LMGs are a primary weapon class, available only to Heavy Assaults. LMGs in PlanetSide 2 fulfill a different role than in real life, and basically play like heavy Assault Rifles. Each faction has a lot of LMGs, but there is surprisingly little variety. Half of them could be removed, and little of value would be lost.
LMGs follow the same Weapon Mechanics as other weapons. LMGs are characterized by these traits:
Lots of ammunition, but longer reloads. This allows LMGs to comfortably lead several engagements back-to-back, without reloading, and unleash a sustained stream of damage on MAXes and light vehicles.
Low to average DPS. This means that LMGs often have to go for headshots in order to have a competitive TTK. This is somewhat offset by the fact that Heavy Assaults have an overshield to outlast the enemy.
Heavy recoil, especially Vertical Recoil. Most LMGs require conscious and deliberate recoil control when engaging enemies at medium to long range, more so than any other primary weapon class.
Bad initial accuracy on the move. LMGs have either 0.35 or 0.4 ADS Moving CoF, which means that LMGs have to fire in shorter bursts than most other weapons to maintain the same CoF accuracy.
When engaging targets at longer ranges, LMGs earlier encounter the threshold where the user has to remain stationary in order to land even a shot on a target.
Low Recoil Recovery Rate and high First Shot Recoil. While LMGs have to burst fire more, they are simultaneously worse at it.
Longer Equip Times. LMGs take more time to equip, and take longer to recover after a grenade throw or quick knife swing. That’s kind of a big deal, since Heavy Assaults spend a lot of time switching back and forth between their primary weapon and their rocket launcher.
Worse Hip Fire accuracy than Assault Rifles’, but still notably better than Sniper Rifles’. For most LMGs, hip firing isn’t an option outside of few meters.
Some LMGs also get access to Extended Mags rail attachment, which in most cases doubles magazine size.
Attachment Availability
All LMGs have access to basic Forward Grip and Laser Sight, as well as Darklight Flashlight and Suppressor (with a rare exception on that one).
You can learn about exact effects of attachments here.
SPA = Soft Point Ammo
HVA = High Velocity Ammo
ALS = Advanced Laser Sight
AFG = Advanced Forward Grip
Ext. Mags = Extended Magazine
Flash Supp. = Flash Suppressor
Comp = Compensator.
LMG Tier List
This tier list has been compiled by /u/miniux, a very skilled an experienced player from the infamous Das Anfall outfit:
…I’ve done the LMG directive about 10 times (all factions at least twice) along with an aurax of every one.
In this tier list, Miniux gives each LMG a subjectivescore, that shows how much a skilleduser is likely to benefit from the weapon.
In other words, a low score doesn’t mean a weapon is completely unusable and struggles to kill anyone, and a high score doesn’t mean the weapon just kills everyone by itself, and all you need to do is point it at the enemy. Score is more about how efficiently the weapon can convert skill into kills.
The main goal is to showcase which weapons are considered “good” by the more skilled part of the community, and why.
The Tier List
Terran Republic
CARV Score: 7.5/10
The default TR weapon is an excellent all-around gun, primarily because of its 143/750 damage model. Use a grip and you can reach out to 50+m while retaining accuracy. More aggressive players may prefer the MSW-R if they are constantly reloading.
CARV-S Score: 5/10
While not awful, this doesn’t have any real perks that make up for its lower DPS. You don’t need 200 bullets in a magazine, ever, and the rest of the attachments are useless.
MSW-R Score: 8.5/10
The MSW-R isthe meta gun for almost every skilled TR HA. It has both a 143/750 damage model, a short reload, and excellent hipfire (for a LMG).
Rhino Score: 3/10
The Rhino is a bad weapon. It has abysmal DPS, offset by nothing of value. There is no realistic situation in which the Rhino will be better than a CARV.
TMG Score: 6.5/10
The TMG is the closest weapon the TR have to the SAW. It has a decent mix of 167 damage, a 75 bullet clip and a short reload (considering the damage/mag). It’s a good weapon if you can consistently land headshots out to 35-40m.
Bull Score: 5/10
The Bull doesn’t really do anything particularly well. It has a small clip, terrible DPS, a decent reload and passable hipfire. There are no real benefits to offset the DPS.
Butcher Score: 8/10
The Butcher is an excellent weapon in certain situations. In a straight up fight it’s an inferior CARV, but it shines when you need to be able to fire a 143/750 weapon for 150 bullets. It has less range than the CARV due to no Forward Grip, but makes up for it with 3-4 extra engagements of ammo available.
New Conglomerate
SAW Score: 7.5/10
Excellent weapon if you can aim. Triple-tap people at any range with 100 rounds before reloading. Good if you know you’re going to be outside in a fight (tech plants, amp stations).
SAW-S Score: 4/10
Doesn’t have anything going for it. Low damage, attachments mean nothing. Don’t use.
Anchor Score: 9/10
Best all-around NC LMG in the game. Triple-taps out to 15m with softpoint. Competitive 600/167 model with great hipfire and a decently quick reload. Easy to control recoil.
EM1 Score: 2/10
Useless weapon. Too low damage to matter. No real perks to make up for it.
EM6 Score: 6.5/10
Not a bad weapon, but not near the Anchor. Decent DPS with a large mag size can be okay in some situations, but usually overshadowed by Anchor in CQC, and SAW at range.
GD-22S Score: 7/10
The same weapon as the Anchor, with a little bit less DPS in exchange for controllable recoil and very fast reloading. Can be a viable alternative but not often used by those who can control recoil of the anchor.
GODSAW Score: 8.5/10
Same as the SAW, but less bullets/mag in exchange for a shorter reload. Has a useless alt fire mode. For good players this is an upgrade over the SAW, you don’t need 100 rounds of 400 damage headshots and it punishes you less for reloading.
