Well I'm having a blast with them. Lets you one shot infantry at about the same ranges as the Pump action shotguns, but you still get an auto in case you miss or they're out of range. I don't know about the other classes but LA's natural maneuverability makes them a great user of them.
The main problem is that this can happen: Also doesn't work against HA with overshields, and generally requires a very steady and precise shot at center mass at close range, this simply isn't always possible. When it works, it's great, but it doesn't work as often as we'd want.
It's good, It's just not good enough to justify it's complete lack of versatility is all. It's good at one thing, one, very, specific, thing. I remember watching this movie... forget what it was... but whatever it's not important it's the ad for the 50 shades movie that was. There was one part where after they bang she's in bed asking him what's wrong, and he's all like "my tastes are very singular, you wouldn't understand" then he takes her into this sex dungeon and I just let out this big *** laugh and looked to my right at my ex girlfriend, yeah that's what goes through my head when I think about UBSG...
In comparison to the other two underbarrels it's generally less useful. Direct hits with the grenade launcher at exploding range is an instant kill to most infantry, and deals significant damage to MAX units. It's also capable of fair AoE damage for formation disruption, and really makes the most of whatever height advantage you have. The smoke launcher works incredibly well with the HS/NV scope, and can give an edge for a quick screen on demand, or for when you want both smokes and frags. The shotgun is like a pump action that has slow rechamber action (fully reload), a smaller kill range and less ammo. While it does allow for more adaptibility, it's comparatively impractical for clutch situations as opposed to a regular shotgun, and has much less utility as opposed to a different underbarrel launcher.
I like that attachment too, for me it's the best out of the special underbarrel possibilities. Yet as Iridar said: HA overshield, and you're done for. HA not being rare, it's a gamble: might pay off, might not, unless you've identified your target beforehand
If I remember correctly, a Resist HA will not survive the full blast. Resist can handle up to 500 base damage, so depending on how shotgun pellets are registered on the player, it may not allow them to survive. I learned this while using slugs on the Pump Actions since I could still 1HKO Resist HAs with Headshots in CQC.
It fires 10 pellets each doing 143 damage, resist gives 45% damage reduction, so if HA is full health + shields, with Resist he will have 1818 effective hp, enough to survive.
So I'm guessing that each pellet is registered as a single bullet, alright. HA will survive a full frontal UBSG then. UBSG is still good otherwise, sometimes people are surprised you have an extra kick to your arsenal and other times it is just fun to blast people in one shot while having a mid-range Primary, but -S Carbines should be stayed away from in the first place.
I don't know. I barely remember the time when all shotguns did 143 damage per pellet, and UBS's stats are left from that era. So if shotguns at that time had 2x HSM, then I'd assume so does UBS. The stats aren't datamined, I tested them myself. I just fired 20 143 damage bullets at my Flash, screenshotted, then repaired it, then fired 2 UBS shots, screenshotted and compared the results in photoshop. The amount of pixels detracted from Flash's health was identical. As you can imagine, testing HSM would be a bit more tricky, I'd need a buddy in a MAX to do it. But it's really not worth the trouble, shotguns are bad at headshots. At almost any range it's preferable to aim for center mass to maximize the number of pellets hitting.
