[WEAPON] Heavy Machine Gun

[Dioxine]

Based on DShK 12.7mm HMG. Powerful but requires great strenght (loaded weight: 52) and tactical deployment (fire-and-move basically impossible).

[yrizoud]

Looks great, I love specialized weapons.
My only reservation is that, since the game engine only uses "snap shot" for overwatch, you'll never be able to get any reaction shots with this weapon.

[BlackLibrary]

Same here.  Tested the idea, its look decent, but unusable.  If user is too weak, useless.  Its TUs are too much.  You need a decent burst on snapshot, and a long burst on autoshot.

When I get a moment, I'll post my suggested modifications, including wav files.

------------------------
Done...

It has a Snap as well as Auto Mode.  Snap is critical for reaction fire, which in truth, is the main use of any heavy machine gun...suppression of enemy movement. 

Through testing, found it to be useful, but not dominant as one might think.
1.  Its completely susceptible to the sniper, and
2.  susceptible to flanking (big time). 
3.  Its THE WORST (ouch!) weapon ever to give to a unit that goes berserk or gets alien controlled.  Never seen so many bodies in a Skyranger before.  LOL!  Pure rookie cutter...

Working in a team, it was most useful, but you have to check flanks, which just about kills any real full auto blast.  Tactically, I found moving with a pistol into a good position, while carrying the HMG in backpack worked.  When you get to a spot, unpack it and sit, while team clears flanks.  I really want to up the damage a tad for so many reasons, but just couldn't justify it much more.  It does need to compete against laser weapons.  Its a weapon that suppose to sit on a jeep or APC.  Its superior to any rifle except a heavy plasma. 

Heck, it was the Terminators weapon of choice, after all.  Nuff said.

BTW...I had to change the sprite and whatnot.  Its a machine gun.  No tracer fire.

My one big issue is that I used the shotgun pellets.  Works beautifully on auto visually and damage effect, but when you do reaction fire, the effect looks interesting, but it cheats on the number of rounds spent.  I think its minor, but if possible, a change to the code to spend rounds per pellet should be added.  See for yourself.

Please take no offense at my playing around with your mod.  Its awesome and I'm jealous cause I have no graphics skills.  I just code.

[Solarius Scorch]

Frankly, I think it's weird that Snap Shot is the only reaction available. It doesn't seem to match my experience with most of such games... Especially UFO: Extraterrestrials.

[Dioxine]

No worries, I like the fact you've found it inspiring!

Truth be told, this weapon is meant for a setting where laser weapons and money are hard to get, whereas high-strenght characters or flying armor aren't. It is balanced with other firearms in mind, NOT with lasers, which are just superior in so many ways there could be no competition. Another problem, the only enemy you could realistically consider a natural target for the HMG is a Cyberdisc, normal aliens are way too squishy for the increased firepower to matter that much.

Anyway, adressing your points...

A) Sorry, but reaction shot simply makes no sense to me in the light of how I understand combat in X-COM - as in, fast action skirmish, where you have 1-2 seconds to react in a wide arc, not squad combat, where you have the HMG pointed at an exact spot and just waiting for enemies to apear. Swiveling a HMG 45 degrees and opening fire seems very unrealistic in such timeframes where someone else has barely the time to fire a rifle.
B) Having said that, enabling Snap Shot makes sense, as most HMGs are capable of single fire. However, I wanted a narrowly specialized weapon. See below:
C) The way I was using it was: get the HMG to a vantage point, kneel down, end turn. Move scouts forward. Kill spotted target with the HMG. Always have the HMG trooper far out of enemy LOS. That's what the extended accuracy at long ranges is needed for! Basically it was never meant to move-and-fire; you have to plan for the next turn to use it as intended.
D) Scattershot, just nah, this looks stupid. But if you really want, you could maybe reason it away as each shot using a "burst" of ammo, not a single round, and the clip just measures the number of shots remaining. That way you would only have "Snap" fire setting on it.

The "bullet hit" sound is a nice touch

@Solar: seconded, it's stupid (and I think the AI CAN autofire on reaction)

[BlackLibrary]

Mercy!  Thank you for not taking it all the wrong way.  Cool.  I did not want to come out seeming arrogant.

What you are describing seems to me to be more of a sniping type role (regardless of the "means" of raining death, be it 7.62MM, 20mm, laser, plasma, cupid arrows, cute puppy toes).  Position as far back as possible, flush targets out with scouting unit and take out enemies from a distance using insert weapon X.

With such a weapon, there would seem to be few uses for reaction fire.  Its not its intent...Its really not its role.  However for XCOM, not having reaction fire is a heavy price for any weapons usefulness after Day 1 out of the Skyranger.  If the heavy plasma rifle had no snap shot (and therefore no reaction fire), its role as the de facto weapon of choice would fall dramatically.  Or rather, it would definitely change the composition of weapons a team of XCOM agents would deploy, IMO.  But I digress a bit.

Hence the direction you went initially.

Another means of looking at the HMG is as a SAW.  Its mobile, performs a few different roles (including "sniping").   As the squads automatic weapon, it has to have some level of mobility and use on the go.  Useful down range (like an open desert), as well for clearing out a hostile habitat like a harvester or Alien Base where fighting is up close and action can come from any direction.  However, the key difference is that no one should be down range that weapon except the enemy.  With that many bullets flying, it just shouldn't be used for seperating a civvie from a charging chryssalid.

For original specs, the optimal user of the weapon has to be very experienced with a strength in the 50s in order to open up with auto.  Personally, I don't get guys like that with enough XP until late March or April.  So that means lasers have probably been fully developed by the time your original concept HMG comes into play.  So, IMO, it has to compete in the same realm as laser tech, even though it buyable.  Even with me dropping the weight to 20, it took guys with high beginning strength to have some decent automatic fire with it.  There is nothing worse than turning 1 util and not having enough TUs to fire on an enemy in your sights that about to pounce on your scout who is out of TUs and caught in the open.  And when I am in that range, and I have the right amount of TUs...that "insert weapon X" better put that enemy down with no ifs, ands, or butts...otherwise the weapon is soon to be disgarded.  Unlike a Squad Automatice Weapon, you have to trust that the weapon is accurate enough to splice the enemy despite shooting thru (or near) a group of your squaddie scouts.

[Solarius Scorch]

Here's the Polish version:

Code: [Select]

  - type: pl-PL
    strings:
      STR_HMG: Wielkokalibrowy karabin maszynowy
      STR_HMG_CLIP: Amunicja WKM
      STR_HMG_UFOPEDIA: Wielkokalibrowy karabin maszynowy strzela druzgocącym strumieniem pocisków, co czyni z niego doskonałą broń wsparcia.  Niestety jest o wiele zbyt ciężki, by przeciętny żołnierz mógł z niego efektywnie korzystać.

[Aldorn]

French Translation

(-> Have to change Minigun)

Code: [Select]

  - type: fr
    strings:
      STR_HMG: Mitrailleuse Lourde
      STR_HMG_CLIP: Chargeur de Mitrailleuse Lourde
      STR_HMG_UFOPEDIA: La Mitrailleuse Lourde déverse une pluie de projectiles, remplissant à merveille son rôle de support tactique.  Malheureusement son poids imposant nécessite des capacités athlétiques très supérieures à la moyenne.  Capable de délivrer des rafales de plus de 8 tirs par tour, elle conserve une précision intéressante à forte distance.