94 replies to this topic

[Cyborne Elemental]

Just saying.

You guys think LRM spam is bad now, lol you just wait.

Going to be pretty funny after the next patch, when a LRM20 is effectively a SRM6 WITH GUIDANCE at 90 meters..

If anyone else is bothered by this, please speak up..

[CheeseThief]

It's a great idea.

There might soon be some LRMs in the group queue for me to NARC for.

[Livewyr]

Mister D, on 13 July 2014 - 04:58 AM, said:

Just saying.

You guys think LRM spam is bad now, lol you just wait.

Going to be pretty funny after the next patch, when a LRM20 is effectively a SRM6 WITH GUIDANCE at 90 meters..

If anyone else is bothered by this, please speak up..

Considering that without the heavy nerf, they would be Streak 20s at 1 meter, you should consider yourself lucky they are nerfing it as they are.

PGI is doing a good job of skirting the absolute destruction that would be unfettered Clan technology, while not making them clan copies of their IS counterparts.

[Koniving]

Not bothered by it, but I do believe it will prove something I've been annoyed by for a long time.

LRM spam.

Spoiler

LRMs fire too fast, too frequently, and are too spammy. I think reducing their reload times (akin to Clan streaks; though my own ideas were longer than that) but keeping the DPS the same (which means the longer the reload wait is set to, the more damage the missiles should do when fired) would entail far less spam and more tactical use out of the missiles.

I've got no problem with the damage of missiles or even the damage dealt over time, especially with the spread of Clan LRMs (it's all over the place).

My issue is with how fast they reload, multiple launchers can churn out missiles faster than the machine gun can fire and that isn't right. You'd expect that of rockets or dead-fire weapons, not lock on weaponry.

Battletech doesn't lock all at once.

Spoiler

Especially since in BT, for every launch the target must be re-acquired and it's a lock per missile, not a lock for all missiles at once. (Lock 1, lock 2, lock 3, lock 4, lock 5, lock 6, lock 7, lock 8, lock 9, lock 10, lock 11, lock 12, lock 13, lock 14, lock 15, lock 16... there's a reason they didn't boat massive numbers of launchers). You could even try it as having 1 lock per millisecond, and simultaneous locks for multiple launchers (but a slower locking rate, for example a lock for each missile every 0.2 seconds; done at the same time for 2 launchers).

Or simply require a relock after each firing (I'm speaking about missiles for both sides, including streaks). Though I do see the problem with it as well, as it'd greatly affect chain firing. ....At the same time though that'd greatly reduce the 'spam' and force players attuned to ghost heat limitations to reduce their launcher counts or bear with it.

Battletech SRMs are guided.

Spoiler

In fact Battletech's SRMs did this per missile lock as well as Streaks and it's mentioned on the Sarna pages for both. The difference being that SRMs could fire without, where Streaks would Never allow a firing until it believed all shots would hit in its perceived firing solution.

Non-locking SRMs as we have now, are in fact Dead Fire missiles which deal 3 damage, not 2, and have variations for LRMs and SRMs. (Dead-fire LRMs deal 2 damage instead of 1).

Also, Battletech SRMs just like Battletech LRMs, had "NARC-capable" ammo and "TAG-capable" ammo. MWO has combined standard LRMs, NARC-capable and TAG-capable [titled semi-guided] ammunition into one batchall and price. As such PGI should batchall standard SRMs, NARC and TAG-capable SRMs, and slap them together in just the same way.

So SRMs should, in fact, have guidance and it's a travesty and a slap in the face of the lore for them NOT to have guidance. They are simply guided missiles with the ability to fire without locks or with partial locks.

Another fun fact: Streaks were incapable of locking on to NARC beacons, as Streaks could not use alternate types of ammunition and the launchers used a visual image of the target to calculate hit probability. Just a fun thought.

Lore proper SRMs would outclass Clan LRMs in close range combat.

Spoiler

IS mechs could use 2 SRM-6s with guidance and locks to counter the same thing that a Clan LRM-20 can do, with additional damage currently as it seems (though 2 SRM-6s would do identical damage to 1 LRM-20's 1.1 damage per missile or 22 damage, at the plain-jane 2 damage per missile). It's slightly more heat but without the scaling damage issue. Seems perfectly fine of a solution to me.

With guided SRMs, we might not even need the scaling damage concept as a Clan LRM-20 weighs more than 3 Clan SRM-6s and slightly less than 2 Clan Streak 6s. So a Clan LRM user is sacrificing a lot of potential to use LRMs as brawling weapons. Since PGI's Clan streak 6s will never miss and defy all laws of physics, it's still a better idea to bring two Streak 6s than one LRM-20 for close range combat.

