158 replies to this topic

[Artgathan]

pbiggz, on 14 February 2014 - 08:19 AM, said:

As for hit reg, yea its off, that's the number one offender for SRMs. They have alot of trouble hitting anything going faster than 80kph.

Fixed that for you.

I've pumped 2 X SRM18 (that's 72 damage) into a shutdown Jenner (king of the massive CT) at 5m and watched them stroll away with yellow armor. This happens frequently.

Also, buff SRM ammo to match all other weapons. We should be getting 144 SRMs/ton, not 100.

[C E Dwyer]

HSR isn't good, but its not as poor as SRM's make it seem.

Biggest problem on the technical side is launches of multiples from torso positions, it's as if, the system struggles to identify which missiles hit, and which have missed.

But the biggest problem is people don't seem to realise how slow SRM's are, and a lot of the hit register problems are because the mech they shot at, moved and they missed, its the slowest weapon in the game.

In an alpha shot involving medium lasers and SRM's to track a fast moving target to maximise laser coverage from ranges outside 100meters the srm's are going to land behind the mech the ML hit.

Now I'm not sure why SRM's are so slow, but I suspect its because the Dev's wanted AMS to work at ranges above point blank, on them.

If there was a speed buff, you'd see an improvement on hitting, but in a lot of cases people are grasping at the HSR issues rather than admit they're not as good a shot as they think they are.

[C E Dwyer]

Artgathan, on 14 February 2014 - 09:28 AM, said:

Fixed that for you.

I've pumped 2 X SRM18 (that's 72 damage) into a shutdown Jenner (king of the massive CT) at 5m and watched them stroll away with yellow armor. This happens frequently.

Also, buff SRM ammo to match all other weapons. We should be getting 144 SRMs/ton, not 100.

So you say.

I can also relate, about how a Centurion I was fighting in T.D. with my Victor, I tore a part using my srm's by chain fireing the srm 4/6 striping the armour and critting its engine, at 70kph

Edited by Cathy, 14 February 2014 - 11:13 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

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

OK, maybe I am confusing the use of the term "Pin-Point" with "Instant" (not the term I had in mind) damage?

[C E Dwyer]

stjobe, on 14 February 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

That was LRMs. SRMs did damage individually for each missile that hit.

That's the reason people refer to them as "crit seekers", not that they're especially good at getting crits, but because you got more to-hit rolls with them than with e.g. a laser or an autocannon. Remember that a 2 on a to-hit roll was always a chance to crit, no matter if the target was completely fresh, and that a hit on an unarmoured section was always a crit.

So how to make them useful? Well, I think a good start would be a damage buff and a speed buff. I find it ridiculous that the auto-aim SSRM does more damage than the manually-aimed SRM.

I blame splat cats when damage was 2.5 damage and splash damage.

I seem to remember the streak was given an extra .5, when the hit area was spread out and they didn't all go straight for the CT.

But of course it flies in the face of sensible engineering as the guidance systems would displace either war head yield, or fuel effecting the range, and streaks aren't wire guided.

[Almond Brown]

Hauser, on 14 February 2014 - 04:04 AM, said:

stuff

The premise of the original post was that lasers and ballistics are both influenced by skill. Aiming and, leading or tracking. If you're good at those skills you can make your lasers and ballistics hit the right spot rather then spreading damage across your target or missing all together.

SRMs lack that ability. No matter how well you aim, the damage will always be spread out.

Well the problem with that is that trade of depends on how good you are at lasers and ballistics. At some point you can be good enough for SRM's to become dead weight.

But that is how SRM's are by design. How can anyone expect 6 missiles to occupy the same space as they fly through the air. Asking to have 6 SRM's somehow flying such a tight pattern as to all hit one Mech panel and do so from >200m seems silly. Why not just have the SRM6 launch 1 rocket and if it hits, you get 12 points to that panel or section...

Actually lets make all weapons just fire and do instant damage in the value indicated on the weapon used. Why should any weapon be different than an other, it just ***** up the min/max'rs ability to boat them.

