What's the difference? Is hipfire and magazine size the only main differences? Which one is more accurate overall?
The EM6 has 100 bullets and is better for medium to long range. The Anchor has 50 bullets and is our CQC to medium range LMG. I've used both a lot, and they are both great guns for the roles they tend to fill. For an overall gun, the EM6 is better because you have the larger magazine and a fairly controllable weapon at longer ranges while maintaining respectable killing power in close and medium scenarios. There is better ADS control with the EM6, try it on farther targets in the VR (compensator on EM6, none on Anchor). Also, the 100 bullets is a pretty big difference, plus having a longer reload. You can even slap an ALS onto this gun if you wanted, so that adds more versatility. The Anchor shines in close quarters. The hipfiring you mentioned is a pretty significant reason for this, and it's also because the gun's reload is shorter than the EM6. I've really enjoyed this gun in that respect, and I'm going to use it for most CQC/close situations now. The Anchor doesn't maintain quite as much long range accuracy, but the damage profile is like the EM6 with the benefit of Soft Point Ammo (more specialized in closer ranges). So: general purpose = EM6; closer range = Anchor. They both kick pretty hard after the first shot, but that's good! It means they'll hurt more if you land more bullets. I hope this is helpful.
Double post. In the second to last sentence above, I'm saying NC guns hit harder and are unwieldy, but they reward better aim. This is why typing at 2 am is bad.
The Anchor is a better gun all around. In CQC you do take 50 less bullets, but you get a pretty quick reload and the 50 you do have is enough to drop five or six targets considering you're shooting a 167-damage weapon. The key benefit, though, is that your hipfire COF is significantly tighter than that of the EM6, especially when moving. If you want to do a soft point build the Anchor is a better pick because its naturally higher velocity makes the trade less damaging. EM6 with soft point is like throwing bullets at people and hoping they die. Once you get to range the advantages of the Anchor really pile up. Faster velocity is always a good thing, and now you're also looking at lower vertical recoil, directional recoil (meaning the direction of the recoil is always within a certain angle), and a better innate cone of fire when you're shooting on the move in ADS. On the other hand, the EM6 has a lower first shot multiplier (by a tiny bit), at the cost of side to side recoil, meaning that you can't compensate for recoil during a long burst because the left-right aspect is random. Overall the Anchor is much more controllable, shoots faster bullets, and ultimately provides a tighter spread of more accurate shots once you learn the gun's kick patterns. The EM6 can be dealt with, but never truly learned because of that RNG aspect. If anything, the EM6' role in the game is pretty limited. It's like a weaker variant of the Gauss SAW with better attachment options, but it doesn't have the stats to be exceptional with any of them. Advanced laser? Crap COF to start with. Soft point? Lowest velocity in its class. Forward grip? Yeah, enjoy your random side to side recoil. At best its a quick-killing bullet hose that performs okay at close-ish ranges when you ADS. Its only redeeming quality is its mag size, and overwhelmingly planetside's top HA players select weapons that accept lower mags for better all around stats. That, in itself, should be pretty telling.
@SharkSpider EM6 does not have SPA. It has HVA. While the Anchor is overall the better weapon, the EM6 has much more sustained fire capability with it's bigger magazine and the ability to have extended magazine attachment. The EM6's best configurations are Grip, Comp and HVA or Ext Mag, Flash and no HVA. Laser is also a decent option if you're not interested in grip or extended mags.
Please stop listening to **** infantry players who put laser sight/flash suppressor combo on ******* LMG. Please. Stop. Posting. This. Garbage.
EM6? Your imagination is its limit. I have kitted mine and used it for almost every situation besides sniping, it doesnt do that very well. But it can do ranged fighting if you burst properly. I have CQC-ish based loadout, Suppressor or nothing/Laser/x2 Bullethose: comp or nothing/Exmag/x2 General purpose/range combat: Comp/x2/Grip Stealth: Exmag or Laser/x2/suppressor Velocity kinda sucks and at times I wish it was higher, but ive learned to deal with it and just dont use the EM6 much beyond what its best for. Dont go trying to out snipe a sniper from Saerro... HVA, I find it to be a waste on almost all guns. SPA? meh.... Anchor, I havent used it, but it seems like its nice enough.
NC dedicated/semi-dedicated heavies that have not used the Anchor should face summary execution and be deemed traitors of the cause! That's my way of recommending you get some play time in with the Anchor, you will fall in love.
