MoonUnitBeta, on 01 May 2013 - 09:29 PM, said:
This sounds the most plausible.
According to OP's data, he mentions targets flickering 8 times a second. If his findings are not subject to hyperbole, and since we know that there are in fact 8 people on the opposing team who are targetable, then it would be reasonable to conclude that someone (likely a spotter) has cycled through all 8 enemy targets by pressing R once every 12.5 0.125 seconds
Why does this happen?
In most of my team-play experiences, the fastest mechs would divide and head to the most likely locations where the enemy would be spotted. The rest of the team would be walking towards their nav point with their battlegrid open. When any of the lights near the enemy and gain LOS, he or she would spam their target key. What this does is each time an enemy is targeted, it blips a red arrow on the watching team's battlegrid. This can quickly feed information to team members about location, and direction (based off the direction of the arrow blip) on their battlegrid. After spamming that information to the team, the light disengages, and retreats. While retreating he is on the mic, or typing, about which mechs he saw. The team then makes adjustments to their location and point of attack. Other lights return back to the group to defend against other incoming lights, cap base, or harass the rears of the enemy (will make them stop and turn around) if the team leader requests for the enemy to be held in that particular spot should it give his team the advantage.
In most of my experience with LRM boats/LRM's in general, the time they shine is not at the start of the match, but when the main brawling scenario beings to happen. This is the time when the most solid locks can be obtained. I ended up carrying less ammo, but more heat sinks because of this. It allowed me to fire for longer periods , and since I was missing less I did not require as much ammo. About 99% of the time when pugging, the first target is never kept within LOS long enough for my missiles to contact. I am often waiting several minutes for the brawling to begin before I able to fire missiles confidently. Identifying poptarts and snipers helps as well if you are looking to stretch your ammo and use it efficiently. Sometimes I use just an LRM 5 and fire it at those enemies to keep them under cover that much longer (since they will always wait behind cover until the INCOMING MISSILES warning transpires or they hear the crashing of the missiles, in most cases this keeps them behind cover for the same amount of time as it would have taken them to get one or two shots off. Remember: no shots taken means no damage dealt)
I don't even think that it requires this much explanation. I've seen this myself about a dozen times. Literally there are target found/target lost beeps for the same target multiple times per second and I've seen it happen for 2-4 mechs at a time. I don't think that I had a teammate targeting them and cycling that fast, especially because I was seeing the icons on screen for the brief time that they lasted. They typically have the empty triangle ('not targeted') displayed.
The other strange thing is that the icons show then vanish immediately. There should be decay even on a teammate's target. I call random game glitch.
Might I also mention that even if you could power on and off that fast it would still be of no help with LRMs already fired at you? When you are powering on and off you will sit still...the LRMs will track the last spot that had a lock which is right where you are playing your targeting game. Even if you do manage to break a lock (decay will make it unlikely without staying powered off for at least a few seconds), the lock will return as soon as you power back up again unless the LRM boat cycles to a different target.
I don't see how this tactic would actually be of any use.
Edited by TVMA Doc, 02 May 2013 - 03:13 PM.
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