Vanu Sovereignty
Orion Score: 8/10
The default VS LMG is a meta gun. It’s very similar to the TR’s MSW-R with a few very small changes in recoil. I consider it slightly worse due to not being able to equip SPA.
Flare Score: 6/10
The Flare is the VS “equivalent” of the SAW. It’s similar to the TMG in many respects, but it can equip SPA. It’s not a bad weapon but it’s nowhere near Orion/BG for more situations.
Polaris Score: 2/10
More attachment options and additional mag capacity don’t mean anything when the basic damage model is trash. The Polaris is a bad gun.
Pulsar LSW Score: 7/10
After a number of changes, the Pulsar now fits the niche where the SVA use to be. It has a larger mag capacity than the Orion at the cost of some DPS. If you’re comfortable winning 1v1s, the extra mag capacity can be nice.
SVA-88 Score: 6/10
The SVA is mostly a worse Pulsar LSW after the changes. It gives up several useful attachments (Flash Suppressor and Ext. Mags) for two useless ones (HVA and Compensator). It has worse recoil and also blocks a *huge* amount of your screen.
Ursa Score: 1/10
The Ursa is a bad weapon. It has abysmal damage and no real positive features. If you insist on using a 167 damage weapon on VS, use the Flare.
Betelgeuse Score: 9.5/10
Often considered the best farming weapon in the game, the Betel combines the perks of the Orion with infinite ammo, allowing you to extend and kill without engineer support indefinitely. Instead of reloading, it “loses heat”. The main benefit of this is it does so even when not equipped, allowing you to switch to a pistol while waiting.
Nanite Systems
NS-15M Score: 8.5/10
Either you will enjoy the NS-15M or you won’t. Its terrible damage model is offset by the 0.75ADS multiplier and low recoil. It’s primarily used by players who can consistently land headshots and heavily rely on movement. Not recommended to newer players or those who cannot consistently land headshots at all ranges.
Naginata Score: 3/10
Naginata is an awful weapon for good players. In order to make the weapon anything less than a worse NS-15, you have to stand still. This negates a large benefit of NS weapons (0.75 ADS), while also being a terrible idea in general. High FSRM punishes bursting.
Starting LMGs
These LMGs are available by default. They come with free Forward Grip, 1x Reflex Sight and a bit of faction flavor.
T9 CARV is a bulky and oppressive machinegun. It has lots of firepower, and thanks to the large magazine, can dish it out for a while. However, CARV also has a ton of recoil, and its accuracy leaves something to be desired.
T9 CARV is an ADS powerhouse… if you can control it.
Gauss SAW is a controversial weapon. It deals the highest damage per shot among all LMGs, and in skilled hands becomes an amazing weapon for medium to long range combat. Basically, a portable autocannon, with enough ammo to last for days.
However, it faces a number of issues and gets a lot of heat for:
(1)One of the highest values for Vertical Recoil per Shot. When coupled with low RoF, it makes for very choppy, rough recoil pattern. It can be especially hard to get under control to an inexperienced player.
(2) For that reason, it’s not recommended to use SAW with a scope with magnification stronger than 1x. Which creates another problem: it’s a ranged LMG and you can’t even get decent magnification for it, as it would make your aim jump all over the screen.
(3) Strong vertical recoil makes Compensator a mandatory attachment, which carries penalties to Minimap Firing Detection Distance, and to hip fire accuracy, which is already fairly terrible.
(4) Due to low Rate of Fire and damage model, SAW gets hard countered in close quarters by Nanoweave Armor, and has to go for headshots to compensate.
(5)Poor initial ADS Moving accuracy means SAW struggles to reliably land multiple headshots on enemies outside ~20m, despite being a hardcore ranged LMG.
(6) Finally, ranged LMGs are simply not needed a lot of the time. Most of the “useful” fighting happens at ranges where most other LMGs would be just as effective, without sacrificing so much close range power.
SAW is high risk, high reward. Frustrating most of the time, but there is no better feeling than 3 tapping an enemy at long range. A Nightmare for inexperienced players, and more of a meme weapon if you compare it to a real “tool” like a GD-22S, Pulsar LSW or T32 Bull.
– [RMIS] nicigee
Many players have spoken against the fact that Gauss SAW is the default LMG, saying that GD-22S should fulfill that role instead, as it’s much more versatile.
But it’s not all bad. There are some redeeming qualities as well:
(1)Consistent performance over range. SAW has only 1 tier of damage degradation, and kills standard infantry target roughly in the same amount of shots at all ranges. Headshots are especially devastating.
(2) SAW’s Vertical Recoil per Second isn’t that big. It is actually only above average for LMGs even without the Compensator, and below average with one.
(3) As said, SAW has potential for amazing ranged performance. It’s an excellent weapon for open field combat. It just takes a bit of getting used to its recoil pattern. SAW is actually very controllable and accurate for an LMG.
Orion is the staple close range LMG for Vanu Sovereignty. Overall, it handles more like a big Assault Rifle, and it’s noticeably more mobile than most LMGs. It has faster reload, shorter Equip Time, and its hip fire accuracy isn’t that bad. It also has a good damage output, but pays in magazine size. Similarly to CARV, it has a ton of recoil, and will require some deliberate handling to be effective at medium range.
One of the more unusual features is that Orion has reduced Cone of Fire Bloom, so it can fire in longer bursts than most other LMGs.
Unlike other Close Range LMGs, Orion doesn’t get access to SPA nor ALS, but it has better Hip Fire accuracy from the get-go, so even with basic Laser Sight it gets roughly the same Hip Fire accuracy as other Close Range LMGs with ALS.
