Inferior to the Anchor and the MSW-R - both lead in stats, and even applying a proportional increase to the VS, based on the TR's 21% performance increase of MSW-R in the above data. Given equal skill of it's users, the VS CQB LMG loses overall to the TR / NC.
• The Betelgeuse has 43.29 KPU at BR100, as opposed to the Orion's 19.56. This means that the Betelgeuse has DOUBLE the performance of the Orion, and just under double the performance of the next best option in the TR / NC.

Recommended action:

• Rebalance the Orion based on the anchor and MSW-R. (See my original post)

And finally...

• Rebalance the Betelgeuse by tweaking the heat mechanic. Currently, cooldown can occur when the gun is not firing, without exception. If you swap weapons, fire rockets, use medkits, or just keep aiming down your scope, it reloads via cooldown. Reloading is a time of risk in ANY first person shooter, having this happen automatically breaks a fundamental balancing factor between factions, as firing can re-commence at any point. Not being able to catch a HA in a reload vastly extends it's effective lifespan, which generates obscene kill stats seen above. This is the problem with the Betelgeuse.

Potential fixes:
As a few quick-fix suggestions, that shouldn't take much development time creating new mechanics...

• Tweak the heat mechanic. As a first measure, slow down the heat dispersion dramatically, allow manual reload to clear heat. Not firing for a while should gradually decrease heat, allowing a few extra rounds prior to reload... but nothing like it is now.

Or, tweak the heat mechanic further.

• Remove cooldown completely. Force a reload in order to remain firing - the reload can be vastly sped up (Swapping a 'heat sink, ala mass effect) to 1.5-2.5 seconds, but a reload should have to occur, else there's no point at which you can catch a HA in a vulnerable reload-state.