Posted 28 March 2014 - 01:14 PM
People complain about target decay and how it makes it impossible to get into cover. Yeah...because advanced zoom and ERPPC's is SO much easier to avoid, what with no warning and an almost instant flight time. The devs are ALREADY dialing back the speed, which makes it a little easier to find said cover against LRMs. There is no such defense against any other weapon system in the game.
I rarely use LRMs. Most of the time, I'm in my Jenners, because as a fairly casual player, I haven't yet mastered anything and I'm working on those first. LRMs hit me quite a bit if I'm dumb enough to run in the open, or in maps like Caustic where there isn't much other choice. Put me anywhere where I can use cover to get around, though, and most of the missiles are wasted. And guess what...I'm a LOW SKILL player. Not one of the prime Meta, high ELO people. If I can get figure out how to beat it, it can't be that hard!
LRMs DO need tweaking, in my opinion, but only so far as how they acquire targets. It has been suggested, and I personally agree, that any NON-LoS lock should only be through TAG or NARC hits. Either you have a dedicated spotter, or you get your butt out from cover and target the 'Mech yourself. This makes LRMs viable as both DF and IDF weapons while giving the energy/AC people some defense. If LRMs are coming your way and you KNOW the boat is hiding...then you have a scout nearby that has zapped you with something besides the 'R' button. No spotter means the boat has to come out into your effective firing range and risk getting sniped. Many energy and ballistic weaponry have greater ranges than the LRMs, and in a direct fire scenario, the odds are in favor of the pinpoint damage dealer.
As for how to calculate LoS on missiles...perhaps LRM equipped 'Mechs could have an invisible line, right in the center of the reticule (be it arm or torso, so that arm line moves along with your targeting). This line would extend up to 1000m. If the line hits any terrain before the target 'Mech in that 1000m, then the system simply dumb fires straight ahead like it does now, wasting the missiles. If the line hits the target 'Mech, it locks on and performs as normal (since you have to have your reticule over the target anyway for a lock).
For non-LoS, if the game detects a TAG or NARC state on the current target, it would override the LoS system and lock on accordingly, and if not...well, it dumb fires straight ahead like it does now, wasting the missiles. Basically it would have to disallow a lock if either the appropriate spotter states or a LoS were not present.
Multi-boating isn't something that a player really has control over. Either your team/opponents brought them or they didn't.