Thank you and congratulations on your purchase of The Omega Concern’s M2 HB 50 caliber heavy machine gun. Please read this manual before manning your new machine gun.

The Omega Concern is dedicated to producing quality work at affordable prices, and we support everything we sell. April Heaney is the creator and your Technical Contact for this product, and can assist you with any problems with your product. All of our products are designed with the balance of impact on sim performance and ease of use in mind. If you find one of our products to be causing lag, behaving in unexpected ways, or otherwise being a pest, we need to know so we can correct it. Also if you find the user interface to be confusing or otherwise difficult to use, please let us know.

There is a technical support passphrase somewhere in this manual, which you must use when first contacting your Technical Contact about this product. We do this because other people (not you!) don't bother reading the manual which contains the answers to their questions, thus taking our time and attention away from thoughtful questions not answered in the manual, such as yours. As always, emailing the support address above is preferable to IMs and notecards, both of which often get lost in the shuffle when IMs get capped or April is offline for a couple of days.

You are eligible for all upgrades on this version, right up until version 2.0. Also, your feedback is valued! If there's something you love, hate, or just think would be better if it were just a little different, we want to know. Your input directly influences the course of development and future features of Omega products. Your support passphrase is "He's not heavy."

Important things to know

• The M2 is a placed weapon, it is not to be attached to your avatar.  Doing so will result in it nagging at you and refusing to work.
• The M2 can only be used by its owner.
• The M2 insists on 15 seconds to arm itself after placement or re-rezzing.  Also, it requires 20 seconds to change belts when one is depleted.
• There are two versions of the M2. One is the normal version, and the other is the 'Low Prim' version.  The normal version is 157 prims, but looks awesome.  The low prim version is 51 prims, but doesn't look quite as awesome.  Performance between the two is identical.  The lower prim version is supplied for those of you who may be operating in areas where free prims are a valuable commodity.

Using the M2

From your inventory, drag out the object named "M2 HB (M3 Tripod) 1.0" (or "M2 HB (M3 Tripod) [Low Prim] 1.0") to where you wish to place the tripod. As of version 1.1, upon placement, the tripod will orient itself to be facing in the same direction as your avatar. The gun itself will rez from the tripod, oriented in the same direction. If able, you may move or rotate the tripod to a desired position, and the M2 will follow. If you are unable to edit and move/rotate the tripod (such as when RLV/RLVa is enabled for OCS 2) the tripod must be deleted and placed again, hopefully in the direction you intended. The M3 and M2 can not be repositioned once manned.

To man the M2, right click on the tripod and select "Gunner" from the pie menu.  (If you see "Not Here" it means you've selected the gun itself.  Deselect and try aiming for the tripod.) If you man the gun before the 15 second arming period has expired, it will tell you how many more seconds you have to wait before you can control the weapon.

When you've manned the gun and the gun is ready, you will get a dialogue asking if it's okay for the M2 to act on your control inputs.  Say Yes.

If you are wearing an active OCS HUD, the M2 will detect this and verify your OCS status.

Go into mouselook.  The M2 will follow you where you look, traversing 45 degrees left or right, and +20 to -10 degrees elevation.  The gun will stop at those limits regardless of where one may be looking in mouselook.

Left click to fire.  Every 5th round is a tracer, so you can judge where your shots are going.  In OCS mode, shots are affected by range and wind.  Shots can also ricochet off surfaces if they strike at low angles.  Feel free to use this to your advantage.

Sustained or high-density fire may result in the barrel overheating. This will be obvious because the barrel will glow reddish, smoke, the gun will cease firing, and it will tell you, "Barrel overheated."  You will be able to again fire the weapon after several seconds to allow the barrel to cool down a bit.

When you run down a belt of ammunition, you will have to wait 20 seconds for a new one.  As the actual M2 is crewed by two or more persons, I elected to omit a reloading animation for a single gunner on the grounds that it would just look pretty silly.

The M2 at setup has 400 rounds of ammunition. That is to say it has one belt of 100 already in the feed, and three more as backup.  If you run out of ammo, replenishing is simple.  Get up and unman the gun.  Click and get the Rez/Delete menu.  Click "Rez" and wait 15 seconds for the weapon to arm and you're back in business.

Ammunition types and effects

By default, the M2 is loaded with standard Linden damage rounds, which are neither affected by wind nor distance.  These rounds fly beam-straight until they strike something.  They will ricochet from land and objects if they strike at a low enough angle.

OCS rounds are automatically selected when the gun goes into OCS mode. These rounds are subject to wind and gravity, and will also ricochet.  When used against OCS enabled structures, the tracer rounds have a high probability of starting fires.

Troubleshooting

The M2 is pretty straightforward and shouldn't offer up many mysteries.  However, should it fail to behave, discard your current M2(s) in inventory and get out the box in which the M2 came. Unpack a fresh copy and try that.  SL can be unkind to scripts and some errors are simply not foreseeable or recoverable.  That's why we make it copyable.

FAQ

Q: Will the M2 work with my Roleplay Combat System?

A: It may. To date, we have not heard of any systems that the M2 will not work with. However, The Omega Concern does not guarantee compatibility with any other system but OCS and the Second Life damage model.

Q: What is OCS?

A: OCS stands for Omega Combat System. It is the official combat system of The Omega Concern and Fulda Gap. It represents thousands of hours of testing and design to bring you the most lethal and realistic combat model seen in Second Life to date.

Q: Why do I seem to miss with my M2 in OCS?

A: OCS uses a realistic accuracy scale. Practice makes perfect, and as you progress in skill within the OCS system, you will become more and more accurate with your weapons. Remember: OCS levels are life long levels.

In short, the M2 is meant to deliver devastating fun, and work as a strong statement of your excellent taste for using a quality Omega Concern product. The Omega Concern promises to support your M2 for the lifetime of the product, with free upgrades for all of 1.x, and lifetime bug fixes.

Above all else, have fun. :)