If the K2 AC40 is seem as an issue currently, a A1 with a 72 point, super tight SRM6 cluster ammunition should be a real treat for the whiners to have to deal with.

[Mister Blastman]

They ought to just revert the SRM code (NOT STREAK) and splash code back to how it was at the end of closed beta. My Hunchback 4SP used to be feared. It was a murder machine. It could slaughter mechs in a matter of seconds. Now it is a total joke. I could destroy Jenners and Ravens alike in it. Those that felt the pain from my SP in one will remember this.

I wouldn't shed any tears if splatcats came back or other SRM pumping monstrosities existed. It'd bring back brawling. It'd end all the hill-humping hesitation. The game would be... variable and fun again.

So what are we waiting for?

[MischiefSC]

stjobe, on 14 February 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

That was LRMs. SRMs did damage individually for each missile that hit.

That's the reason people refer to them as "crit seekers", not that they're especially good at getting crits, but because you got more to-hit rolls with them than with e.g. a laser or an autocannon. Remember that a 2 on a to-hit roll was always a chance to crit, no matter if the target was completely fresh, and that a hit on an unarmoured section was always a crit.

So how to make them useful? Well, I think a good start would be a damage buff and a speed buff. I find it ridiculous that the auto-aim SSRM does more damage than the manually-aimed SRM.

You and Joe are right, my bad.

Again though, they can't crit-seek (there is no through armor crits) and they are patently inferior to every other weapon type in the game. Give them through-armor crits then but we know that's not going to happen.

Or... tighten up the pattern out to 270 m. Give them a spreading pattern out to 540m. Give them a speed boost, after that maybe a damage boost or not depending on performance.

That puts them in line with every other weapon - they all got an effective accuracy bonus (pinpoint accuracy for aiming direct fire weapons) and a range boost (2x for lasers, 3x for ACs) and the pinpoint accuracy effectively works as a damage bonus. You're able to more accurately place your shots on the same location.

I'm not saying change the nature of SRMs, I'm all for them spreading damage. I'd love them to do 5x damage to internals and hit locations for crits or something like that - I can find a use for that. Just saying that they're still pretty much tabletop spec and nothing else in the game is. In fact they're tabletop spec without the chance for a crit.

[Solis Obscuri]

stjobe, on 14 February 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

That was LRMs. SRMs did damage individually for each missile that hit.

That's the reason people refer to them as "crit seekers", not that they're especially good at getting crits, but because you got more to-hit rolls with them than with e.g. a laser or an autocannon. Remember that a 2 on a to-hit roll was always a chance to crit, no matter if the target was completely fresh, and that a hit on an unarmoured section was always a crit.

No, they didn't get more to-hit rolls (the launcher had to "hit" by getting a good lock first), but they got more hit-location roles than any other weapon (at least, provided you did decently on your cluster-hit rolls!)

I think that's what you were trying to say but... imprecise language leads to miscommunication. I agree with the rest, the benefit of rolling multiple hit locations gave you A) more chances to roll a crit and better odds of landing at least one missile on a section that was into internal damage.

stjobe, on 14 February 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how to make them useful? Well, I think a good start would be a damage buff and a speed buff. I find it ridiculous that the auto-aim SSRM does more damage than the manually-aimed SRM.

At the moment, SRMs are ok, but they could be more effective. The spread is decent now (not too loose or too tight), so buffing the damage back to 2.5/missile would probably be ok - you aren't going to be doing 90 damage to a single location in one shot with the way they spread.

The other solution might just be to reduce the Ghost Heat penalties on SRMs since they aren't the terrors they were a year ago, and firing 3+ launchers at once doesn't really present a balance issue.

[Hauser]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 February 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

you actually say that like it is a bad thing? Not hitting the same the same body part is a CBT tradition! SRMs were not intended as short range brawling weapons. They were Crit seekers. Medium lasers were the Short range brawling weapon for a generation and a half.

