[Suggestion] Make Empire Specific Heavy Weapons Viable Options

Chainguns need spin up. It's just the nature of the weapon.

My solution? Holding right mouse button pre-spins the barrel for as long as you're holding it, and while it's spinning a click of the left mouse button instantly begins the bullet spray.

I know I've seen this done before in a shooter but I can't remember which it was, and it's driving me crazy. (it might have been a mounted gun too. I've played too much stuff) But I remember this feature and made sure to keep those barrels spinning if I knew I was going to have to fire soon. It worked exceptionally well.

Any way you slice it. Adding a spin up button or simply removing the spin up time. It means you will be removing the spin up time regardless. There is no point in adding a spin up button because I personally would never let go of the button. It's a useless function in my opinion and removing the action all together it would be simple. I personally don't see everyone adopting this weapon with it's restriction removed as it's not practical outside of close combat. However I suppose anything is possible.

The difference between having a spinup button and not having a spinup button is that you move slower when the spinup is engaged just as you do when firing the MCG. Not having a spinup at all makes the gun an autofire champion that surpasses all other LMGs in lethality. It's extremely practical outside of close combat, it's more effective than the CARV at midrange. The spinup is not a useless function because it serves as the counterbalance to a statworthy weapon.

Not everyone is a minigunner. Those people should stick to the run and gun style LMGs.

The MCG doesn't stay accurate enough at range when firing long bursts. The spin up is fine and is what makes it the MCG and not merely a LMG with different look and high dps at close range.

No LMG stays accurate when firing long bursts, yet the MCG stays just as accurate as the majority of them. Point for point, it's better than the CARV in every way except mobile accuracy and bullet velocity. If the MCG had access to high velocity ammo and a scope, you wouldn't notice a difference. It has lower recoil and higher ROF than every LMG in the game and the initial shot has no recoil modifier. Where the MCG becomes inaccurate is when you are moving while ADSing. Standing still, it's more precise than TR's favorite default weapon.

Just saying guys, the MCG isn't a bad weapon, it's just not a run and gun weapon. You need to camp an area to make use of it.

The MCG is not a LMG. They are two different types of weapons. LMGs can be fired effectively in short bursts because they have no spin up time. The MCG cannot. Miniguns are meant for longer full auto fire. The MCG however quickly becomes inaccurate at range because it has the same bloom per shot as a LMG and the same or similar max bloom. Just try it out. Shoot for 2 seconds, the point it at a wall about 25 meters away. The bullet spread is so large that you're not a threat to anyone at that range. If you're making short bursts with the MCG to kill something then you're using the wrong weapon for whatever you're doing.

I cringe every time I see somebody using the MCG outdoors (unless the terrain is really rough and combat range is low)

6-7% more dps over a MSW-R or CARV at the cost of spin up time and being utterly worthless at medium range is a really bad trade in almost any situation.

I know it's not an LMG, but the stats are most similar to LMGs so that's what its getting to compared to. I disagree that it's worthless at midrange because midrange is 10-30m to 65m, depending on how you class close combat. At these ranges CARV users already spam fullauto and kill targets, MCG is capable of doing the same and being better at it. These ranges are actually very common indoors, no need to go outside to find a midrange battle. The gun is obviously a bad trade in most situations which is why it should only be used for camping an objective or attacking one, but it has a place as a stalemate breaker if you get a few people with one.

I wish it was default weapon instead of an unlock so more people could equip it. MCGs have a greater effect when there's more of them.

I am not sure if anyone else has brought this up, but one possibility is worthy of consideration for the ES heavy weapons. That is to allow them to be equipped in the tool slot where your rocket launcher normally goes.
That way the LMG or shotgun would be your main weapon with the other weapon for other jobs.

Wtf?
i PLAY a ******* vanu and own a lasher, and that thing is far more usefull than either of the other faction weapons, i can smoke people out of hiding with it and cause them to run into a firing squad or pick off fools hiding behind objections/in corners, it HAS uses, the other 2 faction weapons arnt worth ****.

The Lasher is the only faction specific HA weapon that is currently useful for the reasons posted by Skadi. It's bad 1on1 weapon, but since it can damage people around corners or deal splash damage to groups it still has a place in the game.

The MCG is just a LMG with slightly higher dps but too many disadvantages to make it worth it.

The Jackhammer is a clear downgrade from the existing shotguns.

