Here are some changes that would really help balance LRMs overall as well as give more meaning to Electronic Warfare and Scouting:
Mech Sensor Strength- There are active and passive sensor settings.
- Mech sensors have a variety of strengths, ranging from 1000m to 400m.
- Strong Strength - 1000m
- Average Strength - 800m
- Below Average Strength - 600m
- Weak Strength - 400m
- Active Sensor Mode-
- Active sensors can gain targets out to it's sensor strength range.
- Active sensors can gain targets without LoS, as above, but only against other active sensors.
- Active sensors against passive sensor targets need to be within 75% range of it's sensor strength and have direct LoS.
- Active sensors can NOT detect passive sensor targets without LoS.
- While in active sensor mode, "Warning Missile Lockon" will be provided if LRMs/SSRMs are fired at you.
- While in active sensor mode, your SELECTED target is shared to all other teammates.
- While in active sensor mode, you can select any sensor target for information display (armor, weapons, mech type, ect).
- Passive Sensor Mode-
- Passive sensors reduce sensor range to 200m, regardless of sensor strength, but work just like active sensors, except for the following effects:
- While sensors are passive, sensor sharing is turned off. This only effects sharing targets, but passive sensor mechs can be shared targets.
- Lock on can NOT be achieved at all.
- You can not select targets for information display while in passive sensor mode except for targets within 200m.
- Shutdown mechs can not be detected by regular sensors (active or otherwise).
- This can be swapped every 5.0s.
Information Display Level- There are 5 (I, II, III, IV, and V) levels of display available when you have a selected target for information display.
- If a selected target is outside 50% sensor strength, then an amount of time is needed to gather target information.
- If a selected target is within 50% sensor strength, then Level III is automatically achieved when selected.
- Level I
- Achieved immediately when a target is selected.
- Displays target indicator (Alpha (A), Beta (
, ect).
- Level II
- Achieved after maintaining selection for 0.5s.
- Level III
- Achieved after maintaining selection for 1.0s.
- Displays mech loadout and armor status. This does not display any weapons destroyed, active heatsinks, ect.
- Level IV
- Achieved after maintaining selection for 2.0s.
- Displays mech active loadout status. This will display any weapons destroyed, out of ammo, and # of active heatsinks.
- Level V
- Achieved after maintaining selection for 3.0s.
- Displays amount of ammo left, ammo location, active actuators, current speed/heading relative to your speed/position, and current heat percentage.
- Level IV and V can only be achieved if a BAP is equipped.
- Level I information can be gained by either selecting an enemy mech yourself or shared to you by being selected by a friendly mech.
LRM Targeting and Lockon- Lockons continue to work as they do now, with the same lockon speed.
- Once a lock is achieved, only the sensor target is needed to be maintained in order to keep a lock.
- This means once a lock is achieved, you no longer need to keep your crosshair on the target to maintain that lock.
- The target DOES need to continue to be selected.
- A lock is lost if the sensor target is lost or not selected for any reason.
- A lock can be lost if the sensor target moves out of the forward arc of the locking mech, regardless if the sensor target was never lost.
- LRMs target specific locations (like SSRMs) in swarms (5 LRMs).
- LRM/20 would fire 4 swarms, each targeting a unique location (4 locations).
- The percentage chance of a specific location has the same chances as SSRMs.
- Each swarm is a single unique target for AMS to lockon to and destroy.
- The lock is NOT needed to be maintained for a already fired LRMs to reach it's target.
- If LRMs is awaiting to be fired that had a previous lock, it will continue to fire at that previous last lock. New LRM weapon firings need to have a lock or will fire were the crosshair is aimed.
- LRMs that have already fired with a lock will lose tracking if the sensor target is lost and under ECM cover.
- Target decay will last for 2.0s.
LRM Firing Patterns- LRMs ripple fire in swarms.
- Each swarm will fire in 0.25s as a launcher is fired.
- Each launcher takes 0.5s to recover before firing.
- Example 1) LRM/20 fired out of a 20 tube launcher will fire the entire 20 LRMs in 0.75s.
- Example 2) 2x LRM/10 fired out of a 10 tube launcher will fire the initial 2 swarms in 0.25s, wait 0.5s, then fire 2 more swarms in 0.25s, taking a total time of 1.0s to release the full 20 LRMs.
