95 replies to this topic

[needforsleep]

White Bear 84, on 11 May 2014 - 07:12 PM, said:

P.S. A tip for lights; TAG disables ECM - so there is no excuse for letting their ECM provide cover for the enemy team from your teams LRM's!

I think those 4 streak boats chasing my are a pretty damn good reason not to be singling out the enemy DDC

Anyway, the most well rounded missile boat is the LRM 30 Catapult C1. Good damage, flexible builds, fast enough to preposition on the fly and escape trouble, can mount tag, Has jump jets, 40 tubes, VERY wide torso traverse. All around this is the best, most reliable missile boat you can get, but other mechs shine brighter in various areas.

Orion ON1-V
Its 10 tons heavier than a C1, which means you can fit more missile inside. 15 more missiles to be precise as the most common build i've seen is the LRM 45, coupled with tag that gives the ON1 quite a bit of DPS. Definitely comparable in damage to some of the other heavy hitters like the BLR-1S while being much faster and lighter.

Unfortunately the mech lacks JJs, like most Missile boats, and its speed isnt really that impressive. Couple that with its few close in weapon options and unfortunate hit boxes this mech can become very vulnerable if caught with its pants down, though its still a much more forgiving than a slow stalker or highlander thanks to its relative ease of positioning.

Stalker and Battlemaster
Stalkers have been the go to for Macross Missile Massacres since the beginning of time. The Stalker can fit a huge number of missile racks depending on the variant, and has more than enough tonage and tubes to take advantage on them, rivaled only by the BLR-1S in number. (and the golden boy but im not counting that) Stalkers also sport quite a few options for close in weapons as well as the ability to mount tag, which lets them stay in the fight long after their ammo bays run dry. Compound with its natural tankyness its easy to see why the stalker is such a popular choice as a missile boat.

However, the Stalker does have some pretty glaring flaws to go with its obvious strengths. Chiefly, its slow. DAMN slow. This makes it incredibly vulnerable to being flanked or left behind by pugs, and although it can carry enough back up weapons to be no pushover it has no arms and its torso traverse is atrocious, very much offsetting this benefit against faster opponents such lights and mediums as well is making it more difficult to acquire and hold locks. The stalker is definitely the most vulnerable and unforgiving of missile boats (Besides the Catapult-A1) in return for its potentially devastating power.

The LRM 50 BLR-1S is similar the the LRM 50 Stalker in most regards. Same number of tubes, same tonnage, similar amount of missile racks, both are damn slow, both require a lot of support, both can mount tag, both can mount a number of lasers for close in fighting. Where they differ are crits, hardpoint positions, and toroso/arm movement. The BLR can lock easier, hold locks better, and brawls better with its arms and wider torso twist, but the Stalker lives longer and runs cooler thanks to having more room for heatsinks and greater number of hardpoints in the 5-M. In the end though, both are can be devastating with proper support and careful positioning.

Other Missile boats of note are the Atlas, Griffin, Jagermech and particularly the Trebuchet

Edited by needforsleep, 12 May 2014 - 09:35 PM.

[White Bear 84]

needforsleep, on 12 May 2014 - 07:45 PM, said:

I think those 4 streak boats chasing my are a pretty damn good reason not to be singling out the enemy DDC

Not at 700m though.. ..and if they are chasing you, then your team should be targeting them

Edited by White Bear 84, 12 May 2014 - 08:56 PM.

[needforsleep]

White Bear 84, on 12 May 2014 - 08:56 PM, said:

Not at 700m though.. ..and if they are chasing you, then your team should be targeting them

Like i can rely on pugs to be that coordinated, not to mention the fact the Raven is the only light thats useful at 700 meters in any function beside your personal targeting system. An ECM-less Jenner of Firstart is left to twiddle its thumbs until an any notices its there tagging and chases it off, when it could be backstabbing with its MLS and tagging at the same time instead. Even Spiders needs to get in close to take full advantage of its strengths as a mobile ECM/counter ECM

The fact of the matter is that most lights just dont conform to roles that allow them to be constantly tagging for you while still doing their job. A Spider needs to keep moving constantly, a Jenner/Firestarter has stay hidden until its right on top of its target then disappear again WITHOUT ECM which means breaking LoS, and the commando has to do the job of both the Jenner and Spider. The only 2 scout mechs that can just sit in one spot and 700 meters away and still do its job are the Raven-3L and Cicada-3M ECM snipers, every other mech is scout is putting itself in danger, or ignoring its own job by sitting there and focusing tagging the enemy DDC for you.

Edited by needforsleep, 12 May 2014 - 09:26 PM.

[White Bear 84]

needforsleep, on 12 May 2014 - 09:25 PM, said:

Like i can rely on pugs to be that coordinated

True this.. ..but I have seen heaps of rounds recently (probably premades) with stalkers and all sorts running in open and tagging ecm lights and atlases - I was the brunt of this in several matches, it was very effective.

