Shotguns or Machine Guns?

[Vendetta]

No, I use cannons and rockets. Machineguns are too weak for a defender, because target KE resistance strips them of most of their effect. (seriously, they can lose close to 95% damage).

I only use MGs on a scout, and then only to clear out ACVs.

Shotguns I don't use at all, because even four SG200/Ds wouldn't be an effective use of weight.

[Dio_X]

Im going to have to agree with vendetta on the waste of space of shotguns and mgs. I had three good ones (dont remember exactlywhich) along with some other weapons(irrelevant) I went up against the cpu a match and got hit by all three at once while my guys were out looking for their base. I took two out but not before all my weapons(except the shotties) were either destroyed or out of ammo. The last cpuwas taking all my shells from all three shotties to the c-pit. I know at times i was a bit to far but the majority of my shots were up close and personal and this bastar d wouldnt go down, eventually he got me! I was disgusted and dropped the shotties freein me up for another devastating cannon.

My vote would be neither, defenders need to pack a punch and i just dont think those two weapons pack enough of one

[e_vola]

i'd go for machine guns,
shotE's are more suitable to someone of more speed.

[hockeyking]

So... I see that most, if not all people in this thread think that MGs are a better choice. Well, I have a very successful defender HOUND (which I've fallen in love with since I've perfected it), and I use only 2 double-barreled shotguns and my other weapons. It's true that MGs never quit, with no reload time or anything, but to be purely honest, at close range, shotguns are the far better choice. As a defender, you'll be fighting at close range more often than not; you find a good place to wait and set an ambush, as soon as they reach you (not seeing you, 'cause you aren't moving on sonar), you bust out and hit them hard at close range. All defender based weapons are close range oriented, if you read their stats.

And I don't know what exact weapons you have on your defender, but what makes mine so successful is that all of my weapons have a certain degree of reload time. I fire one off, switch to the next and fire that, ditto once more, and return to my original set, which is by that time reloaded. Using this tactic, you literally get the most out of every weapon you have. To get the most out of a machinegun, you have to be firing it constantly, meaning you can't make use of the other weapons you have on your HOUND while you're hitting the enemy.

As a fellow defender, I suggest shotguns (double-barreled ones, if you can get your hands on them), but if you are going to be engaging your enemy at far range rather than close, go with machineguns (imho, cannons work far better, but machineguns do at least work)

[chronbeast]

Its my current dilemna..and the last thing I need to settle on my Defender Hound, which is my favoured RT...

4 Machine Guns or 3 Shotguns? I want to hear all opinions that can be validly made (have tried out both, no bias please!) before I make up my mind. Hopefully this thread will also help out other people trying to create a defender..thanks!

i had this same problem for my soldier mech, but I guess ill put on a couple of MG's now that I've heard what other ppl have to say about it.

[Vendetta]

And I don't know what exact weapons you have on your defender, but what makes mine so successful is that all of my weapons have a certain degree of reload time. I fire one off, switch to the next and fire that, ditto once more, and return to my original set, which is by that time reloaded. Using this tactic, you literally get the most out of every weapon you have. To get the most out of a machinegun, you have to be firing it constantly, meaning you can't make use of the other weapons you have on your HOUND while you're hitting the enemy.

See, this is why I use the M02CN Anelace. It has a 2.8 second reload delay, which is roughly equivalent to a shotgun, but will apply far more damage.

The shotguns are good if you fire point blank, but with only ~500 damage per submunition, they'll lose a good 70-80% of their effectiveness to enemy damage resistance, and they have very short effective range. (fire a KE weapon at beyond it's maximum effective range, when the shots have started to drop, and it will lose about 60% effectiveness on top of the enemy's armour). You need all of the submunitions to hit (the actual projectiles that come out) in order for shotguns to be effective, and even then you'd be looking at a maximum of 800 damage for the very most powerful shotgun. A cannon could apply 1000-1200 in the same position, but do so at twice the range.

I'd say they're better as a Scout/Soldier weapon than a Defender one, you need to be mobile enough to get them into close range to affect the enemy. They are good as a weapon stripper though, since most weapons have low damage resistance, and the spread means you can hit a whole cluster at once.

Machineguns you can forget about. To get 1000 damage out of them against most targets you need a good 8-10 seconds continuous fire. A cannon could have fired three times in that period.

[Redraven]

I think you should build two def hound varients, one with shotguns ( which are/would be owntsauce in urban maps where you can just pop people in the face at close range, and put the MGs (or ARs may be good) for open maps where you need slightly more range.

EDIT: is the damage on the weapon characteristics of a shotgun per bullet or all the bullets put together, i havent been able to figure that out.

[Cobra N]

^ Yeah - the rated damage, if you have a single shottie rated as 500KE and a double shottie rated as 500KE with auto 2 - is that 2x500KE or still just 500KE for the burst (also applies to rocket pods, 800KE per rocket or per burst???)

[exLupo]

That's per shot. Auto is the number of shots at that damage.

[Redraven]

if you can get 4 double barrel shotguns then those but if not chose mgs. as for ammo, if your at/near the base you can get as much ammo as you want.