- Example 3) 1x LRM/10 and 2x LRM/5 fired out of a 15 tube launcher will fire 3 swarms in 0.5s
- As an LRM weapon is fired, swarms are placed on a queue, ready to be fired by a launcher in the location the weapon is located.
- The cone of LRMs is called the "tracking strength".
- The default cone will be 5m, regardless of the mech it's targeting.
- The cone will center on the "bone" that was randomly chosen.
- LRM speeds will be slightly increased to 150m/s.
- Direct Fire Mode-
- LRMs travel in very low arcs toward the target with direct LoS.
- This is the default firing pattern of LRMs.
- This flight pattern is fairly straight, so the overall travel time is reduced in reaching the target but will most likely not clear cover.
- Indirect Fire Mode-
- If a target is hit by TAG, NARC, or shared with C3 coverage, then LRMs fired without LoS will do indirect fire.
- Indirect fire travel in high arcs toward the target.
- Basically the same flight paths that LRMs take now.
Beagle Active Probe (BAP)- BAP will increase sensor strength by 20%.
- Provide target information Levels IV and V.
- Will display if a mech has ECM equipped when a sensor target is received/shared to others.
- Will allow up to 100% sensor strength for detecting passive sensors with direct LoS and 200m for detecting passive sensors without LoS.
- Can detect shutdown mechs within 50% sensor strength with LoS and 200m without LoS.
- BAP will display "Warning: Locked On" if an enemy has locked on to you.
- ECM will counter all bonuses of BAP except for displaying if a mech has ECM equipped.
- "Warning: Locked On" will only be countered by the mech equipped with ECM, not other mechs under ECM cover.
Target Acquision Gear (TAG)- TAG will share a target (as if it was selected) to all mechs.
- A target shared with TAG will allow LRMs to fire in Indirect Fire mode.
- TAG will increase tracking strength of LRMs by 50% (to 2.5m).
- Lockon speed is reduced.
- TAG will stack with NARC.
NARC Beacon- NARC will share a target (as if it was selected) to all mechs.
- A target shared with NARC will allow LRMs to fire in Indirect Fire mode.
- NARC will attach to a location hit on the mech and last for 20s.
- Each location the NARC is not attached to will be reduced the chance to target by 50% and added to the location the NARC landed on.
- If the location the NARC is attached to is destroyed, the NARC will prematurely end.
- Lockon speed is reduced.
- ECM will wholly counter NARC.
- NARC will stack with TAG and Artemis IV.
Artemis IV Fire Control System (Artemis IV FCS)- Artemis IV will reduce lockon speed.
- Artemis IV will increase tracking strength of LRMs by 80% (to 1.0m).
- Artemis IV only works with direct LoS.
- ECM will wholly counter Artemis IV.
- Artemis IV will stack with NARC.
C3 Network- There are two C3 modules available:
- Any mech equipped with C3 will share all targets, not just the one selected, to all other C3 equipped mechs.
- All C3 mechs will automatically gain Level III target information. If one mech with BAP equipped also utilizes C3, then all of it's target information for a selected target (Level IV and V) will also be shared, as long as the BAP equipped mech is continuing to select it's target with Level IV and V.
- C3 target shared to another C3 equipped mech will provide LRMs Indirect Fire mode to that mech.
- C3 will reduce lockon speed.
- If multiple C3 Masters are equipped, then those C3 Masters will become backup Masters.
- When all C3 Masters have been destroyed, then all C3 Slaves will cease to function.
- All C3 shared information ignores the active/passive sensor modes.
- C3 Network provides no bonus to non-C3 Network equipped mechs.
Guardian Electronic Counter Measures (GECM)- GECM has two modes, Disrupt and Counter.
- Regardless of mode, GECM will counter NARC, Artemis IV, C3, and BAP.
- An active NARC will cease to provide any benefit when under GECM cover.
- Artemis IV will cease to provide any benefit when under GECM cover.
- This includes both the Artemis IV user and target of Artemis IV.
- C3 will cease to provide any benefit when under GECM cover.
- This includes both the C3 user and target of C3.
- BAP will cease to provide any benefit when under GECM cover except for the following:
- BAP will display "ECM" next to a sensor target to display at this mech has ECM equipped.
- Regardless of mode, the mech equipped with GECM receive the following benefits:
- Reduce sensor strength of mechs attempting to detect it by 50% while running active sensor mode.
- Unable to be detected by active sensors when outside of LoS.
- Unable to be detected at all when running passive sensor mode except at 200m.