As one of the few people who consistently use a Jackhammer on HA I don't think it needs too much more. Maybe +2 to the default Magazine size so you can get 3 full bursts with an extended clip, an even faster reload time (maybe 15%), but most importantly: a far bigger ammo capacity. Ammo goes way too fast on this thing.

The end result is imo the perfect storming shotgun where it takes but a second to reload and be ready for the next tyrant bootlicker around the corner..

As awesome as it would be for me, if they removed the spin up from the MCG, it would be ultra broken. Seriously. The spin up is the only thing keeping it from being the best gun in the game.

I love the MCG, and use it constantly. If they allowed for some kind of actual pre-spin, either by tapping the fire key or ADS'ing or something, that would be amazing too.

Really, my only complaint is that during sustained fire, the cone gets a bit too large to really be useful after 2-3 seconds, making it not actually so great at suppressing fire. But, once again, if they tightened the cone any, it would probably be OP.

As for the Jackhammer, I think I saw someone using one once, so I cant really say anything about it other than it doesn't seem that anyone uses it.

And the Lasher... well. One time I was out hunting magriders with my RL. And a Vanu sunderer pulled up. I shot the sunderer to death with rockets (it was already damaged or something) One Vanu HA managed to spawn and get away from the sundy before it exploded. He had a Lasher. He started shooting at me while I reloaded my RL. He was hitting very consistently. We both threw our shields up. I finished reloading my RL, drew my MCG, spun it up, and killed him with it. I still had about 50% HP left. I don't know what else the Lasher is good for, but it sure seems terrible.

"Heavy Weapons" should be oriented specifically toward support roles. At least, the ones currently in the game.

Lasher is an excellent example of a weapon geared toward suppression, but is lacking as a tool for killing. (That's what the rest of the HA primary weapons are for.)

The focus of this thread is pulling too much toward damage and TTK, and not enough toward the intent of Heavy Weapons being utility.

EDIT: That's not to say that I agree or disagree with the OP's suggestions. Just making a point.

Well, how do you support with a Shotgun?

You're actually the first person I've seen that likes the Jackhammer. Do you mind making a video of how you use it? PS2 has built-in video capture that doesn't reduce fp (at least for me) so it's really easy.

Um... you can keep it spinning by tapping the fire key. It won't fire until you hold it down.

Wouldn't be much as I'm usually a terrible player, although I have gotten some great kill streaks with the thing. I like the Jackhammer for stylistic reasons mostly. I tend to use it in burst mode, rushing out behind corners to kill somebody, running out quickly if I need to reload, then approaching again from another angle. Its fast reload means I almost never get caught without a full clip and one or two bursts takes down anybody if I'm aiming anywhere near their center. I also can't rely on it at all when at more than short range but the NC pistol is good enough at medium range that I'm not totally helpless, and in long range encounters I don't shoot at all, instead finding some kind of cover for closing the distance.

Yes, but that doesn't actually make the gun fire any faster. Regardless of how fast the barrels are already spinning, the spin up time is always the same.

In the old Alien vs Predator FPS, the marine minigun could be pre-spun by tapping the fire key to allow for quick reaction shots, but that doesn't work with the MCG, since as soon as you let off the trigger, the spin-up time is reset. Otherwise, the spin-up in-between bursts would be drastically shorter, and the MCG would just be completely unstoppable once you got going.

JH is heavy shotgun, it should fire more pellets than normal one aswell!

It needs to be brought up and pushed beyond other shotguns. Keep in mind this is suppose to be the king of all shotguns, so the very least they can do is add a respectable drum amount. As I stated earlier it should be a minimum of 9 rounds maximum 15 so that when extended mag is equipped it would have a healthy 18 to 30 rounds.

None of the heavy weapons are meant for support in my opinion. They all are about the offensive because if you had to send in a group of people into a base these weapons would make enemies back off immediately allowing you to get a foothold.

You don't. Shotguns are meant for breaching and always will be

the game mechanics don't allow the spin up time to be shortened. Once you let go of the fire key the whole process starts over unfortunately. If we were able to pre spin no one would complain about the spin up time at all because it would essentially remove it which is why I feel they should just take it out all together.

agreed. Although I'm not a fan of nerf's as they bring down the quality of the game more often than not I think the JH and regular shotgun should switch damage size. There is no reason the jackhammer shouldn't be superior in all aspects to other shotguns.