Close Range LMGs
These LMGs behave more like big Assault Rifles. They have increased Hip Fire accuracy, shorter Equip Times, faster reloads, as well as access to Soft Point Ammo and Advanced Laser Sight. However, they have smaller magazines, worse handling and shorter effective range than most other LMGs.
MSW-R is the TR workhorse. One of the most popular LMGs, and for good reason: it’s cheap, simple, reliable, effective. Everything you’d want for breaching points and taking the fight to the enemy. It deals good DPS and doesn’t have any issues killing with just bodyshots at close range.
Another wildly popular LMG. It deals more damage per shot than other Close Range LMGs, but due to lower RoF has lower overall DPS. However, Anchor has excellent accuracy for a CQC LMG, and within 10m (15m with SPA), it kills standard infantry in just 3 headshots, which makes for a shorter TTK.
Most beastly CQC LMG in the game. Works great on public servers and dominates competitive scene. Possibly the best LMG overall, once you figure out the recoil, which is still much simpler than for MSW-R. Hip Fire is the only noticeable disadvantage.
– [RMIS] nicigee
Adaptable LMGs
These LMGs have access to a wide variety of attachments, and can be specialized for any range. Their concept is similar to Select Fire Carbines and Assault Rifles, but unlike them, these LMGs don’t get access to anything unique, like underbarrel attachments.
They have middle-of-the-road stats, which makes them rather boring, “just another LMG” type of weapons.
Attachments: Flash Suppressor, Darklight Flashlight, Forward Grip, Laser Sight, Suppressor, Soft Point Ammunition, High Velocity Ammunition, Extended Magazine, Compensator
CARV-S can be treated like a variant of the CARV that sacrifices raw DPS in favor of better recoil and more attachment choices. CARV-S actually has higher Vertical Recoil per Shot than CARV, but due to lower RoF, it boils down to less Vertical Recoil per Second, especially when equipped with a Compensator. It also has nearly a second faster reload.
Overall, CARV-S makes for a typical general-purpose LMG that doesn’t stand out in any particular area.
Attachments: Flash Suppressor, Darklight Flashlight, Forward Grip, Laser Sight, Suppressor, Soft Point Ammunition, High Velocity Ammunition, Extended Magazine, Compensator
Despite having a similar name to the starting NC6 Gauss SAW, the SAW-S has a different damage model, and overall is much closer to EM6. They have only minor differences:
SAW-S has better Horizontal Recoil properties, and marginally better Hip Fire accuracy, reload speed and Projectile Velocity.
In return, SAW-S sacrifices Magazine Size and overall Ammo Pool, and has marginally lower RoF.
Overall, SAW-S makes for a decent general-purpose LMG, and it’s arguably better than EM6.
Attachments: Flash Suppressor, Darklight Flashlight, Forward Grip, Laser Sight, Suppressor, Soft Point Ammunition, High Velocity Ammunition, Extended Magazine, Compensator
Flare VE6 deals higher damage per shot than majority of VS LMGs. In combination with Soft Point Ammunition, Flare has excellent headshot Time-to-Kill within 15m, which is a fairly competitive range bracket.
Mild Vertical Recoil makes Flare easy to handle up to medium range, but comparatively high Horizontal Recoil and damage degradation limit Flare’s effectiveness at range.
Flare is overall similar to Ursa, so a detailed comparison between these two weapons was made.
Point Hold LMGs
These LMGs have an interesting combination of traits:
Their Maximum Damage Range is extended to 20m.
Some of them also have access to SPA, which further increases Maximum Damage Range by 5m.
Good accuracy and easy recoil.
100 round magazines, with Extended Mags boosting them to 200 rounds.
An extra spare magazine.
Low raw damage output.
The main feature, of course, is unusually long Maximum Damage Range. It gives these LMGs very consistent performance. They have roughly the same bodyshot TTK against nanoweave targets within ~30m, and maintain headshot TTK within ~50m.
While they don’t have as much raw DPS as some other LMGs, thanks to extended Maximum Damage Range, they can actually deal more effective DPS at certain ranges than weapons with higher RoF.
T16 Rhino gets access to Advanced Forward Grip and High Velocity Ammo, but not Compensator. Fortunately, it already has low Vertical Recoil per Shot. With Advanced Forward Grip, Rhino has roughly the same Horizontal Recoil as T32 Bull with its basic Forward Grip.
Overall, Rhino sort of has an identity crisis:
It tries to be an LMG for fighting within 30m, but unlike other Point Hold LMGs, it doesn’t get Hip Fire accuracy benefits, nor access to SPA and ALS.
Its attachment options – AFG and HVA – suggest that it wants to be a ranged LMG, but it has comparatively high damage degradation.
So Rhino gets stuck without a place to call “home”, and there’s no reason to use it, aside from the combination of low recoil and ability to sustain fire.
EM1 is comfortable and controllable, and it’s one of the few 143 damage LMGs available to the NC. Other perks include slightly increased Hip Fire accuracy, though not as great as for Close Range LMGs. EM1 gets access to SPA and Advanced Laser Sight.
VX29 Polaris features the best hip fire accuracy among LMGs, sharing the first place with NS-15M2, and it also has access to SPA and Advanced Laser Sight. When equipped with it, Polaris gets hip fire accuracy slightly better than an average stock Carbine, which is quite impressive for an LMG.
Polaris has controllable recoil, and overall makes for a surprisingly decent LMG. Its only real weakness is low damage output.
General-Purpose LMGs
These LMGs share a couple of traits: they remain effective at a variety of ranges, but don’t particularly stand out in any field. Their attachment availability and stat allocation are all over the place, though.
TMG-50 is the only TR LMG that deals more than 143 damage per shot. It’s also slightly more accurate on the move than most LMGs, and has access to HVA and Compensator, but not Advanced Forward Grip. Fortunately, it has great Horizontal Recoil by default, so the basic Forward Grip is enough to facilitate good accuracy.
