Rattati while I believe that heat control plays a part in balancing the HMG it is not the whole story. It will only drop the numbers when you hit the heat threshold where there is no functional difference between the burst and standard HMGs.

It provides too much of an advantage in close-in fighting to regulate down to appreciable without knocking it to a short burst operating weapon. I can tell you that it will not fall off in popularity until its usefulness is measured in single digit seconds which will obviates it's purpose of sustained fire point defense.

Further because of the sentinels focus on CQC to the exclusion of all else touching mobility does more damage than good and will break the class as we saw in chrome with HMGS that operated only at close ranges without the ability to track strafing enemies.

But the CQC arena also obviates the drawbacks of the heavy frame due to the fact that almost all of the primary objectives have zero visibility outside the HMG optimal. This creates a no-win situation for most light weapons except scout run weapons because the scout can cause HMG hit detection to fail, but more likely the sentinel won't see them.
the scout sentinel interaction isn't a problem.

The things that are required to make scouts efficient vs. HMG heavies lead to scouts also having unnerving efficacy versus assaults who should be the scissors to scout paper.

But let's go down the list.

Hitbox: you can't miss a sentinel, this is established but in CQC you cannot maneuver well enough, or get enough range to capitalize on this. CQC negates the hitbox disadvantage.

Speed: CQC obviates the need for speed and maneuverability by forcing fast moving opponents to move with caution through established and predictable chokepoints to engage which allows sentinels to negate their maneuverability problems.

Range: An LAV can be exploited to get a heavy into optimal. Because of the hull buffs to LAVS AV grenades are no longer an effective deterrent as any LAV without any modules requires two shots with any prototype AV to kill. CQC forces assault dropsuits to engage inside HMG optimal leading to a need for the use of OHK alpha to evict sentinels entrenched. This tactic is unreliable and easily countered.

Scouts: because scouts have to be able to kill heavies in CQC they are less vulnerable to attack by assaults.

Sensor blindness: Sentinels are sensor blind but can entrench in positions where their backs are to a wall and all approaches are covered within optimal.

Mobility: turn speed penalty was removed from the dropsuit because you cannot have a designated CQC platform that can be torched like a turtle on it's back.

Vulnerability to focused fire: CQC allows chokepoints that force other players to engage face to face one at a time.

The problem is not the sentinel, the problem is the assigned venue combined with a sustained fire weapon. CQC negates heavy disadvantages. Period.

The only place where sentinels are vulnerable is open terrain.

Rattati your work with the burst is beautiful. That iteration of the HMG is what a CQC heavy weapon should be. It has sufficient drawbacks to not dominate because it is not a sustained engagement weapon.

However, the other two HMG iterations create more problems in CQC than any other weapon. The only way to bring them in line without basically making them burst HMG copypasta with a few tweaks is to remove them from CQC and make them open ground, area denial weapons.

I suggest placing a turn speed penalty on the standard and assault variants to discourage their use in CQC and buffing their range so they remain powerful squad support weapons but with an exploitable weakness commiserate to the burst.

Assaults should not be helpless against sentinels in close and sentinels are not nearly exposed enough to weapons that can torch them while entrenched.

I admire your willingness to review the issue and I'll be damned if I don't agree that Sentinels are too dominant. But the approach you are taking will require making the burst a better choice in all situations to accomplish the same mission.

Please consider changing the gun's role to change the dynamic of the dropsuit.

I like the Proxi Scanner. Could use an angle buff though.

Not undone. Lessened.

However, except for the militia version, which sucks, unless we change the operating range of the HMG keeping it as a sustained engagement weapon will keep the spam strong. Until a better solution is found I would go with your previous numbers from STD to officer, Rattati.

I like the buff to the militia, I'm dubious about lessening the planned penalty to tge regular ones.

Another thing that could be done is normalizing the heat across all HMGs and making the buildup the same as standard at all levels.

So long as there is a heat advantage to the MH-82 and Boundless people will compensate for the change by upgrading by one tier so they can be unaffected.

And I RARELY ever overheat the standard as we have now. You want to make HMGs less attractive to FOTM avengers.

Make the only advantage at each tier a DPS increase, nothing more.

that wasn't heat reduction. that was overheat damage reduction.

Only useful if you were running LR or scrambler.

and there is such a thing as "too much."

If you use the militia overheat you're better off using the burst in all cases...

On second thought... DO IT
that'll kill the spam fast.

I thought we were supposed to use scalpels and not hammers?