116 replies to this topic

[Blitxll]

I've seen atlas' taken out purely with missiles... It seems a bit much to just have to "R" to get indirect fire. it makes narcs and tags seem pointless. To top it all off the majority of my pub matches just become camp fests that are super boring cause no one wants to get ***** by LRM's. is this working as intended?

[Dirty Starfish]

Yes it is. I don't like them but they are very useful suppression weapons. Grind out a radar deprivation module and stay under cover if you get locked.

[Arianrhod]

LRMs can often seem overpowered early on. However, it's a bit more than pressing R. To use LRMs successfully, one must either maintain a line of sight, and have the target within sensor range, or else have an ally who's willing to keep the target in line of sight and within sensor range. That's actually pretty hard to come by, because PUGs are notoriously bad at spotting. Not that you can really blame them--it's a bit difficult to justify putting yourself in harm's way without reaping immediate benefits for your damage totals. NARC and Tag come into play here in order to make locks easier, hold them longer, lock on things that might be out of sensor range, lock on things out of the line of sight, and increase the accuracy of missiles once fired, all of which are invaluable things to a player using LRMs. With regards to their power, LRMs each do one damage, and all LRMs in a barrage do not strike the same component, meaning that the damage is spread across the target mech. This, coupled with the fact that LRMs and LRM ammo are heavy, means that they do not compare with direct fire weapons in terms of (accurate) damage output. They do tend to pad your damage score only because you are dumping literally thousands of them onto the enemy.

Here's what you can do to prevent yourself falling victim to mass LRM barrages:
-Stay near cover. Some maps are impossible for LRMs because cover is everywhere, such as Canyon Network and Viridian Bog. If something taller than you is between you and the enemy LRM mech, you're basically protected. Any time you see missiles incoming, get to cover as soon as possible.
-Stay with the group. Striking out alone gets you singled out by the LRM boats as an easy target. With your friends, you'll decrease your chances of being targeted and you'll also be protected by a couple of AMSs.
-Use distance to your advantage and stay on the move. If you're at, say, two or three hundred meters, get right up in the LRM mech's face. Inner Sphere LRMs are useless within 180 meters. Clan LRMs have diminishing damage as you get closer. If you're at eight or nine hundred meters, back up and get out of range (1000+ meters). At the LRM launcher's max range, even moving a few dozen meters can cause LRMs to miss you. In a fast mech, staying on the move is the best protection because the missiles can't correct their course fast enough to hit you.
-Get a mech with ECM. Then they can't target you at all. Enough said.
-Equip AMS. This doesn't benefit you so much as it does your team, because together your team is likely to have about 3 AMS bubbles. If you stay together, that's enough to protect the target of the enemy LRM fire. The Kit Fox and the Atlas are the two mechs that to my knowledge can equip 3 AMS by themselves. 1 AMS is alright at shooting down missiles, but 3 can be as good as a wall in some situations.

[DaemonWulfe]

It's just a low tier thing. At the lower tiers, dudes don't know how to take cover, and it's not uncommon to see an Atlas pilot YOLO into the open. There's light at the end of the tunnel though. As you get better, you'll eventually get matched with potentially better teams. Those annoying LRM boats that seemed so painful in the past will be the reason why you lose when you get too many of them on your team at higher tiers and draw the pug lottery for a stomp.

You see, their inflated damage numbers that made them think they're gud will soon flip. Take heart in knowing there's a painful future ahead of those guys should they ever rise above scraping the bottom. They'll wine and cry and beg for locks, but you, you'll be a well balanced killer, especially if you come to the FRR and hang out with the 'ardest doodz in the IS. We'll learn you how to rise above that if you promise to push when the call comes.

Major difference between LRMs and SRMs at short range: LRMs will literally bounce off harmlessly. If you look closely you can see the unarmed missiles falling to the ground. SRMs will rock your cockpit and you will lose a nice chunk of armor.

Edited by DaemonWulfe, 17 April 2016 - 06:14 PM.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

TLDR

Very easy to use for a new player. Very hard to counter for a new player.

Up in the try hard tier they are still usable, but require MUCH more skill and effort to use.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

A wise man once said, "Things are not always as they seem..."

[Barkem Squirrel]

They are easy to spam, but they can be countered fairly easy.

Figure over time that hitting over 40% of your missiles is very good. Some times having 90% hit rate in one match is doable, but happens from time to time. (generally you need someone or two like direwolves, atlases, kingcrabs or highlanders to walk out in the open). Does it only happen at lower tiers, nope. Some people in higher tiers just forget that LRMs are out there and get surprised for all of maybe 5 to 10 seconds.

