5 replies to this topic

[Mud Butt]

Its been a long time since i played the table top version of Battletech, but I seem to vaguely remember that you couldn't fire LRM's unless you had line of sight. Indirect firing of missiles was only allowed if you had a special networking computer on all mechs in a lance. And that computer took space/weight in the chasis. If indirect fire was removed from the game unless you had this particular setup, would it hurt or help the gameplay?

[Egomane]

Mud Butt, on 21 April 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

Its been a long time since i played the table top version of Battletech, but I seem to vaguely remember that you couldn't fire LRM's unless you had line of sight. Indirect firing of missiles was only allowed if you had a special networking computer on all mechs in a lance. And that computer took space/weight in the chasis. If indirect fire was removed from the game unless you had this particular setup, would it hurt or help the gameplay?

You remember wrong. Indirect fire was allowed the moment, one of your units had line of sight to the target.

What you are thinking about is the C3 network. This system provided targeting data, to make shots more easy, as the distance between all units firing at a target was calculated from the unit closest to it.

Edited by Egomane, 21 April 2014 - 01:21 PM.

[Jakob Knight]

Egomane, on 21 April 2014 - 01:21 PM, said:

You remember wrong. Indirect fire was allowed the moment, one of your units had line of sight to the target.

What you are thinking about is the C3 network. This system provided targeting data, to make shots more easy, as the distance between all units firing at a target was calculated from the unit closest to it.

Correct. As an additional parallel, the C3 system was vunerable to ECM, which prevented its use if the 'spotter' was within or the line between the 'spotter' and the other lance members intersected the radius of an ECM unit. Normal indirect fire was not affected in any way by ECM, so the indirect system used in MWO is basically similar to every mech being part of a C3 network without the ability to use normal IDF outside C3.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 21 April 2014 - 02:36 PM.

[Koniving]

Mud Butt, on 21 April 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

Its been a long time since i played the table top version of Battletech, but I seem to vaguely remember that you couldn't fire LRM's unless you had line of sight. Indirect firing of missiles was only allowed if you had a special networking computer on all mechs in a lance. And that computer took space/weight in the chasis. If indirect fire was removed from the game unless you had this particular setup, would it hurt or help the gameplay?

You remember both correctly and incorrectly.

Standard LRMs in lore are supposed to only 'lock' with line of sight (or with special-enabling ammunition lock on NARCs or Tag signals), however indirect fire was allowed the moment a mech had line of sight of the target. This was a very inaccurate "ballistic launch" with what is explained in the books and TRO as "non-locked" with the guidance being a sort of 'after thought' when the missiles got there with a high miss rate. In essence, glorified artillery guesswork. Spotting mech goes "Grid D9." And missile mech fires for D9 hoping for a hit.

C3 in lore is exactly what you remember, and I think the game could both benefit but also be hurt by this. It would reduce indirect fire's potency to nothing unless something like in the following sentence is done. As of right now PGI has not put in nor has any intention of putting in an indirect fire system for LRMs (though it could easily be done once Mech Mortars come in if they ever do; assuming something like WoT's artillery or Battlefield 3's motar strikes is how they decide to do it).

Of course, there were "Tag-enabled" (Semi Guided) LRMs (separate, more expensive) and NARC-enabled LRMs (separate, also more expensive) which MWO has merged into standard and artemis-enabled LRM launchers.

Essentially, PGI has determined it to be best that all mechs "simply have C3" and allow indirect locks by relaying target information directly through the spotter.

(Now if your trouble is LRM spam.. honestly I think giving them double the damage... and double the reload time so that players have the opportunity to sneak from cover to cover between volleys. It'd also be absolutely devastating when LRMs do hit; perhaps not requiring players to put so many tons into LRMs to help diversify the field.)
(If your trouble is ECM.. Well PGI really screwed the pooch here. That invisbility isn't supposed to exist without the 12 slot and equal tonnage (to standard armor) "Stealth armor" upgrade.)

Edited by Koniving, 21 April 2014 - 02:56 PM.

[OneEyed Jack]

Jakob Knight, on 21 April 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

Correct. As an additional parallel, the C3 system was vunerable to ECM, which prevented its use if the 'spotter' was within or the line between the 'spotter' and the other lance members intersected the radius of an ECM unit. Normal indirect fire was not affected in any way by ECM, so the indirect system used in MWO is basically similar to every mech being part of a C3 network without the ability to use normal IDF outside C3.

It's not really similar to C³ at all. In TT, you already know where all of your opponents units are. Unless you happen to be playing double-blind, in which case you know where all of your opponents units are that can currently be seen by any of your units, unlike in MWO which requires a target lock and provides info/location only only the target-locked mech. C³ doesn't tell your other units where an enemy is, it provides very specialized targeting information that is not specific to missiles. The Master unit acts as a TAG, but otherwise, indirect gains no bonuses from C³ at all. Nor does C3 use require the mech "lock on" to provide the bonus. C³ does something for which there is no effect in MWO, and does absolutely none of the stuff for which people keep attempting to claim there is C³ in MWO.

In lore it goes back and forth. Sometimes they are blind to anything their own mechs can't see or detect, relying on comms to relay information on enemy locations. Other times they have tactical maps showing something pretty similar to what we see in MWO.

Koniving, on 21 April 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

Standard LRMs in lore are supposed to only 'lock' with line of sight (or with special-enabling ammunition lock on NARCs or Tag signals), however indirect fire was allowed the moment a mech had line of sight of the target. This was a very inaccurate "ballistic launch" with what is explained in the books and TRO as "non-locked" with the guidance being a sort of 'after thought' when the missiles got there with a high miss rate. In essence, glorified artillery guesswork. Spotting mech goes "Grid D9." And missile mech fires for D9 hoping for a hit.

While that's true, it's also a system that would be the next best thing to entirely useless outside of a turn-based game. In TT the target stands there, patiently waiting, until the missiles arrive. I doubt you'd see that a satisfactory amount of the time in MWO.

[Koniving]

OneEyed Jack, on 21 April 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

While that's true, it's also a system that would be the next best thing to entirely useless outside of a turn-based game. In TT the target stands there, patiently waiting, until the missiles arrive. I doubt you'd see that a satisfactory amount of the time in MWO.

It works in WoT and Battlefield 3. Pop out the battlegrid, point at a Grid Square, anticipate where the mech will go from the spotting and fire missiles at that point. It'd be ideal then to get enemy players OUT of cover especially poptarts.
Example.
Example 2.

It'd require the faster LRM speed we had briefly, accompanied by a minor spread instead of pinpoint, and a much higher upward angle to missiles.