37 replies to this topic

[Otto Cannon]

Small lrm launchers should be better really. Four lrm5 is better than an lrm20 because it needs 4x the hardpoints which are in short supply. It seems about right to me that you get faster firing for using more hardpoints, and chainfire doesn't make small launchers too powerful because AMS counteracts it completely.

[Ngamok]

Taemien, on 13 November 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

I dunno, I kinda like it that way. Its like an AC20 is used when you have limited ballistic hardpoints. But if you can throw on a bunch of AC5s instead, go for it.

I'm going to have to give LRM5s a shot. I'm usually using LRM10s or 15s when I go with LRMs. After seeing a few threads pop up about LRM5s being OP, I'm going to have to wager they are actually worth using for once.

Now if we can get a purpose to SRM2s, we'll be golden.

SRM2s good for Locust 3S.

[Victor Morson]

Welcome to Ghost Heat.

LRM10/15/20 = All count as 1
LRM5 = Does not count at 1

2x LRM15 2x LRM10 = 4x LRM15 Ghost Heat for 50 missiles
2x LRM20 2x LRM5 = 0 Ghost Heat for 50 missiles

Enjoy The Maths, the worst game design logic ever committed to paper (let alone making it past that stage).

[ColonelMetus]

this is called "LRM Flooding" and it is a huge problem in the current meta that will prolly get all LRM s nerfed

[JimboFBX]

Taemien, on 13 November 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

I dunno, I kinda like it that way. Its like an AC20 is used when you have limited ballistic hardpoints. But if you can throw on a bunch of AC5s instead, go for it.

I'm going to have to give LRM5s a shot. I'm usually using LRM10s or 15s when I go with LRMs. After seeing a few threads pop up about LRM5s being OP, I'm going to have to wager they are actually worth using for once.

Now if we can get a purpose to SRM2s, we'll be golden.

can't really agree that ac and lrms are similar

I use a 2x srm2 set up on my jager. I wasn't getting a lot of brawling opportunities so it seemed wasteful to sink a lot of tons into srms

[Victor Morson]

ColonelMetus, on 13 November 2013 - 07:20 PM, said:

this is called "LRM Flooding" and it is a huge problem absolutely a complete non-issue in the current meta that will prolly get all LRM s nerfed

Fixed your statement for you

And yes I fear PGI would nerf it, because PGI nerf'ed AC/2s because newbies couldn't handle cockpit shake so now you can only fire 3 without the mech becoming a self-immolation simulator. If they'll nerf AC/2s, they'll nerf anything

[Lefty Lucy]

ColonelMetus, on 13 November 2013 - 07:20 PM, said:

this is called "LRM Flooding" and it is a huge problem in the current meta that will prolly get all LRM s nerfed

Stop trying to make this a thing. It's not a thing.

[aniviron]

Otto Cannon, on 13 November 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

Small lrm launchers should be better really. Four lrm5 is better than an lrm20 because it needs 4x the hardpoints which are in short supply. It seems about right to me that you get faster firing for using more hardpoints, and chainfire doesn't make small launchers too powerful because AMS counteracts it completely.

Unlike a single LRM20 though, every shot from an LRM5 hits the center torso, or splashes the sides a bit on smaller mechs. An LRM20 has so much spread that some of its missiles will miss a stationary Atlas. That's your advantage right there.

[Ngamok]

Victor Morson, on 13 November 2013 - 04:24 PM, said:

Welcome to Ghost Heat.

LRM10/15/20 = All count as 1
LRM5 = Does not count at 1

2x LRM15 2x LRM10 = 4x LRM15 Ghost Heat for 50 missiles
2x LRM20 2x LRM5 = 0 Ghost Heat for 50 missiles

Enjoy The Maths, the worst game design logic ever committed to paper (let alone making it past that stage).

I like to chain fire, no ghost heat for me, thanks. Or sometimes I go 2x2.

[Otto Cannon]

aniviron, on 14 November 2013 - 06:20 AM, said:

Unlike a single LRM20 though, every shot from an LRM5 hits the center torso, or splashes the sides a bit on smaller mechs. An LRM20 has so much spread that some of its missiles will miss a stationary Atlas. That's your advantage right there.

