57 replies to this topic

[FoxDoomer]

Would be nice if it had artillery in the game. Like, mechs firing in a very long range

[DireWolf307]

Um, that's what the Catapult is for.

[purehidro]

yes!!

[Gremlich Johns]

DireWolf307, on 05 June 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

Um, that's what the Catapult is for.

The Catapult is a Guided Missile launcher, not the same thing as Artillery which shoots unguided ordnance. Artillery, whether tube launched projectiles (big bullets that explode) or rocket artillery (like the TOS mulitple rocket launcher (go to the 3:25 mark) is for preparation of the battlefield, not for hitting a specific and designated target. You can indeed use the catapult to hit a piece of ground, but that would be a waste of ammo. Besides, have you seen how the missiles fly in the in-game video?

[Rodney28021]

LRM missiles is the best artillery you are going to get in MWO. Unless they release Arrow IV tech.

[Kanatta Jing]

And Arrow IV is on the maybe list.

[Sativacuity]

As fun as Arty is, it can also be a game breaker. I'm sure the devs have thought long and hard about this.

[Roland]

While it may inspire crazy nerd rage to suggest it, inclusion of a weapon akin to mechwarrior 4'a Longtom would likely be beneficial if done correctly.

It wasn't really like the BT longtom, in that I seem to remember the battletech weapon being a huge thing that couldn't possibly be mounted on a Mech. If anything, it may have been similar to the snub nosed long tom, the Thumper, although I'm not sure that was mountable on mechs either.

Regardless, it was actually a very interesting weapon in mechwarrior 4. Only a handful of folks ever became proficient with it, because it's usage was difficult and situational. It didn't do huge damage. It's only real advantage was that you could arc shots over terrain and hit things at long range.

If implemented correctly, it provides an interesting tactical tool, and can discourage overly defensive gameplay.

It's important to not make it too strong though. As I said, in mw4, the weapon was generally considered useless by the masses. It was very heavy, ran hot, had heavy ammo, and didn't really do great damage. Indeed, direct his did no damage due to the way the damage reflected from the impact site. If you could see the target, virtually any other weapon was better to have. And yet, we won a few matches by using it, at least partially because folks would be like "holy crap, is he using a long tom?"

If made too strong, it can easily be made overpowering and stupid. At one point mektek increased the splash radius, and it became hilarious and stupid. If such a weapon is introduced, which I would whole heartedly support, I'd rather it be considered too weak than have people commonly use them and spam artillery rounds all over the place.

[Masterofm]

Mechwarrior had the Long Tom artillery piece. It was pretty fun, but man it was amazing to use even in close range if you could use it right.

[PANZERBUNNY]

Artillery is larger than the scope of the battlefields for this game.

Arty shoots from miles away.

Fire support mechs are back from the fight, but still very much on the front lines.

Your arty is essentially LRM launchers.

[Roland]

That's why the longtom in MW4 provided another interesting tool.

It gave you the ability to deploy indirect fire onto a location.. not even necessarily a mech, but rather a location. Enabled some additional tactics that you couldn't achieve with just missiles.

[Sativacuity]

This brings up an entirely new style of indirect fire gameplay should a dedicated arty mech be created...

[Masterofm]

PANZERBUNNY, on 05 June 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

Artillery is larger than the scope of the battlefields for this game.

Arty shoots from miles away.

Fire support mechs are back from the fight, but still very much on the front lines.

Your arty is essentially LRM launchers.

In MechWarrior 4 not every map was massive. People still blasted each other with Long Toms in some of the arena games I participated in. Sometimes it's a hell of a lot of fun blasting people with unguided indirect fire. Hitting a mech on the head from a distance with a long tom was extremely satisfying.

Not saying it should or shouldn't be done in the game and I personally am unsure if Long Toms should be in the game, but I was just bringing it up that they did exist and people did use them for shelling other mechs as well as blowing themselves up and the other enemy mech if they got too close.

[Vandul]

If any of ya's suggests a lava cannon, yer gonna get a face full of SRM's. I mean it.

[KingKazuma]

Roland, on 05 June 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

If implemented correctly, it provides an interesting tactical tool, and can discourage overly defensive gameplay.

If made too strong, it can easily be made overpowering and stupid. At one point mektek increased the splash radius, and it became hilarious and stupid. If such a weapon is introduced, which I would whole heartedly support, I'd rather it be considered too weak than have people commonly use them and spam artillery rounds all over the place.

While it may discourage overly defensive gameplay, I think that it also stands a strong chance of inducing Turtle Syndrome. If that's the case, I fear that a dedicated artillery mech would become a absolutely necessary part of any lance/company as just another role in the meta that can be filled.

That is my biggest reservation though. I think it could be interesting as a sort of alternative to having a MissleMech sitting in the background. I guess I would timidly accept it as another option provided, as you've said that it doesn't get overpowered with too much damage or a ridiculous hit box.

[W4lt3r]

Hmh.. since tracked vehicles are out of the question in the game, asking the similar style artillery what MWLL did with the tracked Long Tom artillery piece. It was fun thing to use every now and then..

[Thorn Hallis]

You know, in Battletech autocannons count as artillery too.

[Adrienne Vorton]

there is already artillery in the "commander skill tree"... having a longtom mech would make either the skill or the mech useless... canon wise (TT rules i mean by that) a longtom or whatever artillery won´t even appear on the map and shoot from Kilometers away... and thats what the skill does...

[Soviet Alex]

Watch the gameplay videos again. LRMs have huge indirect arcs, even when fired at a visible target. Catapults & other LRM-boats appear to be able to fire over terrain like mortars, no problem.

[Adrienne Vorton]

yes and if you take a look at the skilltrees for scouts (role warfare devblog) you can see, that indirect/ artillery like fire is designated by scouts...as long as there is a destination, ranged mechs can hit it from anywhere... at least thats how it looks like atmo