Make The M39 Great Again

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Theres two current gitlab suggestions asking for changes to the M39 and there has been a post about it recently on the forums here too, and heres another one.

Heres the suggestion for increasing ROF :

https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/3609

Heres the suggestion about making the mag size smaller :

https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/3624

Heres some lore information regarding the M-39 :

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/M39_Submachine_Gun


Alright, so as you should know by now, according to the lore, the M39 is meant to be a piece of shit, atleast against armored targets, which the xenoes are "armored" in their own right.So if the lack of changes to the M39 are based on the lore moreso than its actual gameplay functionality, then thats fair enough and understandable but also doesnt mean it cant be changed and still abide by lore.Also mention the M4 is abit of a piece of shit as well, but sadly its the only rifle available to standard marines..ill discuss that another time.


Anyhow, back to the M39 and the question i have for you all regarding it :

Would you opt for the M39 having a faster fire rate, but even lower damage output that it has right now?


We all know the damage the M39 outputs is pitiful and is only slightly better with AP loaded in it, almost useless.I personally would be fine with the damage output being reduced even lower! If it means that it gets a actual SMG fire rate and not the M4 rifle fire rate it has currently.If by chance thats not enough of a trade off to get the ROF increased, also make it so it cant accept AP ammo, that way its also got the damage output of standard rounds and acts as a way of controlling it and not becoming a "problem" obviously like the old quickfire adapter had become(which i disagree with).

The other possibility, which abides by the lore if thats a main factor, is increase its recoil.Theres really so many things that could be done to counteract the increasing the ROF of the M39 if there needs to be one, which is why i dont know why its been left in this state for so long.The games clearly and quite obviously changing and evolving, yet the guns arent, they are staying stagnated for some reason whilst everything else around it is improved, strengthened or what have you.

Maybe the devs have been, and are looking into the ballistic weaponry state, maybe not.I think it should be looked at, or at the very least, the weapons that are noticeably not up to scratch with the rest of the environment, like the M39.I also have alot to say about the handguns too, but ill keep that in my head for another post and keep this fairly on a single topic.

Do you agree?

The other suggestion is increasing its amount of projectiles per burst, which kind of gives you the same effect as raising its ROF.

You could also take away the lighter weight of the M39 and give it the same movement speed as a M4 rifle.

The list goes on.


Do you think thats a better way of making the M39 viable?

Ideas ideas Ideas! What are your ideas and thoughts.

Fire at will, with the fire rate it deserves.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

It should really be considered a latch ditch weapon that doesn't require any firearms skill to use for a person to defend themselves with such as a doctor/CL/colonist/etc...

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

It should really be considered a latch ditch weapon that doesn't require any firearms skill to use for a person to defend themselves with such as a doctor/CL/colonist/etc...

Why should it be a last ditch weapon exactly? The only reason why the weapon is seen that way, is because of the current state of it.Not because of lore, not because it cant be changed, not that it is wasnt even a bad weapon entirely when it had the old quickfire ROF.Just one characteristic lets it down, which is turn makes the weaponry available to marines bland.You cant use the pistols for obvious reasons, you cant use the M39 for the reasons stated.Youve got a rifle and shotgun as a standard, how basic and uninteresting.

Not to mention, because you cant carry a M39 in a backpack like a handgun, that "throw away" M39 is taking up primary slots that could have M4's in them, so your carrying a gun in a primary weapon slot only for it to be ditched? Nonsense.

If the guns in the game as one of the primary weapons to choose from, then it should be a usable gun.No guns should be a "ditch" gun, and if there has to be "ditch" guns, it should be the handguns.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

Why should it be a last ditch weapon exactly?

Well looking at the LORE and the way guns are going now in real life, Sub-machine guns are now considered more of a personal defense weapon than an offensive primary weapon. With the advent of short barreled rifles for hybrid close quarters combat and mid-range combat.

By lore standards the M41 is only 27.3 inches with the stock retracted which is about the size of a full size sub machine gun

[TastyCrabLegs]

In an argument like this I always point to the MP-5 for reference.

SMG - 9MM - Semi or full auto - Small / compact - Attachment points


Just a good gun in general used the world over.
However I see it as a drone / runner gun or a HRF smg that you can lay cover fire with since all bullets look alike.
I don't see why you wouldn't bring an SMG to spam shit at. I would make the argument that since the SMG is weak and useless with a much lesser round why would it not hold more ammo. A 50 stack would be reasonable?


I miss using the smg to be a faster scout type and harass the benos like a runner would

[Renomaki]

I wish we could bring the SMG back to its one-handed glory days, back when its biggest advantage was that you didn't need to hold it with both hands to shoot it, making it a great quickdraw weapon.

Nowadays, the only way to return it to said former glory is to put on a recoil dampener, which slightly hurts its damage in favor of removing all that annoying kick you get from firing it one handed. The SMG used to be my go-to gun when I rolled engineer or medic because I didn't need to go to cargo to get it properly kitted out, but nowadays I feel I have to in order to deal with that stupid recoil...