If not for two tiers of damage degradation, TMG-50 would make a decent ranged LMG. It’s not a terrible weapon, but usually doesn’t get much love from players.
GD-22S can be treated as a more general-purpose variant of the Anchor. GD-22S is more accurate and easier to control, and its Hip Fire accuracy and DPS are only slightly worse.
GD-22S is also dirt cheap and has an amazingly fast reload for an LMG. It’s a simple and effective weapon, and its only real disadvantage is scarce attachment choices. However, having such great base stats, it doesn’t really suffer from it.
GD-22S often gets recommended as the starting point for anyone willing to play NC Heavy Assault.
I would recommend GD-22S for less experienced players, but even I enjoy using it, because it’s so user-friendly.
Pulsar LSW can be treated as a variant of Orion, with less raw DPS and worse Hip Fire accuracy, but much easier recoil and larger magazine. Similarly to Orion, Pulsar LSW gets the reduced CoF Bloom per Shot, so it can fire in a bit longer bursts than most LMGs. Great weapon overall.
SVA-88 is stunningly similar to Pulsar LSW. The main difference is that instead of Flash Suppressor and Extended Mags, SVA-88 gets access to HVA and Compensator.
SVA also has more Vertical Recoil, but no Recoil Angle, and marginally better Hip Fire accuracy. With the Compensator, SVA-88 has roughly the same Vertical Recoil as Pulsar LSW, and HVA gives it a slight edge in ranged combat.
Overall, SVA-88 can be treated like a more expensive variant of Pulsar LSW with more inclination towards ranged combat.
Attachments: Flash Suppressor, Darklight Flashlight, Forward Grip, Laser Sight, Suppressor, Soft Point Ammunition, High Velocity Ammunition, Compensator
T32 Bull is one of the more unusual LMGs. It gets the best Hip Fire accuracy, amazing recoil pattern, high projectile velocity and fast reload. It takes no effort to hold on target, and low damage degradation ensures the damage remains consistent at all ranges.
Unfortunately, low damage output makes Bull undesirable to competitive players, and its ADS accuracy doesn’t do anything for it in close quarters.
Additionally, Bull is very close to NS-15M2, which also gets higher ADS Movement Speed, making it a much better choice overall.
T32 Bull is my weapon for everyday use. It’s easy to use and lets you focus on your playstyle, without any compromises. It rewards good aim, but doesn’t punish bad aim, like Gauss SAW would, for example. It is the perfect platform for your daily squadplay and biolabfarm adventures.
Ursa is the dedicated ranged LMG for VS. Ursa has a mild recoil for an LMG, but its low damage output limits its effectiveness outside of ranged combat.
Mechanically, Watchman is an LMG version of TORQ-9 Assault Rifle. It has the highest Rate of Fire among all LMGs, though it deals only 125 damage per shot.
In terms of raw DPS, Watchman is very close to default T9 CARV. Watchman has limited effective range due to bad Cones of Fire while being still, as well as low damage per shot and somewhat low Projectile Velocity. However, fairly stable recoil makes Watchman easier to handle within that range.
Watchman has good Hip Fire accuracy for an LMG, but it’s still far from being able to hip fire comfortably.
Impact Ammunition is a unique attachment, available only to Watchman. It increases minimum damage from 100 to 112 at the cost of reducing magazine size by 25 rounds.
Soft Point Ammunition is also available, and it will make Watchman more competitive in close quarters, while the Impact Ammunition increases Watchman’s damage outside of 20m, and it’s a great choice if you don’t intend to specifically focus on the most competitive performance within 15m.
Overall, Watchman is an effective LMG that trades effective range for easier handling, and in certain situations it can kill faster than CARV or MSW-R.
You can learn more about Watchman in this Highly Technical Weapon Guide, and enjoy some juicy lore in this video by Cyrious Gaming:
Modular Gauss Rifle, LMG-1 “Promise” has low Recoil and high Rate of Fire, which is uncharacteristic for NC. Promise is also the first weapon where Recoil Scaling plays a big role.
With each shot, Promise’s recoil gets lower and lower, up to a certain limit. Vertical Recoil specifically decreases even faster if you fire while crouched.
Promise also has reduced values for Maximum ADS Cones of Fire, for most stances equal to 1 degree. This makes sustained full auto fire much more accurate than for most other primary weapons. For some context, 1 degree is the diameter of the center mass of an infantryman about 25m away.
SPRW Ammunition is available to Promise, increasing Projectile Velocity by 25% at the cost of reducing Magazine Size by 25 rounds. Promise’s base velocity is below average, and can make it challenging to hit moving targets at medium+ range. SPRW Ammo bumps it up to respectable 687 m/s, which is the highest value for LMGs.
Smart Feeder is a unique ammo attachment, available only to Promise. It increases Magazine Size by 50 rounds at the cost of increasing Reload Times by 0.325 seconds. Since this is an ammo attachment, it is mutually exclusive with SPRW Ammo.
Between SPRW Ammo and Smart Feeder, Promise allows you to choose between focusing on volume of fire or precision.
Overall, Promise makes for an interesting medium-range LMG with decent firepower. After ~4 shots it becomes the most stable LMG in the game, and it’s not bad during first 4 shots either.
Attachments: Soft Point Ammunition, Flash Suppressor, Vented Power Core, Darklight Flashlight, Advanced Laser Sight, Forward Grip, Unstable Ammunition
Maw is intended to compete with NC’s Anchor as a high-damage, close-medium range LMG. Maw has good damage output, including the infamous 3-headshot kill within maximum damage range.
