Minigun causes TERRIBLE friendly fire damage.

[b0rsuk]

Many of you know minigun tends to wound, not kill, and is more of an area weapon. Not even Careful Shooter is able to make it hit mostly where it's aimed.

As it turns out, it causes TERRIBLE friendly fire damage. In the picture below, I used two colonists, one with personal shield and one with assault rifle to take out 3 scythers and a centipede from the cover of rock on the top. By accident, I discovered how utterly TERRIBLE minigun is to allies.

From now on, I will be sniping all Inferno Cannon cendipedes from afar and position a shield dummy so as to provoke minigunners. These centipedes naturally arrive late to the scene and scythers will be in front of them.

I also learned that it's MUCH faster to use medium range weapons with shield cover. Especially if your top shooter has a missing finger. The only mechanoid weapon that can deal with cover is inferno cannon.

[Mkok]

Yes, miniguns pretty much suck. Kinda like in real life, don't you think? 

They can be used kinda effectively with some micromanagement, but I personally prefer other weapons.

Though miniguns are great for taking out large groups of mechanoids. Miniguns tend to hit anything along their path, even friendlies. A little bit of positioning can make centipedes take down half of enemy forces for you.

[MsMeiriona]

Miniguns are for use on things that need to be destroyed, not enemies, as far as I'm concerned. Ship part? Fine. Infestation? Fine. One person, one minigun. Everyone else stays away.

[mumblemumble]

Well, miniguns in real life are less innacurate, but are also generally a mounted gun which makes  big difference. This said this is an RTS kinda fight setup, so realism is a silly prospect to bring up.

[Shurp]

In RL miniguns are an area effect weapon anyway.  You don't aim one at a particular enemy soldier.  You aim it at the building several enemy soldiers are hiding in and pour lead into it.  Even if you don't hit them you certainly make it impossible for them to get up and leave.

In Rimworld the "forced miss" attribute makes them especially useless against an individual target.  They only work against closely packed units.  They might be useful in attacking a ship part where the mechanoids are milling about.

And nobody in their right mind sends friendly troops into an area being bombarded by a minigun

[cultist]

Probably just an oversight on Tynan's part but a human can't actually wield a minigun unaided. Not while firing it anyway. The sheer force would probably knock you over. In the real world, miniguns are mounted weapons only. LMG's are generally designed primarily for mounting as well.

With that in mind, perhaps a pawn with a minigun could use a few seconds to mount it, making it more accurate but locking the pawn in place unless it drops the gun. And hipfire would remain crazy inaccurate, because it should be.

[b0rsuk]

You've missed the point of the thread, which is listed in the thread's title. Look how many bullets start connecting when there's a friendly in the way! The other scyther sustained heavy minigun damage too. Is there a way I can make tribal raiders wield miniguns ?

[Wex]

Say what you will.
I have a firing squad of 6 minigunners, all trigger happy.
The shoot and the enemy disappear.
If you want a useless weapon, let's talk about the incendiary grenade launcher.

[cultist]

You've missed the point of the thread, which is listed in the thread's title. Look how many bullets start connecting when there's a friendly in the way! The other scyther sustained heavy minigun damage too. Is there a way I can make tribal raiders wield miniguns ?

It's just RnG. I don't believe the minigun is more accurate against friendlies. Something Tynan could do is improve the combat AI so enemies don't blindly run into each others' line of fire. Like some sort of attack plan instead of each pawn just acting on their own, not caring who they hit (reminds me of my own pawns actually :p)

[skullywag]

Its a well known fact that if you aim at something past a target you tend to hit the target with an intercept more times than you would if aiming directly at them, its been a "flaw" in the projectile system since I can remember, its one of the reasons Combat Realism was even started as a mod.

[SpaceDorf]

I too reacted with " Well d'uh, what else do you expect"

and

Say what you will.
I have a firing squad of 6 minigunners, all trigger happy.
The shoot and the enemy disappear.
If you want a useless weapon, let's talk about the incendiary grenade launcher.

that is my wet-Rimworld dream I never get to have

on top of the flaw.
and the last thing is the most frustrating that gamers and ai's in games seldom react the way you would
expect an actual human combatant to react to motivational forces.
Either they are through game restrictions not able to do so or as gamers ( in multiplayer environment ) don't care.

Last thing is a question .. is it possible to aim miniguns at an area rather than a single target ?
And if not, should it not be so ? 

[milon]

Any firearm can be force-fired at a spot. Draft, click the weapon icon, then click where you want to shoot.

[SpaceDorf]

Awesome !
Time to put Maxim 37 in the profile

[erdrik]

Probably just an oversight on Tynan's part but a human can't actually wield a minigun unaided. ...

Well... less oversight and more prophetic vision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRO5W7uxZfw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh4n7mJjsEqBPUc-RZdHOfQ

Still got some hella recoil from what I can tell, but Im pretty sure thats something that can be dealt with in the next 500 years.

[keylocke]

iirc, when colonists are group moved together to form a tight formation, shooters don't hit each other as long as there's no gap in the formation.

if you got a gap in the formation. then yea, that minigun is like sayonara my friends. gg.