- This only stops the mech from being detected as a sensor target, it does not keep mechs from selecting it as a target, and gaining a lock on it, when detected.
- ECM cover is 180m range.
- ECM can swap modes every 5.0s.
- Disrupt Mode-
- Disrupt mode is used to protect all friendly mechs within ECM cover from enemy mechs attempting to detect it.
- Reduce sensor strength of mechs attempting to detect it by 25% while running active sensor mode.
- Reduce sensor strength of mechs attempting to detect it by 50% while running active sensor mode and out of direct LoS.
- Undetectable when running passive sensors except at 200m.
- Target decay is reduced by 75% (to 0.5s).
- Counter Mode-
- Counter mode is used to counter enemy mechs within ECM cover from targeting enemy mechs and also keep enemy ECM from providing a benefit.
- All enemy mechs within ECM cover lose all shared targets, can not share targets, and can only detect it's own targets at 50% sensor strength, still following the rules for active/passive sensors.
- All enemy mechs within ECM cover and has an ECM equipped ceases to function on a 1:1 ratio.
Overall, the above is suppose to implement EW, LRMs, and scouting as being very important into the overall system without any one system overpowering another.
The active/passive sensor modes, just by themselves is a way for mechs to get hide from active sensors while outside of LoS. The penalty paid for this is that you can not gain a lock on a target and gain target information, you can not share your targets to other mechs (and you would be gaining very little of your own targets anyways), and are reliant upon scouts to share targets to you to be aware of where enemies are at.
Level I target information, used for calling out targets, can be given to players by being selected by one of your teammates. When someone has a target selected, not only is there a triangle displayed above the target, the called target letter is displayed. This will let forward scouts find targets to fire at and let bigger mechs run passive sensors to protect themselves be shared to where the target is location, and it's call target letter. But, running passive sensors without C3 will make it were those passive sensor mechs can't select the target themselves (unless under 200m) to see any additional information on where to aim at, ect.
This also enforces the idea that if you want to use LRMs, you need to run active sensor mode. When running in this mode, either yourself with direct LoS or a forward scout selecting a target for sharing with you in direct LoS, can fire LRMs at the target once a lock is achieved. And locks will still allow players to fire other weapons without interfering with aiming by not having to keep the crosshair on target to maintain locks. Also, once missiles are in the air and a lock is lost, those missiles will still keep traveling to their target so if you do get off some missiles with just a short amount of lock time, they will still travel to the target.
To gain Indirect Fire mode LRMs, someone needs to mark the target with some type of EW tool, be it TAG, NARC, or C3. Indirect Fire mode is always used when available, even if in direct LoS (this is because the target most likely will run for cover, thus Indirect Fire mode could clear the cover while Direct Fire mode will almost always not clear cover).
To balance this out, LRMs will now spread their damage out much more, regardless of launcher size, by randomly selecting a "bone" of the target, just like SSRMs. Unlike SSRMs, these are selected in groups of 5 LRMs, called swarms. And sense swarms are ripple fired out, salvos are much more spread out so AMS will be much stronger. To get around this, use larger LRM weapons with larger launchers to quickly fir e swarms out, thus reducing the exposure time to AMS.
GECM will no longer just stop targeting a mech all the way up to 250m (or whatever it is now). Instead, GECM is either used by the scout to get in close for itself by staying out of LoS (and becoming very hard to target until it gets close) then turn on Counter mode to keep LRM launchers from firing (but SSRM launchers can still put the hurt on mechs because all mechs can be targeted at 200m, regardless)
-OR- used to hide itself and other mechs around it from being easily targeted (by reducing sensor range) while running Disrupt mode.
The differences in interaction between active/passive sensors and GECM produce some interesting effects. GECM can really hide a group of mechs by running GECM in Disrupt mode and everyone going to passive sensor mode. This greatly reduces the range active sensors can target them but the group will lose all ability to select targets and get target locks without a forward scout to share targets.
GECM can also be used to just reduce the effective range of LRMs by 25% by everyone running active sensor mode and running Disrupt mode. This allows players to just get a little bit closer without LRM retaliation, but only by ~25% (250m) so it doesn't out right stop LRM users.
Or some combination inbetween, like active sensor mode Raven with Disrupt ECM while mechs within 180m run passive sensor mode. This will allow the Raven to provide shared targets for the passive guys to fire at but the Raven will show up as a target long before other targets.
Either way, I have typed up enough and I doubt any of this will happen.
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