Maw is tied for the first place for Hip Fire accuracy with a few other LMGs, but it’s the only new LMG to also have access to Advanced Laser Sight.When used with ALS, Maw gains Hip Fire accuracy comparable to a stock carbine, which is impressive for an LMG.
Unstable Ammunition is available, which increases projectile size making shots easier to hit at the cost of reducing Headshot Damage Multiplier to 1.2x. When coupled with ALS and UA, Maw has potentially the best Hip Fire among LMGs.
Vented Power Core rail attachment is available, which removes Long Reload penalty at the cost of increasing Recoil Angle by 5 degrees. Not recommended.
Cross-Faction LMGs
These LMGs can be used by all factions. If you purchase them with Daybreak Cash, they will be available on all your characters, regardless of faction. They have white tracers.
Attachments: Soft Point Ammunition, High Velocity Ammunition, Compensator, Flash Suppressor, Suppressor, Darklight Flashlight, Forward Grip, Laser Sight
NS-15M2 is basically an LMG variant of NS-11A Assault Rifle. It features the best Hip Fire accuracy and ADS Moving Accuracy, a fast reload and short Equip Time. Most importantly, it’s the only LMG with 75% ADS Speed.
Its recoil isn’t the best, but still one of the easiest to control, and it has only one tier of damage degradation, similar to Long Range LMGs.
NS-15M2’s only disadvantage is the lowest raw damage output among all LMGs, and fairly small magazine.
NS-15M2 is wildly popular among good players, who can compensate for low damage output with good headshot accuracy.
NS-15M2 has a ton of cosmetic variants, including NS-15M1. Differences between them are purely cosmetic.
Attachments: Laser Sight, Darklight Flashlight, Compensator, High Velocity Ammunition, Soft Point Ammunition, Forward Grip, Extended Magazine, Flash Suppressor
NSX Naginata is unique. Its defining feature is that while remaining still, your Cone of Fire will not bloom past a certain point. In other words, while standing still, you can fire at full auto almost without losing accuracy.
While normally standing still in a firefight isn’t a good idea, there is an advanced trick you can employ.
Normal weapons have to stop firing to let their Bloomed CoF to recover. Naginata, on the other hand, can use movement to “reset the burst”.
You fire the Naginata while moving, as you would with any other LMG, but when your CoF Blooms too much, you simply stand still for a moment, and that will reset your CoF, even if you keep firing the whole time.
You don’t have to stand still for long either. Simply releasing all your movement keys for a moment will do the trick.
Overall, Naginata is the only LMG that can truly sustain fire without losing accuracy. Other Nagainata’s traits include good damage model, decent reload speed and excellent Horizontal Recoil and Recoil Angle Properties.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Naginata has gigantic, absolutely mindblowingly horrible Vertical Recoil. It is so bad that even with Compensator Naginata has more Vertical Recoil per Shot than infamous Gauss SAW. And due to higher RoF than SAW, Vertical Recoil per Second is through the roof.
This makes Naginata difficult to control, effectively making it terrible at its intended role of application. Other downsides include low projectile velocity.
It’s worth noting that NSX Naginata does not count towards LMG directives, and instead counts for Nanite Exports directive.
These prestige variants of starting LMGs have a cosmetic auraxium shader, as well as unique combination of attachments or special mechanics. You cannot modify any attachments, except Scopes.
The only way to obtain one of these LMGs is to complete the auraxium level of LMG Directives, by getting auraxium medals (1160 kills) with 5 LMGs.
Keep in mind that not everything classified as “LMG” counts for these directives, so make sure to check your directives tab.
T9A “Butcher” is the variant of the starting T9 CARV, and features slightly higher Rate of Fire and 50% larger magazine, as well as marginally better Hip Fire accuracy. Butcher has the highest raw DPS among all LMGs.
Butcher’s downsides come from inability to mount the Forward Grip or a barrel attachment.
Overall, Butcher is a bullet hose with terrible accuracy and a redundant amount of ammunition, almost a TR weapon meme.
GODSAW is a variant of the starting Gauss SAW. Its main feature is a secondary Armor Piercing firemode, which changes GODSAW’s Damage Resist Type from Type 2 – Small Arms to Type 4 – Heavy Machine Gun. This lets the GODSAW damage even heavily armored vehicles.
However, in Armor Piercing firemode GODSAW will deal less damage to infantry, so you have to remember to use the right mode for the right job. The firemode indicator near the ammo counter will show which firemode you’re in:
Normal
Armor Piercing
GODSAW has other differences from Gauss SAW:
Massively higher Projectile Velocity.
Minimum Damage Range extended by 20m. This lets GODSAW deal marginally more damage at range.
Smaller magazine, but more than 2 second faster reload.
Marginally better Hip Fire accuracy.
Lower Vertical Recoil and Horizontal Recoil, as if GODSAW had some form of Compensator and Forward Grip. Gauss SAW with Advanced Forward Grip and Compensator has slightly less Horizontal Recoil and more Vertical Recoil.
GODSAW has the same Equip Time as Gauss SAW with AFG.
Overall, for most intents and purposes, GODSAW is a direct upgrade over Gauss SAW, but faces many similar issues, like being somewhat lackluster in close quarters.
Which firemode against what targets
Using the Toolbox, I was able to determine optimal firemode to engage different targets:
Normal firemode is better against Harassers and ESFs at all ranges.
AP mode is massively better against Valkyries, since they have 90% small arms resistance. 97+ hits (double that when firing into the bottom armor). For comparison, normal firemode would require 150 hits without taking damage degradation into account.
AP mode is better against Flashes, and takes 18+ shots to take one out.
Lightnings, ANTs and Sunderers: 250+ shots. Prowlers and Magriders take 264+ shots into side armor.
Safe to say that AP firemode is far from effective against these targets. That said, roughly a magazine will finish off one of these vehicles if they’re burning. Halve that amount if you can hit tanks’ rear armor.
