I was looking over kinetic armor for my max for a sort of AI max punisher. However when I looked at the discriptions it says and I quote "Increases the damage resistance to anti infantry weapons from x to x, this includes pistols, rifles and vehicle mounted light machine guns." So would that mean that everything that isn't a sniper rifle is effected? Does it even work on regular bullets from carbines? Why make this descriptor so specific if that wasn't the case? Why even say anti-infantry weapons, why not bullets?
I've always been curious about that given "The M12 Kobalt is a .50 cal machine gun". 50 cal=heavy machine gun. Though given "The Basilisk is a 20mm heavy machine gun" - a caliber usually considered to be cannon - I think they probably consider the Kobalt to be an LMG. I guess guns are bigger in the future, just because.
Light machine guns would be kobalt, canister...... Uh...that's it? Still, I would like to see the resistance values myself just to make sure its not a rip.
Canister, I believe, is not included in the resistances for Kinetic Armor. Sniper Rifles, however, are. It reduces the damage taken from all carbines, assault rifles, SMG's, sniper rifles, LMG's, pistols, scout rifles, battle rifles and shotguns (including max AI shotgun in case you're not NC). Infantry weapons that are not included: crossbow with explosive bolts, rocket-launchers and lasher's splash damage. I am not sure if it reduces the damage dealt by the archer (which is technically a sniper rifle), but it does enough damage to make you run regardless, so that's not too relevant As for whether it's worth it: yes. Definitely. However, Flak might be better still. Flak prevents C4 from 1-shotting you and allows you to take 2 non-decimators to the face. Kinetic Armor, however, gives you 37.5% damage reduction from infantry weapons. It's a matter of preference, really. It's quite satisfying to walk with 2 bursters, get rockedpodded and then walk away with 85% of your health But on my AI load-outs I always use KA with EOD-hud implant to see where the mines and C4 are. Most people indoors will try to damage you with their primary, so I believe KA is better there.
Gun calibers (which are only given on some vehicle weapons and a very few small arms anyway) are quite inconsistent, to say the least: The M20 Basilisk (20mm) is an HMG The M12 Kobalt (.50 cal or 12.7mm) is just a "machine gun", no prefix or suffix, but is not seen in the hands on infantry like an LMG or GPMG usually does The RAMS .50 (.50 cal or 12.7mm) is a "powerful sniper rifle", a description that matches anti-materiel rifles of similar caliber being used in anti-personnel role in real life, but has no real anti-materiel prowess to speak of The L105 Zephyr (105mm) is standard-issue caliber on the AC-130, though the Zephyr is a magazine-fed rapid-fire cannon and not the biggest choice for the Liberator The Dual-75 Duster (75mm) is not seen on gunships but a fairly normal gun, just ask Oto Melara who are busy counting money from all the 76mm rapid-fire cannon sales The AP30 Shredder (30mm) is a bog-standard caliber for airborne anti-ground cannons seen everywhere in the world The C150 Dalton (150mm) on the other hand is just stupidly massive even by AC-130 standards The NS-357 Underboss, NS-44 Commissioner and NS-44L Blackhand (.357 Magnum and .44 Magnum), despite the caliber inflation in the big guns department, are still hand-cannon grade rounds And if we go by the "Model number denotes caliber" assumption (that is true with the caliber-given weapons), things just go plain weird: The Lightning uses the C75 Viper and L100 Python line of guns, which are perfectly mundane calibers for real-life light tanks The Prowler uses the P120 series main guns, which again is common on real-life tanks, but mounts two of them The Vanguard uses the Titan-150 series main guns, which a bunch of proposed upgrades to real-life tanks have spoken of (or the slightly-smaller 140mm) but has never been done thus far (the Titan is also supposedly-electromagnetic, but certainly doesn't handle like one) The Mosquito's nose guns are actually smaller than real-life fighters and helicopters: M18 Rotary, M18 Needler, M18 Locust (the identical model number further suggests that these are calibers) and M14 Banshee are tiny compared to the 20mm~30mm range found on modern fighters and helicopters. Liberator nose guns are within real-life helicopter gunship range: L-24R Spur, L30R Vektor and CAS30 Tank Buster, the latter clearly inspired by the A-10 Thunderbolt II's GAU-8 Avenger, though with none of the superb performance except damage tl;dr They just don't care, don't pay too much attention to it.
To be fair none of that is bad compared to other sci-fi shooters. E.g. in Dust 514 this is called an HMG:
I've understood "anti-infantry weapons" in this context as all infantry and vehicle mounted weapons that are incapable of damaging bigger vehicles (Lightings, MBTs, Sunderers, etc.).
A Heavy machine gun is either literally a HEAVY machine gun. A gun that is too cumbersome to be carried by 1 person. Or a machine gun that has increased range, penetration and destructive power against vehicles, buildings and aircraft compared to general-purpose or light machine guns. The kobalt DOES fit both categories. It is certainly better than LMGs at dealing with non-armored vehicles, including aircraft, and its muzzle velocity gives it much more range and accuracy as well. So technically, the Kobalt is a HMG. Projectiles are not all equal though. Not by a long shot. .50cal =/= HMG. (Otherwise the automatic shotgun would be like... a super heavy gun as it fires larger caliber rounds than .50 cal.) I can imagine the Kobalt firing pistol rounds essentially. The kinetic energy of a .50 cal pistol round (like .50 AE - 12.7x33mm) is around 2k joules. The kinetic energy of a .50 cal HMG round (like .50 BMG - 12.7x99mm) is almost 20k joules. Almost 10 times as much. But I guess the description does refer to the Kobalt, since I can't think of any other gun it could refer to. IIRC an infantryman tanking a Browning HMG isn't inconsistent with the lore however. In the lore all guns actually more powerful than modern guns and the soldiers survive multiple hits thanks to personal shields and armor. I fail to see what is wrong about that ? How is it not a HMG ? Only inconsistency I can see is that its also referred to as autocannon.
Small weapon include LMG, SMG, AR, BR, carbine, pistol (this unclude crossbow standard bolt), MAXes anti-infantry weapons, Kobalt, Automatic scout rifles*, Semi scout rifle*. MAX have 80 - 87.5% resistance to small weapon. (depending of kinetic armor rank) Semi and bolt action sniper rifle are classed in sniper rifle damage type. MAX have 75% resistance to sniper rifle. Nothing in kinetic armor description say it increase sniper rifle resistance so I assume it doesn't increase resistance. * : not sure if they are in small weapon or sniper rifle class.
I guess you are a WWI buff and prefer the classification based on the actual weight of MGs. I am using the modern classification based on calibre. This can be seen from the fact that, eg, specialized 7.62mm MGs mounted on helicopters, that would be too heavy for use as an infantry weapon, are still classified as GPMGs. See, eg, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_machine_gun Likewise, the Dust example appears to be a multi-barrel weapon firing rifle calibre (or smaller) ammunition. So it is not a HMG by the modern calibre-based definition. It is common to refer to such a weapon is as a 'minigun', though the in-game description of it as a 'multi-barrel, rotary drive machine gun' also appears accurate. Neither of us is exactly right or wrong, it's just a difference of perspective.
Oh how I hate when people call any rotary weapon a minigun. At least the Dust gun is not a laser and actually is a machine gun. Calling every weapon a rifle, including lasers and plasma weapon, is horribly common in sci-fi. Including VS in Planetside 2 with their rifled energy weapons. I find this is much, much worse than that Dust 514 HMG. What the hell do VS use anyway ? Their weapons make no sense to me whatsoever. Do they use chemical propellant or magnetic accelerators? Rifling doesn't work on plasma as it does on solid projectiles.
