The worse part about the HMGs is that they are broken...the advanced AUR one is the exact same and the Proto AUR, but the proto costs 9 AUR....

Plus the price of HMGs is rediculus....177,000 for a proto weapon??? compared to the 70,000 of assault rifles...some of the "special class" guns cost a dumb amount....forge, HMG, mass driver.....just stupid expensive

I'd actually prefer that CCP make the HMG into an LMG (nerfing as they go so that you don't have assault guys just spamming LMG's) before making a new HMG that fires relatively slowly but fires 13mm steel clad, tungsten cored bullets more accurately than the current HMG.

Yes give me This http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger and I'll be happy :)

I preferred the high damage, short distance HMG.
Not only is it better from a gameplay perspective, but It just makes more sense that a projectile weapon meant to be just a few steps above what we have now would be less effective at distances than a plasma or energy weapon against a dropsuit.

The current incarnation is sort of sloppy.

The current incarnation is a weak ghost of its ancestors. The current HMG needs to be given a larger damage level that offsets the problems of its size and weight, or there will be NO reason to take it to battle when smaller guns can kill just as well as and most times better than the HMG. It should be a high damage weapon that should even give tanks a difficlut time if caught in its sights. The current gatling style guns fire from 7.62mm to 12.7mm rounds at approximate speed of 1000m/s, with between 2000 to 6000 rpm (without overheating). CCP please correct the stats for the HMG to make it more useful in battle.

Well eve is about 2 dark agest removed and 51k years from terra.

It's not even an HMG it's a minigun/gatling gun!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minigun

Most LMG's fire the same round as most AR's while HMG's fire heavier rounds but are still manageable. LMG's and HMG's are used as mass casualty producing weapons! A machine gunner has a life expectancy of about 2 minutes on the combat zone because of there ability to put more ammo down range than a AR especially if the machine gunner is using a HMG.

Those minigun/gatling guns are usually mounted on vehicles. So my question is who in there right mind decided to give foot soldiers miniguns? If they would've been mounted on the dropship instead of rocket launchers I could understand.

This is what happens when people think oh this is cool and it's actually a horrible idea.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_machine_gun read this and give it a second try. The modern style should come with modern stats. Or you could make a new hmg based off of the link.

Personally i would say the current falls in the general purpose/medium classification

I enjoy the Minmatar technology where they can build you an engine with nothing but scrap metal and duct tape thank you. There could always be different variations in guns in terms of the races, so you might see something more like that for a Caldari HMG.

When Arnold used it wasn't he a freaking robot?

the damage potential isn't really that much better, and it's more than negated by the terrible accuracy.

i don't care if they increase the effective range, it will never be effective at range if you can't aim it. (i'm not saying you SHOULD be able to aim them, i'm just saying CCP seems to be missing the point.)

I just want my balanced HMG and I will be happy. CCP will deliver this in the future.

My 0.02 isk
When i think HMG the first thing that comes to mind is "heavy" both in weight and fire power. So should it not have the same damage per round (if not more) as the assault rifle?

even in the pre e3 build, it did a little less than the ar per bullet. 25/round compared to the ARs 30.

but it was enough.

knocking it all the way down to 16 is baffling.

Has anyone actually gone in and compared the stats between SMG and HMG? My "Toxin" SMG fires 1000 RPM, while the HMGs fire 1058 RPM for comparable damage. Difference? SMG can run and gun in a scout with a 80 round clip, HMGs are heavy only and cause the heavy to move much much slower while firing with a 300 round clip. HMGs need to be design that anyone moving on a heavy with one face on will die. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Just like the big heavy tanks, you don't take them on face first, you have to flank them or pincer them or something. If EVE is in a far more technologically advanced universe where ARs fire plasma rounds (read the flavor text, it's great), then HMGs should do massive amounts of damage, period.

Think of it this way, if you compared a Forge gun to a shotgun like the HMG to an SMG, then forge guns would have far shorter range and take 2-3 shots to kill someone while still having the long charge time and slower movement. Does that make sense? I ask for a buff please.