I quite like the EM6 with just an HSNV, foregrip, and HVA. It works well as a short-medium range LMG for taking care of lots of bodies, but I feel like the horizontal recoil gets a bit too shaky to handle longer range engagements, even with short bursts.
At some point several months ago, SOMETHING happened to the EM6. I'm not sure exactly what changed, but the horizontal recoil issues first started appearing after some update; it was around the time of PU02 I think. There were no notes about what happened, but I'm not the only one that noticed the change. I suppose I should also note that I think the EM6 is the worst LMG in the NC arsenal. I'd seriously rather have the EM1, mostly because I fully suspect that server tick rates were lowered at some point, rewarding higher rof weapons and punishing lower rof weapons. From the point where the horizontal recoil issues started, I have not once said to myself 'I wish I would have had the EM6 in that situation'. However, I have at some point wished I had every other LMG, including the EM1.
Every time I pick up a Flare I wish I had an EM6 instead. Higher RoF, faster TTK, bigger mag, lower horizontal recoil, lower FSM, more spare ammo. It's sickening how much better it is than the Flare. It's one of my favorite LMGs of any faction.
I got the Anchor, with ALS, SPA and x1 reflex. Its good overall, gun that I will probably use on my HA for a while. Only thing that I did not like about it was that headshots are improbable, even when I try to take headshots.
AS NC, we are spoiled with our LMG choices. I even like the EM1 for some situations. There just isn't anything that the EM6 does that another LMG doesn't do better. I'd rather have the SAW or SAW-s if I need that much ammo and 167+dmg. Also, if you used the gun pre-pu02, then you know it used to feel MUCH better. The flare is not a good gun either, the EM-6 is definitely the better of the two. By leaps and bounds.
You should be running the forward grip. Once you get used to the recoil pattern and first shot multiplier, headshots are really quite easy to get with the Anchor. And headshot TTK is what makes the Anchor really shine.
NC have 4 167 damage LMGs that are all slight variations of the Gauss SAW S (75rounds, all non-advanced attachments). The GD-22S is a poor man's SAW S with a fast reload, a smaller mag and absolutely 0 non-stock attachments. The EM6 is a supposedly mid-long range variant of the SAW S with a slightly larger (100) mag, a higher first shot recoil multiplier and the = lowest velocity of any LMG in the game. It loses access to SP ammo, but keeps HV ammo and the compensator. The Anchor is a gun that tries to be good for close quarters like the Orion or MSW-R, because it has an advanced laser, but since all LMGs have abysmal hipfire these days its only distinguishing features are slightly better moving accuracy and average everything else. It keeps SP ammo, but loses the compensator, HV ammo and 2x sight compared to the SAW S. 50 rounds with average reload. As for at range as OP asks, it depends on what you prioritise. Both have same initial cone of fire and bloom. Anchor has better accuracy while strafing, EM6 has lower first shot recoil and access to the compensator. The big difference though is whether you prefer directional recoil (anchor) or balanced recoil (EM6).
Generally yes, but in this case both weapons have pretty minor horizontal recoil with a foregrip. Some people prefer not to have to bother compensating for biased recoil. I was just pointing out the biggest 'feel' difference between the weapons other than the obvious mag size.
Directional is not better. For most weapons that have it, it adds an additional degree of randomness to the overall recoil pattern because there is usually some variance in the recoil angle from shot-to-shot. For example, the Anchor has a min/max bias angle of 18/20, meaning that it pulls up and to the right at a varying angle between 18 and 20 units (not sure what the units are but presumably its the number of degrees away from 0, with 0 being straight up). OTOH weapons with balanced recoil are always 0/0, so the base direction of their recoil angle never varies. All weapons of course still have some measure of horizontal recoil to them as well, giving even balanced weapons some left/right play.
It has way more to do with the variances on h-recoil and recoil angle than with balanced vs directional. There are weapons with both patterns that are hard and easy to control.
Well, I usually prefer moving while ADSing, cuz snipers. Even small movements reduce you getting sniped by like 75%. I don't really mind first shot multipliers, bloom per shot is what I mainly consider. I've been preferring directional in the weapons I've already used. Although it gets really tricky, when me, the enemy are both moving in random directions. I tend to lose aim in those situations, but I'm getting better as I'm using this gun. For me, the big difference was that it has better aim accuracy.
