I hope I don't offend anyone with this, but:

Why does the minigun exist at all?

It's not an effective weapon in any circumstance.
Well, the only time it would be effective is if you spray it, but that causes additional lag, and spraying is annoying and skill-less anyways. Some people are more considerate and try to fight with it by getting in close, or burst-firing (however much a mini can do), or whatever special tactics advanced minigun users pretend exist. However, its basically impossible NOT to spray. The excessive self-bink of the minigun makes it impossible to be accurate unless you are within spas-ownage range. In any other circumstance, no matter what you do, even if you do that fancy jerk-up-and-down thing, you aren't going to be anywhere as accurate as any of the autos.

There are no circumstances where a minigun is more useful than any standard auto. Bluntly put, the minigun sucks alot. I am aware that there are many devotees to it, and I respect that. However, there are far more people who just spray it than people who try to use it well. Even those who use it well can agree that a MP5 would be far more effective.

The point is, there are far more ways to use a minigun non-effectively and annoyingly, than there are ways that a minigun can be used respectably. And these negative ways ARE used way more often.

My suggestion: either improve the minigun or remove it entirely.

It can be improved by increasing accuracy, or modifying startup time.

I think removing it would give great potential to the game. Replacing it with a brand new weapon would bring a fresh change to Soldat. We could have an entire forum deciding what it should be.

I think that most players can agree that playing against the occasional respectable minigun user is not worth the agony of playing against the hordes of sprayers who just increase the lag and reduce the gameplay to random deaths.

The main problem i can see with removing the minigun is probably any personal preference by Michal.

If removal is not an option, then it must be improved.
I think a good idea would be to remove the startup time entirely. Or, like the LAW, it could have a begining startup time, where it starts to whir, and then it is locked in place, and continues to spin. Any clicking would instantly fire it. You could then increase the self-bink, which would encourage the use of burst firing.

Anyways, that is my idea. They don't bother me that much, but the problem exists, and I'm sure this would be a reasonable solution.

It's been already discussed, and Michal said 'NO' to removing the minigun. It's a fun weapon, altough you won't find it being used seriously in competitive games.. reducing self-bink would probably be a nice tweak for it, or just improving the net code so your hits actually register would also do the trick.

*Pshh, hawww*
You do not understand the power of the mini side!
*Pshh, hawww*

Say hello to my, uhhh, big friend?
;)

Anyway, the mini is suprisingly useful even now. You can blanket a bunch of enemies with fire and other stuff. Although it does suck on non-team games the best way to improve the minigun (Discussed in another thread) would be to add a "warm-down" effect.

This means that you charge it up and start blazing, like now, but when you let go the barrels keep spinning for a second or so. If you pull the triger while its still spinning you start firing away instantly. This would mean you could burst with it.

How about that huh? Saw and nades? xD

I agree with Swarmer, either remove it or improve it. Anyway, I think I'm one of the few people who miss the minisurfing. The games were simply more intense with it, and you could never be sure if you were going to cap when you got the flag and were close to your base, or you were gonna be knifed by some minigunning prick. Now you're just always safe when you get the flag, unless you're getting sprayed ofcourse. I'm afraid everyone thinks it's retarded laming rather than some tactical playing ;0

Ya, I know it was pretty horrible on public servers where everyone was just surfing around, but that's why you're able to disable weapons.

the minigun is a good weapon. It has been given a bad reputation due to it being the newbie's weapon of choice for some reason, and the fact that most people simply use it to surf and dash.

I dislike the term "spraying". i think as a team, and to me, "spraying" is cover fire. Nothing is bad about cover fire.

I agree with Bulbock, myself. a spin-down time on the minigun would be good for all.

I think it's retarded laming ;) In my opinion minigun surfing just doesn't fit to skill-based teams games, just like M79 boosting when you have the flag. Especially minigun surfing is/was the tards way to try to win a match when it looks as if their losing, unfortunately most often successfully.

Anyway, as Demonics already said, Michal disagreed to removing any weapons, it's just not an option. There are people who say minigun is still useful, which might be true, but as Swarmer said, I doubt it's as useful as any other automatic weapon. So we could either keep it as an unrelevent weapon for team games, mostly used for fun (Like chainsaw, I guess. I haven't tried it much, but to me it seems it's not nearly as useful as socom/knife/law, also seeing how it's never ever used in clanwars), ooor we could try making it be a useful weapon that can compete with the others.

I guess Bulbocks idea is pretty good. Still I doubt minigun CAN be made a weapon that's used as much as the others, especially in clanwars, simply because you don't have good control of it.

The minigun is useful, more as a cover weapon for your teammates :P I know for a fact that on maps like Viet it translates to pure ownage!

Surfing was fun, though. It's no fun beating the hell out of the other team without them trying some cheap way to get an advantage over you. Sure, it takes no skill, but this is a game. We're here for fun, not for skill. Removing the minigun is pointless, it'd just cause bitching, and a new weapon can be added without removing a current one.

Bulbocks' idea is good, and reducing the self-bink a little would help as well.

it's funny that most of you mention that minigun isn't useful in skilled matches. someone used one in a clan war i was in probably a week ago and had a 17-9 ratio...until he d/ced later on... :-P

...that was viet tho. minigun is fine as is...making it easier would be nice...but i'm glad that less newbies are picking it up because it's somewhat difficult to use.

Here's the other thread that Officer Bulbock mentioned, there are lots of interesting suggestions for improving the minigun: http://archive.forums.soldat.pl/topic.php?topic_id=27975

I personally favor adding a "warm-down" time... the ability to burst-fire is absolutely necessary for any weapon with self-bink. Speaking of self-bink, the minigun's self-bink is screwed up... at full self-bink, rather than fire a random spray pattern, it fires most of the shots either at the top or bottom of its spray arc.

