43 replies to this topic

[MQ9 Reaper Predator Drone]

some quick facts (not my biased opinion)

• 0.7 damage now / 1 damage before.

example, you are a catapult C4 [Heavy class]



Equipped with 4x lrm10.

Before it did 40 damage in one alpha-strike.
3.75 cool-down when fired.
so in a time-span of 15 seconds you would have fired for 160points worth of damage*

now a 4x LRM 10 alpha does 28 damage in one alpha-strike
same cool-down
in a time-span of 15 seconds you would have fired for 112 points of damage*

*note : this is not actual damage.
actual damage is calculated by counting the amount of AMS on the enemy (team when grouped) then counting the amount of tubes in your launcher.
If you have 10 tubes firing a 4x10lrm agaisnt a single target with ams then 40 -16 =26 actual misiles fired.
not counting the amount of misiles crashing in the ground/objects
this makes your alpha hit 18.2 damage

in the game it is actually worse
since your target is notified of incoming lrm,
he will almost always start moving, this causing valuables rockets to crash in the ground and do no damage.

your missiles will never hit 100% and a wave of missiles will crash on the ground when trying to reach a moving target.
(even with TAG+ART+BAP+ADV.targ. Mod.)
also, the faster the target, the more missiles will crash on the ground.

then there's TAG...
since missiles are only semi homing (they don't really track down your enemy)
having no tag and Artemis combo isn't advised.
TAG requires you to keep a constant lock on the enemy, in a similar way of a medium laser.
except it has 750m range.
if you consider this, LRM is very similar to a laser, since you have to keep tag on target all the time, however a laser gives direct damage where a LRM may take up to20 seconds to impact.

also considering a LRM will automatically detonate after 1000m, firing at a target that is at 1000m isn't advised.
a mech that sees your missile coming and is at 800m distance can run to safety if he has a 20kph engine,

so to sum up everything for the tl;dr crowd

• LRM damage is halved
  
  
  
  
• Halved LRM damage + obstacle+movement+AMS = 2/5 of damage when fired.
  
  
  
  
• The already non existent damage is spread all over the target leaving you with no real damage to speak in case your target doesn't move, everything WILL hit the center torso
  
  
  
  
• Range While it says 1000m using a LRM over any length more than 600m is not advised as it can be outrun and lrm will explode and do no damage
  
  
  
  
  
• LRM becomes useless after 180m-200m leaving you roughly 300m length to "play"
  
  
  
  
• For LRM to be effective you need tag; effectively degrading your lrm to a laser type weapon
  
  
  
  
  
• ECM
  
  
  
  
• weight + Amo
  
• A LRM 10 does less damage than a Medium laser and at a range of 500 meters it wil take 10 seconds for the LRM to hit. at 1000m 20 seconds.
  
• this makes the LRM a really weird type of Pulse laser that takes 10-20 seconds to impact.
  
• at min. range it takes 3 seconds for a LRM to hit the target, at which your target has closed the min range gap rendering your LRM useless

while i am aware that there are many more things wrong with lrm,
these where the first that i noticed where broken.
right now, a 4xmedium laser build is more effective than 4xlrm 10.

4x lrm 10 weighs 20 ton+5ton amo+bap(1.5)+tag(1)+art(4) =31.5ton
4x medium laser = 4 ton+3x HS = 7 ton

end result; 4x med.laser does more end damage, at same range than lrm for less tonnage


*Spellchecked/removed errors

Edited by MQ9 Reaper Predator Drone, 28 April 2013 - 11:44 PM.

[Cest7]

Yea. LRM nerf went too far.

[Varnas]

Cest7, on 28 April 2013 - 02:29 AM, said:

Yea. LRM nerf went too far.

Yup.
SRM too.

[Alienfreak]

1. Make LRMs use the same linear damage downgreading as all other weapons with min and max range have instead of no damage.
2. Double travel speed so you can hit more reliably on greater distances and faster targets.
3. Increase basic tracking by 25%.

LRMS fixed!

Edited by Alienfreak, 28 April 2013 - 02:54 AM.

