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Tex1013, on 16 April 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:
I'm a little late to the party, but here's what I'll offer for you...
In TT (tabletop), LRMs had the single greatest engagement range of any weapon in the game - this meant that they had relatively high hit odds at ranges that the longest range direct fire weapons could only hit on a boxcars (double sixes on 2d6 - in other words, really low odds)
As someone mentioned, light fast mechs got bonuses from speed, but curiously, the speed to-hit penalty tt was relatively low - it was *cover* that really made a the huge difference for lights (they could move across significant distance, which was a to-hit penalty, and then end successfully in cover, which was another decent to-hit penalty - a light caught out in the open could still be hit relatively reliably)
TT LRM's were *balanced*, by the random hit-location system, and by the fact that mechanically, usually only a percentage of the missiles fired, hit (usually between 50-75% of what you fired hit, although you could get really lucky and hit with all)
Missiles also hit in *salvos*, which futher distributed their damage (i.e. you'd fire 15 missiles, hit with 12, which got split into 2 groups of 5 and a group of 2)- which meant that LRM's were rarely *Kill* weapons, but they were inordinately good at softening up targets on your approach, which made it easier for your ac/10 or 20 or large laser salvo to make it past armor and kill weapons/equipment/mechs.
That being said, TT-wise, ALL weapons were technically *kill* weapons, because the random hit location table gave EVERY weapon a chance to get a lucky crit inside torso, or head hits, but in general practice, LRM's utility was measured by effectively reducing armor during an approach to the enemy, at which point shorter range, higher damage weapons tended to be *kill* weapons
so, when people talk about LRM's being *support* weapons, that's not *quite* true, but it ended up being more or less true in practice - in some of the examples being used above, LRM's effectively became area denial weapons, forcing those people that wanted to preserve their armor, to take LOS blocking routes to their targets, or reduce the effective speed of their approach by forcing them into cover
this is also backed up by the "minimum range" of LRM's, that made them significantly less effective once mechs made it into close range combat, where devestating weapons like ML salvos and AC20's could really shine.
Turning Battletech into a real-time simulator has always presented...issues...as far as replicating the tactical utility/limitations of various Btech weapons systems - honestly, for my own part, the single biggest problem I currently have with MWO missiles is the lack of missile salvo spread. This was a HUGE point of balance for LRM's in TT, as far as I was concerned, and allowing LRM's (and streaks) to home in on CT, and then impact like real missiles, seems to have caused some of the serious balance issues that initially plagued LRM's...and all the "fixes" since seem to be trying to keep the initially broken premise and "balancing" lrm's by introducing dmg nerfs, unnecessary splash damage, and absurdly wide-sweeping all-or-nothing ECM effects
still, I think I *get* the missile impact idea they were going for - as near as I can tell, missiles (srms, streaks AND LRM's) all seem to be real physical objects on the field - they're given flight paths, homing, etc - and their impact point *appears* to be wherever they actually impact the mech (so, I fire a volly of 20 LRM's at a mech, and at the last minute, he turns to the left, all those lrm'***** the left arm because the left arm is between where the missiles are and the CT that they're homing in on) and so this *spreads* the damage more *realisitically*...is what I think they're thinking.
But I'm not sure it's working all that well
Keep in mind, that even in TT, LRM's were a cheesy exploit weapon. Because they had long range, could be fired indirectly, and were automatically split into groups of 5, they actually exploited the random to-hit location table of Btech. Firing a batch of LRM 15's could, ostensibly, give you 3 opportunities to hit head or ct crit by random chance, whereas an ac20 did a lot more damage, but you only got to roll once on the hit location table
this was, in fact, the reasoning behind the original LB autocannons - their damage was split exactly like LRM's were, and so they suddenly had a new class of weapons that got to exploit the hit-location-table odds by rolling multiple times in an attempt to get armor bypass or head hits
so, LRM's have *always* been...a difficult weapon to balance in Btech - and I think MWO still has a ways to go in this department
hope that helps, assuming anyone read it
I did, and most of that is spot on.
A couple points: The average roll on missiles/salvo hit was 60%, and the average roll on the to-hit table would land you a hit on one of the 3 torsos. You couldn't fire LRMs indirectly unless you had a spotter, and if you did have a spotter it was with a 2 point penalty to hit (which is a lot on 2d6) and your spotter could not fire any of their own weapons while spotting for you. Missiles were ok kill weapons if you had really really lucky rolls on the dice, the fact that they would occasionally really thump somebody (or crit seek) when you got lucky dice is what kept TT missile boats viable.
I am on this thread because I have seen LRMs in MWO be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too flippin good compared to "original cannon" too many times- and the most recent nerf actually has them fairly close to how they should work... they could maybe do with an-ever-so-microscopic damage buff, but not very much of one, if at all.
Edited by Pygar, 16 April 2013 - 04:40 PM.
