MGs have cone of fire, they don't have exact same mechanics as lasers.
Ripple fire missiles won't have any spread unless they get cone of fire mechanic like MGs. So, you will end up with a whole bunch of DoT weapons that have projectile travel time ranging from 0 (lasers) to whatever travel time SRMs will have for a given distance.
The real question is what do you expect to gain from all this. So far PGI has been unable to balance regular lasers vs. pulse lasers (and that's just 2 weapon types), what makes you think that they will have better luck with more weapons thrown into the DoT bucket?
We expect more balance across weapon types, partial removal of frontloaded damage and longer TTK. All together to make a more amusing game.
ACs don't have to be burst either, just reduce the frontloaded potential. Heck, you don't even have to reduce the DPS, since technically the AC10 is actually an AC20 in TT, since it does 40 damage over 10 seconds.
Just half the damage and double the refire on some of them, much less frontloaded, but same DPS. Double armor and half heat to match, which PGI failed to do when they first implemented the weapons.
That video convinced me that srm are good now, no, i mean it SCARED me off a buff to srm.
Also i have a 16SRM AC20 Orion that achieve the same result as the splat cat in the video, if i get in your back youre dead. But i have to use an ac20 which gimps me in many ways. If i didnt have to use an ac20 but an ac10 or uac5 because srm are that much better then it would creat another dumb meta. Always use artemis with srm, i tested at 100meter range without ART and i swear sometimes i would get a missile to hit the fkn ground, it was like their grouping started super large sometimes.
I should note if you were not there back then, those SRMs at the time did up to (as stated specifically by a PGI dev) "25 damage per missile" due to a bug where splash damage multiplied the base damage repeatedly as it hit the surface area. Against a commando with two SRM-6s you could instantly gib them with no body parts left (solid black; everything 100% destroyed). And that's with half of them missing.
It actually had nothing to do with their movement pattern. And note: 25 damage per missile. NOT a typo.
The splash damage multiplier and range is now 0.01. It used to be something like 2.1, and would just keep repeating.
As a demonstration. This is the original flamer stalker. I hit record just before firing my first shot. Watch what happens to that Stalker. At the time they were balanced to 2.0 damage exactly as now. But, as you can see they're doing a LOT more than that.
Here, they're shifted to 1.8 damage with splash pushed to the 0.01 that we have now (but back then with the same patterns). Huge difference.
What prompted me to write this post is the general feeling that SRMs are about as effective as dumdum launchers. Between apparent hit registration issues, 2.0 damage per missile (used to be 2.5) and damage spread they just don't kill things quickly enough to justify their tonnage.
So why am I asking to making SRM's more skill dependent and not for a straight up damage boost? What does that even mean?
One of the mechanics the game revolves around is putting damage into the right body part. For both projectile weapons this comes down to aiming and leading correctly. For beams this comes down to aiming and tracking correctly. These are skills, the better you do those things, the more damage goes into the desired body part, the more effective your weapon is.
With SRM's however this is different. You aim them and you might miss, hit or clip somebody in the cloud of missiles. Yet there is no way to put all the damage in the same spot. The damage will always spread out. So as players get better at aiming and, tracking or leading, SRMs become relatively weaker. For example even if you had perfect aim with your SRM's and you manage to land every flight of missiles, you're still worse off then some one who can decently hit one body part with a medium laser.
This makes SRM's a difficult weapon to balance. Simply increasing damage makes it more effective but might make it too effective for when used by low skill players who have trouble focusing on a body part. Decreasing the spread will also make srms more effective but reduces their feel to a really slow travelling auto cannon.
So what is needed is a way to make the spread of damage from SRM's dependent on some skill. Back in closed beta there used to be a mechanic where SRMs would converge and deconverge every 75 meters. If you got your positioning right, you could land all SRMs in a single spot.
I'd like to see this feature return again.
edit: Words.
artemis helps quite abit with the weapons as they are. Gives them a nice tight spread that makes it easy to hit one location of a medium or larger mech.
That said srm are pretty effective with artemis really. They are a great weapon for medium and larger mechs. They are underestimated currently due to the problems with hit detection.
We expect more balance across weapon types, partial removal of frontloaded damage and longer TTK. All together to make a more amusing game.
I am with you on longer TTK part, but where will "more balance" come from? Right now ACs are not balanced between themselves, PPCs, and gauss, despite all having frontloaded damage. Lasers are also not balanced between themselves despite all being DoT. How will switching a number of frontload weapons to DoT ones make things more balanced?