To use LRMs effectively you have to lower cool down time, increase velocity, targeting time, sensor range and to an extent the range of the LRMs. To do this you use a few componets along with modules or quirks: artemis, TAG, NARC, BAP, Command Console, Targeting computers. This is more weight and depending on the mech a choice. One thing to remember the LRMs travel at 160 m/s, so with a 10% velocity quirk they move at 176 m's. When LRMs were moved up to 170 m/s people were just balling that the LRMs were to OP. Generally any time changes to weapons are made people take them out for testing and sometimes it results into a hotfix if people are screaming bloody murder.

Then how do you fire volley or chain fire. How do you use launchers with 2, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20 tubes. Do you fire an LRM 20 out of a 2 tube launcher or the 15 or 20 tube. How about an LRM 10 out of a 6 tube launcher like on the stalker torso mounts or two LRM 15's out of 2 10 tube launchers. Wolverines have 10 tube lauchers, but firing 2 LRM 15's will give a 10, 5, 10, 5 missile launch with .5 second in between. This gives you more contact with the target over time, but you could volley fire and fire 20 and 10. Now stalkers you could have 2 LRM 10's and 2 LRM 15's and fire 32 and 18 in volley fire, but 10,5, 6, 4, 10, 5, 6, 4 over a period of time with .5 second in between. So here you would have an almost constant stream of LRMs raining down.

Most people use volley fire until ghost heat was introduced and chain firing is a more effective way most of the time to fire at moving mechs. Volley at people poking and keeping short exposure times. One thing ghost heat did was make LRM boats fire more effectively.

One thing about radar deprivation, everyone talks about it, but not many people use it. That is from someone that almost exclusively runs LRMs. Those buggers that know where to move and have terrain blocking the flight path of the LRMs or a hill or building in the way are worse. ECM mechs walking or the DDC's standing in the open are just as dead when TAG, UAV's or NARC are used. Hell even dead firing LRMs at stationary mechs works.

Me I use LRMs, but it is what unit members note how I use the LRMs and fill me in on what is out of the norm. Use them at 300 m. use Mech chassis that allow for over 30% cool down bonuses when possible to get more LRMs down range faster. (and yes I can back off a direwolf with a Treb 7M by spamming the LRMs into his face at 300 m. Same with the Hunch 4J) Use TAG and maybe Artemis depending on the build. Assault LRM boats should have a command console. Nothing like using BAP, Command console and advanced sensor range to target some sot at 1250 m. In PUG matches this is very important, since detection range is normally 800 m and PUGs follow the first stinking red dorito that they see. Using the 10% range extension allows for more LRMs to hit at closer distances. Now matter what, when they say you can do back flips over your targets while maintaining 180 m range they are just mystified. Me, sure I was jumping over the direwolf from a higher elevation, but it just seamed that I was doing backflips while maintaining the 180 m range. Of course that was after killing his 3 other lances mates without being hit.

Most of all, do not be afraid to lead a charge as a meat shield. So learn to brawl with LRMs and your back up weapons.

[Koniving]

Can I have whatever pills were taken? Heh.

Try AMS and bunch up, you'll see that effectiveness drop quick.

[Void Angel]

Blitxll, on 17 April 2016 - 05:18 PM, said:

I've seen atlas' taken out purely with missiles... It seems a bit much to just have to "R" to get indirect fire. it makes narcs and tags seem pointless. To top it all off the majority of my pub matches just become camp fests that are super boring cause no one wants to get ***** by LRM's. is this working as intended?

As others have pointed out, it's just because you're new. Players at the lower tiers are less experienced (though not necessarily poorer skills) with the game and get caught by LRMs far more easily. The slower a 'mech is, the more LRMs can hammer them before they get to cover after a mistake, so I'm not surprised you've seen Atlases taken down.

As you progress through the tiers and increase in skill, you'll find that fewer and fewer people play and respect LRMs as an effective weapon. This comes with a huge caveat: LRMs can be effective even at top tiers of play, with the right build and chassis, and - most importantly - the right pilot. However, you should not mistake them for a FOO Strategy; in general, you can rack up large damage and kill counts in the lower tiers, but you'll find them to be less effective as you progress - and while they can be used effectively by an expert player, the direct-fire options are superior once you've acquired the skills.

[Void Angel]

Also, you should consider that we just had an event this last week (the Alpha Lance challenge.) Since a component of that challenge is "Kill Most Damage Dealt," well... That category of cbill/exp bonus comes from doing the most damage to a target that eventually dies - and nothing does more damage before killing a target than LRMs. =)

[Moomtazz]

Blitxll, on 17 April 2016 - 05:18 PM, said:

It seems a bit much to just have to "R" to get indirect fire.

I agree

[Koniving]

It's actually spotter must keep eye on target with selection.
Missileer must keep cross hairs on target for entire duration of missile flight.
Losing target for an instant could leave missiles to hit the ground and not target.