The mechanics in MWO are different from tabletop and as they are right now SRMs have low skill cap. Once you become good enough other weapons are simply better. For MWO, the game as is, that is a bad thing.

Please don't place your argument outside of that. Its a bit silly. I can understand if you'd like to see a game that doesn't include pinpoint damage at all but that isn't an argument against increasing the skill cap on SRM's in a game that does revolve around pin-point damage.

Edited by Hauser, 14 February 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[Hauser]

Almond Brown, on 14 February 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

But that is how SRM's are by design. How can anyone expect 6 missiles to occupy the same space as they fly through the air. Asking to have 6 SRM's somehow flying such a tight pattern as to all hit one Mech panel and do so from >200m seems silly. Why not just have the SRM6 launch 1 rocket and if it hits, you get 12 points to that panel or section...

Actually lets make all weapons just fire and do instant damage in the value indicated on the weapon used. Why should any weapon be different than an other, it just ***** up the min/max'rs ability to boat them.

If the K2 AC40 is seem as an issue currently, a A1 with a 72 point, super tight SRM6 cluster ammunition should be a real treat for the whiners to have to deal with.

The logical conclusion of your first two paragraphs is that SRMs will stay useless beyond a certain skill point. How is this a desirable state for the game?

As for your feared SRM6 boat. They're slow, they're hot, suffering from ghost heat, and they've got a CT the size of a whale and going by the proposed idea of having SRMs converge every 150-75 meters, it'd be damn hard to get into the right range alive. They'd be about as practical as a 4xPPC Stalker is these days.

[Dymlos2003]

Mister Blastman, on 14 February 2014 - 12:57 PM, said:

They ought to just revert the SRM code (NOT STREAK) and splash code back to how it was at the end of closed beta. My Hunchback 4SP used to be feared. It was a murder machine. It could slaughter mechs in a matter of seconds. Now it is a total joke. I could destroy Jenners and Ravens alike in it. Those that felt the pain from my SP in one will remember this.

I wouldn't shed any tears if splatcats came back or other SRM pumping monstrosities existed. It'd bring back brawling. It'd end all the hill-humping hesitation. The game would be... variable and fun again.

So what are we waiting for?

You mean when SRMS were bugged, no I wouldn't want that. That mindset is the reason why people think SRMS are broken. Now they work like they should, CRIT HUNTERS!

Edited by Dymlos2003, 14 February 2014 - 02:28 PM.

[Vanguard319]

Khobai, on 13 February 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

SRMs should be guided lock-on weapons instead of dumbfire bottle rockets. SRMs arnt dumbfire, theyre direct fire guided missiles. MRMs and rockets are dumbfire but SRMs arnt.

Direct fire doesn't mean the presence of target lock, it means you need direct LoS, and cannot use indirect fire. If you want lock-on SRMs, that is what Streak SRMS are for.

[Solis Obscuri]

Hauser, on 14 February 2014 - 02:03 PM, said:

The mechanics in MWO are different from tabletop and as they are right now SRMs have low skill cap. Once you become good enough other weapons are simply better. For MWO, the game as is, that is a bad thing.

The irony for SRMs in MWO is that they are relatively difficult to use, but have a low skill cap. Lasers are easy to hit with but require a very high skill cap to focus damage on moving targets, heavier ballistics are harder to aim but very simple to focus damage with, light ballistics are somewhere between lasers and heavier autocannons in performance, PPCs are fast projectiles that concentrate damage easily but make heat management a challenge, LRMs and SSRMs can't be aimed for focused effect but have a lock-on mechanism that makes them newbie-friendly, Gauss Rifles have fast projectiles and concentrate damage well but have a charge mechanic which takes time to master. Meanwhile, SRMs have no lock ability, extremely slow projectile speed, and never concentrate damage. Their only asset was very high damage output, but that's still nerfed - not as bad as it was, but they aren't great. The best thing for them is either to up their damage output a bit or just make them easier to use and score basic hits with.

