doghead said:
OK. In the absence of knowing any better - 1V. I prefer guns that make a lot of Noise anyway.
I'll let Kevin do my shooting for me

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Doghead,
sorry, I had meant to weigh in on this, but falling asleep on my TRO didn't really help.
Urbanmech, Radiant and Shurai bring up some good points:
While Mechs are indeed the king of the battlefield, they are also incredible expensive to maintain, so people are looking for alternatives. Panzers might be useful in the open, but cities and wooded areas are prime territory for infantry.
MGs are the premiere Infantry killers of their (this) day. And while they don't have the greater range and require you to get up close to the target, within such areas this usuall constitutes no problem, because when you can see them, you are already close enough to shoot.
Heat almost never constitutes a problem for a locust, not even in a desert setting or in a vacuum.
As for getting close with the heavies, just don't overdo it.

The accepted doctrine of Mechcombat is to go the for heaviest mechs first, because they carry the greatest firepower, ignoring the lighter outriders or let your own lights deal with them. Now if that light does too much damage, many mechwarriors will (however reluctantly) disengage their primary target to "squash the gnat". The might work good for you if your own ally gets some good shots in on the distracted enemy, but if he manages to get few good shots in on your locust ...
Now if you want some more firepower (very understandable), you might want to consider the 3V. Doubling you medium punch (at the effective cost of 8 points of armor) and keeping the MGs with enough ammo (50 each), this puts you a touch above other recons.
Folkert