In another round, I called the two ECM atlas, use tag and PPC to disrupt and we won in the end - even though our fully PUG team was up against two relatively well skill premade groups; just because we dealt with the ECM.

Of course you are right, teams are not always helpful - most of my tagging support has been from premade groups, otherwise it is hit and miss..

Edited by White Bear 84, 12 May 2014 - 09:47 PM.

[LiGhtningFF13]

Still my Catapult A1, and my Griffin, fast LRMs at your service!

[Escef]

IraqiWalker, on 12 May 2014 - 06:35 PM, said:

You're not supposed to use LRMs as your main weapon on an Atlas, that would be a bad configuration.

I've seen people do it and get good results. Results speak far louder than anything you have to say.

[IraqiWalker]

Escef, on 13 May 2014 - 03:19 AM, said:

I've seen people do it and get good results. Results speak far louder than anything you have to say.

Yeah, they get high damage right?

That's not a good result. I will always pick the pilot that gets a kill with 100 damage, over the one that does it with 400 damage. More focused fire, less spreading, and higher efficiency. They won't even need to waste ammo with unnecessary shots.

Higher damage isn't always good. Especially when that mech could have been put to far better use.

Any time that an Atlas LRM boat is used, more people on the Atlas' team die than necessary. If that Atlas was equipped as a brawler, or ANYTHING that would put it within 400 meters of the main engagement where it's ECM will be infinitely better used, more people would be alive, and the battle would be won easier and with better results for the entire team.

Cimarb is one of the better pilots at using LRM boating Atlases and he can break godly amounts of damage with it, and get a decent amount of kills and assists. It doesn't justify the configuration being bad. This isn't a matter of the chassis being bad (no such thing exists), it's a matter of using it in a highly inefficient way.

If your team wins while someone's using that 1ML+LRM35 atlas, they didn't win with that pilot, they won /despite/ having that pilot and that mech on their team.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 13 May 2014 - 10:48 AM.

[Escef]

IraqiWalker, on 13 May 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Yeah, they get high damage right?

That's not a good result. I will always pick the pilot that gets a kill with 100 damage, over the one that does it with 400 damage. More focused fire, less spreading, and higher efficiency. They won't even need to waste ammo with unnecessary shots.

Higher damage isn't always good. Especially when that mech could have been put to far better use.

Any time that an Atlas LRM boat is used, more people on the Atlas' team die than necessary. If that Atlas was equipped as a brawler, or ANYTHING that would put it within 400 meters of the main engagement where it's ECM will be infinitely better used, more people would be alive, and the battle would be won easier and with better results for the entire team.

Cimarb is one of the better pilots at using LRM boating Atlases and he can break godly amounts of damage with it, and get a decent amount of kills and assists. It doesn't justify the configuration being bad. This isn't a matter of the chassis being bad (no such thing exists), it's a matter of using it in a highly inefficient way.

If your team wins while someone's using that 1ML+LRM35 atlas, they didn't win with that pilot, they won /despite/ having that pilot and that mech on their team.

Results

Just sayin'.

[IraqiWalker]

Escef, on 13 May 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

Results

Just sayin'.

That's not a good result. I'm telling you that you are a hindrance anda handicap, and you're considering that to be a good result. Your team should win thanks to having you there, not despite you being there.

[Escef]

IraqiWalker, on 13 May 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

That's not a good result. I'm telling you that you are a hindrance anda handicap, and you're considering that to be a good result. Your team should win thanks to having you there, not despite you being there.

How am I a hindrance or handicap? I only use one dedicated LRM boat, and it's a BLR-1S. All I've been saying is that using an Atlas to boat LRMs can be made to work, and you're going weird over there trying to tell people they shouldn't run mech builds you don't approve of. Well, people get results out of weird things sometimes. I've seen builds that made no freakin' sense at all, but at the end of the match these guys end up with damage and kills.

[Barkem Squirrel]

IraqiWalker, on 13 May 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

That's not a good result. I'm telling you that you are a hindrance anda handicap, and you're considering that to be a good result. Your team should win thanks to having you there, not despite you being there.

Escef, on 13 May 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

How am I a hindrance or handicap? I only use one dedicated LRM boat, and it's a BLR-1S. All I've been saying is that using an Atlas to boat LRMs can be made to work, and you're going weird over there trying to tell people they shouldn't run mech builds you don't approve of. Well, people get results out of weird things sometimes. I've seen builds that made no freakin' sense at all, but at the end of the match these guys end up with damage and kills.

Just think, some people do not want to use the SRMs right now and what are the fallback weapon systems, SSRM's or LRMs.