Remove all the recoil on the gun and allow us to fire it one-handed like in the good ol' days and I'll be a happy camper.

[Davidchan]

Reducing the size/space the SMG and ammo takes up would make it somewhat desirable again. As it stands now it's a high capacity pistol with all the drawbacks of a rifle. Allowing it to be fired one handed, or giving back the ability to store it on your belt slot (or even on the belt itself) would make it a much more appealing weapon to classes that don't need a rifle, such as engineers, medics and tank crew.

Porting the tg dual wield system allowing for both hands to fire in sequence (harm intent, both hands having a weapon causes both weapons to fire when clicked, at a huge accuracy penalty) would also allow for marines who prefer to have high rates of fire to try and suppress xenos to have have a unique akimbo choice for rapid fire attacks.

[roushguy]

Or we could beef up its damage. There are plenty of PDWs out these days that are essentially cut-down assault rifles, and I can see the M39 filling this role really, really well. Put the damage somewhere behind the M41, add another round (or two?) to its stock burst-fire mode, and nudge the clipsize to 60 for normal, 40 for AP, and 90 for extended. Otherwise leave the recoil, fire-rate, and accuracy as-is. Make it a literal bullet hose of decent, but not exceptional, damage.

[Bulaven]

I wish we could bring the SMG back to its one-handed glory days, back when its biggest advantage was that you didn't need to hold it with both hands to shoot it, making it a great quickdraw weapon.

Nowadays, the only way to return it to said former glory is to put on a recoil dampener, which slightly hurts its damage in favor of removing all that annoying kick you get from firing it one handed. The SMG used to be my go-to gun when I rolled engineer or medic because I didn't need to go to cargo to get it properly kitted out, but nowadays I feel I have to in order to deal with that stupid recoil...

Remove all the recoil on the gun and allow us to fire it one-handed like in the good ol' days and I'll be a happy camper.

I used to use the SMG while dragging the wounded as a Medic, but since accuracy on both pistols -And- SMGs has gone to complete shit without wielding them, Medics are pretty much at the mercy of any nearby Marines who aren't leaving you and your wounded fanny pack behind to act as a damn Big Mac and fries for pursuing Xenos.

So. I ask that we reduce the recoil -Slightly-, so Medic survival rates move on up from 'Unlikely', to 'Unlikely, but plausible'.

[Royal Griffon]

the M39 has damage?
I play spitter and get hit by a bunch of AP and run away scared...to realize it was an SMG with AP and I still have about 80%+ of my health left. There's no reason to use it, just use the pulse rifle, speed is useless if a runner laughs at you after you empty a mag of AP into it.

[Nantei]

The fire rate is pretty pitiful. Not only is the delay long, but the burst fire on it is SLOWER than a pulse rifle. Actual what? The burst fire should be instant with a short delay. SMG"s in real life are CQC weapons, make it good at that. Slightly higher damage, better fire rate, instant burst instead of this trash fire we have now.

[Renomaki]

the M39 has damage?
I play spitter and get hit by a bunch of AP and run away scared...to realize it was an SMG with AP and I still have about 80%+ of my health left. There's no reason to use it, just use the pulse rifle, speed is useless if a runner laughs at you after you empty a mag of AP into it.

If it made you run away, then I believe it did its job.

The SMG is more a suppression weapon than a killing weapon, really. That isn't to say you can't kill shit with it if you shoot enough bullets at it. It's just that it takes more ammo to do so.

Still, if I'm a medic and a xeno is charging me, I'm going to make use of my SMG to scare em off. If I wanted to kill shit, I'd just go PFC and don the rifle as is standard.

[Grubstank]

I would love to see a version of the M39 outlined in the op. Faster rof/lower dps/larger magazines. At the moment it's a bit of an unspecialized, shitty weapon that has almost no redeeming features compared to the other primaries.

I think the niche the M39 should aim for is one of a low-damage, loud supressing fire weapon. As it is now, it has neither the damage to actually hurt things, nor the fire rate/ammo capacity to contribute meaningfully to a defence's volume of fire. These changes would really compliment the gameplay style of the roles that might take an M39 -- eg, medics who really just need to scare occaisional opponents off rather than contributing meaningfully to the front line's dps

[Heckenshutze]

the m39 was never 'great'.

It was a gun to scare the xenos rather than kill it, it always lacked damage and accuracy to actually be a bug-stomper-gun. If killing xeno scum is what you seek for stay with ol' trusty pulse rifle + shotgun combo and save the m39 for when you lose an arm.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

the M39 has damage?
I play spitter and get hit by a bunch of AP and run away scared...to realize it was an SMG with AP and I still have about 80%+ of my health left. There's no reason to use it, just use the pulse rifle, speed is useless if a runner laughs at you after you empty a mag of AP into it.

I know, its hard to tell the M39 even does any damage..

Exactly right, the speed of it is useless.Runners used to be scared of one thing back when the quickfire was around, you guessed it, rate of fire.Now no weapon in the game ever since basically the removal of the quickfire has any kind of high rate of fire, hence why the runners run amok alot and are able to get away with these FF inducing speed runs into groups of marines and get away with most of the time.