I am with you on longer TTK part, but where will "more balance" come from? Right now ACs are not balanced between themselves, PPCs, and gauss, despite all having frontloaded damage. Lasers are also not balanced between themselves despite all being DoT. How will switching a number of frontload weapons to DoT ones make things more balanced?
The balance between DoT and frontloaded. FLD is simply better, since you can fire, turn and then spread damage. That's more difficult to do with lasers since you have that one second burn time. SRMs, you simply can't aim them. If the gauss and PPC are the only FLD, one has high heat and 90m deadzone, the other has a charge. ACs just don't have a significant downside.
The balance between DoT and frontloaded. FLD is simply better, since you can fire, turn and then spread damage. That's more difficult to do with lasers since you have that one second burn time. SRMs, you simply can't aim them. If the gauss and PPC are the only FLD, one has high heat and 90m deadzone, the other has a charge. ACs just don't have a downside.
To a point, but even less so than lasers. Which is fine, but when half the missiles miss an assault entirely, something is amiss. Streamfire would help that, but simple hitreg would be a nice start.
Anyone know if the splash damage could be reimplemented, but only damage a single component? This should help hitreg significantly without making them doing 25 damage per missile.
The balance between DoT and frontloaded. FLD is simply better, since you can fire, turn and then spread damage. That's more difficult to do with lasers since you have that one second burn time. SRMs, you simply can't aim them. If the gauss and PPC are the only FLD, one has high heat and 90m deadzone, the other has a charge. ACs just don't have a downside.
Given that suggestion boils down to simply decreasing the number of frontloaded weapons (and shotgun weapons in case of SRMs), I don't think meta would change a lot, PPC+AC combo would still reign supreme (although it would be a little bit less effective than now). AC20 boats might either switch to AC20 + LL combos just to get rid of ghost heat (as both weapons would be DoT), or disappear altogether if they become considerably worse than they currently are. In the latter case we'll be down to one good config and two mechs capable of carrying it.
Edited by IceSerpent, 15 February 2014 - 02:22 PM.
To a point, but even less so than lasers. Which is fine, but when half the missiles miss an assault entirely, something is amiss. Streamfire would help that, but simple hitreg would be a nice start.
Anyone know if the splash damage could be reimplemented, but only damage a single component? This should help hitreg significantly without making them doing 25 damage per missile.
you can directly hit a single torso section, arm, leg, etc with srm with artemis long as your fighting at a decent brawling range. To be honest srm are my preffered brawling weapon. Even with hit reg the weight to size to heat ratio is excellent. When hit reg is fixed on them I probly wont use many other weapons.
I am with you on longer TTK part, but where will "more balance" come from? Right now ACs are not balanced between themselves, PPCs, and gauss, despite all having frontloaded damage. Lasers are also not balanced between themselves despite all being DoT. How will switching a number of frontload weapons to DoT ones make things more balanced?
Lasers are balanced. Notice it takes a long time to kill things. The rest of the game isn't. You can fire a PPC as fast as you can fire a laser.
MW:LL you'll find it very different, 7 seconds to fire a PPC. 6 to fire a gauss rifle. But autocannons fire like machine guns, with an AC/5 pumping out rounds as fast as an AC/2 and yet doing identical damage in 2 seconds of fire as MWO's AC/5 does in a single shot. This at 1 heat per 2 seconds of constant fire, and much lower heat thresholds (significantly preventing alpha strikes of lots of energy weaponry).
MW2's autocannons fired 20 shots for an AC/20. MW3's autocannons fired 3 shots for each weapon.
Audio. Note MW3's weapons were 'burst fire'.
MWO? non-existing single shot AC/20s based on just looking at tabletop (a turn = a summary of 10 seconds) and assuming that the summary means every pilot shoots exactly once in 10 seconds. Pfft.
Anyway. From book lore.. Minimum of inner sphere AC/20 weapons is 4 shots (5 damage per shot) available in slower automatic chain-fed (steady fire) and more rapid but slower reload magazine-fed "cassette" versions.
The difference is
an MG the automatics will fire in a constant stream (think MWO's AC/5 but as an AC/20 and shoots once per second, so 0, 1, 2, 3 (20 damage), new cycle starts at 4).
