33 replies to this topic

[Thorqemada]

Dont remember MW3 that much bcs it was allways a buggy hell for me and crashed unrecoverable somewhere early - i guess ACs were that much better that i never saw someone using SRM.

[Deathlike]

In trying to "reinvent" SRMs, one could reference the older "Streak" design in MW4 where the missile followed where the reticle was targeting. It simply wouldn't "lock" into the target like MW4 streaks do, but that's the next closest thing that could work.

Give it limited turning when the reticle moves as the missiles adjust, and it should be "good enough".

[Dymlos2003]

RedDragon, on 31 May 2014 - 04:02 PM, said:

Erm... first of all - what is it with "every MW game"? MW3 had lock-on SRM.

All in all it's the same as with every aspect of the game - it could have been made right if PGI had decided to actually put some work and thought into it. SRMs need to lock on missile for missile and can be fired before the "perfect" lock is achieved, that's what differentiates them from SSRM which only fire if all missiles have a lock. Ways to implement this could be a randomly assigned number of hitting SRMs, but most people don't like random numbers in games.
So SRMs could have a longer time for lock on and if you fire before that time has passed, only x missiles will home in on the target, while SSRM only have lock on or no lock on (and maybe faster lock).
So e.g. (random numbers here!) after 2 seconds half of your missiles have a lock, after 4 seconds all missiles. SSRMs only need 2 seconds to lock all missiles.

Or make normal SRM lock on but spread so far that some missiles will miss in most cases (you could even tighten the spread by aiming for a while).
Heck, you could even just have SSRMs have a faster lock on than SRMs, that would be not as close to the lore but it would be way better than what we have now.

Just tested what MW3 did for srms. Regular SRMS were able to lock on but had a "wavey" trail. Like what we had for srms in the closed beta. Streaks were like LRMs and always went for the torso.
Now how can you tweak this for MWO?

[Vanguard319]

Lol, been playing this game for about two years, (including time in closed beta) and only now someone complains about this.

I think SRMs had guidance in Mechwarrior 3, but they became dumbfire weapons in Mechwarrior 4. If I had to wager a guess, perhaps the coding in those games couldn't distinguish between SRMs and Streaks, so you had Streaks that could be fired without lock, or SRMs that always hit with all missiles in a volley. (It's been so long since I played either game, I can't say for certain.) They probably changed SRMs to dumbfire weapons in MW4 to give them an easier distinction.

Edited by Vanguard319, 31 May 2014 - 05:05 PM.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

MWLL has SSRM, SRM and MRM game mechanics done properly. So dont ilusion yourself that is impossible to archive just be couse PGI screwed something again.

Edited by Jaeger Gonzo, 31 May 2014 - 08:31 PM.

[stjobe]

SirLANsalot, on 31 May 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

If that is really the case....there is no way to implement that into this game without making streaks pointless.

Streaks are lock on weapons.

Streaks are nothing but SRMs that won't fire unless all tubes have a hard lock. That's it, that's all they are. Regular SRMs that are designed to save ammo by not firing every time you pull the trigger.

As for how to implement it, there's numerous ways, but the one I like is to have two lock states: soft lock and hard lock. Hard lock guarantees a hit (terrain and obstacles inserted into the flight path permitting) akin to current SSRM targeting, soft lock is akin to LRM targeting (i.e. has a non-guided terminal phase).

For targeting mechanics, each tube would need to achieve soft lock (instantly), and then hard lock (1 second per tube)

So a SRM-2 (or SSRM-2) needs 2 seconds for hard lock on both tubes (but the SRM-2 can be snap-fired with soft lock) whereas a SRM-6 needs 6 seconds - although it could be fired after 3 seconds with 3 tubes hard-locked and 3 tubes soft-locked.

SirLANsalot, on 31 May 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

A Narced target makes any SRMs fired, lock on too.....soo then why would I want to use streaks at all?

Streaks were invented to conserve ammunition, nothing more, nothing less. You would want to use Streaks if ammo was in limited supply in your build.

Streaks were never meant to be better than regular SRMs, just less wasteful.

SirLANsalot, on 31 May 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

It just doesn't work in this game, and as such the SRMs are working just fine now.

I disagree on both counts. It would work well in this game, and SRMs are anything but "working just fine" now.

SirLANsalot, on 31 May 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

Whining about how PGI interpreted something from BT into this game, without understanding there original thought. Is asinine and sets yourself up to look ******** and not be taken seriously anymore. I mean, how else would they put SRMs into this game without making streaks look pointless.

Oh ye of little imagination, please see above.

Whining about Streaks becoming pointless without understanding their original function in the BT Universe is asinine and sets yourself up to look ******** and not to be taken seriously any more. I mean, why should Streaks ever be better than SRMs when they only thing that differentiates the two is that Streaks have a stricter firing regime?

