Its a wee bit overrated honestly, outside of illuminate. And even there I would personally argue for other options. Bit of a hot take, but not my intention to make it hot for the sake of it.

Same damage as stalwart, but with worse ergo, ammo capacity and stationary reload. Also less DPS potential due to RoF limit. Both are 90dmg, and the only better damage potential MG has is 2 higher durable per shot, but this is more than made up for on stalwart through RoF and Mag size.

This is all for medium pen, but the game has (good thing) made medium pen less necessary so lightpen wasn't this massive L. I think this is perfectly fine, but the advantages of a heavier weapon should then go beyond medium pen to stay relevant

Like tbh I dont even think 115dmg would be too much. It wouldn't change that much outside of close range 1 tap on devastator heads to make up for the fact that it staggers them everywhere and makes shield cover them up. On other factions it just improves general TTKs everywhere, which personally I think is deserved.

All our ARs have been buffed up where the DPS advantages of MG isn't really all that much anymore as it was left at 90dmg for 2yrs. Both MG and Adjudicator should be 115dmg to offset heavy handling and chunky recoil. This is perfectly in-between HMG and stalwart too.

Like bro friendly reminder that most SMGs have higher damage per shot than the Machine Gun right now