158 replies to this topic

[Dymlos2003]

I think people are using SRMs wrong as well. SRMs are crit hunters so the best way to use them is fire and an opened mech.

Pretty much have to use srms like an lbx. Do that and they are glorious.

[Belorion]

SSRMs are fine.

The only possible thing I could think of is if they hit what you aim at, but if you were to otherwise miss it would hit the closest mech part to where you aimed.

That might make them OP again.

SRM's need a buff.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hauser, on 13 February 2014 - 09:24 AM, said:

In table top and before HSR was implemented in MWO all weapons were a sand blasting with RNG damage. Once HSR was implemented the game changed, so I think that ship has sailed.

The need for a damage buff is the problem though. Buffing SRM damage to the point where they can compete with auto-cannons and lasers for high skill players will make them overpowered for low skill players. Hence there needs to be a way to make their effectiveness skill dependent.

edit:

Now I'm not saying SRM's don't need a damage buff at all. Just that the one required to make them viable at the top would be too damn big.

I beg to differ. My AC10 or 20 or Gauss was a point of impact weapon. It hit all its damage where it was pointed. Lasers drew lines across the enemy like a scalpel and Missiles blasted the enemy to peices. As the three types of weapons should do. SRMs never competed with ACs and lasers in the past. They were used as crit seekers as a SRM6 could do 2 points of damage to 6 different locations if the dice were feeling frisky. SRMs don't do mass damage to one location. They never should.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 13 February 2014 - 11:43 AM.

[Belorion]

Dymlos2003, on 13 February 2014 - 11:38 AM, said:

I think people are using SRMs wrong as well. SRMs are crit hunters so the best way to use them is fire and an opened mech.

Pretty much have to use srms like an lbx. Do that and they are glorious.

Except the range on an LBX greatly exceeds the range of and SRM6.

[Joseph Mallan]

East Indy, on 13 February 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

Here's the nuclear option: use lock-ons for SRMs, because that mechanic is actually reliable.

Maintain fire rate but drop per-missile damage. Lower cockpit shake. Increase Streak range slightly.

Significant drawbacks. It blurs the line between weapons, it implies a 1.5-ton sunk cost for Beagle Active Probe, it disrupts familiar tactics.

But some significant benefits. Far less second-guessing SRMs, or avoiding them entirely. Randomly targeted locations means heat scale can be relaxed or even lifted.

Weapon	Damage	Range	Cooldown
Streak SRM-2	5	330	3.50
SRM-2	3.2	270	2.50
SRM-4	4.8	270	3.25
SRM-6	9.6	270	4.00

Numbers adjusted as necessary.

Streaks do not need a range buff.

[Dymlos2003]

Belorion, on 13 February 2014 - 11:43 AM, said:

Except the range on an LBX greatly exceeds the range of and SRM6.

And the spread!

[Almond Brown]

When did Lasers become Pin point damage dealers? It was written repeatedly and is a misnomer. To determine why they are not even close to pinpoint, save for stationary targets, Select Profile on this page, select stats, weapon stats and then the Medium Laser stat.
Now take the total Damage generated and divide that by the total number of Hits recorded. Guess what? That pin-point ML is not even close to a PIN POINT weapon. The thing takes a full second to burn in that 5 points of damage. Same with all Laser based Energy weapons. Pin-point lasers? wtf with the dis-information?

Edited by Almond Brown, 13 February 2014 - 12:08 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Almond Brown, on 13 February 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

When did Lasers become Pin point damage dealers? It was written repeatedly and is a misnomer. To determine why they are not even close to pinpoint, save for stationary targets, Select Profile on this page, select stats, weapon stats and then the Medium Laser stat.
Now take the total Damage generated and divide that by the total number of Hits registered. Guess what, your ML is not even close to a PIN POINT weapon when it tales a full second to burn in that 5 points of damage.

Well they do deal damage exactly where we aim them... no matter where that aim is second to second!

[East Indy]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

Streaks do not need a range buff.

Maybe not, but in that hypothetical you'd need to either lower regular SRM fire rate or further lower regular SRM damage, so the extra weight of a Streak could be justified.