Yup. That's why I consider it worth using all your hardpoints up for one LRM20 equivalent, the faster fire rate alone probably wouldn't be enough.

[CravenMadness]

I like lrm 5s on my atlas, conserves tonnage and less tons of ammo needed as well, and it's a little bit extra damage I can do for smart allies who hold locks.


Or... if I'm in a mean mood and have my spotter buddies out in abundance, I'll do the A-1 lrm 5 arti x6 spray and remind folks why they want ams.

[Lyoto Machida]

Lefty Lucy, on 13 November 2013 - 09:20 PM, said:

Stop trying to make this a thing. It's not a thing.

"LRM flooding" has something to do with the amount of tears OP is crying due to the OP-ness of LRMs (or something).

[RandomLurker]

To OP-

Others have covered the ghost-heat monstrosity, and the accuracy of LRM5's. Also, note that artemis only gives it's accuracy bonus if you have line of sight to the target. If you are lobbing missile blobs over a hill, you don't get the Artemis benefit. Also, Artemis stacks with tag. LRM blobs can be deadly accurate at mid-range with both Arty and Tag on the target- even an LRM15 drills the CT pretty consistently with that setup. Still woudln't use a 20 though. 2x LRM10 or 15 + rest of your hardpoints as 5's is a strong setup.

To others-

LRMs are fast becoming a thing because people stopped running DDC's and Spider 5D's left and right after Project Phoenix came out and people jumped into the new mechs. Suddenly, the constant hard missile counter that has existed for months went away, and gradually people started to take advantage of it. It'll swing the other way again as soon as LRMs become common enough to annoy people. In the meantime, drive an ECM mech or pack AMS yourself.

[Aim64C]

LRMs suffer from a few flaws of implementation.

I contend that the lock-on feature should be similar to battletech rules, or, rather, you should be able to control how long you 'roll' for a lock. When you have a sensor contact to lock onto, you can hold down your firing button for your LRMs, which triggers a "roll" on each missile in that firing group. Depending upon various factors (environment, distance, presence of TAG, ECM, NARC, etc), each time a missile rolls for a lock, it has a certain statistical probability of acquiring a lock.

A datalink-only contact (you have no LOS on the target, yourself) at 1600 meters surrounded by heat signatures and buildings might give you a 5% chance to lock with any given missile every 0.2 seconds. Once a missile acquires a lock, it does not lose it unless the contact is lost, completely. Holding down the button longer will continue to "roll for locks" on all missiles that have not obtained a lock.

This creates a sort of 'half-life' for missile batteries where roughly half of any unlocked missiles will lock over a given period of time. Getting the whole battery to lock will require a considerable investment of time - but locked missiles will home on the target using a variation of lead-pursuit intercept concepts before a terminal homing activates on bones (much like streaks).

Ammunition count should go back down closer to battletech cannon and damage should be roughly 2 points of damage per missile (give or take a few) with no splash damage (change game engines if CryEngine can't take it - that was a horrible engine choice to begin with for this game - Real Virtuality 3 or 4 would have been a better bet).

Missiles should also perform according to ballistics. They should have a burn-acceleration phase before their fuel runs out and they have to drop like any other projectile. They should not have a fixed range - missiles will continue to guide toward their target until they drop into the ground (their physics might have to be played with a bit to get them to 'feel right' within slightly expanded engagement ranges from what we see today).

This makes damage more consistent across classes and means even the lightest mechs are not completely and totally immune to being hit by missiles (which is currently the case due to how missiles pursue a target - tail-chase mode). It also eliminates spread problems with LRMs (back when damage was higher on LRMs - some mechs were cored stupidly fast by LRMs because their CT was massive and almost every missile registered damage to their CT). "Roll for lock" can also take into account chassis size and/or speed - which can give light mechs options for not being eviscerated by missiles.

This also makes streak LRMs (coming with the clans, eventually) have some kind of role in the game. Missiles that are not locked onto a target will simply not fire - making them actually serve a purpose.