The IS had special ammunition for no minimum range as a Level 3 optional rule in the Tactical handbook (which PGI has taken its forward-arc sensor system from Tactical's double blind rules so why not take more?)

Spoiler

The Inner Sphere have a similar style of no minimum range LRMs in Battletech available long before 3025, these are called Hot-Loaded LRMs. There's risk involved where if the launcher is destroyed the missiles loaded will detonate and explode (LRM 15 hotloaded = 15 missiles go boom). There's also a random chance for explosion on firing when hotloaded, which only seemed to be checked for when firing below minimum range. (Megamek I've noticed only seems to check for it when fired at minimum range or below and if it does check all the time, we can simply limit the game to check for close range or simply have the ammo loaded detonate when the launcher is destroyed).

So there's something else the IS mechs could do. But it's simply a better choice to pack on 2 SRM-6s with the lore proper guidance.

Just some food for thought. Battletech lore has many available counters and all of them seem fair to me. PGI and community, take your pick. What's your favorite counter-measure?

(Edited for ease of reading and space conservation.)
TL;DR, wouldn't care if PGI did some lore-based solutions for the IS, like guided SRMs as all standard SRMs are guided. Only Dead-Fire SRMs (link provided in the spoilers) are not.

Edited by Koniving, 13 July 2014 - 05:48 AM.

[Shredhead]

The damage won't be the worst about it. Try brawling an enemy that you can't properly see due to constant screen shake and explosions. You think IS LRM5 spammers are bad?

[Jonny Taco]

Shredhead, on 13 July 2014 - 05:20 AM, said:

The damage won't be the worst about it. Try brawling an enemy that you can't properly see due to constant screen shake and explosions. You think IS LRM5 spammers are bad?

Someone gets it!

Screen shake is going to have to be SEVERLY reduced at these closer ranges, if not removed all together...

Personally I think making these clan lrms not have a min range (yes i know it does less damage...) is a god awfull idea, then again pgi has a knack for god awfull ideas.

[Koniving]

If nothing else, remove the blur.

It was this bad in the past.


That was being hit by a streak SRM-2.

It's currently MUCH worse and it NEEDS to go. My frame rate cuts down at every occurrence while recording and I'm using a medium-high end system with a quad core processor, decent video card and 16 gigabytes of RAM. I'd hate to hear what happens to low end computers.

(On this same aspect, this past quote comes to mind on the subject of LRMs being overpowered.)

Koniving, on 24 June 2014 - 02:32 PM, said:

Spam is indeed annoying; but that's all it is. And for some mechs getting pit against LRMs means over 1 minute of waiting for death to take you while being blind, deaf, and unable to return to cover...particularly for dire wolves while being constantly pelted by 3 LRM boats.

So I'd hardly say they're overpowered. Just spammy. Too bad we can't just double their damage and reload time to keep the DPS and close to balanced nature they have now, but in turn remove the spam by significantly reducing their firing frequency (An LRM-20 would take 9.5 seconds to reload but do 44 damage in total; an LRM-5 might do 11 damage but it'd take 6.5 seconds to fire again; almost as long as a Streak 6).

Edited by Koniving, 13 July 2014 - 06:44 AM.

[Koniving]

Koniving, on 13 July 2014 - 05:17 AM, said:

The IS had special ammunition for no minimum range as a Level 3 optional rule in the Tactical handbook (which PGI has taken its forward-arc sensor system from Tactical's double blind rules so why not take more?)

Spoiler

The Inner Sphere have a similar style of no minimum range LRMs in Battletech available long before 3025, these are called Hot-Loaded LRMs. There's risk involved where if the launcher is destroyed the missiles loaded will detonate and explode (LRM 15 hotloaded = 15 missiles go boom). There's also a random chance for explosion on firing when hotloaded, which only seemed to be checked for when firing below minimum range. (Megamek I've noticed only seems to check for it when fired at minimum range or below and if it does check all the time, we can simply limit the game to check for close range or simply have the ammo loaded detonate when the launcher is destroyed).

So there's something else the IS mechs could do. But it's simply a better choice to pack on 2 SRM-6s with the lore proper guidance.

I just got done reading through the rules for the hotloaded LRMs for the IS. It's not so much a type of ammunition but an optional setting (per launcher) that cannot be changed while in the field.

