LMGs are less useful than other weapons - the idea how to improve them

Hello everyone

I tested all weapon types and found light machine gun inferior to all others.It can shoot only very tus-costly bursts,it is not accurate.The only feature it is nice it's suppression,and number of bullets in a burst.That's hower not enough to carry one.

When it comes into close-quarter battles shotguns do the job better,as they can easily shoot twice or even more.

On the longer range assault rifle preforms better,it can shoot suppressive bursts not so much less potent compared to LMG's one.And it can shoot aimed single bullet with great accuracy.

So,some niche where LMG could fit would be most welcome.

My idea is to add a button 'Deploy' where fire switch mode is.To activate that you need to be next to some object of appropriate height you could prop the gun on,like a fence or hay stack.When deployed,the statistic of the gun should be changed to some like:

- burst cost should be lowered to 40% of max TUs

- fire accuracy +20%

- reaction modifier +15%

- unable to point outside 90 degrees cone (45o each side only)

This way LMGs can be used as intended on real battlefield,as area-denial suppressive weapon in defense or as a resistance breaker during an assault.

Hope the devs will find it worthy of consideration.

It used to be possible to fire twice in one turn, but what REALLY bothers me about machineguns is they're the easiest weapon in the game to suppress, when they should be the hardest. Its their job to suppress other people.

Good old machine gun, a niche but very useful weapon as support in the early game, absolutly OP in the lategame

No changes like this will be made to the game at this stage.

Even balance changes are ruled out unless the imbalance is completely game breaking.

You might be able to mod them to your satisfaction though and if you come up with anything interesting feel free to share over in the modding section.

My idea is to add a button 'Deploy' where fire switch mode is.To activate that you need to be next to some object of appropriate height you could prop the gun on,like a fence or hay stack.When deployed,the statistic of the gun should be changed to some like:

- burst cost should be lowered to 40% of max TUs

- fire accuracy +20%

- reaction modifier +15%

- unable to point outside 90 degrees cone (45o each side only)

This way LMGs can be used as intended on real battlefield,as area-denial suppressive weapon in defense or as a resistance breaker during an assault.

I really like this idea. Or simply have a tripod that you can set the LMG up on anywhere, for a certain TU cost.

Gaudd is right, though, there won't be any more changes made to the game at this point (as he simply LOVES to point out ). But that doesn't mean not to keep good ideas coming; they may inspire some of this forums' more skilled modders

I have only played for a few hours, but for me LMG are one of the most useful weapons. My simple experience is that if you fire at an alien with assault rifle at middle to long range, it got low chance of hitting and even if it hits, it wont damage much the alien. LMG, on other hand, have in my experience 90 % of hitting and around 75 % of killing them in that one shot. Add to that area suppression.

Sure you nearly cant move to shoot, but its imho fair balance. I atm roll with 1 scout tank, 2 LMGs, 4 snipers with shotguns in backpacks, seems to work.

I beg to differ. They're incredibly useful against androns, more so than rockets IMO.

LMGs are one of the more powerful weapons in my opinion. Give them to a soldier with good accuracy and they are deadly against everything & suppress easily. Burst fire with a rifle and your likely to get reaction fire cut you down instantly. Shotguns are useful to but you need to be close so that you can unload 2 shots point blank to kill, more for some of the tougher guys.

Well,I'm new here,so is this place a right one to suggest something and actually by spotted by devs?

Well,I'm new here,so is this place a right one to suggest something and actually by spotted by devs?

The game's on lockdown, save for final bug fixing. There's no planned balance changes for the game, and even if there's some small tweaks there won't be adding any major features like the one you suggested in the OP. Not that it's necessarily a bad idea, but Chris has said before that they can't afford to keep prodding Xenonauts as they need to start work on their next project. Sadly, the time for feature suggestions is long passed (but there's still some potential in mods, so suggesting stuff isn't entirely a waste).

I like 'em, MGs almost guarantee a kill and can break cover with sheer volume of fire plus the suppression of course.

Though it would be interesting to see how they fare with two 5 bullet bursts instead of a single 10 bullet one.

The "deployable LMG" is an idea that springs up every so often. There are variations on the theme, but they're pretty much the same as presented by the OP. I believe the reason the devs have resisted it so often is the development cost. By that I mean the cost to have the assets made (remember this is all sprites!), the cost in manpower to turn the assets onto spritesheets and the cost in manpower to code and bugtest.

LMG are an extremly powerfull weapon. But i can think of a reason why some newer players don't find them usefull: They are extremly dependant on the stats of the xenonaut wielding them.

You basically need high tu (so you can still walk a few tiles after/before shooting), high strength (because of the recoil penalty) and high accuracy to get the most out of them. And they also gain a lot from higher weapon tiers, because those make them awesome at cover clearing. Try giving a laser LMG to a xenonaut who has at least 60 in all 3 of those stats, and see him move down his enemies.

Yeah, once you get Predator armour, you become a one-man terminator.

I can't say I agree with the assessment at all; hell, half my combat strategies revolve around spotting enemies with a Shield-using scout, and then hosing down the target with machinegun fire from 25+ squares away. Way too much silliness with Aliens having phantom LOS and constantly shooting from the dark to engage them with a standard rifle, and the sniper rifles feel rather anemic.

To be fair, the "sniper rifle" seems more like a "Marksman's Rifle"...

To anyone who does not satisfied with vanilla machineguns for some reason, i can recommend to look at Magnum-nauts mod - some very good ideas about weapon diversity there.

One of them is two parallel types of MGs, light (shorter bursts, less power, more mobile) and heavy (more like vanilla ones) for example.

Gaudd is right, though, there won't be any more changes made to the game at this point (as he simply LOVES to point out ).

Just like to point it out so people don't get all excited with an idea they think will be great in game only to find out later that there is zero chance of it being looked at for any kind of official addition.

Might as well get it said up front so everyone is clear.

The basics of this suggestion cannot be modded either though.

The weapon cannot change stats during a battle.

The closest you could come would be for a single shot weapon with pellets representing the burst fire and give it two fire modes, a low accuracy shot and high accuracy shot with the corresponding TU costs.

Not for any official addition, correct. But now that Chris is going to make the code available to Solver and others, I can stick my tongue out again and say

First couple of months, the one's I've played thus far, I gave my LMG to this black woman with 60s in str, accuracy and time units. She is by far the MVP of my team. Most of the automatic rifle shots miss all over the place. Pistols hit surprisingly hard, but aren't enough. Neither is the Sniper, though she at least usually hits her mark. And I've stopped using rocket launchers. Sure, they usually one shot the aliens, but they blow all the tech up and don't clear enough when aimed at buildings.

If I have just one alien, I can take my time making sure the whole squad gets to shoot it. If I'm pinned down by anything other than caesans, though, the LMG is what gets me out of it. Just make sure all your guys are not anywhere near it's line of fire.

How about making cover not stop the rest of the bullets after it was evaporised in the first three shots of the burst?

Also lining up Aliens to blow them all away like in the first x-com would be nice. Doesn't seem to work though because the 35% hit chance on the alien 15 tiles away becomes 9% when there is an alien in between and the shots dont deviate 5 but 30 degrees out of a sudden.

Let it be a lesson tactical combat game developers - always calculate the direction where the shot goes and then if it's a hit. The other way round is just wrong.