Technologies

Battlefield 6 Tips: The Best LMG Builds

If you want to be a dependable machine gunner, you’ll want to eke the most performance out of your LMGs as possible.

Developer DICE’s iconic first-person shooter is back in good form with Battlefield 6, and players are hard at work capturing flags and trading gunfire in large-scale battles. As dozens of players collide in massive fights, teamwork decides the outcome of each match.

If you want to keep your teammates in tip-top shape, you’ll probably gravitate toward the Support class. Support players are able to quickly revive any downed teammate with their trusty defibrillators, as well as drop supply bags that restore health and ammunition to nearby allies.

The support class is also extremely good at laying down the lead. Its signature weapon type is the light machine gun, or LMG, which is characterized by its high-bullet capacity magazines, high rate of fire and generally cumbersome frame. These weapons are great for suppressing enemies, which slows down their health regeneration.

There’s a wide array of LMGs in Battlefield 6, which means it might take you a little while to find the right fit for your play style. Some of these bullet hoses are suitable for close-range play, while others might allow you to contest sniper nests across long distances. Here are my favorite LMG builds in Battlefield 6.

The best LMG builds in Battlefield 6

There are eight different light machine guns in Battlefield 6, so you’re not hurting for options when it comes to setting up a bipod and laying down lead.

Most of these options are locked behind high level requirements or challenge completions, though, so it can be tough to figure out an effective loadout early on. Here are some accessible LMG builds for every possible situation.

L110 ‘Factory’

The L110 is the first LMG you’ll have unlocked when you start playing Battlefield 6, and it’s a solid workhorse of a gun. Its high rate of fire and extensive bullet capacity mean you’ll be able to keep enemies suppressed at a distance. However, this thing kicks like a mule unless you have a bipod set up.

To fix this, you’ll want to add the heavy extended barrel and grip pod attachments. These add-ons will make vertical and horizontal recoil more manageable, giving you more mobility during tricky firefights.

The red laser attachment helps tighten the hip-fire spread for those emergency situations where an opponent gets the drop on you in close-quarters combat, and crucially, enemies won’t be able to see the beam emanating from your weapon.

If you’re confident that you can handle the L110’s recoil, I recommend swapping out the regular bullets for tungsten-core rounds — they’ll shred through multiple enemies at once when you’re holding a tight sightline, like a hallway or a doorway leading into an objective.

M60 ‘Huntsman’

If you participated in the Battlefield 6 open beta, congratulations: You automatically unlock my favorite LMG upon opening Battlefield 6 for the first time. The M60 usually unlocks at player level 20, but beta players can use a special M60 Huntsman build straight away.

This LMG fires slower than the L110, but its recoil is more manageable, and it does more damage. As someone who likes to set up machine gun nests and pick enemies off from afar, the M60 has been the gun I’ve used the most so far in Battlefield 6.

However, players can’t change attachments on a prebuilt gun before they hit the level required to unlock its original factory variant. That means you can’t swap out attachments before player level 20, and you’re stuck with the awful vision-obscuring iron sights on the M60 until then.

Once you’re able to swap around the gun’s attachments, though, a 2x zoom and red dot sight is an absolute necessity for firing at medium- to long-range targets. Set up an alternative zoom on the side of the gun with basic sights to trade out the usual M60 eyesore for simpler iron sights when shooting close-range enemies. A double-port brake and vertical handgrip help control what little recoil the M60 has, and the red laser remains on this build in order to tighten hipfire spread.

RPKM ‘Carnivore’

If you’re not looking to set up a machine gun nest, there are some LMGs that support a more aggressive play style. The RPKM is one of these weapons, with stats that make it feel like a hybrid between a traditional light machine gun and an assault rifle. You can’t fire as many rounds before reloading, but you get some much-needed sprint speed and mantling mobility back.

The RPKM factory variant is locked behind player level 30, but there’s a much easier way to unlock this weapon for multiplayer modes. The RPKM Carnivore build is unlocked through completion of Battlefield 6’s nine-level campaign. You can beat the levels on any difficulty in order to unlock the RPKM.

The RPKM matches the M60’s damage per shot and even offers a higher rate of fire than my favorite weapon. This is all tempered by a very low magazine capacity for an LMG — the stock magazine holds 40 bullets — and very high recoil. You can use the RPKM to run and gun alongside your Assault-class teammates, but you probably won’t win as many gunfights across long distances.

Once you unlock the RPKM at level 30, a heavy extended barrel and some sort of vertical handgrip or bipod are must-have additions to your build. Swapping out the suppressor for a compensated brake also couldn’t hurt. These attachments will bring the recoil more in line with other LMGs, providing you with a manageable run-and-gun buzzsaw.

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal

Technologies

Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway,” according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.
The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
WATCH: Waymo launches new autonomous system in Chinese-made vehicle

Technologies

Qualcomm tumbles 13% as semiconductor stocks retreat from historic AI-fueled surge

Semiconductor equities reversed sharply after a broad AI-driven advance, with Qualcomm suffering its worst day since 2020 amid inflation concerns and rising oil prices.

Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

Market participants are wagering that the shift from AI model training to autonomous agents will lift demand for additional AI hardware. Among the beneficiaries are memory chip producers, which are raising prices as supply remains tight.

Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.