Unlike regular IS missiles which are assigned targets and are loaded into the chambers AFTER being told to fire and then launching as soon as each is loaded in a stream (not only suggesting but basically telling us that they are supposed to be given firing delays or 'loaded' after pulling the trigger), hotloaded LRMs are set to be assigned targets while already preloaded in the firing chambers. This allows them to fire quicker, removing the minimum range penalties (so they were never worthless at less than 180 meters but instead Inner Sphere LRMs are very unlikely to hit a target that close due to the loaded and launched after pulling the trigger nature).

Meanwhile, Clan LRMs are always hot-loaded, meaning they always run that risk of detonation, always have the missiles ready to launch in an instant while sitting in the chambers, and thus meaning when the launcher is destroyed, the missiles inside (with this advanced rule enabled) would should always cause the missiles in the launcher to explode as well for additional internal damage.

Funny what we learn when we pick up books (or in my case a PDF file), eh?

A practical way to apply the hot-loaded option with no game changes would be to institute hot-loaded LRMs as an Inner Sphere only Weapon Module.

A lore proper way to apply this with PGI's intended diversity of Clan and IS tech... would still have hot-loaded LRMs as an Inner Sphere only Weapon Module. But without the hot-loaded module, Inner Sphere mechs would have a firing delay

Spoiler

(which in turn makes their larger LRM volleys -- which are nearly impossible to shoot down even with 3 AMS and AMS overdrive and AMS range extension -- much more friendly toward the Clan LRMs which are completely annihilated by 3 or more AMS using the Overdrive. And I'm comparing one IS LRM-20 versus two Clan LRM-20s against the same Kitfox build without ECM.)

I think most people would agree with minimal/no changes approach of a hot-loaded module.
Probably only Battletech purists / hardcore fans would agree to the more lore proper, but they are the "2% on an island minority."

So, thoughts on a hot-loaded module for the IS?
Inner Sphere lore-proper guided SRMs would blatantly outclass IS and Clan LRMs either way so I definitely want them in, but a module for IS LRM users to have that ability to match both the ability (and ideally the risk supposedly) involved with Clan LRM's no minimum range use.

Edited by Koniving, 13 July 2014 - 06:24 AM.

[Blacksoul1987]

Koniving, on 13 July 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

If nothing else, remove the blur.

It was this bad in the past.


That was being hit by a streak SRM-2.

It's currently MUCH worse and it NEEDS to go. My frame rate cuts down at every occurrence while recording and I'm using a medium-high end system with a quad core processor, decent video card and 16 gigabytes of RAM. I'd hate to hear what happens to low end computers.

I was running a core 2 duo up until about a month ago and I can tell you that the motion blur is completely game breaking. my framerates would dip down to around 5fps while getting it and sometimes lock up the system and I would have to alt tab out and back in to get it going again. chainfired ssrm2s and lrm5s made me quit for a while till I forked over the money for a core i7.

[Lightfoot]

It's pretty heavily nerfed from what PGI says. Like probably 20% damage to 90 meters. Clan LRMs should be full damage point blank with splash damage. Should be fun.

SSRMs are so heavily nerfed in MWO they might as well just be a place-holder icon. SSRMs should be deadly, but have a very low turn rate, like almost their full range to make a full 180 turn. Then Lights could evade them as well as most other mechs, but could still be hit if fired correctly.

SRMs are very light and compact with high damage for the weight and space.

[Kobold]

Koniving, on 13 July 2014 - 05:17 AM, said:

Not bothered by it, but I do believe it will prove something I've been annoyed by for a long time.

LRM spam.

Spoiler

LRMs fire too fast, too frequently, and are too spammy. I think reducing their reload times (akin to Clan streaks; though my own ideas were longer than that) but keeping the DPS the same (which means the longer the reload wait is set to, the more damage the missiles should do when fired) would entail far less spam and more tactical use out of the missiles.

I've got no problem with the damage of missiles or even the damage dealt over time, especially with the spread of Clan LRMs (it's all over the place).

My issue is with how fast they reload, multiple launchers can churn out missiles faster than the machine gun can fire and that isn't right. You'd expect that of rockets or dead-fire weapons, not lock on weaponry.

Battletech doesn't lock all at once.

Spoiler

Especially since in BT, for every launch the target must be re-acquired and it's a lock per missile, not a lock for all missiles at once. (Lock 1, lock 2, lock 3, lock 4, lock 5, lock 6, lock 7, lock 8, lock 9, lock 10, lock 11, lock 12, lock 13, lock 14, lock 15, lock 16... there's a reason they didn't boat massive numbers of launchers). You could even try it as having 1 lock per millisecond, and simultaneous locks for multiple launchers (but a slower locking rate, for example a lock for each missile every 0.2 seconds; done at the same time for 2 launchers).