[Lord Perversor]

I feel amusing how ppl post a lot of facts and sometimes they lack even half of the knowledge behind of everything.

Don't get the wrong idea OP we all know LRM are broken and they need a fix but it's more of a rework than a simple buff.

Dmg if i recall properly was something around 1.7-1.8 before the missile nerf (SRM SStreak was affected too and they numbers changed similarly )

AoE dmg it's not spreaded it's added PGi had to reduce the area of impact of missiles because this was making them deal sometimes close to 5-15% additional dmg making missiles one hit kill.

The way missiles work now it's ALL homing CT that's why SStreak2 destroy lights (raven 3L,Trollmando) LRM suffer the same fate making them a one hit dmg it's neither helpful since they become a pinpoint weapon instead an artillery one (Yes missiles here specailly LRM are for dmg the enemy before the real combat not to kill them outright at 900m )

Still THIS IS TEMPORAL yes it's been for a whole month and will take a while but this SHOULD not be final, all this post calling for BUFF BUFF them are stupid, they are still in the work just need a bit more patient and as much remember PGi they STILL need to work on it.

P.S: missiles are still somewhat efficient (but you need a relatively fast LRm boat that can move across the map and pick his target to support) also the way the dmg show at endmatch is borked (you get way more dmg done if you wreck a side torso and the arm attached even with a single 5 dmg hit) the lack of component destruction in the current state it's what gives everyone the impresion of missiles not dealing dmg mostly.

[MQ9 Reaper Predator Drone]

Lord Perversor, on 28 April 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

I feel amusing how ppl post a lot of facts and sometimes they lack even half of the knowledge behind of everything.

i feel the same way about your post

Lord Perversor, on 28 April 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

Dmg if i recall properly was something around 1.7-1.8 before the missile nerf (SRM SStreak was affected too and they numbers changed similarly )

AoE dmg it's not spreaded it's added PGi had to reduce the area of impact of missiles because this was making them deal sometimes close to 5-15% additional dmg making missiles one hit kill.

this never hapend.
even if the damage would be 3x higher you still have to take into account Target AMS* Target Team AMS*Target speed*trajectory* in effect around 50% of the fired missiles will be lost.

besides, unless the target is already critically damaged a one hit kill will not occur

Lord Perversor, on 28 April 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

CT that's why SStreak2 destroy lights (raven 3L,Trollmando) LRM suffer the same fate making them a one hit dmg it's neither helpful since they become a pinpoint weapon instead an artillery one (Yes missiles here specailly LRM are for dmg the enemy before the real combat not to kill them outright at 900m )

Before you start saying nonsense, please read what i explained earlier.
ssrm never destroyed 3l etc because ECM prevented lock on.
i don't understand your second question.
but you are down right wrong if your saying "Yes missiles here specailly LRM are for dmg the enemy before the real combat not to kill them outright at 900m"
PLEASE next time, read the opening post before posting.
they are a very heavy weapon weight wise , they need ammo too and tag/art/bap
as opposed to the name , LRM is actually a Medium range weapon and useless beyond 600-790m. it will never kill a opponent at 900m unless fired when opponent was at 600m and ran to 900m.
also the target should be heavily damaged for LRM to kill the target

Lord Perversor, on 28 April 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

Still THIS IS TEMPORAL yes it's been for a whole month and will take a while but this SHOULD not be final, all this post calling for BUFF BUFF them are stupid, they are still in the work just need a bit more patient and as much remember PGi they STILL need to work on it.

Temporal fixex from PGI have proven to be of a somewhat permanent nature.
take collision damage.re-arm damage etc etc.
"all this post calling for BUFF BUFF them are st00pid"
actualy try to read the topic next time....

