Heavy machine gun (dNetHack)
| ) | |
|---|---|
| Name | heavy machine gun |
| Appearance | strange broken crossbow or unfamiliar heavy gun |
| Damage vs. small | 1d2 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d2 |
| To-hit bonus | -4 |
| Weapon skill | firearm |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 2000 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 100 |
| Material | iron |
- For the weapon in SLASH'EM and its derivatives, see heavy machine gun (SLASH'EM).
A heavy machine gun is a type of firearm that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The submachine gun is a huge futuristic launcher, making it two-handed for medium-sized heroes. It uses the firearms skill, and is designed for use with bullets, silver bullets, blood-bullets, and blood-spears.
The heavy machine gun has a default material of iron, and appears as a strange broken crossbow for heroes in most roles when unidentified—Anachrononauts, Androids, Pirates, and Undead Hunters will instead see the unidentified item as an "unfamiliar heavy gun".
Generation
Anachrononauts and Androids start each game with knowledge of the heavy machine gun's appearance. Dwarven Anachrononauts start each game with an uncursed +3 heavy machine gun made of mithril and a stack of 100 uncursed +3 bullets as ammo.
Heavy machine guns are not randomly generated, though they can be found in bones and can only be wished for by Tourists—note that wishing for one by appearance (i.e. a "strange broken crossbow") will yield a rifle instead of an auto shotgun, due to multiple items sharing that appearance.
A heavy machine gun is placed randomly on the Anachrononaut quest locate level at level creation, and another is randomly placed on the goal level at level creation—they are also generated in the same locations on the Android quest.
Deep ones and deeper ones generated in the future (i.e. the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest) have a 1⁄6 chance of being generated with a heavy machine gun as their firearm weapon and 4 different stacks of bullets as ammo, with the properties of the heavy machine gun itself dependent on which monster is given one: deep ones will have fully eroded heavy machine guns, while deeper ones will have heavy machine guns with 1 level of erosion and an enchantment ranging from +1 to +4.
Only Undead Hunters can create a heavy machine gun by manual smithing if they know the item's appearance.
Description
The heavy machine gun has a range of 20 squares with a base rate of fire of 8, but has a -4 to-hit penalty. A heavy machine gun wielded by a hero with skill in firearms gains doubled multishot bonuses compared to other firearms.
Origin
A heavy machine gun (or HMG) is significantly larger than light, medium or general-purpose machine guns and has more formidable firepower, but are typically too heavy to be carried by one person: HMGs usually require mounting onto a weapons platform in to be operably stable or tactically mobile, and generally require a team of personnel for operation and maintenance.
Historically, the term "heavy machine gun" refers to machine guns that are weighty and cumbersome enough to prevent infantrymen from transporting them on foot, and are typically chambered in standard full-power cartridges; examples of historical HMGs include the Maxim machine gun and M1917 Browning machine gun. The modern definition refers to "heavy caliber" machine guns that are designed to provide increased effective range, penetration and stopping power against vehicles, aircraft and light fortifications far beyond that of both the full-power cartridges used in battle rifles and medium or general-purpose machine guns, as well as the intermediate cartridges used in assault rifles, light machine guns and squad automatic weapons.
In contrast to the higher rate of fire demonstrated by the weapon in variants of NetHack, real-live heavy machine guns have a much lower rate of fire than their lighter and smaller counterparts: in return, they are capable of firing heavier ammunition more accurately at longer ranges, and can do so for days on end, mainly in fixed defensive positions to repel infantry attacks. A tripod-mounted and water-cooled HMG with a well-trained crew can fire nonstop for hours given sufficient ammunition, replacement barrels and cooling water.
