While the current implementation of MG emplacements is temporary (in the shape of an MG42 for both the Russians & Germans), it still shows that there is a mild balance problem that could easily be solved. As it stands, you can build an MG inside a building far away from a cap point, and comfortably snipe people heading into said point. This can obviously be solved by moving around and trying to break line-of-sight, but I feel like a better solution would be reached by removing the ability for MG emplacements to ‘zoom in’ / aim down sights.
It’ll prevent powerful weapons with a high ROF and barely and recoil from sniping across the battlefield and cutting down enemies before they even have a chance to retaliate.
I my opinion zoom is not the problem with the stationary machineguns. Without it they would be still the same, because without recoil and need of reloading one must not worry about sniper precise aiming.
What should be done is replacing MG42 with nation specific machine guns (MG34 for Germany and DShK for USSR (or something else, I don’t know their equipement so much). That would automaticly lower the rate of fire of the stationary machinegun.
Second, need for reload should be implemented. As for now, player who knows that he should shoot with short bursts insted of full auto can fire almost without stopping. And that is, in my opinion main problem with stationary MGs - no time when they are out of fight to reload.
It would be cool to have 2 soldiers operating the machinegun too. One to shoot and one to reload. It would give something to do to bots and increase immersion.
that’s how machine guns are supposed to work, yes.
Machine guns in reality have a higher effective range than rifles and are meant to take advantage of that.
Non-stationary MGs should get their bipods as well.
And maybe have the spare barrels cost 1 engineer point if they are built? These barrels would be changed when you overheat, so as long as you let the barrel cool down it would not be needed, so see it as punishment for people that spam fire too much.
Well, it is in fact a thing even for prebuilt defence MGs in bunkers. While it is hard to do and (at least with semi auto) you need two shots to disable it, it still can be done. That is also why snipers who knows what they are doing are so useful specificaly in Normandy test and that is also what I´m trying to do as sniper class in Normandy.
Funnily enough however, “hit” counts only if you hit the barrel, not handle or anything else which is very small point to snipe at long distances so most of your supposedly “hits” are in fact near misses.
Of course the best thing to be sure is to just load HE in your tank and shoot it down easier, because good luck sniping mounted MG that is both manned and aiming at you. First of all you will have trouble seeing MG itself because of the background (that means you need to shoot from sides, have patience and good eye) and then surviving long enough to actually land precise shot.
Yes, building MG in good positions can be strong stuff. But also, dont forget that many things came to player hands. Many players just are bad at game, dont try to flank or walk around. People just rushing and die… No need to rush nerf these MG stuff.
Well, that’s exactly what HMGs do, they are “machine sniper rifles”. The best way to deal with them is a) flank b) tank.
You can balance it by for example implementing overheating mechanic but it would ony cause further issues and questions about more mechanics, like barrel change mechanic (crew of german MG could switch barrel and reload in 3-5s so gl if you want to rush them). Also they had peryskope sights with zoom (rare but they existed).
Ps. In my opinion if MGs are meant to be balanced than they should be as unrealistic as possible. Otherwise german MGs will outclass everything.
Personally I would love overheating and barrel change mechanics but I think germans will be op if they will be implemented even close to real life.
Also I still hope for gunner assistant.
Because they had one of the highest rof in their class (MG42 the highest). So it’s a trade off, not bad one in my opinion.
If we are talking about HMG than big magazine is necesity (and one of the criteria to become one). So I think you are thinking about LMGs.
Allies (mainly) had water cooled HMGs and that’s their big advantage but also disadvantage because of weight and lack of mobility (changing position). Yet they still needed to change their water, otherweise it will boil. US used air cooled HMGs but they also needed barrel change and as far as I know it takes long time. But I don’t know them very well so I may be mistaken.
In HMG role they used mainly: MG08, MG34, MG42. So I don’t see how it changes anything. And even if you want to give them sth in replacement devs won’t do that. They just won’t replace one of the iconic weapons of WW2, or at least I don’t think they are crazy enough.