[Joseph Mallan]

East Indy, on 13 February 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

Maybe not, but in that hypothetical you'd need to either lower regular SRM fire rate or further lower regular SRM damage, so the extra weight of a Streak could be justified.

The extra weight is justified in the near positive hit of Streaks. My missiles have a abismal 40% accuracy but my Streaks is 70%. worth a 0.5 ton in my book.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 14 February 2014 - 07:28 AM.

[East Indy]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2014 - 12:14 PM, said:

The extra wright is justified in the near positive hit of Streaks. My missiles have a abismal 40% accuracy but my Streaks is 70%. worth a 0.5 ton in my book.

Joe, reread my post. The whole point of it is to contemplate making SRMs lock-on.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

I beg to differ. My AC10 or 20 or Gauss was a point of impact weapon. It hit all its damage where it was pointed. Lasers drew lines across the enemy like a scalpel and Missiles blasted the enemy to peices. As the three types of weapons should do. SRMs never competed with ACs and lasers in the past. They were used as crit seekers as a SRM6 could do 2 points of damage to 6 different locations if the dice were feeling frisky. SRMs don't do mass damage to one location. They never should.

No, they broke damage up into 5 point increments over the target.

Also you didn't have everyone on the field in a completely custom mech with Targeting Computer.

Group-fired MLs never did mass damage to the same location in TT but 6 MLs on my Battlemaster do. They all hit the same location along with my AC10. That's not how TT worked at all, don't be obtuse here.

SRMs however don't hit what I'm aiming at. That's fine - so long as they get some form of scaling up to match the scaling up everything else has gotten. Range doubled (or tripled) and perfect Targeting Computer accuracy, if not a bit better.

SRMs were not crit seekers any more than an LB10X was or any other weapon. SRMs didn't have an advantage save BOOM for the weight. Also everyone was in stock builds ergo not every mech in every match was optimized for armor, endosteel, DHS and XL where most useful.

Armor got doubled to compensate for pinpoint damage. Everything except SRMs have gotten buffs to fit them into the MW:O environment from tabletop. I'm saying give SRMs their equivalent buff. Tighter cluster (at least all on the torso at 270m on a moving mech. With Artemis not same location but enough to spread across LT/RT/CT or CT/RT/RA if you get what I mean, without Artemis about what Artemis gives you now) and then widely failing accuracy (about what we've got now with no Artemis) after that. Make them faster - 400 or 500.

Not pinpoint by any stretch but at least viable. That or give them back splash damage so each missile is technically doing more than 2 points, 2pts at target, 1pt to adjacent locations.

Otherwise they're just a novelty now. They're not part of stock builds you pretty much have to take and adjust to, they're optional. There's no reason to take them now, hitreg issues or not. They're flavor text sort of weapons, which makes them a pointless waste.

[Charons Little Helper]

You can't compare any weapon to medium lasers purely on a tonnage/crit space basis. Going just by those - it'd be by far the best weapon in the game.

I mean - an AC20 weighs 14x as much. It does only 4x the damage. Come on - the AC20 must be worthless. *insert sarcasm here*

[Sandpit]

I think a slight boost to speed on LRMs and SRMs would be great

[MischiefSC]

Charons Little Helper, on 13 February 2014 - 01:27 PM, said:

You can't compare any weapon to medium lasers purely on a tonnage/crit space basis. Going just by those - it'd be by far the best weapon in the game.

I mean - an AC20 weighs 14x as much. It does only 4x the damage. Come on - the AC20 must be worthless. *insert sarcasm here*

So, once again. Pick a mech with all the SRM hardpoints you want. Load them up with SRM launchers. I'll take another mech with a comparable, even inferior number of ballistic/energy hardpoints at the same tonnage. We won't even bother with the fact that *anything I load on it is pretty much guaranteed to be able to shoot you before you come into maximum range*, we'll just go to 270m and start brawling.

At which point, depending on your mech, I'll pop out either a side torso or the CT on your mech before you get any of my armor to a bright orange.

