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These are two rather similar weapons, which do you prefer? The AC7 does 7 simple damage. the HMG does 3 external + 3 internal and a good chance to damage or even destroy critical systems. The HMG also does less heat and weighs less, and gets 2 more ammo given 4 available slots, but is 5% less accurate. So, which would you rather carry into battle?

HMG has a slower recycle (19/16) and little more heat (13/12) and a little less range (15/16). I think none is superior.

The slower recycle means it creates less heat overall. Not by a significant margin, though. :p

I admit, I'm a bit biased toward the hMG. Making nm14 ammo slots explode and tear a titan in half is so darn fun.

I think, the AC7 does too little damage. But therefore it can shoot smoke grenades which are very useful for ambushes.
However, the HMG is just easier to handle than the AC7.

And then you could compare costs.

Notice also that ammo slot size also modifies recycle time. After 10 shots, the HMG starts recycling at 20 secs, not 19, and after 20 shots at 21, etc.

i'll take the hmg but then again i'm not exactly sure what i'm doing...

casebier

I never really liked the AC7. Twas too heavy and bulky for me.

However, the HMG gained a lot of respect from me ever since it crippled both legs of my main fighter the other day.

Varies depending on circumstances:

AC7 is good in Recon/Light/Medium titans, and against those titans.

But vs. a Heavy or Assault titan, an AC7 is darned near worthless... like a peashooter vs. the heavy armor. An HMG sidesteps that issue. And there's nothing more annoying than having an Uberassault titan lose it's engine, when it still has most of it's armor.

jzpops wrote:Varies depending on circumstances:

AC7 is good in Recon/Light/Medium titans, and against those titans.

But vs. a Heavy or Assault titan, an AC7 is darned near worthless... like a peashooter vs. the heavy armor. An HMG sidesteps that issue. And there's nothing more annoying than having an Uberassault titan lose it's engine, when it still has most of it's armor.

Remember that lighter hulls have little in the way of *internal* armor, as well. Mesons can eat off body parts pretty quickly.

Coyote27 wrote:Remember that lighter hulls have little in the way of *internal* armor, as well. Mesons can eat off body parts pretty quickly.

but at lower wieghts your not going to be packing as large a number of HMGs, also at lower wieghts your not gong to have as many 'spare' cannons in your squad and for this the AC7s smoke capibility, IMO, puts it a little ahead in the lower wieght catagories... Medium-ish to assault level.. sign me up for the HMG. Also at lower skill levels the AC7 not only don't have the -5% 'to hit' penelty of the HMG, but it's slightly longer range gives around a 2-3% 'bonus' to hit at longer ranges. 7% at low levels is alot. I voted they were about even, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if the AC7's range got increased by 1 although if you did that you would have to consider increaseing the AC4's also.

I would agree that the AC7 is the better choice for recons and lights. At least I would prefer to equip my light titan with 2 x AC7 than with 2 x HMG. Smoke is a BIG plus, the better to hit is another. You can also trip the enemy much better with hits to the leg/lower torso. I don't think the AC7 does need a boost. They are both cannons but have different roles which are not directly comparable.

Easy math will also show you that the HMGs 3 extern/intern damage might take a longer to disable a location of a light opponent.

Larkin... Is the 'trip-factor' for the HMG based off 3 damage or 6 damage?

The weapon's damage is 3.

Coyote27 wrote:Remember that lighter hulls have little in the way of *internal* armor, as well. Mesons can eat off body parts pretty quickly.

Actually, a recon has ~ 1/2 an assault's internals. So, relatively, lighter titans are "tougher" internally than heavier ones. That's what makes them so dangerous.
Heavier titans, due to their thicker external armor, are better targets for mesons. Lighter ones have approx the same external and internal armor, so mesons don't have a significant advantage (or disadvantage) over ACs there.

Smoke rounds? How do you make it happen, just target a hex (like you would to make a woods hex burn with lasers)?


Based on this discussion I decided to go with one of each. I replaced an AC12 on one of my Med designs with an AC7 and a HMG (I also has to squeeze some tons from other places). They don't have the punch-factor that the AC12 does, but the AC7 gets some good hits at range and the HMG adds the fun of random internal damage. The real turning point for me was when I was testing my Med design I accidentally took two of them against an assult that had somewhere around 4*HMG, plus a gauss or two. It did some very nasty damage withthose HMG's crippiling one AT so that it couldn't take a step without passing a 35% skill check, and then topping that off my putting a couple of hits on the others engine and heat regs. However in the end the Assult still lost, as it just didn't do enough "real" damage to knock-out my Med ATs.

BTW if a HMP/LMG does internal damage to a system do you always get a message (e.g. AC7 damaged light) or is that based on your "scanner" ability, etc.?

MahaROGa wrote:
BTW if a HMG/LMG does internal damage to a system do you always get a message (e.g. AC7 damaged light) or is that based on your "scanner" ability, etc.?

As long as you have the message detail set to high with F4 you will get the info. We decided that it is more fun. You can also do internal damage with big damage standard weapons (less likely than LMG/HMG/Vibra). These effects won't show up for the attacker.

LarkinVB wrote:As long as you have the message detail set to high with F4 you will get the info. We decided that it is more fun. You can also do internal damage with big damage standard weapons (less likely than LMG/HMG/Vibra). These effects won't show up for the attacker.

I've noticed that if the titan packs HMGs/LMGs/Vibras and another big damage standard weapon, you do seem to get message text as to what internal component was damaged, even if you were using the standard damage weapon at the time. Anyone else have this happen, and should it be happening?

No, it shouldn't happen. Will be fixed with the patch.

LarkinVB wrote:You can also do internal damage with big damage standard weapons (less likely than LMG/HMG/Vibra). These effects won't show up for the attacker.

I just checked the code and found that the chance to do internal damage without mesons/vibra is damage / 2 as long as the damge is bigger than 4 points.

I also found that these rare hits will also remove damage / 3 from the internal armor. Changed this to damage / 4 for the patch.

Expl for patch :

A tesla will have a 12% chance to do internal damage, removing 6 points of internal armor.