That said current missiles are very tight with perfect spacing and flight. Old missiles bobbed, weaved, spread and looked really wild.

[Void Angel]

PS:

[Starbomber109]

LRMs tend to be thought of as a "noobslayer" weapon. The tips here are solid advice. I don't feel like AMS is needed because that's a ton or two that's not killing mechs, but ECM is very useful for more than just dodging missiles.

Stick to cover, break lock and move if you get targeted and the incoming lrms will miss. Also if you stay moving, at 800 m or so most lrms will have a hard time tracking you, so you may be able to dodge some of the damage unless it's a Hunchback 4J an archer or a stalker 3m shooting you

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Starbomber109, on 17 April 2016 - 09:11 PM, said:

LRMs tend to be thought of as a "noobslayer" weapon. The tips here are solid advice. I don't feel like AMS is needed because that's a ton or two that's not killing mechs, but ECM is very useful for more than just dodging missiles.

Stick to cover, break lock and move if you get targeted and the incoming lrms will miss. Also if you stay moving, at 800 m or so most lrms will have a hard time tracking you, so you may be able to dodge some of the damage unless it's a Hunchback 4J an archer or a stalker 3m shooting you

Oh, if only anything in this game were as simple as that. It's a good start, in a way... Nothing WRONG with that advice.

Okay, so let's assume that our OP doesn't want to roll in a Clan omnimech, and therefore has to run 2/3 variants WITHOUT ECM on some chassis and 3/3 on the remaining majority...

Or that the OP is facing opponents with TAG, NARC, UAVs, or PPCs (all things that counter ECM, by the way, for the OP).

SO. AMS is suddenly NOT exactly dead weight, since (UNLIKE ECM) it works under a UAV, while NARCed, while TAGged, AND despite having been hit by a PPC in the last few seconds. Sure, it requires ammunition that can be depleted, and sure, it usually won't kill ALL THE MISSILES. Hey, combined with ECM (I'm thinking of the CuteFox here) it sure can be helpful, though.

On to what to do.

GET the enemy LRM boat to lock on to YOU. DO IT! DO IT NOW! (Yes, you SHOULD read that in the Governator's voice.) Get him, more importantly, to WASTE SO MANY MISSILES ON YOU. Get his lock, non-line-of-sight, and get behind/under cover, in into a nest of angry AMS CuteFoxes. Or hang right on the edge of his range, and wait for him to start committing missiles to you before rolling right across that line and watching his missiles burst harmlessly in the air above you.

LRMs can't (well, not any more) change locked targets mid-flight, so once they're fired, they either track what they were originally locked onto, or they track NOTHING.

See, you can be firing at the LRMer or his teammates, while attracting his attention. It's harder, though, for HIM to fire at you AND at another of your teammates. So, as I used to tell my soldiers once in a while (if only to get them to get moving and away from me)...

MOVE OUT! DRAW FIRE! BANG! BANG BANG!

[ImperialKnight]

Blitxll, on 17 April 2016 - 05:18 PM, said:

I've seen atlas' taken out purely with missiles... It seems a bit much to just have to "R" to get indirect fire. it makes narcs and tags seem pointless. To top it all off the majority of my pub matches just become camp fests that are super boring cause no one wants to get ***** by LRM's. is this working as intended?

it only works at low tiers. good players will move forward with cover, get into brawling range, and then punch the Atlas' face in.

LRMs are terrible weapons, it just takes people a while to figure out.

it's a suppression weapon, but that's it. If you want to be cheeky, you could do something like this
It's fun while you suppress an enemy using the LRM5 chainfire as you walk towards them. they won't know it's just 3 LRM5 launchers and will hide until it's too late.
or trick people into thinking "omg! a LRM KGC, push it!" and then regret it once you open up with the UACs

[Rogue Jedi]

Sister RAbbi, on 17 April 2016 - 10:32 PM, said:

LRMs can't (well, not any more) change locked targets mid-flight, so once they're fired, they either track what they were originally locked onto, or they track NOTHING.

They never could change target, at least not since I joined in mid 2012. what they can do is fire on a target, then loose and reaquire the lock, then if they have Artemus and/or TAG perform a sharp turn to reaquire that target

[TercieI]

Boogie138, on 17 April 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

TLDR

Very easy to use for a new player. Very hard to counter for a new player.

Up in the try hard tier they are still usable, but require MUCH more skill and effort to use.

Actually, they're little more than a subject of mockery in the "try hard tier."

[Count Zero 74]

Why do LRM's seem to be crazy good ?

Because they only seem to, they are crap.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

I honestly think half the reason higher tier players claim LRMs are crap is they dont want to get lurmed to death.

It has been discussed to no end in general discussion.
So I have no interest in repeating it here.