I picked a ML for simplicity. How about we go ahead and look at ACs? So an AC will put 20 points in 1 location at 270m for 14 tons. It's also ammo dependent so we won't even figure that in. How many SRM6s with Artemis would I need to put 20 points on a single location at 270m?

Oh, yeah. Not gonna work. Same cooldown timeframe, AC would generate a fraction of the heat of a comparable number of SRMs. Also the AC20 will hit targets out to 910m and the projectile travels more than twice as fast.


So pick a mech with missile hardpoints. Build it with SRMs however you want, plus whatever else the mech will carry. I'll take a mech of comparable weight without missile hardpoints. For example I've been using a Battlemaster S with 4xASRM6 and 2 LLs. Doesn't matter, whatever floats your boat. Then try to say with a straight face that whatever mech I've picked, whatever loadout I've got on it, I won't absolutely destroy you, assuming our skill level is comparable.

Don't be so disingenuous. SRMs are crap. They're still TT spec while everything else has gotten a massive buff, from weapon ranges to performance accuracy to mech armor. SRMs got the finger. I'm just saying bring them up to the same level everything else got bumped to.

[Charons Little Helper]

MischiefSC, on 13 February 2014 - 01:58 PM, said:

Don't be so disingenuous. SRMs are crap. They're still TT spec while everything else has gotten a massive buff, from weapon ranges to performance accuracy to mech armor. SRMs got the finger. I'm just saying bring them up to the same level everything else got bumped to.

I'm not weighing in on how SRMs weigh in on the power spectrum. (they're on the low side - but I don't think they're that bad - at a full 270 meters they suck - but on skirmishers who can close in to within 100 meters quickly they're okay)

I was merely pointing out that the argument you used to prove that SRMs are inferior was inherently faulty.

You're conclusion may or may not be correct, but even if it is, that doesn't make your reasoning any less faulty.

Edited by Charons Little Helper, 13 February 2014 - 02:24 PM.

[keith]

Dymlos2003, on 13 February 2014 - 11:38 AM, said:

I think people are using SRMs wrong as well. SRMs are crit hunters so the best way to use them is fire and an opened mech.

Pretty much have to use srms like an lbx. Do that and they are glorious.

i'm pretty sure they didn't added the crit seeking mod to srms. thats only on lbx and mguns.

[MischiefSC]

Charons Little Helper, on 13 February 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

I'm not weighing in on how SRMs weigh in on the power spectrum. (they're on the low side - but I don't think they're that bad - at a full 270 meters they suck - but on skirmishers who can close in to within 100 meters quickly they're okay)

I was merely pointing out that the argument you used to prove that SRMs are inferior was inherently faulty.

You're conclusion may or may not be correct, but even if it is, that doesn't make your reasoning any less faulty.

So pick a weapon. My reasoning is not faulty; for the weight, projectile speed and effective damage per shot they're crap. Any skirmisher who can close to 100m will do better with SPLs and MGs than SRMs. If they've got missile hardpoints they've got streaks - since they're, again, far superior to SRMs.

They're an inherently sub-par weapon. If you've got tons of spare tonnage and no more hardpoints they're not too too terrible on an Atlas. That's about it.

[Artgathan]

Charons Little Helper, on 13 February 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

I'm not weighing in on how SRMs weigh in on the power spectrum. (they're on the low side - but I don't think they're that bad - at a full 270 meters they suck - but on skirmishers who can close in to within 100 meters quickly they're okay)

I was merely pointing out that the argument you used to prove that SRMs are inferior was inherently faulty.

You're conclusion may or may not be correct, but even if it is, that doesn't make your reasoning any less faulty.

They're pretty bad. I unloaded 250 SRMs on a HGN from < 200m and got the kill (with support from a Jenner). That's 2.5 tons of ammunition to get a kill. On one mech. My accuracy was very high (90% easily).

If you unloaded 2.5 tons of ammunition from any other weapon you could kill several mechs. That's 375 AC damage or 495 LRM damage.

[East Indy]

To the couple posts mentioning it — for a while I've wondered if increasing SRM speed would only worsen hit detection issues.

Worth trying to ask the devs, honestly, since that might settle it.