One other issue, what are the players frame rate? If it is very low, like sub 20 fps then they should use LRMs. I know they need LRMs just to hit the broadside of a barn from the inside with open doors. I also did better with SRMs on the DDC, but now all the Atlases are streak boats or have one LRM 10 to keep heads down. They only know that LRMs are incoming, not just 10. Yes, I have even learn to use LRMs on the Atlas and 5 was to few due to AMS. they need something to hit them and make them scared of the LRM Atlas that is charging them.

I prefer to boat LRMs on the Cats, Jagermech - A, Battlemaster 1S, Griffins, Shadowhawks and Wolverines. Now I do have some problems with the cats, certain people like to blow my ears off.

Almost forgot the Locusts LRM boats.

Edited by Barkem Squirrel, 13 May 2014 - 02:08 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

Barkem Squirrel, on 13 May 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

I know they need LRMs just to hit the broadside of a barn from the inside with open doors. I also did better with SRMs on the DDC, but now all the Atlases are streak boats or have one LRM 10 to keep heads down. They only know that LRMs are incoming, not just 10. Yes, I have even learn to use LRMs on the Atlas and 5 was to few due to AMS. they need something to hit them and make them scared of the LRM Atlas that is charging them.

I'm not saying use 1 LRM 5. You can use, and should, when viable, LRMs on your Atlas, just don't make them the primary weapon, because that sucks for your whole team. Having a 100 ton mech running around with nothing but LRM 35 and 1 ML is a waste of an Atlas, you can run the same build with better results on a smaller mech, and save the tonnage for something your team can use.

Also, on a separate note. SRMs are significantly better now, their Hit detection issues have been mostly fixed 3 or 4 patches ago. Put LRMs in there, just don't make them the only weapon, because that is a waste of an atlas.

Escef, on 13 May 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

How am I a hindrance or handicap? I only use one dedicated LRM boat, and it's a BLR-1S. All I've been saying is that using an Atlas to boat LRMs can be made to work, and you're going weird over there trying to tell people they shouldn't run mech builds you don't approve of. Well, people get results out of weird things sometimes. I've seen builds that made no freakin' sense at all, but at the end of the match these guys end up with damage and kills.

I'm talking about LRM only atlases, those are a hindrance and a handicap. Slapping that 100 ton mech with 614 armor all the way in the back, and using it to fire 35 LRMs inefficiently and slower (launchers too big for tubes take longer to reload) than most other mechs is a handicap to the team. People shouldn't run builds that harm the team. Run whatever mech you want, just don't run a bad set up on it.

This is the guides section, where the entire purpose of threads made here is to advise people in terms of what is beneficial and what isn't. Using a 100 ton mech in the most inefficient way possible is NOT beneficial, and I will always advise against it. Until an Atlas chassis that can be a viable LRM platform is introduced. For now, none of the Atlas variants, especially the D-DC, are good LRM boats.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 13 May 2014 - 02:31 PM.

[MortVent]

I agree atlas chassis is best with multirole or pure brawler builds. A couple lrms with about 30ish launches (or less is a good opener) but the heavylifting would be from ac/energy weapons on it.

[Escef]

IraqiWalker, on 13 May 2014 - 02:22 PM, said:

I'm talking about LRM only atlases...

Then you speak of something that doesn't exist, and your entire argument is built on something that doesn't happen. I mean, yeah, sure, I suppose one could drop a 360 engine, 2xLRM20, an LRM10, 11 tons of ammo, and 608 armor onto an Atlas, but I've yet to see anything that even resembles this fabled "LRM only" Atlas.

[SnagaDance]

I'm chiming in on the Awesome 8R here. A beast of a missile boat.

Pro's:
- It actually has 4 times 15 missile tubes making it possible to fire massive salvoes where even dual AMS is a pittance.
- Good tonnage for all the hardware
- 3 back-up Energy slots
- Even with the redefined hitboxes it's a rare occasion where you die to a side torso loss so an XL is actually not a big danger to use.

Negatives:
- It's an Awesome and Mastering it would mean needing to work on 2 additional Awesomes. Maybe not the best option (though personally I like my T)
- No jumpjets

This is the one I use myself: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f7759a91b4a8cff

8 tons of ammo enable a good amount of shooting, though as with all missile boats you shouldn't just blaze away at uncertain targets. I use 2 groups of 2 (Left and Right launchers) to get around Ghost heat though I can fire all 4 at once 3 times in succession on any map without shutting down thanks to the double Basics.

I use 3 ML. Used to be 2 ML and a head based TAG but for me personally I've found I prefer the extra firepower of the 3rd ML to help scare of Lights. And also for brawling after the ammo is gone. Just yesterday I managed to finish of 2 damaged enemy heavies during the end game. When you're in that part of the game having an almost pristine fully armoured Awesome come around the corner with 3 ML can be a huge pain.