Hauser, on 14 February 2014 - 02:03 PM, said:

Please don't place your argument outside of that. Its a bit silly. I can understand if you'd like to see a game that doesn't include pinpoint damage at all but that isn't an argument against increasing the skill cap on SRM's in a game that does revolve around pin-point damage.

Does it occur to you at all that a pair of SRM racks that do pinpoint damage become a five-ton AC/20? A 35-ton Oxide could become a BoomJager that's twice as fast and generates half as much heat. A CPLT-A1 or a Kintaro could double that damage per salvo for 60-72 pinpoint damage, enough to instantly destroy most medium and heavy chassis in one hit. There's a reason SRMs have always been designed for damage spread - it's because they have such a high damage potential for their weight and their heat output. Changing them to a pinpint-damage weapon would throw off the balance of every other weapon system in the game.

[OznerpaG]

would be interesting if instead of SRMs having Artemus you have to use TAG to point where you want the missiles to hit and guide them in so they (more or less) converge there - otherwise if you fire them without TAG the missiles shotgun outwards on launch. easy up close, harder to keep TAG pinpointed when you launch at a farther moving target

[stjobe]

Solis Obscuri, on 14 February 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

No, they didn't get more to-hit rolls (the launcher had to "hit" by getting a good lock first), but they got more hit-location roles than any other weapon (at least, provided you did decently on your cluster-hit rolls!)

I think that's what you were trying to say but... imprecise language leads to miscommunication.

Yeah, that was what I was trying to say; I even linked to the hit location table...
1. Roll to hit.
2. Roll number of missiles that hit.
3. Roll hit location for each SRM or each group of 5 LRMs.
4. Allocate damage and crits.

[Hauser]

Dymlos2003, on 14 February 2014 - 02:27 PM, said:

Changing them to a pinpint-damage weapon would throw off the balance of every other weapon system in the game.

Please go back and read the first post.

"So what is needed is a way to make the spread of damage from SRM's dependent on some skill."

[Gas Guzzler]

I've found SRMs to be quite effective in a close quarters fire fight. I put a 16 rack on my brawler HGN and they compliment the ER LL pair and AC/20 nicely... Sure they spread, but chain firing them mitigates that a little bit. Can't think of any other missile weapon that could fill those hardpoints and help nearly as much.

I really don't feel there is anything wrong with any weapons how they are (I wish the gauss didn't need to charge up, but I can adapt to that). LRM's make me want to punch a hole in my monitor sometimes, but that's just part of the game.

[Krinkov]

Change SRMs so that they have pinpoint aim but also make them ripple fire. Problem solved. Where do I pick up my prize?

Example 1: Your target is an idiot and is standing still. You stop and take careful aim, all damage is applied to one spot as punishment for being stupid.

Example 2: You are running past a stationary mech. If you are a good shot you may do most damage to one location. Otherwise it spreads a bit.

Example 3: You and your target are running. You would need to be an exceptional shot to get the majority of the damage on one location. Most likely you will spread damage or miss some all together.

[Solis Obscuri]

Vanguard319, on 14 February 2014 - 02:40 PM, said:

Direct fire doesn't mean the presence of target lock, it means you need direct LoS, and cannot use indirect fire. If you want lock-on SRMs, that is what Streak SRMS are for.

No, SRMs are supposed to lock - or at least attempt to lock - just like LRMs. Streaks are just supposed to have a much better guidance system (ensuring they don't miss once they have lock) combined with a better fire-control system (that ensures each missile has a steady lock before it is fired). Hence, per TT rules, Streaks don't fire if you roll a miss with the launcher, and their cluster-hit rolls are perfect.

Contrast with SRMs, which fire even on a miss for the launcher, and have variable cluster-hit rolls.

Contrast to Deadfire-SRM munitions, which do an extra point of damage per missile but take a penalty on the cluster-hit tables, and MRMs, which take a penalty on the to-hit roll for the launcher but roll cluster-hits normally.