snip
snip
Yeah, that was never a glitch, it was intended behavior to have first-shot accuracy. The biggest problem with SMG is their cone of fire isn't large enough, and their damage falloff isn't steep enough. They do nearly max damage even at max range, and the cone of fire in the first ~6 shots is still accurate enough that half the shots hit. So there's no penalty to shotgunning at fliers, which should NEVER happen.
I personally think they just need to get rid of SMGs and replace them with clustered shotguns.
Are you suggesting that there should be no counter for people sniping or bombaring from up in the sky at low tech levels when you don't have the railgun? Right now at least you can try to shoot them with your "SMGs" and slowly damage them, if they aren't covered with electroplates or something.
(I'm at tier 3 and there are people sniping from sky-high with helium and railguns or plasmas. I don't know if that's actually effective or not, the railgunners always seem to miss, so far as I've noticed. The plasmas may be more effective, but there's a long delay before they hit where they were aimed.)
Problem is they're too much of a counter- they're as effective if not better than railguns for AA, both close & long-range, and this bleeds through into sniping ground troops as well.
It's fine to make it a last-ditch defense, so SMG troops aren't as defenseless as plasma, (though this is technically an arbitrary distinction, 'you don't have railguns or SMGs you're fucked' vs 'you don't have railguns you're fucked'), but as it is it's an omni-weapon.
Plasma- Good at long-range, very good at short-range, very bad for fliers, weak against hovers & jumpers - AOE, fire n forget, but their saving grace is travel-time & drop-off
Railgun- Very good at long-range, very bad at short-range, good against fliers -
Currently bugged, must be still, can't track quickly, tracking decreases accuracy, firing decreases accuracy, laser-pointer, reload
SMG- Very good at long-range, Good at short-range, Great against fliers - hitscan, no overheat, tap-firing
Not so much an accuracy penalty, but drastically increasing the damage falloff sounds nice to my vindictive side, after what the last railgun nerf did.