arghmace, on 26 May 2013 - 03:50 AM, said:
One shot from a 7 ton PPC does 10 dmg to a single location.
One shot from a 10 ton LRM20 does on average maybe 7 dmg spread out to multiple locations.
'nuff said.
How did I come to that 7 dmg, you might ask. First of all AMS shoots down 5 missiles. Then perhaps half of the missiles hit. And even 50% hit rate is actually an exaggeration, it's lower than that to be honest.
I'd say less than half the mechs I fire at have AMS. (Edit: Excluding the Crazy LRM Days)
The PPC does 10 damage to a single location inside half the range of the LRM's. At, say, 700m the PPC is doing less damage as well. The PPC requires precision aim, the LRM simply requires I hold my crosshairs vaguely near my target. The PPC requires I expose myself to enemy fire, the LRM can be launched from the safety of cover.
When I'm watching my missiles fly, all - or very nearly all - of them hit, if they've got a good clear shot. Of course, I'm always using Artemis, which is absolutely worth the space and tonnage.
I have around a 35% hit rate overall. This is not because so many miss in a volley, but rather because lots of whole volleys miss (much as many full PPC shots miss).
All that said, I think missiles are a *touch* weak now, but at least with splash and missile pathing corrected, damage can be adjusted without balance flying out the window due to exponential increases inconsistently across various mechs.
I expect to see them pushed to 1 damage (tabletop) from the 0.9 they are at currently.
Finally, this talk of huge swings? It's entirely uncalled for. This patch, including the hotfix that was supposed to go with the patch - counts as a net buff for LRM's, but not an enormous one. PGI did exactly what you want, and made a small adjustment. It wasn't deployed correctly (hence the crazy couple days) but they fixed the error promptly.
Edited by Wintersdark, 26 May 2013 - 05:39 PM.