Lord Perversor, on 28 April 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

P.S: missiles are still somewhat efficient (but you need a relatively fast LRm boat that can move across the map and pick his target to support) also the way the dmg show at endmatch is borked (you get way more dmg done if you wreck a side torso and the arm attached even with a single 5 dmg hit) t

again, READ THE TOPIC.
as of currently medium lasers are more powerful than LRM.
not becuase of endmatch statistics, but becuase of the calculation provided in mentioned post.
i chose the example of a c4 cat, why ? becuase they can hit speeds of 90kph which is.."relatively fast"
i dont know what but when you wreck a side torso with 5 damage with the arm atached you actualy DO more damage since you also destroyed the atached arm

Lord Perversor, on 28 April 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

"the lack of component destruction in the current state it's what gives everyone the impresion of missiles not dealing dmg mostly."

.............READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.
READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.READ THE TOPIC.

[Tennex]

they're in the process of playing around with the LRM spread.

i think damage now is fine for indirect fire.

however it does need a buff for direct fire damage.

Edited by Tennex, 28 April 2013 - 03:41 PM.

[MQ9 Reaper Predator Drone]

Tennex, on 28 April 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

they're in the process of playing around with the LRM spread.

i think damage now is fine for indirect fire.

however it does need a buff for direct fire damage.

indirect fire does not take advantage of art/bap/tag

[Davers]

LRMs were hitting the CT more than PGI was aware or wanted. LRMs were doing more damage than intended because the 'splash damage' mechanics are not working correctly. The broken 'splash' mechanics are still in game, as is the homing on the CT. This is why missiles had their damage reduced. These are all facts.

PGI said that they want to get the issues with missiles fixed in May. Hopefully they can maintain their timeline.

[nemesis271989]

I support this topic, due to PPC fest there is nothing to put down this maza-hackers! Damage buff and missile speed travel will be enough!

[MrVop]

I feel no amount of tweaking will fix the lrm in their current state. They need to rework the whole system. Blind firing a support indirect weapon is key here. Right now you can not reach somebody with lrms unless you expose your self or force a teammate to do the same. Give players a way to dumb fire lrm at a location without lock but with accuracy and the whole meta will shift even with the low LRM damage.

If you have a mech hiding behind a rock once he exposed himself you will now have people lob lrm at that spot. He can still move and dodge those easily. But if he picked a bad piece of cover it will expose the **** out of him. Poptarting will become much less pleasant as everyone will know where you are and dumb fire their lrms all over your lunch pad. Basically lrms will become a long range support weapon. The dumb fired missiles will need a high angle on impact to be viable and some sort of spread mechanic.

This is what they really need. Faster flight speed will help a ton, but this weapon will still suck. Higher hit rate will help too I guess. But as long as lrms remain as their current mechanic they will be a ****** support weapon.

Tag and arty both require line of sight... Bring a PPC instead, if I have to expose myself might as well guarantee damage instead of hoping you'r dumb enough to eat lrms.

What I'm trying to say is the whole LRM mechanic needs a change instead of just a tweaking in numbers.

[Theodor Kling]

Dmg might need a little tewaking ,but as with all tweaking, only a little.
Higher speed would be nice.
Tracking is ok as it is: Have a spotter : fine, have none: you should have brought a direct fire weapon.
Max range: Reduced dmg over max range makesno sense for missiles. You could have them behave like ballistic projectiles beyond max range maybe, just keeping to their last trajectory.

What would also help would be missile aiing via the map. That way you could send them behind a ridge, without a lock. ight be you hit nothing, but might be you have a good idea where the enemy is fro previoussightingsand want to flush them from hiding.

[Roadbuster]

Well, they already said the "nerf" was just a quick fix for LRMs and that they are tweaking them now.

That aside.
I think compared to now, LRMs could use a slight buff in damage (0.1-0.2).
To even out the difference between actual and TT damage they should increase ammo/ton to get the same damage/ton of ammo.

LRM speed needs a serious buff. It's useless to shoot them at fast light mechs because they can outrun them.
Current LRM speed is 100kph while fast mechs run 130-150kph.
LRM speed should be increased to 200-250kph.

LRM weight is fine as it is.

Guidance is ok too, except for the times you try to fire at a target behind a small hill. Instead of flying over the hill in a bow they fly straight like SRMs.
This might be something PGI should have a look at while they are working on LRMs.

Edited by Roadbuster, 28 April 2013 - 11:08 PM.

