Operation Mauler is a good idea but allow me some constructive criticism. It seems we've taken a step back in the "play time-to-reward" ratio with this event. A big concern for Triple SP Week was that the multiplier for play wasn't high enough and it significantly increased the amount of time spent playing if you wanted the benefits.

It seems as though we've backtracked to that in a way with this event with 500 additional SP for every kill with an HMG/Forge Gun and 250 additional SP for a heavy kill. Now, apart from having a notepad handy with a leaf chart showing Kills and Confirmed Heavy Kills, it seems the amount of time investment necessary is MUCH higher than one would see than previous events.

To give an idea of what that's like for everyone, that's 3000 heavy kills with anything besides light weaponry, 1,500 kills with heavy weapons or 1,000 heavy kills with heavy weapons

This is something that is going to take a -very- long time. Eight kills with heavy weaponry a game (spitball average) that's about 190 matches. That's 48 hours of Ambush matches spread out over two weeks, which is a lot to ask out of a gamer. There are pros as the player activity goes up and certain behavior is encouraged but we also have to consider the cons which include burn out and a lot of the game's overarching issues become more apparent.

Another thing is that it's focusing on a particular specialization that not everyone uses, so it's either drop some SP into Heavies to run them (there are no militia HMGs afterall) as a jumpstart to a larger investment or grind out the 3000 kills otherwise which is an exceptionally long time when you consider that not all of the players on the other team are going to be running heavies.

TL;DR - Bonus SP is great but this shouldn't turn Dust 514 into a second job. Or third, if you play Eve Online. Too much time for too little reward.

you're crying about bonus sp. Shut up, entitled brat.

There hasn't been an event yet where I haven't found myself debating the value of the time and labor invested.
For bonus SP, I grind. For items, I don't even bother. I just play my game and let it be.
This is one of those events where not having a stat tracker is going to cut me short of the full bonus because I have no way to know how far I've gone, and thusly won't put forth the time and effort to achieve all of the outlined goals. I could play all week and insure completion, but that's not going to happen.

The event isn't "get 1500 kills with a heavy weapon and earn bonus sp"

It's "use heavy stuff and get bonus sp"

Seriously, is your goal in this game to earn every single skill point possible? That's not what these events are about...it's just an incentive to use a certian playstyle, or a bonus for doing certain things. It's at such a high amount so that players that are hardcore players can earn bonus sp the entire time. You don't have to hit a certain amount.

UPDATE: So I decided to see what this was all about. While I've played around with the forge gun, I've never used an HMG before. That's right, a 30M+ SP HMG virgin.

So I cooked up a quick fit:
Dren Sentinel
High: 1 complex damage mod.
Low: 1 enhanced plate, 1 proto ferroscae plate
HW: basic AUR HMG (rather than spending the SP)
LW: toxin AR
Nade: M-1 Locus

EZ mode in enclosed spaces. People melt. Light suits sometimes by simply passing the spray across them. Grenades? lol Other heavies are your primary concern. Being caught in the open by a ranged weapon is problematic (solution:BPO LAV), but that darn SMG is remarkably powerful out to about 40m or so it seems. Of the assault rifles, CR got me more than AR or RR.

KDR was about 4 -- higher than my typical CalLogi ARR suit. My KDR was higher when I got logi love, lower when I was abandoned or too slow to keep up. Got pounded one round by a trio of quality corp squads -- I think I died 16 times that round (dwater probably got half of them, lol)....the highest in several months....and I still about broke even ISK-wise and....

I had a blast!

Never knew you fatties had it so good.