A similar system could be applied to SRMs and SSRMs (though I would replace a visual indicator of a battery's lock-on status with a growling tone - like how a Sidewinder missile gives a growling tone based on the strength of its target signature and its predictions for a successful intercept) - though I would remove the requirement to "hold and fire" - instead the SRMs attempt to lock onto a targeted enemy within range (and within the field of view).

This would also give streaks a purpose while eliminating SRM spread issues and opening up a place for rocket launchers (which is what SRMs are, currently).

We could also consider nerfing some of the elements of ECM and return it to what the concept was, originally - reducing the likelihood that missiles would successfully lock onto (and therefor damage) friendlies.

The present system just doesn't work too well with any combination of damage, spread, and ammo.

Sure - IF - you can get solid locks and good targets in the open (and the number of people I notice doing that is relatively small, these days), you are still putting out only marginal damage with a weapon system that takes up some 40% of your mech's mass.

LRMs are something of an inconvenience and area denial weapon... but only superficially. A jager with 2 gauss is far more deadly than a Battlemaster carrying 30 tons of missile launchers and accompanying ammo. LRMs represent unnecessary damage to a team that usually isn't worth whatever movement they are about to commit to.

When it comes down to contributing firepower in support of your team - LRMs don't really offer much unless packed and fired in the extreme. About the only time LRMs are going to be dealing damage worth mentioning is when your team already has a considerable advantage in both position and firepower.

I'm also not convinced that hit-detection issues with missiles have been resolved. While it -seems- better... LRMs deal such pathetic damage for the time invested into the shot that it's kind of hard to tell.

It's kind of telling when I used to cut a swath through entire teams with a Catapult C1 - 700 damage was normal for me with 2-3 kills (back during eight-mans)... but now it's impressive to break 200. This was before all of the "splash damage bug" catastrophe of nine months ago. Nothing really changed with how I played or when I took shots at targets (I was not as picky as some were about when to fire missiles - but I always try and make sure they won't smash into anything but my target). Not too much changed regarding how much damage I would take, either.

Yet I can throw 3 AC5s into a ShadowHawk and run similar damage numbers without really even trying (and cut a swath through entire teams).

LRMs have been tagged as a "support weapon." They are not supposed to do anything on their own, in the minds of the developers - which means a good portion of canon builds are completely useless under their vision of how this game should work.

[Fate 6]

Krivvan, on 30 October 2013 - 11:17 PM, said:

Is it really wrong for a weapon to not be suited to a weight class though? That seems perfectly fine to me.

LRMs may be subpar, but not because you can't run them on lights.

LRMs should be good on mediums though. Just look at how many run them stock. A lot of mechs have a single LRM stock, be it medium or assault. It's too bad we can't really do well with a single LRM though - and that is the fault both the mechanics of the LRMs and the AMS forcing boating.

[Lyoto Machida]

Aim64C, on 15 November 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

LRMs suffer from a few flaws of implementation.

I contend that the lock-on feature should be similar to battletech rules, or, rather, you should be able to control how long you 'roll' for a lock. When you have a sensor contact to lock onto, you can hold down your firing button for your LRMs, which triggers a "roll" on each missile in that firing group. Depending upon various factors (environment, distance, presence of TAG, ECM, NARC, etc), each time a missile rolls for a lock, it has a certain statistical probability of acquiring a lock.

A datalink-only contact (you have no LOS on the target, yourself) at 1600 meters surrounded by heat signatures and buildings might give you a 5% chance to lock with any given missile every 0.2 seconds. Once a missile acquires a lock, it does not lose it unless the contact is lost, completely. Holding down the button longer will continue to "roll for locks" on all missiles that have not obtained a lock.

This creates a sort of 'half-life' for missile batteries where roughly half of any unlocked missiles will lock over a given period of time. Getting the whole battery to lock will require a considerable investment of time - but locked missiles will home on the target using a variation of lead-pursuit intercept concepts before a terminal homing activates on bones (much like streaks).

Ammunition count should go back down closer to battletech cannon and damage should be roughly 2 points of damage per missile (give or take a few) with no splash damage (change game engines if CryEngine can't take it - that was a horrible engine choice to begin with for this game - Real Virtuality 3 or 4 would have been a better bet).