[FunkyFritter]

Missiles were nerfed because they were mechanically broken. There's no point in buffing or nerfing them until splash and homing functionality are working properly.

[Void Angel]

Actually, the numbers I'm seeing for LRM damage are not correct.

LRMs do indeed deal 0.7 damage per missile, but it doesn't quite stop there: When any given missile hits a 'mech:

• First, that 0.7 damage is done to whatever location is struck.
  
• Then, the game draws a radius around the point of impact.
  
• Next, it calculates what proportion of the distance to any secondary location(s) (other than the one initially struck) which lie within its splash radius.
  
• Finally, a proportion of weapon damage (.7 x 40%-0%) is dealt to secondary location(s) based on how far away from the point of impact they are (this works like weapon damage falloff past max range.)

What this means is that overall damage is difficult to theorycraft, since the actual damage numbers will depend on the locations struck, random chance, and the size of the target (smaller means a bit more damage.) Numbers players have given me (from calculating weapon stat numbers since the nerf) put the missile damage from 0.939 to 0.950 per missile - which is still too low given LRMs' spread, weight, minimum range, dodgeability, and counter-systems. At the low end of the numbers, even the ER LLaser beats out the LRM for dps/ton, and that's a pinpoint damage system. Aside from the Gauss Rifle (which trades dps/RoF for massive range and insane heat efficiency,) the only long-range weapon with a lower dps/ton is the AC/5 - the redheaded stepchild of autocannons.




What was happening is this: Interactions between Artemis/TAG and LRM splash damage were causing splash damage to spike very high in some cases, inflicting massive damage far out of line with what the weapon was supposed to dish out. This needed to be fixed, but when PGI implemented their preferred solution (eliminating splash damage,) they found that too many of the missiles were homing in on the center torso - if they put the damage on the missiles up-front, they'd be coring 'mechs far more quickly and accurately than they should. So, as an interim measure PGI dropped the damage numbers and reduced the splash radius in order to control the damage spikes while they worked on fixing the whole issue. This information can be found here.

PGI is not, according to a recent weapon balance announcement, currently ready to apply a final fix - but they are looking to buff missile flight speeds, which will certainly help the weapon system - no light should be able to outrun a missile.

PS: [rant]This is not, not, not, not, not tabletop BattleTech! The tabletop numbers don't work! They didn't work! They tried! Stop asking! [/rant]

Edit: Fixed error in my explanation of splash damage - don't read technical information late at night, kids!

Edited by Void Angel, 29 April 2013 - 11:56 AM.

[Vrekgar]

FunkyFritter, on 28 April 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

Missiles were nerfed because they were mechanically broken. There's no point in buffing or nerfing them until splash and homing functionality are working properly.

QFT.

Before the Jagermech introduction patch they were fine. Just fine. Dandy even if you knew what you were doing.

The patch introduced a bug that caused excessive splash damage to occur for ALL mechs. Prior to the patch it was stated the devs were planning to remove splash thanks to the efforts of some people testing the effects of missiles against various mechs. It was determined that certain chassis, commando and spider, were taking EXTREMELY excessive damage from the splash mechanic.

The hotfix is a terrible terrible stain on missiles and remains in my opinion as one of the prime drivers of people towards excessive direct fire alpha strike builds. However it has been stated many times they are revisiting the state of missiles because it was only temporary.

[MQ9 Reaper Predator Drone]

another fun fact..
AMS does 2 damage. while a single lrm does 0.7
in game however AMS away 2 damage from the incoming missiles.
the tiny AMS bullets don't really have to "hit"
before, the damage of a single l rm was 2.
and ams "ate" 2 misiles from your wave.

now however AMS takes away to 4 missiles from each wave.
meaning 15 tube x4 lrm10 in chain fire mode gets reduced to quad lrm5.
however, there is a virtual delay in the AMS system.
if your cloud is thick enough AMS may end up eating less missiles.
if your target is grouped..however

[MQ9 Reaper Predator Drone]

Void Angel, on 28 April 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

Actually, the numbers I'm seeing for LRM damage are not correct.