[Koniving]

I've been saying this for two years.
I get ignored.
Someone else says it once.
...two pages.

[Koniving]

stjobe, on 31 May 2014 - 10:30 PM, said:

As for how to implement it, there's numerous ways, but the one I like is to have two lock states: soft lock and hard lock. Hard lock guarantees a hit (terrain and obstacles inserted into the flight path permitting) akin to current SSRM targeting, soft lock is akin to LRM targeting (i.e. has a non-guided terminal phase).

You have only one realistic way to implement proper streaks; they fire automatically when the server decides its okay.

But since the goal and topic is to implement proper SRMs... this is actually very simple.

Here's a few ways.

The book method: From the books that use SRMs, 3 out of 5 of them so far have said SRMs are heat-seeking. Fire, they go after the nearest heat source. That's it, fire and forget missiles that attack the nearest heat source (unreliably I might add; they like to dive into lava.)

The NARC-only guidance method. Regular fire for SRMs. But if there's a NARC nearby within range, they go for that instead.

The "Old Streak" method.
System as below for SRMs, but allow to fire while not locked as well.

See those missiles? Just imagine that with some SRM spread. So easy to dodge! Can't be too close; you won't hit.

Skip to 3:04 in.

Edited by Koniving, 31 May 2014 - 10:48 PM.

[Gen0]

The problem is that if you give SRMs locks and make streaks about 'ammo conservation' you end up with boring mechanics. I like a mini facemelter to put in missile hardpoints and I like a weapon with a little more precision to deal with midgets. Changing streaks to be able 'Ammo conservation' just makes them weak versions of SRMS that use less weight and last longer. I don't need that in a battle, I need a weapon that's advantageous to me.

Maybe when CW comes then we have a reason to start to really want Ammo conservation, but if you make SRMs have even half the turn rate of SSRMs (which would really be generous considering BT's +1 to dodge NEVER amounting to that big a difference) the SSRM will have no purpose anymore.

[Adridos]

Vanguard319, on 31 May 2014 - 05:03 PM, said:

Lol, been playing this game for about two years, (including time in closed beta) and only now someone complains about this.

You must've used a different forum or something...

No, really, people were complaining about this quite a lot.
Just like with SRM changes, multi-fire ACs, Stock mech mode, and many other things, their complaints simply fell on deaf ears.

[Wolfways]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 31 May 2014 - 08:31 PM, said:

MWLL has SSRM, SRM and MRM game mechanics done properly. So dont ilusion yourself that is impossible to archive just be couse PGI screwed something again.

[Angel of Annihilation]

stjobe, on 31 May 2014 - 02:15 PM, said:

I think you missed the point where our SRMs behave like MRMs but with shorter range, and the fact that there's no MRMs until 3058.

SRMs are supposed to be guided missiles, not dumb-fire rockets.

Yep that is the point he is making.

According to lore, they should act more like streaks but be faster firing with a greater spread that is countered somewhat by Artemis. Streaks should take longer to achieve full lock but be much more concentrated and devastating when they hit.

For example:

SRM - Functions very similar to current streaks with the exception there is a miss factor where some of the SRMs can totally miss the target.

SRM + Artemis - Functions exactly like Streaks do now with almost zero chance of miss.

Streaks - Function like the Streaks of old, taking longer to achieve any sort of lock but all zeroing in as a concentrated burst to the center mass of the enemy mech.

That is according to Lore, canon and TT anyway.

However what the OP is forgetting is we have 2.0x Heat Sinks that only work as 1.4x heat sinks so Lore and such were thrown out the window a long time ago.

Truly I gave up on this game actually being Battletech or Mechwarrior a long time ago. I might bear the name and have mechs that sorta look like they should but it hasn't been Battletech or Mechwarrior for a long time. I even quit in disgust over how they screwed up the original IP. However, I got to thinking that overall the game was fairly fun....as long as I thought of it as Robowars Online and not Battletech so I came back to play Robowars Online.

[Wolfways]

Viktor Drake, on 12 July 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:

Truly I gave up on this game actually being Battletech or Mechwarrior a long time ago. I might bear the name and have mechs that sorta look like they should but it hasn't been Battletech or Mechwarrior for a long time. I even quit in disgust over how they screwed up the original IP. However, I got to thinking that overall the game was fairly fun....as long as I thought of it as Robowars Online and not Battletech so I came back to play Robowars Online.

Same here, but i find it hard to give up the fight

[Heeden]

At a guess, I'd say they made them dumbfire because a short range, shot-gun style blast for moderate-high damage is more interesting than an auto-aiming system. I assume that's the same reason we aim using a mouse instead of letting the mech aim for us and just telling it when to shoot.