Missiles should also perform according to ballistics. They should have a burn-acceleration phase before their fuel runs out and they have to drop like any other projectile. They should not have a fixed range - missiles will continue to guide toward their target until they drop into the ground (their physics might have to be played with a bit to get them to 'feel right' within slightly expanded engagement ranges from what we see today).

This makes damage more consistent across classes and means even the lightest mechs are not completely and totally immune to being hit by missiles (which is currently the case due to how missiles pursue a target - tail-chase mode). It also eliminates spread problems with LRMs (back when damage was higher on LRMs - some mechs were cored stupidly fast by LRMs because their CT was massive and almost every missile registered damage to their CT). "Roll for lock" can also take into account chassis size and/or speed - which can give light mechs options for not being eviscerated by missiles.

This also makes streak LRMs (coming with the clans, eventually) have some kind of role in the game. Missiles that are not locked onto a target will simply not fire - making them actually serve a purpose.

A similar system could be applied to SRMs and SSRMs (though I would replace a visual indicator of a battery's lock-on status with a growling tone - like how a Sidewinder missile gives a growling tone based on the strength of its target signature and its predictions for a successful intercept) - though I would remove the requirement to "hold and fire" - instead the SRMs attempt to lock onto a targeted enemy within range (and within the field of view).

This would also give streaks a purpose while eliminating SRM spread issues and opening up a place for rocket launchers (which is what SRMs are, currently).

We could also consider nerfing some of the elements of ECM and return it to what the concept was, originally - reducing the likelihood that missiles would successfully lock onto (and therefor damage) friendlies.

The present system just doesn't work too well with any combination of damage, spread, and ammo.

Sure - IF - you can get solid locks and good targets in the open (and the number of people I notice doing that is relatively small, these days), you are still putting out only marginal damage with a weapon system that takes up some 40% of your mech's mass.

LRMs are something of an inconvenience and area denial weapon... but only superficially. A jager with 2 gauss is far more deadly than a Battlemaster carrying 30 tons of missile launchers and accompanying ammo. LRMs represent unnecessary damage to a team that usually isn't worth whatever movement they are about to commit to.

When it comes down to contributing firepower in support of your team - LRMs don't really offer much unless packed and fired in the extreme. About the only time LRMs are going to be dealing damage worth mentioning is when your team already has a considerable advantage in both position and firepower.

I'm also not convinced that hit-detection issues with missiles have been resolved. While it -seems- better... LRMs deal such pathetic damage for the time invested into the shot that it's kind of hard to tell.

It's kind of telling when I used to cut a swath through entire teams with a Catapult C1 - 700 damage was normal for me with 2-3 kills (back during eight-mans)... but now it's impressive to break 200. This was before all of the "splash damage bug" catastrophe of nine months ago. Nothing really changed with how I played or when I took shots at targets (I was not as picky as some were about when to fire missiles - but I always try and make sure they won't smash into anything but my target). Not too much changed regarding how much damage I would take, either.

Yet I can throw 3 AC5s into a ShadowHawk and run similar damage numbers without really even trying (and cut a swath through entire teams).

LRMs have been tagged as a "support weapon." They are not supposed to do anything on their own, in the minds of the developers - which means a good portion of canon builds are completely useless under their vision of how this game should work.

Great post! Not sure about PGI's ability to implement that idea though...

[Tombstoner]

ColonelMetus, on 13 November 2013 - 07:20 PM, said:

this is called "LRM Flooding" and it is a huge problem in the current meta that will prolly get all LRM s nerfed

Whats saving LRMs at the moment that no one seems to have mentioned and the OP touched upon is alpha striking that many missles is subject to issues with hit detection. if the game has trouble with one ac-20 shot how about 60 missiles all with in a second. posably why LRM alphas do less damage then chain firing the same amount. lrm 5 just reduce the hit load and people like to chain fire them for knock locking. hence chain fire is better over all.... the way PGI wants to force player to play. Its more skillful that way. 40 point alphas are so noobish

[Victor Morson]

ColonelMetus, on 13 November 2013 - 07:20 PM, said:

this is called "LRM Flooding" and it is a huge problem entirely in the head of newbies who don't understand game mechanics in the current meta that will prolly get all LRM s nerfed

Fixed that for you.