Liberators: 162+ shots, not taking bottom armor into account. Galaxies: 171+ shots.
Can be a nice source of harassment or deterrent if you have a safe position, but no fitting ground to air launcher.
AP mode is slightly better against MAXes with Kinetic Armor and / or at range.
Engi’s deployables
It’s not confirmed by testing, but firemode choice shouldn’t matter against Spitfire Turrets, while MANA turrets take more than triple damage from AP firemode.
Hadrlight Barriers take 75 AP rounds to destroy, confirmed by testing on PTS. This is faster than killing it with the default Rocket Launcher.
Betelgeuse 54-A, also known as “Beetle Juice”, is a variant of the starting Orion. Instead of conventional ammunition, Betelgeuse uses the Heat Mechanic, which effectively gives you unlimited amount of spare ammunition.
Betelgeuse also has 0.25 seconds longer Equip Time.
Overall, Betelgeuse is an interesting and popular weapon, but suffers from strong recoil and poor accuracy, and it cannot even mount a Forward Grip to improve the situation.
Firing the weapon accumulates Heat. When you stop firing, after Heat Recovery Delay, the weapon will start cooling down, at Heat Recovery Rate. If you overheat the weapon, instead of Heat Recovery Delay, you will suffer the Overheat Penalty.
Betelgeuse can fire 50 shots before overheating. This is confirmed by in-game testing.It takes 4.58 seconds to recover heat from 49 shots, and 7.44 sec if you overheat the weapon.
Betelgeuse will cool down even when not equipped, which makes it very convenient for Heavy Assaults: you can engage an enemy, and then switch to a sidearm or Rocket Launcher, and Betelgeuse will be fully “reloaded” by the time you equip it back again.
You can find pre-made queries here. This article explains how they work, so you can make your own queries, if need be.
How to make an API Query
Information in the API is distributed between many collections. Each collection contains entries with typical structure for that collection. Each entry contains fields with information.
Usually, information about in-game objects is distributed between many different collections. For example, to pull full stats of one weapon, you have to access as many as 17 (!) different collections.
Fortunately, you can access several collections at once by joining several queries together.
Before you proceed, It is highly recommended you get a JSON formatter plugin for your browser. Google it.
Some queries pull a lot of info at once, and if you intend to make several queries in a short time frame, you may be required to register a Service ID.
Basic Queries
To query a collection, you simply write its name in the link. For example, let’s query the “item” collection, which is basically a huge list of all items in game:
This will return a JSON string with the first entry of the “item” collection. In this case, it contains information about Mag-Cutter.
To query a collection for multiple entries, you have to specify the amount using a c:limit modifier. One does not simply access ALL entries in a collection.
This will give you first five “items”. However, there is an overall limit to query size, and querying for several thousand of items will get hard and messy, so it’s a method best kept to “small” collections of several hundred members.
To query specific entries, you can search entries with a field containing a certain value. For example, you can query a weapon by a name, or by an item_id.
Weapon name has to be written exactly as it appears in game, it is sensitive to letter case and spaces. Notice how we also specified the language of the name field. Collections with localized fields, such as names and descriptions, will contain all languages at the same time, which can get cluttering. You can specify a language like this:
This query will display the first entry in the “item” collection with the item_category_id of 8, which is the Carbines’ category ID. To show all entries with that item_category_id, you have to again use the c:limit:
This query will join item and item_category collections, so you can access a weapon by a name, and see its category right away.
“On” is the name of the field in parent collection, “to” is the name of the field in child collection. In some cases you can forego specifying the “on” and “to” parts of the joining. In this case, you can simply write:
Sometimes on and to can be omitted and the join will still work. That’s because if you don’t specify them it will use item_id by default.
Most times using only on to specify which field from the parent collection to use is enough. For example instead of item_id you might want to use item_category_id or there is no item_id in the collection so there is no default.
But there are times when you have to use to as well. That’s when the joining field from the parent collection has a different name from the identifying field of the child collection.
For example joining attachment item info to the attachment list of a weapon. The attachments list collection uses attachment_item_id to identify the attachment, but the attachment info collection uses item_id.
This can make large queries more readable. If the child collection contains several entries with that identifier, you need to specify that you want to join all of them.
This collection contains meta information about an item, such as its localized name and description. This is the starting point for queries of weapon stats.
Fields
Category: item_category_id
You can figure out item’s category by searching for the specified item_category_id in the item_category collection, or joining it.
Description: description
Contains all languages by default, but you can access specific language by writing the language’s two-letter code after a dot, for example: description.en, or using a &c:lang=en modifier.
Faction: faction_id
These field will specify which factions can use the weapon. Faction IDs can be accessed in faction collection.
Item’s Image: image_path
This can be used to access item’s in game icon. Simply paste the path after the basic census link:
Some images are missing from the API, and will give a page_not_found error when you try to access them. There is nothing to be done about it, but you can datamine weapons’ icons from client files by using PS2LS tool. Images are stored in .dds format, and you can use any free converter to convert them into .png.
Image Set: image_set_id
The API usually stores several icons of different sizes. The image_path contains the address of the largest image, you can access smaller images by searching or joining the image_set collection.
weapon_datasheet
Parent collection: item
Join key: item_id
Magazine Size: clip_size
Ammo Pool: capacity
It’s worth noting that Ammo Pool includes the ammunition already loaded into the weapon, so 40/240 in the API will appear as 40/200 in game.
The rest of the fields in weapon_datasheet collection are misleading and should not be used, as they refer to the old format of displaying weapon stats in game, basically somehow correlating with the number of bars in certain categories.
fire_mode
Parent collection: item
Join key: item_id
This collection contains some of the weapon stats, related to Damage and Reload times. However, the fire_mode_2 collection contains the same information and much more, so it is preferable to use that when possible.