The 300XL also makes it able to manoeuvre quite well and keep up with the rest of the team which is far preferable than staying in the back. Lobbing missiles in the 300-500 range, preferably with visuals, is far superior to lobbing them at targets in the 800-900 range where said targets are maintained by possibly fickle teammates.

It's quite an effort to get to this level in terms of resources. Buying the Awesome, the arsenal and the DHS, Endo and Artemis upgrade is a big chunk of C-bills. As are the almost mandatory Adv. Target Retention Module (also in terms of GXP). And finally in terms of XP to Master it so it can really come into its own.

But once you're there you'll truly have an Awesome that's awesome.

[Blood Rose]

For me, the best light is the Locust M. it comes stock with 2 LRM5 and can have up to 2 Medium Lasers mounted. At the speeds it can reach 2 ML's are all you need to fend off enemy lights and its small size and speed allow for sneaky flanking tactics.

[Artillery Witch Viridia]

Stk-3H, ON1-M, Fast Mediums (GRF/SHK, Self Narcing Stk-5m
Blr-1s for the fast assault boat role. I consider the Stk-3h to have superior hard points and crit slots without actuators allowing better heat management and higher missile tube alpha without ghost heat. Catapults and the DDC (if built right) get an honorable mention but without a tag or someone tagging for you, the a1 can be a frustrating mess. The CPLT-C1 would be my preferred mech of that Chassis. lrm5 rainbows on 5-6 missile hardpoint mechs can do wonders for support. Either chainfire to disorient or launch all in one volley to cut through ams. I am a fan of 40-50 missile salvos. This allows maximum ams penetration and your entire discharge to reach the target before you lose lock if you are lucky enough to keep one until they get there. I find that starting out on chain fire with larger launchers depending on your targets can be almost as wasteful as firing at random. You know as soon as they get the message they are going to get cover as soon as possible so having your missiles go out all in one wave has it's advantages. This can be reason enough to lower launcher sizes in it's own right for larger engines or more freedom to dispense. http://i.imgur.com/x7ALOW3.jpg

Edited by Azoic23, 14 May 2014 - 03:19 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

Escef, on 13 May 2014 - 11:59 PM, said:

Then you speak of something that doesn't exist, and your entire argument is built on something that doesn't happen. I mean, yeah, sure, I suppose one could drop a 360 engine, 2xLRM20, an LRM10, 11 tons of ammo, and 608 armor onto an Atlas, but I've yet to see anything that even resembles this fabled "LRM only" Atlas.

Your own words

Escef, on 12 May 2014 - 01:21 AM, said:

EDIT: THIS would make for a decent companion for another LRM boat. Cover them both with ECM, up close it can end threats.

It's even worse because I've seen people run that build. That's what we've been having this debate about. That Atlas, is badly used. It won't be using that AC 20 until the match is done and the winner already decided, it won't use it's armor, which is it's best asset, until the match is virtually done as well. And when a light with ECM gets within 180 meters, good luck hitting them with that AC 20, or the 1 ML. Every ECM light and the CDA-3M are a death sentence for this build. Since they can choose to engage with long range weapons from outside 400 meters, and good luck to your AC20 hitting them.

EDIT: better phrasing and clarified the point.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 14 May 2014 - 06:20 AM.

[Escef]

IraqiWalker, on 14 May 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

It's even worse because I've seen people run that build. That's what we've been having this debate about. That Atlas, is badly used. It won't be using that AC 20 until the match is done and the winner already decided, it won't use it's armor, which is it's best asset, until the match is virtually done as well. And when a light with ECM gets within 180 meters, good luck hitting them with that AC 20, or the 1 ML.

Wow, so, what, things always go according to plan for you? Because they sure as hell don't for me. In my BLR-1S I've taken plenty of counter battery fire, been sniped at, and harassed by lights. Apparently in your universe close range guns aren't needed because lights never zip in on you. And then you turn around and belittle the short range armament. Well, 2 things. Firstly, I've nailed Spiders with the AC20 on a 733C, While I expect it to be harder on an Atlas, you would use that build in a group, you'd have 2 guys shooting at the offender. Secondly, for how long have you failed to notice that it has 2 MLs? This is the second time you've mentioned "1 ML", yet the mech quite clearly has 2. Attention to detail, please.

Edited by Escef, 14 May 2014 - 12:17 PM.

[wanderer]

Escef, on 13 May 2014 - 11:59 PM, said:

Then you speak of something that doesn't exist, and your entire argument is built on something that doesn't happen. I mean, yeah, sure, I suppose one could drop a 360 engine, 2xLRM20, an LRM10, 11 tons of ammo, and 608 armor onto an Atlas, but I've yet to see anything that even resembles this fabled "LRM only" Atlas.

Disturbingly, I have. -D-DC with almost exactly that....and TAG.

I lasered it to death with my LRM Cataphract for heresy.