Or simply require a relock after each firing (I'm speaking about missiles for both sides, including streaks). Though I do see the problem with it as well, as it'd greatly affect chain firing. ....At the same time though that'd greatly reduce the 'spam' and force players attuned to ghost heat limitations to reduce their launcher counts or bear with it.

Battletech SRMs are guided.

Spoiler

In fact Battletech's SRMs did this per missile lock as well as Streaks and it's mentioned on the Sarna pages for both. The difference being that SRMs could fire without, where Streaks would Never allow a firing until it believed all shots would hit in its perceived firing solution.

Non-locking SRMs as we have now, are in fact Dead Fire missiles which deal 3 damage, not 2, and have variations for LRMs and SRMs. (Dead-fire LRMs deal 2 damage instead of 1).

Also, Battletech SRMs just like Battletech LRMs, had "NARC-capable" ammo and "TAG-capable" ammo. MWO has combined standard LRMs, NARC-capable and TAG-capable [titled semi-guided] ammunition into one batchall and price. As such PGI should batchall standard SRMs, NARC and TAG-capable SRMs, and slap them together in just the same way.

So SRMs should, in fact, have guidance and it's a travesty and a slap in the face of the lore for them NOT to have guidance. They are simply guided missiles with the ability to fire without locks or with partial locks.

Another fun fact: Streaks were incapable of locking on to NARC beacons, as Streaks could not use alternate types of ammunition and the launchers used a visual image of the target to calculate hit probability. Just a fun thought.

Lore proper SRMs would outclass Clan LRMs in close range combat.

Spoiler

IS mechs could use 2 SRM-6s with guidance and locks to counter the same thing that a Clan LRM-20 can do, with additional damage currently as it seems (though 2 SRM-6s would do identical damage to 1 LRM-20's 1.1 damage per missile or 22 damage, at the plain-jane 2 damage per missile). It's slightly more heat but without the scaling damage issue. Seems perfectly fine of a solution to me.

With guided SRMs, we might not even need the scaling damage concept as a Clan LRM-20 weighs more than 3 Clan SRM-6s and slightly less than 2 Clan Streak 6s. So a Clan LRM user is sacrificing a lot of potential to use LRMs as brawling weapons. Since PGI's Clan streak 6s will never miss and defy all laws of physics, it's still a better idea to bring two Streak 6s than one LRM-20 for close range combat.

The IS had special ammunition for no minimum range as a Level 3 optional rule in the Tactical handbook (which PGI has taken its forward-arc sensor system from Tactical's double blind rules so why not take more?)

Spoiler

The Inner Sphere have a similar style of no minimum range LRMs in Battletech available long before 3025, these are called Hot-Loaded LRMs. There's risk involved where if the launcher is destroyed the missiles loaded will detonate and explode (LRM 15 hotloaded = 15 missiles go boom). There's also a random chance for explosion on firing when hotloaded, which only seemed to be checked for when firing below minimum range. (Megamek I've noticed only seems to check for it when fired at minimum range or below and if it does check all the time, we can simply limit the game to check for close range or simply have the ammo loaded detonate when the launcher is destroyed).

So there's something else the IS mechs could do. But it's simply a better choice to pack on 2 SRM-6s with the lore proper guidance.

Just some food for thought. Battletech lore has many available counters and all of them seem fair to me. PGI and community, take your pick. What's your favorite counter-measure?

(Edited for ease of reading and space conservation.)
TL;DR, wouldn't care if PGI did some lore-based solutions for the IS, like guided SRMs as all standard SRMs are guided. Only Dead-Fire SRMs (link provided in the spoilers) are not.

At least a half-dozen misstatements in this post.

[Koniving]

Kobold, on 13 July 2014 - 06:47 AM, said:

At least a half-dozen misstatements in this post.

Aside from hotloaded being an ammunition type (fixed in a sequential post), name a misstatement with a reference so I can correct it? I was using multiple sources but I'm aware that Sarna is not always the most reliable

(I mean there are several entries on mechs that actually believe AC/20s do 20 damage in a single bullet rather than a single turn; comedy considering the books, tech manuals, fluff manuals, etc. both official and apocryphal all state that ACs fire many shots but are simplified in the tabletop turns due to the shear number of weapon variants which would need its own 500+ page rule reference book).

Wait, I do see one.

"Non-locking SRMs as we have now, are in fact Dead Fire missiles which deal 3 damage, not 2, and have variations for LRMs and SRMs. (Dead-fire LRMs deal 2 damage instead of 1)."