LRMs do indeed deal 0.7 damage per missile, but it doesn't quite stop there: When any given missile hits a 'mech:

• First, that 0.7 damage is done to whatever location is struck.
  
• Then, the game draws a radius around the point of impact.
  
• Next, it calculates what proportion of any secondary location(s) (other than the one initially struck) lie within its splash radius.
  
• Finally, this proportion of the 0.4 splash damage is applied to any secondary location(s) hit.

What this means is that overall damage is difficult to theorycraft,

sadly in game that doesn't work like intended.
there is indeed a minor AoE effect but this is exactly the same amount as "collision damage"
its non existent, even though your legs may end up yellow it doesn't take any damage.
go out with a 1 armor in your legs and then jump from a hill.



in my opinion, they might as well remove LRM from the game because turning a cplt A1-C4 into a 40 ton support system
is a insult to the once so glorious mech..

[One Medic Army]

Speed boost would be nice, a bit more damage would be nice.

Not having an Artemis volley (no TAG) land entirely in the CT of a Jenner would be nice.
Seriously, even in TT when using Artemis launchers your average LRM 20 volley only hit with ~15 missiles or so.
The tightest pattern possible should be larger than a light mech. A default no TAG no Artemis pattern should miss an Atlas/Awesome with a missile or two.

That spreading would give lots of room to buff LRMs back up without running into LRM-pocalypse mk 3.

[MrVop]

Void Angel, on 28 April 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

Actually, the numbers I'm seeing for LRM damage are not correct.

LRMs do indeed deal 0.7 damage per missile, but it doesn't quite stop there: When any given missile hits a 'mech:

• First, that 0.7 damage is done to whatever location is struck.
  
• Then, the game draws a radius around the point of impact.
  
• Next, it calculates what proportion of any secondary location(s) (other than the one initially struck) lie within its splash radius.
  
• Finally, this proportion of the 0.4 splash damage is applied to any secondary location(s) hit.

What this means is that overall damage is difficult to theorycraft, since the actual damage numbers will depend on the locations struck, random chance, and the size of the target (smaller means a bit more damage.) Numbers players have given me (from calculating weapon stat numbers since the nerf) put the missile damage from 0.939 to 0.950 per missile - which is still too low given LRMs' spread, weight, minimum range, dodgeability, and counter-systems. At the low end of the numbers, even the ER LLaser beats out the LRM for dps/ton, and that's a pinpoint damage system. Aside from the Gauss Rifle (which trades dps/RoF for massive range and insane heat efficiency,) the only long-range weapon with a lower dps/ton is the AC/5 - the redheaded stepchild of autocannons.






What was happening is this: Interactions between Artemis/TAG and LRM splash damage were causing splash damage to spike very high in some cases, inflicting massive damage far out of line with what the weapon was supposed to dish out. This needed to be fixed, but when PGI implemented their preferred solution (eliminating splash damage,) they found that too many of the missiles were homing in on the center torso - if they put the damage on the missiles up-front, they'd be coring 'mechs far more quickly and accurately than they should. So, as an interim measure PGI dropped the damage numbers and reduced the splash radius in order to control the damage spikes while they worked on fixing the whole issue. This information can be found here.

PGI is not, according to a recent weapon balance announcement, currently ready to apply a final fix - but they are looking to buff missile flight speeds, which will certainly help the weapon system - no light should be able to outrun a missile.

PS: [rant]This is not, not, not, not, not tabletop BattleTech! The tabletop numbers don't work! They didn't work! They tried! Stop asking! [/rant]

You took me to math class before and schooled the **** out of me. But I completely agree with what you're saying here. But I think there is no possible fix to the LRM's at the moment. Untill they rework their whole firing system to make then a blind fire indirect weapon they will never really be viable suport, Or they will be OP.
If we can start using LRM's to flush out baddies from cover (without needing lock or line of sight to the point i'm trying to lob an indirect fire weapon) they will become usefull even with their **** poor dmg at the moment.

Edit: Spelling is hard.

Edited by MrVop, 29 April 2013 - 06:40 AM.