A burst-fire will churn it all out in a rapid 'pulse laser' style speed, and take forever and a day to reload. (Say if it's a 0.75 second burst, pumping 5 damage at 0, 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75, then the AC/20 will take 3.25 seconds to change magazines).
These already exist in lore, and many have been defined with values or better. Hunchback for example has a burst-only 5 shot AC/20. Atlas carries a 15 shot AC/20 (and PGI depicted it fairly well as an automatic in the original Mechwarrior 5 trailer if that was to be an AC/20).
The only upfront damage weapons in Battletech lore (not tabletop, lore) are missiles, PPCs, and Gauss Rifles. And even PPCs and Gauss Rifles have variants aside from the heavy, light, snub and silver bullets which I consider to be different weapons.
In general, this will stop the PPC + AC poptarts. It'll field more lasers and ACs as a combination for a relatively new meta. Not perfect but it's a start. Less priority will be put on AC mechs. Lowering heat thresholds will reduce PPC rigs. In general, more balanced loadouts.
(Battletech tabletop, the actual logical succession of fire for an Awesome is chain firing one PPC at a time. PPC = 10 heat. 30 heat = shutdown. Fire at once = 30 heat = shutdown. Fire one, wait 3 seconds, fire the second, wait 3 seconds, fire the third, and wait the last 4 seconds to cool to 0 by the end of the turn.)
But real balance can't be achieved by just weapons.
Right now mechs have inferiority complexes. PGI threw on engine limits (doesn't exist in battletech. All Ravens can equip the same engines as all Jenners and all Firestarters) and hardpoints (kinda required but impaired and gimped mechs). What did PGI fail to throw on? The very last required feature of a mech variant's identity; unique armor limits.
Some stock mechs in the 35 ton range outclass some stock 55 ton mechs in armor by intention which would make up for lower firepower and incredibly slow speed. The Dragon outclasses most of the 65 ton mechs in armor and almost rivals the Stalker in armor. But can it do that in MWO's armor equality for weight classes? Nope.
Anyways.. *whooshes back to art.*
Varent, on 15 February 2014 - 02:18 PM, said:
you can aim srm if you have artemis.
Artemis is intended to make SRMs not be fooled by heat sources; not to 'aim' them. SRMs are not aim weapons. They are fire and forget guided projectiles with ADD-style short attention spans (SQUIRREL!) and typically short attention spans. Enjoy. Our "SRMs" are actually gimped "MRMs." Not the same thing sadly. Interestingly enough though, NARCs make them shift from being barely maneuverable and easily confused to ravenous sharks. Lore-wise anyway.
Given that suggestion boils down to simply decreasing the number of frontloaded weapons (and shotgun weapons in case of SRMs), I don't think meta would change a lot, PPC+AC combo would still reign supreme (although it would be a little bit less effective than now). AC20 boats might either switch to AC20 + LL combos just to get rid of ghost heat (as both weapons would be DoT), or disappear altogether if they become considerably worse than they currently are. In the latter case we'll be down to one good config and two mechs capable of carrying it.
The meta will always be whatever kills fastest. At one point that was LRMs, which we laugh at now, for the most part (200 LRM cloud aside), SRMs were king at one point (due to the up to 25 damage per missile) and now with HSR it's the frontloaded master race which kills most efficiently.
What we really need is balance changes more often, to try and balance things out and switch things up. Not nerfing heat on the LPL, then leaving it alone for months. SRMs are a big victim of this. They didn't even want to buff them to 2.0, let alone back to 2.5 without splash.
im up for the old flight pattern i was grinding the griffins and its quiet awful against heavy's and assaults its fine i can hit the specific location but on a light or a medium mech....
it usualy needs double amount of srms to finish a medium than an assault
and around five times more on a spider to just stip of its armor not to kill it.
With the old fight path it would be possible to kill a light mech at the moment no one stand a chance 50% lands on the ground 50%spread all across between sections if its ever connects. it the case of the spider.
in PGIs place i would release the old missiles as a different factory made SRMs and let us test is with the present damage.
Artemis is intended to make SRMs not be fooled by heat sources; not to 'aim' them. SRMs are not aim weapons. They are fire and forget guided projectiles with ADD-style short attention spans (SQUIRREL!) and typically short attention spans. Enjoy. Our "SRMs" are actually gimped "MRMs." Not the same thing sadly. Interestingly enough though, NARCs make them shift from being barely maneuverable and easily confused to ravenous sharks. Lore-wise anyway.