Where it should have been:
"Non-locking SRMs as we have in MWO now, are in fact akin to Dead Fire missiles which should deal 3 damage, not 2, and have variations for LRMs and SRMs. (Dead-fire LRMs deal 2 damage instead of 1). These are being passed off as regular SRMs when nothing could be further from the truth.

Regular SRMs are listed as "Direct Fire" weapons. In the tech-manual that Stjobe once referenced they systematically make a lock per missile, though they can be fired prematurely without guidance. In some books they are described as locked, yet in some others they are described as heat seeking but easily distracted (so some official books do conflict, but the official manuals say lock-on)."

Though the systematic per-missile lock is actually managed already. One must remember that Inner Sphere mechs that are not on homeworlds or owned by nobles are typically decades to centuries old, constantly salvaged and repaired with much of the technology's understanding lost up until the discovery of the Helm Memory Core.

There was nearly (or over?) a hundred years where NARCs couldn't be produced anymore; it's referenced many times, but it's also right on the Kintaro's page on Sarna.

Edited by Koniving, 13 July 2014 - 07:09 AM.

[Jonny Taco]

Kobold, on 13 July 2014 - 06:47 AM, said:

At least a half-dozen misstatements in this post.

If there are so many misstatements, how about you point them out instead of just leaving a rather worthless (useless) statment behind.

[Scratx]

Koniving, on 13 July 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

If nothing else, remove the blur.

It was this bad in the past.


That was being hit by a streak SRM-2.

It's currently MUCH worse and it NEEDS to go. My frame rate cuts down at every occurrence while recording and I'm using a medium-high end system with a quad core processor, decent video card and 16 gigabytes of RAM. I'd hate to hear what happens to low end computers.

(On this same aspect, this past quote comes to mind on the subject of LRMs being overpowered.)

This. When I get LRM-spam on my head, it's hard to do ANYTHING because my frame rate falls hard. And if it's a map like Frozen City with the weather effects, which habitually makes me hover around 20 fps? Yeah, try to run for cover is all I can really do even if I'm in a f'ing brawl. Because my frame rate dies on the spot.

On the other hand, maps like Canyon Network run absolutely fine, 40+ fps. (and in fact usually ~50fps)

Blacksoul1987, on 13 July 2014 - 06:29 AM, said:

I was running a core 2 duo up until about a month ago and I can tell you that the motion blur is completely game breaking. my framerates would dip down to around 5fps while getting it and sometimes lock up the system and I would have to alt tab out and back in to get it going again. chainfired ssrm2s and lrm5s made me quit for a while till I forked over the money for a core i7.

I have an i7 laptop. I don't need to alt-tab but if I'm getting LRM-streamed I'm not really much better off.

Why the blur on being hit by LRMs is still in the game is beyond me. It does far more damage to your fighting ability than the actual damage they do.

[Karl Marlow]

Kobold, on 13 July 2014 - 06:47 AM, said:

At least a half-dozen misstatements in this post.

For a 1 sentence post that is quite impressive.

[Scratx]

You know... could someone tweet to Russ that he needs Blur taken out of LRM impacts? And point at Blacksoul's post to show what we mean?

[Felbombling]

I've got LRMs on two of my Clan Mechs, and I don't think I'm going to freak out and instantly place LRMs on everything I own. It will make a difference, for sure, but all Clan weapons seem effective and have their place in my inventory.

[Pjwned]

I was going to say "not a big deal" because of the higher tonnage on C-LRMs, but then I looked at the C-LRM20 weighing 5 tons and realized it has a better damage:tonnage ratio than the C-SSRM6 which has only a little over 1/3 of the range and a longer cooldown on top of that.

Hm...

[Noesis]

I thought Clan LRMs aquired their targets from the mechs targeting aquisition as opposed to the missile itself like IS launchers after launching, hence the min range on IS launchers. This however does not mean that you should interpret that Clan missiles or their ammunition is hot-loaded as you need to determine whether they have been given a target or set to consider them armed. Which could happen almost immediatley prior to launch and that they are not liable to so readily explode in the launcher upon loading at all.

NLRMs were researched in 3058 which allowed a similar equivalent use of as per clan mechs no longer requiring IS mechs to use hot loading for minimum range use I believe.

Edited by Noesis, 13 July 2014 - 07:32 AM.

[Innocent]

The new lrm mechanic will present another problem. How often do you see lrm nosedive into he back of a teammate? How often does someone walk right in the way while firing lrm?

Both of these cases will now cause friendly fire where before it just annoyed the lrm boat that was wasting ammo.