A slight boost in bullet damage wouldn't hurt either, it currently takes something like 15-20 hits to kill somebody which is just ridiculous.

Just look at it statistically:
Compare the minigun to the other autos:
-It does the least damage.
-It has the worse bink.
-It has the only startup time.
-It has the worse reload.
-It slows you down when you fire it.
-It has decent speed, but its accuracy is terrible.
-It DOES have the best ammo capacity.
-And also rate of fire.

So you take into account all the factors. To determine if a weapon is "useful", you check to see if its advantages can be capitalized upon. If not, then obviously it is less superior in every circumstance. Surfing has been reduced significantly so we will not include that as an advantage anymore. So:
The only advantage it has is its ammo and rate of fire. How can one capitalize on ammo? Fire support and suppression fire. Rate of fire: Fire support, suppresion fire, and binking snipers. This all adds up to one word: spraying.
While spraying may indeed be an effective and viable stategy, its simply not worth leaving a weapon as it is just because it can be used in an abusive manner. We can all agree that spraying should not be considered as a strategy for keeping a weapon as it is. It causes lag and has no reflection of skill.
This is all just a complicated way of saying, no, the minigun is not better than any other auto. I'm not saying its not fun or anything. I use it sometimes. But all I'm saying is that there's no way to keep the minigun as it is and expect more fun to come out of it than annoyingness.

Since removing weapons is out of the question, it HAS to be improved. It would really make no sense to keep it as it is. I think removing the startup time would make it considerably better, making it an actual good and useful weapon. Only an initial startup time would be required. It could always have an ambient sound effect of the gun whirring, kind of like the chainsaws engine. And it makes sense. Think about the minigun from TimeSplitters 2.


btw, the saw definetly has its special uses. No other weapon can kill as fast as it can. And it is a freaking noob slayer XD

Swarmer, that's a really great analysis of the minigun. I agree with you 100% about the problems.

As for the solution... I think removing the startup time would destroy a lot of the minigun's uniqueness. Without that, it's just a faster, weaker MP5 with a bigger magazine. The startup time needs some serious tweaking (perhaps a fast spin-up and a slow spin-down?), but I think we should also consider increasing bullet damage by a small amount and initial (i.e. prior to self-bink) accuracy by a great amount.

The minigun should have special strengths (insane rate of fire) and weaknesses (recoil that pushes you back, startup time) that keep it distinct from the other automatics.

If the mini only did a bit more damage it would be far more potent. But as I've said in countless posts before, the mini is a legitimate and powerful weapon. Mind you it is not a soloist weapon by any means, and it requires a great deal of skill to use. But it's fun and effective in the right situation.

If anything, look at it as that it's not hurting anyone, so its removal would be uncalled for. If anything, boost the damage a bit and see if it's more competitive.

If only the shots registered online it would be alot more useful. Use minigun in single player with bots, then use it online. Online it seems like it takes 3x the bullets it should take to kill someone.

Its pretty bad when I unload almost 80 bullets into someone from above and they eventually reload their mp5, for the 2nd time, and finaly kill me.Another slight or moderate damage boost would greatly improve the minigun and make it a realistic weapon to use. That however would lead to way more spraying and people getting pissed off. Its a tough call what to do with the minigun, but as Swarmer said its almost pointless as it is.


Except when im doing good with the soccom. :)

One thing i've noticed about the minigun is that is does next to nothing at medium range and beyond. Yet up close, it can kill as fast as an mp5 in your face.

Is it some kind of lag issue? not being able to register that many bullets at a time over distance?

Lol minigun is so annoying i try shoot em with barret but i end up being scared off by a barrage of bullets and and dont even wanna get close to it. And for some reason i cant aim when im being sprayguned. Minigun could be good I hate it because half of the bullets dont hit even when im shooting prone real annoying sometimes.

take it out slap in a galil or an m4 :)

Consider making minigun much more accurate, with weak self-bink and usable only when immobile. This way you will have an accurate firebase with lots of ammo able to tear down anyone coming your way, but fairly useless in an assault (except maybe as cover fire). I wonder if it will be possible to make it harder to aim when firing (like extended response time for raising/lowering the weapon) too.

quote:Originally posted by moi

[Old XM214 Minigun]
Damage=48
FireInterval=4
Ammo=100
ReloadTime=366
Speed=290
BulletStyle=1
StartUpTime=50
Bink=-10
MovementAcc=1

[New XM214 Minigun]
Damage=5149
FireInterval=4
Ammo=100
ReloadTime=381
Speed=290
BulletStyle=1
StartUpTime=20
Bink=-6
MovementAcc=1
ok, here's my explanation. it's annoying how much the minigun sprays, and the startup time is equally annoying, so why not decrease both? and to complement those drastic changes, i figured increasing reload time would do the trick. oh, i also increased damage a teensy bit because of the whole "hits not registering" thing.

minigun ownz!!!
and with minigun surfing, it has been our good tactic back in TgW :) i dont think its lame, because you can easily kill one miniguner, if you dont mean bad players who just whine bout it.
and you can still kill with it, thought not with as good results as in 1.2.1(killing 3 RARDs with full health in a row huhu)
SURFING COME BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK HONEYYYYYYYyy

People won't believe you if you just say "Back in my clan days..". Give them actual reasons if you want them to listen, and your reply will be approved. -Demonic

Just add warm-down (and perhaps slightly less bink) and the minigun will be perfect :P