TBH I hate sarna since this game needs to be balanced outside of lore and peoples opinions. But if you want to go to lore to say srm should be something. Then NO, SRM are direct fire weapons. In fact they are SPECIFICALLY not guided because of the common use of electronic jamming. Stated so in lore.
First introduced in 2370 by the Terran Hegemony, Short Range Missiles are direct-fire missiles that sacrifice range for hitting power. Adapted towards the profusion of electronic jamming on the battlefield and the effectiveness of current armor designs, these missiles are less sophisticated than Long Range Missiles and particularly effective against infantry and combat vehicles. Clan SRM launchers compare favorable to Inner Sphere designs by being more compact and lighter weight. SRMs are highly upgradable, able to fire a variety of warheads and benefit from devices such as Artemis IV FCS.[1]
TBH I hate sarna since this game needs to be balanced outside of lore and peoples opinions. But if you want to go to lore to say srm should be something. Then NO, SRM are direct fire weapons. In fact they are SPECIFICALLY not guided because of the common use of electronic jamming. Stated so in lore.
First introduced in 2370 by the Terran Hegemony, Short Range Missiles are direct-fire missiles that sacrifice range for hitting power. Adapted towards the profusion of electronic jamming on the battlefield and the effectiveness of current armor designs, these missiles are less sophisticated than Long Range Missiles and particularly effective against infantry and combat vehicles. Clan SRM launchers compare favorable to Inner Sphere designs by being more compact and lighter weight. SRMs are highly upgradable, able to fire a variety of warheads and benefit from devices such as Artemis IV FCS.[1]
You missed a very specific part of some of the things I mentioned from the book. LRMs are fed a target from the mech's computer (power signature, profile/shape, etc.) and then fired after a lock. The LRMs feature a camera or sensor suite that look for that visual or power signature, and if it can't find that anymore it turns skyward and self-destructs.
SRMs are typically heat-guided, self-contained missiles with no locking mechanism that can be either fired to go after heat sources or with their self-contained targeting system disabled (anti-infantry, random missile spam). Heat being a very relative term. See, here's a mech, here's a vat of lava, and that mech isn't hot right now. Well damn, SRMs just went into the lava. They're not that bright now are they?
By themselves, SRMs cannot be affected by ECM. Confusing electronic signals to a missile that cannot receive signals is like talking to a blind-deaf-mute. Doesn't work. (Same is true for real life missiles, self-contained missiles are not tricked by jamming and require visual tricks instead like CHAFF, false heat signatures, etc). CHAFF PODs were made to deflect SRMs and LRMs. NOTE: It does NOT affect MRMs, but affects SRMs. Because SRMs are guided, even if they are "less sophisticated."
Artemis allows the mech's launchers to remotely control them to go after a targeted (but not necessary to lock) mech so long as the target and the missiles are directly visible by the mech itself. Book fluff. And that Sarna fluff can easily fit and mean the same thing I just said.
Now peek at MRMs. If you read those, they are undeniably confirming what I said about SRMs.
Quote
The Medium-Range Missile Launcher was designed by scientists at Luthien Armor Works. MRMs are dead-fire missiles that are fired more like lasers than missiles. In order to pack as many missiles as possible into one salvo, scientists removed guidance systems and made the whole package smaller. Though this was seen as a step backwards in technological development, the inexpensive and deadly MRMs have spread throughout the Draconis Combine and to many mercenary units.
The lack of a guidance system and unique nature of MRMs means that they are incompatible with special munitions and advanced guidance systems, though they can be prepared as a single-shot system. The inherent inaccuracy of MRMs is reflected in game terms with a +1 to hit.
The MRM-10 is the lightest and smallest MRM launcher. It was designed to easily be swapped in for an SRM-6.
SRMs are guided. But not locked.
Minus the lock, fired in larger numbers, and prone to 'squirrel' syndrome the Streaks shown here are akin to real SRMs in guidance. Basic non-lock missile guidance with closed beta style streak turning and throw in 1) easily distracted by random heat signatures including cauldrons, lava, other enemies and even allies and 2) viciously ignores heat altogether if there's a NARC beacon nearby.
After all, streaks are simply described as SRMs + a half ton advanced ancient tech computer remote controlling them (akin to the 1 ton Artemis) that wouldn't fire unless the computer was convinced there'd be a 100% chance to hit.