It is important to understand that in-game firemodes, such as “semi-auto” and “fully-automatic”, and the API “firemodes” are different.
As far as API is concerned, “semi auto” and “full auto” are fire groups, and “fire modes” make the distinction between hip firing and ADSing.
Each API firemode contains a complete set of parameters and keys to entries in other collections that define how a weapon functions. So it is technically possible to give a weapon completely different functions in different firemodes; that’s how NSX Amaterasuworks.
The fire_mode collection will usually have multiple entries for each weapon, all using the same item_id key. So when joining the item_id collection, remember to use ^list:1 modifier, or when searching the fire_mode collection manually, remember to use &c:limit=400 modifier.
Cone of Fire Bloom:cof_recoil Short Reload: reload_time_ms Reload Chamber Time: reload_chamber_time_ms Pellets Per Shot: pellets_per_shot Pellet Spread: pellet_spread Magnification: default_zoom Projectile Speed: muzzle_velocity Minimum Damage: damage_min Maximum Damage:damage_max Minimum Damage Range:damage_min_range Maximum Damage Range:damage_max_range
For each weapon_id there are one or several corresponding entries in fire_group collection.
Each fire_group entry refers to weapon’s in game firemode, such as 3x Burst, Semi Auto, etc.
Each fire_group entry has an index, which refers to the order of in-game firemodes. Index of 0 corresponds with weapon’s first firemode.
Most fire_group entries have two firemode_ids. The first defines how the weapon behaves while hip firing, the second – ADSing.
Example
Link to example query.First, we have to access TRAC-5’s weapon_id by joining the item_to_weapon collection. TRAC-5 has two in-game firemodes, semi auto and auto. This is represented in the API by fact that there are two entries in weapon_to_fire_group collection with TRAC-5’s weapon_id. But first you have to join the item_to_weapon collection to access TRA
Each weapon_to_fire_group entry contain a fire_group_id and index.
The entry with index of 0 refers to TRAC-5’s default in-game firemode – the full auto one. Pressing the in-game Change Firemode key basically increases weapon’s current Fire Group index by 1.
For each fire_group_id, there are two entries in fire_group_to_fire_mode collection.
Again, each fire_group_to_fire_mode entry contains a fire_mode_id and index.
The entry with index of 0 refers to hip fire stats of the weapon, index of 0 refers to ADS stats.
Click to enlarge
Each fire_mode_2 entry completely describes how a weapon performs, so in theory, a weapon can have completely different performance between hip firing and ADSing. Same goes for different in-game firemodes. This is why it’s possible for Spiker to have a secondary charge up mode.
Additional Fields
For some specific weapons, fire_group entries also contain some crucial stats:
transition_duration_ms – how long does it take a weapon to switch to this fire group.
chamber_duration_ms – how long does it take to cycle a Bolt Action or Pump Actionweapon between shots. To calculate actual time between shots, you need to add together the chamber_duration_ms and refire_ms.
can_chamber_ironsights – whether a Bolt Action or Pump Action weapon can be cycled between shots while the user Aims Down Sights.
spool_up_ms – how long does it take for a spool-up weapon to reach its maximum Rate of Fire. Ex. T7 Mini-Chaingun
spool_up_initial_refire_ms – initial Refire Time of a spool-up weapon.
fire_group_to_fire_mode
A pass-through collection between fire_group and fire_mode_2. In addition to fire_mode_ids, also contains indexes of relevant fire_modes.
fire_mode_2
This collection is much trickier to access than fire_mode, and requires a multi-level join. However, in return it provides a much clearer structure and more stats.
Here you get a list of weapon’s in-game firemodes, such as “3x burst” and “semi-auto”. Each fire group has an index. Index of 0 refers to weapon’s default firemode.
Here you get a list of fire modes for each fire group. Usually this will be hip firing and ADSing. Each mentioned firemode will also have an index. Usually, index of 0 usually refers to hip firing, and index of 1 to ADSing.
fire_group_to_fire_mode (list) -> fire_mode_2
Finally, you get to weapon stats for each firemode.
automatic – defines whether the weapon will continuously fire if you hold the “fire” key.
move_modifier – a multiplicative modifier to player’s movement speed in this firemode. This is how you access weapon’s ADS Movement Speed Modifier.
cof_scalar, cof_scalar_moving – multiplicative multipliers to Cone of Fire values written in Player State Group entries. For example, Laser Sight functions by reducing cof_scalar of hip fire fire_modes. Moving CoFs are already affected by cof_scalar, so cof_scalar_moving is an additional variable.
Each projectile in PS2 has a pre-defined velocity. This field will override projectile’s pre-defined velocity. This is a convenient way for developers to set different velocities for different weapons that use the same projectile (e.g. bullet).
Increase this is by 1 to get a total multiplier. E.g., damage_head_multiplier of 1 means the weapon deals 2x damage on headshots.
Legshot Damage Multiplier: damage_legs_multiplier
Subtract this value from 1 to get the total multiplier. E.g. damage_legs_multiplier of -0.1 means the weapon deals 0.9x damage on legshots.
fire_ammo_per_shot – determines how many rounds a weapon spends with each shot. E.g., shotguns fires multiple pellets per shot, but spend only one round per shot. While NSX Masamune fires all 4 rockets at the same time from the hip.
fire_auto_fire_ms – sets the weapon’s Refire Rate in fixed burst firemodes.
fire_burst_count – sets the weapon’s burst length in fixed burst firemodes.
fire_charge_up_ms – determines for how long can you hold the fire key before releasing to fire. E.g. Lancer. It is unclear where the information about different charge levels is stored.
fire_delay_ms – determines the amount of time that passes between you clicking to fire, and the weapon firing. E.g. NSX Yumi, RailJack.
