What's the point of LMG's in the rules?
Only one with anything special is the White Knight with it's high recoil mod.

Okay all of them can use belted ammo, so when mounted on a vehicle, i suppose a 100-round ammo belt is better than the 40 or so you can get with an assault rifle, but...

well, please enlighten me.

The LMG has superior Range Increments, in addition to the option for belted ammunition.

Because you can wear army-style cargo pants, no top, a red head-band, stand somewhere and fire it from your hip onehanded while holding up the ammo belt with your other hand screaming unintelligable.

Don't forget to pack your survival knife and collapsible bow with explosive tipped arrows.

-paws

Don't forget to make him an Ork with Human Looking flaw.

Nitpick. The M60 is classified as a general purpose machine gun.

An LMG serves as a true squad support weapon, lighter than a MMG, firing a projectile that is more likely what an assault rifle is going to chamber, and most importantly...it is designed for a higher rate of sustained fire.

Machine guns are area denial weapons, as in you deny the enemy the opportunity to move through that area without filling them full of holes.

There are no nits to pick when we are talking about Awesome things.

-paws

You know there is a special kind of satisfaction from just unloading a belt into a Lone Star patrol car after a mission has gone sideways on ya!

Rules-wise? -> Availability... but then again I'm somewhat old-fashioned.

The white knight has a great recoil mode and availible 12 so you can get it at char gen. what else do you want from a gun exactly?

LMGs are the largest weapons that fit on a standard vehicular weapon mount.

They often have the option of belt or clip fed. Thats about all that I need.

Sorry...I digressed.

The White Knight has enough going for it to make it a serious contender straight out of chargen.

That's precisely the idea. The purpose of an LMG is generally to drench an area with a frankly obscene amount of lead, which they excel at in SR.

An LMG can cover a 10-meter area in suppressive fire (144. corebook) for 10 full turns - over twice as long as most standard assault rifles.

This is a Good Thing ™.

EDIT:

Also, they're fired with the Heavy Weapons skill, which is outside the Firearms group. Grenades and rockets are not cost-effective or particularly safe for personal-scale combat, whereas LMGs are.

If you're a heavy weapons specialist, consider using a White Knight rather than blowing points on Automatics.

Not everything in the rules are just for the PCs. A lot of them are for using against PCs.

This is why we go for LMGs.

If you play a more combat-oriented game, the machine guns are good for suppressive fire that you just can't get from any other weapon. If you play a game where you're mostly sneaking around, LMG's probably aren't going to be particularly useful to you.

If you want a look at where an LMG fits in modern combat doctrine, look at the M249. It's light and small enough to be portable by one man, including the belted ammo, instead of a larger crew-served machine gun. Plus, it's got some extreme versatility because it shares ammunition with the M16 family of weapons, and can actually use their magazines if necessary.

because drones can't do tac reloads.

Not even: the Stoner-Ares M202 is also available at chargen. But it will cost a lot more since you have to customize it yourself.

The vehicule mount is the best use I have seen so far.

Suppressing fire is THE reason to own a LMG. Nothing quite like the heavy weapons guy laying down five or six straight rounds of suppressing fire against LS letting the team escape into their armored van.

That's a notable change from previous editions. Until 4e, the LMG was the heaviest weapon PCs could start with, and the heaviest weapon that could be mounted on a standard weapon mount. It was a real dividing line item. The compatibility with assault rifle ammo and even clips would be a very important point if SR put more detail in its guns, but they don't, so that's kind of moot (And they don't with good cause, I think).

It should also be noted that the suppressive fire technique, due to odd little rules quirks when it comes to time and timing, is most effective when performed by someone with only one IP.

"I slo.... but I keel everyting dat move!" -- Oro the Unstoppable

Load up on APDS and you can shoot spirits in buildings without having to go into the building.
use stick and shock and really let it rock.
I'm still tempted to have a Troll outfitted with a Cyber-Torso and a Kustom Weapon Mount.
Call him Shadowhawk and have the LMG with muzzle pointing up to the ceiling when in rest and have it swing down over his shoulder and follow his eyes when in combat.

You Battletech nerd.

So does that make the Troll dual-wielding Ares Alphas a Jaegermech? Maybe twin Panther Cannons would make him a Warhammer? And let's not get started on Archers - troll bows are such a sore spot around here.

-paws

True, but for people concerned about it that can easily be tweaked to have the suppression only last until the same Initiative Score in the next IP.

I thought he said: ADRIAN!!!!!

Well, what can i say? YES damn it! ^^
Pair of Gauss would be Pillager for example.
Pair of Lasers the Marauder.


Heck, it's been years since i saw that ^^

Now we found a use for extra arms: troll bow dual wielding

That's why I use one LMAO

I would up the damage of the machine guns by +1dv to account for recoil.

I'm surprised no one has noted that the light machine guns have the advantage of having a BF mode while the MMG & HMG don't.

LMG equate to SAWs, usually 5.56, and just conversions of normal weapons (closed and open bolt, with the ability to use chian links). MMG/GPMG are usually specifically designed SAWs often with 7.62 ammo (though not exclusivly), HMGs are designed as crew server weapons generally, and usually require tripods, mounts, or some sort of bracing.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled munchkin-ing of a gun thread

I think I know what a Thunderbolt would be. I just can't remember the name of that back-mounted grenade launcher thing....