(Last edit: Had the wrong video in the streak vid.) But yeah, watch how easily the Jenner dodges an incoming plethora of streak even at less than 90 kph while being knocked around like a kid bullied on the playground. And that's tight-firing missiles occupying the impossible same space, where SRMs just kinda scatter because in numbers larger than 6 they confuse each other.
You missed a very specific part of some of the things I mentioned from the book. LRMs are fed a target from the mech's computer (power signature, profile/shape, etc.) and then fired after a lock. The LRMs feature a camera or sensor suite that look for that visual or power signature, and if it can't find that anymore it turns skyward and self-destructs.
SRMs are typically heat-guided, self-contained missiles with no locking mechanism that can be either fired to go after heat sources or with their self-contained targeting system disabled (anti-infantry, random missile spam). Heat being a very relative term. See, here's a mech, here's a vat of lava, and that mech isn't hot right now. Well damn, SRMs just went into the lava. They're not that bright now are they?
Artemis allows the mech's launchers to remotely control them to go after a targeted (but not necessary to lock) mech so long as the target and the missiles are directly visible by the mech itself. Book fluff. And that Sarna fluff can easily fit and mean the same thing I just said.
Now peek at MRMs. If you read those, they are undeniably confirming what I said about SRMs.
artemis is supposed to make them guided yes. However and to be honest. Thank god they went away from that. That would actually gimp the weapon. The current implimentation actually allows for them to still defeat ecm and be highly more effective then a lock on or heat detecting function would.
LocationOn your six, chipping away at your rear armour.
Posted 15 February 2014 - 03:22 PM
You made me go and look in my Tech Manual, you ********
The reason some SRMs from a regular launcher might miss isn't that they're unguided - it's that they're individually targeted. Here's what the Tech Manual says in the entry on SSRMs:
Quote
Developed as a means of conserving ammunition, the Streak system literally refuses to fire unless all of the launcher’s tubes simultaneously achieve a “hard lock” on their target.
(TechManual, p230, emphasis mine)
See that? That's how Streaks work. Which means that regular SRMs can fire with some tubes not having achieved "hard lock", meaning those tubes will miss.
The page before (p229) has this to say about missiles in general:
Quote
Today’s vehicular-scale missile launchers are a broadly varied weapon class used to deliver clusters of self-propelled - and usually self-guided - munitions to a target.
artemis is supposed to make them guided yes. However and to be honest. Thank god they went away from that. That would actually gimp the weapon. The current implimentation actually allows for them to still defeat ecm and be highly more effective then a lock on or heat detecting function would.
On that, even guided with Artemis, all that really happens with ECM is that SRMs revert to default heat-seeking. Which, well, can be tricked. Much like LRMs could be fired like shotguns even if there's ECM jamming your locks.
stjobe, on 15 February 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:
The reason some SRMs from a regular launcher might miss isn't that they're unguided - it's that they're individually targeted. Here's what the Tech Manual says in the entry on SSRMs:
Well damn, the manual actually agrees with the fiction on something! YAY! Well kinda; the one I read a bit ago claimed that they didn't require a lock at all and went after heat signatures. (And due to the nature of the environment, the missile saw a hotter signature after being baited and killed a crapload of civilians, getting the pilot in trouble). Thanks btw.
What irks me is usually the fiction and the manuals don't agree. Although technically they do yet don't. Hardlock makes it sound like they can't be dumbfired though what I'm reading says they're simply 'dumped' and then act on their own (unless they're Artemis controlled; then 'softlocked' as in select target from what the pilot can see through his neuro helm and so long as the forward sensors and/or the pilot can see them they will track).
Sadly the manuals and random official fiction barely agree with each other because some of these things you pick it up and read it and damn it's like other than churning out character angst some authors you can tell they didn't do any research before writing a generic story.
On that, even guided with Artemis, all that really happens with ECM is that SRMs revert to default heat-seeking. Which, well, can be tricked. Much like LRMs could be fired like shotguns even if there's ECM jamming your locks.
id rather have my direct fire any day of the week since I can actually aim it.
4
IceSerpent, on 15 February 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:
Although technically they do yet don't. Hardlock makes it sound like they can't be dumbfired though what I'm reading says they're simply 'dumped' and then act on their own (unless they're Artemis controlled; then 'softlocked' as in select target from what the pilot can see through his neuro helm and so long as the forward sensors and/or the pilot can see them they will track). 