Minimap Fire Detect Range: fire_detect_range
Refire Time: fire_refire_ms
The amount of time that must pass between shots. Refire Time also plays an important role in CoF Recovery and Recoil Recovery processes. Can be used to calculate weapon’s Rate of Fire:
Rate of Fire = 60 / Refire Time.
Pellets Per Shot: fire_pellets_per_shot
How many projectiles a weapon fires with each shot. Important for shotguns and other similar weapons.
Maximum Indirect Damage: max_damage_ind Maximum Indirect Damage Radius: max_damage_ind_radius Minimum Indirect Damage: min_damage_ind Minimum Indirect Damage Radius: min_damage_ind_radius
Each fire_mode_2 entry contains a player_state_group_id. The player_state_group collection contains multiple entries with the same player_state_group_id.
Each entry contains the textual description of the player state, like “Standing” or “CrouchWalking”, and weapon’s Minimum Cone of Fire in that state.
player_state_id – determines which player stance is being described in this entry.
Player State ID
Stance
0
Standing Still
1
Crouching Still
2
Standing Moving
3
Sprinting
4
Falling Long
5
Crouching Moving
can_iron_sight – whether the user can Aim Down Sights in this state. This is likely the field that was changed when players lost the ability to Aim Down Sights while jumping and falling.
cof_grow_rate – degrees per second, the speed of Cone of Fire expansion when it blooms or when the player moves to a stance with larger Minimum CoF.
cof_recovery_rate – degrees per second, the speed at of Cone of Fire reduction when the user stops firing or moves to a stance with lower Minimum Cone of Fire.
Maximum Cone of Fire: cof_max Minimum Cone of Fire: cof_min Cone of Fire Recovery Delay: cof_recovery_delay_ms
drag – unknown field. Possibly a delay between weapon “firing” and projectile appearing. It seems to be greater than zero only for grenade-like weapons. Drag > 0 query.
Projectile Flight Type: projectile_flight_type_id
This field can be used to search or join the projectile_flight_typecollection. This is a small collection with only a few entries:
Ballistic
True Ballstic – Uses Real Gravity
Dynamic
Proximity Detonate
These descriptions can be used to speculate how the projectile will behave in game.
Ballistic type is likely to “detonate” and disappear upon hitting anything.
Dynamic type is assigned to grenade-like projectiles, so it means it will bounce around until the lifespan is over, and then it will “detonate”.
Proximity Detonate type likely means the projectile will “detonate” when near an eligible enemy object. E.g. flak weapons.
By “detonate” I mean the projectile will apply its effects. E.g. a bullet will deal direct damage, a rocket will explode and deal direct and indirect damage, a Smoke Grenade will puff out smoke.
PlanetSide 2 weapon attachments are also a part of the item collection. The item_attachment collection contains entries with item_ids of attachments, available to a weapon with a certain item_id.
The “string1” description tells us the affected weapon statistic is Maximum Recoil Angle.
“param1” and “param2” are set to “-1”, which means that all weapon’s Fire Modes are affected by the attachment, i.e. regardless if you hip fire or ADS and from which stance.
“param3” is not set for this effect.
“param4” is set to “-25”. Description of param4 is “PcntAddend”, where “pcnt” stands for “percent”. So this effect of the Forward Grip reduces Maximum Recoil Angle by 25%.
But there are other effects of the Forward Grip.
For example, here we can see that for TRAC 5 Forward Grip also increases Equip Time by 150ms.
This way we can access exact stats of the Grenade Launcher, and learn that it takes 0.8 seconds to switch to it.
Ability Effects Examples
zone_effect collection also contains effects of passive and active abilities, such as Zealot Overdrive Engine of VS MAXes. Example query.
We can query the armor_info collection and learn that ZOE 1 increases incoming damage by 20% from all sides except Bottom.
Armor and Resistances
You can learn about Armor and Resistance interactions here.
profile_2 – contains unit names and their profile_ids.
profile_armor_map, profile_resist_map – contains armor_info_ids and resist_info_ids for built-in armor and resistance values for all profiles, using profile_id as key.
armor_facing – contains descriptions for different armor_facing_ids. You need those to learn which armor_info is applied to which unit’s projection.
armor_info – contains the actual information about units’ armor, both built-in and acquired from items and abilities, using armor_info_id as key.
resist_info – same as armor_info, but for resistances. resist_info_id is key.
resist_type – contains textual descriptions for different resist_type_ids. Incomplete and sometimes not exactly accurate.
For example, it doesn’t contain Damage Type 9 – Tank Mine and Damage Type 11 – C4. It also won’t tell you that AV Grenades use Damage Type 34 – Infantry Rockets.
This multi-join query will show you built-in Armor and Resistance values for the Lightning.
Credits
Huge thanks to /u/L33-the-3rd, /u/shaql, /u/fisu_, /u/Wrel and /u/nehylen for teaching me how to use the API. You guys are awesome, wouldn’t be here without y’all.
or 250 
SPRW Ammunition is available to Promise, increasing Projectile Velocity by 25% at the cost of reducing Magazine Size by 25 rounds. Promise’s base velocity is below average, and can make it challenging to hit moving targets at medium+ range. SPRW Ammo bumps it up to respectable 687 m/s, which is the highest value for LMGs. 
Smart Feeder is a unique ammo attachment, available only to Promise. It increases Magazine Size by 50 rounds at the cost of increasing Reload Times by 0.325 seconds. Since this is an ammo attachment, it is mutually exclusive with SPRW Ammo.
Vented Power Core rail attachment is available, which removes Long Reload penalty at the cost of increasing Recoil Angle by 5 degrees. Not recommended.