A higher fire rate version of the M39 would probably be a good counter to everyones favorite grabby boy also too.

The fire rate is pretty pitiful. Not only is the delay long, but the burst fire on it is SLOWER than a pulse rifle. Actual what? The burst fire should be instant with a short delay. SMG"s in real life are CQC weapons, make it good at that. Slightly higher damage, better fire rate, instant burst instead of this trash fire we have now.

I cant believe its not butter either, how can a SMG be so shit?

I would love to see a version of the M39 outlined in the op. Faster rof/lower dps/larger magazines. At the moment it's a bit of an unspecialized, shitty weapon that has almost no redeeming features compared to the other primaries.

I think the niche the M39 should aim for is one of a low-damage, loud supressing fire weapon. As it is now, it has neither the damage to actually hurt things, nor the fire rate/ammo capacity to contribute meaningfully to a defence's volume of fire. These changes would really compliment the gameplay style of the roles that might take an M39 -- eg, medics who really just need to scare occaisional opponents off rather than contributing meaningfully to the front line's dps

Precisely, i think it would add a slice of flavor back to the gameplay that we had with the old quickfire, but without the "broken quickfire".

the m39 was never 'great'.

It was a gun to scare the xenos rather than kill it, it always lacked damage and accuracy to actually be a bug-stomper-gun. If killing xeno scum is what you seek for stay with ol' trusty pulse rifle + shotgun combo and save the m39 for when you lose an arm.

It was great to me, i had more fun with the old M39 than i have had with any other weapon ive played on this server, including and not limited to the specs weapons(sniper rifle being my current favorite like many i imagine),heavy pulse rifle, mounted M56 etc.

So thats really saying something.Not to mention do you think that i would of took the time to write this post, read other peoples posts on the matter, reply on Giblab, etc if i didnt really like or used to like the M39?

As should be very clear, im not asking for this gun to be a xeno killing gun(unless wielded by a very skillful player like with anything) and nor do i want it to be.Im totally fine with it being a piece of shit, or personal defence weapon, or suppressive fire weapon or whatever the hell you want to call it.Hence why i mentioned and would be fine with penalties/changes to the gun just to let it have higher ROF, because in its current state it doesnt even matter if it were to be any lesser of a gun as it is now almost as useless as it can be.

Just simply asking for it to have higher rate of fire.As the rifle and shotgun are only enjoyable for so long.

[CABAL]

It makes sense realism/lorewise that submachine gun is no match for Pulse Rifle, or shotgun in terms of combat with armored xenos. It is a shame that Marines can choose only two diffrent weapons that are effective, but attachements can "create" ghetto sniper rifle and ghetto heavy machine gun from Pulse Rifle. I would go with more mobility for M39 with something like special armor that is lighter but less armored. Since we have vendors, it's not a problem to distribute it with "points". Increasing "good" stats will only result in increase of "bad" stats. Faster rate of fire? Even lower accuracy and even higher recoil.

[Grubstank]

It makes sense realism/lorewise that submachine gun is no match for Pulse Rifle, or shotgun in terms of combat with armored xenos. It is a shame that Marines can choose only two diffrent weapons that are effective, but attachements can "create" ghetto sniper rifle and ghetto heavy machine gun from Pulse Rifle. I would go with more mobility for M39 with something like special armor that is lighter but less armored. Since we have vendors, it's not a problem to distribute it with "points". Increasing "good" stats will only result in increase of "bad" stats. Faster rate of fire? Even lower accuracy and even higher recoil.

Very few balancing decisions on this server are based on "realism" so far as the lore goes. (Eg - useless sentries and child locked pill bottles. ) so I can't help but feel that your argument on that front is a little irrelevant. So far as the wider application of attachments go, that's a separate topic entirely

[CABAL]

Well... Shotgun is not effective on longer range and guess why: "makes sense realismwise". "Realism" is not Realism like Arma(or hardcore military simulation), or like real life realism. It's something about making sense and short range shotgun buckshot make sense, buckshot sniping would not make sense, thus not based on "realism". "Realism" level that reminds me of a mod to the Stalker CoP called "Misery". It's somehow logical and make sense, but might be annoying = "Realism".

Like I wroted before: "It's a shame that Marines can choose only two diffrent weapons that are effective".

If Devs decided this way is better and I see some sense in it then I agree. Even before "Gun Update" I felt that M39 wasn't great in comparasion to standard Pulse Rifle. Only quickfire was that one little finger that was holding M39 to not fall behind other weapons. Without it, even mobility is nothing since xenos are faster, or/and have leap/charge/spit. I guess only defender from combat caste is slower than marine in armor with M39.

Alternative fast and low armored armor, or/and size decrease to normal is what would make change my standard loadouts to always carry one M39 in backpack that wouldn't be peashooter for sweet "I won't give you pleasure of killing me, benos" suicide after SD breach.