- J.

If it uses a smaller round then it would have a lower recoil. This again is why I question the point of having a double recoil modifier. A SAW while it can send more rounds does not have more recoil than an M-16 or M-4 Carbine. My complaint is longarms do more damage even though they would have similar or smaller size rounds.

If an LMG uses assault weapon ammo then the recoil should correspond. -1 die per uncompensated recoil. Else just modify your assault weapons for belt fed or drum fed ammo.

And a Ares Predator in your right cyberarm, A Palm Pistol in yout cyberskul and a Sakura Fubuki in your left chest? How will you deal with all the heat? Did you install hydraulic rams in your cyberlegs to improve your jump distance? I just hope you didn't have to give up too much armor to pack all that in!

(For those who missed it, that's a Battletech joke.)

My only argument against dropping the recoil mod for LMG's would be that it would make MMG's and HMG's a lot less useful (to the extent they get used at all in most SR games). Other than punching through hardened armor (which is admittedly important), the M- and HMG would pale in comparison to the LMG, which could throw twice as many uncompensated rounds for the same penalty.

Also, while a SAW doesn't have a lot of recoil, it's not as easy to use as an M16 or M4. Prone, with the bipod, it's fairly easy to put rounds accurately down range all day long. Standing or kneeling, it's a lot harder to keep it accurate. The weight of the weapon-- which aids in controlling recoil-- makes it harder to aim the weapon when it's not properly supported. From a game perspective, I can't say that I feel that level of verisimilitude is necessary, but it's why I don't mind LMG's taking the recoil penalty of heavy weapons despite firing the lighter round. (IIRC, SR2 had the lighter recoil penalty for LMG's, but it's been a long time since I looked at SR2 and this might be a case of my group's old houserule being lodged in my brain as the "official" rule.)

Hmm, take a pair of White Knights, add personalized grips, and put gyros in both your cyberarms, and your troll can dual wield LMGs that have no uncompensated recoil. As a troll, he only takes a -1 for one handing a two handed weapon. Now you just need to make him ambidextrous.

No, you do it like this.

*looks at time*
when do you sleep and what do you do when you DON'T post in here? O.o

Actually ruleswise BF is no advantage. You can shoot three round bursts with BF as well as FA. BF however cannot do 6 and 10 round bursts.

Same way I see it.

In SR3, BF is simple action, FA a complex action...

It doesn't really matters: the only thing you cannot do in FA mode is fire only 1 burst and spend your other simple action on something else.

That is wrong Traul - at least in SR4(A).

BF and FA can fire short bursts (three rounds) this is a simple action.
FA can fire a long burst (six rounds) for a simple action
FA can fire full bursts (10 rounds). This is a complex action.
Suppressive Fire is only available to FA weapons. It takes a complex action to activate but the suppressive effect lasts till the shooter's next action phase.

You are right per RAW, but the rules are bogus on this point. If you can fire short bursts with FA weapons, then there is no need to have both BF and FA modes on any given weapon. And even if a weapon has both modes, the BF mode should never be used: why waste time switching modes when you can do everything with FA?

What I said looked more like SR3: firing in FA mode takes a complex action, then you divide it in as many bursts as you like as long as you don't exceed 10 bullets. I forgot that you could also just fire a long burst with a simple action. But firing short bursts in FA mode? It cannot work like that.

Anyway, it just makes my point stronger: you don't need BF mode in a machine gun.

The only difference IRL between BF and FA is that in BF after a set amount of shots the weapon ceases to do full automatic shooting (i.e. eject casing, chamber new round, shoot round) even if the trigger is still pulled. I am sure that skilled shooters can confirm that you can indeed fire three rounds in FA mode.

If this is the case in real life, why shouldn't you be allowed to use the remainder of your action phase to do something else than shooting?

You are right however that according to the rules BF is superluous. IRL there are several automatic weapons that don't have all three modes. M16A2 has SA/BF, M16A3 has SA/FA; HK G3 comes with SA/FA as does the G36
Guess someone has thought along the same lines.

The Ballista?

Ruleswise, you can do a called shot with a weapon set to BF. You cannot, however, do a called shot with a FA weapon firing a short burst, even though it's the same number of rounds. My off-the-cuff-BS reason behind that might be that you're a little more focused on keeping the burst short, but either way the difference is there.

Aye thats it. Cheers.

- J.

..Stoner M202 is at best w/
Internal Smartgun System,Personalized Grip,Hip Pad/Shock Pad, Gas Vent III and Gyromount System..add Drum Fed(100 rnds (for quick
Change) and AV/APDS Rounds (w/Restricted Gear Quality) and see LS guys run..
..funny thing.. teams Heavy Weapon guy is Gnome..Talk about Firepower in small package!!

Hmm, I never noticed that before. Maybe someone should propose a change for the next errata. IMHO this does not make much sense. Either disallow it for any mode that fires more than one shot in an action or allow it for up to three rounds.

@Stingray: Use the external Smartgun System. Much cheaper.